Difference between "composite" and "compound"

Question: Is there any difference between composite and compound? Are these words synonyms?
Comment: In chemistry, they are not synonyms. Can you give a little more context or the sentences in which you're wanting to use them?
Comment: I'm not thinking on chemistry context. It is more a computer science context, for example an operation that consists of other simpler operations, is a composite operation or a compound operation? I'm not sure which one sounds better and why...
Comment: @CarlosLoth, Like in this article? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_key (It says compound and composite keys are different.)
Comment: This article compares composites, compounds and alloys, with great definitions and illustrations: https://msestudent.com/the-difference-between-alloys-and-composites-and-compounds/
Answer: Composite are engineered materials made from two or more constituent materials with significantly different physical or chemical properties and which remain separate and distinct on a macroscopic level within the finished structure.
A compound is a substance consisting of two or more different elements chemically bonded together in a fixed proportion by mass and it is a substance that can be split up into simpler substances.
Yes, they are synonyms.
Comment: Could do with some sources here. I'm sure definitions with subtle differences could also be found.
Answer: It is a debatable subject. I have had many composite and compound crossbows and bows.
Composite is something that is made from two or more materials usually for extra strength, flexibility or durability, e.g. when they put a plaster cast on a broken limb it is made from plaster (or a similar substance) and bandage. The bandage alone is not strong enough on its own to hold the bone it place to heal and the plaster is to brittle to last the amount of time it would take for the bone to heal itself (it would simply crack and break), but fused with the fibre's of the bandage it becomes much stronger. It is macroscopic because you can see the fibres in the plaster with the naked eye as opposed to microscopic which is something that cannot be seen with the naked eye.
Something that is compound is made from two or more materials that is bonded at the molecular level, e.g. one of my bows is made from carbon and aluminium but to the naked eye it looks like it is made out of a single material because they are bonded at a microscopic level.
English is a debatable language, the meaning, spelling and use of grammar and Punctuation of many words is still hotly debated, e.g. Non debatable (I now, ironic isn't it!), Nondebatable and Non-debatable
As long as you are consistent throughout your work, e.g. if you used 23 in a sentence and then later used *forty-one it would be wrong, you must put **41 or Change the 23 to twenty-three.
Material sourced from: myself.
Answer: The usual usage in IT is "compound statement". You won't be prosecuted for using composite. In IT compounding operations and variables "build up" the statement. Composite doesn't cover that meaning.
Comment: What would you say if it was not an operation, but a structure, like "composite app", or page? (I know "compound document" is a thing, but also feel "composite" to be kinda natural in this context.)
Answer: The difference is, compound can be a verb. Composite can only be a noun or an adjective.
Comment: Several dictionaries report verb senses of _composite_ (meaning "to make a composite").


Lewis Structure For H2SO4

Question:
When I was drawing the lewis structure for $\ce{H2SO4}$ I got this configuration, now I know this isn't the best configuration but I don't see whats wrong with it. The number of valence electrons is right, the free electrons are on the most electronegative element and the formal charges are all 0. I'm not sure if there's a rule I'm missing.
Comment: BTW, I think this is a good question because I see many students asking similar things - how do I know what is and what is not a valid Lewis structure?
Comment: related https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/42675/different-possible-lewis-structures-of-hso5
Comment: Obviously, what is wrong with it is that sulphur is exceeding its octet.
Answer: As Jan mentions in the other answer, in general, a Lewis structure is preferred if it retains the octet rule. There can be more complicated bonding, and sulfur and phosphorous are two common examples (e.g., $\ce{SF6}$).
I find that many students can come up with "non-traditional" Lewis structures that, like yours, satisfy the number of valence electrons and minimize the formal charge. I usually consider these correct responses on an exam.
The "missing piece" is ring strain, which is not typically discussed until organic chemistry courses.
Note that your diagram as two O-S-O three-membered rings. These are extremely high in energy, because the O-O-S angle won't be anywhere near the expected 109.5°.
I tried a few quick calculations using the PM7 method and MOPAC. The best ring structure I could find looks like this (a distorted octahedral shape) and is estimated to have a $\Delta H_f^0$ = +33.05 kcal/mol. The O-O-S ring angles are ~65°.

The lowest energy geometry is the traditional $\ce{H2SO4}$ Lewis structure, estimated at $\Delta H_f^0$ = -177.88 kcal/mol. While PM7 isn't a highly accurate method, the difference in stability isn't close.
Comment: Sir so here the problem is just the ring strain, we can have hypervalecy shown in lewis structures right
?
Comment: Personally, I don't like the term "hypervalency" because the [real picture is less clear](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervalent_molecule) but typically we draw Lewis structures as I depict, and the problem with the structure in the question is of ring strain. When I see *logical* (albeit incorrect) Lewis structures, I typically give full marks.
Answer: You are missing the octet rule. In your proposed structure, sulphur would have a total of twelve valence electrons which just doesn't happen.
Comment: Except, there are plenty of "hypervalent" sulfur compounds - it's one of the more common examples, e.g. octahedral [$\ce{SF6}$](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfur_hexafluoride)
Comment: Agree with Geoff. The traditional Lewis structure of sulfuric acid also has 12 electrons. You can argue you draw that with formal charge on S and O and whatnot, but you could easily do the same with OP's structure - just break two of the S–O single bonds and tack on + and – charges appropriately. [Heck, you can even have resonance forms.](https://i.stack.imgur.com/kA00T.png)
Comment: @Jan - I used quotes around "hypervalent" very intentionally. If students are aware that $\ce{SF6}$ is a known, stable, sulfur compound, they can and will come up with this possibility for $\ce{H2SO4}$. Yes, *my* preferred structure for $\ce{H2SO4}$ satisfies the octet. But IMHO, the main problem with this structure is ring strain.
Comment: @GeoffHutchison Hypervalent =/= violating the octet rule. We know about 4e3c bonds and the likes and we should teach students to follow these principles rather than outdated and wrong ways such as d orbital participation.
Comment: @orthocresol True, the short answer I gave does not go into all those details which I consider not relevant for this question. But I could add a note on all those other possibilities.

Lewis Structure For H2SO4


Possible ? - [cmd.exe < echo "foo; bar;"] instead of [cmd.exe < foo.file]

Question: I can't find anywhere that addresses this, and I can't find a way to do it.  I've got an app that I've written and I want to be able to call an app and pass it a script, and it works fine with it in a script file, but ideally I'd prefer to keep the script in the code and out of a file in readable (and easily screw-upable) form.  Is there a way to pass a set of instructions to cmd like this, or is a temp file the only way?
Answer: The < redirection can be replaced with a pipe:
echo foo; bar; | cmd.exe

You can group commands:
(echo foo
 echo bar) | cmd.exe

Comment: This works.  I'll accept in a sec..  for some reason it says I have to wait two minutes.
Answer: It depends on the app that you're using. Many will have the ability to take the script commands directly on the command line, others will have the ability to take stdin directly as the script you want to run. You need to look at whatever user's guide there is for the specific app you're trying to invoke to figure out which method you need to use.
If the app has no method except taking in a file, then barring some complex magic with file descriptor pipes that's way above my head (and far more complex than simply using a file) you're out of luck I'm afraid.


How to clear the settings and configurations for all Application Virtualization (App-V) applications

Question: How can I clear the cache of all settings and configurations for all of my Application Virtualization (App-V) applications?
Answer: The App-V repair command reverts an application's virtualized filesystem back to it's original state.
The App-V Client UI provides access to the repair command:

Using Powershell you can achieve the same thing:
Repair-AppvClientPackage -Name 7-zip

Answer: You can use the sftmime command to change and configure App-V packages, and applications.
To clear all settings and configurations for all of your App-V applications, run the following command from a command prompt:
sftmime clear obj:app

By default, sftmime is located in the following folder:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Application Virtualization Client


Clustering with Adobe software

Question: i find myself working a lot with Premiere Pro, After Effect, Encoder and Encore, and i was thinking if there is a way to share the computational load to some computer on the same lan to speed up all the computing those software have to do all the time. There is any way to share the load on more than one computer?
Answer: DrQueue, which is open source software, can do that for After Effect, I used it a few years ago to distribute Maya renders, worked like a charm.

Clustering with Adobe software


Exclude Time Machine backup from "Open With" menu

Question: I have an external USB drive that I use for Time Machine backups. I've noticed that when I right-click on an item the Open With menu lists not only apps in my Applications folder, but also apps in the Applications folder on the Time Machine backup. Rebuilding the Launch Service Database will help clear out the list, but then it just grows back. I attempted to exclude the external drive from Spotlight indexing, but the external drive doesn't appear in the list of drives to exclude. Below is a screenshot of my Open With folder.
Answer: You should be able to exclude Spotlight from adding the apps on the Time machine drive to the "Open With..." menu by opening System Preferences -> Spotlight -> Privacy. Then drag the icon of the Time Machine drive into the "Prevent spotlight..." window. This adds that drive to list of drives that Spotlight should ignore for searching operations.
Note that you can't prevent Spotlight from indexing that dive as Time Machine depends on Spotlight to keep a catalog of files, but if you do this and then rebuild the Spotlight index it should prevent Spotlight from adding apps on that drive to your "Open With..." menu.
Comment: Same problem as OP. But when I try to exclude my TM drive or any subfolder of it, I get an error: `"TM" is a Time Machine backup folder. You cannot add it to the privacy list.`
Comment: I used Onyx to hide the Time Machine drive. That was why I couldn't hide it in Spotlight.
Comment: As @luckman212 notes, you can't do this any more. I managed to temporarily disable it, and clean up about half the noise in the "Open With" menu, by booting in recovery mode, disabling system integrity protection, rebooting, disabling Spotlight on all volumes with mdutil, rebooting into recovery mode again, removing all the `.Spotlight-V100` folders I could find, enabling system integrity protection, and rebooting. But this morning I'm back to eight versions of Firefox and six of Chrome.


multiple profiles on same machine with different regions

Question: I have 2 profiles on the same ps4 machine a us and a uk one while I am aware that dlc is region locked, can I get one psn plus subscription and all regions will play online multiplayer? And is it better to keep the uk or the us as primary? I see the us are cheaper
Thank you
Comment: the second part of your question *"is it better to keep the uk or the us as primary"* is opinion based since it'll also depend on where you live and what sites you have access to. i Live in Australia and i would choose UK over US as i can't get US PSN Cards as easily as i can with UK PSN Cards (US Cards i play up to +75% more on the actual value of the card), ofcause my main account is Australian and UK and Aus DLC are interchangeable on the PS3 and PS4 (brought Child of Light from the UK as a download code, downloaded it and DLC with my Aus account), only the Vita screw things up
Answer: Your PSN Plus subscription and its benefits are only relevant to the account it is associated with. Any other account will only benefit from the subscription in that you can play the games licensed to the device. Online multi-player that requires a Plus membership is not accessible to the other accounts.
Technically, it's not what account is primary for the device. It's more a case of which device is primary to the account.
Personally, if you have a choice between the two, I'd say look at which one has the best free download offerings and go with that one. You can always subscribe to both as well.
Comment: Online multiplayer is accessible to all users in the primary system regardless of region.


Swapping External to Internal Memory

Question: I have swapped my external to internal memory by using the app external2internal after rooting my Samsung Galaxy Core i8262. And it went wrong! I want to revert back my previous original state. Is there any option? How to get my original previous condition, Not to swap anymore! Please help me anyone!
Answer: just tick the reset at boot box and reboot your phone,i switch between the state you in and original state all the time.

Swapping External to Internal Memory


How to make a soap web service callout without using wsdl in salesforce

Question: I need to create a property in propertyware account from salesforce using web service callout from salesforce to propertyware. I have the wsdl of propertyware but i am unable to convert it to apex class since it is rpc encoded. I know the method name which i want to call but without generating apex classes from wsdl is it possible to directly access the method of propertyware from salesforce. The methods are present in the link below. In the list of methods mentioned in the link i need to call the method "createBuilding". Can anyone suggest how to make the callout without using wsdl.
http://app.propertyware.com/apidocs/Classes/PWServices
Comment: You can write your own Apex code that makes the correct format calls, either by researching the format of the XML or experimenting - see [When "Generate from WSDL" fails – hand-coding web service calls](https://force201.wordpress.com/2010/05/20/when-generate-from-wsdl-fails-hand-coding-web-service-calls/).
Answer: This is going to be tricky but not impossible.
What you can do is use tool like soap UI and track all the request along with http headers.
Then try to send same http request(with exact same XML body+headers that you captured in above step ) from Apex.
https://www.soapui.org/getting-started/your-first-soapui-project.html
Answer: Just did this.  You just have to download SoapUI (free and open source).  Then just click SOAP at the top and put the address you've shared with ?wsdl at the end for the Initial WSDL field:
http://app.propertyware.com/apidocs/Classes/PWServices?wsdl

Click the option to generate a sample request per method and then just execute the calls you need.  When you do, you'll see the request body you'll need.  I'm able to run it from Postman now.  Here's the weird thing though, the API endpoint in Postman is actually that same URL but https and WITHOUT the ?wsdl at the end:
https://api.propertyware.com/pw/services/PWServices

The body is raw XML; header is Content-Type: text/xml and also a header with key SOAPAction but no value is required.  Finally, you'll need to do basic auth with username and password exactly the same you would use to log into Propertyware.
Hope it helps someone.


During battle can I play a one-shot card?

Question: If combat has started and the other players start discussing what to do to me can I play a one-shot card while they are discussing?
Answer: Yes, go right ahead. For most one-shots, the only requirement for playing them is that there's combat happening. As soon as it is, you can play your one-shots. You don't need to wait your turn or anything like that - there's no turn to wait for! Snoozers losers, you've got loot and levels to find.
From the original rules:

Items – Using Them
Any one-shot Item can by played during any combat,
  whether you have it in your hand or on the table. (Some
  one-shot Items, such as the Wishing Ring, may also be used
  outside of combat.)

There are no other constraints, and no "you can only play it when the other players say it's OK or are done talking."
As for Curses in particular, remember:

Curse cards may be played on any player at any time. ANY time, do you hear me?
Answer: Also, don't forget you don't have to wait all that long for them to decide what to do, version 1.6 clearly states:

When you kill a monster, you must wait a reasonable time, defined as about 2.6 seconds, for anyone else to speak up. After that, you really have killed the monster [...] though they can still whine and argue.

So go ahead and kill it while they discuss, you'll either force them into making a mistake, or get the treasure ;)
Comment: Take note, the official Munchkin FAQ regards 2.6 as a joke--it is meant as a jab at those people who have a hard time with ambiguity.  Cited from the [FAQ](http://www.worldofmunchkin.com/faq/):

"`Q. My friends start counting 2.6 seconds as soon as they turn over a monster and combat begins. That's not even enough time to read the card! Is this legal?`: `A.  The rule says you must get "a reasonable time" to respond when another player is winning a fight.  ...  The "2.6 seconds" part of the rule is a joke;`"
Comment: Yes, I realised it's a joke, but it's a useful joke designed to keep the game moving none the less: If they are still discussing what to do 2 minutes after you killed the monster, that's not a reasonable time ;)


Can't make Dovecot communicate with Postfix using SASL (warning: SASL: Connect to private/auth failed: No such file or directory)

Question: Solved. I will leave this as a reference to other people, as I have seen this error reported often enough on line.
I had to change the path
smtpd_sasl_path = private/auth

in my
/etc/postfix/main.cf

to relative, instead of absolute. This is because in Debian Postfix runs chrooted (and how does this affect the path structure?! Anyone?)
--
I am trying to get Dovecot to communicate with Postfix for SMTP support via SASL. the master plan is to be able to host multiple e-mail accounts on my (Debian Lenny 64 bits) server, using virtual users. Whenever I test my current configuration, by running
telnet server-IP smtp

I get the following error on mail.log
warning: SASL: Connect to /var/spool/postfix/private/auth failed: No such file or directory

Now, Dovecot is supposed to create the auth socket file, yet it doesn't. I have given the right privileges to the directory private, and even tried creating a auth file manually.
The output of
postconf -a

is
cyrus
dovecot

Am I correct in assuming from this that the package was compiled with SASL support?
My dovecot.conf also holds
      client {
        path = /var/spool/postfix/private/auth
        mode = 0660
        user = postfix
        group = postfix
      }

I have tried every solution out there, and am pretty much desperate after a full day of struggling with the issue. Can anybody help me, pretty please?
Comment: The chroot mean that the whole chrooted system, /etc/, /dev/, and so on are under a specific directory.. as discussed here: https://wiki.debian.org/chroot
Answer: If you want to use sasl within postfix you also have to say which type it has to use. The output of postdonf -a gives you the possible types. In your case you have to declare the following:
smtpd_sasl_path = private/auth
smtpd_sasl_type = dovecot


Colour of polytetrafluorethylene

Question: Why are teflon coated dishes black or dark grey in colour when teflon as such is white (and the underlying aluminum is not black either)?
Comment: Afaik what's black is the coating on the aluminium, that helps the teflon stick to it. You know, teflon is very bad at sticking, so it needs a lot of help. ;-)
Comment: I agree with Karl. To get Teflon to stick to an aluminum surface, there are a few different techniques including sand-blasting the aluminum, applying resins to the aluminum surface, chemically modifying one side of the Teflon to make it more adherent, and combinations of these. Unfortunately I can't find any info on the specific appearance or color change from these process so can't fully answer the question. But given the changes made to the 2 materials (the Teflon and the aluminum) there is no reason to expect the appearance of the final product to resemble that of either unmodified product.
Comment: As @Karl states, treatment of the Al-PTFE interface with reducing agent such as Na dissolved in NH3 to promote adhesion likely leaves some carbon particles. See https://books.google.com/books?id=8OX_tcKCH8IC&pg=PA14&lpg=PA14&dq=ptfe+in+ammonia+and+sodium&source=bl&ots=91OepZreA6&sig=l8V9ouCD4nXyQDYc1QchtCXZw50&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjdrdG8sKrVAhXEOT4KHXf5BFEQ6AEISzAH#v=onepage&q=ptfe%20in%20ammonia%20and%20sodium&f=false
Answer: Note: I was employed at DuPont in the 1990's, and my understanding of Teflon(R) cookware manufacturing is based on proximity to product research and development and not from hands-on experience with PTFE formulations.
Teflon(R) polytetrafluoroethene coated materials are manufactured in several steps.  The PTFE coating is specially formulated as a waterborne dispersion containing surfactants and pigments.
Versions of Teflon(R) coatings sold in the early 1990's used a primer/topcoat system to improve adhesion of the polymer film to the substrate.  These formulated coatings are applied to the cookware and the pan is fired at high temperatures to form the PTFE film.
Coatings can be applied to both grit-blasted and smooth substrates.
The color(s) observed on PTFE coated cookware results from interactions of the pigments, polymers and surfactants during the high-temperature curing process.
Comment: I realize this is an old answer, but I recall talking to DuPont employees from back then who said the original test cookware was actually an off-white color that was judged to be unappealing to consumers because it looked dirty, so they added the black coloring in the final product.

Colour of polytetrafluorethylene


Alternative Font loaders in Monogame Framework

Question: While working on projects of mine, I have been finding that it is a huge pain to switch operating systems just to create a simple spritefont when using Monogame. I saw that the Nuclex Framework can load fonts which are clearer/sharper, and they can be used in a Monogame project as well. They load fonts using the FreeType library, which is very multiplatform and is used widely. Is there a fairly simple way to use the FreeType library or another library to render text suitable for use in a Monogame project, as an xnb file?
Answer: From my understanding a spritefont is essentially a collection of sprites where each letter translates to a coordinate on a spritesheet, such as the following:

You can do this manually, of course, but it would be a pain to check each coordinate. You can use BMFont to do the conversion for you, which creates an image such as the one above, followed by an xml file with coordinates to each letter.
I've never done it with MonoGame, but you can find a tutorial here
As far as what you said about needing to switch operating systems to create the file, what do you mean? You can create a content project in MacOS and Windows. Also, MonoGame has been working on the new pipeline using the new Pipeline.exe and related tools
Comment: Yeah, you can create a content project in OSx and Windows, but I develop on Arch Linux most of the time. Thanks for the answer!
Comment: Hmm, so libGDX uses Hiero, which creates an .fnt file just like bmfont. You can find the Hiero github here: https://github.com/libgdx/libgdx/wiki/Hiero I noticed that it contains a jar file, maybe you can get it going on unix
Comment: Also, that same github page has several links to other font packaging software, most of them work with .fnt formats. Take a look under alternatives, there are several others!


What is the easiest way to get a detailed list of the hardware in my Windows box?

Question: I'm running a Windows 7 release candidate, but I'm pretty sure there's a way to do it that works on XP and above.
Comment: What info are you trying to acquire since if it should be a Windows function you limit the choices ;-)
Comment: I'm looking for the make and model of the touchpad on my laptop currently, but it seems like every few weeks I need it for something different.
Comment: Install something like Teamviewer on your moms computer, so you can take over and do whatever the heck you need. Way more efficient ;-)
Comment: Ask someone else to do it for you?
Answer: In Windows Vista (and I believe XP and 7), you can go to Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> System Information. If this doesn't work, try searching for it or entering "msinfo32" in the run box. This provides a system summary, hardware resources, components, and software environment areas, as well as search options.
Comment: +1 This utility strikes a nice balance between technical info and friendliness and doesn't require additional software.
Comment: Aside from being easy to implement, this solution has another advantage: it's easy to copy-paste the relevant text out of the System Information box.
Comment: It also provides an export option...
Answer: Try Belarc Advisor

The Belarc Advisor builds a detailed profile of your installed software and hardware, missing Microsoft hotfixes, anti-virus status, CIS (Center for Internet Security) benchmarks, and displays the results in your Web browser. All of your PC profile information is kept private on your PC and is not sent to any web server.
Comment: This should be the accepted answer. The above windows utilities will give you incomplete and inaccurate information.
Comment: Used this before to store my windows serial number for future.  What an excellent tool.  Also good for seeing what is installed, if you want to do a manual refresh.
Answer: Running dxdiag.exe from the run menu will bring up a short summary. You can then click the Save All Information button at the bottom produces a very detailed list of installed hardware and drivers.
Comment: It lets you save 'all' information as a simple text file. Which is the best part.
Comment: +1, Very neat. Did not know the DirectX added such a handy tool.
Comment: You know, I didn't even notice that option at the bottom!  Thanks for pointing that out, nik -- I'm going to edit my answer to highlight that.  The file it produces is very comprehensive.
Answer: Piriform has made a new program called Speccy. Seems to be a really nice application for this sort of thing.
Answer: Lots of free software 'audit' your hardware (listing a couple here).

FreshDiagnose can generate a report of your system hardware
PcWizard

There are specific tools to look at your process, graphics card etc,

CPU-Z for the processor and motherboard details
GPU-Z for the Graphics card details
HDDTune for Harddisks

For a local check, you need to dig through the
Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Device Manager detail.
The other tools give you data in a little more organized manner.
They are quite small to carry in a USB pendrive usually.

I think, you could also get down to writing a VB Script to run through the registry and pull out all the details.
Comment: Ideally it would be something that is already installed.  When I'm trying to support my mom on her computer over the phone something as simple as finding, downloading and running a bit of free software becomes frustrating and complicated.
Answer: SIW (System Info for Windows) is a free, portable utility that gives a very detailed hardware (and software) report. Runs on Windows versions 98 to 7:
Hardware report: Motherboard, Sensors, BIOS, CPU, chipset, PCI/AGP, USB and ISA/PnP Devices, Memory, Video Card, Monitor, Disk Drives, CD/DVD Devices, SCSI Devices, S.M.A.R.T., Ports, Printers...
Comment: SIW is definitely the most comprehensive tool for getting hardware info that I've ever seen.
Answer: I like this:

SiSoftware Sandra (the System
  ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting
  Assistant) is an information &
  diagnostic utility. It should provide
  most of the information (including
  undocumented) you need to know about
  your hardware, software and other
  devices whether hardware or software.

Download the free Lite version
Answer: https://www.hwinfo.com

HWiNFO™ (for DOS operating system), HWiNFO32™ and HWiNFO64™ (for both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows® versions) is a collection of professional hardware information and diagnostic tools supporting latest components, industry technologies, and standards. These tools are designed to collect and show the maximum amount of information about your PC/laptop hardware.
The information retrieved by this program is presented in a logical and easily understandable form and can be exported (saved) in several various types of reports such as Text, HTML or XML format.


Total Space occupied by all the Notes

Question: In Evernote, how is it possible to know the total space used by all the notes that I have in my account?
Answer: CalS November 4, 2016:

if Windows go to Tools - Options - General  and click on Open Database folder.  The file with an EXB extension should approximate the size of your EN data base.

DTLow November 4, 2016:

If you click on About Evernote and press the Option key, you'll get a link to your database folder
You can get the size of the database on your Mac This should be
  complete, unless you have local notebooks on other computers. I have
  two accounts 1.86GB and 5.76GB The database for each account is under
  a number folder for example 123456
Space used on the servers would be similar, but not include local
  notebooks So it could be less space; however for me, the important
  number is the space taken up on my computer

Total Space occupied by all the Notes


Compute how well a laser scan matches or overlaps with its environment given a map of the environment and location of the robot is known

Question: If I knew the exact location of my robot and have an accurate map (for eg. an occupancy grid map) of the environment beforehand, how can I compute a measure of how well the laser scan data agree with the given map ?
Answer: You should look into localization algorithms. A good source is the book Probabilistic Robotics - W. Burgard, D. Fox and S. Thrun.
If you just want to compute somehow how well it agrees you could try to compute the Root Square Mean Error of the closest point of your measurement to the point in the occupied square in the grid describing the map, given an accurate robot position and map description.


When is the prefix non- used vs un-?

Question: Specifically, my students were asking why the terms "nonliving" and "undead" are the way they are. (And why "unliving" and "nondead" seem wrong.)
Comment: *Unliving* is what the *undead* do.
Comment: According to [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undead), you can blame Bram Stoker.
Answer: "Un-" is defined as "a prefix meaning 'not,' freely used as an English formative, giving negative or opposite force in adjectives and their derivative adverbs and nouns... and less freely used in certain other nouns."
"Non-" is defined as "a prefix meaning 'not,' freely used as an English formative, usually with a simple negative force as implying mere negation or absence of something (rather than the opposite or reverse of it, as often expressed by un-)."
So "unchristian" means in some way opposed to Christian virtues, but "non-Christian" just means "not Christian."  "Unprofessional" means not up to professional standards of behavior (not showing up for appointments, say), but "nonprofessional" just means not in a profession.
Logically, then, "non-dead" might mean something like "not having died" (true of rocks and living people), and "undead" might mean "living."  But word constructions don't always make sense.  "Non-dead" isn't a word and "undead" means non-living and supernaturally animated.  Go figure.
Comment: I don't think we can.  "Nonbeliever" and "unbeliever" seem close to identical in meaning.
Comment: Can we conclude it like `"non-something" is neither "something" nor "unsomething"`?
Answer: Nonliving is more like not intended to be alive than something which is not alive.
Undead is surely alive but it is more towards dead than alive - say If somebody is suffering from illness, you can say he's living undead. In more of negative way You can say he is undead in accident (positively - survived an accident)
Comment: Welcome to EL&U! Note that we're not like other sites: this is not a forum for posting helpful personal opinion. Instead, we're looking for authoritative, detailed answers backed up by supporting evidence such as references to published sources. Please [edit] your post accordingly. For further guidance, see [answer]. :-)

When is the prefix non- used vs un-?


Google password compromised?

Question: A few days ago I noticed my phone notify me about my Google play account as if I had changed my password. Yesterday I found out I had been infected with a rootkit and a packet sniffer. I was able to access my Google account. Found no weird logins to my account. So I checked "Devices" and it said "Unable to connect to phone, last time connected April the 6th". So it means someone did something to my account? I mean it's not that easy to log out of my account on my phone is it? I  changed my password and my password rest email, so I should be safe?
Comment: Packet sniffer on your laptop? Or the phone? You can easily remove Google accounts from your phone under `Settings > Accounts & Sync`. Your phone should have asked for your new password when you changed it (you didn't mention it explicitly.) If it didn't ask, then your phone truly cannot connect to the Internet (Google), or the rootkit prevented the password change. Beware!
Comment: For an optimal security, I'll recommend you to enable the two-factors authentication.
Answer: You should immediately factory reset your phone, then go to Google and go through the Google Security Check-up and verify EVERYTHING (don't skip any checks), and I would also recommend enabling 2-Step Authentication.
After that, setup your phone again and make sure to enable a lockscreen password, and possibly device encryption as well. Do not enable "Unknown Sources" without somekind of quality security package installed.
I would also go through everything on the Sign In & Security page and look for any anomalies.
Comment: Yeah I thought about resetting my phone, too.
Comment: Personally, I would factory default then change my password again. Better safe than sorry, but a factory reset is essential IMHO.

Google password compromised?


Load list of image from folder

Question: I have a folder of images, from 10 to 200, a webpage, a jquery fade and a php script that read folder full of images
Is there any way to make the php script scan a folder, get a list of image (in an array ?) and pass it to jquery script ? (first question)
Now, i can make a xml file from the result php list of files found or make a html
 from the list in the html. is there ANY other way to do that ? (question #2)
Answer: To continue on from nickf's excellent answer, this is slightly more robust for images of different types.
$imagesDir = 'path/to/your/images/';
$images = glob($imagesDir . '*.{jpg,jpeg,png,gif}', GLOB_BRACE);

echo json_encode($images);

There are other ways of doing this, but this is the easiest. Note some file systems are case sensitive, so ensure the extension list is matching precisely what you're after.
Answer: the glob function will scan a folder and return an array:
$jpgs = glob("*.jpg");

you can then pass it back to jQuery by using JSON:
echo json_encode($jpgs);

it'd then just be a case of looping through the result, generating the necessary HTML.
Comment: There are far superior, and safer ways to get the directory list (like http://php.net/manual/en/class.directoryiterator.php#88459), but yes., get the list, and output it to the HTML for Jquery to process and build a gallery.
Comment: I added an answer that's sort of a follow up to yours, hope you don't mind Nick.
Comment: Why "There are far superior, and safer ways to get the directory list". Some people seem to think glob is fine, please compare both to make me choose wisely !
Answer: To generate the list items you could use something like this (assuming images is the result of json_encode()):
var images = {'image1':'images/image1.jpg','image2':'images/image2.jpg'}

jQuery('#imagelist').empty();
jQuery.each(images, function() {
  jQuery('#imagelist').append('
'+this+'
');
});

And make sure you have an unordered/ordered list in the HTML source:

No images found

Answer: You can't just pass images as "data" into a JavaScript for display, at least not in a reasonable manner.
Comment: i think he'd just be wanting the paths to the images.
Comment: some people seem to understand the question !
Answer: I will give a try here with answer from many
Alex and Nick :
<?php
  $imagesDir = 'path/to/your/images/';
  $images = glob($imagesDir . '*.{jpg,jpeg,png,gif}', GLOB_BRACE);
  echo json_encode($images);
?>

and from mattoc (modify) to get used for the supersized
jQuery('#imagelist').empty();
jQuery.each(images, function() {
  jQuery('#imagelist').append('');
});

and hope to get something like that at the end !

for the final piece of code, i will have to find a solution to send image to supersize plugin "one by one" with preloading without problem with bug list of images
Let supposed i get 150 images list... it will be a problem, so letting the plugin just know there is 2 images, preload the next and "ajax" change the next image
image001.jpg is display
... preload image002.jpg
display image002.jpg
... preload image003.jpg
on and on and on....

all this dynamicly until the end of the array !

Load list of image from folder


Mounting a dynamo headlight to a front rack

Question: I'm using B&M dynamo powered front light (an Eyc and a Cyo) on two of our bikes and currently have them mounted at the fork crown using the stock mounting brackets. This causes a large shadow from the front wheel that we both don't like. So, I'm looking for racks that have a provision for mounting a light (these lights have a 10mm wide mount that takes a bolt running perpendicular to the beam axis). Does any one have suggestions?
Comment: Craft your own.  A half-hour or so spent in a hardware store will usually give you some ideas.
Answer: Typically, mini front racks have the type of mounts you are looking for. You will also likely need an arm to hold the light otherwise you will have to mount the light upside down, which the B&M is not designed to do.
A number of manufactures sell these type of racks and arms.   The racks will typically have a number of mounting points around the rack, mine happens to have five, two on each side and one in the front (which could use the same mount as the fork crown mount, but this would also expose the light more to knocks and bumps).
In the attached picture my rack is mounted quite low to the tire (so I can attach the fender to the rack), and the light is mounted low below the rack so I can fit a bag on top of the rack without interfering with the light.  As a result the pictured setup gets a slight shadow to one side.  You could mount the rack and light higher which would likely eliminate most if not all the shadow. You could also mount the arm holding the light to the front set of mounts on the rack which would move the light farther forward again eliminating a shadow.  I chose to mount in close to the rack to protect the light at the cost of a slight shadow.
Finally, my fork has an extra set of braze-ons for these types of mini-racks.  There are other types of mounting options so you don't necessarily need this braze-on to use this type of rack (e.g., via p-clamps). Some front pannier racks also have a platform like the one pictured built in, so you can use the regular mid-fork mounting point.
Answer: The rack I ended up getting was the Racktime Top-It. It mounts the light on the centerline in front of the rack just below the top deck of the rack. This is pretty much where Peter White says the light is designed to go. There is just enough room to mount a B&M Cyo, a bigger light probably wouldn't fit. The location is good, it pretty well eliminates the shadow of your front wheel.
Here's a photo from EcoVelo that shows the rack and light pretty well. On a Kona Sutra the rack mounts a bit lower and further forward (to get the rack deck level). I ran the wires up the diagonal strut inside a length of aluminum tubing to protect them from the pannier hooks.

(source: ecovelo.info)


Can we say "He didn't change very many"?

Question: Can we say "He didn't change very many" instead of " He didn't change very much"?
Comment: There are places you can say it, but never as a substitute.  "Much" refers to non-countable characteristics, "many" refers to countable things.  "He didn't change very many lightbulbs."  "He didn't change very much despite spending years in a combat zone."
Answer: No.
"Many" describes a count of things, whereas "much" describes a mass quantity.
The following dialog is correct, but terse:

Question:  He was supposed to change the lightbulbs.  How many did he change?
Answer:  He didn't change very many.

Whereas, a person's personality is a single thing.  It can change a little, or it can change a lot.  So it is okay to say "He didn't change very much."  But unless the person suffers from "multiple personality disorder", it is not okay to say "He didn't change very many" when talking about a person's personality.


Data driven pages displaying same feature?

Question: I'm creating data driven pages that display specific roads within specific counties. For whatever reason, the same roads are displayed on multiple pages even though the the correct route id is shown. I've provided pictures to help clarify. As you can see, the same route is displayed, but the route id is correct. When I zoom to the feature in data view, it shows me the correct route.

The process I used to create the data driven pages is as follows:

Add the polyline shapefile from the appropriate database connection.
Use "Select by Attributes" to identify specific roads.
Create layer from selected features.
Set up data driven pages

Add inset map, title, north arrow, scale bar, legend, and page text.

Of the 90+ counties I've done, I've only had this issue with 6 of them. Has anyone experienced this problem before?
Answer: I figured out a solution. When setting up data driven pages, under the Extent tab select "Center and Maintain Current Scale."


personal motivations in job applications

Question: I am a US post doc applying for a position in Norway. The application asks me to include my motivation for applying for the position. Should I mention my personal willingness to move to Norway? I recently visited and loved the culture and outdoor lifestyle there. Of course my letter is primarily focused on my research interests and how they align with the posted position, but I was wondering if it is appropriate to include 1-2 sentences about my personal desire to live in Norway.
Comment: This link may help: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/130784/motivation-letter-for-tenure-track-position
Answer:
Should I mention my personal willingness to move to Norway?

You can, but I don't expect it to have too much influence on the decision.
Strictly speaking, a committee loves to see that a candidate really wants to come to a specific country or university, and a "personal motivation" is as good (or better) than any other reason.  The big problem with "personal motivations" such as this is that basically anybody can write the same thing - there is no way for a committee to decide whether you truly want to come to Norway, or if this is just a thing you write into every application (cp. the treaded "It was my lifelong dream to pursue a PhD in XYZ" that seems to pop up in every other PhD student application I receive). As such, it is hard to take such a statement all too seriously.
In my opinion, where you can make this argument rather effectively is during a campus visit, when you can actually talk to people and explain that, and why, you would truly wish to come to Norway, in a way that allows people to judge whether you are actually sincere. I have seen such "smalltalk" to become a surprisingly positive factor in committee discussions.
Answer: When applying for a postdoc position in Norway, I was given the suggestion to mention that I could cope with the weather, since they had lost some postdocs due to that, I understand. Since I had lived all my life in the Nordic countries, I could convincingly write that the weather, the culture and the language were unlikely to present barriers.
Adding a sentence is unlikely to do any harm, but if you can give some reliable signal about your interest, that is even better.


Do you leave the oven thermometer inside the oven while you are baking?

Question: We have a very old gas oven at home. I just started baking but every time I use it for baking, I end up having burnt cookies, unevenly baked cakes, etc.
I plan on buying an oven thermometer. I'd like to know if I should leave the thermometer inside the oven in order to  monitor the temperature. Or should I take it out once the oven has been preheated enough?
Answer: In your case it's definitely worth leaving it in, because it will help you get to the bottom of whether things are burning because the temperature keeps rising during cooking.
Oven thermometers are generally designed so that they can be left in. I prefer the type that can hang from a rack
Comment: Yes, leave it in the oven all the time. But, if your oven has a self-cleaning cycle, remove it before initiating that. My oven's temperture during the self-cleaning cycle exceeds what the thermometer can withstand and it will be ruined. Made that mistake only once (so far)
Comment: I have an over thermometer which hangouts inside the oven all the time :)
Comment: @Cynetta you have a self-cleaning gas oven?
Comment: @Fabby Yes, my gas range has a self-cleaning oven feature
Comment: Wow!  I wish I would have known about this before I bought my oven!  (Note to self: remember to ask @Cynetta in 15 years which oven to buy!  **;-)** )


Realized Vol for 15 min interval using second Data

Question: I would like to calculate realized volatility for a 15 min period. Most of the literature I looked up shows how to construct daily realized volatility using intraday data. These literatures does use several techniques (e.g. subsampling, using realised kernel...) to account for microstructure noise. I'm not sure if using these techniques for the 15 min period would help to reduce the microstructure noise since I use seconds data. Do you have any suggestions how to calculate realized volatility for a 15 min interval?
Comment: Very nice question, on a very interesting topic. I don't now about a precise method to get intraday (15 minutes, in this case) Realized Volatility measures, but, personally, I think that existent approaches to calculate daily volatilities can be applied to an intraday basis (such as the Two Scales Realized Volatility, http://wwwf.imperial.ac.uk/~pavl/AitSahalia2005.pdf . Can give a look to http://www.aabri.com/manuscripts/11881.pdf , to a comparison between RV and TSRV). This is just an opinion, I've no empirical confirmation.
Comment: FYI. I used now the approach in http://jfec.oxfordjournals.org/content/10/1/54.full.pdf. Its pretty simple and there is a R implementation.
Answer: I can think two techniques that may possible be of help. The first technique is the moving average adjusted returns originally proposed by Andersen et. al(2001). See Hansen et al. (2008) for details. In order to account for serial correlation an MA(1) is fitted to to the intraday returns data, the residual of which is then squared and aggregated over the trading day to produce the daily measure of realised volatility.
Besides, is the Hansen and Lunde first order autocorrelation realized volatility measure on the paper Realized Variance and Microstructure Noise.


Is there a Legend Limiter in QGIS?

Question: Is there in QGIS a function or a plugin that works similar to Legend Limiter in ArcGIS? The attribute I want to show in my legend has many possible values, I want my legend to only show those values that are visible on my view in the print composer.
Comment: There is the option "show only visible features" for the table of attributes (in the composer), but it seems there isn't for the legend. The suggestion make sense, so please file a feature request here http://hub.qgis.org/projects/quantum-gis/issues
Answer: I only know a manual solution for this problem, not an automatic one like Legend Limiter:
You can delete unwanted values from your legend by opening its item properties. Then go to "Legend Items", open the nested legend items shown and select the ones you want to delete. To delete the selected items, click on the green minus-symbol below (btw, you can also rename, group and resort you legend here).
But this would only be feasible if you don't have to weed out dozens of unwanted values for each layer...
Answer: This feature is not implemented yet, but there is an open ticket which you can follow http://hub.qgis.org/issues/3121

Is there a Legend Limiter in QGIS?


Is secularism compatible with Islam?

Question: If secularism is defined as a set of political ideas aiming to separate the governance of state from religion (short version), is secularism compatible with Islam? By that, I mean, can Muslims legally (with respect to Islam, not the state) be supportive of the separation of Islam and state and supportive of a state model founded on religiously neutral principles of rational [scientific and materialistic (in a philosophical, not consumerist sense)] social science and morality?
Comment: I'm quite not sure whether one could answer this by a clear "yes", as a leader of a Muslim country or community clearly should be a Muslim (and even a practicing one, at least prayer was mentioned in some hadith) but doesn't need to be a theologian. That means yes he should be a (practicing) Muslim but more a statesman. But I'm covering only my understanding of sunni sources (without really checking them).
Comment: You saved perhaps the most important word for last: *morality*. If nothing else, there is the issue of homosexuality. In numerous surahs, the Qur'an refers to the Old Testament story of Sodom & Gomorrah. It's been a while since I read the whole Qur'an, but there is at least one verse on homosexuality unrelated to Sodom & Gomorrah, 26:165, "What! With men, of all creatures, will ye have commerce? And leave ye your wives whom your Lord hath created for you? Ah! ye are an erring people!" -- Rodwell English translation, the one closest to me on my bookshelf.
Comment: I should say, because it's not widely known among non-Muslims, that Muhammad's god is Abraham's god, the god of the Christian Old Testament. It was the god of Islam who destroyed Sodom & Gomorrah for the widespread practice of homosexuality.
Answer: While historically government and courts had been separated in Islam in as much as the ruler made sure that courts were set up and worked but wasn't otherwise involved in jurisdiction, in an Islamic state, the law that the ruler has to uphold is shariah. In particular, not judging and ruling by shariah is considered kufr (see 5:44) - although I think I recall that Ibn Abbas was asked on this and said that it is lesser kufr, i.e. does not make the ruler a non-muslim.
Given that, the idea of secularism is to make sure law and governance is not based on any religion and that religion has no authority in either area. In that far, Islam is not compatible with secularism in the sense that ruling secularly is sinful in Islam, but they are compatible in the sense that the ruler who rules by secular standards does not automatically become a disbeliever. However: I would strongly suspect that a ruler's preferring to rule by secular law rather than by shariah (as a matter of being internally content with ruling by something that goes against shariah) would qualify as a state of the heart that makes him a disbeliever, although I have no reference for this.
Comment: If anyone has a reference on the matter where Ibn Abbas was asked about not ruling by shariah being kufr, please edit it in.

Is secularism compatible with Islam?


How does MDF fare as cabinet front insets?

Question: My cabinet maker is using MDF for the inset panel on the shaker style doors. How will this fare in durability and longevity. Should I have him change it to wood insets instead?
Comment: what is the door framing made from ? Mix and Match materials - color match - will they be exposed to bright sunlight where fading can occur .. me personally I would try to keep the materials the same for those reasons. As for durability it is probably fine - I suspect the finish and the no imperfection look is more what the maker is looking for. He might be color matching the door frame to the MDF or is he using MDF there too?
Answer: As long as MDF is not exposed directly to moisture it is more stable than solid wood which will expand and contract with seasonal changes much more so than MDF or plywood, cheaper too.
I pretty much do not like MDF at all, except for this type of application. It also finishes out very smooth, some solid wood and plywood will show the grain of the wood through the paint finish.


Can a person who has difficulty standing read from the Torah while sitting?

Question: Must one stand to read from the Torah (in a communal reading) if one has difficulty standing?
Comment: Welcome to Mi Yoedeya. Are you assuming that in general one must stand to read at a communal reading?
Answer: I occasionally daven in a nursing home. One of the patients has an amputated leg. He lains (and is frequently Shaliach Tzibur ) from his wheelchair. The rav permits this.

@Sam referred to O.C. 141:1 which states that the ba'al Koreh must stand. However, see Mishnah Berurah commentary #4 which states that someone who is ill may lean a bit. I have to look further if the leaning would extend to completely sitting if one cannot even lean.
Comment: The Shulchan Aruch states this himself regarding a baal basar,I wrote in my answer
Comment: @sam Thanks. I saw that, and MB goes further to include all ill people that have difficulty. However, it is unclear if it includes Sitting.
Answer: The Shulchan Aruch 141:1 writes that the baal koreh must stand. Even leaning on a wall is assur unless one is a baal basar (overweight). The Pri Chadash holds that if he did sit then they are yotzei b'deved.
Rav Yitzchak Abadi 1:53 has a teshuva that one does not need to stand during laining and brings as a proof the fact that only the baal koreh needs to. He brings from the Rambam Hilchos Tefillah 12:11,and he also brings the Hagahos Maimonis who specifically talks about the baal koreh since the Rambam is talking about the m'turgaman. He also brings the Biur Hagra who sources the Yerushalmi Megilla 4:1 which says it's assur for the m'turgaman and the baal koreh to read sitting. (Also in the Bavli 21a)
The Rivevos Ephraim 8:293 writes that he has seen in America that they give aliyos the elderly who sit on a seat for the aliyah. He writes that he has not found a reason to permit this,but he notes that since they cant stand then maybe their sitting is like standing (he doesn't seem to be too pleased with this logic). He also adds that it isn't any less than a sick or elderly person who davens shmoneh esrei while seated. However, he notes that if this is a minyan for people who cannot stand then its not possible for them to use anyone else and it would seem to be mutar. (It seems from this teshuva that it is a real b'deved,but in a nursing home it could be mutar.)
Comment: Hmmm ... I have some research to do as well as some questions to ask my rav. Would you mind confirming if these sources are in all cases - no matter what? OP Seems to focus on an *ones* - someone who has difficulty or can't do it.


Why is it said that people can't make random choices?

Question: If you throw a dice a large number of times a random array of the numbers 1-6 will be the result. Why shouldn't we be able to produce a similar array of these numbers ourselves? Why can't our fingers move in such a way to randomly pick one out of 1-6, say written on a piece of paper in front of us? Is it because we are not a random process ourselves? If at each pick we forget about the last, will there always be a preference for a special number, and if why? Have there been experiments that showed this non-randomness? What if I took part in this experiment and I memorized a random array of the numbers? How can you know that I'm not picking randomly? Or am I? How can you know that my picked numbers are not picked by random choice? How do you compare to a real random array?
Is this related to free will? I.e., is my free will maximal if my choices are truly random?
If I have to pick a person blindly, I can just point my finger at one of them, when a group is standing before me. Why can't the same be done with numbers?
Comment: "my free will maximal if my choices are truly random?" If they were trully random, you wouldn't have influence over them, and thus you wouldn't have free will.
Comment: @armand I don't want to influence them. If a choice presents itself, I can always say no or yes to the choice. And wait for another choice to appear.
Comment: "free will" (roughly) means you can choose "yes" or "no". If one of them is selected at random, you are not choosing, so you can't have free will. That's why I don't understand your sentence I quoted.
Answer: Having typed a substantial wordcount into the comments, I'm moved to do the honorable thing and post an actual response. It's particularly necessary in this case since two posters gave incorrect or misleading answers, backed up respectively by an equally incorrect and misleading academic study and a Numberphile video.
It is true that the average person on the street is typically very bad at generating a random sequence. That clearly is what @CriglCragl's academic study and @J Kusin's Numberphile video were trying to get across. But we already know that the average person on the street is hopelessly innumerate. That's not the question. The question is, can we verbally express a sequence of bits, say, ones and zeros, that passes every known statistical test for randomness?
Of course we can. The OP suggested some ways. We can flip a coin and memorize the sequence. We can use a pseudorandom number generator (PRNG). We can even use a quantum spin flipper. But suppose we outlaw mechanical devices, preparation, and memorization. Suppose we are required to spontaneously create a random bitstring on the fly. Can we do that?
Yes. There's a simple piece of knowledge required. I'm going to reveal it.
As a conceptual framework, we're going to play a hypothetical game. This was suggested in the Numberphile video, and J Kusin suggested a small variation that I find easier to work with.
The game involves two individuals, the Player and the House. The Player proposes a bitstring of length 20; that is, a sequence of twenty 1's and 0's. The House applies standard statistical tests to the bitstring. The Player wins if the bitstring passes the statistical tests for randomness; and the House wins if the bitstring turns out not to be so random after all.
The claim is that nobody can do this without getting ridiculously lucky. This is false. The Player can win every time, or at least a good percentage of the time, especially against the weak strategy employed by the House in the Numberphile video. I can teach anyone how to do this.
Consider. If you are the House, you would gladly play this game for money with the first person you run into at the local grocery store, or frankly with a member of the US Congress, or the member of the New York Times editorial board who agreed that when Mike Bloomberg spent 500 million dollars on his presidential campaign, he could instead have given a million dollars each to every person in the country. The actual amount is a buck fifty. The New York Times editorial board.
So yes it's true as J. Kusin's Numberphile video and CriglCragl's academic study say, that the average, typical person on the street , in the US Congress, and on the NYT editorial board, is an innumerate moron. Is that too strong? You tell me. But surely we already knew this. Innumeracy is a plague upon the land.
But that is not the question. The question is, can a person spontaneously create a statistically random sequence? We agree that you'd gladly be the House playing against the average member of the NYT editorial board. But would you play this game with the first person you see at the annual meeting of the American Statistical Association? No you would not, because they know what statistically random bitstrings look like. You wouldn't play this game with a person on the street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, because you might pick an MIT student.
How much knowledge is actually required? Very little. Here it is.
Random bitstrings, even short ones, typically have constant runs that look nonrandom.
That's it. Let me show you.
I found a lovely random bitstring generator online in less than 30 seconds of searching. We live in wonderful times. Here are the first three 20-bit bitstrings I generated. I did not cherry-pick these. This is what came out.
01111100000101000000
01011110010000100000
00010100010110100010
The first number has a run of five 1's, a run of five 0's, and another of six 0's. The second has a run of four 1's, a run of four 0's, and ends with a run of five 0's. The third contains three runs of three 0's. The amateurs would never pick strings like these; but the professionals know, and now you know, that this is exactly what random bitstrings look like.
That's it. That's the trick. The average person will go 101011010. They'd be afraid to write 00000 in a 20-bit string because they think it wouldn't look random. But that IS exactly what you should do.
Would J Kusin or the Numberphile guy play this game with anybody who's read this far?
No. They'd lose. I rest my case and I have made my point. Humans can easily spontaneously verbalize 20-bit random bitstrings with no preparation, memorization, or mechanical aids; using only the tiniest bit of knowledge about the surprising frequency of constant runs in even short random bitstrings.
There are other ways to win as well. The OP suggested them himself. You can flip a fair coin 20 times and convert that to a bitstring. You can use a pseudorandom number generator (PRNG).
You could even use a quantum electron spin detector, but that would not generate any better results than a fair coin or a PRNG. This point bears examination.
When it comes to statistical randomness, electron spins aren't any more random than coin flips or PRNGs. Electron spins may be "truly" random -- or they may not. Depends on if you're a Copenhagen or Many Worlds fan. The truth is that nobody knows whether electron spins are "truly" random or not, or if the concept is even meaningful.
But when it comes to statistical randomness, PRNGs, coin flips, and quantum spin detectors are equivalent. There's no difference among them, even though their degree of "true" randomness is different. The PRNG is absolutely deterministic, it produces the exact same sequence every time. A coin flip is the deterministic outcome of physical variables such as flip force, air pressure, and so on; but is random in practice because we can never know all those variables to sufficient accuracy. And the quantum spin? That's a matter of philosophy. Nobody knows if it's random or not. But in terms of statistical tests, none of that matters.
The Numberphile game reminds me of gambling casinos that offer Blackjack, but throw you out of the casino if you happen to be good at it. They only allow bad players to play. What kind of sportsmanship is that? The same kind showed by Numberphile. You can only beat bad players. In the Numberphile version, the player isn't even told the rules of the game before sitting down to play! If the House DID tell the player the nature of the game, the Player would read up on random sequences and win. The only way the House wins is to ban players who know how to play. And that proves nothing. It's like saying, "Nobody can beat Blackjack," because everyone who CAN beat Blackjack gets thrown out of the casino. That does not constitute proof of the thesis.
A rare miss by Numberphile, though I only watched the first five minutes and perhaps they redeemed themselves later. It turns out that it's easy to verbalize a random bitstring with only a tiny bit of knowledge of what random bitstrings look like. The fact that the great mass of humanity isn't good at it doesn't prove anything at all. The great mass of humanity can't dunk a basketball but the NBA is full of people who can. Numberphile's logic is bad.
Likewise CriglCragl linked a study titled, "Humans cannot consciously generate random numbers sequences." I just showed how they can. All that's true is that the average person on the street can't. But the average person on the street can't do high school algebra. That's no proof of anything, other than that our educational system is an unmitigated disaster. But we already knew that. Humans with a very small amount of training can easily be taught to generate statistically random sequences.
I might add that if the digit-run trick isn't good enough, statisticians no doubt know some other common characteristics of random bitstrings. And even with the constant run trick, you won't win all the time. But you will definitely beat the House over the long run. The Numberphile guy was just using the fact that people instinctively shy away from unlikely-looking runs. He'll lose to a Player who includes them. The larger point is that you would not play this game with a professional statistician. MOST humans aren't very good at making random sequences, but SOME are very good.
But most people aren't good at the things that some people are very good at. If you saw a study that said, "People aren't good at playing the piano," you'd immediately spot the bad logic. Most people can't play but some can play brilliantly. Likewise creating statistically random sequences. It's not worth an academic paper or a Numberphile video, because the fact that most people are bad at activities that some people are brilliant at is a very trite observation. Somehow the bit about randomness made some otherwise smart people not realize that.
Now in terms of the OP, we might ask, even if we did learn how to verbalize random sequences, can I really pick a random number? What does that even mean? A coin flip isn't random if you knew enough about the variables; and even a quantum spin measurement is random in some interpretations and not in others. Nobody actually knows. So the question's  too philosophically deep to sensibly address. When I picked my statistically random sequence, I don't know if my choice was determined at the moment of the big bang.
What we do know is that with a little bit of knowledge of the properties of random sequences, we can easily verbalize sequences that will pass statistical tests of randomness, defeat J Kusin's Numberphile game, and falsify CriglCragl's academic study. I think that's as much as we can say.
ps -- I kept referring to the Numberphile video but the link is actually buried in the comments under J Kusin's  response.
Here's the video.
Comment: @Methadont Thanks, I owe J Kuskin a thank you for inspiring me to this.
Comment: What a wonderful answer (also the part about the 500 million dollars)! I can do nothing else than accept! The internet is wonderful indeed!
Comment: I was reading the comments below the answer of J.Kuskin.  Great stuff!
Answer: Yes, lots of studies, eg 'Humans cannot consciously generate random numbers sequences: Polemic study'
Małgorzata Figurska et al.
Our cognitive biases mess us up, like say underestimating how frequent coincidences like the same roll in a row, are.
True randomness is pretty rare. It is basically just found in quantum mechanics. Other cases are pseudo-random, based on various algorithms to simulate randomness but which over very large numbers, or in certain circumstances, they usually have limitations or flaws.
The Many Worlds interpretation of QM, restores determinism, but over the sum of all histories, which all happen.
Comment: I see you are a fan of the MWI. Don't we have an internal dice? Can't I just let my finger move over different kinds of icecream and with closed eyes pick a taste?
Comment: @Methadont: Absolutely not random. As you do that more times, deviations from chance will become very apparent. See eg recency bias, gambler's fallacy (non-preductive patterns), confirmation bias (preconceptions), outcome bias (over-focus on what has already happened, like 'on a winning streak' ), hindsight bias (playing revisionust historian). All kinds of deviation from randomness can be used for cracking cryptographic systems, based on predicting humans or algorithms.
Comment: But why can't I practice to evade biases? Why can't I practice to employ the pure probability of QM? There are plenty of these random processes going on in my head. I can imagine I measure them and choose accordingly.
Comment: Methadont: It's like asking, why can't you just stop being human? Sure you can, but then you wouldn't be you, or an us. 'If my grandma had three wheels she'd be a tricycle', as Italians say.. Have a read of https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2015.0100 You might consider using the 'Universe Splitter' app for your decision making.
Comment: Then the question reduces to: Is it possible to act in a non-human way while being human? I can *imagine* my nonna to have three wheels :) So why don't imagine a rolling dice?
Comment: @CriglCragl Question: If you picked a random person who was going to give you a bitstring of length 20; and you were going to apply statistical tests to see if it's truly random; and you win if you show the string isn't random; and there was money at stake; then I submit that you would gladly play the game against the next person who you see at the grocery story; but that you would NOT play this game against the next person you see at a meeting of a society of professional statisticians. Just because average people don't know what a random bitstring looks like, doesn't mean that no human does.
Comment: @CriglCragl I truly doubt the study. On average most humans aren't very good at making up random sequences, but some humans are excellent at it. Namely, anyone who's spent more than five minutes learning that random sequences actually have odd-looking runs of bits, like 0010110100000010110. Those 0's in the middle are exactly what average people wouldn't pick, and that random sequences do often contain. Whoever did that study didn't think this through. Same remarks as I made to J Kusin below. It's easy to make up random sequences if you're allowed to study the subject for a few minutes first.
Comment: @user4894: Found this paper suggesting it's possible: 'Humans can consciously generate random number sequences: a possible test for artificial intelligence', Persaud https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15922090 But this is more typical: 'Analysing Humanly Generated Random Number Sequences', Schultz et al https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0041531
Comment: @CriglCragl Thank you, I will take a look at those. I wrote a response that may be of interest.
Comment: @CriglCragl You wrote, "Our cognitive biases mess us up, like say underestimating how frequent coincidences like the same roll in a row, are." and that is exactly the point of my response. Once you know that actual random sequences are full of constant runs, you can generate random sequences all day long. The fact that most people don't realize that, is not a proof that "human can't generate random sequences." It just means that most humans aren't good at it but could easily learn.  You should have gone with that answer and saved me the typing :-)
Comment: @user4894: But writing programs that predict humans at better than chance, proves they can't do better than a certain degree, even with training.
Comment: @CriglCragl I couldn't read the articles due to the paywall. I see what this is about, people are interested in the topic because of AI. I'd love to see the methodology of the study that proved people can't create random sequences. In any event a human could create a PRNG, so that must count for something. Computers can't do anything we can't do, since we can always just step through the computer program by hand. It would be slow but it would get done. Many subtleties to randomness.
Answer: A choice is the logical opposite of random by definition. If a sequence of random numbers is chosen, that is a pseudo-random sequence designed to give the appearance of randomness, to pass some statistical tests for randomness.
Statistical randomness is a property of a series of values. It means the lack of any pattern or predictability in the series. Statistical randomness does not detect whether the values are pseudo-random (=fake random) or truly random.
True randomness is a property of a single value. It means that the value is not chosen by anyone or the product of an algorithm (which must be chosen).
People can only do pseudo-random, because we have to choose the values. For truly random results we have to roll the dice or shuffle the cards.
Answer: Because there WILL be a pattern no matter how hard you try. In quantum experiments there is ZERO pattern in successive measurements in certain types of experiments, like  incoming electrons being deflected up or down. You may challenge the world's leading mathematicians, cryptographers, super computers, and machine learning algorithms, and you will find your array [produced from your mind, not from reading coins or die rolls - blurt out a series of 0's, and 0'1, try to be random and disguise any pattern, for example] has a detectable pattern.
That is an empirical way to tell the difference.
Comment: Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been [moved to chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/126652/discussion-on-answer-by-j-kusin-why-is-it-said-that-people-cant-make-random-cho).


How Do I Force Pinterest To Use Portrait OG Image Tag

Question: I am using Open Graph image tags for social sharing on my website. I have an image 1200px x 630px for Facebook marked up in an OG tag, however this looks real bad on Pinterest as they use portrait images. Problem is Pinterest use same OG tag as Facebook, so how do I force Pinterest to use a different (portrait) image?
Answer: There can be upto six og:image tags. Refer to the Article Pins
So when you add image for Facebook, you would like to specify as following
og:image along with og:image:width (1200) and og:image:height (630)
Similarly, for Pinterest, specify another instance of og:image along with og:image:width and og:image:height.
The crawlers of Facebook and Pinterest will pick the best dimension as per their specifications.
Comment: Thanks for answer - I could not find that anywhere, a fresh search brought me to this page http://ogp.me/ where what you described is laid out. cheers


NHL Rule Question

Question: In a recent Bruins/Blackhawk game a Bruins goal was waived off because a Bruins Player knocked the puck down with his hand. If you watch the replay carefully you can see the puck was going to go wide until the goalie played the puck with his stick and knocked it into his own goal. Was that the right call or should it have been a goal since the goalie actually put it in the goal?
Comment: Hi @BrentWhitney, welcome to Sports.SE - could you kindly [edit](https://sports.stackexchange.com/posts/24646/edit) your question title to something more specific? This will help any other people with the same / similar question to yours find this one and, hopefully, a useful answer - "NHL Rule Question" is a bit ambiguous :)
Answer: There's a specific rule for exactly this  situation. It was the correct decision The goal should be, and was, disallowed.

67.6 Disallowed Goal - A goal cannot be scored by an attacking player who bats or directs the puck with his hand into the net. A goal cannot be scored by an attacking player who bats or directs the puck and it is deflected into the net off any player, goalkeeper or official. When the puck enters the net on a clear deflection off a glove, the goal shall be allowed.

NHL Rule Question


Difference between stretching and scaling an image

Question: Can anybody please tell me what is the exact difference between stretching and scaling an image? Because you can anyway set the size of image and imageView both to match your requirements.
Answer: It depends on how you define stretching, but I would divide scaling into two distinct options based on whether or not the aspect ratio is preserved. Often it is desired to preserve the aspect ratio when scaling an image.
I would consider an increase in one dimension, but not proportionally in the other to be a "stretch". Similarly, a decrease in one dimension, but not proportionally in the other would be a "squash".
You may find this Daring Fireball post interesting.
Answer: Stretching sounds like showing small size (10x10) image at (100x100) or (100x10). so some times it gets pix-elated.
And scaling means to show a image to different size either small or big with maintaining its aspect ratio (programmetically), so it will look not improper, because when you stretch to different aspect ratio then some objects in image gets improper visibility.
Answer: Stretching (in iphone IB) means '9-slice scaling', scaling means just scaling.
When stretching you can determine which part of the image may be used for stretching and which part may not. For example when you have a rounded square, you do not want the roundings to stretch, especially when you're only stretching horizontally or vertically.
You indicate that you only want to use the middle pixel to stretch by (in IB) setting the X & Y values to 0.50 (half way) and the width & height values to 0.00 (minimum amount of pixels)
Lookup contentStretch in the docs for more info
Answer: when you don,t keep the congruence of your image, you see the image incongruous and height and width of your image is not suitable for showing. for resolving this issue you can multiply your image's width and height to to a constant coefficient.
Answer: Stretching and scaling don't mean anything different except maybe in connotation.
Is there a particular piece of text somewhere that you are trying to understand?  Maybe we can help with that.
Answer: stretching image is stretching the size of a small image.
on the other hand scaling of image is scaling the image accoring the the viewport's width and viewport's height....
scaling can be done by small as well as large image.
you should take a good quality image and then should scale it
sprite.setscale(x,y);


Does Google Custom Search help with SEO?

Question: When adding a Google Custom Search box to my site, does that help SEO, and does it influence regular Google web results? If not, does it provide me with data to help me optimize my website?
Answer: Using Google custom search will not affect your pages' rankings. If you're looking for data that will help optimize your website sign up for a Google Webmaster Tools account. It offers a bunch of useful information for how Google sees your website and even allows Google to communicate problems to you.
Comment: Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Tools are good sites with tools to show you how the search engines see your site. Some HTML, Sitemap, and robots.txt errors will be displayed if any. They'll also make vague suggestions on how to improve your site. But having well optimized content (for humans) is your best bet for on site optimization. Offsite getting links for relevant authoritive sites will help you rank higher. Google custom search has nothing to do with how you rank it's just an easy way to search your own sites content.
Answer: it seems that this may have an impact, as explained here:
Is Google Custom Search Influencing Google Web Search?
Answer: There are many articles that support the rumor of Google custom search engine helps your SEO. I am not sure if it doesnt make any difference on the SEO or if it improves the revenue but its for sure its the best promo message for Google custom search.
If there is anyone who has checked seo impact from google custom search usage in his site, please share your story :)


Can I visit the US after I visit Iran as an Indian citizen?

Question: I am an Indian passport holder about to go on an internship program in Iran.
If I get any future opportunities in the US, will I be able to go and study there? Or will I be denied entry into the states?
Answer: The formal restriction on visiting the USA after having visited Iran applies only to the Visa Waiver Program. Persons who have traveled to Iran are still able to get a US visa, and in fact are required to if they would otherwise have been eligible for the VWP.
Citizens of India are not eligible for the VWP and require a visa in any case. Therefore, the formal restriction against retaining VWP eligibility after having visited Iran does not apply to you. You can still get a US visa. You may, however, have a difficult time in the visa interview, but the US official will not necessarily deny you a US visa for having visited Iran. The fact of your Iran visit will simply be one piece of data that the official may or may not consider relevant.
Comment: @PremKarnan We can't quite say that you'll be eligible, because you could be ineligible for some other reason.  Your travel history in Iran will not by itself automatically make you ineligible.  It could nonetheless cause problems.  Your presence in Iran could cause the visa officer to develop suspicions about your intentions in the US, and that could lead to a visa refusal.  It's hard to say how likely this is without knowing where you will be or what you will be doing while you are there.
Comment: @PremKarnan Your _eligibility_ for a visa doesn't change based on whether you've been to Iran or not. But it might be harder to convince the US that you're a "good person" who should be given a visa.
Comment: So I will still be eligible to get a student visa, assuming I have proper documents/invitation from the institution In USA?
Comment: More precisely, the restriction is on the VWP, not on visiting the US. The restriction on VWP affects the ability to get a visa, and getting a vida affects whether one can vist the US, but there is no direct "restriction on visiting the US" based on having visited Iran.


How do capacitors in series work?

Question: If capacitors are connected in series with a vltg source, then how would each plates get the polarity? For a single capacitor, the electrons from one plate are pumped by the source towards the other side of the plate, but for series connection how would the flow of electrons be in between the capacitors (i.e. for the inner plates of the capacitors). Say, if three capacitors are connected in series, how would the middle capacitor gets charged? Would current exist between each capacitors?
Comment: Momentarily, yes.
Answer: Since we are on Electrical Engineering, let us consider workings in your serial network Vsource+=Capacitor1=...=CapacitorN=Vsource- in the circuit-analysis context, the Vsource+ and Vsource- are poles of the DC voltage source.
Let N=1, i.e., a single capacitor is connected to a voltage source. To be able to speak of transient process of charging the capacitor, we have to add to our circuit one more serial component, a switch. So, we have a serial network Vsource+=Switch=Capacitor=Vsource-. When performing transient analysis, we must specify initial conditions in a network. Let it be zero initial current (switch is OFF) and zero voltage across the capacitor. Closing the switch in the moment t=0 initiates infinite current in the network that charges the capacitor with the charge Q=V·C. In reality, the resistances and inductances of network components limit the current and may result in decaying oscillations, but the circuit "steady state" is the capacitor with the voltage equal to DC source voltage. Notice that if the initial voltage of the capacitor is equal to a DC source voltage, closing the switch would not result in current surge and any transient process in the circuit.
For a network of Vsrc+=Switch=C1=...=CN=Vsrc- (i.e., multiple serially connected capacitors), if the sum of voltages across C1, ..., CN is equal to the Vsrc voltage, closing the switch does not start the current in the network. The initial voltages across C1, ..., CN can be assigned any values, assuming these values add to the Vsrc voltage, and closing the switch does not change these values. I won't bore you with the truth ((C) Homer Simpson), but this fact gives you a hint that the problem of finding steady state in serial network Vsrc+=Switch=C1...=CN=Vsrc- with ideal components does not have a unique solution. To arrive at a sensible result, you have to consider non-idealities of circuit components.
Examination of a serial network of multiple capacitors and a current source (instead of voltage source) will give more elucidating insight into workings of electrical circuits -- how Kirchhoff's laws and charge conservation agree with apparent discontinuity of circuit between capacitor plates.
We have a network with a switch Sw1. The switch Sw1 either connects a network branch with serially connected capacitors to the current source I1 or disconnects this branch while short-circuiting the current source. The current source must be connected to some load (Kirchhoff's nodal rule at current source poles requires it!)

simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab
Initial conditions: before t=0, the switch diverts the current away from the capacitor branch; the voltages across each of capacitors is zero. At t=0, switch flips to the capacitor branch side. Current I1 flows thru each of capacitors C1, C2, C3. How it can be, knowing that capacitors plates are isolated form each other in capacitors and charge carriers cannot be transported thru dielectric medium? The seeming current path discontinuity at the gap of conductive media inside capacitors, how can we reconcile it with Kirchhoff's nodal rule?
James Clerk Maxwell considered a problem of the sort when building classical electromagnetism theory. He solved it with the concept of displacement current, proportional to the rate of change of electric field.
Constant current from the current source flows in a capacitor and charges the capacitor plates. Electric field linearly increases with time; in a medium between plates this increase produces constant displacement current. The total current at each point is the sum of charge carrier current plus displacement current. In wires, we have charge carrier current, in dielectric we have displacement current, and Kirchhoff's law can be satisfied.
The solution for the transient process in a serial network of three capacitors and a current source with zero initial voltages across capacitors:
V_c1 = I1*t/C1; V_c2 = I1*t/C2; v_c3 = I1*t/C3.
Comment: In the lumped element model of electrical circuits, the notion of displacement current makes it clear that if there is a gap in the charge carrier path, like a dielectric between capacitor plates, than the amount of charge changes on these plates. It amounts to a conservation of charge. The total current exists in the whole circuit and it is constant thru constituent components, if there is no branching.
Comment: So the displacement current would be formed between the plates of the capacitor, which is again responsible for charge carrier current between C1 and C2. This is how current exists from Source-C1-C2-C3-Source . Did I get that right??
Comment: Thanks to @Souradip Mandal for correcting the Q=VC formula
Answer: Electric field pushes or pulls free electrons in metal. The + charged atomic parts stay in their places and pull new electrons to take the place of the drifted ones. This is the mechanism (=electric influence) which makes metal to transfer the electric field along the wires.
If you have the series of two capacitors just connected to a battery the +pole of the battery pulls electrons say from plate A of capacitor 1. There develops + charge to the plate A of a capacitor 1. It's field pulls electrons towards plate B of capacitor 1. The electrons can come from plate A of capacitor B due the influence. Thus there's current between the capacitors.
Answer: Capacitors in series block DC current but allow AC current depending on their properties.  If you were able to instantaneously turn on a voltage source (with no ramp, no ripple), then no current would flow through the capacitors.  In reality, there is a ramp, which means that the capacitor sees a difference in potential allowing some signal through.
This is how some circuits use series capacitors: to block DC but allow AC.  It's useful in RF circuits where you need to power something at one point, but read the RF signal (AC) further downstream.  You can block the DC component and allow the AC.
Looking around, here is a good answer, too.
Answer:
If capacitors are connected in series with a vltg source, then how
would each plates get the polarity?

When a voltage is applied to (say) three capacitors in series, the charge carriers (electrons) distribute themselves like this: -

The wires that feed C2 have no net charge but the electrons still redistribute themselves due to the influence of C1 and C3. Given that each capacitor in series is subject to the same movement of charge carriers (electrons), the voltages that arise is dependent on the capacitance as per the formula: -
$$Q = CV$$

Would current exist between each capacitors?

Current will flow as per the standard equation for a capacitor: -
$$ i = C\dfrac{dv}{dt}$$
And, if the voltage was applied instantaneously, dv/dt would be infinite and current would be infinite (and infinitely short) and the capacitors would charge up instantaneously. Nevertheless, the final voltages across each is dependent on the common charge and CV.

How do capacitors in series work?


"Edited title" in edit that didn't edit the title

Question: Tonight, I edited a question to try to make it easier to understand. When I finished, the edit showed up as deleted 58 characters in body; edited tags; edited title. However, in that edit, I didn't edit the title at all. I have looked at similar edits and none of them include the "edited title" line when the title wasn't edited. Why did this happened?
Comment: @DoubleAA I see what you did. But no, I didn't do what msh210 suggested as far as I can remember. (I don't think I noticed the title in my editing — if I did, I think I would have either made the second word lowercase or the third word uppercase.)
Comment: And I just tried this question to see if it was caused by editing the first word of the post. It wasn't.
Comment: Did you edit it in stages (edit, save, edit, save, within five minutes)? If so, did you edit the title in one edit and then revert the title to what it had been in another edit?
Comment: I just did what @msh210 suggested to this question, and behold: http://meta.judaism.stackexchange.com/posts/1431/revisions
Answer: Code was added since that post was created to trim titles down.  If you look at the revision before yours (since the first post revision), there's a trailing space on the end.  Your edit triggered this code on edit and did change the title...so that's why it shows up as a title edit.
Though it's a bit odd in this case, it is working as designed.


An alternative word for 'should'

Question: I'm writing a policy-relevant paper with policy recommendation. My supervisor (non-native in English) told me that I should not use a word 'should' for writing sentences for policy recommendation because the term is too strong in academic papers. An example of the sentence is like '..., the *** should be taken into account.' Do you have any suggestions for alternative words/phrases for 'should'?
Answer: The word "should" is not appropriate if you are recommending a policy action.
It is not, as you suggest, that it is too strong.  It is too weak.  The word does not carry the nuance of recommendation, only of opinion.
I would recommend that you use the word "recommend", as that is what you are doing.
Answer: I don't think this boils down to a simple question of word-choice; you should structure your writing so that you avoid overt dictates of this sort and use analytical forms to convince readers of the 'rightness' of your position. For example, instead of saying:

..., the *** should be taken into account.

it's better to say something more intellectually authoritative, like:

..., *** is an important factor; the presence of *** gives us insight
into (yadda-yadda-yadda).

In other words, don't tell people what they should do; lay out that which is rational and effective, and allow people to decide for themselves whether they should do it. No one likes to be told what to do, but most people will respond to a good, reasonable argument.
Answer: Samuel Johnson famously said that people more often need to be reminded than instructed. This approach avoids offending readers who might already agree with you and may flatter others into that you assume they are already cognizant of the issues. Sometimes the final result is that your readers adopt your conclusions thinking it was wholly their own idea.
Answer: The answers here are good, and do give good solutions; instead of saying what they should do, you tell them what you recommend they do, or, you simply lay out the facts and let them decide on their own.
Here's another alternative. Assume a few premises, give reasons for those assumptions, and then make an "should/ought" statement based on those premises.
Example: Your spouse suddenly starts wanting a dog, and asks you what you think about it.

(1) You could say: "We shouldn't get a dog, because it demands a lot of time and resources."
(2) Or, you could say: "We are both feeling quite stressed out by all of our workload recently. That, in addition to all of these community programs we're involved in, we sure are quite busy nowadays. And then there's the wage cuts we've had, and our car broke down, which was a blow to the wallet. A dog would take away even more time and money. Given that we're struggling with too little time to relax, and not enough money, I don't think we want to worsen that. Based on that, I don't think we should get a dog."

Ought-statements are written in bold, is-statements written in plain text and the assumptions italicized. What's the difference between (1) and (2)? The reasoning seems identical, the formulation however, is not. In (1), we have an ought-statement and an is-statement; the assumption is only implied. The problem by not explicitly stating the assumption—and in the process, treating it as an assumption—is that you wind up implying the opposite; it isn't an assumption. With a formulation akin to (1), you take the assumption as a given; as self-evident. If one takes one's own assumptions as naturally/automatically/self-evidently correct, then one is being authoritative and egocentric. When one formulates oneself similar to (1), this is the impression that is given off, even if the recipient isn't necessarily consciously aware of this impression.
Now, the recipient may actually agree with the assumption that's implied in (1), but due to the authoritative and egocentric manner in which it is formulated, they may feel almost automatically opposed to it; people don't like being told what to do and people don't like when others assume they're just correct.
With (2), you make it painstakingly clear what the ought- and is-statements are, and you also show your assumption and put it on the table as something that can be questioned. You give off humility and come across as someone wanting to discuss, not command. This will make the recipient much more prone to objective discussion and earnest consideration; they'll look at the assumption and be much more likely to realize they agree with it. Now, (2) was perhaps formulated in a bit of an unnatural way, given the casual scenario. In academia however, the formulation of (2) is actually a lot more befitting. I chose the casual scenario because it was easier to come up with. Hope this helps.
Answer: I'm going to be simple here.
Should is used to indicate obligation, duty, or correctness, typically when criticizing someone's actions or to indicate what is probable.
Use Thesaurus. com and search for the synonyms for 'Should'
Results: Could, might, would, shall, ought-to, may
I hope this helps.

An alternative word for 'should'