Who are the characters in the Marvel Universe Wiki background?

Question: I was browsing the Marvel Universe wiki and liked the cool background but do not know all the characters are. I can only name some of them: Spider-man, Captain America, Thor, Black Widow, Iron Man (model 42 armor), Hawkeye, Hulk, and Wolverine. This is the image from the site:
Answer: Left side, top-to-bottom:

Captain America
Captain Universe
Spider-Man
Thor
Black Widow

Right side, top-to-bottom:

Iron Man
Hawkeye
Sunspot
Hulk
Wolverine

Captain Universe's inclusion provides the hint that the firey fellow isn't Human Torch.  The lines on the character's body match his Avengers outfit as well.  These are Hickman's Avengers from his current run on the Avengers books.
Comment: You could be right about cannonball. Do you mean the Sam Guthrie character?
Comment: @neilfein Actually, that's an error, that's totally Sunspot, with his body dark, surrounded by fire.
Comment: I can't find any pictures of sunspot that look like that, but I can't find any pics of either of the human torches either. So I'm not sure. It would be weird if the Marvel Wiki front page had no members of the Fantastic Four in it, I'd think. Deleting my answer for now to avoid confusion, but I'll keep looking for backup.
Comment: @neilfein Google 'marvel sunspot avengers' to see his current costume.


Which probiotics can exist in beer and at what abv's?

Question: Just curious which specific strains can exist in beer, and if so, what are the various alcoholic thresholds for each?
Answer: Pathogens have a hard time surviving very long in finished beer let alone probiotics.
Most open fermentation bacteria (lacto, pedio) die off pretty quickly once yeasts have produced alchohol.
Further even antibiotics are adversely affected even by consuming alchohol while on them.
There are many articles on how habitually consuming a lot of alcohol can deplete the bowel of probiotics.
So I would say beer of any normal strength ABV wouldn't be a good medium for probiotics to survive in.
The low pH and hops in beer also play a big role, in inhibiting bacteria growth and survivability in beer.
Comment: Your second statement about bacteria dying off is incorrect.  If this was true repitching the slurry from beers with lacto, pedio and sacc would come out clean and characteristic of just the sacc.  Which we know is not true.  These organisms go dormant at a certain level of ABV, but they do not entirely die off.
Comment: @brewchez I wasn't saying those bacteria die just from the ABV, they die off in beer at that general point in time of fermentation. Many things play a role in beer that make it a difficult medium. A lot of probiotics have mediums with alcohol, kombucha for example. His question is beer a good medium, which it is not. So I guess from your comment, all we need to do is pitch wort with a fresh bottle of lambic to make a lambic that's only ever been able to be produced in Senne Valley.
Comment: on a side note ... its believed yeast evolved to synthesize alcohol as an offensive mechanism in order to fight off bacteria as the both compete to consume the sugars of rotting fruits


Was Mike Dunleavy, Jr. (Duke) the Most Valuable Player of the 2001 NCAA Men's Basketball Torunament championship game?

Question: A post on a college basketball Facebook page claims that Mike Dunleavy, Jr. (Duke) was the Most Valuable Player of the 2001 NCAA Men's Basketball Torunament championship game.  I've scoured the internet trying to find some support for this assertion and find nothing to support it.  Shane Battier was the MOP of the Final Four and that is the only reference I can find to any Outstanding or Valuable player.  However, the moderator of the page is adamant that there are separate awards for the tournament's Most Outstanding Player (Battier) and the championship game's Most Valuable Player.  He did post a claim made on Alamy.com (a stock photo site) but Alamy hardly seems to be a credible information site.  Any thoughts?
Answer: There is no such award as "Championship Game MVP".  The NCAA awards the Most Outstanding Player (not Most Valuable Player) for the tournament, sometimes called "Final Four Most Outstanding Player", but there is no "Most Valuable Player" for any part of the NCAA tournament.  The NIT does award a "Most Valuable Player" for the NIT tournament, but again it is for the entire tournament and not for a game.
As such, it's certainly possible that any individual could make an argument for Dunleavy Jr., Battier, or any other player being the Most Valuable Player for a particular game; but they would be making it as a subjective evaluation, not as an award.
(That aside, Battier probably would have won the MVP for the individual game as well - while Dunleavy had more points, Battier's line of 18p/11r/6a is much better than Duleavy's line of 21/3/0 by most definitions.)
Comment: That was my thinking as well.  Battier's line in that specific game certainly indicates a more well-rounded game than just points.  Thanks for you response.
Comment: There is also a [Most Outstanding Player](https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/awards/ncaa-all-region-2010-2019.html) for each of the 4 regions in the NCAA Tournament.


Is it possible for a web form to be hacked?

Question: On my website, there is a web form that users fill out and the data collected gets e-mailed to me. Is it possible for someone to hack the data and get the users' information? Also, my site does not use a secure connection.
Answer: It depends on whether the data is logged, or flushed after being emailed.
If it is logged, then theoretically yes, a malicious user could compromise the server and access the logs.
If it isn't, there's still the possibility of your email being compromised, but at some point a line has to be drawn.
It would probably be helpful to see a specific example, or at least a little more details about exactly how this form operates.
Answer: If someone uses your site from say an internet cafe then there could be a man-in-the-middle attack where all requests go through some program sitting on the cafes server.
i think if you are worried then you should probably secure at least that page.
Answer: If you are not using SSL then its possible for someone to sniff the traffic to your server and collect all the user information thats being posted from their browser.  Using an SSL cert and  forcing HTTPS will make it much harder (nearly impossible) to catch the traffic on the netwrok.


Find number of real roots of the polynomial $x^3+7x^2+6x+5$.

Question: I want to find the number of real roots of the polynomial $x^3+7x^2+6x+5$.
Using Descartes rule, this polynomial has either only one real root or 3 real roots (all are negetive). How will we conclude one answer without doing some long process?
Comment: Any real roots are negative as the polynomial is $5$ when $x=0$ and increasing above that.
Comment: You could use the [cubic discriminant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discriminant#Degree_3). If it is positive, three real roots. Negative, one real root and two non-real complex conjugate roots.
Answer: I note that this is "close" to $$(x+5)(x+1)(x+1)=x^3+7x^2+11x+5$$ which has a repeated root at $-1$, and another root at $-5$. The repeated root at $-1$ is a local minimum, considering the general shape of a cubic with positive leading coefficient.
So you have $$(x+5)(x+1)(x+1)-5x$$
Adding that $-5x$ is going to push the local minimum upward, since $-5x$ is positive near $-1$. The doubled root will be perturbed into two non-real complex conjugate roots. And only the perturbed root near $-5$ will still be real.
Comment: want to use that, at -1, the graph will be just touching the x-axis. right?
Comment: @sabeelmsk At $-1$, the graph of $(x+5)(x+1)(x+1)$ touches the $x$-axis and turns around. Then adding $-5x$ pushes that low point up (and a little to the right). So now the local low point is above the $y$-axis, and the only real root is where the graph crosses the $x$-axis off to the far left.
Answer: If there are three real roots, the value of the function must be of opposite signs at the points the derivative is zero.
Comment: Yes it is.  Take the derivative, which gives a quadratic.  Use the quadratic formula.  That gives you two $x$ values to plug into your original cubic.  It is some work, but is rigorous and will work for any cubic.  If you see an easier route, use it.
Comment: this is not easy to check
Answer: If you do not want to use the cubic discriminant, the easy solution has been proposed by Ross Millikan.
Consider that you lookf for the zero's of function
$$f(x)=x^3+7x^2+6x+5$$ for which
$$f'(x)=3x^2+14x+6 \qquad \text{and} \qquad f''(x)=6x+14$$ The first derivative cancels for
$$x_\pm=-\frac{1}{3} \left(7\pm\sqrt{31}\right)$$ and you have
$$f''(x_+)=2 \sqrt{31}>0\qquad \text{and} \qquad f''(x_-)=-2 \sqrt{31}<0$$ So, by the second derivative test, $x_+$ corresponds to a local minimum and $x_-$ to a local maximum.
Now
$$f(x_+)=\frac{443-62 \sqrt{31}}{27} >0\qquad \text{and} \qquad f(x_-)=\frac{443+62 \sqrt{31}}{27} >0$$ Since $f(x_-)>0$ there is only one real root which will be on the left of $x_-$.
Based on this simply acquired information, we can even obtain an estimate of the solution writing
$$f(x)=f(x_-)+\frac 12 f''(x_-)(x-x_-)^2\implies x =x_--\sqrt{-2\frac {f(x_-)}{f''(x_-)}}$$
$$x=-\frac{1}{3} \left(7+\sqrt{31}\right)-\sqrt{\frac{443+62 \sqrt{31}}{27 \sqrt{31}}}\approx -6.47905$$ while the exact solution is
$$x=-\frac{1}{3} \left(7+2 \sqrt{31} \cosh \left(\frac{1}{3} \cosh
   ^{-1}\left(\frac{443}{62 \sqrt{31}}\right)\right)\right)\approx -6.15745$$
Answer: If you take $$f(x)=x^3+7x^2+6x+5$$ and subtract $5$, you have $$g(x)=(x+6)(x+1)x$$ a cubic with roots at $-6$, $-1$, and $0$. Note the graph goes down through the root at $-1$ and up through the root at $0$.
To recover the original, you need to add $5$ to $g$. It's hard to believe that adding $5$ will fail to pull the entire segment of the graph between $-1$ and $0$ up above the $x$-axis. Indeed, if $x$ is in $[-1,0]$, then $$\lvert g(x)\rvert=\lvert (x+6)(x+1)x\rvert >5\lvert(x+1)x\rvert\geq5\left(\frac14\right)$$ So $g$'s local minimum is greater than $-\frac54$. Adding $5$ definitely takes the local minimum up higher than the $x$-axis. This leaves only one root for $f$.
Answer: The first derivative is $f'(x)=3x^2+14x+6$. We observe that this is negative when $x=-1$: $f'(-1)=-5$. From this we consider the tangent line $y=-5(x+1)+5$.
There is another tangent line where the graph crosses the $y$-axis: $y=6x+5$.
We can look at the second derivative to see that the curve's inflection point happens when $x=-\frac{7}{3}$. The value doesn't matter, just note this is to the left of $-1$.
After solving the system of equations from the two lines, we can find they cross at a point whose $y$-value is $\frac{11}{25}$, which is positive. It follows that the entirety of the curve to the right of the inflection point is positive. And it follows from that that there can only be one real root.
Answer: Use the Discriminant formula for a 3rd ordered polynomial.Click here!
N.B The discriminant is zero if and only if at least two roots are equal. If the coefficients are real numbers, and the discriminant is not zero, the discriminant is positive if the roots are three distinct real numbers, and negative if there is one real root and two complex conjugate roots
Coming to the ans of your question as discriminant is coming negative , hence there is one real root and two complex conjugate roots
Answer: If you actually want the roots of a cubic, you can use the rational root test to find one of the roots. After you have one of the roots you can easily do a long division to find the resulting second degree polynomial from there you just apply the quadratic formula. This will yield the exact roots, but if you want to just know if you have three real or one real and two complex that is a different scenario.
Comment: The cubic could have _real_ roots without having any _rational_ roots.
Comment: you are correct, I was looking only for rational roots, we must have some requirements on the polynomial to expect only rational roots.


Blank Page Encountered When Moved Wp-content Directory Outside

Question: I'm trying to install Wordpress with clean subversion repositories, as in http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress_With_Clean_Subversion_Repositories. I have followed every step accordingly until the second last step, where it says 'You should now be able to view the site via the root URL (http://example.com)', and indeed I can see my website on, say, http://example.com.
Once I go to the final step of changing the wp-config.php though, http://example.com draws a blank page. I am quite sure the wp-config.php is the problem, i.e. Wordpress doesn't know that it should retrieve my wp-content contents from outside the core Wordpress directory. My directory structure is as such:
.htaccess
core/
custom/
wp-config.php
, where core/ holds the files checked out with Subversion, custom/ holds my themes/ and plugins/ directory, and wp-config.php contains the below lines:
define('WP_CONTENT_DIR', dirname(__FILE__) . '/custom');
 define('WP_CONTENT_URL', 'http://example.com/custom');
I have tried other variations, like:
define('WP_CONTENT_DIR', $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/custom');
 define('WP_CONTENT_URL', 'http://example.com/custom');
I have also tried hardcoding the local path, like:
define('WP_CONTENT_DIR', '/home/MYUSERNAME/example.com/custom');
 define('WP_CONTENT_URL', 'http://example.com/custom');
, but none of the above works. Then I renamed the custom/ folder to wp-content/, but again nothing. I even went into Dreamhost to prevent redirecting http://example.com to http://www.example.com and vice versa, but again to no avail. I don't believe core/ is the problem, because I can access the Dashboard via http://example.com/core/wp-login.php, and the Dashboard says it can't detect my themes, which confirms my suspicion that WP doesn't know to retrieve the files from the custom/ folder.
By now, I have run out of ideas as to where could the problem be. Can anyone experienced in this area please give me some advice? Thanks a million.
Answer: Ensure that your statements come BEFORE the call for wp-settings.php, which is usually around line 90. Wp-settings (or more accurately default-constants.php) checks if the paths and URLs have already been defined, so you want to make sure you define them beforehand.
If that isn't the issue then check if $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] is returning the values you expect; you might have issues if working in a sub-directory.


In Illustrator, switching from RGB to CMYK breaks "screen" blend mode

Question: In Illustrator, switching from RGB to CMYK breaks "screen" blend mode. Any idea how to keep the same aspect? I need CMYK.
Answer: Some blend modes are not possible with CMYK in Illustrator. There's nothing you can do about it.
The modes which rely on layer interaction to lighten color will fail - screen, overlay, color dodge, etc. You will have to find another way to achieve what you are after. In some instances, you can work in RGB and then Flatten Transparency before converting to CMYK.
Comment: Now here's an interesting tidbit in the multiple vector-art tools discussion - just tested in Affinity Designer - screen and hard light I used in a file for a different question worked almost exactly as expected when items and then entire document were converted to CMYK. Slight diminution in the dynamic range of the result, but overall, quite passable.
Comment: Yeah, I don't know *why* the modes break in CMYK Illustrator.. I mean the modes work fine in CMYK Photoshop.... Logically they should work in Illustrator. After all it's just color layering based on math for a final preview/appearance..... but they have just never worked in Illustrator.


2002 Saturn SL1

Question: I have a 2002 Saturn SL1 I replaced the master cylinder the slave cylinder put a new clutch kit in it and can't get pressure on my clutch pedal and it won't go in gear
Answer: Sounds like you forgot to bleed the clutch. You have air in the system so depressing the clutch pedal is just compressing that air instead of moving the slave cylinder. Hydraulic systems have to be completely free of air to work properly.
You can try this procedure from an answer by Solar Mike to another question here.

2002 Saturn SL1


Networked filesystem with user level security for linux

Question: I want to enable file sharing between servers and clients, both linux. I don't want to rely on machine trust like in NFSv4 because client users will have root privileges. What are my options besides SMB (SAMBA)? Does OpenAFS support user level authentication & access? Using mounted WebDAV/ftp/sshfs seems silly for LAN.
Comment: Do you mean they have root access to the servers or just their own client machines?
Answer: I am not sure I fully understand:

"I don't want to rely on machine trust
  like in NFSv4 because client users
  will have root privileges."

If you mean the client users will have root privileges on the client and you don't want them to have root on the host then you just don't use the "no_root_squash" option.  You can also do things like disabling setuid to help reduce the risk to the client from the server as well.
You also have the option to use kerberos with NFSv4, see this link.
So in other words, NFSv4 might give you the security you need while being a little bit more ... (scalable?) .. the using sshfs everywhere.  It still might not be what you want, but I wouldn't give up on it too soon.
Comment: @Konrads: Not if you use kerberos, as Mr. Brandt mentioned. Even if matt has root on his own workstation, he cannot get Joe's TGT.
Comment: For example, I have two projects /joeisworking and /mattisworking. Even if I do squash root, matt from his workstation can access joe's.
Comment: I'm thinking Konrads just isn't sure how to configure NFS, or has experienced a poorly configured network previously. NFS can be very secure, and can accomplish exactly what is described in the question. I would argue that NFSv4 is one of (if not the most) secure network file system (when properly configured).
Answer: With Kerberos, only the kdc server grants authentication tokens. A client machine by itself can only authenticate as a host (and that is if you give it the keytab to a matching nfs/client-hostname@REALM principal), and that only gives it the right to talk to the nfs server. It's the users who have the ability to authenticate, and the nfs server only authorizes them to access their own files. With sec=krb5p the server prevents snooping and alteration as well.
Being root won't give your users inappropriate privileges. The only way they'd get access to more files is by hacking each other's machines, hacking the nfs server or the kdc. NFSv4 with Kerberos fits your security requirements well.
Here is more on the security model:

Designing an authentication system: a dialogue in four scenes

If you're looking at a deployment, here are some debian/ubuntu centric tutorials. I picked simple setups without LDAP. These distributions have debconf-based configuration that gets you some of the way there.

Setting up Kerberos (note the fqdn requirements).
Setting up NFSv4

My additions: you don't need to specify a des-cbc-crc enctype, but you need to allow_weak_crypto in krb5.conf so that the communication protocol can use des-cbc-crc for stream encryption. This will become unnecessary in 2.6.35 kernels.
If you're looking at something appliance-like, there is FreeIPA.
Comment: This is interesting, so far I understood that there is only server to server authentication in NFSv4 and then the system that mounts the exported volume is responsible for sorting out the permissions (squash_root_fs being the exception). Can you provide some links to docs?
Answer: sshfs is the way to go. On the client:
<code>sshfs -o idmap=user,workaround=rename user@server:/home/user/share /home/user/share
</code>
Permissions same as ssh... because you are using ssh!
Nice thing is you don't have to touch anything on the server, assuming sshd is installed and running properly.  Might not have the performance as the other suggestions, but it is very simple.
Answer: samba does actually sound like your best bet.  samba does have unix extensions so when mounted using as cifs on linux it should show proper unix permissions and whatnot.  I think that is going to be the best option for your constraints.  if that doesn't work out sshfs could be used in a pinch but it won't have as good performance or integration into the OS as samba.
Answer:
Does OpenAFS support user level authentication & access?

Yes, it sounds like OpenAFS would satisfy your requirements here, but so would Kerberized NFSv4. In both of those environments, you do not need to "trust" clients; access control is enforced by servers. Previous versions of NFS did require you to effectively "trust" clients, but Kerberized NFSv4 does not. OpenAFS has never required "trusted" clients, and also relies on Kerberos for authentication and security.


Manually migrate to another process without using metasploit?

Question: There is a useful meterpreter script that allows to migrate meterpreter to another process by specifying its PID.
Imagine I have my own session running. How could I migrate to another process without using metasploit?
I know the question may sound vague. Even if you don't provide a complete answer but still give some pointers, I'd appreciate that.
Comment: @CaffeineAddiction The answer there clearly states how this is performed in Metasploit, so the OP can replicate the process *without* using metasploit.
Answer: There was recently a similar question here. The answer describes in a couple of steps how it works. In a second answer there is even a python example. I guess this also works relatively well with powershell - provided enough powershell programming expertise.
Comment: Thank you. The API calls in the answer make sense. I got how it work now. I was wondering if it used another way or not.


load distribution

Question: Assume there is a rectangular beam of length L resting on a rigid horizontal surface. The beam is of a real homogeneous material, say aluminum. Assume the surface is infinitely rigid. I apply a vertical force F on each end of the beam, clamping the beam to the surface.
1) How do the clamp forces on the surface distribute along the beam?
2) What would be the shape of the curve for the bottom of the beam that would result in equal distribution of forces?
This has real applications in gluing of large flat objects together, where standard clamps cannot reach the interior areas.
Thanks
Kevin
Comment: Have you read this: https://engineering.stackexchange.com/q/5638/10902
Answer: Let's say you want to apply a uniform load of q over the length of the beam pressuring equally along the length. clamps are holding the ends with the force of F= qL/2 at each end.
Imagine there was no floor supporting the beam and these were the reactions of a distributed loading, $q= 2F/l.$ This q is the pressure you want to apply uniformly upward from the ground.
That load would deflect the beam into a parabola with maximum deflection of $5qL^4/384EI, \\ \text{and the equation of the beam's centerline deflection is}  \ y= -\frac{qx}{24EI}(L^3-2Lx^2+x^3)$
This curve is the deflection of a simply supported beam under the uniformly distributed load of q, which looks like a rope hanging at 2 ends.
You have to camber your beam so that the centerline of it is deflected down by the above eq. and form it by the above deflection curve to have the floor distribute a uniform load, q, to it when it is clamped and forced down to perfect straight line touching the surface.
Comment: I assume you mean camber the top also (constant cross section along the length)? A more complicated analysis if only the bottom is curved? Very insightful answer, BTW.
Comment: @KevinM, right, basically you need to curve the beam. Also, you need to be careful with your clamps so as to avoid local buckling. and please mark as accepted if you accept my answer.

load distribution


Do I need to study how to find security flaws in order to harden my Linux server?

Question: I'm wondering this. I am planning to resolve Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing reports. Do I need to learn how to do such attacks in order to harden the server?
Or don't I?
Comment: "Do I need to learn how to cut someone in order to apply a bandage?" This is a strange question. Why do you think that you need to do this to harden the findings in the reports? The reports you mention should include remediation steps, and there are many hardening guides, including CIS Benchmarks.
Comment: Any guides on how to protect servers against various types of attacks?
Comment: Yes, there are many "hardening guides" to help you with that.
Comment: ok sir. I want in detail guide though (like a book)
Comment: Ok, then look for "hardening guides". They are detailed...
Answer: As Schroeder says in a comment, the reports should have remediation steps so you can fix the vulnerability.
However, as a server admin, programmer and also penetration tester, I have found that knowing about the possible flaws is indeed better, because those reports aren't too detailed in most of the cases, so it's easy to open a new vulnerability while solving one, or it's also possible to misunderstand the real requirement or simply doing a bunch of things without solving the flaw at all.
On the other hand, if I have enough knowledge, I can solve any possible new issue right in the moment and understand the implications of doing something to try to harden the issues. Also, it's possible that an issue listed in the report doesn't apply to the context or if it's applied can make things harder for the business, and only somebody who knows the server, the possible flaws and the business, can determine if it's something that worth the time solving it or not.
You must know that most of the time, if the review was done by an external, those flaws in the reports are just the results of tools ran by the tester, so they are written as they come, without a real analysis of the applicability.
Real examples that I have faced:

The server has SSH that is too open and can be accessed publicly. The remediation step is to use a VPN and add some ACLs. The result after they "solve" it, is that the SSH is not available anymore for the users that really need it.
Talking a bit about programming, I ask the developers to use JWT to do auth with the backend, but they use JWT to create a token every time a page is loaded, for an anonymous user and they allow it to access every endpoint.

It is also worth mentioning that knowing about security flaws and vulnerabilities, helps you to solve them from the very beginning and so you can get less of them in the reports.


Export Infopath Data into Excel

Question: In one of my doucment library there are more then 100 infopath forms holding customers data.And we are mvoing all the infopath data into SharePoint list .Can any one help me how can I move the infopath data into SharePoint list or Microsoft Excel.
Answer: To export InfoPath data to Excel Export form data to Excel
To export InfoPath data to a list would require a custom feature or a third party tool like Qdabra This tool works even with 2007 version which is currently your requirement.
I had came across one detailed article on How Do I Map InfoPath Form Data to a SharePoint List?
This article may help you in some or other way but the efficient approach would be using Qdabra tool to export InfoPath data to a list.

Export Infopath Data into Excel


Who wrote "Don't Open, Dead Inside" on the doors inside the hospital?

Question: Who wrote "Don't Open, Dead Inside" on the doors in the hospital that Rick sees after waking? Do they ever show it?
Comment: I doubt it was any named character. Probably someone credited as "Panicky dude soon to be Zombie #3".
Comment: I'm reasonable sure that says "DONT DEAD OPEN INSIDE"
Comment: lol. I was hoping there was some sort of backstory filmed in a webisode of the show that I missed.
Answer: It was never shown in the comics, upon which the series was based.  The words were written there presumably before the hospital was abandoned, possibly after a large number of patients had been moved into that one area (to better concentrate care) and one or more passed, raising as walkers, and began turning the others.
The person who wrote it was warning others that there were no more living patients past that point.  They presumably left the hospital when it was abandoned by the living (or were killed there, when it was overrun by the dead).
Edit: As pointed out in Blake's answer, written May 28, 2013 (please, upvote that answer), the video game The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct features two characters who write this on the doors of the hospital.  Your character can watch as Merle spray-paints it there.  Your character (Daryl) and Merle are important characters on the show, but do not feature in the comics (at least not prominently).
This leads to a question surrounding the canonicity (which, if it isn't a real word, should be) of the games.  My personal (unsourced) expectation is that the games, show, and comics each have their own unique canon.  The comics and show are dramatically different, so they certainly have distinct canon.  The games, though, may be canon (possibly of a 'lower level', a la Star Wars) with either the TV show or the comics.  My guess is that they would be tied to the show if anything at all - the appearances of the few crossover characters seem to match the show better than the comics.
According to Wikipedia, Survival Instinct is tied closely to the show, while TellTale Games The Walking Dead is tied to the comics.  Whether these are actual canon for their respective tie-ins, however, is unclear.
Comment: The word you're looking for is "canonicity".
Comment: @Plutor: Thank you.  Spelling corrected.  I'm still uncertain it's a real word (despite it having an entry on dictionary.com) but if it isn't one, it still should be.
Answer: In the video game Survival Instinct where you play as Daryl Dixon you see Merle spray paint it and then lock the door up. It is the same hospital where Rick was in a coma.
In the webisode The Oath, you can see that it is actually sprayed by Paul. This is based on October 2013.
Comment: Has there been any statement regarding how canon the games are? King County seems to be more towards central Georgia (or at least south of Atlanta). The Dixons are said to be from northern Georgia.
Comment: @phantom42: There has not.  That said, it's entirely possible that TWD has a Star Wars style canon: canon so long as it doesn't contradict.  Alternatively, games, show and comic may all have different canons (like the DC films).  I expect that in the game-'Verse, this is a canon answer.  That doesn't mean the same is true for the show or the comics.
Comment: Blake, I've incorporated this fact into my answer above, along with a discussion of the relevant canon.  If you would prefer, I will remove my duplicated information - you did the research, you deserve the credit.
Comment: As the comics and TV series are different in terms of what when who, etc, I'd imagine each has its own canon. C-Canon for Comics, T-Canon for TV and I don't know if the games try to fit one or the other or if it's just G-Canon. It's a little confusing.
Answer: The answer is; I did, along with Robbie Martin, the on-set Scenic. This is a production photo of the turn around shot, the second set of doors I did for the hospital set.
Notice the font is different? This version came from the Comic, that we used mostly as story boards. At the last moment, someone decided that, whoever it was that painted it? Wouldn't have taken the time to find a brush, so the spray-painted version was done to camera. It was a bit of a running joke on set "Who painted those doors?" to which they would reply "Johnny, or Robbie, depending on which one of us was around".

Robby's version, fatter to cover mine. You know when we did this, all we were thinking about was how awful this old gacky hospital was. And if we would get a disease for just being there! Who knew that that the show would turn into anything...

Looking back, it was really pretty work, given the time frame we had to produce it in, this is nice!
Comment: Great to hear from someone involved in the creation of the show. I hope you'll check out the other questions in the [Show tag](http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/the-walking-dead) to see if there's anything else you can shed light on!
Answer: This can be seen in The Walking Dead Webisodes: The Oath.
The character Paul sprays "Don't Open, Dead inside" on the doors to the kitchen. He sprayed this after recovering from near death and escaping walkers (or decays lol), to find his friend Katrina dead, killed by lethal injection from a nurse.
The real crazy thing is that this would make that before Rick wakes up, possibly making Rick there still in a coma while all this took place.
Comment: Why is that crazy? Rick wakes up in the first episode and finds the door with the writing on it. If he was in the hospital since before the breakout, it would stand to reason that he would be laying in his room when the warning was written.
Answer: The military could have been keeping them in there prior to shooting them. There are bodies lined up outside the hospital and evidence that the military was there. It seems like the military was shooting the walkers and placing the bodies there. It's right after Rick uses the matches to find his way out of the hospital using a stairwell. Also, in a later episode it shows how Shane went to check on Rick. The military can be seen in the hospital as I recall.
Answer: There's no reason to guess, AMC explained this ages ago in The Walking Dead: The Oath.
The Walking Dead: The Oath is a three-part web series based on the television series The Walking Dead. It aired in its entirety on October 1, 2013, on AMC's official website.
This series tells the origin of the "Don't Open, Dead Inside" paint on the cafeteria doors of the hospital Rick Grimes awakes in, post-apocalypse. It follows Paul and Karina as they escape their zombie-overrun camp in search of a medical station. The central theme of the series examines the will to persevere in the face of inevitable death.
Comment: So it was Paul and Karina who painted it?
Comment: @Gallifreyan: Paul, according to the older answers by Blake and Brandon.


Can a willing lycanthrope be True Polymorphed?

Question: Can a lycanthrope or other shapeshifter be willingly affected by the spell True Polymorph? I know that it can be affected by regular Polymorph, but the text for the enhanced version seems to differ.
Answer: No, a Shapchanger such as a Lycanthrope can not be affected by True Polymorph; regardless of it being a willing target or not.
The text of Polymorph says an unwilling creature must make a saving throw against the spell.  Shapechangers automatically succeed on the save.
This could be taken to mean that if the Shapechanger is willing, there is no save for it to automatically succeed against and it is thus affected. The text of True Polymorph differs in stating quite directly that Shapechangers are flat out unaffected by this spell, instead of automatically succeeding on the saving throw.  A creature that is unaffected by a spell, willing or otherwise, is immune to its effects.
Comment: Hi Airatome, I revised this answer slightly to push something into the second paragraph I believe you were trying to highlight, where a particular theoretical possibility is closed off by the True Polymorph Rules. Could you check if that still reflects what you want this answer to say, and revise further or roll back as appropriate?
Comment: Reads perfectly to me :)


Is all of the energy dissipated in a magnetic core in the form of heat and can any of it be recovered?

Question: In an AC motor where you use a laminated magnetic core to shield the induction process from eddy currents, the field lines that run through it result in core loss through heat. Is all of the energy lost through this mechanism, can any of it be recovered like in regenerative braking in cars? And if all of the field lines don't dissipate through the resistance in the material, where do they go?
Comment: The first half of your first sentence is the only thing that makes sense here.  It's not clear, but the rest of the hand waving is about a perpetual motion machine at best, or more "magnetic energy" nonsense at worst.
Answer: A very small amount of the energy goes into vibrating the core. This will cause a heavily-loaded transformer to audibly hum.
You may find this article http://www.electricaleasy.com/2014/04/transformer-losses-and-efficiency.html useful. Note that, for a well-designed, well-constructed transformer, efficiencies are already very high, and heat losses are not directly recoverable, so trying to scavenge any stray field energy doesn't make much sense.
Comment: Thanks for the reply and the article, I didn't know that transformers were that efficient.
Answer: Energy is not "lost" - it just changes how it is expressed / stored, and may become less useful (harder to convert to another, more useful form). That's entropy for you.
For example, any time you have a source of heat, that source can be used to drive a heat engine and recover some energy. Since motors are usually designed to produce little heating, the temperature difference for the heat engine is likely to be small - making it less efficient.
But sometimes the heat can be used directly for some useful task. For example, the motor of an aquarium pump does not only circulate the water through the filter, but it also acts to heat the water (it is immersed) so while you keep the motor cool, you keep the water warm. Win-win.
Comment: Sorry, I meant in the sense lost to that particular system, but I should have worded it more carefully. I looked up heat engines at wiki and read about them, thanks for the answer.
Answer: Losses in ferromagnetic materials
There are two mechanisms which produce losses in ferromagnetic materials. One of them is hysteresis, the other is eddy currents.
Hysteresis
Hysteresis losses occur while the magnetic dipoles rotate, meaning while you change the direction of magnetization. You can look at it through single dipoles or through Weiss domains. When you change the field direction and intensity, they will reorient which makes them move on the hysteresis loop. Part of the energy is lost, the other part of the energy is stored as reoriented domains.
Eddy currents
They are induced currents in the laminations which will create losses, which depend strongly on the conductivity of the material in the direction in which they want to flow.
Conclusion
All losses(that's why we call them that way) are converted to heat(or vibration), they are transformed to another form of energy. You can't turn heat into a magnetic field easily, for this process you will either need a thermoelectric generator which is inefficient and has very very low power(while it costs a fortune), or you use a thermodynamic cycle to convert it to mechanical work, which in turn can be used to drive a generator. The heat you generate is low quality energy/heat(from an energy conversion point of view). It is like trying to get a turbine going with a big pool of lukewarm water, it makes no practical sense. That's why we create highly energetic (high pressure) steam in electric power stations.
All in all, losses are lost. If they weren't lost we would call them differently. If the energy is stored in the system temporarily we call it stored energy, in AC systems this can be interpreted as reactive power(look it up). Generally you try to minimize losses, as it brings a lot more than energy recovery for a lower price.


"Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back"

Question: Does the phrase "satisfaction guaranteed or your money back" make any sense from a grammatical standpoint?
Comment: it scans okay to me -- what specifically are you thinking might be incorrect here?
Comment: It is a phrase rather than a sentence, but apart from that is fine. "Discounted 25%" would be fall into the same category.
Answer: It's missing a few words, like many marketing phrases which have to economize on airtime and/or print space and thus shorten understood sentences to "buzzwords" and "buzz phrases". It's equivalent to the complete and proper sentence "your satisfaction is guaranteed or else you'll get your money back". The term is so common that these missing words are implied in the saying of the phrase. It can be further shortened; "satisfaction guaranteed"; the fact that you'll get your money back if you aren't satisfied is so universally understood in English that these two words, "satisfaction guaranteed", are a "buzz phrase" for the entire sentence, which you can say in just over a second of air time.
Answer: Yes, it describes two possible outcomes:

(your) satisfaction (successfully) guaranteed
your money back (returned to you)

In other words, it says "I promise
  that you will be satisfied, or, if
  not, that you will get your money
  back".

That's if you take "guaranteed" literally as a pledge that you will be satisfied, and not as a condition of being under warranty. Otherwise, it makes no sense to add "or your money back" since that is already implied by the "guaranty". I think that may be what was bothering you about the phrase, but I may be wrong.
Comment: yes, that was one of my issues.
Answer: This is a case of ellision, and is grammatically ok. Ellision occurs with the word "is" and "given", as in:

Satisfaction [is] guranteed, or your money [is given] back.

It's not really a phrase, it's a sentence, with ellisions just like "For Sale"(This property is for sale).


Forcing threads in a service to wait for another thread to finish

Question: I'm writing a service that has five different methods that can take between 5 seconds and 5 minutes to run.
The service will schedule these different methods to run at different intervals.
I don't want any of the methods to run concurrently, so how do I have the methods check to see if another method is running and queue itself to run when it finishes?
Anthony
Comment: What language are you coding in?
Answer: If you want simple, and all the methods are in the same class, ou can just use [MethodImpl]:
[MethodImpl(MethodImplOptions.Synchronized)]
public void Foo() {...}

[MethodImpl(MethodImplOptions.Synchronized)]
public void Bar() {...}

For instance methods, this locks on this; for static methods, this locks on typeof(TheClass).
As such, these lock objects are public - so there is a remote (but genuine) chance that another bit of code might be locking on them. It is generally considered better practice to create your own lock object:
private readonly object syncLock = new object(); // or static if needed

...
public void Foo() {
   lock(syncLock) {
      ...
   }
}

etc

Aside: a curious fact; the ECMA spec doesn't define a specific pattern for [MethodImpl], even including an example of a private lock, as "valid". The MS spec, however, insists on this/typeof.
Answer: There's the MethodImplOptions.Synchronized attribute, as noted in the
article Synchronized method access in C#, but that can lead to deadlocks as noted at MSDN. It sounds like, for your usage, this won't be a big concern.
Otherwise, the simplest approach would be to use the lock statement to make sure that only one method is executing at a time:
class ServiceClass
{
     private object thisLock = new object();

     public Method1()
     {
        lock ( thisLock )
        {
             ...
        }
     }

     public Method2()
     {
        lock ( thisLock )
        {
             ...
        }
     }
     ...
}

Comment: Deadlock is just as much an issue with a private lock as it is with [MethodImpl] - it is just a little harder to know which code might be accessing the lock.
Answer: If you are using java, you can make the methods synchronized, which will prevent more than one thread from accessing it simultaneously.
Answer: In general, I strongly discourage using the MethodImpl(MethodImplOptions.Synchronized) attribute to do thread synchronization. If you are going to do multi-threaded programming you really should think very carefully about exactly where and how you should be locking.
I may be exaggerating a bit but I find too many similarities between the MethodImpl synchronization method and others such as the use of the End statement in VB. It often signals to me that you don't really know what you are doing and hope that this statement/method/attribute will magically solve your problem.


Can I convert my train 9V 4563 to the Power Functions motor?

Question: The motor of my locomotive is dead.
I have two choices : repurchase it or buy a Power Functions replacement.

It is possible of customize my train 4563 to use the Power Functions motor?
If yes, what set to buy ? (88002, 8879, 8878 another?)
Answer: To expand on Michael's link-only answer: Older train motors were powered by the track and the speed of the train is controlled by a track-side switch.
Newer PF trains are powered by the battery box on the train and controlled by the remote which sends IR signals to the IR receiver.
This means your train needs room for

the wire from the motor to the IR sensor,
the IR sensor and its wire to the battery box, and
the battery box

Fitting these into an older train or a modern train not designed for PF (such as the Constitution Train Chase) requires some rebuilding and some compromises. For the Constitution Train Chase I had to modify the coal tender to hold the battery box and the motor, and I had to put the IR sensor in the cab of the locomotive. This means unsightly wires slung between cars. However, when the train is in motion you don't really see that.
For a locomotive that already is designed to accommodate the old motor, there may be room inside it to fit the battery box and the IR sensor. You will have to sacrifice some of the interior.
Note that for summer 2018 there is a new train Power Functions system coming out, which is going to use a different system: a new motor connection, a new battery box, a new remote. The battery box will have Bluetooth or some other radio-frequency controller in it and thus you won't need the IR sensor anymore. This will save a lot of room in builds and eliminate the need for line of sight.
Answer: Here's LEGO's official answer to this:

Motorizing older trains using Power Functions
We introduced LEGO® Power Functions in 2009 as the new electric building system to replace the 9V, 12V and RC systems. What's great about Power Functions is that they can still power your favorite trains from years ago!
You might have to make some slight changes to the design to fit the Power Functions elements, but here's what you'll need to get you trains updated:

Either 88000 LEGO® Power Functions AAA Battery Box or 8878 LEGO® Power Functions Rechargeable Battery Box and 45517 Transformer 10V DC
8884 LEGO® Power Functions IR Receiver
8879 LEGO® Power Functions IR Speed Remote Control
88002 LEGO® Power Functions Train Motor with 8886 LEGO® Power Functions Extension Wire

Perhaps you'll need an extra wagon to hold the battery box.


What exactly is a "Wound Rank" in L5R

Question: It's been a while since I've played L5R. I don't understand what the book means by Wound Rank. It could mean things like Healthy, Nicked, etc. or it could be individual points of damage. Which does it mean? If it is the former, does the Disadvantage Permanent Injury fill up the Healthy, or is Healthy not a wound rank considering it's the state you exist in before you're wounded?
Comment: I think we all kind of assumed you meant 4e, but what edition did you actually mean?
Answer: In L5R, like so many other mechanics, Wound Rank does indeed refer to the various categories of wound, such as Healthy, Nicked etc. The individual points of damage are usually referred to as Wound Points.
This mirrors the mechanics used for Glory Points/Ranks and Honor Points/Ranks, and even Shadowlands Points/Ranks. A number of Wound or Damage points equal to or greater than a Wound Rank means you suffer the effects of that Rank.
About the Permanent Injury, yes, it fills up the Healthy Wound Rank. A character is considered to be at whatever Wound Rank is not completely filled, so normally, up until Wound Points equal to the Healthy Rank, he would be Healthy. This character is never Healthy.
(Additional info) There is a definition for wounds on p82 of the 4e rulebook, and p166 of the 3e rulebook.
3e actually talks about Wound levels rather than Wound Ranks, but then, so does Permanent Wound (p117). 4e distinguishes between points of damage and Wound Ranks, and Permanent Wound fills in your first Wound Rank (p161). Earlier editions may have used less exact terminology.
Comment: I feel like this answer could be improved a bit, the OP (and myself to some extent) seem to be confused about the mechanical effects of Permanent Wound and I can't figure out from your answer which of the two(?) possible interpretations should be applied here. 1) That your Healthy rank is always full and you fill in your first wound in the Nicked box instead. 2) That you fill in from Healthy as normal, but are considered Nicked while Healthy. I'd err in the direction of the latter but your answer reads like the former is true: "it fills up the Healthy Wound Rank". Could you clarify this?
Comment: makes me feel like the disadvantage should be worth more points considering by default healthy is the largest chunk of "Hit Points" you have.
Comment: I'll add some more clarity once I'm at home, and have a rulebook to read for reference - what edition were you looking at? 4th?
Comment: i dont actually know. i will need to dig out my book.
Answer: A Wound is an individual point of damage. A Wound Rank is an overall level of Wounds inflicted. If you read the the section on Wounds, you will see that the Healthy Wound Rank is not filled until you take Earthx5 Wounds. Permanent Wound causes your Healthy Wound Rank to become permanently filled.
From L5R 4th Edition Core, pg 82, Wounds

Individual characters have Wound Ranks that measure the amount of damage that they can sustain before it begins to impair their ability to take actions and eventually incapacitates or kills them. The Wounds inflicted by an attack fill up these Wound Ranks in order, with each Rank containing a maximum number of Wounds determined by the character's Earth Ring.

From L5R 4th Edition Core, pg 161, Permanent Wound

Your first Wound Rank is always considered full.

Healthy is the first Wound Rank listed under Wounds. As the portion I highlighted shows, the Wound Ranks are filled up in order. Since one cannot use Wounds to "fill up" a Wound Rank that is already full, your first Wound must go into the Nicked Wound Rank.
Were you to use the interpretation that "considered" means the Wound Rank can still be filled, this Disadvantage would have literally no penalty. It is not until Wounds have been placed within the Nicked Wound Rank that you begin taking the +3 TN penalty associated with it. In addition, had they intended the Disadvantage to give a "virtual" penalty they would have used wording more like that found on page 268 for the Kiho Stain Upon the Soul.
It is very important to remember that the point gains for Disadvantages are not equivalent to the point costs for Advantages or even Rings or Skills. The Disadvantage Weakness provides one of the easiest places to illustrate this. It costs you 4 times the new value to raise Traits and the default level of traits is 2. Even if we use the most generous interpretation of the disadvantage (in which you literally reduce your Trait by 1 which would make the phrasing extremely odd) you still only gain 6XP for something that will cost you 8XP to regain. Likewise, Cursed by the Realm grants you 4 points, but Touched by the Realm costs you 5.

What exactly is a "Wound Rank" in L5R


Calculating means and medians for 2d clusters

Question: I have a set of data with x and y values (scatter plot) and I'm trying to get their mean (centroid) and median point. The way I did this was by simply calculating the means and the medians on x and y and those were (i thought) the coordinates of the mean and median points of the group. However I did some reading on 2d medians (a.k.a. 1-median) and as it turns out this is some super complex math problem that doesn't even have a specific answer, but can only be approximated. I'm not sure if that's what I should be using, or if calculations I did are good for me.
Comment: As you can probably tell I'm not very math. So what I'm getting at is; is calculating a simple median for both axes ever good for describing this dataset, or is the geometric median the only median that exists for such datasets.
Answer: As far as the mean/centroid is concerned, getting the average of $x$ and the average of $y$ is right. Regarding the median, if what you are interested is the geometric median (i.e the point which minimizes the sum of absolute distances to all other points), then calculating the median of $x$ and the median of $y$ is not correct. The Wikipedia page on the Geometric Median offers more information whereas depending on the software you'll use, there are packages/libraries that calculate it (for R there's the Gmedian package, for example).


How to describe an object used to protect from evil eye?

Question: a pendant , a doll or a lemon n chilly are hanged by people at the entrance of their home , shop or at the front of their vehivle .Can we call such objects as emulet or talisman?  Languages also go hand in hand with the culture.Im not sure if such usages are in practice among the native speakers of English.
Comment: You are right that such an object is not part of the culture for most native English speakers. The Cambridge Dictionary defines **talisman** as "an object believed to bring good luck or to keep its owner safe from harm", though I would regard it only as something that brings good luck. According to the dictionarly **amulet** is the correct word to use, but i don't think thatmany english speakers know what the word really means.
Answer: While both amulet and talisman could be considered to be a means of protection from someone or something (based on belief), the words themselves just mean, in general, a piece of jewellery (in the one case) or an object that brings good fortune only (in the other case), rather than actually acting to protect against evil.
A better word that describes the nature of protection specifically is ward:

[Merriam-Webster]
7 : a means of defense : PROTECTION

The same object can be described both in terms of its mundane existence and this sense of protection.
Thus:

The doll is a ward against evil.


Replace the first column of a text file to be 6 minus the current value

Question: I have the following file, space separated
2.5   235215           3.1925
3.7   125255           1.3125

I need to change the first column to be 6 minus the current value. The desired result is
3.5   235215           3.1925
2.3   125255           1.3125

How to do this with a Bash script?
I tried
$KMAX=6
sed -E "s/^(([^ ]+ +){3})$1  /\1$KMAX-$1 /" $1

Answer: The task is solved easily using awk:
awk -v kmax=6 '{$1=kmax-$1}1' file.txt

This will import the value 6 into an awk variable kmax which can then be used internally.
The program will replace the first column $1 by the arithmetic result of kmax-$1.
The seemingly "stray" 1 outside of the action block results in the current line being printed, including all modifications made.

One caveat: for space-separated columns, awk will only use one space as separator on output, so the result will be in your case:
3.5 235215 3.1925
2.3 125255 1.3125

Answer: Using Raku (formerly known as Perl_6)
~$ raku -ne 'given .split( / \s+ /) { put join "\t", (6 - .[0], .[1..*])  };'

OR:
~$ raku -ne 'given .split( / \s+ /) { join("\t", (6 - .[0], .[1..*])).put };'

Raku is a Perl-family programming language. An advantage of using Raku is that it can easily handle one-liners, and if you need to step up to more serious CSV processing, you can use a module (e.g. Text::CSV).
Above the code is invoked with the -ne non-autoprinting, linewise flags. The given keyword tells Raku to treat the input as one item (a line), while splitting on whitespace. Within the block, 6 is subtracted from the .[0] first element, and the result placed in a list with .[1..*] the remaining elements. Finally, the output is printed with put.
Sample Input:
2.5   235215           3.1925
3.7   125255           1.3125

Sample Output:
3.5 235215  3.1925
2.3 125255  1.3125

https://raku.org


Proportionality assumption test (SAS) for categorical predictors

Question: For Cox regression with all categorical predictors, I want to model time-dependent covariates (time*cov in Proc PHREG) to account for proportional hazard assumption violations. I am using the codes below with dummies for categorical predictors with >2 levels.
Proc phreg data=tem1s (where=(clinM ne '1'));
  model time*event(0) = dps40 dps41 dps100 drcb drco dag55 dag65 dag75 dag85
  dps40t dps41t dps100t dag55t dag65t dag75t dag85t /NODUMMYPRINT ties=Efron RL;
  dps40t=dps40*time; dps41t=dps41*time; dps100t=dps100*time;
  dgs44t=dgs44*time; dgs45t=dgs45*time; dgs53t=dgs53*time; dgs54t=dgs54*time;
  hazardratio 'h11' dps40t; hazardratio 'h12' dps41t; hazardratio 'h13' dps100t;
  hazardratio 'h71' dag55t; hazardratio 'h72' dag65t; hazardratio 'h73' dag75t;
  hazardratio 'h74' dag85t;
  prop_test: test dag55t, dag65t, dag75t, dag85t;
run;

Here are issues:
I get normal / small parameter estimates for some of main effects but high estimates for interactions for all time-dependent covariates (e.g., dag55=0.09 and dag55t=-1174). I get very absurdly high SE of dummies for main effects and interactions for time-dependent variables (e.g., SE of dag55 and dag55t are 326.442 and 326442, respectively SE of time-dependent variables are multiplied by 1000 for all). Some of the hazard ratios are suspect or are not computed. All terms in the model have 1 DF. Estimates for other variables look normal and chi-squared for the global test of proportional hazards is very small. Log looks normal with no errors.
When I use log(time) instead of time to create time-dependent variables, I get 0 DF for time interaction covariates. The log reads:

ERROR: An illegal argument is used in the function call in statement number 1 at line 2566 column 1.

The statement was:
1  (2566:1)  dag55t = (dag55=0) * LOG( time=0 ).

The error goes away if I force time>0 in the where statement (I have time>0 for all observations) but 0 DF and no estimates for time interactions. Interestingly, SE and parameters for main effect terms for time dependent variables are normal (e.g., dag55 -0.02663 and 0.10444 (SE)) but a little different than when time is used while estimates for other covariates don't change. Also, in I use time gt 0 in the where statement together with time for computing interaction, DF for interactions become 0 as with log(time).
How I can include time-dependent interactions in the model?
Comment: Are you asking for help with the code?
Comment: Thanks @ gung!  Yes, I would appreciate any suggestions to help me model time interaction covariates.
Answer: Log function can not have a 0 argument. You can do this way in SAS: if time=0 then time=time+1; or you assign "." to time variable that is 0.
Comment: thanks @ Deep North.  I solved the problem by correctly coding the time variable.


What is the rank of quadratic coefficients that yield the same root?

Question: $ax^2 + bx + c = 0$. How many linearly independent vectors $(a,b,c)$ are there that will yield the same root $r$? Example, if $r = 0$, some independent vectors are $(1,0,0)$ and $(1,1,0)$. How do things change if we only consider real numbers vs complex numbers. What if the root is complex but the coefficients are real. Where can I learn more?
Comment: Quick guess, not an answer since I haven't thought it through. I think you can assume the root is $0$, with no loss of generality. Then you've solved the problem - the rank is $2$. If I'm right, answer your own question. Warning: I may be all wrong.
Answer: For fixed $ x $, the map $ f : K^3 \to K $ for a field $ K $ defined by $ f: (a, b, c) \to ax^2 + bx + c $ is a surjective $ K $-linear map, therefore its kernel is a $ 2 $-dimensional subspace of $ K^3 $ by the rank-nullity theorem. In other words, for any $ x $, the subspace of vectors $ (a, b, c) \in K^3 $ such that $ ax^2 + bx + c = 0 $ is $ 2 $-dimensional, i.e it is spanned by two linearly independent vectors. Note that this result is independent of the choice of the field $ K $, therefore the result remains the same over $ \mathbb R $ or over $ \mathbb C $.
Answer: If $a \neq 0$, then
$$a x^2 + b x + c = a (x-r)(x-p) = ax^2 - (a r + ap ) x + a r p$$
where $p$ is the other root. Since $a$ and $p$ can be freely changed without affecting that $x=r$ is a root, we have two degrees of freedom.
If we do allow the possibility for $a=0$, then
$$0 x^2 + b x + c = b (x + c/b) = b (x-r)$$
which leaves one degree of freedom. As such, there are three linearly independent vectors that yield the same root $r$ or two if we require $a \neq 0$.  Note that the space of solutions isn't a vector subspace---it does not include the zero vector.
This analysis is indifferent to all coefficients being real or complex (do keep in mind that one complex dimension is isomorphic to two real dimensions).


How do I randomize block position with /setblock in Minecraft Bedrock Edition?

Question: I wanted to make an Among Us style map on Minecraft Bedrock Edition, (to play with friends) and I was trying to make the "Eject trash" task and want the dirt block that is placed outside of the window to be placed in a random position, within a 9x9 block radius, but I don't know any command to do this. Is there a way to input coordinates that randomize where is it placed?
Comment: Install WorldEdit on your server and use the //fill command. The vanilla fill command doesn't support percentage selection
Comment: @hfanatic world edit isnt on bedrock
Answer: You could summon an armour stand:
summon armour_stand dirt_location

Then use /spreadplayers to randomise its location:
spreadplayers ~ ~ 10 11 @e[name=dirt_location]

Then use /execute to set the block:
execute @e[name=dirt_location] ~ ~ ~ setblock ~ ~ ~ dirt

And finally, remove the armour stand with:
kill @e[name=dirt_location]

You will want all those commands chained together with chain command blocks.


Tyre screech recreation

Question: Hi
I was wondering if anyone has any tips on how to recreate the sound of a car screeching to a stop.
Thanks
Comment: I'm afraid anything you might try will sound a little cartoony. Depending on your production type, this may or may not work. Your best bet is really to record it yourself. Fortunately, anyone with a daredevil mind and a car will be able to reproduced this sound.
The other option is SoundSnap (as Ian said) or SoundDogs. Both sites are great.
Answer: Find a car, drive it fast then apply the breaks very hard and voila! Sorry for the sarcasm. I had this connundrum a few years ago on a low budget animation. I ended up recording my brother in law skidding to a halt on a quiet country lane, a few takes was all that was needed as I then used pitching and time stretching to alter my 3 sounds to make more.
Are you needing those sounds particularly? If so then there's places like Soundsnap that are great for buying a few random sounds for very little money.
Good luck.
Ian
Comment: I'm sure a crazy student friend would do it for you if you asked nicely.
Comment: The problem is that the only person I know with a car is my Dad and I don't think he would be up for some skidding and its a Uni project and we have to create all the sounds ourselves.
Answer: A hot water bottle (or anything with a rubbery surface for that matter) can be a good starting point. You can rub it on a wooden desk or something that has a very slick surface to get a screech out of it.
@wadiosound has a point when he says it'll sound cartoony. If I think about a tyre screech, not only do I hear the squealing, but there is definitely another lower pitched component, a bit more rumbly that might not only come from the tyre itself but from the structure of the car, the axel maybe, or the reflection of the road texture in the wheel-well...
Answer: If you rub your fingers over a balloon you can get some very nasty screeches, so I guess dragging a balloon over a surface with some texture could produce something similar but give you more freedom to create longer sounds.
Comment: "more freedom" and less frights ;) PAF!
Answer: This is a nice one...
http://deauditievedienst.tumblr.com/post/42278000168/foley-trick-how-to-record-the-sound-of-screeching
It's from Arnoud Traa, a Sound Designer/Recordist from Amsterdam.
Answer: I'm afraid anything you might try will sound a little cartoony. Depending on your production type, this may or may not work.
Your best bet is really to record it yourself. Fortunately, anyone with a daredevil mind and a car will be able to reproduced this sound.
The other option is SoundSnap (as Ian said) or SoundDogs. Both sites are great.
I hope this help.
Answer: Driving a car around and burning rubber can be expensive and dangerous. It will be the most realistic sound but it might not always have the dramatic impact you would be looking for in a scene. That's why foley artists have come up with methods to recreate similar sounds in a studio. What you need to think about are the qualities of the sound you're looking for - rubbery, squealing, screeching. How can you create those sounds yourself? As mentioned before you could use balloons and hot water bottles, but you could also try things like plimsoles and trainers, or wet crocs can work well too. How you process those sounds and mix them in post-production will have a big effect on how well they fit in. Think about pitch and reverberation. Also consider the surface that the tyres are in contact with...a little gravel or some debris might help to add realism.
Here Coaimhe Doyle, foley artist for Game of Thrones, demonstrates the use of a hot water bottle for the classic tyre screech (skip to 09:38 for the tyre sounds):

Tyre screech recreation


Updating 4th generation iPod to iOS 6.1.5

Question: I would like to know what could happen to my iPod if it can't handle the update to iOS 6.1.5. It is currently on version 5.1.1 (9B206).
Comment: It will be way slower and more instable, stay with the 5.1.1 if you don't have issues with it.
Answer: There's no harm applying the available updates to your device, as only compatible updates are shown.
The latest iOS version supported by 4th generation iPod Touch is 6.1.5 you mentioned. After the update, there shouldn't be any available updates to apply.

I use the original iPad as an example. The newest iOS version for it is 5.1.1 and iTunes gives the following message when Check for update button is clicked and the iPad already has that version installed:

This version of the iPad software (5.1.1) is the current version.

Trying the Over-the-Air Software Update on the device itself tells the following:

iOS 5.1.1. Your device is up to date.


Tekkit Classic Nuclear Reaction Automation

Question: I have a basic reactor with a energy condenser pumping ice in to the last row (minus the first and last slot in the row). How do I automatically pull out depleted cells and replace them with uranium cells BUT not fill in the slots with ice? My problem is that the filter pulls out ice and fills them in slots where uranium cells should be.
Answer: Factorization's Router is able to fill one predefined inventory slot. You can use one for each inventory slot that needs to be filled. That means this solution is a bit expensive.
Another solution i can think of would be ME import export buses controlled by a Computercraft program. You would first activate one import/export pair, wait a little bit, then deactivate the first and activate the second pair. Repeat. This has the disadvantage that if you are filling ice in the moment the uranium cells have disappeared, you still end up with ice in the wrong place. Using the computer to sense when a replacement is needed, it should be possible to avoid this problem.
Disclaimer: I only know Tekkit-lite, so if one of the mods is not in tekkit, ignore that part of the answer.
Comment: Neither of those mods are in tekkit classic
Comment: Yeah none of those modes are in classic.
Comment: Ok but computercraft is, so replace in the second answer applied energistics by any mod that allows extraction of a specific item type, and activation by redstone, and it could maybe work.


How to get URL to the YouTube's advert video?

Question: Given I liked the ad video between the videos, I'd like to note the direct video address of it, so I can save and watch it again later on. How can this be achieved?
Comment: The link was visible and clickable over the video, I'm wondering why they decided to drop it and allow nerds only to check that.
Comment: When the ad is gone, is there a way to find it again? Maybe there is an HTTP request that returns a list of ads video ID based on a user preferences. I think some ad creators are using unlisted videos because I cannot find the video on YouTube by typing the ad name.
Comment: With these steps you will have the full url in less than a 30 seconds : https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20874062/how-to-download-video-ads-from-youtube/61716367#61716367
Answer: While on the ad video, right click on the content and choose Copy debug info. Then paste the content in any textarea or editor (such as Notepad) and search for the line consisting addocid, ad_debug_videoId or ad_docid or  value, e.g.
"addocid": "AD_VIDEO_ID",

Once you copy the text string, you can replace it with your original video, e.g.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD_VIDEO_ID

Comment: The property is now called `addocid`
Comment: Seems like it can be called `addebug_videoId` too, hope this helps
Comment: Seconding what Jannis said, the property name has been updated.
Answer:
Right click on the ad video area and select Stats for nerds from the contextual menu.
Find line with the Video ID in the little box and copy its string value next to it.
Open a new tab and type in the address bar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViDe0_1D.
Comment: Instead of writing a second answer, please consider updating your [existing one](https://webapps.stackexchange.com/a/113413).
Comment: Is the only difference between the two answers where you are obtaining the video ID from?
Comment: @marikamitsos These are separate answers (with different approach), so they should be voted separately.
Comment: See: [What is the official etiquette on answering a question twice?](https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/25209/191655) ("When you have two distinct answers, it's better to post two different answers")
Comment: @jonsca Yes, you could say that, but I didn't see the similarities this way. For me, these are 2 different methods (only last part is similar). One method could stop working over another at some point in time, when they change something. This method is new one, and I think it wasn't available last year.
Comment: @jonsca I guess I would agree with you. Even on the post that kenorb mentions, opinions get [very diverse](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/25209/what-is-the-official-etiquette-on-answering-a-question-twice#comment52722_25210). For kenorb: Would you consider splitting [this answer](https://webapps.stackexchange.com/a/95898/117311) to 3 separate ones?
Comment: For readability, not necessarily, but on the other hand, if you don't split, you don't know which method/part is better/easier over another. If one method becomes outdated next year, then people start to downvote the whole answer (including the right parts), and you don't know which part is wrong (especially when people won't comment). With this approach, you know better. And I know Google likes to break things. As far as I know, [the system is designed to have separate posts for every answer](https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/28480/191655), but I can merge if mods want me to do it.
Comment: I just following the official guidances. 'Having separate solutions allows the community to vote on each according to its merits.'
Answer:
Right Click on Video

Copy Debug info.

Paste it in a Text editor, Like Notepad.

Tap Ctrl+F and search for "VideoID" or "AdDocID" (Not Lower Case Sensitive).

you will find Video ID there (Lower Case Sensitive)
(ID in form of
"addocid": "**********",
"addebug_videoId": "**********",)
, add it to end of "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v="
with this link you can go to Video directly.
"Stats for nerds" Contain same Video ID of playing AD, But it can't be copied.
Search for VideoID
Answer: The methods above have changed.
Right click the video, copy debug code into a text editor and search for a tag that reads addebug_videoId
For example: "addebug_videoId": "xosjZoWeoIU"
So your YouTube video URL would look like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xosjZoWeoIU
This product works great by the way :)
Answer: OK seems like a few folk are trying to do the same thing. A really cool ad you want to catch and share with your friends. Right?

Hit pause to stop the ad. You can't rewind or replay it

Right click and select "Copy debug info"

Paste this into a text editor (or anywhere you can edit it)

Search for "ad_docid" you should find a line that reads   "ad_docid": "THE ID YOU NEED",

Create the string: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THE ID YOU NEED

cut and paste this string into your browser

e.g. ad_docid reads   "ad_docid": "zoYjXvtRkIA",
copy as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoYjXvtRkIA into your browser.
Done
Answer: Okay, so, seriously, none of these worked for me... but you know what? I just paused the video on the ad and then right clicked and did "copy video url" and that url? Was the ad. So you don't have to do all this complicated stuff.

Pause advertisement.
Right click on video.
Choose "Copy video URL" option.
Paste into new tab or window.
Hit enter.

It legitimately worked for me just now. I was watching this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcPufDaW_nY and managed to get the URL for this advertisement https://youtu.be/EeRADNpdKD4 with this method.
Comment: Best answer.  Too bad obfuscating the domain name with a final dot no longer skips ads.
Answer: Mobile / Android users; adding the solution here I came looking for:

The same debug info / "stats for nerds" options exist for Youtube on the mobile site (In most versions of Chrome, and presumably most other mobile browsers)

Look at the normal 3 dots/bars browser menu button in the upper righthand side
Scroll the browser page downwards (as if to refresh the page), a second menu button will appear, just below
Tap the second Menu button, then tap Playback Settings
Tap Stats for Nerds
Dismiss the dialog menu by tapping off of it, and a video stats overlay will remain displayed
Copy the 11+ alphanumeric string that follows Video ID / sCPN
In the usual youtube link, replace the text following "watch?v= ____"

_
Regarding Megaera Vanbure's Sept 27 2020 comment to 'just Right-Click' a (desktop web) browser video. This only works on some versions/OS. Usually you get the default youtube-specific context menu options.
Answer: Please forgive my transgression by asking for a clarification. I'm desperate for a solution.
So, same problem, but what about us mobile users on the native (Android) YouTube app? We can't right click, and the debug options are not there.
I'd really appreciate a solution if it exists. I miss the days when the menu options didn't change just for the ads, and you could just grab the vid.
Many Thanks!


How to make Java Thread Dump in Android?

Question: I just want to get all dumps from java virtual machine threads, to look at what the threads lock and what threads waiting to unlock some resources. Something like is described here.
I've tryed to kill Zygote process but with no results.
Answer: The easiest way is with DDMS, or the ADT plugin in Eclipse.  See  http://developer.android.com/tools/debugging/ddms.html for basic instructions.  In short, go into the Device view, select the application you're interested in, make sure thread updates are enabled, and switch to the Threads view.  You will get a live-updated list of threads in that process.  Double-clicking on a thread will grab a snapshot of the current stack state.
You can use select-all and copy in the thread dump to copy & paste the stack trace.
If you have a developer / rooted device, you can ask the Dalvik VM to dump thread stacks by sending a SIGQUIT to the app process you're interested in.  For example, if you wanted to see the stacks for all threads in the Calendar app, you could do something like this:
% adb shell ps | grep android.calendar
u0_a6     2596  127   912804 48296 ffffffff b6f62c10 S com.google.android.calendar
# 2596 is the process ID
% adb shell run-as com.google.android.colendar kill -3 2596

The logcat output will say something like:
I/dalvikvm( 2596): Wrote stack traces to '/data/anr/traces.txt'

So, pull that:
% adb pull /data/anr/traces.txt .

Every time you signal a process, the logs are appended to that file.  There may be other stuff in there, so you need to search for pid 2596:
----- pid 2596 at 2012-11-27 12:48:38 -----
Cmd line: com.google.android.calendar

DALVIK THREADS:
...

The advantage of doing this over the DDMS thread view is that, if the thread is stuck on a monitor, the stack dump will give you an indication of what object is locked and which thread currently holds the lock.
The zygote process isn't relevant here; by definition it isn't running an app.  Since it doesn't have a JDWP thread, and doesn't listen for SIGQUIT, you can't get a stack trace out of it anyway.
Comment: Note: I found my trace at /data/anr/traces.txt.bugreport
Comment: This returns "run-as: package not debuggable: $package" for non debuggable apps.
Answer: Just debug your app on your phone in Android Studio; then in the "Debug view" Alt+5 just press the "Camera" button at the bottom left corner, to obtain a dump of all stacktraces, including locks they are holding.
Comment: Best answer (easiest solution) for those using IntelliJ IDEA or Android Studio.
Answer: Taking the commands from the answer, and putting it all up together, here is the following script. Putting it into the dump.sh file and executing, it will find the needed PID, create a new file with current timestamp and next it will fetch the Thread-Dump into it.
This command can be useful when one has a very short period of time to fetch the dump.
Before using it, make sure that traces are put into the file /data/anr/traces.txt or replace this value in the script.
#!/bin/sh

pid=`./adb shell ps | grep android.calendar | awk '{print $2}'`
echo $pid
f=$(date +%s%N)
echo $f
./adb shell run-as com.google.android.calendar kill -3 $pid
./adb pull /data/anr/traces.txt $f

As an alternative file name, one can use f=$(date +"%T.%6N") to get human readable timestamp. It would be easier to find the needed file.
Comment: Sometimes you cannot use breakpoints. For those cases you use this script.
Answer: If you don't have a rooted device and your app isn't a debug build, you can still generate a bug report from developer options to get the thread dump. The dumps are under the VM TRACES JUST NOW section of the bugreport*.txt file.
It's quicker if you know the ID of the thread you're suspecting. You can get the PID of the app by calling:
adb shell ps -A | grep com.example.myapp

and the thread ID with:
adb shell ps -T | grep <pid>

Answer: If you switch to the DDMS view in Eclipse you have some tools to look at threads. Is that what you're looking for?
Comment: Almost Yes. I have yet to know what the object is locked, for example:
- locked <0x0000000780b7e688> (a java.io.InputStreamReader)
Comment: This answer is obsolete since there's no Eclipse anymore.
Comment: Eclipse is gone but DDMS is still here and has no adequate replacement.
Answer: I'm guessing you need the threads within an app. For this, you can use the DDMS view on the ADT eclipse plugin. Here's the doc http://developer.android.com/tools/debugging/ddms.html#thread
Comment: Almost Yes. I have yet to know what the object is locked, for example: - locked <0x0000000780b7e688> (a java.io.InputStreamReader)
Comment: Eclipse and DDMS are deprecated, and Android Profiler won't show anything. Read below for my answer.
Comment: Eclipse is gone but DDMS is still here and has no adequate replacement.


Win32 - Fullscreen popup menu temperamental activation

Question: Using C++ in VS2008, I'm at the beginnings of a DirectX program which can so far display a token image and flip between fullscreen and windowed mode with no problems.
It has a menu bar, which is invisible as expected in fullscreen mode. The ALT key could still activate this menu in fullscreen, but it was very clumsy since its items weren't visible until highlighted, and even then it only responded to about 1 in 5 presses of the ALT key.
So I decided to implement a popup menu instead, that responds to the right mouse button. My problem is that this popup menu is also temperamental in fullscreen mode. It also plays with the custom cursor I am using.
The wrong behaviour is defined as follows:
1· A right click anywhere will active the popup menu, but also deactive the custom cursor and replace it with the system default.
2· Once the menu is visible, RIGHT-clicking outside of the menu will deactive it, but this leaves the default cursor on. However, right-clicking again will activate the menu again, and this continues perfectly if not for the missing custom cursor.
3· Once the menu is visible, LEFT-clicking outside of the menu will deactivate it, and this displays the custom cursor again. Now it gets a bit more messy because now:
3a· If I right-click, it will return to step 1. Menu on + cursor off.
3b· If I left-click a second time (as if I am gaining focus or something), then right-click, will will activate the default cursor but NOT active the menu (as if I half did and half didn't regain focus or something). Menu off + cursor off.
3c· If I move the mouse and then right-click, it will do one of the above. Step 1 or step 3b. Menu on + cursor off, or menu off + cursor off. Frustrating.
4· Most obvious, if step 3b occurs (menu off + cursor off), the user can flip the custom cursor on and off forever. Left click on, right click off. Not only does the menu never appear, but this is simply not what I want a user to be seeing in my program... the cursor changing for no reason.
I imagine the cursor changing is to do with the menu itself taking focus or something like that. I would like that to be avoided if possible, but the real problem is why is the menu activation temperamental in the first place?
My code for the popup menu is:
case WM_RBUTTONDOWN:
    cout << "Right button in fullscreen" << endl;

    TrackPopupMenu(GetSubMenu(g_menu,0), TPM_LEFTALIGN|TPM_HORPOSANIMATION,
    30, 30, 0, g_parentWindow, NULL);

    // SetActiveWindow(g_parentWindow);  // Makes no difference.
    // SetForegroundWindow(g_parentWindow);  // Makes no difference.

break;

One more thing. If I use F3 to active the menu instead, absolutely nothing happens.
Problem 1: Can I make the menu activate reliably?
Problem 2: Can I stop the cursor from changing?
Problem 3: Why does a key command not work?
Thanks for the read. Any ideas?
Answer: you can use this little function to set the cursor back to your customize cursor SetCursor(CURSOR_ID); you can add this in WM_RBUTTONDOWN


1080p tapes converted to 480p question

Question: I have some 1080p video tapes that when converted were scaled down to 480p. The company I paid to do the conversion threw away the tapes. Is there any way to get back some of the quality? I'm willing to pay whatever it takes if it is possible. Thanks for your help.
Comment: Welcome! Unfortunately, there isn't anything you can do to get back to the higher resolution. Once downconverted, the higher resolution information is lost.
Answer: Sadly, no.
As  Michael commented, to get to lower resolution, all that higher resolution data has been discarded. There is nowhere to get it back from.
Answer: By some magical video upscaling, or reimagination using AI this can be done, as seen from an example by Topaz Labs.

1080p tapes converted to 480p question


How to unwrap text in Vim?

Question: I usually have the tw=80 option set when I edit files, especially LaTeX sources. However, say, I want to compose an email in Vim with the tw=80 option, and then copy and paste it to a web browser. Before I copy and paste, I want to unwrap the text so that there isn't a line break every 80 characters or so. I have tried tw=0 and then gq, but that just wraps the text to the default width of 80 characters. My question is: How do I unwrap text, so that each paragraph of my email appears as a single line? Is there an easy command for that?
Answer: Go to the beginning of you paragraph and enter:
v
i
p
J
(The J is a capital letter in case that's not clear)
For whole document combine it with norm:
:%norm vipJ

This command will only unwrap paragraphs. I guess this is the behaviour you want.
Comment: For what it's worth, you don't need to go to the beginning of the paragraph. The point of "ip" in that command, is that it will grab the entire paragraph that you are in, whether or not you're at the beginning.
Comment: @Ray I've edited my answer and add the command to execute for the whole document.
Comment: It is better to use the `:normal` command with `!`-specifier in this case to avoid clashes with custom mappings.
Comment: Thanks! I suppose this is the easiest method available then? Nothing that does this for the whole document in one go I presume?
Comment: @Derek you are right. I know the movement tags like at, iB, etc..(combining movements with i and a). But i wanted to give clear answer without any distraction.
Comment: Wow! I didn't want to `J` each line. I should've known I could `J` multiple with Vim. What's more, you can go to the next paragraph afterwards and hit `.`.
Answer: Since joining paragraph lines using Normal mode commands is already
covered by another answer, let us consider solving the same issue by
means of line-oriented Ex commands.
Suppose that the cursor is located at the first line of a paragraph.
Then, to unwrap it, one can simply join the following lines up until
the last line of that paragraph. A convenient way of doing that is to
run the :join command designed exactly for the purpose. To define
the line range for the command to operate on, besides the obvious
starting line which is the current one, it is necessary to specify
the ending line. It can be found using the pattern matching the very
end of a paragraph, that is, two newline characters in a row or,
equivalently, a newline character followed by an empty line. Thus,
translating the said definition to Ex-command syntax, we obtain:
:,-/\n$/j

For all paragraphs to be unwrapped, run this command on the first line
of every paragraph. A useful tool to jump through them, repeating
a given sequence of actions, is the :global command (or :g for
short). As :global scans lines from top to bottom, the first line
of the next paragraph is just the first non-empty line among those
remaining unprocessed. This observation gives us the command
:g/./,-/\n$/j

which is more efficient than its straightforward Normal-mode
counterparts.
Comment: @Omar:  Great catch, thank you!  The answer has been updated to address this case.
Comment: There's a little bug in this command: if you have a one line paragraph it gets glued to the beggining next paragraph.
Comment: I was doing it like in @fatih's answer, but for some reason that joins very short paragraphs together, so I came here looking for alternatives and this works great, thank you!
Answer: The problem with :%norm vipJ is that if you have consecutive lines shorter than 80 characters it will also join them, even if they're separated by a blank line. For instance the following example:
# Title 1

## Title 2

Will become:
# Title 1 ## Title 2

With ib's answer, the problem is with lists:
- item1
- item2

Becomes:
- item1 - item2

Thanks to this forum post I discovered another method of achieving this which I wrapped in a function that works much better for me since it doesn't do any of that:
function! SoftWrap()
    let s:old_fo = &formatoptions
    let s:old_tw = &textwidth
    set fo=
    set tw=999999 " works for paragraphs up to 12k lines
    normal gggqG
    let &fo = s:old_fo
    let &tw = s:old_tw
endfunction

Edit: Updated the method because I realized it wasn't working on a Linux setup. Remove the lines containing fo if this newer version doesn't work with MacVim (I have no way to test).

How to unwrap text in Vim?


American Express Green vs American Express Gold

Question: I recently received two offers from American Express for two different cards, the Gold Card and the Green Card. I am pretty conservative when it comes to credit cards, so I don't really want both. What differences between the two are profound enough to elevate one over the other?
Comment: Consider the Blue Cash card instead. No fee, you can carry a balance if you have to, and you can get 0.5-5% cash back (but look out for the funny structure on that; it starts as .5% general / 1% groceries+gas+etc, and then after you've spent like $6500 that year it jumps to 1% and 5%.)
Answer: Do these cards resemble your offers?
http://www201.americanexpress.com/getthecard/compare-cards/popular-cards?eyetracking=true
If so there really only appears to be a couple of extra features on the gold card with regards to event / ticket insurance.  Are your offers both charge cards like these?  Charge cards do not allow you to carry a balance (i.e. you have to pay your bill in full each month) as opposed to credit cards that will.
Comment: These charts are excellent, and in all honestly I've never heard of "charge cards". I learned a lot tonight.
Answer: Which one has the features you want?  That's really all that matters.
Do you want a low introductory APR?  Do you want no annual fee?  Do you want rewards?  Do you want a pretty color?  They all swipe the same and let you walk out of the store with your purchase.  It's how you pay, how much you're charged, and how much you get back after the purchase that makes the difference between them.
Answer: American Express "charge" cards do allow you to carry a balance, using a feature called "sign and travel". Charges over either $100 or $250 can be paid over time, but charges under that amount must be paid in full every month.
I have a Gold card, and the main benefit is the AAA-like roadside assistance service. If the fee ever went up though, I'd probably switch to the Green card.


Seeking passenger list for SS Wittekind which landed in Baltimore, Maryland in 1910

Question: Looking for the Passengers list on the SS Witteland.  Landed in Baltimore, Maryland on June 11, 1910.  Name Marcin Glowacki.  His final destination was Grand Rapids Michigan. Born November 4, 1892.
Comment: Questions like this can be improved by telling us where you got the information that the passenger arrived in the USA.  If we know what record you already have on hand, we can suggest other records to check that might lead to the passenger list.  Plus, including the source information of whatever you have shows research effort.
Answer: I suspect the vessel you are looking for is actually the SS Wittekind, which arrived in Baltimore on 26 May 1910.  The passenger list is available on Familysearch, and Marcin Glowacki, aged 18, is listed among the passengers (2nd on the list).

As an interesting aside, the SS Wittekind was seized by the United States in 1917, eventually becoming the cargo and transport ship USS Freedom.


Naming Container in JSF2/PrimeFaces

Question: What are the possible naming containers in PrimeFaces? Why it is necessary to append naming container id for Ajax update call when we want to update some UI control on form using update=":mainForm:MainAccordian:userNameTextbox"?
Comment: Eclipse Type Hierarchy for NamingContainer (from a Java file type NamingContainer, auto-import, then press F4 on it): http://stackoverflow.com/a/21395002/1599699
Answer:
What are the possible naming container in Prime faces

In JSF naming containers derive from UINamingContainer.

why it is necessary to append naming container id for Ajax update call when we want to update some UI control on form using update=":mainForm:MainAccordian:userNameTextbox"

Lets say, <h:outputText value="test1" id="userNameTextbox" /> and you add another <h:outputText value="test2" id="userNameTextbox" /> to your page, you will get an error which says that you have a duplicate ID. You can look it up here at the JavaDoc for UIComponent.setId(String):

Set the component identifier of this UIComponent (if any). Component identifiers must obey the following syntax restrictions:
      Must not be a zero-length String.
      First character must be a letter or an underscore ('').
      Subsequent characters must be a letter, a digit, an underscore (''), or a dash ('-').

.. furthermore, important for you:

The specified identifier must be unique among all the components (including facets) that are descendents of the nearest ancestor UIComponent that is a NamingContainer, or within the scope of the entire component tree if there is no such ancestor that is a NamingContainer.

Means that you cannot have two components with the same ID under the same NamingContainer (if you have no NamingContainer at all, the entire tree is counted as NamingContainer).
Therefore you need to add a NamingContainer, like a <h:form id="myNamingContainer" />
Lets take following example:
<h:outputText value="test1" id="userNameTextbox" />
<h:form id="container1">
  <h:outputText value="test2" id="userNameTextbox" />
</h:form>
<h:form id="container2">
  <h:outputText value="test3" id="userNameTextbox" />
</h:form>

.. and you want to do an update to userNameTextbox. Which userNameTextbox are you refering to because there are 3?
The first one?  Then update userNameTextbox
The second one? Then update container1:userNameTextbox
The third one?  Then update container2:userNameTextbox
Comment: You're welcome. If you question has been answered mark the answer so.
Comment: Thanks alot Manuel.Your explanation gave me a lot understanding about UIComponent and Naming Container interface.
Comment: Naming containers are also useful for partial ajax `update`s
Comment: Which components are namingContainer? I see often "for example form etc." - but where can I find a list of all those NamingContainers?
Comment: See the first link in my answer: All classes deriving from NamingContainer.
Answer: After having IntelliJ scan all my JARs for implementations of javax.faces.component.NamingContainer here is what I found:
From PrimeFaces 5.3

AccordionPanel
Carousel
Columns
DataGrid
DataList
DataScroller
DataTable
Page
Ring
SubTable
Subview
TabView
TreeTable
UIData
UITabPanel

From MyFaces 2.1

HtmlDataTable
HtmlForm
UITree
UIForm
Answer: Naming Containers in Prime Faces
As we can see in JSF Reference

NamingContainer is an interface that must be implemented by any UIComponent that wants to be a naming container. Naming containers affect the behavior of the UIComponent.findComponent(java.lang.String) and UIComponent.getClientId() methods;

So to find Naming Containers in PF you need to check hierarchy of NamingContainer interface. In Eclipse you can do this for example by Ctrl+T shortcut on NamingContainer.
In PF 5.3 there are for example: AccordionPanel, Carousel, Columns, DataGrid, DataList, DataScroller, DataTable, Ring, SubTable, TabView, Tree, TreeTable.
Naming Container influence on component id

Default behavior

Naming Container provide a naming scope for its child components. So it always add prefix to his children id. So id of child component is: parent_component_id".concat(":").concat("component_id").
There is one pro tip that I had read in JavaServer Faces 2.0, The Complete Reference that even if you not add NamingContainer to your page it is always automatically added by JSF itself :) There also exist special algorith of this creation (Chapter 11: Building Custom UI Component -> Box called "Rules for Creating the Top-Level Component for a Composite Component"). Of course when you don't set id, it will be generate automatically (for example j_idt234). So full component id may look like this: "j_idt123:j_idt234:j_idt345".

Change component name separator (since JSF 2.x)

There is a way to override default component name separator (":"). You can define it in web.xml as context-param with name javax.faces.SEPARATOR_CHAR. For example:
<context-param>
    <param-name>javax.faces.SEPARATOR_CHAR</param-name>
    <param-value>-</param-value>
</context-param>

UIForm attribute "prependId"

To avoid adding scope to child component there is an attribute (only in UIForm component). But this is not recommended solution. Take a look for example at
uiform-with-prependid-false-breaks-fajax-render
Component id usage (for example in "update", "process")

Whole id

You can use whole id: "componentParent:component". This is not recommended (code will be fragile; any id changes will cause need to change ids in many places).

Relative ids in same level of naming container

Inside one naming container you can use simple component id.

PrimeFaces Search Expression Framework

If you don't know this feature please take a look in PrimeFaces documentation. Prime Faces provide Search Expression Framework with couple of very usefull mechanism.
You can search by keywords.

Keywords are the easier way to reference components, they resolve to
ids so that if an id changes, the reference does not need to change.
Core JSF provides a couple of keywords and PrimeFaces provides more
along with composite expression support.

Examples: @this (current component), @form (closest ancestor form), @namingcontainer (closest ancestor naming container), @parent, @widgetVar(name).
You can also mixed those keywords in quite complex paths (Composite Expressions) for example: @form:@parent, @this:@parent:@parent
The second posibility PF gives you are PrimeFaces Selectors (PFS).

PFS integrates jQuery Selector API with JSF component referencing
model so that referencing can be done using jQuery Selector API
instead of core id based JSF model.

So you can for example:

update all form elements by update="@(form)"
update all datatables by update="@(.ui-datatable)"
update all components that has styleClass named "myStyle" by update="@(.myStyle)"

Quite a powerful tool.

Naming Container in JSF2/PrimeFaces