How can I complete the Blood on the Ice quest?

Question: I had been playing through this quest and accused the court wizard of the murders in Windhelm. I went to see him in prison and he told me to look for the real killer at night. I ran frantically around the city but couldn't catch up to the arrow indicator on the map. I did find a dead body though and no one seems to want to acknowledge that it is there. Everyone just walks past it.
So, I went to my house and found the real murderer inside, trying to find his bloody altar. I can hit him until he falls to his knees but he gets back up and carries on. If I try to hit him more after he goes down, guards come into my house and start attacking me! I have no conversation options with the Jarl or his steward to tell them the real killer is in my house. How can I complete this quest?
Comment: how long do you have to wait before there is another killing?
Comment: This was the last one. I went back to the mage who told me it would happen and when, and he has no more to say on the matter.
Answer: From the UESP wiki's "Blood on the Ice - Bugs" article:

Wuunferth Arrested Variation
If you speak to Wuunferth directly, instead of Jorleif, then Calixto will attempt to murder Arivanya in the Stone Quarter. If you choose to have Wuunferth arrested, then Arivanya will be found murdered. For the final showdown, a random, female NPC will be chosen as the market victim. If the game runs out of potential victims, one of two bugs will trigger:

After speaking to Wuunferth, the journal will immediately update to stage 130. After chasing Calixto into Hjerim, he cannot be killed. He then will not leave Hjerim and becomes hostile when you enter.

This bug is fixed by version 1.4 of the Official Skyrim Patch.
(PC) To complete quest, exit Hjerim and use console commands: prid 1B11D and moveto player.

Calixto will stay inside his House of Curiosities and will never attempt his last kill.

This bug is fixed by version 1.4 of the Official Skyrim Patch.

If you buy Hjerim and arrest Wuunferth, when you get the objective to patrol Windhelm's streets Calixto may appear inside Hjerim, in the room behind the wardrobe, and use any equipment you may have left in it. He will be immediately aggressive and killing him advances the quest normally (go talk to Wuunferth in jail to get next quest entry into journal).
Patrol the streets of the Stone Quarter at night objective may not appear after speaking to Wuunferth, although the quest can be proceeded and finished as normal.

I can hit him until he falls to his knees but he gets back up and carries on.

Updating Skyrim should fix this bug. In March 2012 (PC) and April 2012 (consoles), update patch version 1.5 was released. One of its bug fixes is:

Fixed issue where Calixto would fail to die properly in Blood on the Ice.

Make sure to install the Unofficial Skyrim Patch (USKP) (original / Legendary Edition - PC) / (Special Edition - PC) / (PS4) / (Xbox One) if playing on supported platforms. USKP fixes the bugs left unfixed in the 'Blood on the Ice' quest by the official patches. List of bug fixes by USKP related to the Blood on the Ice quest here.
Answer: I don't know if there are more ways to complete this, but I waited in the area until the right time and like you couldn't find anything.
I then walked right outside the area and heard a scream and a new arrow popped up leading me to the market.
If you're fast enough, you should be able to find the murderer there trying to kill a woman and you'll be able to stop him.
Comment: No, no dead body. The woman can be saved if you just act quickly enough! The killed is standing right next to the victim ready to strike and it looks like he's waiting for a "timer" to run out, just waiting for you to intervene.
Comment: Was the dead body already there before you heard the scream?


Can Buddhist accept prayers from other religions?

Question: Subject refers, can a Buddhist accepts prayer from other religion say Muslim or Christian? I understand the answer is yes.
Comment: What does it mean to "accept".  Simply refraining from saying "I do not accept your prayers"? If so, yes. Just saying "Thanks" or being silent is not  in conflict with Dharma practice.
Answer: We do not pray for religion. We pray for people. People of all kinds. No discrimination. If Christian or Hindu or Muslim prays for us then we should accept it gratefully...
Answer: Prayer is nothing more than well wishing with some external mythical locus as a framework. That framework only has meaning to the adherents of that same framework.
To everyone else it's just well wishing.
The intention of the prayer is what's important, not the framework within which it was uttered.
If a person means well with their intentions it matters not how they vocalise that intention.
We can certainly "accept" someone's intentions without any reference to their personal belief framework.


HDF5 and georeferencing?

Question: I'm doing quite heavy processing of Earth Observation data, and it appears that a lot of my workflow can be speeded up by using HDF5 for local storage. I mostly work with large stacks of raster files, and HDF5 as well as numpexpr allow me to very efficiently process large amounts of data. I would like to have as my external format HDF5, but my data can change geographic projection and geolocation. Ideally, I'd like GDAL to be able to use that information (not too worried about other tools), but I can't seem to find how to define that for these files.
Answer: I am currently in the same position as you. HDF5 is a great format, but you need to define and characterize it yourself. Python has a very handy module called h5py, which is quite straight-forward. It is dependent on numpy and the documentation shows you some examples how to query and store your arrays. HDF5 also supports heterogeneous datasets, thus it is all about how you define your container  and dimension structure. At the last SciPy 2015 conference there was a very convincing talk about the future of HDF5 and Python.
You might also consider netCDF4, which uses hdf5 as backbone as well and has somewhat more support from the Earth-observation community. IMHO defining dimensions (e.g. x-axis for longitude, y-axis is latitude and so on) is actually easier with the netCDF syntax.
Comment: Thanks, but actually using them for latitude and longitude is fine (climate community has been using it for ever), the problem is when you want to have a local projection (e.g. UTM) that can change, and that needs to be interpreted by third party libraries (GDAL)
Answer: The GDAL HDF5 driver officially only supports one product:HDF5 OMI/Aura Ozone (O3) Total Column 1-Orbit L2 Swath 13x24km (Level-2 OMTO3) (see the Limitation section), and it's georeferencing.  Also, this driver is only available for reading (not writing), which may make your efforts futile.  That being said, this may not be a severe limitation for you: GDAL can still read HDF5 data created using other means:
>>> ds = h5py.File('new_file.he5', 'w')
>>> grp = ds.create_group('MyTestGroup')
>>> data = grp.create_dataset('MyTestData', data=numpy.random.randint(1,5,(5,5)), dtype='uint8')
>>> data[:]
array([[4, 3, 4, 3, 3],
       [1, 4, 3, 3, 3],
       [2, 1, 1, 3, 3],
       [3, 3, 4, 2, 4],
       [3, 4, 4, 2, 3]], dtype=uint8)
>>> del data, grp, ds
>>> ds = gdal.Open('new_file.he5')
>>> ds.ReadAsArray()
array([[4, 3, 4, 3, 3],
       [1, 4, 3, 3, 3],
       [2, 1, 1, 3, 3],
       [3, 3, 4, 2, 4],
       [3, 4, 4, 2, 3]], dtype=uint8)

If you'll need georeferencing info. (maybe for display or transformation purposes), perhaps you could store it in the metadata (which apparently GDAL ignores) and access it when you need it.  Here is an arbitrary example:
>>> ds = h5py.File('new_file.he5', 'r+')
>>> data = ds['MyTestGroup/MyTestData']
>>> sr = osr.SpatialReference()
>>> sr.ImportFromEPSG(26911)
0
>>> data.attrs['Projection'] = sr.ExportToWkt()
>>> data.attrs['GeoTransform'] = (426850.21630573744, 18.907041540963913, 0.0, 5765300.131841155, 0.0, -18.907041540963938)

Comment: So the way you georeference is by adding attributes that are GDAL-specific... Mmmm, not great, maybe netcdf with CF-1.7 might be the best solution.
Comment: I would not throw away HDF5, it is a fantastic library.  If georeferencing is your only caveat, I'm sure you can find a work around to use GDAL's functionality.
Answer: I completely understand the point where you're coming from but you need to understand what Geo referencing & Projection is and how it is implemented.
The standard supported Format type for such images across Industry is Geo-Tiff. Initially the Image data is taken and is resampled according to various different pre-processing steps that are to take place after which the Latitude , Longitude ,Scale,Skew of the image are calculated and an appropriate Projection system is choosen. All of this information is put into Meta data of the Geotiff so that the processing software can understand.
Similarly , after resampling, you can handle it by putting your Geo-info and Proj-info in metadata for handling in HDF5 format as well.
I hope I made sense.

HDF5 and georeferencing?


downplay, play down; downscale, scale down

Question: There are quite a few words that are formed with down/ up either preceding the actual rootword, or as a particle making for a phrasal verb. But does it change the meaning in any way or carry different connotations?
Play down - downplay
Scale down- downscale
Answer: Interesting question, my suggestion is always to check a good dictionary first, there may be differences in usages and/or meaning, case by case:
In the example you make:
play down and  donwplay have similar meaning and usages:

If you play down something, you try to make people believe that it is not particularly important.
If you downplay a factor or  feature, you try to make people think that it is less important or serious than it really is.

as in the case of scale down or downscale:

If you scale down something, you make it smaller in size, amount, or extent than it used to be.

One factory has had to scale down its workforce from six hundred to only six.

to donwscale:  reduce (something) in size, amount, extent, cost, etc.; downsize

We want to downscale and buy a smaller house.

(Collins Dictionary)


How to be less identifiable from an email address?

Question: How can I make myself less identifiable from my email address? I currently have my own domain name so my email is firstname.lastname@example.com. As you can look up who a domain is registered too this must be one of the worst ways. Are gmail or any of the big providers any better?
Comment: what do you mean 'less identifiable'? can you define this a little more?
Comment: you can use domain privacy settings to hide your contact details when you register the domain
Answer: Less identifiable by whom? By public? By government? By Google? By people you chat with? Those are all different answers.
You can't hide by yourself, you have to hide in a group
Imagine the difference between googling someone like "Pablo Escobar" or someone like "Jonh Smith". How many john smiths you know?
What if you make your email address firstname.lastname@example.com instead of firstname.lastname@example.com?
Consider using a privacy-centric provider
Google? Nah, I wouldn't go with a provider which doesn't allow me to use nicknames anymore if I wanted privacy.
I'd go with RiseUp, ProtonMail or others.
Pay attention to what you tell others
<code>- Hi! Do you have time to discuss this? blah-blah
- Sorry, its too late, lets speak tomorrow.</code>
Such an answer may reveal your location, for example.
Also, your email client or provider may be revealing your real IP address, which may then be used to determine the city you live in. You may check that.
Use math, logic and common sense
Do not make your email address public in your Facebook account, for example. There are too many things that can go wrong, and it really depends on your ability to think wisely.

We learn to speak for two years, but to remain silent - all our lives.
Answer: Naturally using Gmail, Hotmail etc. are good ways to remove your identity from being as easily found however its more what you do with the email that makes you identifiable. So for example if you sign up to a website with that email and post comments, photos frequently, someone could piece together bits of information depending on what you post and the email doesn't make a difference. Changing the email as definitely a step in the right direction though as you can something like firstname.lastname@example.com.
Also worth noting that any information you use to signup may be viewable/searchable in one way or another as well e.g. first/last name.
Answer: Protecting your real identity is a challenge, and for practical purposes can't be done 100% by everyday people. There is some level of trust being extended to service providers and also the people and places with whom you share your email address. While it is impossible to remove all points of trust on parties you don't control, it is possible to minimize the number of trust points and/or decide what entities you will trust and use only those.
Register your own domain, choose to hide the registration contact info from the public (usually costs a few bucks more), and stand up your own email server and set your MX record of your domain to that email server.
Using any email server that is not under your own control is trusting the provider with your privacy. Opinions will vary on which providers you should trust. There are services that specifically aim to anonymize you to a degree, but still you are trusting that they live up to what they say and/or that they will not be compromised.
Still, your email server's IP address can be used to know where it is and from what ISP's address pool it comes, etc. Also, the email protocol traffic goes through your ISP, and from that one can potentially nail down what human being is behind that email address. For example, sending email "from" that email address from your IP address, your ISP (or someone who has compromised them) can determine what human is sending that email.
You can improve upon these weaknesses by using a VPN, and putting your email server behind that VPN connection. But that would entail dealing with the dynamic IP address that you get from that VPN provider and updating your MX record etc. when that changes. A lot of work and at the end of the day, you are still trusting the VPN provider is doing what they say and isn't going to be compromised.
Even if you go to these extents, anywhere you go and give that email address to anyone there is the potential for that person or site to be used to correlate you as the person behind that email.
So really, to achieve email address personal identification you need to run your own email server, under your own domain, through an IP address that can't be traced, and even if you pull all that off you can't give that email address to anyone who knows who you are (real name, physical address, etc.)
The SMTP protocol was not designed to be secure or private. It has been evolved to greatly increase security/privacy, but if you need to communicate electronically in a completely secure or private manner, SMTP is not the best choice.


How to train NER LSTM on single sentence level

Question: My documents are only a single sentence long, containing one annotation.
Sentences with the same named entity of course are similar, but not context-wise.
NER training examples (afaik) always has documents sequentially related, aka the next document is context-wise related to the previous document. Consider the example below. The first sentence is about the US, with location annotations. The second sentence is about an organisation but still related to the previous.

The United States of America (LOC), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US).
The Bank of America (ORG) is a multinational investment bank.

My dataset for example would be:

The United States of America (LOC), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America (LOC).
The Netherlands (LOC), informally Holland, is a country in Western Europe.
Peter (PER) works at the harbour.

The sentences are not related. When considering a bi-lstm, should I somehow separate the two sentences during training? so that it doesn't think that the annotation of the current sentence is related to the previous sentence too?
Take for example the dataset previewed in this Kaggle notebook. It has a sentence_idx to separate sentences by ID but other than that its just one gigantic long list of words (with features). What happens when a (bi)-lstm finds itself in a completely different context, where the current sentence has absolutely no relation to the previous.
Normally I suppose this isn't a problem because documents are very large, but mine are just a single sentence. Not sharing a context, except that, for example, sentences with a LOC annotation are of course about locations, but not a specific context.
I had a very difficult time describing my problem, questions and edits to make it more clear are very welcome. I believe a similar question is: How to train NER LSTM on single sentence level
Answer: Looks like this is done by the hyper-parameter called timestemps or sequence length. The steps/length indicates when the cell state is reset. Which can be set to a sentence length.
Just have to figure out whether this can be a variable length or the sentences should perhaps be padded?


Can you add です after a plain form of a verb?

Question: In the lyric of イノコリ先生, there is a phrase that surprised me. It goes like : 手を上げられないです。does this mean です can come after verb? such as 来られるです. What if the verb is polite? Should you add です or not? 来られます。来られますです(?). What is the difference between 来られるです and 来られます? Does it is restricted only for potential form verbs?
Answer: The short answer:
You can think of です as performing several funcitons. Being a polite form of the copula だ, or being an auxiliary polite helper verb.
です as a politeness helper verb:

No you cannot say 来られるです. The polite present form of the verb is 来られます.  You can only append です as a politeness helper for い-adjectives, so 来ないです is fine because ~ない is syntactically a い-adjective.

When it is not a polite helper, you only see です when it is needed to express past tense in 来られませんでした. Politeness is already accounted for by the helper verb ます. In the present tense you do not say 来られますです.

The long answer is to look at the conjugation rules of verbs and of い-adjectives.
For verbs, their politeness conjugation uses the helper verb ます. The conjugation scheme is as follows:

You may be slightly confused with the い-adjective conjugation scheme, which can use です as its politeness helper highlighted in yellow below:

As a result you see that there are two negative polite forms. So for example you can have 暑くないです・暑くありません and their past forms 暑くなかったです・暑くありませんでした where we note that でした accounts for past tense and ません has already accounted for politeness in 暑くありませんでした.
Now to complete the earlier table for verbs, we note that ない is syntactically a い-adjective and obeys the conjugation rules for い-adjectives. So now for verbs we have:

This is why you see 上げられないです, but you cannot get 来られますです or 来られるです.
Answer: To add です after a verb is incorrect. You must use ます after them. So 来られるです and 来るです are incorrect. 来られます is natural and れる,られる means not only "potential" but also "respect", "passive", and "spontaneous".
And if you change a verb to a honorific word, the verb become polite. For example, いらっしやる is a honorific word of 来る.
In addition, ない in 手を上げられないです isn't a verb but a verbal auxiliary which means negative. Some verbal auxiliaries before です doesn't grammatically seem to be correct in a precise sense but they are commonly used. And you can rephrase it as 手を上げられません。


How to filter out numbers from text documents

Question: I have several text files that have numbers in them.  It would be very difficult to filter out all the numbers by creating a Stop Word txt file with every number from 1 to 2010, plus very inefficient use of resources.  Is there a way in Orange to parse out all numbers from text documents?
Answer: Yes, orange has regex abilities as seen here.  If you're unfamiliar with regex here's a link regarding regex with numbers.  The idea is pretty straight forward.  Use regular expression to find all numbers, then replace the numbers with something like a blanks string a placeholder word like "NUMBER".


Why do most companies have debt and are there any companies without debt?

Question: Somewhat inspired by this question. It seems that no matter what company I hear about, they always have some sort of debt to someone. Even if the company is in great financial shape and makes tons of profit for their shareholders, they still seem to owe other companies money. So, this makes me wonder - why is it so? Isn't debt a Very Bad Thing™? Wouldn't it be beneficial for everyone (companies and private people) if there was no debt? I can understand borrowing money when you're in a tight spot; or when you want to start a new business and need the initial funding to get off the ground - but why keep on taking more debt when you could just pay immediately and in full? Isn't that just asking for more unnecessary problems? Why is this so common? What am I missing here?
Comment: "debt is a bad thing" is generic, lowest-common-denominator advice for the unwashed masses who cannot be counted on to plan, stay with plans, invest prudently, etc. In other words, the writer tells you that because he doesn't trust you.
Comment: @Harper-ReinstateMonica - Well, that's the point. I'm trying to sort this out in my head. Because bad luck can happen to anyone. Even the  richest companies are not above going bankrupt because they borrowed more than they can repay (sometimes due to circumstances outside their control). On a global scale, people/companies constantly borrowing from each other just feels like a disaster waiting to happen. If nobody ever borrowed money (except in the last extreme for survival), we wouldn't have any economic crises etc. And also borrowing feels like... cheating. Spending what you don't have.
Comment: @Vilx- "occasionally I overspend and need to use my credit card to last until the next payday" - big red flag! Even if absolutely nothing else, you should have your own emergency fund to dip into! (and then you could use your credit card if an emergency happened at the same time)
Comment: And I know I'm hypocritical here because I too am currently paying back a loan for my car; and occasionally I overspend and need to use my credit card to last until the next payday... So yeah... But... But... Don't know what to think. This economy stuff is full of conflicting ideas.
Comment: @user253751 - True enough, and I do have some extra cash stashed away. It's just that the credit card is easier to access. The amount I pay in interest rates when I use it (maybe 2-3 times a year) is never more than some 10-20€. So I think I'm OK... for now.
Comment: @Vilx- its okay for companies to go bankrupt, the people the company borrowed (bondholders) from get first claim on the scraps of the company, and shareholders get whatever is left which is usually nothing. Shareholders take a greater risk than the bondholders and in return want and expect greater - really unlimited and undetermined - upside. Whereas bondholders ask for a few percentage points a year, and a claim to all underlying assets.
Answer: Debt is not always bad, no.  Debt allows companies to expand or provide services in a way it could not usually even if they are healthy.  Consider a mortgage.  Most people are unable to come up with the cash to buy a house outright yet are quite capable of servicing a loan, allowing them to "own" the house far in advance of having the cash.  Same with businesses.  Debt also can be used to smooth cash flow, keeping staff paid and consumables purchased during a program of work that is due to be paid upon completion.  Paying in full essentially commits all your resources to that thing.  Holding debt allows you to continue to do more because you can use your cash to do other things while the main work is debt funded, backed up with the payment for that program.
TLDR: There are lots of reasons to hold debt, not all bad.
Comment: Yes but why raise capital with debt, instead of just raising more share capital? This answer could be improved by discussing the different cost of debt vs equity in the market, which drives the decision.
Answer: In a word, leverage.
If you have $100 an can make a 10% return on it through the operations of your business you have the ability to bring in $10. If you BORROW $1M dollars and it costs you 8% in interest, then you can profit $20,000 ($100,000-$80,000). Earning a profit off someone else's cash is not a bad way to make a living.
I do this myself in that I have a 30yr mortgage on a rental house I own, that I could pay off in cash today. However, I prefer to finance it so I can earn on the bank's money and invest my cash in other ventures that will net way more than the ~4% interest I am paying on the note.
Another reason for shorter term loans is just to even out cash flow for companies that extend credit or are working on projects with a longer term return on investment. If you are giving net 30 terms and you have a lot of operating expenses you need to pay your bills until your customer pays you.
Answer: In short - debt is cheaper than equity, as long as you don't take on so much debt that you risk bankruptcy. This comparison is called 'the Cost of Capital' in corporate finance.
Cost of Capital refers to how much it costs a company to maintain the actual funding that allows it to exist. If a company is funded solely by debt with an interest rate of 4% / year, then its cost of capital is 4%. But shareholders have more risk than debtholders [because if a company goes bankrupt, the debtholders get paid back first, and then shareholders get whatever scraps are left]. So a prudent shareholder would 'require' returns to be more like 10% [in the form of dividends + capital appreciation on the value of their shares].
So if a company is funded 50% by debt and 50% by equity, its cost of capital would be 7%. If a company's activities earned it 8% per year, and it was funded 100% equity, it wouldn't earn back the 'cost of capital' required [also called the 'required rate of return] of 10% - this implies that the shareholder's financial risk isn't properly compensated by the return of the company. In such a case, a shareholder would be better off selling their shares and buying something with a more adequate risk compensation. But if it is funded 50% by debt, and its cost of capital is 7%, then an 8% return on its own activities would be great.
So why don't companies fund themselves 100% by debt, which is cheaper than equity? First of all, there is no such thing as a company with '0%' equity financing, because someone needs to own the company. But let's say a company wanted to be funded 99% by debt. Doing so would greatly increase its 'insolvency risk' - ie: the risk that it goes bankrupt. Remember - debt is cheaper than equity, because debt holders have legal rights to payments. That means that if you take on more debt than you can afford, you may go bankrupt.
The same principles can apply to individuals, if you are taking debt on for an investment. This is called 'financial leveraging'. Meaning if I have $100 and invest in a diversified index fund that grows 7% / year, I will have $107 in 12 months - but if I have $100, and also take on a $100 personal loan with a 5% interest rate, then in 12 months I will have ($200 * 1.07 - $5) = $209 in investments, and after paying off my $100 loan, I would be left with $109 after interest. This means with this amount of leveraging I can achieve 9% annual growth on my savings instead of 7%. However for many people, determining whether you have 'too much' debt is quite difficult, so the less-risky option of minimizing debt is often promoted, to be conservative. The risk is that in a year where the market drops by 20%, if you have to pay off your personal loan, you will end up with ($200 *0.80 -5$) = $155, and only $55 after paying off your loan. This shows that with leveraging, your gains are magnified, but your losses are magnified, too. So there is very serious risk involved.
Comment: You can't take the interest on debt to be a constant as the leverage changes. If a company is 99% debt financed, their bonds are junk bonds, and investors will demand interest only slightly lower than what a stockholder would demand. The average OCC is constant. Leverage just shifts it around.
Comment: @Acccumulation Correct, the cost of debt will fluctuate based on the solvency risk of the company. However leverage does increase the WACC of the company if a company goes from being underleveraged to overleveraged.
Comment: Agree with @Acccumulation. You need to look at the marginal loan costs: how much more interest would a company pay, if it needed to loan an extra million?
Comment: @MSalters While true in theory, in practice the incremental increases in risk from additional debt are so small that this analysis happens when a company decides on taking on an extra Billion or 10, not usually on drawing an extra $1M against, for example, an available overdraft facility. Current interest rates will be a very close approximation to future interest rates on drawing more debt, for nearly all intents and purposes.
Answer: Fundamentally, people can walk away from a company.
The thing to realize here is that decisions are made by people.  Financing with debt lets you run hotter, and if you know what you're doing with debt management, and have a way to consistently get your capital to produce at higher percentages than the debt is costing you, it can absolutely let you make more money faster... but it also means that if everything starts going bad, it can get really ugly, really fast.  Companies, unlike most individuals, can hire skilled professionals to do their debt management for them.  Companies are also more often able to pull better-than-interest return on their capital.  Among other things, when individuals take on debt, it's usually for reasons other than maximizing income.
The critically important thing, though, is that the company is the one with the debt.  If it craters, then everyone's out... about as much as they put in, and no more.  If your personal debt craters, then you personally are on the hook in a way that it will take years to crawl out from under, even if you declare bankruptcy, and you'll lose a great many assets that may well matter to you personally.  If your company crashes out from under you, the damage to you personally is generally much less.  It's however much you had invested in the stock, and/or maybe needing to find a new job.  Thus, it behooves (most) individuals to be a great deal more risk-averse in such things than companies... and taking on debt pretty much always means being higher-risk.
Now, there are companies out there that avoid debt.  They are generally companies run by people who are themselves either strongly debt-averse or strongly risk-averse for various reasons.  When it comes to surviving downturns gracefully (like, say, reducing the costs of churn), there are some real advantages there.  That's not most of them, though, and I suspect that it's basically none of the really large ones.  Being risk-averse can help you survive longer, but it absolutely limits the ability to rapidly grow.


Q9550 CPU Not supporting Hardware Virtualization?

Question: According to Intel's Website, my Q9550 processor should support Hardware Virtualization. (It says on the box and many other sources too, so the website isn't wrong). However, according to Microsoft's tool and VirtualBox, this is not the case. I also have a Gigabyte P35-DS3L with Award Software International, Inc. F5, 9/7/2007 BIOS. There is no setting in my bios to enable hardware virtualization. I am thinking that I need to update my BIOS, but don't want to unless necessary. Is this the case? I am running Win7 x64 on host system.
Comment: @Ole_Brun's answer is correct. I also was unable to find the option to enable Virtualization in the BIOS for my Gigabyte EX58-UD3R until I updated to the latest version.
Answer: Both your motherboard and CPU should support hardware virtualization, so it is definitely worth a shot to upgrade the BIOS to latest version.
Answer: Seems that we use same CPU - Q9550.
I'm also using VirtualBox with me. But I use J&W G41HD2 motherboard with 8GB DDR3 RAM. Basically, our Q9950 has the VT-X and VT-D feature for virtualization.
If I'm not mistaken P35 is using DDR2 right? Try to change it into G41 with DDR3 RAM. Use at least 8GB DDR3 RAM for virtualization in Win 7 64bit.
In VirtualBox, those features will be activated automatically. If you want to find out how fast is visualization runs on your computer without VT-X and VT-D, try install VMPlayer and disable the virtualization hardware support. You can see how ugly the performance without VT-X and VT-D in Q9550.
Then you try to activated the virtualization on VMPLAYER with virtualization hardware support.
If the performance in VMPLAYER with virtualization support almost a same within Oracle Virtual Box, then you are already at its top.
My suggestions are : Try to use 8GB DDR3 RAM. I ever experienced running virtualization with 4GB DDR2 RAM in Win 7 64bit. This is slow.... XP runs much faster in this case.
But after I used 8GB DDR3 RAM, it makes me wanna say, "This is good."


Number of rows vs. number of variables

Question: I am new to the ML/DS field. I started a project where I need to predict the age of users. I'd like to build two models, one predicting the age group (I created 6 age groups), and the other one predicting the age explicitly (as a number). I cleaned the data, and did the correlation between the possible input variables and target variables.
What I get confused about is: how many variables is too little compering to the dataset, and how many variables is too much?
Some people are suggesting that "the more the better", but I am also aware that too many features can cause overfitting...
Is there a rule of thumb? ex: "if I have a dataset of 500k it's reasonable to have 50 variables..." or is this really depending from case to case, and I should figure out variable importance to the model, once it is done?
Please let me know if something needs to be clarified, I'd really like if someone could help me with their experience and/or direct me to an article/paper that deals with this subject.
Answer: There are general rules of thumb for different models, both in terms of the number of samples required as well as the number of features. I will try to just put some concrete numbers on things, with the caveat that is is indeed problem specific, and you usually have to make compromises.
If you are looking at something like a simple linear regression e.g. with 5 features, then for the basic tests to be considered statistically relevant, you need at least 40 samples.
In your case with 500,000 samples, 50 features is definitely acceptable - you could even have more. There are, however, two things I would be wary of:
Firstly, you make life hard for your model is many of the features are really describing the same thing. The technical term is multicollinearity, which, if your data has it, means that your features themselves are highly (linearly) correlated. It is hard for the model to know which feature to rely on, and your results may be improved by simply removing one. A simple example: if I predict your shoe size based on your height, and I have two features: your height in inches and your height in centimetres, you can see that I only really need one of these, as they are perfectly correlated measures.
Secondly, The more the better is theoretically true, as long as you have a model which is able to decide when to include features and when to ignore them - and that your data is good enough to facilitate this. There are ideas like Occam's razor, saying that a simple model should be selected over a complex model with the same performance; i.e. you should also consider interpretability. There are measures defined that quantify this, such as the Akaike Information criterion. It is a model selection tool - so you could fit the model using 10, 20, 30, and 50 of your features, compare the results of this creiterion and pick the model which scores best. Here is a recent question which touches on that topic.
There are functions that will remove features, based on a correlation threshold with other features in the dataset. It is explained well in the Caret package, for R, but the same thing can be done in Python fairly easily (not sure if there is a standard implementation).
[EDIT] - the Python equivalent looks to be the VarianceThreshold class.
Comment: Thank you very much, i will maybe come back with follow up questions.
Answer: Up to my knowledge, no rigorous studies exist to give you an answer.
Also because the robustness of a model depends on it's ability to handle the overfit: a neural network without any regularization will be much less robust w.r.t one with regularization. And both will be less robust w.r.t. a Bayesian Neural Network.
So the Bayesian one will require much less samples in the dataset in order to give reliable results w.r.t. the non regularized Neural Network.
The robustness will also depend on the number of parameters on which your model is built on: a Neural Network with 50 Million of parameters need more data w.r.t. one with just one Million parameters.
So the better way to choose how many features to keep is to check if you are able to build a reliable model or not: start training your model with all the features; if the model gives you a good performance keeping the overfit under control, than you are ok with that. Otherwise you start pruning features.

Number of rows vs. number of variables


Stabbing muscles when flexed and when relaxed

Question: Just a random question, would a sharp object pierce your muscle more(stabbed with the same amount of force) when the muscle is flexed or when relaxed?
Comment: I would say that it would depend largely on the muscle.
Comment: lets say any large muscle, abdominals, hamstrings, shoulder, etc @RoryM
Edit: or are you talking about the muscle density?
Comment: Depends on the stabbing force and how sharp the object is.
Comment: I suppose in theory the density of the tissue has increased during contraction if you stab in the middle so (preparing for a possible physics disaster) that would mean less penetration for constant force from an identical object
Answer: Well, if we look in very basic detail at how muscle contraction works within a myofibril of the sarcomere:

N.b. this isn't on a loop and only plays through seven times
The red lines represent actin filaments whilst the blue lines represent myosin filaments.  During muscle contraction the filaments move over each other:

As shown in the above diagrams the "more contracted" a muscle is then the smaller the size of the H zone (the area where there are just myosin filaments).
So if we consider a penetrating impact that went through a plethora of identically aligned sarcomeres (obviously this is not the case in nature) then we could presume that (et ceteris paribus) the object would not penetrate as deeply into a contracted muscle as it will hit more tissue on its route than in a relaxed muscle.
Comment: Thanks for a very detailed and clearly explained answer! Pity i didnt take Bio during high school...interesting stuff


How to get my question re-opened?

Question: I recently asked this question Are there USB-A to USB-C adapters for the Early 2015 MacBook and it was closed as "primarily opinion-based" due to there not being enough detail since it was all rumours then. Now the 12″ Air has been launched, could we re-open it? This is because there's more official detail about it and if not there will be soon.
Comment: Thanks for raising the issue on meta. I'll have a look and let you know...
Comment: Also - you will want to be clear if you are asking about the MacBook that's announced but not for sale as opposed to the MacBook Air that you can buy today and has legacy sized USB ports.
Answer: As it stands, it's both opinion-based and off topic. We are for practical questions about shipping hardware. I would say you can edit to ask more "how to determine how USB-C works and less dependent on Apple releasing a modified MacBook Air in 2015.
The short answer, is no one can order any Apple product with USB C so there's not much benefit to the site to have a speculative discussion question open. If and when hardware is orderable and/or announced with technical details - flag that question for moderator review if you don't have the reputation to cast a reopen vote.
If you were to change this to be - is there anything in the USB-C connector specification that makes it impossible to plug in a Standard A USB connector - I couldn't see keeping it closed.
Basically, when you have a hardware purchase dilemma, ask here how to educate yourself to understand the technology directly. Illuminate that core question with the hardware you wish to buy - but make the question about how does one learn to understand [protocol | connector | software | performance benchmarking | etc... ] so that you can make a good decision.
Shopping questions that revolve around price, avaiability, or soft generalizations (e.g. Which MacBook for a developer) get closed as off-topic and/or opinion based.
Cheers and welcome to the site. I look forward to learning about USB C as well.
Comment: @aPyDeveloper  Just start editing - there's no penalty for making two or three tries to refine it. Each edit gets it entered into a queue where high reputation users can see what you're doing and vote to reopen. Don't ask a new question - just edit it heavily if needed. Once it's in shape and has details - we can land it on SU if needed.
Comment: So could I edit the question to ask if there are any USB-C to USB-A adapters since the 12" MacAir uses USB-C and not USB-A? or would it be better to ask it as a new question? That is unless it's better asking on SuperUser (or other SE site) if there are any USB-C to USB-A adapters.

How to get my question re-opened?


is this patent protected outside of the US?

Question: In reference to the patent: US8739921
is this patent only protected in the US?
Answer: Here is a generic process for checking.  Note that there is some residual risk that data has not been entered correctly or that they filed a parallel application on the same date rather than a related application.  Before taking big risks you should have a patent attorney augment your initial search.
Step 1 -- go to patents.google.com
Step 2 -- enter the patent number of interest.
Step 3 -- hit the Espacenet link in upper left corner.
Step 4 -- on the Espacenet page for this patent, hit the INPADOC patent family link in the left column.
Look at the results.  The patent family will include related US applications, PCT applications, and foreign patents or and publications of foreign applications.
Keep in mind that for a PCT application that has not expired, the patent owner has an option to start seeking patents in 148 patent systems.  While most systems place a deadline for entry at 30 or 31 months after the priority date, one can enter some systems later.  The PCT deadline for entry into Canada is 42 months after the priority date for the first application in the chain.
Another complication is that just because a patent application was published and shows up in ESPACENET does not mean that it went all the way to becoming a patent.
Yet another complication is that the actual patent claims awarded may differ from country to country.  Some types of claims are not allowable in some countries (methods of doing surgery for example).
In the particular case of US8739921 I do not see any connected cases showing up in ESPACENET, including a PCT case.  Parallel filing US and non-US can be done but is unusual as you need a foreign filing license. Thus, the fact that there does not seem to be a related case to your patent of interest makes it unlikely that this inventor has rights in other countries.
You may find that others have obtained similar rights in other countries.  So you should have a patent attorney in your market of interest verify that you have freedom to operate as planned without bumping into someone else's patent or to double-check that a data entry problem did not cause a failure in the patent family listing.
Please excuse the long answer but I hope that these posts can be useful to other users of the site.


High precision or High recall

Question: I have a question about precision and recall. Which classifier is better, one with high precision or high recall for medical purposes like finding patients with allergy? Can we use F-measure for finding better classifier ?
Comment: Use neither. Everything here applies to precision, recall and F$\beta$: [Why is accuracy not the best measure for assessing classification models?](https://stats.stackexchange.com/q/312780/1352)
Comment: It depends entirely on what you value more, precision or recall (and that depends on how you coded your factors).
Comment: In addition to @StephanKolassa's comments which are spot on: not only do these proportions have inherent problems, but classifiers have a trade-off in where they put the class boundary. This means you can trade in sensitivity (recall) for higher specificity, and precision (Positive Predictive Value) against Negative Predictive Value. The bottomline is: what exactly is a good threshols (and thus, compromise between Sens vs. Spec and PPV vs. NPV) depends on your application. See e.g. https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/312119/classification-probability-threshold
Answer:
The choice for the classifier depends ultimately on the main goal you
  are trying to achieve!

One of the earliest steps to each project is to clearly understand what are the objectives and restrictions in which you will base your work upon.
Both Recall and Precision (and even the F-measure) suffer if your dataset is unbalanced.
Imagine you have a dumb classifier (let's call him derp) and derp(x) = 1, so you always predict the sample to be of a positive instance. If your true dataset has 150 positive and 50 negative instances, you will have recall = 1; precision = 0.75 and F ≃ 0.85 which is quite a good performance for such a dumb classifier.
For medical purposes, it depends on the severity of the issue in hands. If you are finding people with allergies I would advise minimizing the False Positive Rate, so that you do not alert too many people who may not have allergies. Nonetheless, for other more severe cases such as cancer prevention, I would advise minimizing the risk of not alerting a person which may be sick by minimizing the Miss Rate or False Negative Rate FNR = FN / P = 1 - Recall.
Also, you can check the ROC curve and it's Area Under Curve measure (see this) which can be a good metric to avoid dumb classifiers. For our derp AUC = 0.5 and this will always be the case for random or dumb classifiers, so you can check if your classifier is better than random if they have an AUC > 0.5.
Overall, the best advice I can give you is this:

Understand what you want and choose the best metric for it!

High precision or High recall


Does casting while greater invisible make the spell effects also invisible?

Question: I'm pretty sure that even if you're greater invisible and cast say, a lightning bolt, while you stay invisible per the spell, that the spells effects are still visible. I can't find a rule citation though, which is what I'm looking for.
Answer:
Items dropped or put down by an invisible creature become visible; items picked up disappear if tucked into the clothing or pouches worn by the creature. Light, however, never becomes invisible, although a source of light can become so (thus, the effect is that of a light with no visible source). Any part of an item that the subject carries but that extends more than 10 feet from it becomes visible.

(Emphasis mine)
My interpretation of the points I've put in bold is this:

Spells that emit light are visible because there is no way to hide it. Lightning, then, would look like it is originating from nowhere; a random spot in the air.
Spells that are immediately "fired" from the caster become visible as they are no longer in contact with him and become "dropped." A flying ball of acid would originate, again, from nowhere.
Spells that extend from the caster, but don't emit light, do not become visible until they are at least 10 feet away from the caster. (Though for the life of me I can't think of an example for this one.)
Items conjured/summoned by the caster are visible until hidden within the casters clothing.

Also of note:

Of course, the subject is not magically silenced, and certain other conditions can render the recipient detectable (such as stepping in a puddle).

So targets can still hear the caster if the spell has a verbal component, and if there are environmental hazards, like rain, certain spells (not to mention the caster) would become easier, if not certain, to detect.
Source
Comment: An example for bullet number 3: ray of enfeeblement, usually (unless fluffed such that the ray glows)
Answer: Your intuition is right.
Only stuff that is either part of you and your gear at the time invisibility is cast, or something that you pocket or conceal under invisible clothing, is invisible. Further, any of that stuff that you were originally carrying that became invisible becomes visible if you stick it 10' away from yourself.
Nothing else is invisible.
Since you didn't become invisible while, uh, "holding" lightning, it's not invisible. You also can't exactly hide lightning in your pocket after you cast the lightning bolt.
So, spell effects simply can't be made invisible after the fact, unless you can pocket them, such as in the case of a continual light cast on a rock.
Comment: This is technically wrong. You could hide the glowing rock in your pocket, but all this would do is hide the rock; The light would still be visible but appear without source.
Answer: One can still take the "Invisible Spell" metamagic feat (CityScape, p. 61) which makes the effect of a spell invisible (which, given appropriate spell, can scale from simply "nasty" to "absolutely mean and game breaking") for a total price of +0 spell level. That's right, kids, it costs NOTHING besides the feat. There are some spells that will not be fully invisible, and even Detect Magic will reveal the invisible spell, but combining this feat with Greater Invisibility will do some nasty work on anyone unprepared
Comment: Whilst this is useful information, this is not a useful answer to how being invisible affects the visibility of your spells.


How did Danzo acquire all those Sharingan in his arm?

Question: I was just wondering, how did Danzo get all those Sharingan eyes in his arm? Is it from the people that Itachi and Tobi killed that night?
Answer: Danzo acquired his right arm from Shin Uchiha with the help of Orochimaru. This is found in Naruto Gaiden: The Seventh Hokage Manga.

Orochimaru did another implant onto Danzō taking Shin Uchiha's
  Sharingan-embedded arm and placing that, alongside some of Hashirama
  Senju's cells, onto that of Danzō's.

(Shin Uchiha's Left Arm)
More on Shin Uchiha:

Shin was one of Orochimaru's experimental test subjects and followers,
  and possessed a unique genetic make-up that allowed for tissue and
  organ transplantation with absolutely no chance of rejection.
  Together they performed various experiments, cultivating clones from
  Shin's teeth and nerves in order to uncover many secrets of genetics.
  At some point Shin became intrigued by the Uchiha clan, especially
  Itachi Uchiha. As such, he began to imitate the Uchiha: adopting their
  surname and customary clothing, as well as numerous Sharingan which
  have been implanted all over his body. His Sharingan-embedded right
  arm was harvested by Orochimaru and transplanted to Danzō Shimura
  along with some of Hashirama Senju's cells. Some time after this,
  Shin left Orochimaru's side and took most of his clones with him.
Comment: Wait really? I though Danzo and Obito stole them from the Uchiha members killed my Itachi.
Comment: That's what I thought before too. Then I did some research and found the real answer.
Answer: We're not sure, but he most likely got them from all the Uchiha that Itachi killed.
source - http://opforum.net/threads/how-did-danzo-got-this-hand-full-of-sharingan.18133/
Most were stolen by Obito, the ones that weren't were used by Danzo for his Izanagi.
see - http://www.answers.com/Q/How_did_danzo_get_sharingans_on_his_arm
A definite answer can't be found, there are no official statements regarding the matter and no official source, so one can only speculate.
Comment: We do know that from Naruto Gaiden: The Seventh Hokage Manga, as other answer said.
Comment: what do you mean with 'we do know that' ? @AnkitSharma
Answer: Danzo used Itachi to kill The Uchiha clan only sparing Itachi's  brother: Sasuke. Then Danzo took their eyes and implanted it to his arms


What are all the reasons to get fired in Don't get fired?

Question: In "Don't Get Fired", in the Collections -> Why you got fired menu option there are 29 different reasons to get fired, what are they all?
Answer: Thanks to the users at Reddit (macfrag, IDontKnowHowToPM, SammyFord93, darkhvn, Ruxiik and aphrowoof) for compiling the list
Ways of getting fired :

Failed at interview
You didn't get work (don't take work from your bosses)
No more work (happens randomly)
No answer (don't answer the manager when they come to your desk)
Failed to get an internship (fail promotion as an intern)
Failed to get a full-time position (fail promotion twice as F.S. / C.S. position)
Failed to get a promotion (fail a promotion 3 times)
Too sick to work (performing a health draining task with 0 health)
Bad team management (don't give work to your team when the zzz icon appears on them)
Company went bankrupt (happens randomly)
Company secret leaked out (take multiple screenshots by clicking the camera icon)
Where's my desk... ? (don't log in for a day)
Work mistakes (happens randomly)
Negative Nancy (from Assistant Manager position, reply negatively 5 times to the team)
Got caught working two jobs (happens randomly when starting a side job)
Left work early (happens randomly when you click the "back" arrow to exit the app)
Out with Naebal! (as President, resign from your position)
Sudden Strike (after reaching D.G.M. tap a lot on your workers to make them work faster)
Bring me some nuts (gave the nuts in the package)
A box of doughnuts (open the box of doughnuts)
Airy potato chips (eat the chips)
Eyes are closing (fail the "Eyes are closing" challenge)
Who's the hottest girl (fail the "Who's the hottest girl" challenge)
I want Thai food tho. (fail the "I want Thai food tho." challenge)
Forbidden love (fail the "Forbidden love" challenge)
Timing is everything! (fail the "Timing is everything!" challenge)
No more overtime (fail the "No more overtime" challenge)
Back Stabbers (fail the "Back Stabbers" challenge)
Head out for happy hour ! (fail the "Head out for happy hour !" challenge)
Comment: @TimS. There is no such thing in Pixel Corea.
Comment: Shame on #8. I guess they've never heard of [FMLA](http://www.dol.gov/whd/fmla/).
Answer:
Failed at interview
Failed to get work
No more work to do
No answer
Failed to get an internship
Failed to get a position
Failed to get a promotion
Too sick to work
Team management
Company went broke
Company secret leaked out
Where's my desk...?
Work mistakes
Negative nancy
Caught doing too many side jobs
Left work
?????
Sudden strike
?????
Box of donuts
Airy potato chips
Eyes are closing
Who's the hottest girl
I want some thai food tho
Forbidden love
26.---> 29  ????

Please edit any of the missing ones.
Comment: Could you elaborate a bit more on them, like for instance 20 you could say  "Box of donuts - When you discover a box of donuts, you will get fired for opening the box".
Comment: What do you mean by 7? I've failed to be promoted many times but I haven't got this one in my collection?


Permanent stuffy nose...?

Question: I've been to four ENT's and most just prescribe me medication and spend 5 minutes talking to me and leave. I've tried nasal sprays, pills, patches and no luck. My latest ENT doctor told me I had a deviated septum and despite me telling him I've tried nasal sprays he still prescribed me some! (Dymesta) Big surprise, it lasted a couple of minutes and I was back to square one again. Is there a surgical procedure for this? I feel this is the only solution for me at this point
Comment: http://health.stackexchange.com/questions/7566/how-effective-is-deviated-septum-surgical-procedure
Comment: Have you made a conscious effort to stay hydrated? It sounds to me that you are not drinking enough water.
Answer: I remember adolescents getting nose jobs for their deviated septums.  I am surprised that all the doctors did not mention the deviated septum.  Have you explored the realm of allergies?
I had been, most of my life, getting head colds in which I could not breathe.  My nose also got stuffy frequently.  I took antihistamines and decongestants and whatever I could.  I thought it was just a genetic anomaly, as my father had the same problem.
Dr. Oz, whom I do not watch regularly, recommended a neti pot.  I bought one (sold in drug stores and my local supermarket).  There is probably a utube on using it.  I am amazed at how well this works.  I actually get fewer colds.  I used this thing daily for a month and it seems to have cleared out a lingering condition because I hardly have to use it any longer.  I am not kidding.  This thing changed my life.
The only caveat is that you should make sure your water has been pre boiled as a woman seems to have caught a brain ameba through the water system by using this thing.  I just boil extra water in the teapot when I make tea and it's cool enough (I even use it at room temp) by the time I use it.
Answer: To answer your question: yes, adults can receive surgery for a deviated septum. All surgeries have recovery time and the potential for complications, and this one does not resolve symptoms 100% of the time. Thus, good doctors will want to be sure you've made good, solid tries on everything else first.
To explore surgery as an option, the following will help:

Make a list of everything you've tried (especially past medications, but also past home remedies), and for how many days you tried them.
When scheduling with an ENT, ask their nurse if the physician performs surgery for deviated septum
Answer: I recommend trying laser sinus therapy. This technology has been used in Russia for decades and has finally made it to the United States. Unfortunately, many U.S. doctors are still unaware of it.

Permanent stuffy nose...?


Search for Joseph Whalley

Question: The person I am trying to find is Joseph Whalley born June 27,1861 in England, excerpt from family bible. His 1885  Nova Scotia marriage certificate to Mary Jane McMullen listed his father as Joseph(a sailor) and mother as Catherine. I was told my grandfather was named after his Uncle Charles Whalley. He named his daughters Elizabeth and Margaret.
Ancestry.ca suggests his name is Joseph Blakemore Whalley from Liverpool, England. The UK census lists a Joseph Whalley married  to Sarah Ann, children listed as Joseph,Charles, Elizabeth and Margaret.
No luck finding UK connections to date.
What is the statistical probability of Joseph Whalley being Joseph Blakemoe Whalley?
Answer: An Ancestry.com record for Joseph Blakemore Whalley in the Liverpool, England, Church of England Baptisms, 1813-1906 gives his birth date as 27 Jun 1861 so if your family bible was filled out during his lifetime, and appears to have had his birth date written with his knowledge, then I would say the chances that you have found the correct Joseph Whalley are very high.
If not, or in any event, if you can find other records to indicate that Joseph Blakemore Whalley became a sailor and disappeared from the England and Wales Census then that would reinforce that conclusion.

As written in another answer the 1901 Census of Canada, which I viewed at Ancestry.com, gives the birth day, month and year as 27 Jun 1861 which provides further support that Joseph Blakemore Whalley is your ancestor/relative.  As Head of his household I would expect he was present when that date was recorded.
Answer: If we assume that "born June 27, 1861 in England" is correct, then the first thing that we should do is consult FreeBMD to see what the registrations are. Such a birth could be registered in Q2 (April-June) or Q3 (July-September). FreeBMD gives us:
<code>Births Jun 1861   (>99%)
WHALLEY  Joseph      Chorley     8e 419
WHALLEY  Joseph      Altrincham  8a 195

Births Sep 1861   (>99%)
WHALLEY  Joseph      Bolton  8c 318
WHALLEY  Joseph Blackmore        W Derby     8b 237
</code>
Despite appearances, there are no geographic selections here. There are no "Walley" entries for that set of criteria.
So, there are, at the outside, 4 candidates for your chap. Meaning that Joseph Blakemore Whalley is, worst case, a 25% probability of being your chap.
You might feel like discarding the Q2 entries (the quarter date for an entry is the date of registration, not the date of birth). But that might be a mistake because rapid registrations do happen.
The logical thing would be to spend the money on the 4 certificates because, right here, right now, any number of those 4 might be born on 27 June 1861. Whether logic and finances agree is another matter, of course!
Answer: Nothing to do with statistics, sorry, but Joseph Whalley from England in the 1901 census said his date of birth was Jun 27 1861. Living in Nine Mile River Nova Scotia, Hants County. I-2 Page 10 Automated Genealogy's version of the 1901 census. (free, image available)  Nova Scotia death records at the time did not always give the names of parents, and his does not.
Answer: This is the marriage:
This entry is on Ancestry refs. FHL no. 1656678 and 93925 (without images)
6 Nov 1853 Joseph Whalley and Sarah Ann Blackmore were married at St Peters, Liverpool, Lancashire, England.
(His father is listed as Joseph Whalley and her father is listed as Joseph Blackmore)
These are the children:
Bishop's Transcripts, Liverpool 1850-1859 (All the following entries are on Ancestry with an image of the entry and all save Margaret Whalley have a date of birth added to the baptism on the image.)
6 Nov 1854 Margaret dau.of Joseph Whalley and Sarah Ann was bapt. at St Peters, Liverpool, Lancashire, England.
28 Nov 1858 Elizabeth Ellen dau.of Joseph Whalley and Sarah Ann was bapt. at St Peters, Liverpool, Lancashire, England (Born 3 Oct 1858)
8 July 1861 Joseph Blakemore Whalley son of Joseph Whalley and Sarah Ann was bapt. at St Peters, Liverpool, Lancashire, England (Born 27 June 1861)
25 Dec 1863 Charles Fredrick son of Joseph Whalley and Sarah Ann was bapt. at St Peters, Liverpool, Lancashire, England (Born 1 Dec 1863)
I could not at this stage trace the family on the 1851 Census,however they should be listed on both the 1851 and 1841 UK, census, and also to extend back the coverage for the family via the Parish Registers and the Bishop's Transcripts for the Parish of St Peters in Liverpool.
Comment: This would be a better answer ifyou explained how you arrived at this conclusions, and also how the OP can continue the research on their own.
Comment: Well it is immediately clear from the context of this entry that the date of birth had been added to the baptism record and that, that date confirms the information recorded in the family bible in the entry below. I therefore cannot see why this entry appears to have been marked down.
Comment: Well you have the date of the details of the entry and the parish which link up to the family Bible for each entry. What more do you think that your require?

Search for Joseph Whalley


How do I get the time (YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss) of my KissMetrics events?

Question: Do I need to make my own tool to get that from s3 json dumps of the raw event data, or can I magick the Reports view to show it somehow instead of just filtering on it?
Answer: It appears KissMetrics themselves offer no better tip than doing it on your own from the <code>_t</code> unixtime integers in the daily json dumps to Amazon s3 they offer.
(Though their response was more voluminous and more salesy about other features you might want to use if you were having a different problem they have implemented a user interface for. I will spare you the details.)


What color should be given to the ripple feedback?

Question: One of the major feature of Material Design in the touch feedback that you get on touching widgets. I want to know how should I go about selecting the ripple color? For example, I have a custom button with a blackbackground and white text. What should be my ripple color? How does android assign a ripple color to its default widgets?
Example 2 - Suppose I have an image which changes dynamically (downloaded). How can I set the ripple color for that image?

Possible solution? - I tried to increase the brightness (B from HSB) of the background color and setting this new color to be the ripple color. It seems to be working. Is it a good way of deciding the ripple color?
Answer: Some useful logic I got from Android SDK packages android.support.v4.graphics and android.support.v7.graphics.
The ripple color is white or black with related transparency and animation. Color (white/black) depends of background color. You must compare contrast of white (#ffffff) and background color by formula defined here. If contrast ratio > 3 than it white ripple (white color is good enough for view on background color), else that black ripple. Google uses this logic for set text color on colorized background like you can see on swathes of Color Palette.
If you have not solid color background like image or photo, than you may use more smart logic to decide what total tone of background. On Android this logic have in android.support.v7.graphics.Palette. Or you can use black ripple with Multiply or Overlay color effect if you platform can do this.
Answer: My five cents would be that you want the ripple to be a quite neutral grey. A picture of the UI would help make the decision easier.
EDIT: From what I understand, the spec has an example that is related to your case where the ripple is pretty much white.
Comment: It's a just a button with a black background. I will try out the neutral grey. What do you think about this - increase the brightness (B from HSB) for any color and set that as the ripple color??? It seems to be working for the black background.
Comment: (Oh joy, it seems I can comment.) I have to admit it isn't too easy to imagine without seein it. I (personally) think that while the background is consistently black that could make sense.
Answer: For reference, these are the colors defined in Android AppCompat library.
<color name="ripple_material_dark">#33ffffff</color>
<color name="ripple_material_light">#1f000000</color>`

Use ripple_material_dark in dark background / light text or icon.
Use ripple_material_light in light background / dark text or icon.


Word paper design printing with white borders

Question: I've created a photoshop design for an invoice. The invoice design fits perfectly on the Word page, but when I print the exact example, it prints with white borders of 2 cm. Is there maybe an option to disable the margin so my invoice design fits perfectly on the paper?
Comment: I assume you mean you're printing on a home or office printer, rather than commercially? There should be an option in your print settings somewhere but many printers simply can't print to the edge. Unfortunately such questions are off-topic here. You may be able to ask on [su], have a look for existing questions there though and have a look at their [help].
Comment: What kind of printer are you using?
Comment: I have a Canon MG 2200 series @Lucian
Comment: As @Cai mentioned you need to play with your printer settings. If it can print margins, you need to find out how from its factory documentation. This is not a hardware support forum.
Comment: printers need a margin in order to grasp the paper for feeding, so the printable area is smaller than the sheet : https://support.usa.canon.com/kb/index?page=content&id=ART141963
Answer: Your printer might be able to print on the entire paper in theory but I wouldn't recommend it. It gives a lot of trouble.
I work with printing and normally you would either print on a larger paper size and then cut it to its intended size or you would make a design with a white margin.

In your case i would either live with it, print it a little bit smaller and cut it or redesign it without color exceeding the paper.


What is the difference between Vi and Vim?

Question: I would appreciate it if someone can let a newbie know what the differences are between vi and vim. I've heard Vim is a successor to vi but whenever I try to open vi in Ubuntu it opens vim instead.
Comment: Related post - [Biggest differences between Vim and VI](https://vi.stackexchange.com/q/5514/11884)
Answer: Functionally, vim is almost a proper superset of vi. Therefore, everything that is in vi is available in vim.
Vim adds onto those features. Here are a some of the extended vim features:

Vim has been ported to a much wider range of OS's than vi.
Vim includes support (syntax highlighting, code folding, etc) for several popular programming languages (C/C++, Python, Perl, shell, etc).
Vim integrates with cscope.
Vim can be used to edit files using network protocols like SSH and HTTP.
Vim includes multilevel undo/redo.
Vim allows the screen to be split for editing multiple files.
Vim can edit files inside a compressed archive (gzip, zip, tar, etc).
Vim includes a built in diff for comparing files (vimdiff).
Vim includes support for plugins, and finer control over config and startup files.
Vim can be scripted with vimscript, or with an external scripting language (e.g. python, perl, shell).

There are many more differences. Refer below sources which are few of good places to start finding out more.
Source: Vim.Org, Vim on Wikpedia.
Hope it helps! :)
Answer: "vi" is a text editor from the early days of Unix. It became quite popular and made its way into the Single Unix Specification (SUS) and POSIX, but wasn't freely available until 2002.
So, several free vi-like editors emerged. Vim ("vi improved") is one of these editors.
As the name suggest it adds lots of functions to the original vi interface.
In Ubuntu Vim is the only vi-like editor installed by default, and vi actually starts Vim by default.
Other popular vi-like editors available in Ubuntu are, for example, nvi and elvis.
Comment: @Blauhirn To be fair, technically Xubuntu is not Ubuntu.
Comment: @Blauhirn And that `vi` runs `vim.tiny`.
Comment: `In Ubuntu Vim is the only vi-like editor installed by default` - Xubuntu here: `vim: command not found`. Only `vi` is available.
Comment: +1 for answering the question about why vi opens vim instead. that is what the OP actually is asking.
Comment: @Florian Diesch "vi actually starts Vim by default." that is not true - at least what I found out on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS when I tried to run it `$ vim
Command 'vim' not found, but can be installed with:
apt install vim         # version 2:8.2.3995-1ubuntu2.5, o`
Comment: @MycrofD no the OP did not
Answer: vi editor is the most popular text editor in Linux. We can say it has a simple black and white screen i.e. if you type any command there is no code highlighting, where as vim is improved version of VI it also has features same like vi but it also has code highlighting.
Both have these 4 basic modes:

write mode
command mode
Visual mode
escape mode
Comment: I'm reasonably certain original vi doesn't have Vim's visual mode.
Answer: The Vim FAQ has a well formatted list:
https://vimhelp.org/vim_faq.txt.html#faq-1.4
Excerpt from the FAQ:

Multi-level undo
Tabs, Multiple windows and buffers
Flexible insert mode (can use arrow keys in Insert Mode)
Macros
Visual mode (visually select sections of text)
Block operators
Online help system
Command-line editing and history
Command line completion (tab completion)
Horizontal scrolling (long lines)
Unicode and internationalization improvements.
Answer: There is indeed quite a big difference between them. I use both nvi and vim daily. Neither of them are perfect, but they're still better than anything else is out there.
Vim has more of everything. In addition to syntax hilighting (when compiled with a support for it) it does automatic conversions of charactersets, line-endings and such. It has multiple ways of numbering lines, which is really convenient. Vim certainly has a lot that speaks for it.
Unfortunately vim breaks the vi philosophy by mixing the editor modes and introducing a vast number of useless and redundant functions. Sure it's convenient at first that you can for example move with cursor keys in insert mode, but it also has some really weird unwanted side-effects (for example the . gets quirky and unpredictable).
Vim (while certainly being IMproved as it claims) is also a bloated, weird and inconsistent mixture of a broken vi and a modeless editor. :P
I still love it, though. And you can fix most of that by tuning you configuration ;D
Comment: Re _"Sure it's convenient at first that you can […] move with cursor keys in insert mode"_ That's the overall purpose of cursor keys nowadays! We're not in the 80s any more and pressing a _down_ arrow should move the cursor _down_ and not put some `^B`ad characters on the screen and make it beep.
Answer: To add to what @gen said, it is easier to read it straight from vimhelp.org, if you don't wish to test things yourself.
The reality is most people use very little of "real" vi's capabilities and even less of vim's or nvi's.
https://vimhelp.org/vi_diff.txt.html
https://vimhelp.org/options.txt.html#%27compatible%27
https://vimhelp.org/vi_diff.txt.html#posix-compliance
The biggest thing I notice is how undo / re-do has been brok.. er.. "improved" in vim, the non-classic behavior of the "BACKSPACE" key, and how slow vim-tiny is compared to n/vi at times.
One append of 50,000 repetitions can lock a session up for almost an hour in any vim version I've ever tested.
A 2,000,000 append of the same data in nvi takes less than 5 seconds.
The vim Devs know about this bug but do not think it is worth fixing.
^[50000aUse vim or nvi or vi?^[
Better not try that in vim on a Production box.  Just sayin'
If you don't know, ^[ is the code for the "ESCAPE" key.  You SHOULD know that.
Generally your basic vim skills of ^[ibla foo bar^[:wq! will transfer enough to "real" vi if you need to support a real UNIX such as AIX, HP-UX, or Solaris.
But if you rely on arrow keys to "move around" while in Insert mode then you are going to be in for a rough time.
You should not be moving the cursor around in Insert mode, arrrow keys or otherwise, 1980's or not.  Movement is meant to be done in Command mode.  It is faster and allows you to use the actual power of vim|n/vi.
Otherwise you might as well be using MS Win Notepad.
If you use vim|n/vi as intended then the hjkl and/or arrow keys --in Command mode-- will still be your last resort for getting around in a file.  It is too inefficient and slow.
You type "new" text in Insert mode, while almost all movement and text editing is done in Command mode.
This is the part many people don't seem to get.
Arrow keys don't work in Insert mode and type "garbage" when they are pressed because they are literally telling vi to "insert" the control code for your arrow key, so it does: ^B.  Then people complain that UNIX/vi is doing what they told it to do!  If you don't want vi to Insert the character then stop telling it to. Simple: Movement is done in Command mode.
Also, vim|n/vi have 2 modes in common:  Insert mode and Command mode.
There is no such thing as "Escape" mode.  ^[ just puts you in Command mode.
n/vi does not have a "Visual Block" mode, which is specific to vim.
But since marks have served that purpose in vi since the late 1970's then I question why a Visual Block mode is necessary.  Maybe for people who actually use the COLUMN selection feature?
Not knowing what vi marks and named buffers are, or how to use them demonstrates that people have not went through some of the most basic vi tutorials that have been around since the 80's or even read the man pages.
Finally, to all the people who think "vi" is on Ubuntu, or almost any GNU/Linux system, for that matter -
:version
The name is almost certainly a symlink to some vim binary somewhere.
All of this information has been publicly available about vi for around 40 years now.
-EDIT-
I just thought of 2 other ways that vim is not POSIX vi:

CTRL+R is expected to redraw the screen, not vim's "redo"
Q (which is outright DISABLED in some vim builds, apparently) is supposed to switch you back to ex.
Answer: Vim is also a Linux text editor. It is an upgraded version of vi, and its full name is vi improved. In addition to the functions of vi, it has the features of multi-level undo, visual operation, syntax highlighting, and ease of use.
Both vi and vim are editors in Linux. The difference is that vim is advanced and can be regarded as an upgrade version of vi. vi is used for text editing, but vim is more suitable for coding.
Linux ESC: The difference between vi and vim


Where can I find Population data for all UK Counties?

Question: Where can I find population data (male, female, total) for all UK counties for last 7 decades, i.e. 1950,1960,1970,1980,1990,2000,2010. I tried my luck with Office for National Statistics and UK National Statistics, but all in vain.
Comment: Not all Census are full digitized (1950 etc) you might have to use more recent censuses, note that counties like 'Avon' do not exist anymore (in 1981 it did, so you need to understand that.) it was split up  - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avon_%28county%29
Answer: This is actually more tricky then it sounds! Are you aware that the boundaries have changed quite considerably over the period (not least the 1974 boundary changes - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Government_Act_1972)?
Fortunately the nice people at the University of Portsmouth have done quite a lot of the leg work for you (http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/index.jsp). So a chat with them is probably the way to go. Depending on your status (are you a student or working in charity / local government?) the data should be available to you free of charge.
Other then that, contacting the CASWEB people at the University of Manchester (http://casweb.mimas.ac.uk/) might be a good starting point. They provide access to Census material going back to 1971 - which I believe is the earliest date that digital micro-level data is available for.
UPDATE
With regard to the Vision of Britain resource - a quick play around with their search capabilities shows that the work around they've done is using the country structure until 1971 and then Local Authority structure 1981 onward. This is pragmatic work around to the problem. Some of the boundaries are Creative Commons - but the data would need negotiating (see here: http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/data/index.jsp).
Comment: Still might be worth your while contacting them - you never know! Also I'm assuming (!) that you're not particularly familiar with the UK Census - it's run every 10 years, starting in 1851 ;). Unless you're planning to use the information for a commercial application most academic institutions would be happy to give you a few pointers ... just ask nicely and be sure to cite where you got the information from.
Comment: Thanks. I was not aware of the fact of change in boundaries. Even the data for 1980 and aftrewards is ok for me. However from the links you have provided (CASWEB), data can only be accessed by **members of UK Higher and Further Education institutions**.
Answer: Population is by Unitary Authority or Local Authority in the UK.
Searching
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/datasets-and-tables/index.html?pageSize=50&sortBy=none&sortDirection=none&newquery=population&content-type=Reference+table&content-type=Dataset
Has Population in Excel Format. You will need to extract that but country (there are tallies for county) then map that to county boundaries.
Use the Boundary-Line (May 2012) shapefile data from here:
http://parlvid.mysociety.org:81/os/ create the lines into polygons and then you can map the data by county.


Is there chess software to play against that rates your skill through actual games?

Question: Is there chess software out there that will try and rate your play? I vaguely recall an old Chessmaster software that did something similar, though by having you play through puzzles. I was looking for an actual engine to face you and gauge an estimated Elo rating somehow.
Comment: I just realized we have a related question on the site (not a duplicate, as yours asks a somewhat more specific question): http://chess.stackexchange.com/q/397/167 Note that half of Wes Freeman's answer there speaks to your particular question, and in fact gives the same advice as my answer below does.
Answer: I realize what I'm about to suggest isn't exactly what you have in mind, but still, it is technically software, and it rates your skill through actual games: play games online against other people, e.g. at FICS, Playchess, ICC or chess.com.
Instead of using some software that would have you play games against an engine (perhaps with various "levels" that are supposed to reflect various Elo levels), and then has some algorithm or other that tries to convert your results against it into your own estimated real-world rating, my suggestion cuts out the middleman and throws you right into a real-world pool. This way seems more efficient if nothing else (and probably more fun).
Now any rating you get at one of the sites I mentioned will be on a somewhat different scale than that for, say, actual FIDE ratings, and they will differ from site to site as well. But you will usually have some way to translate your rating there into a percentile (within that site's playing pool), and that would give you better information about your playing strength than any purely algorithmic guess about it will.
Comment: I have discussed the comparison of ICC and Chess.com ratings with a number of staff members from both sites and ICC, off the record, have told me their ratings tend to be 100 to 125 over the USCF. Chess.com staff on their forum has said that their rating is about 200 points over their members claimed USCF rating. That makes sense as ICC tends to have a smaller, more serious playing pool, IMO.
Comment: Another great site is redhotpawn.com, they have a _ton_ of users.
Comment: You forgot lichess.org ?
Answer: Lucas Chess is free, and gives you a choice of playing for a "Lucas Elo" starting at 0 or a "Tourney Elo" starting at 1600.  The program tracks your progress based on your games.
The full Shredder versions that run on Windows, iOS and Android all give you an Elo rating based on your performance against the engine in the last 10 games.  The engine starts playing at a fairly low level, and if you have auto-strength adjustment switched on, it will raise the engine's level until you are each winning about half the games.  (Apart from the Shredder version on the shredderchess web site, there is a version by Chessbase, but that one doesn't track Elo ratings).
The full versions of Remi Coulon's The Chess Crazy Bishop for iOS and Android also keep track of a rating for you I believe.
Shredder's ratings seem a bit high, and Lucaschess' and Crazy Bishop's a bit low, but anyway, they have that feature.


Xcode crashes on startup

Question: When I startup Xcode I get the following error:
The application Xcode quite unexpectedly. Clicking on the Report... button gives the following:
Process:         Xcode [875]
Path:            /Developer/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/MacOS/Xcode
Identifier:      com.apple.Xcode
Version:         ??? (???)
Build Info:      DevToolsIDE-9210000~1
Code Type:       X86 (Native)
Parent Process:  launchd [140]

Date/Time:       2009-03-12 15:13:14.839 -0500
OS Version:      Mac OS X 10.5.6 (9G55)
Report Version:  6

Exception Type:  EXC_BAD_INSTRUCTION (SIGILL)
Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000001, 0x0000000000000000
Crashed Thread:  0

Application Specific Information:
objc[875]: '/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DebugSymbols.framework/Versions/A/DebugSymbols' was not compiled with -fobjc-gc or -fobjc-gc-only, but the application requires GC
objc[875]: *** GC capability of application and some libraries did not match
...

The full detail can be seen here. I've never used Xcode before (although I did run it when I first installed it). Any ideas on what could be causing this?
Answer: If you just installed safari 4, either revert back to 3 or install the latest version of Xcode. Hope that helps
Comment: Yes, I did install Safari 4... Any help on installing the lastest version of Xcode (I already ran System Update)?
Comment: Got it, Apple Dev Connection. Thanks!
Comment: @Abdullah, this is precisely the situation I was in. :)
Comment: uninstalling safari 4 beta does not eliminate the problem; you must upgrade xcode
Answer: Download and install the latest version of Xcode. That's what I did to fix this issue.

Xcode crashes on startup


When to shift gears on a hybrid bike?

Question: I know what gears do what (what makes pedaling easier or harder), but my sister and I are having a debate on when exactly to shift. I think I read somewhere that it is better to shift when coasting or lightly pedaling and before the obstacle you are shifting to do better on. Sadly, I can't find the source so I have no proof to show her, she believes it doesn't matter when you shift it but it is better to do it while pedaling. Does anyone know which is correct?
Answer: It depends on your transmission. Some internal gear hubs, for example, are perfectly happy being shifted at a standstill.
For a derailleur based system, you should shift while in motion while pedaling lightly. It isn't ideal to shift under load, and shifts will be sloppier under load typically.
The question of when to shift while riding is a matter of personal preference -- ideally, you want to maintain your cadence or power output, but due to obstacles, you might downshift and get into an appropriate pedal position for continuing riding. It's like shifting in a car -- there are certainly wrong ways, but there isn't necessarily a right way.
For example, if I need to round a corner and slow down before, I might shift down before the corner, get the pedals in a position I can round the corner without striking the pedals on the ground, go around and start pedaling again. But I could also get the pedals in position, slow down, come out the other side and downshift and continue going. Neither of these is wrong, but the first one is likely easier.
It's also a good habit for coming to a stop and starting -- starting in a high gear is not so nice, and shifting down can be a bit jarring unless you build up a bit of speed in the high gear.
Answer: "shifting under load" is considered worse for the drive train, but if you have to do it then its not the end of the world.  Shifting halfway up a climb is okay, but you do have to back-off the pedal pressure for a half-revolution.  This is the same for Derailleur and IGB bikes when shifting to a bigger/easier cog.
Derailleur bikes can't shift while coasting, you have to be moving the chain to shift it.  Internally Geared Hubs can shift while coasting or stopped.
When to shift should be to keep your pedal revolutions in a comfortable range.  For most people that's somewhere between 60 and 90 RPM, with higher values for speedy types.
Answer: Internal gear hubs can shift while standing still but suffer when shifting under load - ease off on the pedals to shift. Derailleurs require the pedals to be turning forwards in order to shift properly. While avoiding shifting under load is strongly recommended due to wear on the components and possible irregularities (I learnt this lesson the hard way long ago - I was standing on the pedals to get up a sudden steep climb and the chain fell off when I tried to down shift), the rear derailleur handles shifting under load reasonably well. There are other, more exotic, shifting mechanism which I will not attempt to list here.
The key thing to remember is to shift down before you absolutely need the lower gear. If you shift too late, you will find you cannot stop pedaling to shift, because you are already going too slow, and you cannot speed up because the gear is too hard. On the other hand, shifting up too late is rarely a problem.
In short: shift down before you need the lower gear and shift up only after the previous gear starts being too low.

When to shift gears on a hybrid bike?


Why do elements change their colour in reactions?

Question: We are almost common with the reaction:
$\mathrm {CuSO_4+Fe = FeSO_4+Cu }$. In this reaction initially Copper sulphate is bluish in colour, which gradually changes to pale green. I want to know, why these elements have so and so specific colour, OR what determines the colour of these elements?  Further, why there is such specific change of colour as in copper sulphate observed?
Answer: Elements don't have inherent colors at all; substances do. Furthermore, while there are situations when some compounds (and even copper sulphate) change their colors, this is most definitely not one of them. Here copper sulphate is blue and never changes to pale green. It's just the reaction... wait, didn't you write the equation yourself? See, in the end there is no more copper sulphate. It is gone, and so is its color. What you see now is the color of $\ce{FeSO_4}$, or more precisely, of $\ce{Fe}^{2+} (aq)$.
As to why compounds have certain colors... well, this is a really huge body of knowledge. Long story short, color is caused by absorption of light with some specific wavelength. What wavelength is it, is determined by possible electron transitions within the substance in question. The transition may be between some molecular orbitals, if the compound is molecular. Or it may be between the orbitals of some metal ion, as is the case in your example. In many cases you may be able to predict the color of a compound you have never seen, using simple techniques.
Come to think of it, this question must have been asked before, and surely there is already a nice answer with lots of pics and stuff.
Comment: These are elementary substances. Put any element in a different substance; the element is still here, but where is its color?
Comment: Elements have colours as well. Copper is pinkish brown, for example, and gold is golden.
Comment: I didn't wanted to know why copper sulphate has changed its color, I wanted to know, why it is only of blue, not yellow or red, and why ferrous sulphate is only pale green, not blue or golden
Comment: Well, it's mostly ions, so read about the crystal field theory (second link in my post, or elsewhere).


In Google Sheets, is it possible to resize a spreadsheet while retaining its proportions?

Question: Currently the only way to resize a full spreadsheet in Google Sheets seems to be using Ctrl+A to select the entire sheet and then dragging from either the last column (for resizing all columns) or from the last row (for resizing all rows). Unfortunately, this method doesn't preserve the current proportions of columns or rows, resizing either all rows or all columns to the same size.
Is there any way to increase the size of a spreadsheet proportionally in Google Sheets - so that a full resize will add a proportional amount of size to each column/row without forgetting their current sizes?
Answer: The way to resize proportionally the row height and columns width without forgetting the current sizes is by using Google Apps Script. Specifically use setColumnWidth and setRowHeight to set the new sizes and getColumnWidth and getRowHeigt to get the current sizes. The values could be stored using the Properties Service or an auxiliary sheet.


I am lightest on the ground but I am heaviest in the air

Question: I am lightest on the ground but I am heaviest in the air.
What am I?
Answer: I'm going to say

 Fog

Lightest on the ground

 Cloud floating on the ground

Heaviest in the air

 Cloud sinking to the ground
Answer: It could be a

 Hot air balloon

It's lightest on the ground because

 the air outside the balloon is heavier than inside. This is due to the higher temperature inside the balloon, thus lower pressure than outside the balloon.

It's heaviest in the air because

 the atmospheric pressure is lower higher up (i.e. the air is lighter), making the balloon relatively heavier.

Otherwise it would just go up up up.
Answer: My guess is

 CO2

Lightest on the ground

 Lots of CO2 is trapped in our soil through various means. It is among the lightest compounds found in soil.

Heaviest in the air:

 CO2 is the heaviest compound (that I know of) in the Earth's atmosphere. I believe Argon is the second heaviest, with an atomic weight of 18, but I could be mistaken.
Answer: Could it be

 Gravity

Reasoning:

 The perception of gravity on the ground is not really thought of, however when one jumps, for example, the perceived pull of gravity is far heavier.
Comment: I'd argue against that by nature of the fact that gravity actually (in terms of physics) becomes weaker the further you move away from the ground (assuming that the ground is the source of that gravity)
Comment: Definitely true, however, I am pointing out the perception of it.
Answer: Is it

 A meteor?

Reasoning

 Meteors are heaviest in the air, but lightest when they hit the ground (as a meteorite) because of the matter lost as its outer layers disintegrate into the atmosphere.
Answer:
 You are air, because it is on the ground and in the air, if you were anything else than air (heavier or lighter), the two statement wouldn't be true at the same time, because either air would be lighter on the ground, or air would be heavier in the air.


Munin graphs are broken

Question: My munin graphs all of a sudden display n/a
I tried removing the RRD files, but they still display n/a.
I've run munin-check and it says it's ok.
How do I reset munin or what can cause this behavior?
Answer: Start by tailing logs in this order: munin-update.log, munin-graph.log, munin-html.log of the munin server.
I don't think it will be necessary, but here's some additional documentation on it: http://munin-monitoring.org/wiki/faq#Q.Thegraphsarenotupdatinganymore
The problem should be pretty clear if you take a look in the logs. Btw, removing the RRDs was probably not the best thing to do :-).
Comment: For me it was the next question below what you posted: http://munin-monitoring.org/wiki/faq#Q.Ihaveinstalledmuninonubuntuserver12.10 even though I'm running 12.04. Weird :)

Munin graphs are broken


not getting proper bitstream output in serial monitor using digitalRead

Question: I am producing a  data stream and feeding to a gpio pin. THe data is sampled at 2kbps. i want to dump this data into a file after a certain length of reading . how should i proceed with this ?
Comment: Not without seeing your code we can't.
Comment: My *guess* is that you are reading the port to often and not a multiple of the frequency of the wave.  So if your wave is 1Hz and you want to see 101010 then read at 1Hz not 4.25Hz.
Comment: You could clarify your question by describing the frequency of your test signal, and the sampling frequency. Unless you have an accurate reference clock (connecting the source and the sampling), you will need to `oversample` the signal, at least twice the toggle frequency, otherwise you will get a misleading result.
Answer: Without seeing your code it's impossible to tell just what is happening, but I would guess you are reading and printing the level of the wave, not the transitions from one level to another.
For instance:

As you can see, just reading regularly and printing it (which itself is quite slow) results in 11001101 rather than the 10101 that you want. That's because the speed of your reading/printing and the frequency of your wave are completely separate things and out of step with each other. There's nothing to tie one to the other.
Instead you need to look for the transitions from LOW to HIGH and from HIGH to LOW. Only when the input changes should you look to see what the new level is and print that.

As you can see the 1 and 0 are just after the change in level, since it's impossible to do anything during a change, only once the change has happened.
You might code that as something like:
<code>void setup() {
    Serial.begin(115200);
    pinMode(3, INPUT);
}

void loop() {
    static byte oldValue = LOW;     // Place to store the previous level
    byte newValue = digitalRead(3); // Read the current level
    if (newValue != oldValue) {     // The input has changed
        oldValue = newValue;        // Save the current level
        Serial.print(newValue);     // Print it.
    }
}
</code>