My website inner pages are not crawling and indexed?

Question: My website is built with angular js. when i submitted sitemap only home page is indexed and remaining pages are not indexed. I already changed all my page urls # to #! . please suggest me .
Comment: Hash bang crawling URLs are deprecated and should not be used anymore.
Answer: This strategy is not recommended at all.
If you want better result then have fully qualified proper URL.
I remember WIX had similar pattern URL and it was ugly and hard to rank.
So, in your situation, it's highly recommended to move to a solution where you can have proper URL


How Can I Drop Gun?

Question: Is it possible to drop the gun, and maybe move it to the trash?
I have plenty of unecessary weapons. I want to get rid of them.
Comment: I find they trade well, and I think there's a late-game construction that will let you melt them down for metal, though I could be wrong.
Answer: The most effective way to remove unwanted weapons is to trade them away. Set a stockpile to store only weapons and build a trade beacon nearby. You will also need the capacity to trade to be set up. When you get a notification that a trader is passing by, send a colonist to interact with the communication device to initiate trade. You can then sell the weapons for silver or for other useful items.
Answer: To actually drop a wielded gun you select your character, go to gear tab and you will have info and drop actions in the context menu of the gun.
(Alpha 8d)
Answer: If they are not worth trading (poor quality) you can smelt them.
https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Electric_smelter

How Can I Drop Gun?


Why is a circular mask appropriate for Fourier filtering rectangular images?

Question: Suppose I apply 2D DFT to an image with dimensions $H{\times}W$ where $H \neq W$, then shift the DC component to the center. Why does a circular mask capture the lowest frequency components, i.e. why is it not an ellipse given that the image is rectangular? My concern is that for rectangular images, the K lowest frequencies might be arranged in a non-circular pattern.
Comment: Why shouldn't it? I honestly don't understand where your question is coming from, so maybe explaining the reason why you're asking this would help us point you in the right direction.
Comment: my concern was that for rectangular images, the K lowest frequencies might be arranged in a non-circular pattern, but this is mostly based on my poor understanding of what the shifting actually does. I'm looking into it now while awaiting responses here
Comment: ah, that would actually make a very good **edit** to your question (so that people don't have to read our comments to make out what your concern is)! Question from my side: If you have a pattern of frequency $F_\text{diag}$ in the image that lies diagonal, what is its frequency in H- and W-direction?
Comment: hi! I prepared an answer for your question on units, but you deleted it before I could post the answer. So if you wish you can repost it and I could provide the answer.
Comment: Hi @Fat32, I apologize for that - I deleted it because I think I've figured it out. I'll post what I think is the answer (in the form of a question), and it would be great if you could post your answer there.
Answer: For simplicity, let's not do any shifting and only consider non-negative frequencies.
Let's assume that the horizontal and vertical image dimensions are even integers $W$ and $H$. Looking at the output of a $H\times W$ 2-d DFT of the image, the $u$th column with $u\le W/2$ represents a horizontal frequency of $u/W$ times the horizontal sampling frequency and the $v$th row with $v\le H/2$ represents a vertical frequency of $v/H$ times the vertical sampling frequency. For a square image grid the horizontal and vertical sampling frequencies are equal and in the following denoted by a single variable $f_s$. The frequency-magnitude of a 2-d frequency at bin $u, v$ will then be $\sqrt{(u/W)^2 + (v/H)^2}f_s$.
For a cut-off frequency $f_c$ your mask would select frequencies:
$$\sqrt{\left(\frac{u}{W}\right)^2 + \left(\frac{v}{H}\right)^2}f_s < f_c\tag{1}$$
$$\Rightarrow\frac{f_s^2}{W^2f_c^2}u^2 + \frac{f_s^2}{H^2f_c^2}v^2 < 1.\tag{2}$$
That indeed defines an ellipse in coordinates $u, v$.
However, if you consider the actual frequencies $\frac{u}{W}f_s$, $\frac{v}{H}f_s$ as coordinates, then what you have is a circle:
$$\text{Eq. 1}$$
$$\Rightarrow\frac{1}{f_c^2}\left(\frac{u}{W}f_s\right)^2 + \frac{1}{f_c^2}\left(\frac{v}{H}f_s\right)^2 < 1.\tag{3}$$
To summarize, it depends on how you express your frequencies.
Answer: In one dimension, there is one natural way to arrange frequencies. A filter can be devised, to reduce frequencies $\omega \le \omega_c $.
 In 2D, there are many ways. Indeed, it depends a lot on the information content in each pixel. For instance: are the width and the height of each pixel comparable? What relative weights ($w_h$, $w_v$) should we give to horizontal or vertical frequencies, to create a global "2D" frequency? One shall remind that, for the human visual system, vertical frequencies are better detected than  horizontal frequencies. In image processing, it is common to combine frequencies under $\ell_p$ quasinorms or norms:
 $$(w_h\omega_h^p+w_v\omega_v^p )^{1/p}\le \omega_c $$
For $p=2$, you get an ellipse (or circular way). With $p=1$, axes are weighted along diagonals. When $p$ is large, only the maximum matters.


Why do we care about termination analysis?

Question: Why is it important to know if a program terminates or not? In particular, what are some consequences of a non-terminating program?
Comment: Termination is an essential aspect of correctness. As a corollary there is no algorithm that proves any program correct.
Answer: First, the halting problem is the fundamental building block that enables us to prove that many, many problems we care about are undecidable.  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_undecidable_problems.
Second, in some contexts, it is important to know that a program will terminate and in some bounded amount of time.  For instance, in an airplane with fly-by-wire, it is important to know that when the pilot presses the left rudder pedal, then the rudder will turn left within a reasonable amount of time.  This usually relies on worst-case execution time analysis, which is a bit different from the methods used for solving the halting problem, so I'm not sure whether it is what you are asking about or not.  See  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worst-case_execution_time, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Termination_analysis, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety-critical_system.
Comment: Thanks, just what I was looking for
Comment: First: yes. Second: that's a bad example. Real-time considerations involve completely different theories from termination. Decidability doesn't come up in the analysis of real-time systems: a slow terminating program is no better than a non-terminating one.
Comment: @Gilles'SO-stopbeingevil', thank you for writing a better answer!  I have revised my answer to add a caveat about the second part of the answer.
Answer: A lot of information processing problems can be modelled as search problems: find a solution within a set. For example, find a number with certain properties (e.g. in numerical analysis or cryptography), or find a point in space with certain properties (e.g. in image processing or robotics), or find a string with certain properties (e.g. in databases), etc.
It is desirable to know whether a solution exists. One way to prove that a solution exists is to write a program that finds a solution. This is an especially nice way to prove the existence of a solution because it's very practical: you can run the program, and you'll get a solution.
How do you know that the program finds a solution? Supposing that the program stops after it prints out a solution (which is what we want in practice, if the goal of the program is to search for a solution), it takes two things:

When the program outputs a value, this value is a solution.
The program actually does output a value. This means that the program terminates.

In this very common setting, termination distinguishes useful programs from boring ones. Programs that are only useful for their final output are only useful if they terminate. Programs that just do nothing forever are all indistinguishable (as long as you're just interested in their output) and not useful. (Sometimes we're interested in more than a program's final output. But cases where the final output is the only thing that matters are common enough that they're very widely studied.)
As an added benefit, a lot of other interesting properties of programs are equivalent to determining whether a certain modification of the program terminates. For example, "does the function f ever return the value 0?" is equivalent to "does the program function x -> if f(x) = 0 then loop forever". Another example: "does the program f(); g(); actually execute g()?" is equivalent to "does f() terminate?", assuming f doesn't call g. Since a lot of questions of the form "does the program P have this property?" are equivalent to "does the program P' terminate", having theories about program termination is a good basis for theories about all kinds of other useful properties of programs.
Answer: It's a fundamental property of any algorithm that it halts after some finite number of steps. Indeed, for many problems, it can be shown that such an algorithm does indeed exist, i.e., that no matter what (valid) input you give, it will always halt. That's a very desirable property just because such procedures are much more useful in practice.


Extreme instancing for computer graphics

Question: Instancing in GPU's, from my little knowledge, simply draw the same object at multiple locations. Each "instance" is just a copy of the same model at a different location. Any local effects, such as animation, would effect all instances. The performance improvement comes from gpu being able to deal with virtually all the instance aspects.
One could create several variations of the same object and instance each one. This would be very useful to create variations(say for leaves on a tree) but, while allowing for rather large number of instances(basically limited by the gpu) and variation increases the the cpu's involvement by the number of variations(from the previous case).
If we could send the changes to the gpu then we could get back to the first case(or very close) and achieve very high levels of variations with limited cpu involvement.
For example,
Suppose we wanted to populate a jungle with a lot of animals. Each animal object will have many instances(many tigers and birds but all using the same template). If we had one long animation containing all the possible animations of each animal and send it to the gpu we then would simply have to tell the gpu which part of the animation each instance was in(and we could have a default animation to limit cpu-gpu communications).
This would effectively let us control all the instances with just a animation position indicator(and possible a few other parameters such as scale) and coordinate position. The gpu would take care of all the rest.
The problem, of course, is that that each instance would not have any logic associated with it. This is not a big deal though for most computer objects. The cpu generally has to take care of the logic anyways but in this case, instead to tell send all that information to the gpu we can just send it a few bytes for each instance.
For example, suppose in our jungle we have a few cheetahs and on our cpu we are keeping track of which ones are doing what and simply sending which animation we want them to use to the cpu(instead of sending all the vertex data and/or telling it how to transform them).
This seems like it would be much faster and essentially just boils down to moving some of the code from the cpu to the gpu(which as been what is happening all along).
Using such a method is not ideal because of the lack of physical modeling per instance but for far enough away objects were intersecting objects won't be seen it won't matter.
We could have thousands of birds, for example, all seemingly moving individually but generated from one model with a few animations.... the cpu doing very little but sending which animations to use to the gpu. (and of course deciding what each bird should do)
Anyways, this is a thought but it seems to me the goal of future gpu's is to deal with all the visual aspects while the cpu deals with the logic(and the communication between the too is to be minimized).
Is my interpretation of instancing with animation's flawed or could it be implemented and be useful to 3d games?
Answer: Yes, you are correct. What you suggest is a viable approach in 3D games. Popular game engines already do this, and have been doing this for some time. If you choose to do this through the vertex shader, you can improve performance in many situations.
For more information about animation:
How animation works in realtime graphics


Field of definition of representations of symmetric groups

Question: Can one show in an elementary way, without recourse to Young tableaux etc., that the complex representations of symmetric groups are realisable over $\mathbb{R}$? It is easy to show that they are all self-dual, since the conjugacy classes of symmetric groups are self-dual, so one just has to exclude the possibility of quaternionic representations. Surely, there must be a similarly elementary argument? If there is, it is escaping me at the moment.
Comment: There's a theorem (Frobenius-Schur) which, among other things, characterizes those real-valued irreducible characters that are not afforded by a real representation. Given a group $G$ and an element $g \in G$, denote by $f(g)$ the number of square roots of $g$ in $G$. Then $\langle f, \chi \rangle$ is $0, 1$ or $-1$ according as $\chi$ is not real-valued, real and afforded by a real representation, or real and not-afforded by one. Now $S_n$ certainly doesn't allow the first case to occur; perhaps there's a simple reason why the last case doesn't occur either?
Comment: There is a non-theorem which, if it were a theorem, would resolve this problem. It was observed at http://mathoverflow.net/questions/42646/square-roots-of-elements-in-a-finite-group-and-representation-theory and http://mathoverflow.net/questions/53126/finite-groups-in-which-every-character-has-real-values-grading-the-representatio that for a group with no complex representations, it often happens that the F-S indicator is a central character. Since the symmetric groups $S_n, n \ge 3$ have no center, the F-S indicator has to be $1$. Unfortunately, this is not always true, but frequently...
Comment: @Qiaochu Thank you. It was me, who asked the first question you link to, so I was aware of this :-) In the particular case of symmetric groups though, I am still hoping for an argument that is true and ideally more elementary than Noah's.
Comment: (PS: the theorem can be found in ch. 4 of Isaacs' book "Character Theory of Finite Groups".)
Comment: @Alon If you can think of such a reason, please let me know - I haven't been able to get this to work. The Frobenius-Schur indicator is defined as $\sum_g\chi(g^2)$. Now, the map (of sets) $g\mapsto g^2$ is onto $A_n$ (that's quite easy to see). So the above sum is $\langle \text{Res}_{S_n/A_n}\chi,1\rangle$ plus further terms. The inner product is of course 1 if $\chi$ is a linear char. and 0 otherwise. But I haven't been able to express the remaining terms in any sensible way (some elements of $A_n$ get hit many times as $g$ ranges over $G$).
Comment: @Alex: ha. Didn't notice that...
Comment: Sorry, how do you show they are self-dual, again? I am new to representation theory, so how do we connect with conjugacy classes with this self-duality?
Answer: Some thoughts. Let $r_2(g)$ denote the number of square roots of $g$. Then $\langle r_2, \chi \rangle$ is the Frobenius-Schur indicator of $\chi$, and we want to show that this is equal to $1$ for all irreducibles $\chi$. This would follow if we could directly construct a representation of $S_n$ with character $r_2$, since then we would immediately have $\langle r_2, \chi \rangle \ge 0$.
The representation associated to this character would have dimension $r_2(e)$, or the number of involutions of $S_n$. And, indeed, there is a natural permutation representation of $S_n$ on the set of involutions (by conjugation), but it has the wrong character. In fact $r_2$ cannot in general be the character of a permutation representation: since it contains the trivial representation only once, it must be transitive, but its degree does not divide $n!$ in general.
But it still might be possible to construct this representation in a reasonably elementary way without going through the full construction of the irreducible representations of $S_n$.
Comment: Interesting thought. Maybe the first attempt should be to find _any_ representation that contains all irreducible reps as summands, except for the obvious regular rep? Note also that the dimension of $r_2$ is not quite the number of involutions, but that number +1, since you have to count $e$ as its own square root, too. So the obvious permutation representation of the right dim has at least two orbits, one of them being $\{e\}$. But as soon as $n>3$, $S_n$ has involutions of different cycle types, so in fact there are then even more orbits, namely $\lfloor \frac{n}{2}\rfloor+1$ of them.
Comment: It looks like a lot of (non-regular) transitive permutation reps involve every character.  The multiplicities in the rep on the cosets of Alt(3) (n≥5) might be easy to express combinatorially, but I don't see how to use this.  If this was modular rep theory, it sounds to me like you are asking for an injective cogenerator or a projective progenerator. r2 is asking for a minimal one, and the resulting algebra is called the basic algebra.  Looking for reps that just involve every (or most) characters using perm reps and Hecke algebras is called condensation.


database index and memory usage

Question: suppose I have a table that stores 100 million records of strings of varying sizes up to 20 characters in a column field. I need to index this column, I only have a 2GB-Ram machine, is this sufficient to perform such task?  Is mysql recommended db engine for storage?
Comment: Do you have a time constraint?
Comment: Do you mean sufficient to build the index in the first place, or to use the index to do queries?
Comment: @Remus:time constraint is loose, no more than 24 hours
@leonm: I mean both
Answer: Databases are generally designed in a way that allows them to work with more data then you have available RAM. Giving it more working memory will speed things up, but it should be able to build the index and perform searches on it just fine.
Answer: If you have 2 GB of main memory, then yes, you should be able to build the index without any problems; virtual memory is a wonderful thing, and the DBMS may well arrange to spill data to disk as it goes.
If you only have 2 GB of disk space, you don't have enough space for the data and the index.

To no-one's surprise, it is 2 GB of main memory, not 2 GB of disk (that comment was mainly in jest - but these days, if someone says 256 GB, it is not clear whether they're referring to disk space or main memory; it could be either).
Yes, if the DBMS cannot create the index within that constraint, it is not worthy of being termed a DBMS.
MySQL probably can do the job.  It isn't what I'd recommend, but I'm very biassed in this area as a result of being one of the developers of an alternative (commercial) DBMS.  We don't have enough information about your budget etc to be able to advise reliably.
Comment: If you have 2GB of disk space you should probably loose the box X-)

database index and memory usage


Animating bones causes odd deformation

Question: I pose my hand like this.

I go through and LocRot and the second I move off the keyframe it deforms into this.
Comment: Please use a descriptive title and question body in your posts, also post images locally using the built-in toolbar icon
Comment: Posting the blend file would greatly help. Things like this are almost always impossible to troubleshoot from images.
Comment: Could you provide a .blend file to be able to have a look and try to help you?
Answer: Most likely, you forgot to keyframe those two individual bones. Make sure they are selected, then add the keyframe when they are in the position you want them in.
If they are already keyframed earlier in the timeline, in a different position, when you move your timeline cursor they will jump back to the position they were in at the earlier keyframe.
Make sure you are on the frame in which you would like to place the key, then do the bone movement, then place a key before changing frames.
Perhaps you would rather remove the original keyframe instead. This will avoid the jumping, and the bones will stay in the position you left them.
Another possibility is that you accidentally added a keyframe later in the animation, causing this problem. Maybe there is one on the frame next to the one you are on?
I'm sorry if this doesn't answer your question, but I do not have any other reasons why this problem is occurring from your post.
Comment: Not its after I LocRot or even before all I do is make one frame so nothing is changing there.. It's just jumping to that as soon as I go to move the keyframe to another.
Comment: Are you pressing "i" on your keyboard while the mouse is over the viewport? If not, that could be your problem. "i" adds a keyframe. Simply pressing LocRot from the menu changes what type of keyframe will be added when "i" is pressed.

Animating bones causes odd deformation


I feel sleepy while doing weight training

Question: Sometimes, I feel sleepy when I am doing my weight training. Is this natural? It doesn't happen all the time, only sometimes, I feel so tired that I feel like sleeping immediately afterwards.
Answer: I know some people who can have a great workout without fueling ahead of time, but I feel similar symptoms to what you describe if I don't have a snack before I work out. A snack of 1/4 cup of cottage cheese about an hour ahead of time is enough to help me get through my weight training. (I am 160 lbs, so you may need to eat more or less.)
Comment: Thanks, Michael. I also observe that if I eat a good meal about an hour before my workout, I feel more sleepy. :-) I keep yawning throughout the workout.
Comment: Thanks - I have this same problem. Constant yawning in the gym
Comment: Update: I'm keto now and I always work out fasted. I no longer feel sluggish.
Answer: If you eat too soon before a workout your body is focusing its resources on digestion, especially if you eat a high carb meal. That may be part of why you feel sleepy. If the food is too high in carbs you'll most likely experience the 'comfort food' or 'food coma feeling' which will make you feel very sleepy.
Another cause of the drowsiness is caused by the lack of a good warm up. Your energy levels aren't only regulated by food consumption. When you're working out it's also important to have enough oxygen and healthy circulation so your body can transport the resources needed to fuel your muscles.
My suggestion has 2 parts. First, carb load the night before. Ie eat a healthy dinner that includes a lot of pasta and/ or rice the night before you workout. That way you have a large amount of readily available energy. Next, eat a light meal of mostly lean protein a couple of hours before you lift. Just enough to maintain your energy and provide some protein during the lifting but not so much that your body needs to invest too much energy into digestion.
At the very least warm up properly before lifting. Nothing extreme just a light jog to raise your heart rate and get the blood flowing.
Comment: `'food coma feeling'` AKA postprandial dip.
Answer: You should speak to your GP. It can be a list of things including stress, lack of sleep, low iron in your blood and even low blood pressure. If you do not have this issue in the summer, you may have something called SADS
Comment: Thank you. This was a long time ago and I observed that it was totally momentary. I later noticed it went away on its own and figured out it is a completely natural thing.
Comment: I agree: OP's GP is the right place for this question. It is not clear whether you talk about [SAD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_affective_disorder) or [SADS](https://www.sads.org/What-is-SADS#.XCZWAExFxaQ) I suggest you provide a link and preferably a short explanation/description.


Create SharePoint Contacts List From AD

Question: A similar thread already exists but I do not have much experience with the SharePoint User List (in fact never heard of it!). The thread is here:
Populate SharePoint Contact List with AD user information
I have the user profile service up and running but we do not use My Sites. I essentially want a list that shows all users from AD, can be filtered easily and obviously needs little to no maintenance in way of staying up to date with amendments in AD. Any help would be great, thanks
Comment: Are you familiar with timer job? I have a solution then.
Comment: Would this list be accessible to standard users? Have you considered the huge security risks with this?
Answer: I would recommend going for Search to avoid development and keep your environment supported, not to mention - automatically updated, no need to handle that yourself. With or without My-Sites configured, as long as you have User Profiles + Synchronization running, via Search + People vertical you could build up a whole new experience to your users, and benefit from advanced Filters (e.g. I build a Isotope by creating my own Display templates, similar to Pinterest +  Filters). Examples are abundant - have a look at this series from Marc A. - and it works perfectly on-premises too.
Comment: You don't have to use My Sites to take advantage of user profiles. For SharePoint to really work, you must be syncing the data from AD already, so you've got that data to work with.
Comment: @MarcDAnderson - I did mentioned "with or without" - right ?
Comment: You did! Sorry about that.
Comment: Guys, thanks, this has sent me in the right direction. One issue I have is that my people scope is empty! I know my AD profiles are being crawled as I can see them in central admin. I have seen a thread stating that I have to update the content source with a sps3:// URL for the MY SITES but I do not have MY sites!? any ideas
Comment: Ignore this...figured out that the crawl account did not have access to the user profile service application.
Answer: User lists are a no no. Avoid that!!
Figure out if you have all the fields that you need in AD.
Create a SharePoint Contact list with all the fields you need.
Figure out if you can map all the fields from AD to Azure AD coz some of them are not possible to map if you cant get them to Azure AD.
Make a power Shell script that takes the fields and populates into SharePoint.
Make the power Shell script as a Schedule task.
Take a look at this article.
Comment: Using sp2010 Ent

Create SharePoint Contacts List From AD


how to transfer files from SE 30 to usb device

Question: I inherited a working SE 30 Macintosh, how can I transfer the Word 5 files to a USB device?
Comment: Do you have a network connection?  Do you know how to make/obtain a null modem (serial) cable and are familiar with transfer protocols like kermit, xmodem or zmodem?  Can you get a USB floppy drive and some 3.5" disks?
Answer: Oddly enough I actually have a working SE/30.
I have found the easiest way to transfer files (well... files under 1.4MB) is via floppy disk.
The SE/30 has a floppy built in and you can get external USB drives for Macs online. I seem to recall they were pretty cheap.
Thought you are limited to a file size that will fit on a floppy. I believe Stuffit is still around and could potentially split larger files into smaller files. The exercise in getting a copy of Stuffit compatible with (and onto the SE/30, likely via floppy) is left up to you ;-)
Also the SE/30 has an expansion slot, so you could, theoretically, buy a used SE/30 ethernet card off eBay (or wherever) and attempt to use AppleTalk between the (really old) Mac and the (much newer) Mac. Having never actually tried that I am unsure if that would work. EG do newer Macs still support legacy AppleTalk file sharing? not sure I know. But depending on how motivated you are it might be an interesting exercise that we would all love to hear about, once you have a workable solution.
Comment: Disks are probably the easiest/cheapest solution that doesn't require too much tech skills.  Null modem is cheapest but the skill requirement is much higher.  Networking is the most robust but has the highest cost both acquisition and implementation wise.
Comment: *If I recall correctly* Stuffit was available for system 7. I've got 7.1 on the SE/30. And a lot of the stuffit archives I've found online are self extracting, making installing Compact Pro via a Stuffit archive only a *little* more understandable.
Comment: You have Stuffit from that early? I'm surprised. I thought it came later. Compact Pro was compression king in '90 - https://www.macintoshrepository.org/2024-compact-pro [of course, for either, you're going to need floppy disk sneakernet to get it on the Mac… & ironically, the CP downloads are stuffit-compressed ;)
Comment: I did actually find some SCSI > SD adapters for these [not cheap] - meant to run the OS from the SD itself. I guess an SD is probably faster than the original HD;)
Comment: Yeah, memory is dim - it's 30 years since I last saw an SE30. First Mac I ever had. I think I had an LC & a Quadra over the next couple of years… after that it gets hazy again until G3 & G4s by the end of the 90s.


Profoto B2 System battery issues

Question: I bought a brand new B2 a while ago as a hobbyist. Rarely used. I now have 2 batteries that won't take a charge. In other words, I have a boat anchor. It's completely silly for me to purchase 500.00 in batteries for the little amount of time I use it. They will just fail again when I want to use them. Do they make a clip-in accessory to be able to use these with AC power? If not, what do I need to purchase to be able to use these light heads on a new AC power pack?  I'm done with the whole battery idea.
Comment: Does this answer your question? [Has anyone successfully restored or revived a completely discharged Profoto B2 Lithium Ion Battery?](https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/95258/has-anyone-successfully-restored-or-revived-a-completely-discharged-profoto-b2-l)
Comment: Whew - you just reminded me to check the batteries in my speedlights. 2 good, 2 dead. At first one didn't want to charge, but putting it back in the flash & switching on for a few seconds [nothing visible, the flash stayed off] was just enough to kick some sense into it when I put it back on the charger. BTW, if otherwise unused, you should put an 80% charge in batteries to be left idle & do this every 6 months, for maximum life.
Answer: Chances are the batteries are just too low to trip the smart charge circuit. Often this can be overcome by connecting two batteries in parallel. In your case you might be able to use a 12v battery from a vehicle or other device, or a 12-14v power supply (e.g. laptop power supply).
The process is basically the same as explained in this Optima battery tech video: https://youtu.be/Slqd73ZOQvI
Sometimes you can just connect them in parallel momentarily and the low battery will take enough of a charge from the good battery/power supply to allow it to charge normally.
I am not aware of any means for operating the B2 system directly from AC power.

Profoto B2 System battery issues


What would cause a musty smell from my portable A/C unit?

Question: Even when the compressor is not running in cooling mode and just the fan is spinning it is producing a musty smell. Where could the smell be coming from and how can I clean it? This unit does not have a tank, it re-distributes the water in cooling mode.
Comment: I need a quick bit of advice. I cleaned the coils of my air con today with part bleach/water by spraying it through the coils. It appears the bleach mix was too strong though and the unit smells heavily of bleach. How can I neutralize the bleach smell?
Answer: What I have found is the drain has gotten plugged in tha back outside section, dust builds up and plugs the hole , the other thing I have found that causes portables to smell musty is when they are installed level. There is supposed to be a tilt to the back so the condensate will run to the back and drain outside. There are special cleaners for AC systems make sure to use non acid based cleaners and flush with clear water. Acid based cleaners are very hard on the cooling fins and can start corrosion that will shorten the units life. I would want to flush my unit if musty and make sure it is draining completely or the smell will come back after cleaning .
Comment: I only use the drain in heating mode, in cooling mode this unit re-uses the condensate by spraying it around. I don't think the drain is the issue in my case...
Comment: Recycling dirty water is a good way to create the smell you are talking about. In large commercial systems this has been the breading grounds for leigonairs disease.
Comment: I don't think they would have designed a system to reuse the condensate if they weren't confident it was safe, but I suppose the reused water could lead to the smell in the coils. How are you meant to flush the coils on a portable with all of the electrics nearby?
Answer: Mold can grow on the components which are persistently wet from condensed water vapor. Google your specific model and see if you can get a procedure or even a Youtube video showing cleaning.
I would not use vinegar because it would corrode metal and the odor might persist. The usual active ingredient in most mold cleaner is some form of chlorine bleach.
For cleaning a/c refrigerator coils, I have always wanted to try hydrogen peroxide 3%, or even 4% or 7.5%. I would never use any higher concentration than 7.5%. Hydrogen peroxide is odorless and doesn't leave a residue. Fact sheet on hydrogen peroxide.
TX678G 7.5% Hydrogen Peroxide There may be regulatory restrictions on the purchase of hydrogen peroxide in larger quantities and higher concentrations due to its recent history of very, very serious misuse (production of improvised explosive devices using acetone peroxide).
Hydrogen peroxide is commercially available in 37% but the oxidizing effect of higher concentrations is much, much higher, and 37% hydrogen peroxide is a very dangerous substance. Even 3% should not be gotten in or around the eyes. Use eye protection even with 3% when it is being used for cleaning and could be splashed.
EDIT
I would have thought that the portable a/c units that do not collect condensate in a reservoir or drain it by a hose to the outside would spray the condensate onto the condenser coils so that it would help cool the condenser and then would get incorporated into the hot exhaust air stream where it would be expelled to the outside. So you might have to clean both coils--evaporator and condenser.
Comment: 50/50 bleach/water might be too strong. Investigate this further.
Comment: Thank you for your reply. If I made a spray solution of 50/50 bleach/water is it safe to spray the coils? Would I just spray it all over the coils and wait for it to dry? Obviously the coils in a portable cannot be hosed down afterwards due to the electrics.
Comment: Whatever I spray over the coils do I need to rinse it afterwards or just let it dry off?
Comment: Yes that is how they work, by spraying the condensate onto the condenser coils to help with cooling. Of course in heating mode it needs a drain line as usual.
Comment: I didn't know that these portable inside a/c units had a heating mode. I thought they were all just a/c to lower the indoor temperature. Does this model have two   hose ducts--one to draw in outside air and the other to exhaust
Comment: No my unit does heating and cooling, it is this one:http://www.olimpiasplendid.com/portable-air-conditioners/ellisse_hp It is a single hose unit and I have heard the two hose units work better but this one works well.


What can I do about 2x4 wood expansion joints that are above the surface of the concrete?

Question: I have a lot of concrete in my yard that has several 2x4 6-10 foot wood expansions.  The 2x4's are now between a 1/2" and a full inch above my concrete.  What can I do to fix this? I thought about a hammer and chisel, but it would take me a year!  Can I take the 2x4s out?  I've had this concrete for about 15 years.  No cracks anywhere just expanding wood!
Comment: You could take out the 2x4s but then you would have a crack to worry about. It may end up being a dirt filled weed magnet.
Answer: Not knowing what you use this concrete pad for, you could take the plywood out and fill the gaps with polymeric sand. Once you water it in, the sand forms a locking pattern that resists weeds and is fairly easy to replace if it cracks.
Answer: I would first try using a sledge hammer to hit a scrap piece of wood laid over the 2x4. This may work. If not, I would try prying the wood out with a crowbar, starting at an end, and using a piece of scrap wood for the fulcrum. If that worked, I'd rip off the 1/2" or 1" part that protrudes with a circular saw. If you can't pry it out, I'd use a reciprocating saw with a 12" blade and force the blade flush to the concrete to cut off the protruding wood.


Why is "soccer" pronounced with a hard "c"?

Question: I have seen that in "soccer", the 'c' is pronounced as 'k', though it is followed by 'e'. The word "soccer" comes from "(As)soc(iation football) + -er". But even in "Association", the 'c' is followed by 'i' and is pronounced as 's'. Then what is the reason for the 'k' pronunciation in "soccer"?
Comment: Two Cs before an E is most often pronounced /ks/ in English: *succeed*, *accept*, *access*, *eccentric*.  Though this being English, there are tons of exceptions, including words other than *soccer* where it is pronounced /k/: *sicced*, *specced*,
Comment: Also, *bocce* is pronounced a third way. Why not say "Sotcher?"
Comment: There are two Cs in soccer, which, in any case, originated as a slang or casual usage.
Comment: @TaliesinMerlin Because it is definitely not Italian!
Answer: The term soccer appears to derive from Assoc, short for Association, originally "scocca", with a hard c:

1889, socca, later socker (1891), soccer (1895), originally university slang (with jocular formation -er (3)), from a shortened form of Assoc., abbreviation of association in Football Association (as opposed to Rugby football); compare rugger.

An unusual method of formation, but those who did it perhaps shied
away from making a name out of the first three letters of Assoc.

- er :

suffix used to make jocular or familiar formations from common or proper names (soccer being one), first attested 1860s, English schoolboy slang, "Introduced from Rugby School into Oxford University slang, orig. at University College, in Michaelmas Term, 1875" [OED, with unusual precision].

(Etymonline)
Comment: I believe there was a vogue for slang terms ending in -er at one time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_%22-er%22
Comment: Interesting that it was socker at one point but then changed to soccer. Any explanation of that?
Comment: @StephenS - apparently socker was just a spelling variant after the suffix -er was added to socca. https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2014/06/soccer.html
Comment: @StephenS Maybe because at the time 'to sock' someone meant to hit them (it still does but is less common than it was). My guess is that, possibly, they didn't want to be thought of as 'brawling roughs'. The other code has always been said to be "a game for thugs played by gentlemen".


Does a (half) beheaded Ettin take bleeding damage of some sort?

Question: Let's say a character cuts off one of an Ettin's heads, but the other head is still intact, and it's as such still alive. Obviously, there's a lot of blood. Does the Ettin take continuous damage from naturally bleeding out? Or does it not work that way?
Answer: The DM decides the effect
Although things like limb loss and hit locations aren't generally used in D&D, the Sword of Sharpness description provides a good edge case example: "you lop off one of the target's limbs, with the effect of such loss determined by the GM".
For my own games: whenever a player reduces an opponent to 0 hp with a melee attack, I'm ok with describing the defeat however we want: dead, unconscious, disarmed, lost limb, etc.
Answer: No, it does not
For several reasons:

There are no called shots in 5e. Unless there is a mechanic for removing a head (e.g. the Hydra in the Monster Manual p. 190 or the Vorpal Sword from the DMG p. 209), there is no way to remove a head without houserules. Should a head be removed, there are mechanics in the stat block for that; remove a head and remove those mechanics.

Two Heads
The ettin has advantage on Wisdom (Perception)
  checks and on saving throws against being blinded, charmed,
  deafened, frightened, stunned, and knocked unconscious
Wakeful
When one of the ettin's heads is asleep, its other head is awake

(MM, 132)
The stat block of the Ettin provides no damage for loss of a head. Just loss of some mechanical advantages (see above.)
Unless you have a weapon or effect that specifically causes bleeding (e.g. Sword of Wounding from DMG p. 207), there are no ongoing bleeding effects from damage.
Comment: I think #1 could use more qualifiers, since between vorpal swords, and DMs ruling on results of PC actions that the rules don't systematise (e.g., PC: "okay, now that we have the chained ettin in the guillotine, I pull the lever…"), such a situation could easily arise without house rules.
Comment: Vorpal answered here: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/110606
Comment: @SevenSidedDie the Vorpal Sword is a good point, but it's impossible to come up with an edge-case resolution for something that doesn't have mechanical rules in the system. I'm actually going to do a follow-up question on the Vorpal sword.


Reducing PSD File size/selections

Question: In trying to reduce file size for PSD, does eliminating saved selections do anything? I've found lots of useful tips, but none relating to selections. Thanks.
Comment: Have you deleted them and looked?
Comment: Okay, so I finally had time to try it. Files are large illustrations.  Starting with 3 layers @ 129MB. Eliminate 36 selections brings it down to 114MB. Adding a white fill layer on top drops it to 70MB (presumably because it doesn't have to save a preview).  Now we all know.
Comment: In other words, less layers + layer masks = smaller file size yes.
Comment: May I ask why you need to reduce the PSD file size? Might be easier in the long run to invest in more memory.
Comment: Because I have to upload it and when the deadline's tight. I want to speed up the process.
Answer: If I remember well, each type of layer can each easily add an extra 20mb+ to your unflatten .psd file at high resolution.
If you're using the same mask for many layers, you can group these layers in the same folder and use the mask on the folder instead.
But since you don't want to remove your selections or layers, there is something else you might want to try and that can help reduce the file size.
In Photoshop, all the layers that are not showing on your artboard are still "hidden" in the gray area around your design. If you imported big images that go off the working area, they are still calculated as pixels in your document and they add up to the weight of your file.
If you don't mind losing that kind of data, you can crop your psd file or erase these unused parts to get rid of that "dead weight". It's not always the ideal solution, but you can do some clean-up there on some layers.
Comment: > "each type of layer adds a 20mb." I supose the layer size depends on the canvas size, the content of it, and the compression settings.
Comment: I added some conditional specifications that the image is probably high resolution and a simple psd. I assumed it was high resolution since low resolution are rarely so heavy they need to be optimized when the layers are not flattened!

Reducing PSD File size/selections


Unable to see wireless networks on 12.10 (AR928X card)

Question: I am unable to view any wireless networks (accessible through other devices). In the nm-applet I can see that the 'Enable wireless' is selected. Could anyone please let me know what the problem is ?
I am providing outputs for some commands which were suggested in related questions
Please let me know if any other information is necessary.
lspci -nn |grep 0280
04:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Atheros Communications Inc. AR928X Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) [168c:002a] (rev 01)

lshw -c network
  *-network
   description: Wireless interface
   product: AR928X Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express)
   vendor: Atheros Communications Inc.
   physical id: 0
   bus info: pci@0000:04:00.0
   logical name: wlan0
   version: 01
   serial: f0:7b:cb:13:36:20
   width: 64 bits
   clock: 33MHz
   capabilities: bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
   configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath9k driverversion=3.5.0-19-generic firmware=N/A latency=0 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11abgn
   resources: irq:16 memory:fbef0000-fbefffff
  *-network
   description: Ethernet interface
   product: NetLink BCM57780 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe
   vendor: Broadcom Corporation
   physical id: 0
   bus info: pci@0000:05:00.0
   logical name: eth0
   version: 01
   serial: a4:ba:db:ec:bf:0e
   size: 1Gbit/s
   capacity: 1Gbit/s
   width: 64 bits
   clock: 33MHz
   capabilities: bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
   configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=tg3 driverversion=3.123 duplex=full firmware=sb v2.05 ip=192.168.51.250 latency=0 multicast=yes port=MII speed=1Gbit/s
   resources: irq:48 memory:fbff0000-fbffffff

rfkill list
0: hci0: Bluetooth
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no
1: phy0: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no

sudo iwconfig
eth0      no wireless extensions.

lo        no wireless extensions.

clearwlan0     IEEE 802.11abgn  ESSID:off/any
      Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=21 dBm
      Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
      Encryption key:off
      Power Management:off

dmesg|grep ath9
[   20.169143] ieee80211 phy0: Selected rate control algorithm 'ath9k_rate_control'
[   20.169414] Registered led device: ath9k-phy0

Answer: Try adding a network manually by clicking on the network icon, selecting edit connections, wireless, then add. Enter the network SSID, then follow these instructions to refresh the connections. Connecting and refreshing a wireless network without restart.
You may also have to install drivers even though your computer sees the device.
Comment: I tried manual addition of networks, but it wasn't fruitful. I also tried installing the drivers through the package
linux-backports-modules-cw-3.6-3.5.0-21-generic
(compat-wireless Linux modules for version 3.5.0 on x86/x86_64). But there was a breakdown of the system on restart after this installation (one of the displays, keyboard, mouse did not work). So I had to reinstall the system, after failing to restore the system, using a live usb. Please let me know if there is any other way to install the drivers.
Comment: This was the method that worked for me, but I'm sure that there are more experienced users who can help, sorry.


Which IRS address to choose for federal tax return?

Question: Do you choose the IRS address for submitting your federal taxes based on where you currently live (the return address on the envelope) or where your current resident was in that tax year?
Answer: The one where you want to receive correspondence from the IRS.
Comment: For _IRS_ purposes, does it matter what return address is on the _envelope_ that contains the tax return? Wouldn't the IRS just send any correspondence to the address shown on the _return_ itself? (I know the return address on the envelope matters for _USPS_ purposes if the Post Office wants to return the envelope to the sender because it is not deliverable as addressed, or the sender did not put on enough stamps, etc).
Comment: @DilipSarwate the IRS will send correspondence to the address on the latest return, the address on the envelope is of no significance for that purpose. I understood the OP to be asking about the address on the return, not the envelope.
Comment: Well, he did specifically say "where you currently live (the return address on the envelope)" instead of address on the return, and so I suppose I interpreted his statement more literally than you did.
Answer: Choose the address based on where you currently live (where you are mailing the tax return from.)
You can find the correct mailing address here. Just choose the state you live in, and the website will give you the correct mailing address.
If you get it wrong, I don't think it matters a whole lot, except perhaps to delay things a little bit. They just assign different addresses to different states to try to divide up the returns among the various offices evenly.


How to use SystemProgram.assign?

Question: I have my two accounts. Is there any way to make the second account the owner of the first account using SystemProgram.assign instructions? So that I can sign transactions with the secret key of the second account.
Answer: You can use SystemProgram.assign to make the first account owned by a program. I'm not sure if it'll let you assign to an account that is not a program (eg it could check the owner is executable). It's certainly intended for assigning accounts to be owned by a program.
But more importantly, being the owner of an account doesn't let you sign transactions for it.
Let's take the token program for example. The token program is the owner of mint accounts and token accounts. If I want to have a transaction where you send me some USDC, that'll include an instruction on the token program which modifies your USDC token account. You need to sign that transaction, the token program can't sign it for you. Your USDC token account actually is not a signer of that transaction. The token program (which owns your USDC token account) will check you've signed the transaction (since you're the authority on that token account) before modifying the account.
So I think the data flow here is a bit different to what you're thinking of. The owner doesn't sign for the accounts it owns, it modifies the data in the accounts and is responsible for making sure the expected signatures are present when it does so.
Depending what your accounts are, there's also a delegate concept in eg the token program. You can sign a transaction that allows another address to spend, say 100 USDC from your token account. This doesn't require them to own your account, the delegate can be any address. So that might be an option, the second account would be a delegate on the first account, and would be able to sign transactions that modify it to some extent. But this depends on the functionality of the program that owns the first account.
Adding more detail about the token delegate:

You can call the approveChecked instruction: https://solana-labs.github.io/solana-program-library/token/js/functions/approveChecked.html. You would call this with the first account as the signer and the second as the delegate. You'd specify the token mint and the amount you want the second account to be able to spend.
Now you can call eg the transferChecked instruction, transferring from the token account owned by the first account, with only the second account as the signer.
Comment: So how I can allow my second address spend something from first? Is there any example? Cause idk how to do it
Comment: What do you mean by "something"? Are you referring to SOL, or to SPL tokens, or to something else?
Comment: SPL tokens, if it's possible
Comment: I've added some detail about how it works for tokens in the answer :)
Comment: Oh, thanks. So i should aproove **approveChecked** instruction from the first acc, and then i can call **transferChecked** instruction and sign it from the second acc? Right? And SPL-tokens from the first my acc will transfer on the second one? By the way, param's **account** and **delegate** it's the token's account's or addresses?

How to use SystemProgram.assign?


How to correctly form yahoo boss url query

Question: I am a novice programmer trying to understand how the api works. Been studying it for the last few days and been making some progress, but still need some help.
This seems to be the url to submit the query to, don't quite understand how to correctly form it?
$url = "http://yboss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/web";

If I want the results to come back as json, would this be correct?
$url = "http://yboss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/web?q={keywords}&format=json";

This really has me stumped, not sure at all how to get the actual query from the html form passed, would this be correct?
$url = "http://yboss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/web?q={keywords}";

If so, would I then need to include:
$args["keywords"]

If I could figure out how to correctly pass the query from the html form, I believe most of my other questions would also be answered.
Regarding this section, I assume these are the variables for various arguments that the api service allows. For each argument, do I have to include corresponding $args[""] code in the list below? For example, if I have &format=json in the url query, then I would also need to keep $args["format"] = json"; in the list below?
$args = array();
$args["q"] = "yahoo";
$args["format"] = "json";

Or say, if wanted to include:
$url = "http://yboss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/web?q={keywords}&abstract=long";

would I also need to include:
$args[abstract] = "long";

to the $args list above?
The part that really has me stumped is how do I get the actual query that is submitted through the html form to pass?
$url = "http://yboss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/web?q={keywords}

Do I then include a:
$args["keywords"]

to the $args list?
When I go to test it this is the results I get:

domain.com/search.php?q=car
stdClass Object ( [bossresponse] => stdClass Object ( [responsecode] => 200 [web] => stdClass Object ( [start] => 0 [count] => 50 [totalresults] => 112000000 [results] => Array ( [0] => stdClass Object ( [date] => [clickurl] => http://www.yahoo.com/ [url] => http://www.yahoo.com/ [dispurl] => www.yahoo.com [title] => Yahoo! [abstract] => Yahoo! home page with the latest breaking news and interesting articles, what items are trending now on the internet, links to other Yahoo! sites and local news and ... ) [1] => stdClass Object ( [date] => [clickurl] => http://mail.yahoo.com/ [url] => http://mail.yahoo.com/ [dispurl] => mail.yahoo.com [title] => Sign in to Yahoo! [abstract] => Yahoo! makes it easy to enjoy what matters most in your world. Best in class Yahoo! Mail, breaking local, national and global news, finance, sports, music, movies and ... ) [2] => stdClass Object ( [date] => [clickurl] => http://us.yahoo.com/ [url] => http://us.yahoo.com/ [dispurl] => us.yahoo.com [title] => Yahoo! [abstract] => A new welcome to Yahoo!. The new Yahoo! experience makes it easier to discover the news and information that you care about most. It's the web ordered for you. ) [3] => stdClass Object ( [date] => [clickurl] => http://sports.yahoo.com/ [url] => http://sports.yahoo.com/ [dispurl] => sports.yahoo.com [title] => Yahoo! Sports - Sports News, Scores, Rumors, Fantasy Games ... [abstract] => All the latest sports news, scores, rumors, fantasy games, and more ) [4] => stdClass Object ( [date] => [clickurl] => http://my.yahoo.com/ [url] => http://my.yahoo.com/ [dispurl] => my.yahoo.com [title] => Sign in to Yahoo! [abstract] => My Yahoo is a customizable web page with news, stock quotes, weather, and many other features. ) [5] => stdClass Object ( [date] => [clickurl] => http://dir.yahoo.com/ [url] => http://dir.yahoo.com/ [dispurl] => dir.yahoo.com [title] => Yahoo! Directory [abstract] => Help us improve the Yahoo! Directory - Share your ideas ) [6] => stdClass Object ( [date] => [clickurl] => http://search.yahoo.com/ [url] => http://search.yahoo.com/ [dispurl] => search.yahoo.com [title] => Yahoo! Search - Web Search [abstract] => The search engine that helps you find exactly what you're looking for. Find the most relevant information, video, images, and answers from all across the Web. ) [7] => stdClass Object ( [date] => [clickurl] => http://news.yahoo.com/ [url] => http://news.yahoo.com/ [dispurl] => news.yahoo.com [title] => Yahoo! News - Latest News & Headlines [abstract] => The latest news and headlines from Yahoo! News. Get breaking news stories and in-depth coverage with videos and photos. ) [8] => stdClass Object ( [date] => [clickurl] => http://autos.yahoo.com/ [url] => http://autos.yahoo.com/ [dispurl] => autos.yahoo.com [title] => New car pictures, prices and reviews - Yahoo! Autos [abstract] => See new car pictures, find out new car prices and read new car reviews on Yahoo! Autos. Compare cars and get a free price quote from dealers near you. Check out Clear ... ) [9] => stdClass Object ( [date] => [clickurl] => http://us.m.yahoo.com/ [url] => http://us.m.yahoo.com/ [dispurl] => us.m.yahoo.com [title] => Yahoo! Mobile [abstract] => At your Yahoo!

Obviously the query is not being passed properly because the result is all about Yahoo instead of the query "car". And it looks like it is an unformatted json response because I know xml is way different. Any links to a good tutorial on json would be great.
If I could figure out how to get the actual query passed from the html form, I believe it would answer many of these questions.
Below is what I believe to be the default code that yahoo supplies to display the results:
$results = json_decode($rsp);
print_r($results);

Would I need to set up some type of json code for that? Could an example or link be provided to help me better understand json, I know the basis of it is key value pairs, but have never worked with json before, not sure where to start....
I apologize for such a long question, but I have many questions and instead of submitting mutliple questions, I figured 1 long question would be best.
Answer: This is what I'm using for Yahoo BOSS API in PHP, I hope it helps
<?php
// This enable debugging
ini_set('display_errors', 'On');
error_reporting(E_ALL);

require("OAuth.php"); // You will need to make your own OAuth.php

$cc_key = "---FILL THIS IN WITH YOUR INFO---";
$cc_secret = "---FILL THIS IN WITH YOUR INFO---";
$url = "http://yboss.yahooapis.com/ysearch/web"; // This can be tweaked to search images, videos etc
$args = array();
$args["q"] = "--FILL THIS IN WITH WHAT YOU WANT TO SEARCH FOR---"; // search operator, fill in with query value
$args["count"] = "10"; // Default is 50, restricts results down to 10
$args["web.sites"] = "";  // comma separated value, optional -- usnews.com,nytimes.com, etc
$args["format"] = "json"; // Default is json, options are xml or json, code below only works for JSON at the moment

$consumer = new OAuthConsumer($cc_key, $cc_secret);
$request = OAuthRequest::from_consumer_and_token($consumer, NULL,"GET", $url, $args);
$request->sign_request(new OAuthSignatureMethod_HMAC_SHA1(), $consumer, NULL);
$url = sprintf("%s?%s", $url, OAuthUtil::build_http_query($args));
echo $url . "
";
$ch = curl_init();
$headers = array($request->to_header());
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, TRUE);
$rsp = curl_exec($ch);
$results = json_decode($rsp); // Decodes JSON
print_r($results); // Prints results to screen
?>


What is the biological principle of this "holotropic breathwork" technique?

Question: Holotropic breathwork is a non-drug technique developed by Stanislav Grof used in psychotherapy. The therapy as a whole is usually called holotropic breathwork (at least by Grof himself) and will most probably rely on a range of effects. However, I am mainly concerned about the core technique, which leads to hallucination and a changed state of conciousness (i.e. being half concious and having a distorted perception of time).
As quick googling does not reveal any specific information of the technique, I will describe a demonstration of an amateur enactment of something which was stated to be based on the same principle as holotropic breathwork. (I consider the respective people very irresponsible to have done this without trained assistance, it is probably very dangerous, do NOT try at home!)
A person squats curled near a wall and breaths as quickly and as heavily as possible for a few minutes. After that they quickly stand up in front of the wall and another person pushes them quickly in the chest and presses them strongly against the wall behind them. The pushed person collapses completely, their muscles relaxed, they even don't have the time to close eyes and you can see their eyeballs rolling around freely. They are in this state for about 15 seconds and then wake up reporting vivid hallucinations. Some of the people said that their perception e.g. of sources of light and surfaces were altered for another several hours.
So, what is the biological basis of this collapse and hallucinations? (It would be perhaps good to also comment on the possible risks.)
Answer: I think this is mostly caused by hyperventilation. The excessive breathing disturbs the balance between CO$_{2}$ and oxygen in our lungs. This will cause respiratory alkalosis (the blood pH, which is normally strictly regulated, gets higher), which can cause dizziness, headaches and fainting.
The shift in pH can also disturb the eclectrolyte balance, especially the concentration of the free dissolved calcium, as it binds to negatively charged plasma proteins (which release protons into the blood due to the higher pH). This can lead to craps and spasms.
I would be very careful not playing around here, as this can have some severe consequences.
Comment: It makes sense that the high levels of oxygen may cause fainting, but what is the mechanism of the hallucinations? Somebody told me that the procedure causes a sudden peak of adrenaline which overwhelms the receptors, but I cannot find any reference.
Answer: Pressing on the chest changes the concentration of dissolved gasses in the blood stream. Your brain reacts due to excessive oxygen in the blood. This is oxygen toxicity.
Why the brain generates vivid imagery when unconscious is a big topic. There's a theory that correlates dreams with a lack of cognitive stimulation. This is called autostimulation and may function as pseudo-learning when external stimulation is low. For children it's thought this helps them learn when they can't communicate. We may dream less as we age because adults are highly stimulated.
I hypothesize dreaming while knocked unconscious has side effects which mimic dreaming.


Encode/Decode AndroidManifest.xml inside APK

Question: I'm using ApkTool to decode AndroidManifest.xml inside an APK file and it works perfectly but how can I encode it again ,the same way it was encoded before, after applying some changes? For example (in my case) changing the app label.
Comment: Ask the developer for the original code or download the source.  If you are reverse engineering someone else's code, then no help here.
Comment: @Simon dude I was that someone else in this case cause I was just trying create an app-generator from a template "apk" file that I wrote before and trying change its data from outside and sign it again ;)
Answer: You may use apktool again to create a new APK file including your changed AndroidManifest.xml.
First, decompile the APK file:
java -jar apktool.jar decode app.apk app

Then modify the files you want in the app directory and recompile it back into a new APK:
java -jar apktool.jar build app app_new.apk

aapt must be on our PATH or use the --aapt option to specify the location of the executable. Otherwise apktool will fail when rebuilding the APK.
Note: The rebuilt APK is neither signed nor zipaligned, just repackaged. Take a look at this website for details about signing and aligning your new APK.
Comment: Note that in version 2.0.0 of ApkTool, either you do not specify the "app" directory or you introduce it using the option -o
Comment: Is there a way to do this without repackaging the entire APK? Because `apktool` often fails to decompile then recompile with no modifications.
Comment: I get `Input file (app) was not found or was not readable.` error. What does it mean ? If I omit last parameter I cannot build apk again.
Comment: @expert it's because you're specifying a directory app, ommit "app" from the command. Apktool will automatically create a folder named base if the apk name was base.apk. on newer versions of apktool there's an option -o for output directory. enjoy =)
Answer: Use appt for android-sdk (ex:- /build-tools/27.0.3/aapt )

./aapt d xmltree ./debug.apk  AndroidManifest.xml

N: android=http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android
  E: manifest (line=1)
    A: android:versionCode(0x0101021b)=(type 0x10)0x1
    A: android:versionName(0x0101021c)="1.0" (Raw: "1.0")
    A: package="com.example.activity" (Raw: "com.example.activity")
    E: uses-sdk (line=6)
      A: android:minSdkVersion(0x0101020c)=(type 0x10)0x8
      A: android:targetSdkVersion(0x01010270)=(type 0x10)0xf
    E: application (line=8)
      A: android:label(0x01010001)=@0x7f030000
      A: android:icon(0x01010002)=@0x7f020000
      E: activity (line=10)
        A: android:label(0x01010001)=@0x7f030000
        A: android:name(0x01010003)=".SampleActivity" (Raw: ".SampleActivity")
        E: intent-filter (line=12)
          E: action (line=13)
            A: android:name(0x01010003)="android.intent.action.MAIN" (Raw: "android.intent.action.MAIN")
          E: category (line=14)
            A: android:name(0x01010003)="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" (Raw: "android.intent.category.LAUNCHER")

This link might help http://elinux.org/Android_aapt
Another one tool for "AXMLPrinter" google source link https://code.google.com/archive/p/android4me/downloads
java -jar ./AXMLPrinter2.jar ./debug.apk_FILES/AndroidManifest.xml
Comment: Another one tool for AXMLPrinter. note this link google source (https://code.google.com/archive/p/android4me/downloads)

java -jar ./AXMLPrinter2.jar ./debug.apk_FILES/AndroidManifest.xml


A question about max TTL input of a converter device

Question: I have a programmable f/I converter which can be modified for various types of inputs and outputs. They have also a more detailed manual. I read them and learned how to configure and set this device. As an output I set it to 0-10V and as input I set it for frequency with TTL type input. This is because for NPN and PNP inputs I need to add some transistor circuitry with certain voltage ect. Input to the converter will come from a circuit which is currently outputting 0-8.2V pulse train(8.2V is because of a zener limiting the amplitude)
Anyway the bottom line is I will use this converter to convert incoming pulse train from a circuit to analog voltage. And my inputs to the converter is 0-8.2V pulse train(input to pins 5 and 6 in the datasheet). I made the setup and works fine. The converter successfully converts 0-8.2V pulse train frequency to a voltage range set. I set the converter to TTL input as I mentioned.
My concern is coming from lack of knowledge here. So the input to the converter is a pulse train with 8.2V amplitude, on the other hand the converter is set to TTL input settings. But my input to the converter is 0-8.2V not 0-5V.
Is it alright to use this like that? I mean would exceeding 5V and using 8.2V amplitude pulse train cause damage in long run? I know that TTL stands for 0-5V signals. Should I reduce my input pulse amplitude to exactly 5V? I couldn't extract this from the manual from the max ratings.
Answer: The manual does not give absolute input limits, so there is no way to tell if 8 volts will kill it. As a result, you should assume that it will. And be careful how you reduce the voltage. Simply using a voltage divider can get you into trouble if you use resistances which are too large.


Get an IIS 6 ISAPI dll to ignore virtual directories

Question: I have an IIS 6 website with an ISAPI dll to run an application. The application and ISAPI filter works well. I also have a couple of virtual directories set up to handle things like images without the need for the performance hit of accessing the ISAPI filter. However it seems like the ISAPI filter is a higher priority and is handling all requests before the virtual directories. How can I change this so requests for virtual directories are handled first and everything else goes to the filter?
Answer: You can't. Microsoft specifically says in ISAPI Filter Overview :

ISAPI filters always run on an IIS
  server, filtering every request
  until they find one they need to
  process. The ability to examine and
  modify both incoming and outgoing
  streams of data makes ISAPI filters
  powerful and flexible.

To be selective, maybe you should rather use an ISAPI Extension, since in this case the URL itself specifies the DLL to which the request is directed. In this case the DLL needs to handle the entire request itself.


How strong is the meaning of the word "fine"?

Question: I am asking a recommendation letter from my mentor, and he describes me as a "fine candidate" followed by "!". I consider the word "fine" to be a very weak term, so does it mean that he only thinks of me as being an ordinary candidate?
Answer: So it sounds like your mentor really (!) likes your work. By using "fine," it means he feels or thinks you are worthy of his approval. Depending on his status, this could be a great commendation indeed. The original word comes from the Old French fin which means perfected, of the highest quality.
Largely interpretation will depend on what other people believe the word fine means though, how familiar they are with your mentor, and the type of position for which you are setting your sights.


Barcode Doent Scan, Need a Barcode Font

Question: Could anyone help me out with barcode font. I have been using C128bHc and Free3of9 font to produce barcodes from numeric values to be used in Crystal Reports. But they dont scan. I dont know what variant I am using. I again produced a few from this website (http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/generator/) using Code128 to generate a barcode for '123456789' and client mentioned that it did work for them. I am confused. Could anyone help me find out an appropriate barcode font please? Thanks
Answer: I ran into the same problem where I work. In my case there were two problems happening at the same time.
First, I discovered that you can't just type text and then use a barcode font. There is a conversion process that has to happen to format the data correctly with opening and closing tags. That's why entering data and using a barcode font isn't working but an image generated by a website does. The website is performing the conversion for you.
The software we use to format the data is found at IdAutomation.com.  There are other vendors out there, my company already had the software when I was hired. They are one of the big fish in the barcoding software market.
Second, the font we use is idautomationC128S. It prints a thinner barcode (height-wise) that doesn't eat up so much space on our reports. Specifically, we can use a larger font size without rows growing taller.
If you have these issues already worked out, I've included a sample formula below using an idautomation formula in Crystal reports that converts the data from a table to a usable format. You will also need to change the Font to a barcode format (but you probably already know that...)
<code>IDAutomation_Code128 ({Table_SQL.field_name})
</code>
I hope this helps!
Answer: Find IDAutomation.exe for code 39 or for code 128 from internet [Its normally paid] and install it in your computer so it will be shown as a font in your computer. Now when you want to use it in crystal report change the font from the list as a IDAutomation128 font it will generate your ID into scanner readable barcode format[ FYI-*{XXXXXXX}*].

Barcode Doent Scan, Need a Barcode Font


How lucky long can I leave a dweller out for?

Question: My dweller is a level 24 Alexander Synder with high luck and medium everything else - he has 25 Stimpaks and 11 RadAways, he's already been out 9 hours but I wondered if he'd survive overnight for another 8-9h?
Comment: The referenced post has some good information but this is just going to vary greatly, I had a level 1 person that I sent out for the first time. She is now level 50 and it took 3 days before she started using her health packs... I guess leveling resets your health while in the wastes...
Answer: If he has some really awesome loot or too many caps, better recall him. But, if you don't mind a lvl 24 dweller dying, You can just leave him alone.
Rule of thumb(suggested): Send a dweller while going to sleep. When you wake up, recall him/her if alive
Update: So I trained all stats of a dweller, gave her a railway gun and sent her to explore. Two-three times after doing this, she became L50. Revival costs 1000 caps. So I just send her with 20 or more Stimpaks and 10 Radaways and wait for two days. She brings a loot of 6-7k caps. And even if she dies, I just revive once and then recall.


Multiple Linear Regression Assumptions

Question: I have a question regarding the assumptions. I have a categorical predictor alongside three continuous predictors (moderators) and my dependent variable is continuous. I would like to understand how would one compute the assumptions or check for them in such a case. For the linearity assumption as I understand I would need to just check it for the moderator but for the others how would one do it? Is it variable based or model based? Thank you for all the help and answers in advance.
Answer: The usual approach to checking linearity is to plot the residuals vs fitted values for the model - if there is a nonlinear pattern, this may indicate that the linearity assumption does not hold.
Here is a very simple example in R:
set.seed(1)
N <- 1000
X <- rnorm(N, 10, 5)
Y <- 10 + X - X^2 + rnorm(N)
plot(lm(Y ~ X))

...so we see a very pronounced nonlinear shape to the plot..
... but now if we include a quadratic term:
plot(lm(Y ~ X + I(X^2) ))

..and now we no longer have a nonlinear pattern.
Comment: Does this answer your question ? If so please consider marking it as the accepted answer, and if you haven't already please consider upvoting it. If not, please let us know why ?

Multiple Linear Regression Assumptions


Is handwriting analysis considered a legitimate source of evidence in forensic science?

Question: I'm not referring to determining personality from handwriting, I'm talking about whether a document was forged or created by a certain person by comparing handwriting on a document to a sample source of handwriting.
Comment: Considered legitimate by who?  Courts? (in what jurisdictions)?  And are you asking if handwriting samples alone are enough for proof (i.e. to convict someone), or if they are considered legitimate along with other evidence?
Answer: The short answer is yes.  The paper titled PROFICIENCY OF PROFESSIONAL DOCUMENT EXAMINERS IN WRITER IDENTIFICATION deals with this subject directly.  It was written in the lab I worked in as an undergrad and did research in a related paper that may or may not end up being published (I hope it does, but these things take a lot of time).
To quote some of the abstract:

A comprehensive writer identification test was designed and
  administered to a group of professional document examiners and a
  control group of nonprofessionals.

...

Professional document examiners from the FBI performed significantly
  better than control group members, indicating that handwriting
  identification expertise exists.

The above paper I can only find an abstract for, but you have to pay to read the full thing.
A more recent paper (by the same leading author) of which I can find the full paper available, written in 1997 is titled Writer Identification by Professional Document Examiners.  This paper tried a similar approach, but instead of testing between "experts" and "laypeople" they tested between experts and "trainees" and showed how different the results turned out (the experts scored a great deal better).

We report on a comprehensive test administered to more than 100
  professional document examiners, intended to close this data gap in
  the area of writer identification. Each examiner made 144 pair-wise
  comparisons of freely-created original handwritten documents.

...

Examination of the data and statistical tests show that the answers
  collected from the professional and nonprofessional groups came from
  different populations. The trainees' data were shown to have come from
  a population that is distinct from both professional and
  nonprofessional groups. Unlike the professional examiners, the
  nonprofessionals tended to grossly over-associate. They erroneously
  "matched" many documents that were created by different writers,
  mismatching almost six times as many unknown documents to database
  documents as the professionals did (38.3% vs. 6.5% of the documents).
The results of our test lay to rest the debate over whether or not
  professional document examiners possess writer-identification skills
  absent in the general population. They do.

-Asaf
Comment: but incomplete. It shows the FBI probably uses handwriting as a means of matching documents to see if they originated from the same author, it doesn't show whether those techniques have any legal standing or are merely a tool used to select potential candidate documents for further analysis.
Comment: The fact that the professionals are better than lay people doesn't prove that the professionals are good enough to make those judgments in real world situations.
Comment: @Christian and how exactly would you go about proving that they are? Just to be clear, the comparison is used as a control group.  That's the point of comparing them to lay-people.

Also I'm going to edit this question soon, there's discussions/law papers on how to handle this in the law.  I'll try and get to it soon.
Comment: @Asaf: It would be good to have a ROC-plot on how those professionals perform on the kind of task that those professionals are asked to perform in real life.


Are there any layout comparison / vssetting sharing places?

Question: Well, I reinstalled Visual Studio 2008 and did not have a backup of my vssetting file. I did not think it was that important as I had barely customised it, however it just doesn't feel right!
The general windows feel correct but When I switch between views (source code, Windows forms, web editor), all the toolbars get muddled up.
In the past few years, I have seen so many "post your desktop" type items and I could swear there there would be some "post your IDE", but after looking on Google and several other programming sites, I just can't find one!
I don't want this turning in to a post your IDE unless others want to, but can anyone point me to a site where they have done this, or even better - are there any vssetting sharing places where you can download ones made by others?
Answer: Scott Hanselman has a great medley post of Visual Studio settings themes.
Kindness,
Dan
PS: My favourite is Rob Conery's Vibrant ink ;)
Comment: +1, thanks, good link - but I am looking more for general setting files and not just text layouts.
Answer: http://studiostyles.info/ is a newer site - that let's people build online and share their VSSettings themes. It is still mostly based on colors, but I can image that this could one day turn into more.


Kind of switch required to select between power sources

Question: I am installing a 2000 watt pure sine inverter in my RV to run a microwave oven. It is connected to the 110 volt shore power system. I would like to have the microwave and both the shore power and the inverter connected to a selector switch. I don't know what such a switch is called so it is difficult to find. I hope this not a nuisance question but I have exhausted all of my research options. Thanks for your time.
Comment: A double pole double throw switch which is break before make...
Answer: Transfer Switch
A double-pole double-throw break-before-make is essentially what you need. But there are devices designed exactly for this. Transfer switch is the term.
Large transfer switches are used in buildings to transfer between backup generator and utility power. You just need a small one - ~ 20 Amp - to transfer one circuit, but the principle (and the terminology) is the same. Depending on how your RV electrical supply is setup, you may be able to put a transfer switch inline with the one circuit for the microwave, or you may want to install it with the main breaker panel. If you install it with the main panel then you have to figure out how to separate different circuits so you don't overload the inverter when you flip the switch, though adding some LED lighting or other small loads would probably be fine.
There are automatic transfer switches, but those are typically for unattended switching to generator when the power goes out, but there is no benefit to that here, and in fact you would probably NOT want it on automatic as there will be times when you don't have shore power AND don't want to turn on the inverter either.
Comment: Thanks very much. Found the switch on Amazon but at $150 I think I will just put in separate receptacles for each power source and label them. Kind of low tech but fits the budget. Thanks again.


When to use high iso and a short shutter time and vice versa?

Question: In what situations you can use a high iso value and a short shutter time, or use a low iso value and a long shutter time? What will be the difference between two pictures of exactly the same scene, when you take one picture with a high iso value and a short shutter time and another picture with a low iso value and a long shutter time?
Comment: Is this a homework question?
Comment: Related: [Should higher ISOs really be preferred (all other things being equal)?](https://photo.stackexchange.com/q/37837/15871)
Comment: Related: [Longer exposure & lower ISO or shorter exposure & higher ISO - what gives better results when photographing stars?](https://photo.stackexchange.com/q/40188/15871)
Answer: It is a question about limits:

What ISO is acceptable to you with that camera?
What shutter speed will give you sharp results at that focal length?

Too high ISO makes a photo noisy. Too slow a shutter speed will make the whole frame blurry. If you don't have subject motion in mind, you can raise the ISO to make sure shutter speed is fast enough. Otherwise, set shutter speed to something that gives the desired amount of blur and balance ISO with aperture to your liking, considering the resulting depth of field.
Comment: Long exposure can also make a image noisy. It's all about balance.
Answer: "What will be the difference" can perhaps get complicated with excessive detail, of perhaps limited interest and general use.
But "what situations" is perhaps the most basic principle of beginning photography, the Most Important and Very First Thing we must learn (with regard to using any adjustable camera).  If we have not yet learned this, then we absolutely don't know nuthin' about photography yet.
It is well covered many places on the internet, often under the title of "Exposure Triangle"  (Google search term).  That's not a great name, but it simply refers to the three factors of exposure, which are shutter speed, aperture f/stop, and ISO sensitivity.   We do of course need a combination giving proper exposure in the current scene situation, however then many combinations of the three can give the same exposure.  We know to pick our choices depending on what the specific scene requires (there is no one general answer).
Superficially stated,
We would use fast enough shutter speed to stop motion in the scene, to prevent blur.  Or maybe sometimes intentionally a slower shutter speed to create a little motion blur. Many scenes involve no motion, in which case we can give preference to one of the other two factors.
We would use a stopped down aperture (towards f/16) to create more depth of field, a larger zone of acceptable focus sharpness.  For example, a scenic landscape often needs depth of field extending to infinity, but maybe also back to real close, which is a struggle to achieve.  Or some scenes have only minimal depth range, and we can give preference to one of the other two factors.
We might sometimes open the aperture wide (towards f/1.4) to intentionally limit the zone of sharpness (Depth of Field), to intentionally blur the background for example.
The photographer aims for the goal he wants to achieve.
When possible in the situation, we would normally try to use a low ISO for less digital noise in the image.  But a low light level might require greater ISO sensitivity to achieve any usable shutter speed or aperture.  We would use a high ISO when the lower ISO just wasn't feasible, when it won't otherwise accumulate sufficient exposure. There really isn't any advantage of high ISO for its sake alone.
Proper exposure is selecting the best compromise choice of all three properties, best for the situation in front of the camera at the instant. We use the settings that the scene needs.
The fully automatic compact or phone camera does not require we know anything about photography. Anyone can push the button, and the camera does what it does. The basic exposure might be often OK in an average scene with sufficient light, with no special requirements, but it doesn't take much to exceed the camera's standard solution. The automation can find a choice to get an exposed picture, but it has absolutely no clue about the needs of the specific situation. That's what the photographer learns to do.
Comment: See [What is the relationship between ISO, aperture, and shutter speed?](https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/72388/what-is-the-relationship-between-iso-aperture-and-shutter-speed) for our Q&A on the exposure factors.
Comment: "There really isn't any advantage of high ISO for its sake alone." There are a few cases where this is not the case. Astrophotography, for instance, often works better at higher ISO because there is less read noise (fixed pattern noise that is basically unchanged from one frame to the next) and the greater amount of 'shot" noise (Poisson distribution noise that varies from one frame to the next) can be reduced by frame stacking. [Longer exposure & lower ISO or shorter exposure & higher ISO - what gives better results when photographing stars?](https://photo.stackexchange.com/q/40188/15871)
Comment: @MichaelClark - I think that isn't really an instance of higher ISO being an advantage for its sake alone, but rather as a relatively easily overcome compromise for the sake of getting the correct exposure. In contrast, selective focus and motion blur can be desired for their own sake, not just as things you live with because you need the exposure to come out right. I think that was what WayneF was getting at above.
Comment: Yes, what you say is what Wayne is getting at above. But that's not always entirely correct.
Comment: @TomDibble No one is saying there is *always* an advantage. But there are certain use cases where selective focus is meaningless (because everything in the field of view is at infinity) and high ISO is *sometimes* advantageous for other, totally unrelated reasons. Reducing the ratio of fixed read noise to signal by using high ISO and frame stacking in such a case is not a compromise, it is part of the way to maximize the S/N ratio.
Answer: 1). 'high iso value and a short shutter time' can be used when you need to freeze motion (short shutter time) along with inadequate lighting conditions (high iso). Eg: capturing sports activities.
2). 'low iso value and a long shutter time' can be used in vice versa conditions. Eg: capturing the flowing river, waterfall in sunlight.
Answer: Correct exposure is intertwined with the intensity of the illumination playing on the scene and the sensitivity (ISO) of film or digital sensor. Based on the above the chip logic (or camera operator) select an appropriate f-number (aperture) and shutter speed combination. The word "combination" is central to this question because there are umpteen combinations that fill the requirement to deliver a "correct exposure".
For example – f/8 @ 1/100 of a second delivers the same exposing light energy as f/5.6 @ 1/200 as does f/4 @ 1/400 as does f/2.8 @ 1/800 as does f/2 @ 1/1600 as does f/1.4 @ 1/3200. The fact that these various exposure combinations are equivalent is called reciprocity or mutual dependence such as equal work for equal pay etc.
Should you elevate the ISO, this allows faster shutter speeds and or smaller working diameter aperture setting. Conversely, if the ISO is lowered, this obliges the use of slower shutter speed and lager aperture diameters.
As you know, we generally choose a lowered ISO because such a setting will yield a more faithful image. Why is this? If photographic film is used, higher ISO generally induces what is called "grain". This is a clumping together of the metallic silver or dye that comprise the image. This limits the amount of enlargement that the film can tolerate. Conversely, digital images display "noise" which is perceived as a lack of uniformity called "granularity".
Why noise when we up the ISO? The image projected by the lens is quire dim thus the photo receptor sites on the image chip receive a feeble amount of light energy. This energy induces an electrical charge within the photo site. The change is meager and thus it must be amplified to make it useful. The higher the ISO setting, the more the charge will be amplified. When a signal is amplified we always get some static intertwined with the good signal Thus tuning up the ISO yield more and more static. This is similar to turning up the volume on a radio, ultimately static results. In digital photography we call this static "noise".
The nature of the beast is: We shoot with low ISO when we can. We up the ISO when the light is feeble or we need superfast shutter to freeze action or tiny working diameters to grand expanded depth of field. The bottom line is all these phenomenon are interconnected. The skilled photographer uses these distinct different settings to enhance and gain a faithful image.
Answer: Three main factors here. To summarize:

Shutter speed - faster will "freeze" motion, slower will show motion blur. Depends on what you are looking for. Often you want specific items in a scene blurred while other items are crisp - such as a ball player swinging a bat - and so you need to find the "right" exposure for the effect you want. Also note that there is motion of the camera - how steady your hands and stance are - which will show up more in a slow shutter speed, although image stabilization will help with that aspect of low-shutter-speed blur.
Aperture - smaller number ("wider aperture" or "larger aperture" means items out of focus will be more blurred. Since focus is a non-linear gradient, this means that with a smaller f/# you will perceive less of the image as "in focus". Larger number will generally bring more and more of the image in focus, and hide any focus issues, although at a point you start hitting diffraction issues which make everything (even at the focal point) more blurry. Selective focus (the non-focus areas will often be referred to as 'bokeh') is a key tool in drawing the viewer's eye where the photographer wants to draw it, so smaller f-stops (larger apertures) are often sought after so long as the full subject is kept within the depth of field. Focus in general is a whole different topic to discuss.
ISO - sensitivity of the hardware sensor, or "gain". A lower ISO is less sensitive to light fluctuations, and so will show less "noise". A higher ISO is more sensitive to light fluctuations, and so will have more "noise". Note that there is often an "expanded ISO", which means that the sensor will be at its most sensitive (or least sensitive for a lower expanded ISO) and then the signal will be amplified/suppressed after the sensor and before any JPEG compression.

These three all work in concert to give the correct exposure. While exposure, too, can be an artistic choice, generally you want to properly expose a picture so that the subjects are properly colored and lit. To increase exposure, one would:

Increase shutter time (also increasing motion blur)
Decrease the f/stop number (also decreasing the selective focus / increasing perceived depth of field)
Increase ISO (also increasing noise)

To decrease, do the opposite.
Which of these you choose is entirely up to you, as it is an artistic choice of the photographer which effect they want, and which effect they want to compromise on to get proper exposure. The amount of each change is generally spoken of as "stops", where a single stop is a doubling of the light (1.4x of the aperture f/# since that is a linear measure while amount of light is an area flux; 2x the shutter duration, 2x the ISO). But, just knowing which direction to pull each to increase/decrease exposure is the first and most important thing.
Also note that your camera likely has settings which will keep all but one of these set while still getting the proper exposure via metering. In a Canon the modes to let each factor solely determine the exposure are:

Shutter only - Av (Aperture priority) with ISO set
Aperture only - Tv (Time priority) with ISO set
ISO only - M (Manual) with Aperture and Shutter set, Auto ISO (on newer bodies)

You can also do the opposite, set one and let the other two compensate:

Set Shutter - Tv with auto-ISO
Set Aperture - Av with auto-ISO (often want to set a minimum shutter speed too)
Set ISO - P with ISO set

Or, of course, have all of them manually set:

M (Manual) with set ISO, Aperture, and Shutter

(in which case you are on your own with respect to exposure, but this is really important for fleeting non-meterable scenes like fireworks)
In terms of post-processing, it is generally regarded as much easier to compensate for a higher ISO in post-processing using a noise reduction algorithm, than to compensate for camera or subject motion blur or lost focus (or even not-selective-enough focus). So that is often the first "compromise" to make to increase a too-dark exposure. Getting the ISO right in-camera - even if that means more noise - is always better than increasing the exposure in post-processing (because the gain is applied at the sensor less noise is introduced while the signal is low), although some cameras are approaching "ISO invariance" which allows any "ISO gain" to be applied entirely in post.
That said, if your subjects are all standing motionless, there is no reason to have a 1/1000th shutter speed, so decreasing the shutter speed to match the subject (and your camera-holding abilities) is always a "free" compromise to make and should be done before lowering ISO or compromising on selective focus.
Answer: Nobody ever CHOOSES to use a high ISO.  You should always use the lowest ISO possible.. it's your get out of jail free card to allow you to use the aperture and shutter speed combination of your choice - but even though camera ISO performance improves, by definition the clearest cleanest shots still happen at lowest (native) ISO possible.
On shutter speed unless you're going for some effect around movement, or unless you have to sync with a flash, then it's some basic rules of thumb:

Your shutter speed should be at least the same (or 1.5 times on crop sensor camera) as the focal length of your lens to avoid camera shake.  e.g. if you are at the long end of a 70-200mm zoom, at the 200mm end, on a full frame camera you should have at least 1/200th of a second, and on crop sensor at least 1/300th.  Now image stabilization messes with this rule of thumb, but it's still a general rule of thumb.
Secondly if what you are shooting is moving quickly, then you need a faster shutter speed to "freeze" it.. eg if you're up close and personal with a sports event you'll want a shutter speed of 1/500th or more or you'll get movement blur.

So, for example, if you're shooting basketball you may want your aperture at about f5.6 to help keep things in focus and get some context around the player.  You'll want 1/500th of a second to freeze the action.. and the ISO will likely have to be boosted so that's all possible.. say 3200 in a crappy gymnasium or 1600 in stadium lighting.
If on the other hand this is an outside game in the sun, you might only need ISO 200 because the sun is lighting things nicely, and you might even need to go up to a FASTER shutter speed because at lowest ISO there's too much light getting in at 1/500th.
K


javascript - attr('href') not working in IE8

Question: I have a script on my site that doesn't appear to be working in IE8.
The aim is to click the link in Section 2 (below) and retrieve the href in Section 1 and pass into the countries.loadajaxpage script.
Section 1

Section 2
Click here

I have tried using alert(circles) to see if it works in IE8 and it doesn't (works in other browsers, including IE9)
You help will be highly appreaciated.
Thank you all in advance.
George
Answer: Try:
var circle = $('a.selected')


ID Property passed to child changes value

Question: I'm quite new to lwc's and i'm having an issue where the property passed down to a child component, specifically an ID, the id value in the child component has (-71) appended to the end of the ID. Image supplied is the Id value in the parent component then the id displayed in the child component.
Answer: I figured out the problem, i was using a variable name of id which apparently LWC dont like. I changed the variable to projectId and everything is fine :)
Happy days!