If I were to travel back in time to Medieval Europe, do I carry any diseases that they weren't immune to, and would I kill them accidentally?

Question: I actually have European ancestors who survived the plague and because of this, I have been told that I am more immune to diseases that broke out back then and that does make sense. So I can imagine that the chances of me contracting the plague wouldn't be as high per se. But now, my concern is what I might be carrying. I am not a medical professional so I'm unsure. What are the sicknesses we carry today that they didn't have, and would I carry these and spread them to people back then, therefore killing them? I think our immune systems are stronger because of vaccinations and they didn't have those in the 14th Century so I would assume they'd be a lot more susceptible to diseases we are actually immune to. Am I correct? Accidentally killing them would be a flippin disaster.
Comment: "*I have been told that I am more immune to diseases that broke out back then*".  Increased immunity does not mean complete immunity. **Their diseases will kill you** with smallpox, dysentery, etc.
Comment: What if we already did? maybe a time traveler caused the black plague.
Comment: What @RonJohn said.. but yes.. it's possible you're carrying virus'  that would decimate medieval Europe.. Spanish flu etc.
Comment: I'm not going to put it as an actual answer because I'm not too sure, but potentially Syphillis. One of the few diseases the Native Americans gave to the Europeans, and the capacity to stay latent for years. Basically, if you're going back into the past, get yourself checked.
Answer: I think you would have to worry about the opposite happening: you getting diseases from them. We have vaccines, true, and Europeans are even immune or at least have heightened resistance to a certain strain of the plague. There were and are multiple different strains of plague.
That said, there is a lot of other stuff than just plague out there. Plague was nasty, but very rare (besides the big outbreaks of course). Stuff like dysentery and smallpox were a lot more common and modern people aren't immune to those. In fact, I would say modern people would have a bad time in the medieval period (in more ways than one).
Comment: Some of us older people have been immunized to smallpox.  It's been dropped from immunizations nowadays because (in the absence of time travel or bacteriological warfare) it's useless.
Comment: I was immunized to smallpox in the military. Thing they dont tell you is, its only really good for 5 years after you get it.
Comment: Cholera would be a big one, we beat cholea through sanitation not vaccination. worse you are used to having clean drinking water so you might be more likely to catch it just from habit.
Comment: Expose to a lot of bacteria and viruses strengthen your immune system, so arguably medieval peasants living in filth would have a stronger general immune system than modern day citizens with reasonable living standards. We just happen to have artificial aid against a few specific and particularly bad diseases in the form of vaccines.
Comment: This doesn't really answer OP's question at all.
Answer: First, I think you should consider the possibility of the time traveler to get vaccines for all the old diseases from back there, when possible. (And a few antibiotics, which will be super duper effective in the past)
This get all the "you will die first" out of the way.
About your own diseases, I don't have a strict answer but you could minimize risks by doing a small quarantine and going though a decontamination before traveling. This way, there will be few chances of you contamining anyone or at least with nothing too dangerous.
You'll still have you own internal flora but if you don't kiss anyone on the first days, neither shit or puke on anyone, it should be good. At some point, what you eat there will change your own flora (you may feel a bit sick, but like anyone traveling abroad) and you'll be good to go.
Answer: I suggest that you check my answer to this question:
How could we time travel backwards without killing everyone with germs from the future?1
I say that taking even harmless future germs - like for example, the future germs that live in your guts and are vital for digestion - centuries back in time will change the genetic of medieval germs.  Thus it will change the future evolution of new germ species from those medieval germs.  Centuries afterward, there were be different species of harmless and harmful, even deadly, germs than there otherwise would have been.
What are the lifeforms that most influence how long humans live?  Germs.  So by spreading future germs in the past, and past germs in the future, the time traveler will change the way germs evolve into new species, and thus will change the evolution of new disease.  So people will die who would have lived, and people will live who would have died.  And after a few thousand years, some of those people will become the ancestors of every human alive.  So the time traveler will replace all the humans living thousands of years n the future with a total different population of humans in the future.
Thus the humans thousands of years in the future will have a strong motivation to use time travel to prevent the time traveler from erasing them from existence and replacing them with a totally different set of people. And if they can figure out a way to time travel without spreading or picking up any germs from the time traveler's era they will time travel to stop him.
Comment: That's a pretty interesting analysis and I didn't think about it like that.  :) It would be cool if you could time travel as a spiritual being and, therefore, wouldn't have to worry about all these germs and their evolution owing to the lack of physical form. It'll be so cool being that little fly on the wall observing ancient civilisations. :)
Answer: The only modern contagious disease I can think of that wasn't around then is HIV.  But you'd probably know if you had it, and it's not easily transmitted (unprotected sex, and not all kinds, and sharing blood, stuff like that).
And of course cold or flu viruses, since they mutate often.


How to display category image in home page with custom css?

Question: I want to display all of my category image with in home page. What should i do for this?
I am using CE:126.96.36.199
Comment: Welcome to Magento SE. The "with custom CSS" part of your question is confusing. What exactly do you need to know? How to add custom CSS to the home page? How to create a template for the home page? How to load categories? Please be more specific and explain what you already tried.
Answer: Here is an example of such a code:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16854739/how-to-show-category-images-in-cms-page-in-magento
Another option would be a widget or block, please see this:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11787545/magento-display-category-image-by-id-in-cms-page
Answer: try this,
$_helper = Mage::helper('catalog/category');
$_categories = $_helper->getStoreCategories();

$cats = array();

function getCats($_categories)
{
    global $cats;
    foreach ($_categories as $_category) {
        if($_category->getIsActive()) {
            echo "url ->".$_category->getUrl()."
";
            echo "name->".$_category->getName()."
";
            echo "id->".$_category->getId()."
";
            $childCats = $_category->getChildrenCategories();
            if (count($childCats) > 0) getLowestCats($childCats);
        }
    }
}
getCats($_categories);


Why is my dog playful and lively outside, but docile and inactive inside?

Question: The difference between my dog's indoor and outdoor behavior is day and night. Inside, she refuses to play with any toys (while I'm awake), only eats during the day if I put something on top of her food to make it more enticing, and generally sleeps.
When I get the leash to take her out, she gets a little excited, then runs away until I put the leash on her.
Once we're outside, she's a new dog. She is excitable and wants to run around. Her tail is up and wagging, she's smiling, and doing the play-bow.
She is still timid and hesitant to warm up to people/dogs the first time she meets them. However, once she knows a dog/person, she is full of energy and always wants to play (outside).
She's a rescue dog that was in a shelter in Puerto Rico for 1+ year before I adopted her. I have now had her for 3 months. From what I have heard/read, a lot of dogs can take some time to get used to their new surroundings.
Can anyone offer some tips/insight into why she acts like this or how to help her?
Comment: Some people wishing to have such a dog... peaceful when they are at work and playful when they have time to go out with her ;) Has your dog being checked by a vet until now? To exclude health issues.
Comment: Sounds like the perfect dog to me!
Comment: Would seem a matter of conditioning? As a kid I wasn't allowed to make much noise inside, nor be unsupervised at half the ground floor --- but outside very free. So out= play, inside= quiet? Like putting on boots = yes, walkies! = dog excited.
Answer:
From what I have heard/read, a lot of dogs can take some time to get used to their new surroundings.

That might be one of the causes. But on the other hand, it might be similar as with people.
Some people might be couch potatoes at home, just to become football players, bungee jumpers, car drifters etc. as soon as they are outside.
The difference between your dog and those people is that those people can go out whenever they want. Your dog can go out only when you allow her.

From a different point of view, this split behavior might be at your advantage. The dog will not break anything in your house.
As a compensation, you might want to spend more time with her outside, so she has the proper amount of exercise.
Answer: My best guess is that it has to do with her time in the shelter.
I don't know about Puerto Rican's shelters, but I guess in general the animals are left alone for most of the day and get a walk maybe once a day, maybe less common.
So it seems she's simply used to being calm in her kennel (or in your house now) because there never was much to do and it was boring. The excitement was always outside, where she could sniff around and meet other people and dogs. This seems to be a simple habit of her and nothing bad that you need to change no matter what.
You can continnue offering her interaction and play time inside, but don't be hurt if she ignores the offer. Maybe you haven't found her favorite type of play yet? Have a look at some ideas here.


CMV Viewer dynamic layer show sub layer

Question: I'm customizing the cmv viewer to works with my services.
I have service that have 3 layer (0,1,2) and is a dynamic map service layer.
It's possible to set only one layer to show?
Answer: If you want to only allow the user to choose one layer, for example layer id 1, I think you will want to use the Image Parameters class.
Create a function in your config file (viewer.js)
<code>// Allows user to hide layers in Dynamic map service
function buildImageParameters (config) {
   var ip = new ImageParameters();
   for (var key in config) {
       if (config.hasOwnProperty(key)) {
           ip[key] = config[key];
       }
   }
   return ip;
}
</code>
And in your dynamic layer options:
<code>imageParameters: buildImageParameters({
               format: 'png32',
               layerIds: [1],
               layerOption:  ImageParameters.LAYER_OPTION_EXCLUDE
            })
</code>
This will allow you to only show one layer in the app from that service.
Details Here
Or modify cmv to allow this directly

CMV Viewer dynamic layer show sub layer


Converting Saving Throws from AD&D to D&D Next

Question: I'm trying to run the newly released Against the Slave Lords compilation using the D&D Next rules and I've run into a problem with converting Saving Throws. How do I go about converting something like "Save vs. Breath Weapon" into a DC? I can make a reasonable guess about which ability modifier will be used for the roll, but how do I decide what the DC is? Should it still be class-dependant like it was in AD&D, or is there a static DC for each type of Save from the original set (Breath Weapon, Petrification, etc)? I haven't been able to find anything official from Wizards on this and to avoid exhaustively crunching the numbers on the old "Save matrix", I was hoping someone knew something I didn't (or has a house-rule I could use).
Answer: It's important when tackling this to notice that D&D Next saves' math are tied to the effect, while AD&D saves math—despite the names being that of effects—are actually tied to class and level. That means that there's no way to crunch the AD&D math to find a conversion formula—the numbers are representing different things.
As is often the case when converting between editions with different fundamentals, this can only be approached as a "re-imagining" of the source material. Use the D&D Next guidance on setting save DCs as if you were creating this adventure from scratch yourself. (After all, for adventure elements that are non-translatable, that is actually what you're doing.) Imagine the danger and the degree of challenge it poses, and use your judgement to choose a challenge level that matches that, from the range of Trivial to Nearly Impossible, to get an appropriate saving throw DC.
Comment: IIRC certain *types* of saves, while theoretically tied to the source of the effect, were also related to the severity of it.  Sometimes a save vs. petrification would have little to do with turning to stone; it was chosen because it was harder/easier to save against than the other options.
Comment: @starwed That's true, but often impossible to determine from the straight text of an adventure without the author commenting somewhere about the choice.
Answer: So here's what I came up with. I took a look at the AD&D Saving Throw tables for both the first and second editions. In both cases all classes have the same basic distribution of difficulty except for Mages. It goes like this:
Fighters/Clerics/Thieves
From hardest to easiest:

Breath Weapon
Spell
Rod/Staff/Wand
Petrification/Polymorph
Paralysis/Poison/Death Magic

NOTE: For Thieves 4 and 5 are swapped
For Mages the order is such:

Breath Weapon
Paralysis/Poison/Death Magic
Petrification/Polymorph
Spell
Rod/Staff/Wand

I figure that this difference reflects the fact that Mages are better at saves that affect the mind while the other classes are better at ones that affect the body. As such, I've come up with the following conversion

Breath Weapon: DC 18 Dexterity (for a directed attack) or Constitution (for area effect)
Spell: DC 16 Intelligence
Rod: DC 14 Wisdom
Petrification: DC 12 Constitution
Paralysis: DC 10 Constitution
Comment: The only problem with this is saves are variable in difficulty in anything made from 3.0 on. This needs to be accounted for in deciding saves, thus they should be tied to character stats making them successful, not class and level.
Answer: If you can determine the appropriate stat to use in most circumstances, you have already fought half of the fight. It takes a bit of analysis to decide how hard it should be to save against, but use 3rd and 4th edition D&D to get a rough idea if you can't just glean it yourself, assuming you have played them as well.
Overall, some generalizations can be made to help the decision-making process as well.
Spells have a standard ruling to determine how hard they are to resist, so that part is normally easy to translate. Base spell-like abilities off of the spells that are closest to them if you can.
Sometimes you can guess where it's close to based on the context of what is doing it. A goblin wizard's Burning Hands will be far easier to dodge than a red dragon's breath weapon, and should have an appropriately lower reflex save DC.
If all else fails, decide if you want it to be easy, average, difficult, or impossible to resist, and fudge the numbers as you go. You might even decide based on the percent chance that their character, with their stats, should succeed, and let them roll based on that. Improvisation on these things takes care of it bogging down your game, but once you make a decision, keep a note of it and adjust fire for other players to stay consistent with your decisions.
Answer: The differences in how well any given class saves against any given effect in 5e are covered by which saves each character is proficient in, so you don't need to worry about that.
The DC of the save can be calculated normally, as the monster's casting (or breathing, etc.) ability -- 8 + ability bonus + proficiency bonus.  The only decisions to be made would be (a) what ability the monster's attack is based on, and (b) what ability the target's save is based on.  Use examples from similar 5e monsters, or pick ones that make sense to you.


During the execution of the internment of Japanese during ww2 in the USA, did any other Asian Americans have to prove descent?

Question: I just wondered if the equivalent of nazis researching baptismal records, etc.  occurred in the USA with Chinese Americans being forced to find proof of their national origin or face being interned; indeed, are there any incidents of Chinese Americans actually being interned? I would guess there were very few, I mean literally only hundreds, of mixed-race children in the USA at that time, but how were such children treated? Were there any laws analogous to the nazi Nuremberg laws applied -- for example, Jews who actually practiced Judaism fared worse than Jews who were merely "racially" Jews -- did Japanese Americans who actually spoke Japanese have more problems than more assimilated Japanese Americans?
Answer: That appears to be the case. Maybe they didn't "have to" do this, but lapel buttons were issued to e.g Chinese-Americans. At the very least, it was highly advisable for other Asian-Americans to distance themselves from the Japanese-Americans.
Probably a few Japanese-Americans passed themselves off as non-Japanese, just as a few Jews did so in Nazi-controlled Europe.


How can I prove that I destroyed some bit coins?

Question: If I wanted to destroy bitcoins, and prove that it was done (with relative certainty), what would I need to do?
Comment: Thanks! Although this is a duplicate, I'd like to leave it as a signpost to redirect people to the proper answers listed below.  (Assist with Google searches, etc)
Answer: If you just want to make it clear that you no longer own them you can just send yourself 1 santoshi and put the rest up as a fee. If you want to destroy them there are a couple decent address to send them to in What is the Bitcoin equivalent of /dev/null?
EDIT: there are better answers here: How to generate a valid bitcoin address for destroying bitcoins?
Comment: Paying the bitcoins as a fee doesn't work because you don't have to broadcast the transaction, you can just hold on to it until you find a block and collect the fee.
Comment: You could say that you are going to pay the fee in one hour. Then the probability that this person recollects the fee is directly proportional to their share of the computation power.


Why is Mg(OH)2 sparingly soluble in water but soluble in NH4Cl

Question:
Is $\ce{Mg(OH)2}$ sparingly soluble in water because it's hydration enthalpy is not greater than its lattice enthalpy?
Also, is it soluble in $\ce{NH4Cl}$ because it is a stronger base
than $\ce{NH4(OH)}$ hence it displaces Ammonia and since it is a gas
the equilibrium reaction goes forward as the gas is removed?
Comment: Ammonia is basically infinitely soluble in water, and magnesium hydroxide is more soluble in an acidic medium.
Answer: Probably it won't (fully) answer your question, but I spotted a mistake:
NH4OH is the common way you use to describe an aqueous solution of ammonia. Therefore, when you write your equations, you consider is as ammonia, not as ammonium hydroxide: it acts as a base. On the other hand, NH4Cl is ammonium chloride, therefore it acts as an acid.
This explains why Mg(OH)2 is more soluble in NH4Cl than NH4OH: in the first case, you mix a (weak) base and a (weak) acid, in the second one you mix two (weak) bases.
With respect to your first question, keep in mind that when the hydration (solvation) energy overcomes the lattice energy the compound is soluble in water (solvent). If they are about the same, then it is mildly soluble (not super sure about it, though). I hope this helps!
Answer: The ammonia does not come off as a gas.  The reaction lis driven forward, dissolving more magnesium hydroxide, even though the ammonia remaibsin solution.
Magnesium hydroxide comes off a bit strange when we try to classify bases as "strong" or "weak".  It looks like a weak base because it is only sparingly soluble in water, but the portion that does dissolve acts like a dilute solution of a strong base (see, for instance, the reaction of magnesium hydroxide with a typical transition metal ion discussed here).  So, like other strong bases, the magnesium hydroxide will tend to react with the ammonium ion according to the reaction we already know:
$\ce{NH4+ + OH- <=> NH3 + H2O}$
It is this removal of hydroxide ions, not any evolution of ammonia gas, that pulls the dissolution of magnesium hydroxide along.
Because magnesium hydroxide is sparingly soluble, the reaction proceeds only until the solubility equilibrium is re-established.  You will typically end up with a mixture of ammonia, ammonium salt and magnesium salt in a slightly alkaline solution.  But there will be a lot more magnesium ions in solution with this reaction than with adding magnesium hydroxide to pure water.


Should we require a 16-bit ASN?

Question: I am wondering what could be the use case where a 16-bit ASN is needed over a 32-bit ASN at this times. I guess if the user have some older equipment and software 16-bit may be needed. Can some please advice for better understanding.
Comment: Did any answer help you? if so, you should accept the answer so that the question doesn't keep popping up forever, looking for an answer. Alternatively, you could post and accept your own answer.
Answer: It's usually incompatibility, not just with your own hardware, but also that of companies you peer with.  I requested an ASN about 3-4 years ago and RIPE provided a 32-bit ASN.  We could peer with our ISPs OK, but free peering at public Internet exchanges didn't always work.  We requested a 16-bit one in the end.  This was a few years ago now, so things may have moved on.  I would still go with the 32-bit, you can request a 16-bit if you have specific problems.
Comment: I believe a 32-bit ASN might (have) cause(d) issues as well if traffic crosses an AS that only supports 16-bit ASNs since the numbers are in the AS path and some BGP implementations might trip over 32-bit numbers in there.
Answer: If you're planning to do a lot with BGP communities which are used for signalling between your own ASN and your upstream or downstream peers, a 32-bit ASN might be less useful since the second 16 bits for the 32-bit ASN are used for communities in 16-bit ASNs. There's an IETF draft which will provide these communities for 32-bit ASNs.
If you're not planning on doing anything with communities outside your own ASN, there's no real drawback in using a 32-bit ASN. Any router nowadays supports it, and if it doesn't, it at least supports the AS23456 transition mechanism.
Answer: As mentioned above, using either a 16-bit or 32-bit ASN is mostly well supported today on all the major router vendors.  If you are a company that is multi-homing or a small ISP that is only using transit routing to your upstreams, you can get by with the 32-bit allocation from ARIN.
However!  If you are planning on using an IX that has route servers or doing some direct peering at IXs (or even with transit providers) where you need to make use of BGP communities to massage your routes, then you need to go back to ARIN before you deploy your 32-bit ASN and request the "next available" 16-bit ASN.  Note that they only provide these if someone else abandons the assignment. The are not readily available.
Some examples of problems if you have a 32-bit ASN.  Lets say I have XO as one of my peers at an IX (but I'm neither a customer of theirs nor transiting either direction).  This particular IX I have only a 1G interface into whereas I have a 40G connection to a transit provider who has 100G to XO.  Obviously I'd prefer (if I have the bandwidth need) to use the transit provider rather than the IX (this is one of those backward cases).  So how do I peer with the IX but not exchange routes with XO?  I send the community using SFMIX as an example) of 0:2828... But what if someone wants to modify how they peer with me?  If I have a 32-bit number, its impossible to use 0:395395...
Gets even more convoluted if you use a route server that takes communities (like ANY2) but can't actually address your ASN...
Summary? If you plan on eventually going to more than one IX or have more than two transit providers, you'd be doing yourself a favor by requesting from ARIN a 16-bit replacement. Downside?  There aren't any unless someone gives one up so you might be waiting awhile...
Note: This problem still exists as of January 2019. We are in the process of "fixing" a client who has run into this very issue.
Comment: I doubt this still is an issue today with Internet exchanges.
Comment: The issue isn't the IX themselves as 32-bit is always allowed. The issue is in using the control mechanisms of the route servers that take their commands via the BGP comunities (new format) where the first 16-bits define the source ASN and the second 16-bits define control with whom... You can see examples of this in just about any route server communities control page for just about any IX. (see https://www.de-cix.net/en/resources/route-server-guides/operational-bgp-communities for an example of the control issues).

Note, this only is an issue if you're an ISP that peers at IXs
Answer: 16-bit ASNs and 32-bit ASNs are interoperable. You do not have to renumber. If you do not plan to expand your network it is sufficient to check that your tools still work when you enter a 32-bit ASN.
If you are using the latest equipment and software and your upstream provider supports 32-bit ASNs, apply for a 32-bit ASN. If you are using older equipment and software, apply for a 16-bit ASN.
Answer:
A unique ASN (Autonomous System Number) is allocated to each AS for
  use in BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) routing. In BGP, each routing
  domain is a single administrative domain and has a unique AS number
  assigned to it, and is operated within a uniform set of routing
  policies. It also maintains interdomain routing.
Until 2007, AS numbers were defined as 16-bit integers, which allowed
  for a maximum of 65536 assignments. RFC 4893 introduced 32-bit AS
  numbers, which Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) has begun to
  allocate to regional Internet registries (RIRs), although this
  proposed standard has now been replaced by RFC 6793. These numbers are
  written preferably as simple integers (in a notation sometimes
  referred to as "asplain") ranging from 0 to 4,294,967,295, or in the
  form called "asdot" which looks like x.y, where x and y are 16-bit
  numbers.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_system_(Internet)
Comment: Please do not plagiarize an answer. If you are going to quote a source, use the quote feature and be sure to properly attribute the source.

Should we require a 16-bit ASN?


Is a bulb shutter possible with A Fujifilm XS1?

Question: According to the specs (and from experience) bulb is not available on a Fujifilm XS1.  Would it be possible with a remote shutter?  Have you been able to achieve it in other ways, custom firmware perhaps?
Answer: There is a "bulb" setting of sorts on the X-S1 that allows specific shutter times at 1 second intervals to be set. If 15 seconds is too fast but 30 seconds is too long, you can try, for example, 22 seconds or 18 seconds or 20 seconds or 19 seconds until you zero in on what works best. But the longest possible shutter time is 30 seconds (actual exposure time of 32 seconds, see Is there a sane reason why ¹⁄₁₂₅ is not, instead, exactly half of ¹⁄₆₀?) and that is only available at ISO 100. As the ISO gets progressively higher, the maximum shutter time available gets progressively shorter.
This is not all that uncommon in cameras from a wide variety of manufacturers that have sensors in the 2/3" size range. Packing that many pixels into an area that small is a design compromise that rears its ugly head in the form of noise. When shooting in bright conditions there is enough signal (light) to adequately overcome the noise. When shooting in low light environments that require longer shutter times, there is not enough signal to offset the amount of noise produced by the sensor.
Even if you could hack the camera in some way to allow longer shutter times, you probably wouldn't get any results you would consider usable.


Observers in a Double Slit Experiment

Question: Does it matter what the observer is in the double slit experiment? Could it be anything from an ant to a dog? Has it ever been tried with a non-human observer?
Comment: Why would being a human (or not) impact the physics? An unattended camera does a fine job of observation - does non-living count?
Answer: When physicists say we "observe" the particle that's passing through the slit, they aren't really referring to the person who sees the electron, but rather the photon itself that interacts with the electron. Functionally, it's the photon that's doing the "observing" of the electron. Really, there would be much less confusion about this issue if physicists stopped saying "observe" and said "interact" instead. It's the interaction that causes the wavefunction to collapse.
So, no, in terms of the collapse of the electron's wavefunction, it doesn't matter what the photon goes on to strike next, whether it's a human or a camera or a dog or a tree stump. The "observation" already occurred when the photon hit the electron.
Comment: Yes - it's not really their fault, though. Physicists like to say that wavefunction collapse is due to "observation" when they actually mean "interaction". All the pseudoscience around the connection between consciousness and wavefunction collapse is just an elaboration on that simple misunderstanding.
Comment: So people on youtube putting so much importance on consciousness is a bunch of bunk?
Comment: Note that the concept of "quantum consciousness" (the idea that consciousness is a fundamentally dependent on macroscopic quantum effects) is a separate unrelated issue that isn't settled.
Comment: Incorrect, the wave function won't collapse if there's no way of knowing the "which way" information. See Double Slit Quantum Erasure experiments. "observe" actually mean to know the which way information. Now the question is interesting, since when a non conscious entity (like a PC) knows it, that won't collapse the WF. Only if a human may know which way the photon chose, it collapses. It's an interesting question - does it work for other conscious beings? An Animal, or a baby that sees the results on a monitor?

Observers in a Double Slit Experiment


Why was my question on Male Genital Mutilation closed as a duplicate?

Question: I asked this question: Why does the UK have Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003, but not Male Genital Mutilation Act? but despite explaining why it was not a duplicate, it still got closed without any reply to my explanations.
Answer: There was a comment by the initial close-voter; I can't remember it exactly, but it was to the effect of:

The UK and US are similar enough politically that the answer will be the same.

Unfortunately, they edited that comment into the auto-generated "Does this answer your question?" comment, which gets deleted once the question is closed, so you must not have been able to see it and reply to it before that happened.
I'm not familiar enough with the questions to be able to judge whether this explanation is valid, but that's the explanation that was given by the close-voters.
(The question has since been deleted, and in all honesty, I think it should stay that way. Regardless of whether it was a duplicate or not, it strongly came across as a push question/attempt to discredit, whereas the earlier question was a genuine, neutrally-worded inquiry. I too am not fond of infant circumcision, but Politics.SE is not the place to rally about it.)
Comment: Closing as duplicate a bad-faith question is like getting Al Capone for tax evasion.
Comment: Agreed, I would have VTC this one as a "push" question given the material in it. The OP might have a semi-valid question whether there are any differences in how the matter is debated in the UK vs the US, but they way they asked about it seemed quite ranty.
Comment: First, I never meant my question "came across as a push question/attempt to discredit". I don't get it how it can strongly come across as one? I just cited facts.
Comment: Second, how to make it more "genuine, neutrally-worded inquiry"?
Comment: @AndrewGrimm Isn't it "bad-faith" to write that I wrote "a bad-faith question"? i've tried to explain that i asked in GOOD faith with facts.
Comment: If the 'initial comment' was what prompted the dupe, then [it's historically wrong](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumcision#Modern_times). Rates and rationales given for non-religious procedures are vastly different as well as attitudes towards how to 'judge' religious ones. Who on the l/r-spectrum positions (usually) on this as well. (The Q itself may have been substandard, but the reason given imo much more so. The dupe target far from giving any suitable As. Problem for both: less political but philosophical/ethical/moral value judgements & considerations are the key, yet As try 'facts')
Answer: Regarding my VTD: your question consisted of two large quotes one from

'My son killed himself after circumcision' - BBC News (2019)

and

David Reimer - Wikipedia

And based on that you ask "Why hasn't the UK enacted a male version of Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003"?
Why would they enact an Act based on two cases, even if they are what you say they are, which also seems to be a confusion as the two cases seem hardly comparable in terms of the medical act?
You assert in your "question" that the US one

doesn't discuss suicides and mental illnesses from non-consensual circumcision.

As if those effects (suicide & mental illness) are common consequences of circumcision, based on the two cases you've discovered and so should be discussed?


How wallets and web3 find public key from private key?

Question: How is it possible for wallets like MetaMask or libraries like web3js to find public key by only providing private key? AFAIK this is not possible generally in elliptic curve.
Answer:
AFAIK this is not possible generally in elliptic curve.

In elliptic-curve cryptography, the public key is derived from the private key, not the other way round. The clue is in the name: the private key is the thing you need to keep secret (or share with something you are sure you can trust, like Metamask).
See this graphical representation of how Ethereum uses EC cryptography to create a public key (and subsequently an address) from a private key.
Answer: Here is some math behind it:
P = G ⋅ K

Where:

G - some basic point with two coordinates

Gx = 55066263022277343669578718895168534326250603453777594175500187360389116729240
Gy = 32670510020758816978083085130507043184471273380659243275938904335757337482424
G = (Gx, Gy)

K - private key
P - public key

After multiplication you will have two coordinates of public key which later should be aligned to 32 byte sets and concatenated.

There is example of implementation of this algorithm in ethereum/py_ecc. Have a look.
Comment: Can you explain your magic numbers for Gx and Gy? Or, if you know fully how ECDSA works with secp256k1, can you update your answer to be fully complete (i.e., add the curve parameters) and add the Keccak256 hashing for the final address?


How to copy and link collection to other scene?

Question: How to copy collection to other scene ? And how if i want this collection to be linked, so if i change the collection setting in one scene , it will update automatically in other scene.
Comment: I would like to know this too, please.
Answer:
Ensure that the scene to which you want your collection to be linked is selected.

In an "Outliner" editor window, ensure that the "Display Mode" in the toolbar is set to "Blender File" or "Scenes".

Find the collection you want to link under "Collections" or "Scene Collection", and activate "Link to Scene" under its alternate-click context menu.
Comment: You don't have to set the Outliner Display Mode to "Blender File". For working between scenes the Display Mode "Scenes" is quite handy.
Example: Scene1 with Collection1, Scene2 with Collection2 and Scene3 is empty. Select Scene3 in the Outliner. Right-click on Collection1 > Link to Scene, right-click Collection2 > Link to Scene.
Now Scene3 holds linked versions of Collection1 and Collection2. It's the same like the answer, but I think "Scenes" has a better hierarchy for working between scenes than "Blender File".
Comment: @GordonBrinkmann I don't believe that would work if the collection in question isn't already linked to *any* scene? I'm pretty sure I've had that happen before, and that it was the original reason I found this question— Maybe from appending, maybe from unlinking, or maybe from deleting the scene which originally held the collection.
Comment: @GordonBrinkmann That is true. As "Blender File" also works in more cases, but "Scenes" has a better workflow for the question, I've edited the answer to include both.
Comment: You might be correct, but as I understand the question, he wants a linked copy of a collection from one scene to another, and changing things in one collection changes the linked collection. So as a premise there is at least one collection linked to one scene, which is the one he wants to copy. And afterwards there are two scenes, each holding a copy of said collection... so unlinked collections should be no problem.
Comment: That's a good idea. I'm still learning using the compositor, in the beginning I found it not very helpful but now I see things that are better to do there.  I only wish andio would mark questions as "Answered" ;-)


Book recommendations for multivariate analysis

Question: I'm interested in getting some books about multivariate analysis, and need your recommendations. Free books are always welcome, but if you know about some great non-free MVA book, please, state it.
Comment: To what extent do you want: (a) mathematical rigour; (b) applications in particular software (e.g., R, SPSS, SAS, etc.); (c) domain-specific applications?
Comment: Jeromy, allow me to take all of these with one blow: I'm a psychology student. And I reckon you're familiar with required statistical background... So there... =)
(I'm good with R and SPSS... but R has a greater priority)
Answer: Off the top of my head, I would say that the following general purpose books are rather interesting as a first start:

Izenman, J. Modern Multivariate Statistical Techniques: Regression, Classification, and Manifold Learning. Springer. companion website
Tinsley, H. and Brown, S. (2000). Handbook of Applied Multivariate Statistics and Mathematical Modeling. Academic Press.

There is also many applied textbook, like

Everitt, B.S. (2005). An R and S-Plus® Companion to Multivariate Analysis. Springer. companion website

It is difficult to suggest you specific books as there are many ones that are domain-specific (e.g. social sciences, machine learning, categorical data, biomedical data).
Comment: why the Tinsley book? No reviews on Amazon suggests it ain't a big seller or particularly good.
Comment: Just because it is the only book I know which combines exploratory MV analysis, statistical modeling, and psychometrics. Maybe not the best one actually, but interesting on its own.
Comment: I think of it as one of the 4 or 5 most important books I own.
Comment: Can you somehow comment on the exercises of these books? I want to do some exercises from a graduate level, mathematics-biased text book to enhance. Thank you.
Answer: Almost the same question was asked recently on the ISOSTAT listserver (frequented by college professors):

If you had a strong undergraduate student who was interested in learning about various multivariate methods (e.g. PCA, MANOVA, discriminant analysis, ...) is there a good, accessible book you might recommend she/he purchase?

Here are the responses:

Perhaps "Applied Multivariate Data Analysis", 2nd edition, by Everitt, B. and Dunn, G. (2001), published by Arnold.  [Roger Johnson]
Rencher's Methods of Multivariate Analysis is a great resource.  I think a strong undergraduate student could grasp the material. [Philip Yates].  I'm fond of Rencher's approach. He offers good intuition and examples.  But the matrix algebra can get pretty thick; I'm not sure "accessible" is an adjective I'd use. Nevertheless, I've taught undergrads successfully with his book. His second edition is a good improvement over the first. [Paul Velleman]
Applied Multivariate Statistics by Johnson and Wichern.  [Brad Hartlaub]
I haven't done much with it, but I do like the idea of using modern techniques and modern data sets: Modern Multivariate Statistical Techniques by Alan Julian Izenman. (I own the book, it has the topics you are looking for, and the text seems accessible.)  [Johanna Hardin]
Comment: +1 for Everitt & Dunn, we used it for a joint undergrad/grad class and it was quite good, nice and direct.
Comment: (+1) I like the first, and especially the last one (pretty much the same as the *Elements of Statistical Learning*, by Hastie and coll., but with other examples and a discussion of biplots and correspondence analysis).
Comment: +1 for mentioning Rencher's book. It's fantastic, and also has a chapter for matrix algebra and required background maths.
Answer: Here are some of my books on that field (in alphabetical order).

AFIFI, A., CLARK, V. Computer-Aided
Multivariate Analysis. CHAPMAN & HALL, 2000
AGRESTI, A. Categorical Data Analysis. WILEY, 2002
HAIR, Multivariate Data Analysis. 6th Ed.
ΗÄRDLE, W., SIMAR, L. Applied Multivariate Statistical Analysis. SPRINGER, 2007.
HARLOW, L. The Essence of Multivariate Thinking. LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, INC., 2005
GELMAN, A., HILL, J. Data Analysis
Using Regression and
Multilevel/Hierarchical Models.
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2007.
IZENMAN, A. J. Modern Multivariate Statistical Techniques. SPRINGER, 2008
RENCHER, A. Methods of Multivariate analysis. SECOND ED., WILEY-INTERSCIENCE, 2007
TABACHNICK B., FIDELL, L. Using Multivariate Statistics. 5th Ed. Pearson Education. Inc, 2007.
TIMM, N. Applied Multivariate Analysis. SPRINGER, 2002
YANG, K., TREWN, J. Multivariate Statistical Methods in Quality Management. MCGRAW-HILL, 2004
Comment: In Psychology the Tabachnik & Fidell Book has a pretty good reputation. It is very understandable and applied and not too mathematic. However, examples are only in SPSS or SAS (no R!). But if your problem is covered in there, you will definitely solve it with the book. I recommend it as a good starting point. I don't like the Hair book (same level as Tabachnik & Fidell, but worse). And you gotta LOVE the Gelman. However, it is more complicated.
Comment: HAIR et al is good if you don't like math and you want a step by step process. It's popular in management and business schools. If you can handle math, Hair et al can seem verbose.

Tabachnick and Fidell is popular in psychology. It's clearly written and does contain some mathematics. However, if you want a rigorous mathematical treatment, I'd look for an additional book to complement it.
Comment: do you recommend to read all of them ? :)
Answer: JOHNSON R., WICHERN D., Applied Multivariate Statistical Analysis, is what we used in our undergraduate Multivariate class at UC Davis, and it does a pretty good job (though it's a bit pricey).
Answer: "An Introduction to Multivariate Statistical Analysis"  Third edition by T. W. Anderson  .
Wiley series in Probability and Statistics.
Comment: How do you think about the problems within? I happen to own this and want to do some exercises for enhancement.
Answer: Hands down best basic text on multivariate regression is (still) Cohen, J., Cohen, P., West, S.G. & Aiken, L.S. Applied Multiple Regression/Correlation Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences, (L. Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, N.J., 2003).
Cohen made his name in statistics yet was a psychologist; still if you want social psychology-focused treatment of multivariate, one not limited to multivariate regression (although it definitely favors it over ANOVA & MANOVA, which ought to be banned by some sort of Intellectual Human Rights Commission), then your best bet is Judd, C.M., McClelland, G.H. & Ryan, C.S. Data analysis : a model comparison approach, (Routledge/Taylor and Francis, New York, NY, 2008).  Judd also has a very very good chapter on multivariate regression in Judd, C.M. Everyday Data Analysis in Social Psychology: Comparisons of Linear Models. in Handbook of research methods in social and personality psychology (eds. Reis, H.T. & Judd, C.M.) 370-392 (Cambridge University Press, New York, 2000).
I agree that Gelman, A. & Hill, J. Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge ; New York, 2007), is amazing, but it is really more geared to someone already comfortable w/ basics of multivariate regression--it's primarily about multilevel modeling. Also is focused on observational study methodology--not experimental (Judd is best for that; Cohen okay too.
If you want something on interactions in multivariate -- which you likely will if you are using experimental methods -- then best two texts are Aiken, L.S., West, S.G. & Reno, R.R. Multiple Regression: Testing and Interpreting Interactions, (Sage Publications, Newbury Park, Calif., 1991) & Jaccard, J. & Turrisi, R. Interaction Effects in Multiple Regression, (Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, Calif., 2003). (Both Cohen & Cohen & Judd do treat this topic, though.)
On "free" side, you probably know about http://faculty.chass.ncsu.edu/garson/PA765/statnote.htm
Last bit of advice:  Never ever split your continuous variables!!! It's amazing how many social psychologists, used to ANOVA, still do this even as they make use of multivariate techniques such as regression analysis!
Answer: Analyzing Multivariate Data by James Lattin, J Douglas Carroll and Paul E Green.
Answer: Tabachnick is the most cited on Google Scholar
Hair (6th ed) has the most ratings (with a score above 4.5) on Amazon
I recommend Hair, as I've read it, and it is written in plain language.
If you are a student or staff at a university, then I would see if your school has an account with SpringerLink, as the Hardle book is on there for free.
Comment: I actually found Tabachnick rather unclear, even for subjects i knew quite a bit about. The introductory stuff on univariate stats and data cleaning was very good though
Answer: Hastie, T., Tibshirani, R. and Friedman, J.: "The Elements of Statistical Learning: Data Mining, Inference, and Prediction.", Springer (book home page)
Answer: If you look at Paul Hewison's webpage, you can find his free book on Multivariate Statistics and R. Another free book is by Wolfgang Hardle and Leopold Simar. I have been
working my way through Johnson and Wichern, a book that has been used in the US for
over twenty years; you will have to buy this book.
Answer: One of my favorite one is Legendre & Legendre (2012). Numerical Ecology, 3rd edition.
They cover many statistical analyses and their information on multivariate analyses is particularly excellent. In addition they discuss R packages they created. Definitively a must!
Another excellent one is Quinn & Keough (2002) Experimental Design & Data Analysis for Biologists. It's also freely available on the link I provided!


Why does Ethereum have gas?

Question: Why does Ethereum have gas?  What other approaches could Ethereum have used to work around the Halting Problem?
Comment: possible duplicate of http://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/3/what-is-meant-by-the-term-gas
Answer: The halting problem is not the only reason to have a gas fee system.
It would have been possible to limit functionality by a small margin, thereby making it non Turing complete but still (almost) as useful for smart contracts.
The other reason is that miners should be rewarded proportionally to their running costs, otherwise the incentive structure would not scale. And it will push users to use instructions that are cheap for them, but expensive for miners/validators.
Answer: From the docs page:

In order to prevent deliberate attacks and abuse, the Ethereum protocol charges a fee per computational step.
Answer: If there was no fee, you could call a function infinitely and that would crash the smart contract.  since you are paying money to call a function, no bad user will call any function infinitely.
From finance point of view, the purpose is to incentivize miners to execute
transaction and smart contract by using their own time and resource. Many complex operations need more computation resource; that is to say, they need to pay more GAS. If a user wishes to have their transaction prioritized, he can submit transaction with higher GAS price. In this way, transaction could be processed sooner by miner incentivized by higher transaction fee. As compensation for computation resource which miner invests in, GAS becomes more crucial after consensus migrates to Proof of Stake (POS). In POS era, miner no longer get rewarded by mining blocks and packing transactions, it is more important for miner to process transaction and get paid for expending resources on the blockchain.
The theoretical purpose is to align the incentives of participants on the network. Much of blockchain theory discusses how to mitigate harmful or malicious actors in a trustless environment. GAS partially addresses this issue: Miners are incentivized to work on the network and users are de-incentivized from acting poorly or writing malicious code as they are putting their own ether (in the form of gas) at risk.
From computational point of view, the computational reason behind GAS goes
back to an old, foundational aspect of computing theory—the Halting Problem. The
Halting Problem is the issue of determining whether an arbitrary program will stop
running or if it will run forever just from looking at the description and the input
values. In 1936, Alan Turing determined that it is impossible for any machine to
solve the Halting Problem. In the EVM, this means a miner is never able to begin
processing a transaction and know 100% that the transaction will not go on forever.
With GAS—specifically, GAS limit—a finite amount of gas is always attached to a transaction. Even if a miner began processing a transaction that was coded to
continue indefinitely—either from a bug or an attack on the network—the gas would eventually run out, the transaction would end, and the miner would still be
compensated.

Why does Ethereum have gas?


How to identify if one is enlightened or not? and what is enlightenment?

Question: Very often we see most of the Anandas claiming "i'm enlightened", Now we have Doctor (MBBS degree holder) similarly how common people know about a person is enlightened or charlatan? If you are enlightened in one philosophy like Advaita, Are they qualified to be called themselves as God? Ask people to worship themselves.. God as we know he should not age, afflicted with illness, defying death. Not slayed but hiraynakashipu and ravana would have passed all the said with 100% score if you have the 3 tests. so what determines enlightenment..
Comment: Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been [moved to chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/91713/discussion-on-question-by-prasanna-r-how-to-identify-if-one-is-enlightened-or-no).
Comment: i think its duplicate
Answer: Mudakopanishad says -"Brahmavid Brahmaiva Bhavathi" One who knows Brahman is Brahman.
But who knows it completely or correctly?
"Aham Nirvikalpo Niraakaara Rupo, Vibhutvaaccha Sarvatra Sarvendriyaanaam
Na Chaa Sangatan Naiva Muktir Na meyah Chidananda Rupah Shivoham Shivoham"        says Nirvanashtakam.
It means:-
" I am all pervasive. I am without any attributes and without any form. I have neither attachment to the world, nor to liberation. I have no wishes for anything because I am everything, everywhere, every time, always in equilibrium. I am indeed, That eternal knowing and bliss, Shiva, love and pure consciousness."
So, one who has absolutely no desires and has gone beyond the name and form illusion and is one with all accepting all as Self, always in equilibrium can be called as an enlightened being.
Truly speaking there is no second to Self. But we forget this fact in the dream of life. The one who has fixed his mind on TATH and will never be deluded again by this dream of duality is realized, soul. Fried seeds don't germinate. Similarly, the one who has burnt his desires by the flame of self enquiry will never be deluded. Ashtavakra Geetha by Chinmayananda speaks beautifully about this.
Answer: Contrary to popular belief, enlightenment does not technically mandate a Guru. However, just like studying a Chess game by a Grandmaster  helps avoid common pitfalls, studying a path that a truly enlightened one took would help and sure does.
Ask these questions to a supposed Guru.you will know the fake ones. This is assuming your values are as appropriate for enlightenment....
1) Why Death the fifth?
2) What is standing behind the veil mean? Why should the enlightened ones do it?
3) Why does Shiva cry on a Cremation ground?
4) Tavad akasamkalpo yavacchabdah pravartate ,
And no they are not qualified to be called as God


Checking for sheidim

Question: If I'm concerned about sheidim hanging out in my bedroom is there a procedure for checking to see if there are actually sheidim my vicinity or if it's just my imagination?
Comment: Why do you suspect the presence of sheidim ? Any clues?..
Comment: Related: http://judaism.stackexchange.com/q/3771
Comment: Maybe checking the closets or other hidden areas for things left from the last tenants of the house you live in. I seem to recall a story from the Baba Sali in which he instructed a couple to do this because they were not having children and they found a non-Jewish book left behind from the previous family that was living in their house before them.
Answer: Gemara Brachos 6a
"...If a person wants to know if they (demons/mazikin/sheydim) are there, he should take finely sifted ashes and spread them around his bed (before going to sleep at night). In the morning he will see (in the ashes) something like the footprints of a rooster."
"If he actually wishes to see them, he should take the birthsack which emerges from a black cat the daughter of a black cat, a firstborn daughter of a firstborn, and burn it in fire and grind it up. He should put the powder in an iron tube sealed with an iron seal. He then closes his mouth tightly and puts a bit of powder in his eyes. He will see them."
"Rav Bibi bar Abaye did this, saw the demons, and was harmed. The Rabbis prayed for him and he recovered."
In general, the Gemara in Pesachim (last perek) has a long section dealing with demons and black magic. Two ideas emerge from the discussion that helps put us at ease regarding such things.
1) It is by invitation. If you are not strict about worrying over the supernatural, they will not be strict to notice you.
2) As the generations of sages decreased in spiritual level, the power of demons decreased proportionally as well.
Some say today, that the Baal Shem Tov declared, that demons have been banished to the wilder areas of the world where people do not live. This is because the spiritual has further decreased in power so the evil forces have decreased as well.
Finally, based on Devarim Rabbah 4:4 (that every bit of air is filled with mazikin/demons) and other descriptions of sheydim causing sickness, barrels of wine to explode under pressure, etc. It seems that the Gemara may be describing in spiritual terms, a phenomena that we now physically understand: germs and bacteria?
However, if you still feel you need protection to ease your mind, and think Chazal are also teaching about spiritual negative creatures, you may wish to recite Tehillim 91 (see Gemara Shavuos 15b) for protection.

Checking for sheidim


Question about nasal vowels in IPA

Question: Probably a silly question, but why are there no nasal vowels in IPA charts? Should we assume that nasal vowels are placed in the same position as the corresponding oral vowels in the vocal chart? So for example /ɛ̃/ is where /ɛ/ is?
Comment: Right. It's a different mode of articulation but all else remains more or less the same. You might reasonably ask why [m] is not therefore written as [b] with a tilde... Besides historical reasons (which sounds were phonemic in the languages whose alphabets contributed to the IPA) you might also consider that a nasal consonant differs from a stop more than a nasal vowel from an oral vowel.
Answer:
/ɛ̃/ is where /ɛ/ is?

Generic IPA charts don't show you where phonemes are; they show you where phones are. The standard convention would be that the phone [ɛ̃] is in the same "place" as the phone [ɛ]: an open-mid front unrounded vowel. (I don't know enough about phonetics to say whether nasalization causes any predictable distortions to the first and second formants of a vowel.)
That does not mean that the phonetic realization of the phoneme transcribed /ɛ̃/ and the phonetic realization of the phoneme transcribed /ɛ/ are in the same "place" for any particular language. French, one of the most well-known languages with nasal vowels, does not have a straightforward equivalence between the qualities of the nasal vowel phonemes and the qualities of the oral vowel phonemes that are transcribed with the "same" letters. In a typical Parisian accent, /ɛ̃/ is often opener than /ɛ/ (I've read suggestions that an accurate phonetic transcription would be [æ̃]). The French nasal vowel that is typically transcribed as /ɔ̃/ can reportedly have a phonetic value more like [õ] for many speakers in France, and the nasal vowel that is typically transcribed as /ɑ̃/ may apparently be realized with some degree of rounding, so something like [ɒ̃] (or perhaps even raised to [ɔ̃]).
On the other hand, Wikipedia says

In Quebec French, two of the vowels shift in a different direction: /ɔ̃/ → [õ], more or less as in Europe, but /ɛ̃/ → [ẽ] and /ɑ̃/ → [ã].
Comment: For another example, Brazilian Portuguese /ã/ is usually transcribed [ɐ̃] narrowly (vs. stressed /a/ = [a] proper).
Comment: I could better appreciate your remarks if I exchanged your terms "phone" and "phoneme".  I thought phonemes were "points in a pattern", not actual sounds.
Comment: The one thing that always gets me is nasalized diphthongs get a separate tilde over each letter. Makes for very messy transcriptions in some languages where a single extended tilde would be much cleaner and often make more sense.
Answer: Good catch. Since its inception, one of the IPA's core principles has been that each phoneme in languages around the world should be given a separate IPA letter. The first of the original 1888 principles stated:

There should be a separate sign for each distinctive sound; that is, for each sound which, being used instead of another, in the same language, can change the meaning of a word.

As you pointed out, this would mean that nasal vowels, aspirated plosives, affricates etc. must also be assigned separate letters because they certainly are distinctive in many languages. But they have never been given separate letters (save for some obsolete letters for affricates), and to do so would have cluttered the alphabet considerably. Although the 1888 principles stated "The alphabet should consist ... as few new letters as possible being used", this apparent discrepancy was not explicitly addressed by the Association until the 1989 overhaul of the alphabet and its principles. At the Kiel Convention of 1989, the IPA revised the principles, which said in part:

It  is  not possible  to  dispense  entirely  with  diacritics.  The  International  Phonetic Association recommends that their use be limited as far as possible to the following cases:
  (i)  For denoting length, stress and pitch.
  (ii)  For representing minute shades of sounds.
  (iii)  When the introduction of a single diacritic obviates the necessity for designing a number of new symbols (as, for instance, in the representation of nasalized vowels).

So there. Creating a separate symbol for each phoneme ever found in any language of the world would very soon render the IPA chart pretty unwieldy. So in general, the IPA has, since the 1979 revision,  opted for a more simple and efficient set of symbols and diacritics, disposing of superfluous and/or seldom-used letters and diacritics like [ƾ] ( = [ts]) and [ɼ] ( = [r̝]).

Question about nasal vowels in IPA


Dealing with collegue who tries to steal projects

Question: I am working in a team that supports operation. The team is awesome but when I get a project a guy wants it and start digging nose into it until he makes it his through contacts with vendor and stakeholders as he was working with them earlier than me. He takes one project and then another but does not get full knowledge of it. I think he is taking them in order to impress manager and show his work. Is there any way to handle this and get involved in work without his nose in it?
Comment: Are your projects assigned by your manager?  If so, why are you not telling your manager that this person is interfering?
Comment: hello, consider [edit]ing the question to make it better fit site topics laid out in [help/on-topic]. In particular, [this guidance](http://meta.workplace.stackexchange.com/a/2696) may help to learn what is expected of questions here. Good luck!
Comment: Thanks. @Jane S they are more operational task rather than project I must say. One handling one system and other handling another. I being new is not exposed to any information although manager has provided the authority.
Answer: Firstly, who assigns your projects to you? Your manager? In that case, talk to your colleague first and state that you find his current behaviour problematic and that it makes you uncomfortable. Try not to come off as hostile and try to have a productive dialogue. If this fails, try to talk to your manager about it.
Your manager will then have to put his foot down eventually. Failing that, you can try and escalate to HR or higher management, but beware, your manager might resent you for that.
Answer: Some good answers already, but I want to add an additional viewpoint and resolution.
There may be another reason that he/she is getting involved. Someone may be tasking your colleague to oversee what you are doing as they are more experienced. To the bosses it doesn't matter so much who does the job as that it is being done well. I have been put in this position many times to keep an eye on less experienced colleagues. Eventually if they don't shape up and prove themselves they've been let go.
Or this may be the impression your colleague is making about you to management, that your competence is questionable. Either way you need to combat it.
A good strategy would be to be very organised about how you approach projects, keep good clean pertinent records and do everything by the book. Make sure there are no flaws that someone could pounce on. In other words work like a professional. Eventually you'll earn your laurels.
Complaining about it would be my last resort only if I thought the colleague was maliciously elbowing me aside. If I went down that track I wouldn't bother speaking to them. I would ask management politely why I'm being taken off such and such a project after putting so much effort into it, ask them if there is some area I need to improve on and basically put the onus on them to explain why it is happening while pointing out how much you would value a chance to prove yourself by completing a project. Then move forwards dependent on their answer. It's always preferable to make the manager question his/her own reasoning and motivations rather than to be confrontational about things, if possible.
Comment: good note to be remembered!
Answer: There is pretty much only one thing you can do.
Ask him not to interfere with your projects, as it is making you very uncomfortable.
If he continues to do it, you have to escalate it to your management, as it is affecting your productivity and maybe his' too, as he is multi-tasking.


Why didn't Lily apparate away with Harry?

Question: When Voldemort came to kill the Potter family James and Lily realize he is there with a little bit of time to spare.  James provides a momentary buffer and Lily is in the room with Harry.  Why did she not grab Harry and apparate away from Voldemort?
Comment: @SS -- There's a lovely lecture in [Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality](http://hpmor.com/chapter/16) that mentions this.  To quote: "Just because there is a ridiculously obscure way of dealing with mountain trolls does not mean you should actually try to use it! The Killing Curse is unblockable, unstoppable, and works every single time on anything with a brain. If, as an adult wizard, you find yourself incapable of using the Killing Curse, then you can simply Apparate away! Likewise if you are facing the second most perfect killing machine, a Dementor. You just Apparate away!"
Comment: Fine.. Just learn how to apparate and nobody would be able to kill you.. :)
Comment: One does not simply apparate from Voldemort !!!
Answer: You can not easily (if at all) Apparate without a wand (HP Wikia has a long list of examples and reasoning explaining why). Side-along with an infant would be even less possible.
In DH, Voldemort recollects that neither James nor Lily had their wands when he killed them.

He was over the threshold as James came sprinting into the hall. It was easy, too easy, he had not even picked up his wand... "Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off!" Hold him off, without a wand in his hand!... He laughed before casting the curse... "Avada Kedavra!"
  ...
  He climbed the
  steps, listening with faint amusement to her attempts to barricade herself in... She had no wand upon her either...

So Lily could not Apparate due to lack of wand.
Comment: Simple and a good explanation.  I had forgotten about Voldemort's recollection in DH!
Comment: Great link to the Wikia! :P I honestly believe that had Lily had her wand with her, she might not have used it to Apparate away.
Comment: See also http://scifi.stackexchange.com/q/102813/4918 "Does a wizard need a wand to Apparate?"
Answer: I'm going to say it's because she didn't have her wand.  There is some debate as to whether a wand is strictly required, but I think it is.  Plus,
Slytherincess already covered the "Gryffindors are brave" angle.
Comment: That is a good explanation.  Simple but it explains that.  I still don't like the "Gryffindors are brave" angle though because if Lily had the chance to save herself and Harry then she would have taken it.  Bravery doesn't mean dying for no reason.
Answer: Besides for the debatable reason of not having a wand as mentioned in the accepted answer, there is a more basic reason why she could not have Apparated. In Deathly Hallows when the trio went from Shell Cottage to Gringotts, we have the following description:

All three of them glanced back at Shell Cottage, lying dark and silent under the fading stars, then turned and began to walk toward the point, just beyond the boundary wall, where the Fidelius Charm stopped working and they would be able to Disapparate.

So we see that you cannot Disapparate from within the confines of a Fidelius Charm. As the Potters house in Godric's Hollow was similarly protected by the Fidelius Charm, it would have been impossible for Lilly to Disapparate out of it.
Furthermore, even without the Fidelius Charm it is likely that she would not have been able to Disapparate out of the house. In the beginning of Half-Blood Prince we have the following exchange between Harry and Dumbledore:

"Professor, why couldn't we just Apparate directly into your old colleague's house?"
"Because it would be quite as rude as kicking down the front door," said Dumbledore. "Courtesy dictates that we offer fellow wizards the opportunity of denying us entry. In any case, most Wizarding dwellings are magically protected from unwanted Apparators. At Hogwarts, for instance —"
"— you can't Apparate anywhere inside the buildings or grounds," said Harry quickly. "Hermione Granger told me."

Thus, it is quite possible, even likely, that the Potter's house had an anti-Apparition charm placed on it for protection. Therefore, the reason why Lilly couldn't Disapparate out is the same reason why Voldmeort couldn't Apparate in — it wasn't possible.
Comment: I think this is a more basic and satisfying answer.  It's very slightly speculative but seems to be (in my opinion) the most likely reason that it wasn't possible.
Comment: @Dason Thanks. Note, also, that there are other examples of Order of the Phoenix members having to leave the property of protected houses before Apparating (though I didn't bother to mention them in the answer).
Answer: Their house was under the Fidelius Charm.  I am not sure if the Fidelius Charm itself comes with this additional bonus but almost all occurances seen in the series of the Fidelius Charm also come with the inability to apparate into or out of the protected area.  This would prevent Lily from grabbing Harry and apparating out of the house.  There is evidence that you are able to apparate within the confines of the protected area so it might have been possible for her to grab Harry then apparate to the edge of the protected area, run away and then apparate to a different location.  However, this all happened so quick there was probably no chance to think of such a plan quickly and Voldemort probably would have struck fast enough to prevent such a plan.
Answer: It does strike me as a little foolish not to carry your wand with you when you know you're in mortal danger.
The main reason for her not to simply apparate away, however, might have been that, like someone above state, Voldemort was too quick. If Lily had tried to grab Harry, he would have finished her off in that moment.
Answer: It states in Deathly Hallows when Ron and Harry were prisoners in the cellar of Malfoy Manor, "Ron was now trying to Disapparate without a wand," This shows that this was a foolish act and that it was fruitless.
Comment: I don't see how this is necessarily proves anything. Ron wasn't a particularly skillful at disapparating even with a wand so he isn't (in my opinion) a good example for what is and isn't possible.
Answer: Well, Lily is a Gryffindor. It doesn't really seem her style to run and leave loved ones (James) behind. Voldemort gave Lily a choice to live or die ("Step aside, silly girl") and Lily chose to die to protect Harry. Harry was in his cot when Voldemort entered his nursery and it may have been that by the time Lily took him out of his cot, Voldemort would have killed her. But regardless of all that, I keep coming back to the fact that Lily was a Gryffindor and would have never bowed to death.
Comment: A Gryffindor doesn't die needlessly though.  They will stay and fight if the cause is just but it wouldn't be in the spirit of Gryffindor to die needlessly and leave your child with no parents.  I'm just wondering if there is a reason why apparation wouldn't even have worked.  Actually I think I might have just thought of something...
Comment: Yes I understand Lily wanted to be killed instead of Harry.  If there was no alternative then yes this exemplifies a Gryffindor.  My question was asking why she wouldn't apparate away with Harry though.  There have been good answers for why she didn't do that.  So without a means to apparate away your answer is fine - but I don't feel it answered the original question.
Comment: I think this may or may not be true, but is NOT the main reason. See my answer
Comment: James: "Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off--" Lily goes to Harry's room where he is in his cot [crib]. Lily: "Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!" V: "Stand aside you silly girl … stand aside now."L: "Not Harry, please no, take me, **kill me instead**--" L: "Not Harry! Please … have mercy … have mercy…" (PA9, PA12). It may not be what you like, but it's in canon. :)


Under what license is Ubuntu? Can it be legally modified and distributed?

Question: What license does Ubuntu fall into (GPL, MIT, a mix)? Would it be legal to modify it and redistribute my modified version?
Comment: With the existence of unofficial Ubuntu-based distros like Linux Mint and elementary OS, I'd imagine this should be legal, but I'm not exactly sure how one would go about it so as not to face potential problems.
Comment: thanks for the update what do you mean by `how one would go about it so as not to face potential problems`?
Comment: That would be your question. I'm just saying I'm wondering the same thing.
Comment: @WarriorIng64 oh thanks, my english is no good
Answer: Ubuntu is under a mix of licenses, each individual package has its copy right file under /usr/share/doc/PACKAGE/copyright, e.g. /usr/share/doc/gnome-panel/copyright
All packages in main & universe are free software & can be modified & redistributed - restricted & multiverse packages fall under other licenses which may not allow this.
See http://www.ubuntu.com/project/about-ubuntu/licensing for more details
Comment: trademarked ≠ copyrighted  ;)
Comment: Also, both Ubuntu logo and the name are copyrighted by Canonical - there is a Trademark Policy one has to follow here: http://www.ubuntu.com/aboutus/trademarkpolicy
Comment: the link http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop says Ubuntu is open source. But note that anthing Open Source means its SOURCE is open! True that ubuntu is a combination of large amount of free and open source software but that DOES NOT make Ubuntu open source because even though those softwares are open source, the source code for UBUNTU is no where to be found!
Answer: It is entirely legal.
Examples of custom Ubuntu's that are released:

Linux Mint

Elementary OS

Also, Ubuntu itself wouldn't be in existence if it wasn't for Debian.
More on that relationship here
There is a page on Ubuntu licensing, in particular:

Software installed by default
When you install Ubuntu, you will typically install a complete desktop
environment. It is also possible to install a minimal set of software
(just enough to boot your machine) and then manually select the
precise software applications to install. Such a "custom" install is
usually favoured by server administrators, who prefer to keep only the
software they absolutely need on the server. All of the application
software installed by default is free software. In addition, we
install some hardware drivers that are available only in binary
format, but such packages are clearly marked in the restricted
component.

(emphasis mine)
There is the problem of Ubuntu Branding.
The trademark policy explains this:

Permitted use Certain usages of the Trademarks are fine and no
specific permission from us is needed.
Community advocacy.
Ubuntu is built by, and largely for, its community. We share access to the
Trademarks with the entire community for the purposes of discussion,
development and advocacy.
We recognise that most of the open source
discussion and development areas are for non-commercial purposes and
will allow the use of the trademarks in this context, provided: the
Trademark is used in a manner consistent with the Usage Guidelines
below there is no commercial intent behind the use what you are
referring to is in fact Ubuntu. If someone is confused into thinking
that what isn't Ubuntu is in fact Ubuntu, you are probably doing
something wrong there is no suggestion (through words or appearance)
that your project is approved, sponsored, or affiliated with Ubuntu or
its related projects unless it actually has been approved by and is
accountable to the Ubuntu Community Council

So (in this non-lawyers opinion), as long as you make it clear that this is a <code>Ubuntu derivative </code> (similar to how Ubuntu is based on Debian), you're fine.
However, I am NOT a lawyer, so this could be a flawed interpretation.
Comment: Is there any problem with including Ubuntu branding (assuming joel hasn't taken it out)?
Comment: @zpletan Yes, there are further restrictions on the Ubuntu branding depending on what you are doing with it: http://www.ubuntu.com/aboutus/trademarkpolicy
Comment: @zpletan Ooh, good question. Not sure, I'll have to take a look into that.
Answer: from http://www.ubuntu.com/project/about-ubuntu/licensing

Ubuntu is a collection of thousands of computer programs and
  documents created by a range of individuals, teams and companies.
Each of these programs may come under a different licence. This
  licence policy describes the process that we follow in determining
  which software will be included by default in the Ubuntu operating
  system.
Copyright licensing and trademarks are two different areas of law, and
  we consider them separately in Ubuntu. The following policy applies
  only to copyright licences. We evaluate trademarks on a case-by-case
  basis.
Categories of software in Ubuntu
The thousands of software packages available for Ubuntu are organized
  into four key groups or components: main, restricted, universe and
  multiverse. Software is published in one of these components based
  on whether or not it meets our free software philosophy, and the level
  of support we can provide for it.
This policy only addresses the software that you will find in main and
  restricted, which contain software that is fully supported by the
  Ubuntu team and must comply with this policy.
Ubuntu 'main' component licence policy
All application software included in the Ubuntu main component:
Must include source code. The main component has a strict and
  non-negotiable requirement that application software included in it
  must come with full source code.
Must allow modification and distribution of modified copies under the
  same licence. Just having the source code does not convey the same
  freedom as having the right to change it. Without the ability to
  modify software, the Ubuntu community cannot support software, fix
  bugs, translate it, or improve it.
Ubuntu 'main' and 'restricted' component licence policy
All application software in both main and restricted must meet the
  following requirements: Must allow redistribution. Your right to sell
  or give away the software alone, or as part of an aggregate software
  distribution, is important because: You, the user, must be able to
  pass on any software you have received from Ubuntu in either source
  code or compiled form.
While Ubuntu will not charge licence fees for this distribution,
  you might want to charge to print Ubuntu CDs, or create your own
  customised versions of Ubuntu which you sell, and should have the
  freedom to do so.
Must not require royalty payments or any other fee for
  redistribution or modification.It's important that you can exercise
  your rights to this software without having to pay for the privilege,
  and that you can pass these rights on to other people on exactly the
  same basis.
Must allow these rights to be passed on along with the software. You
  should be able to have exactly the same rights to the software as we
  do.
Must not discriminate against persons, groups or against fields of
  endeavour. The licence of software included in Ubuntu can not
  discriminate against anyone or any group of users and cannot restrict
  users from using the software for a particular field of endeavour - a
  business for example. So we will not distribute software that is
  licensed "freely for non-commercial use".
Must not be distributed under a licence specific to Ubuntu. The
  rights attached to the software must not depend on the program being
  part of Ubuntu system. So we will not distribute software for which
  Ubuntu has a "special" exemption or right, and we will not put our own
  software into Ubuntu and then refuse you the right to pass it on.
Must not contaminate other software licences.The licence must not
  place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with
  it. For example, the licence must not insist that all other programmes
  distributed on the same medium be free software.    May require source
  modifications to be distributed as patches. In some cases, software
  authors are happy for us to distribute their software and
  modifications to their software, as long as the two are distributed
  separately, so that people always have a copy of their pristine code.
  We are happy to respect this preference. However, the licence must
  explicitly permit distribution of software built from modified source
  code.
Documentation, firmware and drivers
Ubuntu contains licensed and copyrighted works that are not
  application software. For example, the default Ubuntu installation
  includes documentation, images, sounds, video clips and firmware. The
  Ubuntu community will make decisions on the inclusion of these works
  on a case-by-case basis, ensuring that these works do not restrict our
  ability to make Ubuntu available free of charge, and that you can
  continue to redistribute Ubuntu.
Software installed by default
When you install Ubuntu, you will typically install a complete desktop
  environment. It is also possible to install a minimal set of software
  (just enough to boot your machine) and then manually select the
  precise software applications to install. Such a "custom" install is
  usually favored by server administrators, who prefer to keep only the
  software they absolutely need on the server.
All of the application software installed by default is free
  software. In addition, we install some hardware drivers that are
  available only in binary format, but such packages are clearly marked
  in the restricted component.
Comment: So the iso that we download from Ubuntu does not have a license on its own? I don't think so.
Comment: yup we can't say ubuntu includes firefox and gedit ,license of firefox is Mozilla public license and  license of gedit is gpl then how can we say the exact license?
Answer: It's a mix. Each package may be licensed under different terms.
It's generally legal to modify it and redistribute every package in main and universe, some packages may have restrictions on this, for example the firefox name and logo are trademarked so cannot be used without permission from Mozilla.
You can look at individual packages licences in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright
Answer: According to wikipedia, Ubuntu for the most part is GPL Licensed:

The only exceptions are some proprietary hardware drivers.[24] The
  main license used is the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) which,
  along with the GNU Lesser General Public License (GNU LGPL),
  explicitly declares that users are free to run, copy, distribute,
  study, change, develop and improve the software. On the other hand,
  there is also proprietary software available that can run on Ubuntu.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_(operating_system)#Features
There are specific packages that aren't included  (e.g. restricted drivers) that provide different licensing.
On the official ubuntu.org website, you can also find more on this topic.
It also explicitly indicates that there are 4 types of licenses offered in ubuntu packages:

The thousands of software packages available for Ubuntu are organised
  into four key groups or components: main, restricted, universe and
  multiverse. Software is published in one of these components based on
  whether or not it meets our free software philosophy, and the level of
  support we can provide for it.
Answer: http://www.ubuntu.com/project/about-ubuntu/licensing
As per this link, Ubuntu is a collection of a number of computer programs and each one of them may come under a different license.
As far as I know, the underlying Linux kernel is released under GNU GPL version 2:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel
And if you want to look up the license agreement for each one of the programs, then you can find it on a Ubuntu machine at this location:
<code>/usr/share/doc/*/copyright
</code>


Citing my work that appeared in a many-author paper

Question: I recently co-authored a paper with about 40 other authors. This was a position paper that appeared as the output from a workshop, and my name appears somewhere in the middle of the list.
My contribution to the paper was a literature review section, which told the history of our field in a novel way, emphasising common themes that hadn't been commented on before and introducing new terminology to describe them.
I would like to re-capitulate this work in a new paper, following quite closely the story I wrote for the joint paper, although re-writing the text and condensing it quite a bit. This would be as an introductory section aimed at a different audience than the previous paper, which is why I want to say it again rather than just citing it.
The question is about how best to cite the previous paper. On the one hand I could just say something like "we closely follow the treatment given by XXX et al (2017)" without mentioning that it's my own contribution. However, I'm worried it might look a bit odd that we follow the literature review quite so closely if it's not clear that it's my own work I'm citing.
So I'm wondering if it's appropriate and/or permissible to flag up that I wrote that part of the XXX et al. paper, e.g. "we closely follow the treatment that one of us (YYY) gave in XXX et al (2017)." There is nothing in the XXX et al. paper that identifies this section as my work, so the reader would have to trust me on that.
In case it's relevant, the previous paper is mostly history and philosophy of science, whereas the new one is aimed at a technical audience in evolutionary theory and cognitive science.
I note that this is related to Citing a result due to a single author that appears in a paper with multiple authors, but the context and my reason for wanting to single out one of the authors are quite different.
Answer: My opinion, in biomedical field: I think your last suggestion is fine. Something along the line of:

"Previously, I (or, ugh, "The author of this paper") contributed a
  review of the history of making omelette using rice cookers in a joint
  paper (cite the old paper). In this paper, I/The author of this paper
  will further document the application of rice cookers with fuzzy logic
  and pressurization mechanism in omelette making."

I think it's important to take credit and show the work development stream. But more so, you should make sure the audience will not credit this new work to the first author of the said article. That'd be unfair to those authors.


Are personal cheques still used in Canada?

Question: When looking at bank account options in Canada I can see that many still offer free personal cheques. To me this is something out of the movies, since I've never written a cheque as a (young) European. Are cheques still widely used in Canada or should I decline them when opening an account?
Comment: I'm looking at my wife's Canadian cheque book. The accountant that does our taxes seems to want to be paid by cheque, and the condominium company wanted void cheques to set up auto pay for the condo fees and utilities. That's it. I'd take the cheques just in case, though you might not ever use them.
Comment: @Dennis aren't Interac payments instant and nearly free though? I wonder why checks would be preferred?
Comment: @JonathanReez Cheques work without having email, and don't require you to have online banking.  Companies will usually provide refunds by cheque, unless you have paid them by credit card, because companies generally will not give one-off payments electronically.  Some banks charge a fee to send an Interac payment ,whereas cheques are generally free.  There are third-party cheque printing services that print cheques more cheaply than banks provide them, too.  (Also, FYI, the spelling "cheque" is a US-only spelling.  All other English-speaking countries spell it "cheque", the original spelling.
Comment: @JimMacKenzie that's interesting. Here in Czech Republic banks usually compete over how well their online banking works and bank transfers are free, so that's how people do their banking. The only downside is that bank transfers take 1 day rather than being instant.
Comment: @JonathanReez I think it's a bit of the if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it mentality.  Interac email payments have been relatively slowly adopted (even though Canada adopted POS debit payments fairly early).  It's common to pay bills online, but it's not at all uncommon to get a cheque from somebody for something.  Very small organizations in particular are unlikely to be set up to give electronic payments at all, for security reasons - you can require multiple signatures on a cheque, but there's no convenient way to require two electronic authorizations, at least to my knowledge.
Answer: Yes, cheques are still very much in use in Canada. It's the cheapest way to send money because Interac transfer fees are CAD 1.50 last time I used it. My cheques are free.
Landlords like to get paid using cheques. My insurance sent me a cheque to balance an overcharge, Michelin sent me a cheque to give me a "mail in rebate" and so forth. I also hadn't seen a cheque in over 20 years before I moved to Canada. I just wanted to give people my account number to send me the money. Instead account numbers are somewhat handled as a secret.
Nowadays - when I have so transfer money - I write a cheque if I can hand it to the receiver in person and send Interac via email if the person is remote.
You can pay your bills directly from your account though. For this the receiver has to be set up at your bank. Eg. to pay my credit card I had to set up a bill to pay CIBC. That obviously doesn't work for just anybody.
Comment: https://money.stackexchange.com/questions/15218/is-it-safe-to-give-out-ones-bank-account-number - wow, apparently banks are extremely easy to fraud in North America...


What's the difference between "horrible" and "horrific"?

Question: What's the difference between "horrible" and "horrific"?
By dictionary definition, they are almost identical.
What's the connotative difference?
Answer: As you might have noticed when you were doing your dictionary research, the two can be used as synonyms, but horrible can also be used to mean unpleasant.

I had a horrible commute.

probably means the traffic was bad.

I had a horrific commute.

could mean there was a bad accident on the side of the road (or else I'm using a little hyperbole).
Answer: Diffen.com has a good word about it:

Horrible and horrific are both related to horror but the words have different connotations. While horrible can be used to refer to something that is not liked or is disagreeable, horrific is a somewhat stronger adjective used to describe things which upset and frighten by their sheer mention. For example – "A horrible meal" and "A horrific war".
At times, both "horrible" and "horrific" can also be used to mean more or less the same thing, e.g. A horrific/horrible illness.

This is somewhat backed by the BBC English Learning

You can describe something as horrible (or dreadful or awful) when you do not like it at all:

The hotel was horrible - just awful. The walls were all painted a horrible colour and I've never had such dreadful meals.*

On the other hand,

Horrific is what you would describe something as horrific when it is really upsetting or frightening to think about it or speak about it -
Having to survive in the desert for eight days with very little water and practically no shelter from the sun was horrific.
It was a horrific motorway accident: twelve people died, a further twenty four suffered horrendous burns.


Copying a globally reusable workflow in SP Designer loses form task fields and InfoPath rules

Question: In SP Designer, I copied a globally reusable workflow in order to make it only reusable (not global) so I can save it as a template
 solution .wsp to move it to another farm. The problem is that the copied workflow (before I save it as a template) has lost the task fom fields and the task form InfoPath rules. Is there a way not to lose these fields and rules ?
Comment: Hello Mignea. I have the same problem. Have you found any way to do it?
Answer: Thanks to Gennady Vanin, who helped me to find a solution.
To reconnect InfoPath form we can use the next approach:
1. Export source files of the form.
Open form in InfoPath designer. And because we can't republish it to the different place using wizard (its type is a Workflow form), we should Export source files (from the menu File\Publish) to some folder.
After this step we received a set of files, one of which is "manifest.xsf".
2. Close InfoPath designer.
3. Correct URLs in manifest.xsf
Open "manifest.xsf" in a text editor. Find all URL related to the first site collection and replace it with new URLs linked to new site collection. Save the file.
Hint: If you don't know the URL to publish in new site collection, you can open autogenerated form from it in the same manner (look at URLs in its manifest.xsf).
4. Publish changed form.
Open InfoPath designer, open corrected manifest.xsf in it and publish it (by pressing the publish button for example).
5. Hurray! The form is deployed to the new place!
You should repeat this steps for all custom InfoPath task forms in your workflow.
If somebody needs more detailed description, I could add screenshots.
Answer: Simply copying the workflow definition .xoml file is not enough. Every single time you design a workflow with SharePoint Designer it creates also a new Content Type with a connection to the InfoPath forms too and so on... (to understand exactly what happens you need to have a look at the file system via SPD - this article explains it clearly http://microsoftsharepointandbeyond.blogspot.com/2010/01/exporting-sharepoint-2010-workflow-into.html).
Do publish the workflow and use the Save as Template to export the .wsp. Once you have the solution package you can delete the workflow from the site. Alternatively you could opt for import the solution package into Visual Studio 2010 which gives you the opportunity to make changes to either the form names, content types and even the workflow itself (see here http://www.pascalbonheur.com/2010/01/export-a-sharepoint-designer-workflow-to-visual-studio-in-sharepoint-2010/)
Comment: Thnaks for the reply. I do a "copy and modify" command Sharepoint Designer, i don't make a raw copy of the xoml file. The problem is that i have to make a new copy of the workflow because the inital workflow is "global" and i cannot make a "save as template "on it.Migrating the workflow trough .wsp works fine, the problem is that the workflow that i save as a template has lost form task fields and rules.
Comment: Are you referring about any of the OOTB (e.g. approval?) because these are really behaving bad when re-imported, particularly due to the Duration field (experienced a lot of issues with that!). On the other hand, global workflows have no connection whatsoever with any fields, but the UI is generated due to the workflow variables and parameters.
Comment: The workflow is using the Start Approval Task, which is sort of OOTB (comes with some behavioues and fields), and has been heavily modified (added pages of code, impersonation steps etc). I deleted the Duration field, don't use it. I created several custom task form fileds and rules. The feilds has been renamed and the rules has disaspeared from the form. I dont's remember if when i started writting it I copied it from the OOTB approval or started from 0. Maybe the good practice is to work only on reusable workflows and to make only a global one as a copy if needed.