Can Pokemon eggs pile up while to collect in the Day Care?

Question: Can I get a backlog of eggs in the daycare? Example, if I leave an egg in the daycare (to be obtained), and get the conditions right to obtain another egg, will there be 2 eggs for me to pick up (even if I have to refresh the area)?
Comment: Control the wild pokemon population. Spay or neuter your pokemon.
Comment: I WISH! Would be insanely helpful for large batches of eggs (breeding for shiny/IVs). Although could be annoying extra clutter if you're just quickly breeding for dex entries or something.
Answer: No, the daycare couple will only hold one egg for you. No new egg can spawn until you collect it, even if you wander off and walk all over the map.
Answer: On my x version, I just got 2 eggs. Put in a talon flame, and the one before, and got 2 eggs. Only had 2 spaces so not sure if more can happen.


Displaying list returned from method on VF page

Question: public List<Account> accresults {get;set;}

public List<Account> getAccounts(Integer NumberOfRecords){
    List<Account> accountList = [SELECT Id FROM Account where Status__c = 'Open' Limit 5];
    Map<Id, Account> selectedAccountsMap = new map<Id, Account>();
    Account account;
    List<Account>accResults = new List<Account>();
    Integer rand;
    Integer count = accountList.size();
    //Integer numberOfRecordsToSelect = 25;
    Integer i = 1;

    while (i <= NumberOfRecords){
        rand = randomWithLimit(count);
        System.debug('Random Number: ' + rand);
        account = accountList[rand];

        if(selectedAccountsMap.get(account.Id) == null)
        {
            selectedAccountsMap.put(account.Id, account);

            i++;
        }
    }

   accresults.addAll(selectedAccountsMap.values());
   system.debug(accresults);
   return accresults;
}

public static Integer randomWithLimit(Integer upperLimit){
    Integer rand = Math.round(Math.random()*1000);
    return Math.mod(rand, upperLimit);
}

Comment: Where is the visualforce code you have written? Can you [edit] any visualforce you may have into your question?
Comment: I think that `return null;` at the end of `getAccounts()` is probably your culprit (or a big part of it at the very least). There may be other semantic issues with `getAccounts()` as well. Can you go into more detail about exactly what you are hoping to accomplish with this method?
Comment: Why do you use a `LIMIT 5` in your query, but also iterate over the results to reduce the number to the `NumberOfRecords` parameter? Why not just pass the number to your query with `LIMIT :NumberOfRecords`
Comment: Sorry updated my code above. this method creates list of random accounts. Which i want to display on a visualforce page so user can further pick/choose from the list.
Answer: A few starting points:

You can rewrite your method greatly to operate using a dynamic limit
You can directly call the results of an soql query into a map (Although there seems to be no reason to use a map here, since you later add only the values to a list of accounts)
If you are calling this method from a visualforce page, you won't be able to pass along the NumberOfRecords parameter from the page, you'll have to use the apex:param tag.
You likely don't want to return the values themselves, but instead, want to return something to rerender the page, as opposed to the data, if your data is set somewhere in the controller.

Your method can look like this instead of what you have in your post:
public Integer NumberOfRecords { get; set; }
public List<Account> accountResults { get; set; }

public PageReference getAccounts() {

    if (NumberOfRecords > 5) {
        NumberOfRecords = 5;
    }

    accountResults = [SELECT Id FROM Account where Status__c = 'Open' Limit :NumberOfRecords];

    return null;
}

And you can use it in visualforce as such:
<apex:commandButton action="{!getAccounts}" reRender="someBlock">
    <apex:param value="5" assignTo="{!NumberOfRecords}" />
</apex:commandButton>

<apex:outputPanel id="someBlock">
    <apex:repeat value="{!accountResults}" var="a">

{!a.Name}

    </apex:repeat>
</apex:outputPanel>

As an aside, I'd highly recommend the Visualforce Trailhead to get you accostomed to working with the laungauge.


Near-abc conjecture and counter examples.

Question: Famous so-called abc-conjecture imply that every (except only finite amount of exceptions,) $(a,b,c)$ that $a+b=c$, satisfies $c<rad(abc)^{1+\epsilon}$  for fixed positive $\epsilon$.
Here, $rad(x)$ is multiple of all prime divisors.
Above $\epsilon$ is crucial, because there are infinitely many $a,b,c$ that satisfies $a+b=c$ and $rad(abc)<c$. For example, Take $a=1, b=2^{p(p-1)n}-1, c=2^{p(p-1)n}$. Since $b$ is divisible by $p^2$, we have, $rad(abc)=rad(bc)=2rad(b)/p<2c/p$.
Now since $np(p-1)=\log_{2}c$, we might as well have that
"There are infinitely many counterexamples to $c <rad(abc) \sqrt{logc}$"
which explains why we need that $\epsilon$ term even more because having "constant term bigger" won't help in above case.
This was all found on Wikipedia,(abc conjecture page) which naturally lead me to ask this question.
First, Term $\sqrt{\log c}$ can be improved replace $p(p-1)$ with $p^l(p-1)$, with simillar approach, one can get
" For every positive $\epsilon$, There exist infinitely many counterexamples to $c<rad(abc) (\log c)^{1-\epsilon}$ "
If the term $\epsilon$ have the greatest role possible, one can expect, even more, that,

Question: " For every positive $\epsilon$, There exist infinitely many counterexamples to $c<rad(abc) (\log c)^{\epsilon}$ "

Would this be true? Does anyone have any ideas? I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only one to have thought about this. Thank you for taking your time.
Answer: Ok, it turns out that this is indeed the case.
There exists infinitely many $a,b,c$ with $$ c > rad(abc) \exp{(k \sqrt{\log c} / \log \log c )}$$
which is stronger than the conjecture I asked
For more info:
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/82016238.pdf


Ubuntu 13.10 Sound not working after modifying fstab

Question: I want to auto mount a ntfs partition after system start. Therefore i edited /etc/fstab and added this new entry:
<code>UUID=someuuid    /home/someusername    ntfs    defaults    0    2
</code>
Mounting works but i have no sound anymore and the volume symbol in unity or gnome vanished.
Anyway if i mount the partition to /media/somename mounting and sound works.
The partition contains the folders 'Downloads' and 'Dropbox' and 'Pictures' aswell as one file. I made sure my home folder does not contain those folders or files.
I got the same Problem if i move the home folder to another partition the same way as described on this website:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Partitioning/Home/Moving
What is the matter here and how can i solve it?
Answer: I had exactly the same problem with mounting /home on another partition and having no sound. Formatting the partition to ext4 and mount /home again solved it for me.


PKCS12 password stolen - what's the security impact?

Question: I want to know that what the security impact is if someone leaks the password of a PKCS12 certificate. I am referring to the password which is required when we export the certificate.
Answer: The password unlocks the encrypted private key of the certificate, so an attacker always needs both, the PKCS-file and a password to successfully use the certificate.
Please mind, that most humans tend to use the same password for more than one purpose, so there are chances that a other person can make his way to the pkcs file with this password (for example a logon on a file server or similar).
How risky this is depends on more factors:
--> For what is sites is this certificate? Are more SANs specified - if yes how critical are the webservers who host this sites?
--> In worst it´s a wild-card certificate. This would give an attacker the chance to issue trustful sites for everything ending with your company name (evil.corp.com, trustme.corp.com,...)
--> How is revocation done in your PKI Infrastructure? Does every single device who checks certificates in your environment do revocation right? There is still the issue that most browsers tend to accept certificates if the CRL can´t be contacted so even that is no 100% solution.
and so on...in most cases you should definitly revoke the certifcate, generate a new private key on the server who needs the certificate and only keep it there nowhere else..
Answer: The password is needed to decrypt the private key stored in the file. Without the file, the password has no value (unless the password is also used for something else, but that should never be done).
If someone has the encrypted file without the password, they can attack the password offline using software like hashcat and GPUs. Depending on the strength of the password, the task of dictionary attacking a password can be anything between trivial to impossible.
If someone has the file and the password, they can decrypt and extract the private key.
With the key, they can ask the CA to revoke the certificate that uses the key, which will cause some denial of service while the site/service operator generates and installs new certificate. This would not even be considered evil by some people.
They can also launch man-in-the-middle attacks against anyone communicating with the site/service, to get user passwords (including admin passwords), see and modify all the private information communicated between the site/service and users, etc. To launch MiTM attacks they need a good network position between the site and the victim user, but it's doable if there is a payout.
If you think the private key for the certificate might have been compromised, generate a new certificate that uses a new key, install it, ensure it is used instead of the old certificate and revoke the old certificate.
For a paid certificate, you should get a new re-keyed certificate with the same end date as your old certificate, and a revocation, for free from your CA.
Webpki certificate revocation is not very reliable (clients like browsers tend to not check whether a certificate was revoked or not). For very high value sites (e.g. a major bank) the browser vendors would push a security update that blacklists the certificate with the stolen key. Otherwise, the stolen key will only become fully useless when the certificate's end time is reached, even if the certificate is revoked. OCSP stapling together with must-staple certificate would help in this case, but it is generally too dangerous to deploy (people judge that the availability problems it causes are worse than the security problems it solves).


Why is my iPhone crashing and reporting higher battery percentage?

Question: I have an iPhone 6S and the battery is starting to reach the end of its useful lifetime. What I am noticing is how I can get the battery down to about 10 or 20 percent, power the phone off (completely, as if to reboot) then come back a few minutes later (not plugging it in) and then the battery reads out higher then when I turned it off. I've tested this a few times and the phone seems to be able to do this on command. As far as I know, wireless charging wasn't a thing until the iPhone X, and I'm using a 6S.
Comment: A bit of a electronics background: The state of charge (SOC) of a battery is not something you can directly measure like voltage or current. It is generally modeled on a voltage curve that is fit to the voltages measured after timed outputs of current from a full (specific max voltage) charge. As the battery degrades, this relationship between voltage and useful stored energy starts to degrade & it becomes hard to tell what SOC the battery is at. For ex. if you install Ubuntu on a macbook, it will often show a different SOC than when you boot up on macOS, just due to different software.
Comment: @johnDanger: There is also Coulomb counting i.e. recording how much energy goes in and out of the battery and estimating how much is left in there. This is usually done directly in hardware and the charge controller would just give you some number (percent or energy remaining) which the operating system displays.
Comment: Generally you want to avoid letting your phone get down below about 30%, to minimize further wear.  Of course, that's 30% of the raw battery capacity, which as the answers discuss might be very different from the percentage displayed.   https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-808-how-to-prolong-lithium-based-batteries says that devices like phones usually have 100% as 4.2 volts, so aiming to charge to 70 to 80% is good if you don't need the extra capacity.  (Deep discharge hurts more than full charge.)
Comment: Thanks. I did some further research and the faulty relationship between what the phone says and what it actually is can be very different (Samsung note 7 is probably the best example of this) and I plan for taking it in to a battery shop pretty soon.
Comment: @WendelRareheart Yes, I'd think so as well.
Answer: In broad strokes - the phone hasn't a clue how much charge the battery has. Because it's so old & worn out, its guesswork is getting worse. After a reboot it will have another think, but none of the figures will actually be accurate, merely new guesses.
By comparison, by the time I traded up my 6S it had gone through two batteries, lasting about 3 years each. After that point they just got really unreliable & started reporting odd figures & having random crashes, especially in the cold.
I'd say it's time for a new battery, but it's really time for a new phone. [The 6S cannot be upgraded any further, iOS 15 was the last to support it.] A 2nd hand SE 2020 wouldn't be a bad trade up - it looks & feels like the 6s, still has TouchID not the infuriating FaceID;) The batteries are much better too, mine at 18 months old is showing 98% health. You can even use the same case, though you will need to chop a bit out of the camera hole as the SE's camera is larger.
Answer: It's well observed that when a battery gets towards the end of life, the % indicator can be unreliable.
Apple's battery replacement charges are quite reasonable, and well worth it, to extend the useful life of a phone.
Comment: I'd call BS on Apple replacing a battery as being "risky." They have the specialized tools and knowledge to do this. Maybe he was trying to steer you to a new phone, but that's just guessing. Replace the battery and Apple is going to be the best bet. And if they do break it (doubtful, but possible) they will replace it. And, as always, when you take any computing device anywhere for service, **make a backup!**
Comment: @WendelRareheart I'd guess the main risk is that it's an old phone that might be obsolete in other ways, so you might not get as many years of use out of a new battery because of some other reason for giving up on the phone (like that it becomes too slow to be usable with newer apps or web pages), before the new battery wears out.
Comment: ok. Just a additional question, I look into getting the battery replaced, and the guy at the Genius Bar said that replacing the battery was risky because of the phone's age. Is this true?
Comment: @WendelRareheart So, did you change your battery?
Answer: The phone's battery percentage is never accurate. Never ever. However, some are better than others. Doesn't matter if you phone is 1 year old or 10, that readout is only a rough guess. And your phone is a demonstration of how some guesses are better than others. As someone who is attempting to create my own tech company, I can tell you that the percent is usually based on how much voltage is being circulated through the device. That's how I build my own phone battery readout. The only problem is just like people, the older a phone gets the worse their memory and therefore guesswork can become, so your phone has to rethink itself every time it reboots because that's how rebooting works.
I'd say that if you really are comfortable with this problem, and it doesn't make the phone unusable, you can probably squeeze a few more years out of it. I am also the owner of a 6S, and I still use it, but I wouldn't count on it to be used as (example) an emergency phone, since mine has the exact same thing going on, but mine shuts down early because it thinks it's lower than it is.
And also, don't be afraid to get that battery replaced if you really are inconvenienced by this. I agree with you, I don't want to pay $400-$1000 dollars for a new phone, just to use for a year or two, then a few years later pull it out of the darn closet and squeeze the last bit of life out of it. I just wanted to say that the guy at the genius bar was lying to you, there is little to no risk in replacing your battery. The only risk would be the guy doing it is on his first day (VERY doubtful) or he screws something up big time (EVEN MORE DOUBTFUL).
The moral of the story is don't be afraid to change that old battery, and don't let your charge get low.
Comment: Actually I upgraded from a 6 to an X
Comment: @WendelRareheart cool.


Android TextWatcher Replace Underscores While Typing

Question: Intro:
I am currently trying to implement an input method for an EditText for my Crossword Puzzle where the user sees something like "____" in the EditText. The underscores mark missing letters, the first char entered will fill the first underscore.
Of course other cells in the puzzle might be solved already, so the EditText text could be "ST_CKOV_RF_OW". I had all this functionality already in my own input view, a subclass of view with an overridden onDraw(). This worked pretty well, except that the view won't appear on some lower Android versions and the Back key slipped through my input routine and wasn't accessible.
So I thought I'd do it with EditText, implement a TextWatcher and be fine, but I can't get it to work properly. What I have right now is working, I can use the keyboard to enter letters, but again the Backspace isn't working, and of course if the user touches into the EditText the position gets messed up.
public void beforeTextChanged(CharSequence s,int start,int count, int after){
                    et.removeTextChangedListener(textWatcher);
                    int position = text.indexOf("_");
                    if(position==-1) onAnswerEntered(et.getText().toString().replace("_", "")); //finished
                    else {
                        et.setSelection(et.getText().toString().indexOf("_"));
                        et.addTextChangedListener(textWatcher);
                    }
                }

public void onTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int before, int count) {
                    et.removeTextChangedListener(textWatcher);
                    try {
                        String currentKey = s.toString().substring(start, start+1);
                        Logger.log("Current Key", currentKey);

                        int position = text.indexOf("_");
                        Logger.log("Current Position _ ", position+"");

                        //replace _ with key
                        String sbefore=text.substring(0, position);
                        String safter=text.substring(position+1, text.length());
                        text=sbefore+currentKey+safter;

                        int positionNext = text.indexOf("_");
                        Logger.log("Next Position _ ", positionNext+"");

                        if(positionNext==-1) onAnswerEntered(et.getText().toString().replace("_","")); //finished
                        else {
                            et.setText(text);
                            et.setSelection(et.getText().toString().indexOf("_"));
                            et.addTextChangedListener(textWatcher);
                        }

                    } catch(IndexOutOfBoundsException ioobe) {
                        ioobe.printStackTrace();
                    }

                }

I also tried to set an OnKeyListener, but it won't work on EditText (I can get backspace event, nothing else)
So maybe I am totally on the wrong track, but please help me and give me a clue to how I can  accomplish my goal. Thanks.
Answer: I gave up on it and implemented a simple but working kind of hack. I receive input in my (hidden) EditText now, the output goes to the visible TextView, a function in between fills the "_" with the input from the EditText.
Ex.
hint = "A_A_A_A"
edittext input = "BBB"
textview shows "ABABABA"


If VIF value is greater than 5,

Question: I am running a binomial logistic regression with a dependent variable is 0/1 and the explanatory variables are categorical - binary and multiple categories. When I add an interaction term, and run a VIF test for presence of multicollinearity, several of the coefficients of predictor variables take a VIF value of 5 or greater. I have read that as a rule of thumb 5 indicates issues with multicollinearity and that the model should be respecified. Thoughts on whether that threshold is appropriate.
Is there a rule of thumb recommended for a generalized variance inflation factor value to assess severe multicollinearity?
Comment: Interactions induce collinearity. You probably shouldn't worry about it. Or at least, center your predictors, create the interaction from the centered variables, then use all three of those variables in your model instead of the original ones.
Comment: The usual variance-inflation factor does not even describe the variance inflation in a logistic regression. Generalized variance-inflation factor is what you would want to calculate for your generalized linear model. // How are you using the logistic regression model? What do you want to learn by fitting it? If you just want to make predictions, variance inflation is not so important.
Comment: The model is being used for conducting significance testing to test the association between outcome and explanatory variable of interest, and not for predictions, so represents a potential issue with precision of estimates. Is there a rule of thumb recommended for a generalized variance inflation factor value to assess severe multicollinearity?
Answer: Some of the trouble with going by the VIF is that there is more to the story than how the standard errors get inflated by multicollinearity, which is what VIF captures.
You could drop some of the variables that cause this variance inflation, but this puts you at a risk of increasing the residual variance. Since the coefficient standard error is a function of both the VIF and the residual variance, it is not a given that taking steps to lower the VIF actually works toward your goal of lowering the standard error; your steps to lower the VIF might be successful but lead to such an increase in the residual variance that the coefficient standard error winds up higher, despite the lower VIF.
Another issue to consider is omitted-variable bias. When you drop variables from a regression in order to lower multicollinearity, you risk biasing the estimates of the remaining coefficients. Thus, you can wind up with a low estimation variance but a high estimation bias. You might not want this. You might prefer more variance with less bias to little variance with considerable bias.
Consequently, there is much more to the story than just a VIF threshold of, say, $5$ or $10$ like sometimes get recommended in introductory courses.
Finally, the usual variance-inflation factor from OLS linear regression does not describe how the standard errors are inflated by multicollinearity in a logistic regression. Generalized variance-inflation factors would be considered for generalized linear models.

If VIF value is greater than 5,


SQL Server - Server Login vs. Database Login

Question: Could someone give me a 30K foot overview of the differences and relationships of a server login vs. a database login?
Comment: This question appears to be about SQL Server and would be better asked on dba.stackexchange.com
Comment: possible duplicate of [Difference between a User and a Login in SQL Server](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1134319/difference-between-a-user-and-a-login-in-sql-server)
Answer: A Server Login is for authentication. A Database User is for authorization.
In the very simplest terms, a server login allows you to connect to the SQL Server database server. It's an outer shell for authenticating credentials.
The database user, on the other hand, does not have proper credentials of its own and relies on the server login for authentication. The database user's is used directly for authorization, allowing rights to be granted to database objects such as procs, tables, views.
Comment: What Damien_The_Unbeliever mentions below about other means of providing credentials is absolutely correct. "The users in a database are usually mapped to Logins, but this is not a requirement - they may be mapped to Certificates or Keys also."
Answer: The server has logins. These are either an association with a windows account, a username and password combination, a certificate or asymmetric key.
The database has users. The users in a database are usually mapped to Logins, but this is not a requirement - they may be mapped to Certificates or Keys also.
Most permissions within SQL Server are assigned to roles or users within a database (exception: Server Roles "grant" certain permissions to a login). A user may be a member of multiple roles.
A single login may be mapped to a different user in each database to which they have been granted access.
Comment: Excellent point about a server login not technically being required and the role-based authorization. Though most databases I've encountered have relied more on user perms than role perms, though this is a naive approach it's disturbingly common.
Answer: Database-Login: you manage the users on password with SQL-Server, the data are stored in the database itself
Server-Login: you use the windows users of the server os
Answer: Server login is required to connect to the server. Database login is required to use the database.  The Server login will be assigned to server roles (backup operator for example) and the database login will be assigned to roles within that database.


Program to print gCal or iCal calendars in a monthly one calendar per column format

Question: I'm moving my family off of using the low tech "Boynton Mom's Family Calendar" to schedule things but I'd like to be able to create a monthly printout of the calendar in the same "Boynton" format (I'm sure it has an official name). The format is kind-of like a spreadsheet where each row of the calendar is a different day of the month and there is a separate column for each person in the family. I have all our calendars on Google but they are also accessible from iCal on the Mac. Is there a Mac program that can get the data from gCal or iCal print out the calendars in the Boynton format?
Comment: This is what you are referring to: http://www.familieswithpurpose.com/images/familyplanitopen1resized.jpg?
Comment: Yes, that's the calendar.
Comment: The first column is for "Mom" entries and the other four columns are for the rest of the family.
Answer: Try using the Grab app under Utilities...you can capture the whole screen, window, or a selection and print it out
Comment: Both iCal and gCal will let you print out the calendars they display on the screen but they don't have a mode or view where they display it on the screen in the Boynton format.


Modifying Control Flow of a running program

Question: I am working on the binary bomb labs and i just disarmed the bomb i am planning on solving it through a debugger and work start to work on my dynamic analysis skills
or i.e debugging my real question is how to patch or modify assembly instructions in gdb?
Answer: As a GDB method has been presented, I will draw attention to other methods which are generally easier with other software to alter the program.
Hopper Disassembler (Linux, OS X)
Move the cursor to the instruction to be modified, and in the edit menu select either patch to NOP (i.e. nullify instruction) or 'assemble instruction' which accepts x86 and ARM instructions.

It inserts the appropriate operation codes, and takes care of any offset adjustments to ensure the insertions do not affect the rest of the program. You can then run the program as modified and debug, or produce a new executable (ELF, Macho-O, PE/COFF).
IDA Pro (Linux, Windows, OS X)
Enable the patching menu by editing the idagui.cfg (with an editor with elevated privileges):
DISPLAY_PATCH_SUBMENU    = YES          // Display the Edit,Patch submenu

Use the patching menu under Edit to insert raw operation codes. Note by default IDA only auto-assembles for the IBM PC; see the Intel or ARM manuals for opcodes. IDA can then produce a new executable but often it may not work, and instead you need to resort to producing a .dif.

Patchers
If you would like to create a patcher, I recommend dup2 patcher. Once you have your new executable, compare the old and new for differences in the raw hex, and then specify the changes that need to be made into the patcher creator. (Either it replaces something at a specific offset, or searches for a set of bytes and replaces those.)

Alternate Methods
Remember that manually editing the assembly instructions of a program is not the only way to alter control flow. Instead, you could use a DLL hook; see for example the InfoSec article here.
Comment: is there a way with radare2 http://www.radare.org/r/ ?
Comment: @ddddavidee At the time this was posted, I had hours of trouble installing radare2 and so I never tried it. It seems it's easier to install and get the GUI working now, so I'll give it a go. In principle, of course it should be able to do it, it's just a matter of how much may not be automated for you.
Comment: Acutally Hopper way seems to be the faster and easier, but I would need the full version to be able to save the modified file... So I'm looking for alternatives...
Answer: You can use the set command to enable writing to the executable's .text section:
set write on

And then you can use the set command again to set the actual memory
set {int}0xdeadc0de = 0×90909090

But keep in mind gdb doesn't have a built-in assembler so you'll need to know the bytes that you need to patch in ahead of time (via nasm or some other method). Depending on how complex what you're trying to do is it might be easier to just modify the necessary registers.


What program can stabilize video?

Question: I like to make some OC occasionally, particularly create fun GIFs. I have the whole pack of Adobe programs at my disposal, and I'm not sure which would be easier to use or produce better results. I see people recommend to use both After Effects and Premier Pro for video stabilization, and I'd like to know the pros and cons of each. Also, I'm particularly interested in working with GIF format.
Answer: I simply use YouTube: I upload the video privately,apply stabilization and download it once it is processed. It's free and online, but they re-encode the video and the max resolution is 1080p.
Comment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube#Quality_and_codecs - the maximum available quality is MP4 container/1080p/H.264/3-4Mbps/AAC 192kbps audio
Comment: @nodiscc Yes, thanks I guess I should have added this in the answer. Online (free) solutions virtually always have some additional limitations... (my account is even limited to 15 minutes due to stupid DMCA claims that I can't get rid of) that's why I voted user1306322's answer. I've mostly mentioned YouTube as it is straightforward to use and free :) I would be curious to see how Adobe and Youtube's stabilization feature compare though, put aside those limitations.
Answer: Both Adobe Premier Pro and After Effects have "Warp Stabilizer" effect with various settings. Importing GIFs may be tricky. I resolved this by first splitting the GIF into a sequence of separate frames using Photoshop and import them as video in AE.
Answer: After effects, Premiere and Sony Vegas have video stabilization tools, but I use Deshaker because it is free and produces more flexible results.  The downside, is that it will take more effort to tweak and configure Deshaker and the virtualdub software.
I made a quick video tutorial:
http://youtu.be/QeJrr62wI5I

What program can stabilize video?


WinPhone7 needed for a porting?

Question: I have an android app with more than 500,000 users. I want to try to port it to WinPhone7, but I haven't any smartphone with WinPhone7.  Is a real device needed to publish an app on WinPhone? Is there some developper phone?
Answer: First of all, I will say that for some scenarios, there is no real substitute for have a physical device to test against.  Having said that, I would suggest that 99% of what most apps will do can be developed and test perfectly well on the emulator that comes with the developer tools.
The advantage of the emulator is that you can write and test without shelling out for the hardware and then signing up to create.msdn.com to get it (officially) unlocked, but once you are ready to deploy to the marketplace you will need to sign up anyway.
In your case, I'd say the main word in your question is "try".  You don't seem confident in being able to port to the platform so the emulator route seems like the best starting point.
Comment: Thanks for all answers. Yes, I think I can start development on emulator, but I'll soon have need of a real terminal to test from start to finish my application before submitting it.
The emulator supports taking pictures?
Answer: Your will find a Windows Phone 7 emulator in the Windows Phone SDK. You can download it for free on create.msdn.com.
Answer: There is an Android to Windows Phone API mapping tool and Windows Phone 7 Guide for Android Application Developers white paper as described on the Windows Phone Developer Blog that you should find very useful.
For getting a development device, you should reach out to Brandon Watson or your local Microsoft WP7 dev rep.
Answer: Simple answer - no, you don't. There are plenty of applications out there that were published without being tested on an actual device. Whether it's a good idea or not - that is the main question here. Depending on your application type and its behavior, you might actually need a device.
Also, another problem is the fact that the resources used by the emulator are different from the resources used by the actual device. That being said, if your application runs just fine in the emulator, it will not necessarily run the same way on a device.
Answer: You can use the WP7 emulator to test your application. But if you want to deploy it on a real phone, you will have to unlock it though the App Hub portal. That will cost you 100 dollar/year though.
Answer: If your Android app really has half a million users, MS will happily give you a developer device (nearly) for free.
Contact @BrandonWatson or @FrankPR on Twitter.
From my experience I can tell you, that the emulator works very well. But once in a while you will stumble about a problem that you don't understand why it happens. Then you try it on the phone and it works... So... The answer is yes...not!
Answer: As you and others have rightly pointed out, you can start porting your application using the emulator. There are differences in the emulator and real devices. In particular, to answer your question, emulator does not take pictures.

WinPhone7 needed for a porting?


Converting 120v wiring to low voltage

Question: I have four 120v spot lights in front of my house, they are connected to two light sensors (2 on each sensor)  I would like to convert these to low voltage LED's.  What do I need to make the conversion.  Do I have to convert each light or can I just convert at the sensor box for each 2 light system?  I have a good working knowledge of the sensor boxes, and have changed the 120v to 120v sensors and light fixtures in the past.  I am tired of them burning out so quickly and want to get something that will last a year or more and I am told the LED lighting will save on my electric bill.
Comment: Are you asking if you can run low voltage over the existing wiring and electrical boxes that are currently carrying 120v?  You're obviously going to replace each light fixture, right?
Answer: No sense converting to low voltage, just wasting money.
Instead just use LED outdoor rated bulbs.  But a few things to consider...

Assuming the sockets are not damaged and the sensors are rated for LED, the quick fix would be to replace the flood lights with outdoor rated PAR38 reflector LEDs.
If you don't know if the sensors support LEDs and/or if the sockets are good then you might consider just replacing both flood light kits, sensors and all and using the above mentioned bulbs.
Answer: You could do convert your wiring, and I think when the market and the NEC catches up, that will be the way to go.  But right now, it seems like the way to go is using an LED fixture, which runs off 120V and does the conversion within the fixture,
Random LED flood light fixture

or LED bulbs, which to the high to low conversion within the bulb,
Big box store's outdoor led floods page
Answer: To me the easyest way is to keep your 120V sensor and install outdoor fixtures with the LED lamp that has the electronics in it.
If you go low voltage then you you will have to add a weather proof box for the powersupply that is powered from the sensor then a fixture and LED. your power bill will be lower in both cases and many of the LED's have life spans of 10K-20K hours burn time. temp really dosent bother them I mention this as CFL wont start below 20 deg F and they burn up trying. some times just get close to freezing and they have a hard time, I converted 2 elderly clients over to LED several years ago that I used to change thier driveway lights almost yearly, I think out of 50 I have had to replace 3 (1 got run over LOL) and they are instant on at full brightness not minutes like metal halide or CFL

Converting 120v wiring to low voltage


SQL Server Archiving Data Functionality

Question: Our company is looking for functionalilty/or automated way to archive data in SQL Server.
Currently, we create archive tables with identity surrogate, and develop stored procedures to import data. We are conducting this for 100+ tables, data is 2 years or older. Does SQL Server have functionality or automated way to archive data (Wizard tool, UI) or does person have to develop stored procedures? I am thinking of creating dynamic sql to write script for 100+ tables.
Thanks,
-- If no functionality exists, will create dynamic sql for tables using template below

create table dbo.CustomerTransaction
(
    CustomerTransactionId bigint primary key identity(1,1) not null ,
    CustomerName varchar(255) null ,
    ProductName varchar(255) null,
    Quantity int null ,
    CreateDatetimestamp datetime not null
 )

create table dbo.CustomerTransactionArchive
(
    CustomerTransactionArchiveId bigint primary key identity(1,1) not null ,
    CustomerTransactionId bigint null,
    CustomerName varchar(255) null ,
    ProductName varchar(255) null,
    Quantity int null ,
    CreateDatetimestamp datetime not null
 )

create procedure dbo.CustomerTransactionArchive
as

    declare rowmin bigint = (Select min(CustomerTransactionId) from dbo.CustomerTransaction where Createdatetimestamp < dateadd(year,-2,CreateDatetimestamp ))
    declare rowmax bigint = (Select max(CustomerTransactionId) from dbo.CustomerTransaction where Createdatetimestamp < dateadd(year,-2,CreateDatetimestamp ))
    declare rowcounter bigint = rowcountermin

      -- insert into 100,000 record block, do not want to lock too many pages in table
    while rowcounter <= rowmax
    begin

        insert into dbo.CustomerTransactionArchive  (
        select * from dbo.CustomerTransactionArchive
        where CustomerTransactionId between rowcounter and (rowcounter +100000)
        and Createdatetimestamp < dateadd(year,-2,CreateDatetimestamp ))

        rowcounter = rowcounter + 100001
    end

Archive tables will be in different database
Answer: There is no built in functionality.
The stored procedure route will work, but you might also want to look into an ETL package (like SSIS) to do this as it may be easier to maintain.
You could also look into partitioning on CreateDate for all your tables  in order to efficiently drop older data, but that would still require some custom code to rotate the partitions. They could, however, use a common partition scheme and function if the DDL on the CreateDate is the same for each.
If you were to upgrade, you could also look at using Temporal Tables or Stretch Database from SQL 2016, though those aren't out of the box auto-archive features necessarily.
Answer: This is my list on how I would approach :

If the data needs to be reside in the same database :

If using enterprise edition

Use table partitioning (since you are using SQL Server 2012). For your case, you can partition by CreateDatetimestamp (daily / monthy or yearly). Partitioning has some requirements so refer to my answer here. I have also described how to partition an existing non partitioned table.
You can also use partition management utility to automate the process.

you can create the tables in seperate filegroups. This way, when doing restore, you can do Piece Meal Restore and unrestored filegroups can be restored at a later time.
If partitioning is not suited for your environment, then what you are doing currently - creating archive tables and building process to move the data to archive as per your needs.

In your approach, I want to  highlight few things :

Create the archive tables on separate filegroups.
after you move the data from main to archive tables, make sure to update stats. This way the optimizer can create better plans based on latest statistics.
Use view to tie up newer and archived data. This way your application just references the view and you dont have to worry about underlying main and archive tables.

-

If the data can reside in a different database e.g. dbname_archive, you can develop an ETL process to periodically move data from your main database to archive database using SSIS. You can reference the old data using 3 part - dbname.schema.tableName. This was you can keep your archive database seperate from main database on a different filesystem and possibly make it readonly. Your main database will be small depending on how often you archive your data and this will speed up restore / recovery  times along with maintenance (backups, index / stats etc) for your main database.

Additionally, you can use data compression (since you are on sql server 2012) to further compress the data in archive/history tables.
Read:

How To Decide if You Should Use Table Partitioning - by Kendra Little
What's the best way to archive all but current year and partition the table at the same time
Comment: You only need 1 etl process to manage your archiving process. Look at partition manager to see if that helps.

SQL Server Archiving Data Functionality


During the early design stages, what parameters are considered in determining the weight of an aircraft?

Question: What parameters are considered in estimating the weight of an aircraft in the beginning of the design process?
Comment: Can you please elaborate? Given that you have tagged aerobatics & aerodynamics, I assume your interested in something particular?
Comment: For? Cargo/passenger/fighter/bomber/agricultural/maritime patrol/ aerobatic /micro light? Kit/GA?
Answer: Any design starts with a mission profile. As a design engineer, you get the payload, range and speed, and maybe constraints like the maximum runway, and then have to come up with a configuration.
With that in hand, you look what others have achieved before. There are collections of weight data for different designs and their parts, and formulas which combine the main parameters in a way that the weights line up more or less nicely when plotted over the result of this equation. Plug in your new design's number, and you get something wich will be within ±10% of what is realistic. This is called parametric weight estimation (PDF!).
Since you can only consider what you have, you start with the boundaries of the sizing mission:

Payload
Range or endurance
Desired cruise speed and altitude
Operational constraints like runway length, operation from unprepared fields, threat scenario.

EDIT:
@Peter is right: Cost per kilo of airframe and per seat-mile (where applicable) is also a starting requirement, and cost minimization is taken care of by designing the smallest possible airframe which can satisfy all requirements while using proven technology. And parametric sizing only works when based on proven technology.
Comment: I guess what you refer to as mission profile in layman's terms would be design goals and intended purpose? Optimization of a design could be considered similar to linear programming you have objectives, variables and constraints. Depending upon a range of factors MTOW could be any off those things.
Comment: I guess in today's business world ROI, TCO & operating costs must be factors too.
Comment: @Peter: The goal is to find the smallest design which fulfills the requirements, not just any. This, and using proven technology, keeps cost down. Parametric sizing only works when based on proven technology.
Answer: When designing, the designers have to take into account:

The amount and type of materials used on the airframe. Many aircraft made nowadays use composite materials because they are stronger and lighter than metals. The engines also play a significant role in this because they have to create a certain amount of thrust without adding too much weight.
They also have to take into account the payload that (amount of fuel, passengers, and/or cargo or other things) that the aircraft will carry.
Comment: Weight of the engine(s) might also be significant
Comment: @DanPichelman Falls under the materials used. I will add something about the engines in the answer though.


Why is Rome referred to as Babylon in Rev 17 and 18?

Question: At the time of Daniel, Rome was not yet powerful and known, but at the time of St. John at Patmos. So why it is referred to as Babylon by many Christians.
Comment: Why do you think this is Rome that John is referring to ?
Comment: @NigelJ,  what other city has committed so many abuses?can you offer an alternative?Jerusalem does not sit on many waters, and it would be inexplicable what is sait in 18 "*give her the double ....*" poor Jerusalem has only been the victim. Constantinople sits on waters but what said in 18 doesn't apply either
Comment: The point is that at the end of first century there was no kingdom of babylon.
Comment: @user157860 Jerusalem saw the killing of Jesus Christ, St. James the Apostle and many Prophets!
Comment: Babylon point to America..there's a lot of written articles and comprehensive videos that study why America fit the Babylon descriptions.
Comment: Reversing punitive dv, +1 for a reasonable question. God knew deception would severely impact the new church where power and wealth would corrupt.
Answer: Why is Rome referred to as Babylon in Revelation chapters 17 and 18?
If people think Rome is Babylon then I suggest that some people look up which nation is called Babylon the most in the Bible. It is quite an eye opener indeed.
Basically, it comes to pointing out that Rome in built on seven (7) hills. But this just one interpretation.

6 I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of God's holy people, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus.
When I saw her, I was greatly astonished. 7 Then the angel said to me: "Why are you astonished? I will explain to you the mystery of the woman and of the beast she rides, which has the seven heads and ten horns. 8 The beast, which you saw, once was, now is not, and yet will come up out of the Abyss and go to its destruction. The inhabitants of the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the creation of the world will be astonished when they see the beast, because it once was, now is not, and yet will come.
9 "This calls for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits. 10 They are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; but when he does come, he must remain for only a little while. 11 The beast who once was, and now is not, is an eighth king. He belongs to the seven and is going to his destruction. - Revelation 17:6-11

The problem with prophecies in general is that it is almost impossible to know the correct interpretation(s) to them until the actual time of fulfillment is upon us. Thus, The Prophecies of the Popes is no exception.
The original Greek text of this particular prophecy does not name the city of Rome as being the city of seven hills. Its interpretation as to which city is the actual one is still an open question.
Nevertheless it is almost safe to believe that it may be one of the three following seven-hilled cities: Rome, Constantinople (Istanbul) or Jerusalem. Given the very eschatological nature of this prophecy, Jerusalem could very well be the city in question.
This question focuses on Rome, but I simply suggested other possibilities as well. Besides, did not Jerusalem see the the killing of many Prophets and Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jerusalem's seven hills are Mount Scopus, Mount Olivet (Mount of Olives) and the Mount of Corruption (all three are peaks in a mountain ridge that lies east of the old city), Mount Ophel, the original Mount Zion, the New Mount Zion and the hill on which the Antonia Fortress was built.
It was common custom, years before the New Testament, for people in the Roman world to refer to Rome itself as the "city of seven hills." Tradition states that when Romulus and Remus, who founded Rome, wanted to build a city in the area of the Tibur (Tiber) River, they specially chose a site that had this unique characteristic. The city of Jerusalem, as it existed in Jesus' time, was also reckoned a "city of seven hills."
Jerusalem is not the only city in the world considered or historically believed to be built on seven hills. Others include Babylon, Moscow, Mecca, Lisbon, Tehran and Amman.
Jerusalem's Seven Hills

For those interested here are the maps of the three "seven-hilled" cities.

Rome

Constantinople: The seven hills of Istanbul

Jerusalem and its Seven Hills
What did Christ mean when He said in Luke 13:33: "… it cannot be that a prophet should perish outside of Jerusalem."?
Comment: @user157860 I beg to differ in thought. Look at the maps.
Comment: Jerusalem does not sit on many waters, and it would be inexplicable what is sait in 18 "give her the double ...." poor Jerusalem has only been the victim. Constantinople sits on waters but what said in 18 doesn't apply either
Comment: you are focusing on the hills, how do you think Jerusalem can be the whore, mother of harlots and abominations?
Comment: @user157860 The question focuses on Rome,I simply suggested other possibilities as well. Besides, did not Jerusalem see the the killing of many Prophets and Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Answer: Prophecies in Daniel cover some of the same events as those in Revelation. These prophecies normally refer to kingdoms as beasts of various kinds. The prophecies are centered on Israel, so all these beasts are empires that will conquer Jerusalem for a time. In Daniel's prophecy (Daniel 2), Babylon is the head of Gold and is a synedoche for all the kingdoms that would conquer Jerusalem and Israel. Since Rome is one of those empires, Babylon is prophetically its head.
Revelation also speaks of eight empires:

Rev 17:9-11: "This calls for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits. They are also seven kings.
  Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; but when he does
  come, he must remain for only a little while. The beast who once was,
  and now is not, is an eighth king. He belongs to the seven and is
  going to his destruction.

What are the five empires that have fallen?

Israel
Assyria
Babylon
Medo-Persia
Greece

Rome is the sixth empire, the one that still exists in John's time. The next empire to conquer the Holy Land was Islam, making it the seventh empire. The eight and final empire will be assembled from some of the pieces of the preceding seven empires, which is why it is called the "leopard-bear-lion":

Rev 13:2: The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the
  beast his power and his throne and great authority.

The leopard is Greece (part of whose ancient empire is occupied by present day Turkey), the bear is Medo-Persia (Iran and the Kurdish people), and the lion is Babylon (Iraq), so it is possible that some collection of middle eastern countries will form a new empire, but that does not rule out the inclusion of some parts of Europe.
Answer: The preponderance of the evidence appears to show that in the New Testament, "Babylon" is a reference to Rome.
John AT Robinson provided a helpful summary of supporting evidence (see p. 136 here):

The 'greetings from her who dwells in Babylon, chosen by God like you'
(5.13) is almost universally agreed to be a disguise for the church in
Rome. The pseudonym is indisputable in the book of Revelation (14.8;
16.19; 17.5; 18.2, 10, 21) as it is in other late-Jewish and Christian writings (II Bar.10.1f; 11.1; 67.7; II Esd.3.1f., 28, 31; Orac. Sib.5.
143, 159f.), and it was so understood here as early as Papias.
[Eusebius, HE 2.15.]

This includes not only Papias, who was acquainted with 1st generation Christians, but also shows the wealth of Jewish literature supporting the conclusion.
That "Babylon" was a type or symbol for wickedness, wicked people, or wicked places has a long history in Jewish writings.  See, for example, Isaiah 14, which compares the king of Babylon to Lucifer himself.
We have 1st & 2nd century sources that indicate that Peter, Mark, and John spent time in Rome (e.g. 1 Clement for Peter, Pauline epistles for Mark, Tertullian for John).  We have no such evidence that they were ever in Babylon.
Christian use of Babylon to describe a wicked place is influenced heavily by Isaiah, even if the Babylon-wickedness theme is not present throughout the Old Testament.
Comment: The problem with naming any location symbolically as Babylon, is that it speaks of future events. Is Rome to be wicked at the time foreseen? Maybe? But so might other cities!


Could an alien civilization discover electricity before fire, if their planet lacked significant oxygen but did hold common storms?

Question: Let's say there was an early alien civilization, not yet advanced. They hail from a planet with little to no oxygen. If this planet had electrical storms relatively frequently, could they harness the power of electrical energy before the thermal energy of fire?
Comment: Without fire, how can there be metallurgy? There might be alternative tech trees out there for particularly clever species, but electricity sort of implies conductive metal.
Comment: Without oxygen, complex life as we know it is impossible, and simple life is counterindicated (because simple life as we know it [created Earth's oxygen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event); O2 wasn't found in the primordial atmosphere). It may be worth thinking for a bit about what kind of aliens you expect to find there in the first place.
Comment: A fish might never see a fire, but they might see lightning.  "discover" is certainly vague and open-ended as to what that entails.  "harness the power of" - a shark might cruise around recent lightning strikes looking for stunned creatures that were at the surface at that moment that are now easier to catch.
Comment: Humans needed fire to get enough calories for our energy hungry brains.
Comment: @fectin Civilizations don't invent technologies to offer up as proof-of-concepts to Wikipedia editors "Look we did it, we invented electricity!". The inventions have to be practical... grass straw filled with salt-water isn't a conductor worth doing anything with. This stuff happens *prior* to the level of science which could benefit merely from the intellectual understanding and is arguably necessary for that level of science to even develop. You need metallurgy for this, or something totally fantastic like atomic-deposition. The latter stuff, if it's even possible, probably requires metals.
Comment: Without convenient oxidation (fire), you need a different way to create the safe, controllable, convenient heat required for refining many natural *substances* into useful *materials*. Else your aliens won't get far beyond shaping the rocks into arrowhead-equivalents.
Comment: @JohnO hm fair point. The planet has its fair share of metals, especially aluminum, but without a relatively pure conductor there is a bit of a wall there. I suppose if I were to stick to this idea, I'd need to find a way for them to have/come across pure metals somehow or figure out something more exotic. I actually have the aliens' ancestors being accidentally "seeded" by another, far more advanced race, so maybe they could leave some metals too.
Comment: @user535733 that's why I was thinking that "different way" could come from lightning. The problem, though, is how they're able to harness that without the ability to extract metals from ore. Something I have to think about if I want to keep this concept.
Comment: @Wyck I just meant intentional use, for energy.
Comment: We'd need to know a lot more about your planet to be able to assess this. Otherwise you're asking a too broad brainstorming prompt rather than a suitable question for this site.
Comment: @sphennings yeah that's fair. That is why I asked the question though—to figure out how such a concept could be workable. Perhaps I failed in asking the question; I should have asked "HOW could an alien civilization discover electricity before fire if their planet was lacking in significant oxygen". Apologies.
Comment: @sphennings I'd say [tag:science-based] probably just pushes this into answerable territory - as the comments indicate, the scientific answer to this is "no, this isn't plausible (beyond very crude versions of 'harness' or external help)".
Comment: @JohnO No. Metal is a convenient way to get electric currents; it is not the only way. For example, you could have grass straws full of salty water instead of wires. In fact, if you did have a weird alternate ion-based electricity, it would likely give you some weird alternate metal production paths (like early aluminum from sand).
Comment: @Cadence "Without oxygen, complex life **as we know it** is impossible".  More importantly, oxygen is reactive enough to be useful without being scary-reactive like chlorine or fluorine.   Also, non-carbon life has serious problems because other elements (like silicon) are either not reactive enough, or too reactive, or both at the same time.  Likewise, alternate solvents have all sorts of problem.  Bottom line: **there are solid "chemistry" reasons** why there are hydrocarbons **everywhere** in the Universe and why life evolved as it did on Earth.
Answer: Probably not
The problem with electricity is that to "harness" it you need something to conduct it. Traditionally, that's wire.
And the problem with wire is that you need metallurgy. And you can't use electricity to perform metallurgy without having the metallurgy first to get wires to conduct the electricity (you know, did Adam have a belly button? kind of problems).
And the problem with metallurgy is that it needs heat.
And heat needs either fire or electricity. Well, or chemistry. Maybe that's a path to success? Your people discovered a chemical means of creating heat before they discovered the ability to harness fire?
But that's stretching credulity because your lightning strikes are causing fire. Long before your people understood that the bright flashy thing in the sky could be used productively they'll be running from the bright hot stuff it leaves behind. And it's hard to believe they wouldn't look at that hot stuff first and think to themselves, "I wonder what the pig I just killed would taste like if I used a bit of that bright, hot stuff?"
But your planet has little to no free oxygen
And that means there's no fire left behind by the lightning. But there might be a problem with lightning, too.
In the worst case, lightning in a vacuum isn't visible. There's nothing there to ionize to create light. Oxygen is an obvious light creator because of the tragic Apollo 1 incident. But we live in an atmosphere with 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen.
If your atmosphere has little or no oxygen (no open flames!), what's taking its place? Let's assume it's mostly nitrogen. Check this out (Source):

That's ionized nitrogen (kinda what your lightning would look like! Cool, am I right?). Compare that to the more familiar ionized oxygen...

But I might be digressing. Nope, I'm digressing. As cool as lightning in a nearly all-nitrogen atmosphere would be, the reality is that you need a way to conduct it. Yes, salt water... graphite... but my problem all comes back to the need for heat in fundamental technologies that are required to harness lightning. If you think about it, you need heat just to make durable clay pots. Can't do that using lightning without conductors. And I can't think of any conductors that don't require heat to manufacture them (I'm pretty sure you can't make a Van de Graaff generator with salt water. Maybe if you had plastic or glass tubing... Argh! Need heat!).
So your real problem is how to get heat without fire so you can harness electricity.
TL;DR
Yes! You can do it, but only if you discover acids or other exothermic chemical reactions so you can develop metallurgy. Heat, my friend. All technology begins with heat.
Comment: +1 but you've been betrayed by a spell checker that has turned roughly half of your "lightning" into "lightening", and I'm pretty sure weight reduction is not what you're talking about
Comment: @KerrAvon2055 Dirty rotten spell checkers! One of my favorite cartoons portrayed Shakespeare typing on his cell phone, "To be or tomato." Thanks for the catch.
Comment: An oxygen-free planet would be just littered with iron all over the place, like Earth was before photosynthesis. Humans without metallurgy used meteoric iron for tools. (E.g. Cape York meteorite.) They didn't harness lightning, but... 21st century humans haven't harnessed lightning either.
Comment: Graphite is pretty good at conducting electricity, just saying ;) It might even be a pretty interesting setup to how their technology looks like if they have to rely on conductors that are so soft - instead of laying wires, they would have tubes full of graphite they'd spread on surfaces to create circuits...
Comment: @Luaan Ah, so the issue isn't that low-oxy worlds develop with more iron than high-oxy worlds - it's that high-oxy worlds are full of rust, making iron extraction more problematic (heat for smelting...). Gotcha.
Comment: @Luaan Don't get me wrong, I love the idea, but processing both the graphite and the tubes the graphite is in require heat. The conclusion I came to writing the answer is that a more fundamental heat source than electricity must always be found first. However, so long as that can be done, then it's possible to discover electricity before fire.
Comment: @DanielDarabos That's an interesting observation. While iron is a mediocre conductor of electricity, it will work for some applications. Can you cite a source explaining that an oxy-free atmosphere would always lead to an iron-rich mantle? I'm afraid I don't understand the chemistry well enough to know that conclusion to be universally true.
Comment: @JBH It's absolutely true that there was a huge amount of iron (and few iron oxides) on Earth before free oxygen... but it was dissolved in the oceans. I'm not sure if there's a reasonable way of extracting that iron.
Comment: @JBH Actually, I'd argue it's a _good_ thing that all that iron rusted - because it concentrated the iron from the oceans into deposits. Compare extracting dissolved iron from megatons of ocean water to digging a banded iron ore deposit (where you get something like 1t of iron per ~5t of ore). There are other ways to form iron ore deposits, but the vast majority of iron produced in the world comes from those banded iron ore deposits, which are all thought to come from the great oxygenation event precipitating the (now oxidised) iron from the oceans.
Comment: @JBH In general, I'd guess accessibility will always trump bulk composition. E.g., all the gold ever mined on Earth (and accessible to us) pales in comparison to how much gold there is on Earth total... but all that gold sunk to the core, most likely. That makes it completely inaccessible to any foreseeable technology. One of the things that makes iron so attractive in the first place is that it's _everywhere_ and very plentiful. It took a while for steel to have better properties than bronze - but bronze requires copper and tin (or e.g. asbestos), both rather rare, and not found together.
Comment: Sorry, I was hoping to make a confident statement and then get corrected. :) I couldn't actually find a source for how much iron littered Earth's surface back then. I guess we can look at the moon or Mars, neither of which seems to be covered in chunks of metal. I would expect them to have at least a lot of meteoric iron if nothing else, but can't find any supporting research.
Answer: They can develop some crude uses of lightning, but no more than that (and the aliens themselves may not even be possible...)
There are a number of issues to untangle here, but they mostly boil down to "exothermic oxidising reactions (fire) are really fundamental reactions."
I'll start with what should be possible:
The aliens can use lightning rods to get lightning to strike in a convenient place
It won't take long for them to realise that the flashy dangerous stuff tends to hit tall things first. Sooner or later, someone is going to try putting up a stick to get the lightning to hit it (based on what we know about earth-based intelligent life, this will either be a dare or to impress a female - likely both at the same time). Some time later, someone will start putting the other end of the stick somewhere it does something useful.
Applications I can see for this are heat (a corner of the cave that gets repeatedly struck by lightning could make a decent campfire substitute, even if it is going to be... exciting trying to cook safely there) and some form of electro-fishing or hunting. Cause a deliberate lightning strike in a river or over a xenorabbit burrow, wait for the fireworks to end, then collect your new precooked meals.
Pushing this too far means finding a good material for your lightning rods, though, which runs into the second issue:
Harnessing electricity in any major way means conductors, which means metal, which means smelting, which is really hard to separate from fire
Others have already mentioned that getting metals without heat is difficult, but there's a second layer to this as well. A lot of ores (and particularly the ones that are useful for a bronze- or iron-age-equivalent tech level) are oxides - that is, a combination of metal and oxygen atoms. Freeing the pure metal requires persuading the oxygen to go elsewhere, which essentially means getting it to react with something else instead (usually some form of carbon, and often carbon monoxide - which is easiest to produce using fire). For ores that aren't oxides, one of the primary processing methods is 'turn them into an oxide, then proceed as above.
This process can be summed up as "utilising a controlled fuel-and-oxygen reaction" - and it's really hard to come up with definitions such that 'these creatures have mastered controlled fuel-and-oxygen reactions' and 'these creatures have not mastered fire' can both be true simultaneously.
Incidentally, harnessing electricity probably also means batteries, which again mostly involve metals somewhere (see above).
There are some potential alternative chemical pathways here, if you wanted to substitute in chlorine or fluorine (or maybe even sulphur) chemistry for the oxygen - but that's why I said 'exothermic oxidising reaction' above as my definition of 'fire'. At the end of the day, it's going to be really hard (probably impossible) to find a realistic set of reactions that your aliens can use that doesn't have a version of 'fire' in there somewhere, even if it's a fluorine-metal fire instead of an oxygen-carbon one.
Which leads to the third question:
If your planet's environment doesn't support some kind of fire, it probably doesn't support intelligent life either
Humans, as well as basically all other non-photosynthesising life on earth, can be thought of as a really sophisticated form of fire - at least 'from a certain point of view'.
The reason I say that is that all of that life is powered by those same exothermic oxidising reactions I keep talking about.
If you want life, it needs an energy source. Photosynthesis is one, but it's low-output - there's a reason that plants just sit in one place and soak up the sun and all active species are using another energy source.
So for another energy source, we need some pair or set of substances that will react to produce an energy output - and there needs to be a substantial surplus energy over what is used to keep the reaction going, since that surplus is what powers the organism.
So if that's true, then we should be able to also bring those substances together and react them outside the organism - and 'chemical reaction that produces a substantial energy surplus' is awfully close to 'fire'.
The only one I can think of that might not qualify is something like a metal-acid reaction carried out entirely under the surface of a liquid - and even then, there's a reason we talk about acid burns...
Answer: It depends on what is meant by "discover".

Detect?
On a planet with a lot of storms, this is not a problem.
Use and create by yourself?
There are many creatures on our planet that can generate electricity on their own.
Assume its origin?
In ancient Greece, it was assumed that all matter consists of small particles, atoms, long before they were discovered.
Understanding of its origin?
If we talk about understanding the origin of electricity, then we can say with confidence that the fire was discovered in the XVIII century. (discovery of oxygen and combustion reaction)

Now in history, the discovery of fire by mankind is understood as its first creation by man on his own, at his own request. Therefore, I think that question and answer 2) is the most correct.
Answer: You don't need to get rid of all the oxygen to make it hard or impossible to start fires. So in response to some of the challenges of having no oxygen, perhaps the percentage of oxygen is low. On earth for example below about 16% oxygen you typically won't have a flame. But that might be sufficient for many forms of life.
Without fire - there could still be ingots of some metals gold for example that might be very precious, iron from meteors, but metals might not be unknown. Less corrosion and rust is probably a plus. As a stretch perhaps there are geothermal sources of heat that could be used as furnaces.
There could be a greater dependence on organic chemistries, growing or shaping materials by grinding. A lithic society where obsidian and flint/chert tools are much more common. Discovering how to make glass is tough without a source of heat, and air dried pottery is not strong. But if other chemistry technologies are developed, tree saps resins, natural rubbers perhaps hard pottery as we know it wouldn't be around, but bladders, skins other storage might be more common. It takes effort to shape stone, but depending on the geology some stones can be ground to high precision.
Discovering electricity might be inspired by trying to understand the frequent lightning storms, by noticing the sparking when you rub dissimilar materials together- also leading to the discovery of insulating and conducting materials. One can make electrostatic motors or generators. Discovering batteries would still be very reasonable.
The comment about graphite and carbon being conductive gives another type of condutor to work with. With out fire to make charcoal, maybe natural coal and graphite are more important as conductors instead of as fuel, until they discover how to increase the percentage of oxygen, then that might be a big surprise when things start burning easily. But at some point they may discover oxygen can make things burn easily, which would be a big innovation.
Comment: +1 for mentioning gold! It exists in fair amounts here on Earth, and if it's at least as common as it is here they have something to work with. It was one of the first metals to be used by humans, after all.
Answer: It can but you will have to cheat, somewhat. Give your people an organ that will create electricity like electric eel. This means they means they have a tame way of creating electricity at will. As they get smarter, they will find different uses for their electricity generation. There are different materials that conduct electricity, especially if the voltage is high enough.
After they pass a certain threshold in intellectual capacity, they might wonder if they could harness what looks like supercharged version of their zappy powers. They might think, if we can get it to this place, we can heat up tons of water instead of grams of it or heat their entire home instead of their palms.
Obviously, it might be possible for them to learn about fire earlier than they tame lightning but even with that, the first form of energy they control will be electrical rather than heat.
Answer: Maybe. Seems most Unlikely.
Electicity needs conductors, which are normally metals. Metals aren't found lying around in oxygenated atmospheres. To extract them from their ores, benerally requires fire. (Gold and copper are known in native form as minerals, but aren't abundant).
However, we know life existed on Earth before photosynthesis evolved (and when it did, life almost made itself extinct -- the great Oxygenation catastrophe). So, could anaerobic life take a different path to harvesting solar energy, that maintained a reducing atmosphere? In that environment, metals might easily be formed by biology. (It's believed that most if not all native Gold and Copper arises by the action of anaerobic bacteria here on Earth -- or rather, miles below the Earth).
We know very little about abiogenesis, and what other forms of life might be possible. Speculating wildly, maybe a world where as anaerobic life evolved to become multicellular, its equivalent of nerves was actually very fine filaments of a metal. Copper, perhaps. Insulated by a nonconductive biopolymer. Wires!
Perhaps the intelligent life that arises doesn't need to discover electricity as something non-biological, because their biology is more fundamentally electrical than ours? Or even, that evolution there used biological gunk as a stepping stone to bootstrap something that looks more like micro-electronics than life as we know it, even before intelligence arises?
Unlikely does not mean impossible. And in an infinite universe(?) anything that is not impossible by definition, will happen.
Answer: MAAAAYBE?
If the creatures just need to "get off the ground" with tool making, and some metallurgy to harness lightning. perhaps they could use geothermal to get to at least pottery? pottery/ceramics you can get some chemistry going. some metallurgy. Slow but steady.
As the OP said the race was seeded from a  more advanced race. Maybe they left behind a  touch stone, sort of a cookbook or encyclopedia how to surpass the fire barrier. Or just plain creativity, some metallurgy might be possible with a relatively calm  extrusive basalt type eruptions from volcanoes. Bonus, relatively pure unoxidized ores should be plentiful since there is no O2.
Answer: Cadence said it above.  Lots of free flowing imagining goes on that is a thought exercise, but these kind of questions should be addressed based on what we know about evolution on this planet since it is our only certain set of facts.  Understanding the formative power of habitats on earth is a logical approach to hypothesizing how something could evolve on another planet. How genetically unrelated organisms have evolved similar adaptations to similar environmental conditions on earth is a power lesson.  If you start with a limiting condition like lack of oxygen on another world, and that is all you are given, and going on imagining complex beings with technology, in itself is quite a leap.
Answer: Discover electricity for what benefit and up to which level of mastery?
Today's usage of electricity (lighting, heating, cooling, appliances and computers)* but at what stage would your civilisation be?
Basic Heat
Afterall it is often considered that humans controlled fires which were a side effects of lighting setting organic matter on fire after storms.
Here we need to assume beyond the low oxygen level (or any other local reason which prevents fire from being possible), we'd need something which helps funnel lighting energy.
One way analogous to circuit protection would be to have a PTC which would offer low resistance for lighting at first but then would heat up and keep the heat as electricity cannot flow somewhere else.
So could you store heat, electricity would have to flow through either a material or a plant that would have a positive temperature coefficient: something that increases resistance with temperature and surrounded with highly isolating material.
The trees could be of this sort while maybe the ground surface grass could be highly isolating.
So once stroke by lighting the trees would warm-up and if with a high thermal mass they could do the job (of course they could not be made of cellulose like trees on Earth)
Electricity storage
The fruit of those trees could be similar to leyden jars and be charged to high-level once stroke by lighting and the stem of those fruit being say the positive and the skin the negative of those batteries
Electricity Distribution without wires
Neurons can carry electricity and could be used for interconnecting entities.  Instead of calamars which were used for studying neurons at first and are rather rare on land, make one of the most prolific animals of your planet one with extremly long and hardy neurons, easy to harvest.
Next could be to weave them in for ever bigger wires, maybe your civilisation could find a spider with instead of high mechanical resistance (like on Earth) spins with a fibre with low electrical resistance. Weaving those together could give you wires for engines and then for machines.
Electricity for machines and Appliances
One a strong enough capacity for electricity distribution is available (wires of neurones or spider-like silk) building machines can be made fairly analogous to Earth.
Electricity for Computers
Making chips without having developped metalurgy might be difficult but maybe your civilisation could skip the transistor and start straight at the artificial neuron stage...
*

People use electricity for lighting, heating, cooling, and refrigeration and for operating appliances, computers, electronics, machinery, and public transportation systems. Total U.S. electricity consumption in 2021 was about 3.93 trillion kWh and 13 times greater than electricity use in 1950.` as per EIA web site


Can I blend cider and apple juice?

Question: Fairly new to cider making. I've made a gallon of cider from cooking apples, it's stopped bubbling and is still in the demijohn. The juice tasted great, but the cider is not amazing. I'm just wondering if I can blend some of the juice in when I bottle it so it's a bit more sweet and appley. How would I do this without causing exploding bottles, but still get a decent carbonation?
Answer: The bad news: it's not possible to get a carbonated sweet cider without kegging or forced carbonation.  The yeast is still active, so if you add juice at this point, the sugars in the added juice will just ferment and you're back to square one.
If you're okay with a non-carbonated (still) cider, there are methods of halting the yeast (campden tablets, pasteurization) and then you can back-sweeten with juice to taste.  If you can force carbonate, you're fine!
If you're okay with dry & carbonated, you can add the typical amount of sugars when you bottle, to bottle-condition & carbonate.  You might be able to get some more appley flavor if you prime using apple juice concentrate instead of sugar - note: I haven't tried this, but it should work.
The good news: a disappointing cider will often improve with aging.  I find my ciders often taste fairly harsh early on, but they mellow out after a few months.

Edit: Philippe makes an excellent point below - you can certainly add a non-fermentable sweetener!
Comment: It is possible to use a non-fermentable sweetener though.
Comment: Thanks, great advice. I already have one gallon bottled already this year so i may experiment with this one

Can I blend cider and apple juice?


What is the origin of images in design of scifi.se (icons, sprites, logo)?

Question: I found where accepted answer image comes from, but coundn't find the same information about other images.
Answer: Some information can be found in original questions about design

What should our logo and design look like once we are no longer in beta?
Design for Science Fiction & Fantasy

Particulary,

Badges are resembling the shape of Star Wars Rebel Alliance insignia.
Header image is the rune circle around the female warrior's silhouette.


Which Virtual machine is used in Android 11?

Question: Every Android application runs in a virtual machine. We know that Dalvik virtual machine \was the one that is used by Android.  Next, they changed to ART (Android Runtime machine). Just correct me if I am wrong. Android 11 uses which virtual machine, Dalvik or ART?
Comment: ART replaced Dalvik in Android 5. Dalvik VM is no more used.
Answer: Android 11 uses ART.  Android 4.x KitKat were the last Android releases to use Dalvik.
Comment: @Mdshammi111 You're welcome.  Glad to help.  BTW, Wikipedia has good articles on both Dalvik and ART, and the transition from one to the other.
Comment: Can u suggest to me some textbooks regarding the android source?
Comment: I'm sorry, but I do not currently know of any.  The source is available online, but I'm not aware of any textbooks that walk you through it.  Perhaps someone else will know of one.


Convert NFA to DFA

Question: Is there a unique DFA for every NFA or there are more than one DFA an NFA can be converted to?
I've read the algorithm for converting NFA to DFA.
Answer: You say you are familiar with the standard subset construction that turns an NFA into a DFA. Let's start from there. If you study some examples you may realize that the result is not optimal. By "trimming" you might obtain a "better" DFA that still is equivalent.
In the first example you see that not all sets in the construction are reachable from the initial state. Of course those states can be deleted without changing the language. (top NFA, bottom DFA, unreachable states grayed out in the figure)

In my second example all states are reachable, but there is a "cluster" of states at the end, all of them which are accepting (states that contain "F"). Those states can all be indentified. This will give you a smaller equivalent DFA.

Although there is no unique DFA for a given regular language, it turns out that there is a unique minimal DFA for the language. That is the topic of DFA minimization algorithms.
Answer: There is more than one DFA. Just add a useless state with transitions from it to the other states. With no way to reach this useless state, the new DFA will be equivalent.
There are in fact an infinite amount of equivalent DFA's.

Convert NFA to DFA


Under what circumstances would a University revoke a student's degree?

Question: Under what circumstances would a University revoke a student's undergraduate bachelor's degree if something was discovered after the degree was awarded, but actually happened when the student was still enrolled in the University?

Is there any examples of degrees being revoked? If so, what types of academic misconduct would justify this?
What types of alleged offences would be able to be proven after the fact?
Would the blame be placed on the University since it would have been beneficial for the student to remediate their situation to plan and still graduate at his/her desired date if it were addressed at the proper time?
Would a student be able to sue the University for something like this?

Question is kind of vague but any general insight is helpful.
This is asked in regards to a typical person doing an undergrad, not unique stories regarding celebrities and/or high-end people getting doctorate degrees revoked for non-academic reasons. Only purely academic and the steps/reasoning for why it happened, not just what the allegation was.
Thanks.
Comment: You've been asking a lot of questions along these lines lately. I think you're overly concerned about something that is relatively unlikely to happen.
Comment: Voting to close as duplicate. You really have asked this question numerous times in the past. Maybe you should talk to someone at your school if you're concerned about this.
Comment: The duplicate question is specifying actions taken _after_ the degree has been awarded. I asked the same question except I'm specifying the actions would have happened _before_ the degree was awarded but was _discovered after_ the degree was awarded.
Comment: I agree that this isn't a duplicate; the edits have made it clear that this question refers to actions taken prior to degree being awarded, not after, as the other question states. That said, I think the question is a no-brainer; *of course* you can lose your degree if it was obtained through misconduct.
Comment: Like, what are examples of academic misconduct situations in which they could prove it happened after the fact? I'd say that for certain things you have no circumstantial evidence unless it's addressed at the actual time the course was going on so that there's no confusion as to what circumstances were undergone at the time
Answer: I'm not going to answer all of your questions, some being duplicates, too broad or opinion-based.

Is there any examples of degrees being revoked? If so, what types of academic misconduct would justify this?

There have been spectacular examples of falling from grace.

Pal Schmitt resigned as President of Hungary after his doctorate was stripped by Semmelweis University on findings of plagiarism.
Former German Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg graduated summa cum laude from the University of Bayreuth in 2006 with a dissertation entitled "Constitution and Constitutional Treaty: Constitutional developments in the USA and EU." A finding of plagiarism led to his degree being revoked.

Most cases aren't as public, I think. In my university, the provision for a revocation of the degree is vested in the President of the University by the Trustees of the University. The policy allows for a revocation in the event that the degree was awarded in error or through fraud. The policy proceeds to list the criteria and processes to be followed. Fraud is defined broadly and includes conventional definitions of academic misconduct, but other acts as well. Finally, in the case of my university, there is a specific clause about the role of intentionality. In short, this is irrelevant to the decision. That is to say, one cannot base one's defense on the basis that there was no intention to commit fraud.
I expect that these policies vary between universities. I suggest checking with your university.
Comment: I was looking more toward examples of typical undergrads getting a bachelors revoked, not really high-profile people doing doctorates. I was wondering if it's more based on if the offence would have led to the student being suspended or expelled.

If it was minor with no bad intentions/misunderstanding and/or negligence on the University's part, then it would go unchanged or a minor mark reduction, etc. and not to go to the extent of retracting the whole degree, which seems extreme.


Is $y(t) = y(t-4)+x(t-4)$ time invariant or not?

Question: I want to check the time invariability of this recursively defined function
$$y(t) = y(t-4)+x(t-4)$$
We can check time invariability of functions expressed in terms of x(t), but I couldn't find anything for such recursively defined function.
In the book "Signals and System by A. Nagoorkani", we can test for time invariance as follow:

Delay the input signal by m units of time and determine the response of the system for this delayed input signal. Let this
response be y1(t).
Delay the response of the system for unshifted input by m unit of time. Let this delayed response by y2(t).
Check whether y1(t) = y2(t). If they are equal then the system is time invariant. Otherwise the system is time variant.

Following these steps, the delayed version of input signal is $$x((t-m)-4)$$ But what is its response (y1)? Is it
$$y(t-4) + x((t-m)-4)$$
$$\text{or}$$
$$y((t-m)-4) + x((t-m)-4)?$$
In other cases, we just shift the function $x(t)$ and leave all other terms as it is but the problem here is, the shifting of $x(t)$ may affect the $y(t)$ and so $y(t-4)$ as well. So, should I shift that term as well or keep it as it is?
Answer: Let's re-write your difference equation:
$$y(t) - y(t-4) = x(t-4)$$

Delaying the input gives the following difference equation for the output $y_1(t)$:$$y_1(t) - y_1(t-4) = x(t-m-4)$$
A delayed response to an input $x(t)$ gives
$$y(t-m) - y(t-m-4) = x(t-m-4)$$

From there you can see that $y_1(t)$ and $y(t-m)$ satisfy the same difference equation. The system is therefore indeed time-invariant.


Is there a way to legally extend the evaluation period?

Question: Is it possible to rearm Windows 8 evaluation copy when it is close to expiry of 90 days again and again after every three months?
Comment: Extending an evaluation period is not inherently piracy.
Answer: According to Windows 8 Forums and some blog, issuing slmgr -rearm on an elevated command prompt (Win+X,A) will reset your evaluation period to 90 days.
I just gave that a try in a VM. After a reboot it told me my licence is expired. But after another reboot, my evaluation period is reset to 90 days:
Comment: On previous versions you could only do this 3 times. I do believe the evaluation copy also has a *hard* limit on how long it can be used. I personally wouldn't consider this a long term solution.
Comment: Well,  the technical part of it is on topic, IMO, the ethical part (MS does allow this, right?) and business part of it is a whole another story. Just wanted to make it clear that its unlikely he could keep extending the evaluation period.
Comment: @JourneymanGeek - Who would consider an evaluation of an operating system that cost money a long term solution.  The evaluation is a short term solution to evaluate the product.  I am only being half serious by writting this comment.  In other words there isn't a long term solution to extending the evaluation of Windows 8 Enterprise, the only solution, is to purchase the product itself and reinstall.


Amazon EC2 instance-reboot on EBS backed instances

Question: I received notification that many of my EC2 instances will be rebooted for scheduled maintenance.  They are scheduled for an "instance-reboot," which makes sense because most of my instances are S3 backed.  However, I have EBS instances that are schedule for an "instance-reboot" as well.  It was my understanding that EBS instances are self contained because they are on EBS backed storage.  That said, why do my EBS instances require a "instance-reboot"?
Comment: Looks like you're correct, I looked at the earlier e-mail and that was indeed a `system-reboot`. The e-mail I got this time for the `instance-reboot` stated "One or more of your Amazon EC2 instances have been scheduled for a reboot in order to receive some patch updates." which sounds like it's for the EC2/VM tools on particular instances.
Answer: Amazon is upgrading EC2, and as such many EC2 instances must be rebooted, hence the "instance-reboot" status. You can reboot these instances yourself on your own schedule, or wait for the scheduled task to run. The reboot has nothing to do with the storage engine, but more about the kernels that are backing the virtual machines.