What was the original intended order of the episodes of Firefly?

Question: I know the Firefly episodes were originally aired out of the order that Joss Whedon intended, and that many fans think this contributed to the show's early cancellation.  Looking at Firefly on Netflix, I don't see an original air date for any of the episodes.

Serenity
The Train Job
Bushwhacked
Shindig
Safe
Our Mrs. Reynolds
Jaynestown
Out of Gas
Ariel
War Stories
Trash
The Message
Heart of Gold
Objects in Space

Is this list in order by air date, or is this the order the show's creator intended they be viewed?
Comment: I just learned (from the DVD commentary) that The Train Job was written with them knowing it would be the first episode to air. So technically The Train Job was also intended to be the "pilot".
Answer: That list matches the Wikipedia listing, which claims to be the originally intended order. Having seen them in that order myself, I can say it does make much more sense than the aired order would have.
Comment: In my experience, the order in which episodes air is not to be trusted. In the third and final season of seaQuest, for example, a major character dies in one episode and is magically alive again in a later one. NBC couldn't be bothered to air the episodes in order for some reason (probably because the show had been cancelled).
Comment: Production codes are for internal accounting. They may have something to do with the order they were filmed, produced, ordered, written, etc - not something the public is generally privy too.
Comment: I didn't realize there was also a 6 month break before the last few episodes aired.
Comment: Yep, it was cancelled with 3 episodes unaired, and those weren't aired at all in the USA before 2005. Unsure what country aired episodess 11-13 first, but it was probably Canada.
Comment: Don't recall that about seaQuest, but then again I don't remember if I even watched to the end. Not surprising though - aired order doesn't always fit, especially when a show is on the way out.
Comment: Why are the production-codes out of order on that list?
Comment: So basically what happened was they were intending for Serenity to be the first episode, even filmed it IIRC. Then the good folks of Fox decided "Hey westerns = train stories" and forced them to air that one first. However Serenity is and was always intended to be, the first episode of the series. (From the DVD commentary)
Answer: Wikipedia is wrong. That is the order of the DVD set, but the internal chronology of the later and originally-unaired episodes yields this order:
 1–10. Serenity through War Stories (as on the DVDs and Netflix)

Heart of Gold (#13 on the DVDs & Netflix) [Inara plans to leave Serenity]

Objects in Space (#14 on the DVDs & Netflix) [reveal of River's psi abilities; Mal & Inara talk about Inara's plans to leave]

Trash (#11 on the DVDs & Netflix) [the characters first make explicit reference to River's psi abilities: "Afraid we'll know", "I can kill you with my brain"]

The Message (#12 on the DVDs & Netflix) [further reference to River's psi abilities: "Mind-reading genius that can't eat an ice planet"; reference to theft of the Lassiter in Trash]

Aside from putting the pilot Serenity at the beginning, this is the same order as that of the production codes in Wikipedia's List of Firefly episodes. (Related to the production order: In interviews of composer Greg Edmonson, he mentions that the music for the funeral scene in The Message was intended as a goodbye for the show, since it was the last episode being worked on.)
On the other hand, Objects in Space has a more satisfying finish than the other episodes, so I conjecture that for the DVD release (when the show had been cancelled and the movie not yet planned), it was chosen to end the series.
Addendum. This is beyond the scope of the question, but here's the story order continued beyond the original series:

Serenity: Those Left Behind (collected comic #1) [story follows directly from the series]
Serenity (the Big Damn Movie)
Serenity: Better Days, and Other Stories (collected comic #2) [Most stories are in "comic book time" relative to the main plot: Book & Inara are still on the ship (hence before Those Left Behind) but River's abilities are known to the crew (hence after Objects in Space). The final story in the collected book is a follow-up to the movie, though.]
Serenity: The Shepherd's Tale (graphic novel #3) [takes place simultaneous with the movie, with flashbacks: Big Damn Spoilers; read after watching the movie]
Serenity: Leaves on the Wind (collected comic #4) [story follows directly from the movie]
Serenity: No Power in the 'Verse  (forthcoming)
Comment: You forget the events of "Safe", where she shows similar psychic abilities.  It's implied by Mal's line "Yeah, but she's our witch" that she's been doing minor stuff like that since she was unfrozen.  Additionally, the composer's note about "The Message" means nothing; episodes are sometimes produced out of order.  Just because it was the last one made doesn't mean it was intended to be last of the ones that did air.
Comment: Incorrect.  At the end of Heart of Gold, Inara makes the definitive decision to leave.  At the beginning of Objects in Space, she's contacting places she could go.  She leaves after that - those are the final two in the season, as in the other list.  It's also the strongest we've ever seen River's abilities in th series, as well as the best she's ever fit in (at the end of the episode) so it makes even more sense to be the last one.
Comment: [spoilers] I just rewatched the series with the last four episodes in this order, and it is _clearly_ wrong. Inara's behavior is confusing and nonsequitous with _Trash_ & _The Message_ coming after _Heart of Gold_: it wrongly implies that rather than leaving she will become another smuggler. The same is true, though less strongly, for the relationship between the crew and River with those two episodes moved after _Objects in Space_. The DVD order makes much more sense.
Comment: You're explaining the DVD order; if you see my answer, I explain it the same way. Nevertheless, _Trash_ & _The Message_ have conversations that only make sense after the characters learn of River's abilities in _Objects in Space_. Put it this way: If there had been a Season 2, the order of episodes would have been as I listed them.
Comment: In _Objects in Space_, her abilities are explicitly revealed, and everyone's reaction is "well, I knew _something_ was up". Only in _Trash_ and _The Message_ are these explicitly referred to by anyone. (No, "The girl is a witch" "Well she's our witch" does not count.)
Comment: And contrawise, the crew's knowledge of _specifics_ of River's abilities ("Afraid we'll know.") puts _Trash_ & _Message_ after _Objects_. But short of explicit [Word of God](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WordOfGod) on the subject, we're not likely to confince each other.
Comment: I think River's chat with Badger in "Shindig" is pretty good evidence that she's a mind reader, and almost everyone sees that.
Comment: We're agreeing that "Objects in Space" is after "Heart of Gold" and "The Message" is after "Trash"; however, Inara's insistence about leaving is why Heart and Objects are after Trash and Message.
Comment: Simon witnesses pretty unambiguous evidence of her mind-reading abilities in "Safe", when she reads the mind of the mute girl. We don't know how much Simon revealed about this incident to the rest of the crew. As Scott Hanson's answer suggests, you are probably right about Whedon's original intention since your answer fits production order, but I think this gives a plausible excuse for his retcon of the order.
Comment: Since no one else mentioned it, they already have the Lassiter in 'Heart of Gold', so that must come after 'Trash' in order to avoid a hard continuity error in the plot.
Comment: @BryKKan, the bad guy in _Heart of Gold_ uses a laser gun, but there's nothing connecting that to the Lassiter.
Answer: We're still talking about it Tom, because you are incorrect.
The Message is the last episode as originally intended. Not Objects in Space.
Objects in Space is the REVISED last episode, the revised order was created when they put together the DVD set, but was not the original chronological order.
Forget the Airdate order, that is completely screwed up.
But there are two other orders to consider
Production order, and DVD order.
The production Order is the original intended Order, and is the actual chronological order. Had Firefly never been cancelled, this is the order we would all know and accept as fact.
But Firefly was cancelled.
In putting together the DVD release, Joss Whedon REVISED the correct order and changed up a few episodes, placing "Objects In Space" last in place of "The Message".
He did this because "The Message" was quite literally... "too funereal" So much finality to it for the series itself, not just the character that died. But this is only because it was the final episode made before cancellation. Had the show continued, it would not have been an issue.
Joss chose to switch it up and place "Objects In Space" last because the ending was more upbeat. It had a sense that their stories and adventures continue even though the show itself does not. Again, this was not what was originally intended, but what Joss chose to alter it to when putting together the boxed DVD set.
Actual Production Order (and correct Chronology)

Serenity pt 1&2
Train Job
Bushwhacked
Shindig
Safe
Our Mrs Reynolds
Jaynestown
Out of Gas
Ariel
War Stories

Up til now, Both Production and DVD orders match... the remaining were altered for the DVD set...

Heart of Gold (DVD: Trash)
Objects in Space (DVD:The Message)
Trash (DVD: Heart of Gold)
The Message (DVD: Objects in Space)
Answer: In the special features of the Firefly box set, Joss Whendon tells the viewer that "The Message" was intended to be the last episode of the box set.
Answer: I have just rewatched the whole thing and thought Trash and the Message should show before Heart Of Gold and Object in space. Reason being they stole the Lassiter in Trash and Mal made a reference to it in The Message in the market with Inara (how they stole it as a team and fencing it) and also when he was talking to the corrupt Feds guy at the screen (to hand over his friend). After that comes Hearts Of Gold where Mal slept with the girl causing Inara deciding to leave and Objects In Space where they are discussing where she will go and at the end of it, she brushes Mal off (deciding she will leave) and she is gone in Serenity the movie.
As for River's abilities, it is littered throughout the show - talking to a deaf person, shooting the 3 guys, fooling Badger so it should not matter.
However, if Trash were to come after Object In Space, it would not make sense that Inara wants to leave in Object but then in Trash she was suddenly offering Mal tea and talking to him about not getting enough work for 3 weeks now.
Comment: Looks like a properly thought out answer! :)
Answer: Why we still talking about this?  Its easy.  In "Trash", they get the Lassiter.   In "The Message", Mal and Inara talk about where they can fence the Lassiter.  In neither of these shows is there any discussion about Inara leaving.  She makes that decision in "Heart of Gold", after Mal sleeps with another woman.  They then discuss this decision in the beginning of "Objects in Space."  Inara is devastated at this point.  She won't even let Mal touch her bruised lip at the end of the show.  "The Message" couldn't come after this.  Because that would mean "Trash" would have to come after as well.  Considering her state at the end of "Objects", how is she then going to be all light-hearted and taking part in the Lassiter caper?  No-- she's made her decision, and this is reflected in the next episode we see, the feature film "Serenity"-- where she is already off the ship and back at the training house.  Shiny.
Answer: I just watched the entire series in production order.  It does fit.  Those last two pairs of episodes can be switched out without much of a problem.
Referring to Inara, she mentions leaving in Heart Of Gold and Objects In Space, but doesn't specifically mention it in Trash and The Message.  In Trash, she talks to Mal about having some freedom to schedule some work again after months of a dry spell.  This doesn't invalidate her needing to leave as in Objects In Space she mentions looking for a place to leave to but doesn't know where.  So I see it as her needing to work while her plans to permanently leave remain tentative. At the end of Objects In Space, after that bounty hunter hit her, she has a moment with Mal that suggests that maybe her feelings linger for him, possibly postponing her immediacy to leave.
But switching the two pairs work either way, I think.  I feel Trash and The Message are the weakest episodes of the series and I can see how ending it with Heart Of Gold and Objects In Space gives it a stronger finish.
I would like to get more definitive info on this though.


TLS Handshake gets torn down

Question: I am trying to debug a TLS handshake between two SIP trunk endpoints: .75 and .82. Mutual authentication is being used.
.75 sends:

Client Hello
Certificate, Client Key Exchange
Certificate Verify, Change Cipher Spec, Encrypted Handshake Message
Encrypted Alert

.82 sends:

Server Hello, Certificate, Certificate Request, Server Hello Done
Change Cipher Spec, Encrypted Handshake Message
[FIN, ACK]

From the wireshark trace on .75, the details of the Encrypted Alert is:
Content Type: Alert (21)
How do I know what causes the failure from 82?
Answer: Your .75 machine (the client) sends an "encrypted alert" message. If it does that, then this machine, at that point, believes that the connection is still up and running, and the server will be able to receive the alert message, and in particular decrypt it. Otherwise, what would be the point of sending that message ? Therefore, it is probable that the FIN message from the server has been sent after receiving this alert. Quite possibly, the client sends an alert which triggers the connection closure, and the server reacts by closing the transport medium (the FIN packet).
Note that in a normal handshake, the server will wait for reception of the Finished message from the client (the "encrypted handshake message" after the Change Cipher Spec) before sending its own Change Cipher Spec and Finished. We see that here, so the server was able to process the Finished message from the client, including decryption, MAC verification and message contents.
Assuming that both implementations conform to the standard, the "encrypted alert" message is not a close_notify warning. A close_notify is an alert message which warns the recipient of the intention of the sender to gracefully terminate the connection. The recipient must then reply with a close_notify of its own, marking its acceptance of that fact. Here, the client sends an alert message but no alert message is sent in response by the server, so we might surmise that we are not witnessing a graceful termination with a pair of close_notify. Most plausibly, the client's alert is a fatal alert, which tells to the server that something is amiss, and that the connection is doomed. The server can then only close the transport medium because there is nothing else that it can do at that point.
There is no indication as to what bothered the client enough to make it send an alert; however, there are rather decisive indications that all cryptographic operations went well.
You may want to run two network captures on both systems, so that you may get precise timings for all packets; it helps in reconstructing the actual sequence of events.
Comment: Actually I may be confusing Content Type 21, which is Alert, with Alert Code 21. Is this case, I think the former is the correct, and therefore I dont know what Alert code was sent.
Comment: %s/close_notify_/close_notify`/
Nice analysis.
Comment: @Thomas, thank you for the response. I have edited the question to clarify the Alert was 21, which I understand is a fatal error: Decryption failed
Comment: The alert message is encrypted, so you cannot see its contents. The _message type_ (which is "handshake", "alert", "change_cipher_spec" or "application_data") is written in the record header, and that's what wireshark shows you; the contents (whether the alert is fatal or a warning, and the actual error code) are inaccessible to wireshark.

TLS Handshake gets torn down


"Slender" Column in bridge design

Question: I am currently designing a cable-stayed bridge and my design gave me a 45x50cm column. But now that I see my column's unsupported height is 7m. I checked for slenderness and it is of 93. Now, reviewing other designs of cable-stayed bridges, some similar to mine, having similar heights and dimentions, I checked them and all of them columns are slender. Checking for the minnimum height needed for my column based only on slenderness gave me a height of 1.17 m which is HUGE. Thinking about it, since the columns in cable stayed bridges are basically on equilibrium (or under small actions) I think slenderness can be, not neglected, but considered less important.
My point is, is it okay to keep a slender column in a cables stayed bridge?
Comment: Can you provide a side view of the bridge?
Comment: Cable bridges can be considered fairly stable under light loads only in the final constructed state. What will the loading look like during construction ? If you want to ensure balanced construction you'll need to load all spans equally during construction as well - otherwise your columns might not pass the buckling checks due to slenderness. Conversely, it may be impractical/too costly to load spans equally
Comment: Are the cables attached to the column in question only at the top? If not, the intermittent cables might actually support the column against the Euler type buckling.
Answer: You have to follow your local code, but just to get an idea of why the slenderness ratio and Euler's critical load are especially important for the design of columns in bridges compared to columns in buildings the following would help.
Bridges are usually uniquely located in the canyons that are the natural paths of high-velocity wind.
The deck of a bridge is vulnerable to vibration in certain winds and will start to resonate in unbounded growing magnitude which will create hard-to-predict loads on the structure and possibly explosive destruction.
Accidents can create traffic jams on the most critical part of the bridge and subject the columns to large push and pull moments, forcing the column to behave like a column constrained by a spring on top exposed to a forcing function (refer to the diagram below) traffic can randomly create the critical natural frequency of the bridge.
The following paper is a research on prismatic uniformly reinforced bridge columns. column slenderness design
'

"Slender" Column in bridge design


To manage xcode workspace

Question: I have few iphone applications which uses same classes. These applications run fine, but I face problem when I want to change something in apps, suppose I want to add one new feature to all of my applications. For this I need to do same changes in all the projects. So I want to create a master application, which will contain all common resources of applications in it. Each application will take the resources from master app and add more if it has something extra. Can I use workspace concept here? I don't know much about workspace or dependency management in workspace. Can anybody help me in this matter? Please. Thanks in advance.
Answer: A workspace is just one or more projects grouped together. One way that people solve the kind of problem you describe is to create a framework or library project that holds all the code you want to share between the projects. Then you can include this framework or library in the projects that build your various apps. You may find it easier to put everything together in one workspace or you may not depending on how complex your apps are and your work style. The options would look like:
Everything Together Workspace

Shared Library A Project

Shared Framework B Project

App C Project

App D Project

...
OR

App C Workspace

Shared Library A Project
Shared Framework B Project
App C Project

App D Workspace

Shared Library A Project
Shared Framework B Project
App D Project

The main disadvantage to putting everything together is that it can lead to quite a few projects, only a few of which you care about at any one time. In this case you select which particular app you want to build by selecting its project in the top left of the Xcode toolbar.
The main disadvantage to separating apps out into separate workspaces is that projects can only be opened in one workspace at a time. So if you want to make changes to App C and App D at the same time you will have errors if you open both workspaces at once since Shared Library A and Shared Framework B can only be open in one at once.
Splitting things out into logically related projects does gain you a lot of flexibility. On the other hand you pay the price in having to make top level configuration changes in each separate project. You can get around this using xcconfig files to store common configuration parameters for all your projects in one place. Rob Napier's describes how to do this in his blog on Using Xcconfig.

To manage xcode workspace


With 2-factor authentication, is a backup email address or phone a good recovery option?

Question: A lot of sites offer 5 or 10 recovery codes as the backup mechanism if the user loses access to their primary 2FA (usually a phone number). Can we just simply use a backup email address instead, or a backup phone number? After verifying their primary email and password, we would email/text their backup with a code that they have to verify. What are the pros and cons of this recovery method?
Answer: The whole point of 2FA is to require the second factor to login. Usually - password+token, in recovery situation - password+recovery key. Something you know + something you physically have.
If you can use secondary email as a recovery option for 2FA, the user account is protected by their password + the recovery email password, thereby defeating the goal of 2FA. The attacker will just go through the easier route.


Is there a way to make the mouse cursor easier to see?

Question: I keep losing my mouse cursor in big fights with lots of projectiles.  Is there a way to make the mouse cursor stand out more?
Answer: Yes, you can change the ThickMouseEdges property in the config.json file from false to true to make the cursor have a thick border around the mouse on screen.

You can find your config.json file under your My Games\Terraria folder in Windows.  The full path would be:
Windows
C:\Users\<USER_NAME>\Documents\My Games\Terraria\config.json
OSX
/Users/<USER_NAME>/Library/Application Support/Terraria/config.json
<USER_NAME> should of course be changed to your system's user name. Linux and OSX are currently in beta and I'm not sure where the Linux save configuration file is.
Comment: Could you show us how to find the config.json file?
Comment: @AngusAtkinson Yep, and I'll try to figure out where the files are on OSX and Linux
Comment: Just a note to anyone else coming here. If you see Terraria stuff in `~/My Games/` in Mac or Linux, delete it. It's a remnant from early beta and Terraria changed it's map/character/config location to the one listed in this answer. When it changed, the game left the files it created in `~/My Games` behind, but they aren't used anymore. Confused the crap out of me when trying to import/export my worlds.
Comment: Since v1.3.1, you can configure the mouse border (color, transparency) from the settings of the main menu.
Comment: honestly this isn't much improvement... the cursor went from tiny to slightly less tiny. I can change my Windows cursor to be HUGE, but it doesn't affect the Terraria cursor in the slightest!


Animate Object to appear 1 layer at a time

Question: I am trying to animate an object so that it appear gradually one layer at time as though it was being 3D printed - almost like a timelapse of the object print
Answer: The easiest way is probably the boolean modifier. Set it to difference or intersection, whichever works better for you. Then, create an object (probably a cube) that either cuts off the parts you don't want or just includes the parts of your object you want the camera to see. Then animate the cube to move upwards as slow or fast as you want it to move.
Obviously, set the cube to not be rendered.
Two downsides of this method: You need a clean topology, otherwise the boolean modifier might create awkward results. The more vertices your object has, the longer the first initialisation of each frame will be once you hit the render button and especially when editing. For a couple of hundred or thousand of vertices this is probably no concern though.
Another method might be to animate the camera's clipping. This will not create a filling face on the top, however. And the camera has to be on top of your "3d print". This method is very rudimentary in general.


GIMP: the closest thing to Photoshop's smart object?

Question: I've been learning GIMP as an alternative to Photoshop, which I haven't been using for design purposes for more than 5 years now. I discovered that there is a new interesting thing called the smart object in Photoshop. In GIMP, I haven't been able to figure out how to create that smart object.
What is the closest thing to Photoshop's smart object in GIMP?
Comment: There really isn't anything like smart objects in The GIMP. That's pretty much an Adobe invention.
Answer: I think that the closest are layers with different layer modes and layer masks, possibly combined with a clever layer tree structure.  In the future, GIMP will probably allow much more non-destructive editing when GEGL will be used in more areas.
Answer: If I undersdand it, the closest thing would be "not have it", or, have the original element in a "backup layer" (just a layer that you leave there and don't mess with it, nothing fancy), so, if you've made a destructive operation with the "dumb object", and it would be troublesome to restore it, you can always recover the original and do whatever. But if such smart objects can maintain "filters" and such things, that's simply no other way to emulate it other than redoing whatever you've done again. It's more a matter of having a certain (harder) workflow than a feature set approximation. :-/
I think Inkscape's objects are somewhat naturally "smarter" in this sense, since they're vectorial to begin with, and can be non-destructively edited but preserving effects/filters. It certainly won't be exactly the same with raster images you may use on it.


Is BBY40 a good substitute for MV209 in this RF receiver?

Question: VD1, indicated by the red circle in this
is a varactor diode and the suggestion given for the varactor diode in this manual is MV209. It seems to be outdated and so are many other components. How do I find good substitutes? Why is a varactor diode used here instead of a trimmer cap?
Answer: Yes. BBY40 looks pretty close. It's within spitting distance of the same capacitance at 3v and 25v, so go for it. It has the same max reverse voltage, so if the circuit doesn't damage the 209, it won't damage the BBY40. It has better leakage, and a specified series resistance, so as good or better all round.
Why a varactor rather than a trimmercap ? You can adjust it with the covers on, or remotely, without needing a screwdriver, or even automatically in an AFC loop. You could mount the voltage control pot on the front panel, and there's your tuning knob, with none of the pulleys and strings that you had in the old radios. It's smaller, cheaper, and more robust, so will survive washing.


how do i get the sequence of resulting data on the ibm quantum computers platform?

Question: I have been working on the ibm quantum computer platform, but i have faced a problem with the output. My circuit contains Hadamard gates and entanglement gate between two qubits. I want to get the sequence of output as [0,1,0,0,....], but they only show probabilities. How can i force the simulator to give me this sequence? Thank you in advance.
Comment: If i understand correctly, try get_memory() instead of get_counts() with the Result object. It returns an array with the lenght of the number of shots and contains the respective output of each shot as a String value e. g. ["0101","0111"].
Comment: Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you're asking.
Answer: It is possible to obtain the exact measurement output of each shot by setting the memory parameter as True when executing the circuit and then using get_memory() function on the obtained result instance. For instance, to obtain the measurement output of each shot when executing a circuit circ for 10 shots, you could use
exp = execute(qc, backend, shots=10, memory=True)
out_data = exp.result().get_memory()
print(out_data)


Why study Hopf Algebras?

Question: I'm looking for reasons that motivate the study of Hopf Algebra, like its applications in other branches of mathematics or maybe with physics. The first I've got is that they're interesting by themselves. But I'll want to motivate the undergaduate students and I'll like give them a vast vision of the matter.
Comment: @Mariano: While I agree that the teacher should have some motivation of their own, I disagree that other people's motivations are useless for teaching. I feel that it is one of the most important aspect of a lecture to point out links. Obviously, it will not be very useful if the link is to things one does not understand at all, but there may be examples that actually *remind* one of things one has already seen.
Comment: While somewhat jokingly, this is also a question I would normally reply when people ask me why study things as set theory: **Why not??**
Comment: Nothing will be a more convincing motivation that a description of why *you* are trying to have them study Hopf algebras. It is somewhat weak to give other people's motivations (that someone somewhere uses Hopf algebras to systematize the regularization process for Feynman integrals when they are not going to be doing that any time soon is not too exciting)
Comment: One cool application of Hopf algebras is to prove that: The de-Rham cohomology of a Lie Group is an exterior algebra on odd degree generators.
Answer: I know two-ish answers to this question.
Representation-theoretic: The category of representations of a group has both tensor products and duals, but the category of representations of a general algebra generally has neither (or at least there is no obvious way to define them). Since the category of representations of a group $G$ is equivalent to the category of representations of the algebra $k[G]$, this suggests that $k[G]$ is equipped with some extra structure.
What structure? Well, to define the tensor product, we use the fact that for a group element $g \in G$ acting on vector spaces $V, W$, the tensor product $g \otimes g$ acts on $V \otimes W$ and this defines a new representation. In fact this extends to a canonical map $k[G] \to k[G] \otimes k[G]$ given by extending $g \mapsto g \otimes g$, and it is this map which abstractly provides a notion of tensor product; it is the comultiplication in a bialgebra.
Similarly, to define the dual, we use the fact that for a group element $g \in G$ acting on a vector space $V$ the inverse $g^{-1}$ acts on $V^{\ast}$ and this defines a new representation. In fact we get another canonical map $k[G] \to k[G]$ given by extending $g \mapsto g^{-1}$, and it is this map which abstractly provides a notion of dual; it is the antipode in a Hopf algebra.
I believe these implications can be reversed; that is, if a linear category has both tensor products and duals, then under some mild assumptions it must be the category of representations of a Hopf algebra (possibly a weakened version thereof).
Category-theoretic: Let $k\text{-Alg}$ denote the category of (not necessarily commutative) $k$-algebras, and consider functors $k\text{-Alg} \to \text{Grp}$ which are representable in the sense that, after composition with the forgetful functor $\text{Grp} \to \text{Set}$, the resulting functor is representable. Such a functor is first of all represented by an algebra $H$, and moreover $\text{Hom}(H, A)$ has a canonical group structure in a way that is natural in $A$. More precisely, there are natural maps
$$\text{Hom}(H, A) \times \text{Hom}(H, A) \to \text{Hom}(H, A), \text{Hom}(H, A) \to \text{Hom}(H, A)$$
satisfying obvious requirements. By the Yoneda lemma, the above maps come from two natural maps
$$H \to H \otimes H, H \to H$$
which satisfy precisely the axioms for the comultiplication and antipode in a Hopf algebra. For this reason we say that Hopf algebras are cogroup objects in $k\text{-Alg}$.
This argument may be more digestible if we focus on commutative algebras. In that case, a representable functor can be thought of as an affine scheme, and a group-valued representable functor can be thought of as an group scheme. In other words, commutative Hopf algebras are precisely the rings of regular functions on affine group schemes.
More generally, Hopf algebras naturally occur as rings of functions of some kind on groups of some kind. This is morally the reason for their appearance in algebraic topology, e.g. as cohomology rings of H-spaces.
I understand that there are also Hopf algebras which naturally appear in combinatorics and that this has something to do with the more recent work linking Hopf algebras and Feynman diagrams, but I don't know too much about this.
Comment: This was the standard explanation until 1986.  In several of the more spectacular applications of quantum groups (e.g., knot invariants; associators for quasi-Hopf algebras and their relation to the absolute Galois group of Q) braided tensor categories appear.  Those are strictly more general than representation categories of Hopf algebras.
Answer: Before Drinfeld's work in the 1980s there was only marginal interest by mathematicians in general (noncommutative, noncocommutative) Hopf algebras, so it could be difficult to honestly interest students in the Hopf algebra axioms without mentioning quantum groups.
On this view the place to start is Drinfeld's ICM lecture and papers, or books on quantum groups, that discuss the eclectic relations to parts of physics and mathematics whose interest is more apparent.  Knot invariants; solution of integrable models from statistical mechanics; conceptual origin of 19th century q-analysis; lifting of non-quantum group representation theory in characteristic $p$ to characteristic $0$ (Lusztig); moduli spaces of curves and Gal($\bar{Q}/Q$) ; quantum cut-and-paste/diagrammatic topology and quantum field theory; symmetries of "noncommutative spaces".
Answer: They're (co)group-objects, for one.  That's always fun!
Answer: I think Qiaochu's answer is the best, but I thought that two topological reasons should be given. The first is that the Steenrod squares form a Hopf algebra, and their structure is one of the most important aspects of homology theory. The second is the diagrammatic interpretation of the axioms. Letting $\lambda$ denote the multiplication operator, and $Y$ denote the comultiplication operator, the axioms of the algebra and coalgebra are easy to see as duals: The diagrammatic for associativity $\lambda \circ (\lambda \otimes |)= \lambda \circ (| \otimes \lambda)$ converts to the coassociativity equation for Y by turning the diagram upside down.  (BTW) use vertical stacking for composition and right juxtaposition for $\otimes$. The diagrammatics of the axioms beg one to find topological applications such as Kuperberg, Hennings, etc. Also, a visual thinker can often find diagrammatic proofs of the main Hopf theorems.
Comment: Was the diagrammatic approach recognized before quantum groups (esp. before the Reshetikhin and Turaev paper on knot invariants)?  Sweedler's book uses algebraic notation.
Comment: @zyx I don't really know. I think the abstract tensor formalism begins with Penrose (and possibly Feynman), was popularized by Kauffman, but was only first used by G. Kuperberg in his dissertation. The Reshetikhin Turaev papers also played a role in this popularization. My best understanding of it is in terms of moving from structure constants, through summation notation, and tying indices together. Kauffman begins this in Knots and Physics. The other recipe that is important is a letter choice for the structure constants. $\lambda$ has 2 inputs and 1 output :-)

Why study Hopf Algebras?


How do the pricing structures of various bike sharing schemes compare?

Question: Many major cities now have bike sharing schemes, and each seems to have its own system of rates, designed to encourage shorter rides and quick returns; but it's hard to compare them. Is there a reference somewhere that draws direct comparisons among the pricing schemes for the major bike sharing systems?
Comment: This information could be invaluable for potential customers in deciding whether or not they want to support a shared-bicycle system.  It might even be a consideration for people considering moving to a new city (how expensive/viable is the transportation).  I live in Dublin, Ireland - they have something called 'DublinBikes' here.  Without a reference point, it is difficult to know if I'm supporting a good system with a fair price and quality service.
Comment: What problem do you have which the answer to this question solves? This is interesting, but how does this constitute [a practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face?](http://bicycles.stackexchange.com/faq#dontask) Are you planning a worldwide trip where you will rent bikes in each city?
Comment: Really? That's not a serious guess (or a very helpful one).
Comment: It was intended to be helpful only by pointing out that this kind of question is too subjective to be a good fit for bicycles.SE. We are more relaxed here than some other SE sites, but it still needs to be  practical, answerable question which solves a problem which you face, as stated in the FAQ I linked to above. I would vote to close, but if I do, your question will automatically be closed, and i wanted to give you the opportunity to explain the problem you are trying to solve, first. So, what problem are you trying to solve? Or to put it another way, where is the *practical* value here?
Comment: I was thinking that a thorough answer to the question asked by my town government in their consideration of participating in the extension of a a nearby bike sharing scheme was "practical".
Comment: I could see that, sort of, but it is more a fit for a discussion forum than a Q & A site, I think.  I don't want to just shut it down without feedback, though. Any other opinions?
Comment: Also, since you answered the question yourself, within hours of asking it, i guess you didn't really need to ask. I ave one VTC, plus myself. One more calls it.
Answer: A quick Google brought up This article. It shows a list of prices for bike sharing rates in 10 cities around the world.   It shows prices for various lengths of time that you can rent/borrow the bike for. In most places, the first 30 minutes (sometimes 45 minutes) are free, if you pay for a small yearly membership.
Comment: Pine Island, Minnesota has them all beat: Free on weekends.
Comment: Good link, but there are some bugs in the first two figures: they don't take the base plan cost into account, and the stack values that they mean to compare. I've gone and worked out some examples for a few plans.
Answer: All of the large cycle hire schemes offer several plans and for each, the cost of a ride depends on the length of the ride, as well as the number of rides during the period covered by the plan.
Assuming 2 rides on 24 hour pass, some example plans stack up like this, for rides of up to 2 hours:

Here and in subsequent figures, four systems are shown, London's, Boston's, New York's and Washington DC's, represented by the livery color used by each — light, Barclay's blue for London, Hubway green for Boston, dark "citi" blue for New York, and red for Washington DC. Solid lines are for single day plans, while thin dashed lines are for example annual plans, assuming 50 rides.
The first thing that's clear is that — not surprisingly — cost goes up with duration. The second is that plans have similar structures, in which costs go up in steps, typically at 30 minute intervals. More surprisingly, perhaps, is the significant difference in cost, with New York being most and London being least expensive.
This figure is a bit misleading though, since all of these systems are designed for short rides of generally less than 30 minutes, and certainly less than an hour. Focusing on these gives a better picture of actual scenarios:

Both if these figures though conceal a misconception about the pricing schemes that all of these systems use: that they discourage long rides. This is really only partly true, and only true, as it were, "in steps", as one can clearly see by looking at the cost per minute, for "rides" of up to 24 hours:

Here, some odd features are exposed, notably the leveling off of cost per minute, the jump in average cost in London (from being cheapest, to matching New York's most expensive), and the long decline in some cities.
Again, it's most useful to focus on short rides:

Over this range the outstanding feature is the rise and fall of per minute cost, the initially very high cost per minute, and, again, the large difference in cost between systems.


On-Board Diagnostics (OBD) Readiness Monitors

Question: I would like to know how does apps like Torque calculate if my car (Hyundai i10 Era) is 'Not ready' yet? What are the factors (complete list) do one checks to decide? Is there any formula to calculate readiness (which I guess, there is none)
Answer: There are not calculations. The car has a list of PIDs that the tool checks.
The readiness monitors are a set of tests that the car runs including but not limited to EVAP, EGR, CATALIST, O2, FUEL, COMPREHENSIVE. When the codes in a car are cleared all the PID values for the monitors are cleared. As the car completes and passes the necessary tests it will set the PID values to pass.
The scan tool or App does nothing other than just reads the values.
Comment: @SoumyaSen I use a scan tool that sorts and displays the data for me. I never manually pull the data manually.
Comment: Can you please tell me which PIDs to hit for this
Comment: Can you please give me any reference where I can find the list of tests to perform to check whether my car is ready.... An exhaustive list


Is it possible to grind down river rock

Question: The river rock floor that was installed in my shower has some areas that can be uncomfortable on the feet where the rocks are somewhat pointy. Any ideas on if it's possible to grind these pointy areas down? I was thinking of using a diamond grinding cup on an angle grinder. But I'm also thinking this could go horribly wrong if it yanks rocks out of the floor and sends them crashing into the tile. Any hope for this?
Answer: By coincidence, I saw a video just the other day of an artist who takes river rocks and grinds decorations into them with a Dremel tool and a diamond bit.  So yes, they can be ground down.
An angle grinder with a diamond grinding cup would do it, but like you said, it may dislodge stones.  A safer (but slower) approach is to use a Dremel tool with a diamond bit (like a drum or disk).  Feel around the surface for pointy areas and just smooth those spots.  The stones look polished (unless that's just a shiny sealant).  You can repolish the ground surfaces by using successively finer polishing disks (sets are sold for touching up granite counter tops; you can find them at large hardware stores or places like Amazon).
BTW, the grinding will produce a lot of stone dust.  Seal the drain so you don't clog it up.  Wear goggles and a dust mask.  The dust will be extremely fine, so clean it up with either damp rags or a vacuum with very fine filtration, like a HEPA vac.  A vacuum with a regular collection bag is likely to blow the dust out the exhaust.
Comment: Not just any old dust mask, either. Use a properly fitting half face with a P100 filter. Mask off as much of the rest of your house as possible with dust barriers. I'd protect the walls with plywood and skip the dremel because I (personally) wouldn't want to prolong a slightly miserable job.
Comment: @AloysiusDefenestrate, the dust was another reason for recommending a Dremel tool.  I've done several stone and concrete cutting or grinding jobs with an angle grinder and diamond cup or disk.  You're right, it generates tons of dust; clouds that get everywhere.  I'm still cleaning up my basement a year later from dust generated in a couple of minutes in one corner. We covered everything in plastic and the dust still got into every nook and cranny of the entire basement.  I completely sealed a room with plastic before cutting a marble table.  (cont'd)
Comment: Every surface in the room was caked in dust and some dust found a way out.  The stuff is extremely fine and stays airborne for a very long time.  A Dremel tool generates far less dust, and it doesn't travel nearly as far.  The grinding time will be longer, but there's much less prep and cleanup time (the miserable part of the job for me).
Comment: Good ideas all around! I found several options for 5" polishing discs but all are limited to 4500RPM and my angle grinder is not variable speed and operates around 11K. I'll look into renting something. I'm definitely going to completely seal the shower area to keep the dust down and also probably wet polish to help. Why do I have to seal the drain? I was planning on washing all the dust down the drain.
Comment: The dust is extremely fine sand.  The individual dry particles will float around in the air.  But when wet, it clumps together in a very dense mass.  It can also absorb soap and other things that go down the drain, and mineral concentrations from the water, that can act like a binder, turning it into something that resembles concrete.  It will collect at bends or traps in the pipe, creating a plug.  It will snare and build up hair and become an ongoing maintenance problem.  So it isn't stuff you want to dispose of in your drains.
Answer: Yes, many commercial floors are made that way and a couple homes in my neighborhood. My guess is that is not a job for homeowner equipment; maybe rental equipment.

Is it possible to grind down river rock


Regression with time series data

Question: I want to predict temperature when time (datetime type, hourly data for five months) and humidity is given. Before starting in python, I created a regression model in excel. But instead of predicting temperature, it gives date as an answer. On looking up the internet, I found that one can not do regression with datetime format. So some sources I looked upon have used datetime.toordinal() to convert dates to numerical Gregorian value. But my problem has date and time together. Will this method work with time too? If yes, how does it convert datetime? I need an efficient way to deal with datetime here, since it is vital in predicting the temperature being highly dynamic.
Comment: With temperature, yearly seasonality is to be expected. 5 months does not cover an entire year. There is a good chance your prediction model will not generalize outside of the 5 months of data that you have. Especially if the range of temperatures can be expected to be outside that of the dataset.
Answer: In order to run this regression you will have to encode the datatime column to a format a regressor can understand. When the granularity is large (e.g. daily or more) it can be done by simply adding an incrementing number to a 'time' column.  A more rigorous way would be to extract features from the date, such as hour, day, and month. You can read more in this answer.
Note that as Jon stated, your model will not generalize well if there is a seasonal component to it.

Regression with time series data


Any ideas for an indoor real, climbable, tree or plant for a cat?

Question: I live in the UK and we have the full gamut of seasons. From freezing January to sweltering August and as my flat faces South, plenty of sun from May to September.
It must be something she can climb.
Comment: If you happen to buy something, make sure it is not poisonous for your cat. A friend of mine had a smaller palm type of plant and her cat got sick from chewing on the leaves
Answer: Do some shopping around! I'm not sure what your budget is or how much you're willing to spend, but real indoor cat trees -- quality ones -- tend to run upwards of $100.
Good luck!
Answer: While you probably won't be able to grow a tree inside that's big enough for your cat, you could go for a substitute instead. I had a friend when I was younger who had an enormous branch in her house for her cat to climb around on. It was set at an angle, so it wasn't straight up and down, but leaned against the wall and gave the cat fun places to perch. She even built a few platforms into it where the cat could lounge.
Any large hardwood branch should work for this, just make sure it's not weak in any places before you bring it in.
Easier still would be a store-bought carpeted cat tree.
Answer: It sounds like you're asking about a live plant that your cat can climb into. I don't think you're going to find anything. The reason being, that no matter how bright the inside of your house is, you most likely won't have enough light or space for a tree to grow to a thickness that can support the weight of your cat climbing through it. Outside of a mall, I doubt you've ever see shrubbery that big inside of a residence. I know I haven't.
However, if you simply want your cat to have access to living plants, you could get a regular cat tree and simply place plants at the base and even in the tree. They also have cat trees that simulate real trees. I think that will be the best option to achieve what you want.
I simply don't think an indoor tree is going to get much more than broom handle thick. Which won't support the weight of a cat.


How to import only specific methods or classes in dart/flutter module

Question: I want to import only the classes/methods I am interested in, not the entire module. I am looking for the dart equivalent of the python statement from module import method/class or the equivalent of import module.method
Answer: Background

Two days into my Flutter Journey, I faced a challenge with my android
  app's limitation on the number of methods that can be imported. This
  error is called 64K error. One of the suggestions the android team
  gives to avoid this error is to avoid importing unnecessary methods
  into the app.
So I needed to selectively import only the methods and classes I need
  and not the entire module. I couldn't find a way out so I came here on
  SO to find one but couldn't find any outright. So I made own question.
  Only after that did the automated system find a similar question which
  accurately answers the question. The Problem is that, wording of the
  question makes it not so easy to find. So I am making this post with a
  better title that hopefully will make it easy for others to find in
  the future.

Answer
So you want to import just one or two of the many methods/classes in the package or module?
use the usual import format and add show followed by a comma-separated list of the methods you want.
Example:
import 'package:packageName/filename.dart' show class1, class2, method1;

But this method is useful if the you want a very small number of methods from the package.
Rather, if the number of methods you need is many you can't list all of them out. However, if you know which ones you don't need then you can excluded them using the same format but replace show with hide and list out those you don't need;
import 'package:packageName/filename.dart' hide class1, class2, method1;

I hope this answer helps someone;
Comment: I was able to use this for `export` also. I have an enum, `MyEnum`, in it's own file with some other enums, "myenum.dart". I have a class, `MyClass` in "myclass.dart". `MyClass` uses `MyEnum` for the constructor and for methods which means that when I want to use `MyClass`, I would normally also need to include both "myclass.dart" and "myenum.dart" in the file where it's being utilized. However, by adding the following line to my "myclass.dart" file, I was able to expose `MyEnum` to any file that uses `MyClass`. `export 'package:my_project/const/myenum.dart' show MyEnum;`


What's the most efficient way to check for duplicates in an array of data using Perl?

Question: I need to see if there are duplicates in an array of strings, what's the most time-efficient way of doing it?
Answer: One of the things I love about Perl is it's ability to almost read like English. It just sort of makes sense.
use strict;
use warnings;

my @array = qw/yes no maybe true false false perhaps no/;

my %seen;

foreach my $string (@array) {

    next unless $seen{$string}++;
    print "'$string' is duplicated.\n";
}

Output

'false' is duplicated.
'no' is duplicated.
Answer: Turning the array into a hash is the fastest way [O(n)], though its memory inefficient.  Using a for loop is a bit faster than grep, but I'm not sure why.
#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

my %count;
my %dups;
for(@array) {
    $dups{$_}++ if $count{$_}++;
}

A memory efficient way is to sort the array in place and iterate through it looking for equal and adjacent entries.
# not exactly sort in place, but Perl does a decent job optimizing it
@array = sort @array;

my $last;
my %dups;
for my $entry (@array) {
    $dups{$entry}++ if defined $last and $entry eq $last;
    $last = $entry;
}

This is nlogn speed, because of the sort, but only needs to store the duplicates rather than a second copy of the data in %count.  Worst case memory usage is still O(n) (when everything is duplicated) but if your array is large and there's not a lot of duplicates you'll win.
Theory aside, benchmarking shows the latter starts to lose on large arrays (like over a million) with a high percentage of duplicates.
Comment: Thanks for the thorough answer! I was doing it latter way now, but memory is not a concern, only time, so I'm definitely going to reimplement it as a hash.
Answer: If you need the uniquified array anyway, it is fastest to use the heavily-optimized library List::MoreUtils, and then compare the result to the original:
use strict;
use warnings;
use List::MoreUtils 'uniq';

my @array = qw(1 1 2 3 fibonacci!);
my @array_uniq = uniq @array;
print ((scalar(@array) == scalar(@array_uniq)) ? "no dupes" : "dupes") . " found!\n";

Or if the list is large and you want to bail as soon as a duplicate entry is found, use a hash:
my %uniq_elements;
foreach my $element (@array)
{
    die "dupe found!" if $uniq_elements{$element}++;
}

Answer: Create a hash or a set or use a collections.Counter().
As you encounter each string/input check to see if there's an instance of that in the hash.  If so, it's a duplicate (do whatever you want about those).  Otherwise add a value (such as, oh, say, the numeral one) to the hash, using the string as the key.
Example (using Python collections.Counter):
#!python
import collections
counts = collections.Counter(mylist)
uniq = [i for i,c in counts.iteritems() if c==1]
dupes = [i for i, c in counts.iteritems() if c>1]

These Counters are built around dictionaries (Pythons name for hashed mapping collections).
This is time efficient because hash keys are indexed.  In most cases the lookup and insertion time for keys is done in near constant time.  (In fact Perl "hashes" are so-called because they are implemented using an algorithmic trick called "hashing" --- a sort of checksum chosen for its extremely low probability of collision when fed arbitrary inputs).
If you initialize values to integers, starting with 1, then you can increment each value as you find its key already in the hash.  This is just about the most efficient general purpose means of counting strings.
Answer: Not a direct answer, but this will return an array without duplicates:
#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

my @arr = ('a','a','a','b','b','c');
my %count;
my @arr_no_dups = grep { !$count{$_}++ } @arr;

print @arr_no_dups, "\n";

Comment: `my $dupes_found = !! grep { $_ > 1 } values %count;` and a more efficient test would be using [`first`](http://p3rl.org/List::Util) rather than `grep`. Actually even `my $dupes_found = @arr == @arr_no_dupes;` should work.
Answer: Please don't ask about the most time efficient way to do something unless you have some specific requirements, such as "I have to dedupe a list of 100,000 integers in under a second."  Otherwise, you're worrying about how long something takes for no reason.
Comment: Maybe the OP was just curious (though I agree that it's not worth worrying over unless it's been demonstrated to be a bottleneck). At any rate, this should have been a comment on the question rather than an answer.
Answer: similar to @Schwern's second solution, but checks for duplicates a little earlier from within the comparison function of sort:
use strict;
use warnings;

@_ = sort { print "dup = $a$/" if $a eq $b; $a cmp $b } @ARGV;

it won't be as fast as the hashing solutions, but it requires less memory and is pretty darn cute


I want to get all of the allowed values of a field

Question: Let's say I have a field in Drupal called resource_type, and I wanted to get all allowed values. Is there any easy way to do this with a command, or do I have to do a database query? I'm not seeing anything specifically that would make this easy.
Answer: For list type field you can use list_allowed_values function , You can also use field_info_field($field_name) for more details about field.
$my_field = field_info_field('field_resource_type');
$allowed_values= list_allowed_values($my_field);

Comment: Hrm, when I am using list_allowed_values, it keeps giving me a "cannot use string offset as array" error. My syntax is as follows:

$list_allowed = list_allowed_values("field_resource_type");
Comment: Can you try Updated solution ?


When is an ideology a religion and not just philosophy, or a way of living?

Question: When does an ideology become a religion rather than just philosophy (which is just a way of living)? Does each has any specific definition? or it depends upon person to person perception?
Comment: Is this just a question about English language, that you might ask on [English.SE](https://english.stackexchange.com/)?
Comment: @ChrisW I think that this question can be addressed specifically in the context of Buddhism and this site, as Dhammadhatu has. In fact, I wish it was made clearer to people that Buddhism is NOT a religion or philosophy, but actually the antidote to being enthralled by those. Such an answer is directly applicable to this site, not merely about definitions. In my opinion.
Comment: I believe this is in essence a duplicate of many questions on whether Buddhism is philosophy or religion.
Answer: Buddhism is not ideology, not religion, not philosophy and not even a way of life.
Instead, Buddhism is a methodology that ends suffering & problems.
In MN 29, while Buddhism is described as the 'holy way of life', it is made clear this way of life has one goal & purpose, namely, 'the unshakeable freedom of mind'.
Such a methodology becomes ideology, religion &/or philosophy when it is not practised and therefore the results of its practise are not understood.
In addition, it becomes ideology, religion &/or philosophy when it starts to emphasise ideas such as reincarnation, which serve certain mutual worldly interests of monks & laypeople.
Answer: An "ideology" is a system of ideas (on any topic, but often used in the context of "political ideology"). Buddhism is an ideology, but it's more than just an ideology: e.g. Dhammadhatu said it's also a "methodology".
I think an essential characteristic of "religion" is obligation (e.g. "you are obliged to pray because God commands you to"). Buddhism can seem like or be interpreted as a religion (e.g. "you are obliged to believe and to accept, to have faith in, everything that's written in the suttas"). But some people don't interpret it like that, and might instead say something like, "I accept (only) what makes sense to me", or "I choose to practice this or that for my benefit", instead of seeing it as obligation i.e. as a religion.
I don't know how to define philosophy or way of living ... with my background I might also be inclined to call it a science, which is a form of knowledge.
This comment said, "I wish it was made clearer to people that Buddhism is NOT a religion or philosophy, but actually the antidote to being enthralled by those".
Answer: I was thinking about this. I don't know if all ideologies are bad, but for me I'm starting to think of Buddhism as an alternative. Alternative to an endless need to dominate others (or even just nature), and to exploiting others for wealth and sex. I'm sure I'm not alone in linking "enlightenment" to autonomy (John Cage was a zen Buddhist, I believe). If it's an ideology, then I think it's one that is negative, is against things rather than for something like nationalism is, for example.
I mean obviously it is also a religion, but maybe that works even in today's atheistic world.


What's the purpose of sitting down in Fallout 3?

Question: The Capital Wasteland is full of chairs, benches and other items that give you the option to sit down.  Is there any in-game situation in which it's better to sit than to stand or crouch?  For example, does sitting increase one or more of your stats?  Or is the option just presented to make the game more realistic?
Answer: There's no gameplay purpose to sitting down. It's purely for the purposes of immersion/roleplaying/atmosphere, and for taking nice screenshots.
Answer: It's useful only in the very beginning of the game to take the G.O.A.T test.
For the rest of the game is only for fun (not too much though) :)
Comment: There was another place later in the game, in a particular vault under a garage, where it was necessary to sit somewhere in order to progress the plot. (I wouldn't have noticed except that I was curious about whether sitting down had any further use, after seeing this question!)
Comment: Oh, good call!  I forgot about that; after my first game, I started skipping the test altogether.
Answer: I sat before talking to the ghoul in the mansion at Point Lookout and he commented on how it was polite to sit.
Answer: No purpose except to rest those pixels after a long day of killin stuff in the wasteland!


Speech Dataset for Spanish ASR

Question: We are building ASR system for native spanish language. We are looking for the spanish speech datasets to train our model. If anyone can provide the links/sources of spanish speech datasets(paid/free) it would be very useful.
Answer: Have a look at the Common Voice project from Mozilla. They have an open source dataset of multiple languages, Spanish currently has 324 hours of validated speech data (out of 579 total). You can download the dataset for Spanish and other languages at https://commonvoice.mozilla.org/en/datasets.

Speech Dataset for Spanish ASR


How would I wrap a texture around a cylinder without it looking off?

Question: Im making a chrome exhaust muffler for a racing game but when I try to texture it, i get this ugly line going down the center and when I look at the uv map it seems that one side of the texture is jumping to the other side of the surface, if that makes sense so it looks very off. How would I fix this?
Answer: This is because your texture is not "seamless" mainly due to the reflective shine in the middle:

You need a seamless texture and then bake the shine on it if you need it on the texture.
Something like these: https://naldzgraphics.net/free-seamless-metal-textures/
But since you said it was for a game, you'd have to make sure the textures are allowed for use in games and not just personal use.
Alternatively, you could look into "Procedurally Generated Textures" there are lots of tutorials on it. This is a great way to generate seamless textures without the worry of copyright.


Files are hidden after reinstalling OS X

Question: I have an imac which is about 5 or 6 years old. I had been running Leopard on it but my iphoto quit working so I reinstalled the OS X that came with the computer. Although it shows 366 GB are used on my hard drive I can't see any files. How do I restore my computer to where it was? Time machine shows no back up.
Answer: One way to do this is to open your hard drive (not your user home folder).
In that window you should see all users on your computer. The one with home icon is the main user folder.
Also you could run this in terminal to unhide the folders/files
<code>sudo chflags nohidden /Users
</code>


How are 10-20 digit multiperfect and hemiperfect numbers efficiently computed?

Question: This numericana item on multiperfect and hemiperfect numbers contains some impressively enormous numbers.  How were these actually computed ?  The associated OEIS pages (A007691 & A159907) just give brute force code which (at least briefly playing with PARI) isn't going to scale up beyond $10^{10}$ or so on sane timescales.  This suggests there's some ways of doing it more efficiently (any links or tips?)... or is this what supercomputers are for?
Answer: You can use the fact that the sum of divisors function is multiplicative.  We have that $\sigma(p^n)=\frac {p^{n+1}-1}{p-1}$ for $p$ prime and $\sigma(rs)=\sigma(r)\sigma(s)$ for $r$ coprime to $s$.  So you look for combinations of prime powers that cancel off the denominators.  You need lots of prime factors, which therefore need to be pretty small, so you can ignore a lot of numbers.
Comment: Indeed.  Having now solved a Project Euler problem involving such numbers, it's quite surprising how small the contributing factors remain.
Answer: Some answers can be found in Ron Sorli's thesis at http://hdl.handle.net/2100/275.


Does virtual inheritance increase the size of derived class?

Question:
Possible Duplicate:
object size with virtual

Does virtual inheritance change the size of the derived class? I executed the following code, where I have two derived classes one virtually inherited and the other non virtually inherited:
<code>class A {
 public:
int a;
  virtual void a1();
};

class non_vir_der: public A{
 public:
int c;
  virtual void aa();
};

class vir_der: public virtual A{
public:
int d;
virtual void bb();
};

int main()
{
cout<<sizeof(non_vir_der)<<"\n";
cout<<sizeof(vir_der)<<"\n";
return 0;
}
</code>

output:
12 (imo: 4(int a)+ 4(int c)+ 4(vir ptr))
16 (extra 4?)
to check again if i had missed something, i tried the minimum code required, by deleting all ints in the classes and the output was:
4
4
the second output indicates that the two derived classes are of same size.
Why is the size of vir_der 16 in the first run, why is it not 12?
Answer: This behavior is completely implementation-specific and there are no guarantees about what will happen.  That said, most compilers implement virtual inheritance by having a single copy of the base class lying around, then having each instance of the derived class store a pointer inside its class body that points to that one unique instance.  That way, if you cast the object to its virtual base, the compiler can emit code to find out where that object is.  On a 32-bit system, this means that virtual inheritance might increase the size of the object by four bytes, as you've observed.
So why is there no difference if there are no data members?  I'm not sure, but I'm guessing that this is because the compiler is smart enough to realize that if you have a virtual base class with no data members, you don't ever actually need to access anything contained within it.  Consequently, the object can be optimized by eliminating the extra pointer to the virtual base, since there's never a way that it could be accessed.  I could be wrong about this, though.
Hope this helps!
Answer: Basically,when you declare a function or class virtual,the compiler instantiates a virtual
pointer which is required in case of UPCASTING .Actually,a virtual pointer table is created
where all virtual instances are stored with their actual address .Thus,when you inherited
virtual class in 2nd case ,an extra *vptr got created.
Now the second case, why is that 4 in both cases...That's completely compiler specific.
It should have been 1 in 1st case and 4 in 2nd case according to simple logic.
Thanx


How can I disable Windows Defender using the command line?

Question: I am looking for a way to disable Windows Defender on Windows 8/8.1/10 using the command line. Everything I've found so far has involved using a GUI at some point, and this isn't useful for a process I am looking to automate using a script. Thanks in advance.
Comment: @Moab I did see that one, but I need a way to do it using the command line, preferably without batch files or similar.
Comment: A batch file is nothing more than a bunch commands for the command prompt, the reason you use a batch file is because there is too many commands to do it manually for what you want to do.
Answer: The easiest way to do this would be to use PowerShell to disable it, the command you probably want is this:
<code>Set-MpPreference -DisableRealtimeMonitoring $true
</code>
For an article on using PowerShell to disable/enable Windows Defender check here: http://wmug.co.uk/wmug/b/pwin/archive/2015/05/12/quickly-disable-windows-defender-on-windows-10-using-powershell
Here is the TechNet article for a more detailed look at available defender cmdlets: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn433280.aspx
Comment: Thanks for the links. I guess I missed those in my searching.
Comment: @AWarnock Absolutely! Let me know if you need any more information in order to mark this as the accepted answer.
Comment: You must use PowerShell (Command prompt)


Add Chart to Joined report

Question: Is it possible to add chart in Joined report? I tried to do this but the chart is not visible when running the Report.
Comment: It sounds like you've already added the report. Is the report not showing or is it empty? Can you provide a screenshot to help explain the problem?
Comment: So does that mean you could add the chart but it just doesn't render?  Can you tell us more about the report and chart.  I've added bar charts to joined reports without problem.
Comment: did you check if  the report displayed at the bottom or top of the report?
Answer: From Chapter 10 of Force.com Platform Fundamentals:

Joined reports let you create different views of data from multiple report types. In a joined
  report, data is organized in blocks. Each block acts like a "sub-report," with its own fields,
  columns, sorting, and filtering. You can add a chart to a joined report. For example, in the
  following sample, the joined report pulls data from two report types related to the Positions
  object. Together, the report shows applications received from job ads posted for each
  position.

Clearly, the answer is "yes, you can add charts to joined reports". The Analytics Workbook includes a tutorial on creating a joined report. Unfortunately, that tutorial adds the chart to a Dashboard after the joined report has been run, not as part of the report itself.

Add Chart to Joined report


How to enable Wi-Fi in HP ProBook 455G?

Question: As in title, after changing operating system from 12.04 lts I can't connect to Wi-Fi, Ethernet connection works. It doesn't shows anything about Wi-Fi like disconnected. In software & updates I found out actually my additional driver is X Org. X Server.
Answer: The first think you should do is install the Ubuntu LTSEnablementStack.  Your X.org drivers are for you graphics display and will have nothing to do with your networking drivers.
The EnablementStack may just solve your problem, because it will give you access to newer supported Linux kernels on the LTS versions of Ubuntu.
I am guessing your notebook is an HP Probook 455G1, but could you post your exact part number?
From the HP support site for the HP Probook 455G1, it looks like you have either the a Realtek or Broadcom wireless adapter.  Realtek support is generally pretty good, but Broadcom is less so.
HP Quickspecs (Realtek & Ralink)
HP Drivers (Realtek & Broadcom)
Ubuntu Ralink
Ubuntu Realtek
Ubuntu Broadcom
You can find more information about your hardware using lspci

How to enable Wi-Fi in HP ProBook 455G?


Is Skyrim Haram?

Question: Skyrim is a game that has magic in it and gods. In the game, you believe in the gods and follow their orders but I do not think you prostrate to them. The women in the game are dressed like normal women you see today on the streets of America, England etc. You are also able to see the gods. There is also a little bit of swearing but not extremely insulting words like Fu** y**. It has shirk too. Is this haram?
Answer: There's multiple angles where video games are problematic.
First, they can easily lead to wasting time, because it's easy to become sucked into the game and forget about time.
Next, most games use random number generators which are akin to dice. Many role playing games are based on Dungeons and Dragons, which uses dice. A hadith says that the Prophet, sal Allahu alaihi wasalam, said that playing dice games is like washing your hands with pig's blood.
The issue with statues having power and magic spells is definitely also problematic. In many games you get healing and strength from cross symbols. This makes a subconscious positive connection to the cross when really we should consider it as a symbol of shirk, a sin worse than murder or rape.
Also, usually there is music in these games that uses musical instruments. A student of Abu Hanifa said that music is the wine of the soul and its effect is worse than that of alcohol. It's easy to get desensitized to this and forget.
Also, the way women dress in the West is not really okay, it is connected to the high divorce/break up rates and associated mental health/social problems.
You have to consider it like this- any media- books, poetry, music, movies, video games- are a form of communication. Think of it kind of like if someone wrote you an email, and you read it. In a way, it's like you are opening your mind to the ideas of the people who made it.
The makers of Skyrim are clearly mostly not Muslim or not very practising, and when you turn the game on it's kind of like you are inviting them into your home. They put a lot of energy into making the game, and this will have an effect on your personality, and it is sure to make you more like them.
I don't know if I can definitively say it is haram, but what is sure is that there are MANY many different ways to use our limited time on this earth that would have a MUCH better effect on our souls, which is why I've been struggling for years to cut back on video games.
If you can toggle the music off, do, because this reduces the addictive effect and makes quitting easier.
Barak Allahu feek

Is Skyrim Haram?


3d Key not strong enough

Question: I 3d-printed a key.

When I put it in the lock the pins move but, when I go to turn it the key rips and the lock doesn't turn. I compared it to the real key and it's identical. Is there something I can do to make it work and not rip? Is there some filament that I can print it out of? I used ABS.
Comment: There's a reason nobody sells plastic keys to go in metal locks... it's just not a good combo. perhaps a more exotic filament can provide more rigidity, but I'm certainly not knowledgeable enough of this to tell you. I'd start by taking a look at the material specs for some of taulmans offerings, if they're available.
Comment: With you printed key in slip a small flat blade screw driver or a small knife blade in along side the key and see if you can turn the locking mechanism.  This will let you know the key actually does move the pins properly.  Are you polishing your finished print with acetone after your done.  This will tighten up the fibers a slight bit.
Answer: That is correct! Take your raw ABS plastic and try to bend and break it. Do it again with a few lengths. Pretty easy to break it right?
You issue is the material is not up to par with your goal. Your heavy duty lock takes too much force to turn.
Your solutions are to

Find a stronger material. These are considered stronger than PLA / ABS

PVA
PET
Polycarbonate
PETT (SHATTERS!)
POM, Acetal

Use the PLA to make a lossless cast of the key and use metal
Find a easier lock and or invest in oil for the lock.
Answer: I must admit, I've never printed a key...but I think I can help anyway:
Print method:
Consider printing on side, solid concentric infill.  Or, if you can't manipulate your infill pattern, just increase the perimeter so you get the same effect, several continuous perimeter layers around the outline of the key.
Print material:

Elongation before break is important here in addition to tensile strength...you need it to be stiff enough, but not brittle.
ABS, PLA, or HIPS: Not likely to be successful...but maybe.
PETG and PETG based filaments like T-Glase, N-Vent, nGen, INOVA-1800: A little better, but still likely to deform and/or break.

Polycarbonate: Great for this, but is a fairly advanced material which tends to require pre-drying, enclosures, and PVA for hold down as well as a hot end that can handle at least 290C.
Nylons: Good, but most Nylons may be more "bendy" than you want for this.
Taulman's Alloy 910: Bingo. This should work nicely if you'd rather not struggle with printing polycarbonate.  Alloy 910 prints near ABS settings, sticks well on a PVA-treated heated bed.  (I use 85C for bed)
I would not suggest a CF filled filament for this because they tend to be brittle.  Matter Hacker's NylonX with CF is a possible exception since it's nylon based, but I haven't tested it...yet.
Comment: CF Nylon is the stiffest material out there and certainly stronger and more impact resistant than polycarbonate. A key doesn't need to be flexible nor impact resistant, CF Nylon would be my first choice. PLA would be my 2nd choice as its stronger than Nylon and ABS.
Answer: Which direction are the layers being printed? If the layers are printing top to bottom (in relation to your picture) there isn't a lot of sheer force required to break the key when turning. If you make the layers print from left to right you might have better luck.
Comment: I don't think it was printed like that. If it were printed like that there would be a lot of overhangs, which wouldn't have come out as well as we see in the picture. In the second picture, it doesn't look like it snapped between two layers, but instead the entire thing deformed.
Comment: I agree that layers, shells and infill needs set to optimize the print.  Plastic keys do work (at least one time).  AAA has provided it clients with a spare key cut into a credit card for backup use in case main keys are lost or locked inside.  And there is the soda bottle key which in hard to turn locks the addition of a "tension wrench" is needed.
Answer: "You're going to need a bigger boat^H^H^H^H filament" .  Perhaps one of the carbon-fiber-loaded filaments will hold up, or perhaps a bunch of silicone spray dumped into the lock cylinder is needed.
If you want to get really fancy, start with a thin metal key blank and deposit the filament around that. This might give you enough structural strength.  I don't know exactly how you'd print on three sides, as typical RepRaps and their ilk aren't set up to work around an object. Possibly printing with the key vertical and zero infil would allow you to insert a metal stiffener after printing.
Comment: What is the purpose of the comment about boats? Your comment about deposition the filament around a metal blank is not achievable with any standard printer so I'm not sure how that helps.
Comment: @TomvanderZanden  You dang youngsters!  See "Jaws," a 1975 movie.
Comment: @TomvanderZanden I think the "^H" is supposed to mean he's pressing "backspace", like the end result is "You're going to need a bigger filament". -- I've seen weird hacks where you can print a hollow area (without infill) to insert a captive nut on reprap printers, it's definitely not trivial though.  (Which is lame because that needs to be more of a thing!) -- I bet with some work, someone could use a similar approach with a key blank.
Answer: First step is to optimize the print, layers, shells and infill.  While ABS should hold up, if optimized, for at least one use.  It may not be the best filament.  PLA actually tests higher PLA vs ABS.
As I had posted in a comment, finishing ABS adds strength to the filament bundle. An acetone dip, vapor or hand wash of the part helps bond the outside edges.  Parts that I make out of ABS for use on my car and motorcycle I vapor finish then polish with a soaked rag for a much more durable part.
Comparison tests of filaments are out there for the searching SUCH AS THIS ONE which compares strength of common filaments in use as a caribiner.  But finding one that does a true comparison like the ABS vs PLA that I linked I have not seen.
If you do look at other filaments I would avoid ones like iron, stainless, brass, carbon fiber, etc. as these actually are shown to be reduced in strength as the particles suspended lower the filament bonding.
Comment: I misread "while".
Comment: You can print this 100% solid and will still likely fail in my option. Only solution is stronger plastics.
Comment: It is possible in some cases. [KEY PRINTING](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk68Xib0Rac)

3d Key not strong enough


Having issues with Jmeter Login Test keep on failing

Question: I am trying to learn the Jmeter and performing simple login test for a test website. but I am keep on getting following error,
Thread Name: Thread Group 1-1
Sample Start: 2019-09-05 18:56:28 NZST
Load time: 40
Connect Time: 0
Latency: 40
Size in bytes: 237
Sent bytes:757
Headers size in bytes: 237
Body size in bytes: 0
Sample Count: 1
Error Count: 1
Data type ("text"|"bin"|""):
Response code: 401
Response message: Unauthorized

Response headers:
HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized
Date: Thu, 05 Sep 2019 06:56:28 GMT
Server: Kestrel
Content-Length: 0
Vary: Origin
WWW-Authenticate: Bearer
Access-Control-Allow-Credentials: true
Access-Control-Allow-Origin: http://www.skillswap.pro

HTTPSampleResult fields:
ContentType:
DataEncoding: null

Answer: Don't have enough reputation to comment, but you could try to investigate by displaying the HTML of the response to see what you get. You can find this feature in the View Results tree component

Also, sometimes there are tokens or other variables that are shared or incremented between your pages. In such case, you have to store them in a variable and give it back at each HTTP request.

To retrieve a token for example, you can use a Regular expression extractor, just look how it looks in your html. Here for example, it was in an hidden input tag.

I hope this puts you on the track to find the solution !
Comment: Thank you. Your answer helps a lot.


Should files made in Illustrator CS5 be updated to CS6?

Question: My department recently upgraded from CS5 to CS6. We are preparing an InDesign print publication for this year and are repurposing last year's Illustrator and InDesign files which we produced with CS5. When we save each Illustrator file, Illustrator displays the warning message "Saving to a legacy format may cause some changes to your text layout and disable some editing features when the document is read back in. Do you want to continue?" So far, we have been choosing "OK" to continue.
My question is: What is the best practice here? Our illustrations are all statistical graphs using the exact same colors, typefaces, line weights, etc. as last year. All of the people working with these files have CS6. If we continue to save to the legacy format are we likely to have problems? From your experience, would it be better to "save as" Version Illustrator CS6 now?
Answer: Good question.
Best answer I can give without seeing the actual files is....... Possibly.
If you work in CS6, then save to CS5 or any previous version (legacy) you can find the files have changed. Appearances can be flattened or expanded when saving to legacy formats.
For example, the Gaussian Blur was updated in Illustrator CS6 (and vastly improved). Gaussian Blur is used for all drop shadows, feathering, glows, and obviously blurs. This means if you create anything using the Gaussian Blur in Illustrator CS6, upon saving to a legacy format, you'll find the blur object has been expanded and is no longer "live" and editable. This can create additional work if the file needs to be edited again in the future.
Gaussian Blur is simply one example. Essentially, anything which utilizes newer features is subject to alteration. Gradients on strokes, transparent gradient stops/meshes, etc. They can all cause issues.
If everyone has CS6 and is working in CS6, I'd suggest, upon editing, saving to CS6 format.
The obvious exception would be files which are flat files in nature, containing only basic fills, strokes, or text without any advanced appearance settings.
My general practice is use the legacy files all you want with Indesign. But if you must edit a legacy file, re-save it to the native format for whatever version is being used to edit the file.
Comment: That helped me a lot! Thank you for your answer.
Comment: Great answer, Scott. I was *so* not paying attention in the AI beta, which I came to very late in the cycle and right at the point when production demands went through the roof. :-/
Comment: @AlanGilbertson.. erm.... not supposed to mention any beta. What beta? There was no beta anywhere. But I've been there... no time to explore because work must be done. I hate that. :)


How do I go from the vectoral form of Ohm's law to the scalar form of Ohm's law?

Question: The vectoral form of Ohm's law is
$$\boldsymbol{J}=\sigma\boldsymbol{E}\text{ }\left[\dfrac{\text{A}}{\text{m}^{2}}\right]$$
I want to shown that
$$I=\sigma V_{ab}$$
In other words, I want to show that
$${\displaystyle \int_{S}}\boldsymbol{J}\cdot\vec{ds}=\sigma\cdot-{\displaystyle \int_{b}^{a}}\boldsymbol{E}\cdot\vec{d\ell}$$
I find myself stuck at this point. On the left hand side of the equation is the surface integral of $\boldsymbol{J}$ over $\boldsymbol{S}$, where $\boldsymbol{S}$ is the surface through which charge is propogating. On the right hand side is the integral of an electron moving from point b to point a. The movement of the electron is perpendicularly through the surface area that is being integrated, so the integrals have no relationship apparent to me. So how do you go from
$$\boldsymbol{J}=\sigma\boldsymbol{E}\text{ }\left[\dfrac{\text{A}}{\text{m}^{2}}\right]$$
to
$${\displaystyle \int_{S}}\boldsymbol{J}\cdot\vec{ds}=\sigma\cdot-{\displaystyle \int_{b}^{a}}\boldsymbol{E}\cdot\vec{d\ell}\text{ ?}$$
Comment: Why do you think that $I = \sigma V$ is true? As your third equation shows, it's not even dimensionally consistent with $J = \sigma E$.
Answer: If $V$ is the electric voltage $\Delta\phi$ then ohms law for a cable is not what you have written:
$$V=\frac{L}{\sigma A}I\equiv RI,$$ where $L$ is the length of the cable (the total resistance $R$ increases if you look at the path of the current thrue more cable), $A$ is the cross section area of the cable and $\sigma(=nq^2\tau/m)$ is the electrical conductivity
As you said we have $$\vec j=\sigma \vec E. \,\,\,\,\,\, (1)$$ Moreover we have $$I=\int_A \vec j \cdot d\vec A=|\vec j|A, \,\,\,\,\,\, (2)$$ because $\vec j\parallel d\vec A$. Furthermore we have $$V=-\int_a^b \vec E \cdot d\vec l=EL, \,\,\,\,\,\, (3)$$ because $\vec E\parallel d\vec l$ ($\vec j, \vec E, d\vec A, d\vec l$ are all in direction of the cable). Finally we get
$$\frac{I}{A}\stackrel{(2)}{=}|\vec j|\stackrel{(1)}{=}\sigma E\stackrel{(3)}{=}\sigma \frac{V}{L}\,\,\,\,\,\,\,\,\text{or}\,\,\,\,\,\,\,\,V=\frac{L}{\sigma A}I,$$ which is the expression we were looking for.


Starter Road Bike for Tall Man

Question: I'm a marathoner that is interested in mixing in some duathlons and triathlons, but I am having trouble finding a starter bike (< $1500) made for a tall man. I am 6'6". Any brands and models that you can recommend that offer a frame that fits someone around my height?
Comment: I'd suggest that people explain what features are reasonable to look for in this price range. (See: [Q&A is Hard, Let's Go Shopping!](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/11/qa-is-hard-lets-go-shopping/).)
Comment: Also, if you're specifically looking for a tri/Cx bike, you might want to put that in your title.
Comment: He didn't say anything about a cross bike. Also, there aren't too many new tri bikes at that price point.
Comment: yeah. i know at that price i am not going to be able to get a tri bike, and i am ok with that. i will not be in competition for first.
Comment: Soma makes their Smoothie ES frame in 66cm; it's a road sport bike rather than a purebred racing bike but it's one of the few frames I know of that is roughly your size and could be built up handily within your price range.
Answer: At 6'6" you're probably going to be looking at the top end of most manufacturers size ranges, road frames of 62cm and above are the range you'll be looking at.
I said "probably" though, you would do best getting yourself to a local shop that knows something about fitting people to frames. Being so far from the average height I'd not risk buying something offline without having tried sitting on anything, particularly as it's your first road bike.
Answer: You really should go to a couple of good LBS's and get fit. They'll be able to recommend some different companies that make bikes that will fit your build. There are so many different variables besides just height that it's impossible to recommend a brand based on what you've given. You need to know your stack and reach in order to find the best geometry for you.
Answer: At 6'6", be wary of your local bike shop, unless you really trust them or they have a great reputation.  Sounds like blasphemy to say that, but one of the problems you may have is that many manufacturers may not make a large enough frame for you and you will get sold the biggest thing they have from the brands they carry.  Off the top of my head, in non-custom models, Trek and cannondale both make bikes large enough (I have a 6'5" friend on both of those), and I know for sure Specialized and giant do not.  63+cm would probably be your likely range, but a good shop with a fit that you will probably pay 100$ or so for should be able to help you dial that in.
Things other than frame size are important as well.  I don't know your dimensions but you're probably wider in the shoulders than most, so you'll want handlebars that fit you well.  Stem length is also partially driven by flexibility, so that's a consideration too.  Also crank arm length can be tough for bigger guys, the expert in tall bikes is probably Lennard Zinn.  He's a big guy himself and a custom frame builder, you may want to have a read through his site and consider some aftermarket options for those components.
Answer: Nothing "off the shelf" is going to fit perfectly for you. To mitigate, you'll want to experiment with long seatposts that have set-backs and long stems.
Since you're a marathoner, you're probably quite fit and are limber enough to deal with handle bars that are far lower than the seat. This lower stack height will also help you not be so cramped.
Eventually, you may want to get custom geometry ($$$), but tall folks can get by with frames that don't quite fit. The pros do it all the time.
Answer: SOMA makes good quality affordable frames and their ES comes in 66cm.  I'm only 6'4 but long in the limbs and I rode that on an extended tour just fine.
The frame will probably set you back $400 or so which should leave room to kit it out.
Answer: Just about to ask a similar question, and figured I'd give you what I know so far.  I'm 6'8", more torso than legs.  36" inseam, 37" sleeve in dress shirts.
Trek 1.5 is the low-end Trek road bike, aluminum frame, and comes in a 64 or 65cm setup.  I have one.  It works pretty darn well, out of the box.  Both Trek and Specialized make bikes in this size, but not all of their bikes; that said, you're getting started around $1k.
Only change I made was upgrading the shifters on mine; they were terrible.
Answer: I had a similar budget getting started and at 6'5" and change found it impossible to find a local bike shop that could find a good fitting bike.
I started out with the KHS Flite 747:
http://zinncycles.com/product/khs-flite-747/
You can get that for around $1600 and there are older models available for cheaper.
I measured myself and went with the XXL frame and then got fitted to the bike and the guy said I fit the bike great.
I'm now looking into possibly upgrading with a http://bikeclydesdale.com/ which has bikes made for taller riders with more customizations.

Starter Road Bike for Tall Man


From my purse ETH was sent a transaction that I did not send

Question: What should I do? I sent a transaction from my ETH wallet that I did not send. Help me please
Comment: I see that you're a new user. Welcome. I think you would get a much better response to your questions in the future if you were to add more detail. Given the above, it would be nearly impossible for anyone to actually help you as opposed to make general comments. Having said that, be careful to secure your private (and in some situations public) key to open scrutiny.
Answer: If someone has sent ETH from your wallet, they have access to your wallet and you should try to secure remaining funds by transferring them to a new wallet.
Also all your funds are gone. Try to figure out how someone might have gotten access to your wallet.


What is the meaning of 'systemic velocity' of galaxies?

Question: I came across the term systemic velocities of galaxies. Can you please explain what it means?
Comment: "came across" where?
Answer: It means the average velocity of the galaxy, or the velocity of its center of mass. This can either be an actual velocity inside a gravitationally bound group or cluster, or its cosmological redshift expressed as a velocity.
This is important because different phases of the galaxy move differently. The galaxy rotates, so stars on one side will have velocities different than those on the other side. There is often outflowing and infalling gas in the galaxy which will move with a different velocity than the stars, etc.
Given that these velocities are often mainly interesting in relation to the general frame of the galaxy, they are mostly given in reference to the Systemic velocity. Of course, we cannot know this precisely, as typically don't know the exact mass distribution of the galaxy in question. When possible, the average velocity of the stars is usually adopted as systemic velocity; other times, it is typically strong emission lines from hot nebulae that are known to occur in association with hot stars are adopted. Other methods can be adopted, too, based on what is practical with the observations and from what is already known about the object.


Refrigerator in garage was turned off

Question: We just realized that our garage refrigerator/freezer was not on. The eggs are still cold to the touch but the vegetables, rice w/shrimp and meatballs in the freezer are not frozen but still cold. The ice cream is mostly melted. This tells us that the frig hasn't been off for a long time but we don't know for how long. Should we throww all the frozen foods away? Or would it be safe to cook everything instead.
Comment: You'll get a much better answer if you can take actual temperature measurements from the inside of the refrigerator and freezer.
Comment: If the eggs float in water, they probably should be tossed.
Answer: I'm afraid the frozen goods are a lost cause. Throw them away. The eggs in the fridge are probably fine. Break one in a dish and give it the sniff test. If it still smells clean and good, they are probably fine. But don't delay in using them. Make a souffle!

Refrigerator in garage was turned off