How do 3d game engines draw this pattern?

Question: I am doing a small project, where there is a 3d engine, however I do not know how to draw something if it is like the image below. Usually I would draw from farthest back to closest. But here there is no order? How would modern 3d Engines draw this?
Comment: Just to make sure, you want to know how you could draw something like that in the 3d engine that you're writing, is that right?
Comment: Yes, or at least how it is down in other engines.
Answer: The keyword you are looking for is z-buffering.
When a polygon-based rendering engine calculates the pixels covered by a triangle, it doesn't just calculate its x- and y-coordinates on the screen for each pixel, but also it's z-coordinate. The z-coordinate is its distance from the screen.
The engine also creates a z-buffer for each frame it renders. The z-buffer remembers if the engine already drew something to each x/y coordinate, and if it did, what z-coordinate that pixel had. Before the engine calculates the color of a new pixel, it checks if there is already a value in the z-buffer for these coordinates with a lower value than that of the current pixel. When there is, the pixel gets skipped. When there is not, both z-buffer and the image on the screen get overwritten by the current pixel.
Comment: Yes, this looks like what I want, it seems a bit expensive though as you have to find the co-ordinate of each pixel and compare it.
Comment: @teclnol Not really. The z-buffer is basically a two-dimensional array of floats with the size of the screen and the z-coordinate of a pixel is usually a by-product of the perspective calculations you have anyway. It in fact works so well that 3d engines usually try to render scenes from front to back to avoid unnecessary overdraw.
Comment: Yeah that part isn't, I was just unsure of how to find the z value of each polygon. Before, for each triangle I would find each of the three vertices of that triangle on the the 2d screen, then draw a triangle screen, which means I wouldn't know the z-values of the center of the triangle, just the vertexes. It seems a bit expensive to find the z-value of each pixel in the triangle, I am actually a bit unsure how to in fact.
Comment: @teclnol Have you heard about [projection matrices](http://www.opengl-tutorial.org/beginners-tutorials/tutorial-3-matrices/)? The standard method to convert 3d vertices to 2d screen positions is by multiplying it with a matrix, and the z-coordinate is a natural by-product of it.


Publish a Query Layer as a Feature Access Service - ArcGIS Server

Question: I am connecting to a SQL Server 2016 database, and adding data into ArcMap 10.3.1 as a Query Layer.
I want to publish this data as a Feature Access service to ArcGIS Server 10.3.1. I have no problems publishing this data as a mapping service. However, when I want to enable Feature Access, I get 00223: Query layer has virtual column error.

I have read the documentation on this error, and the only solution is to "Change the query definition of your layer so it no longer contains a virtual column or columns".
I have tried several different ways to alter the sql query (very simple queries), and all still produce this same error.
What is a virtual column? How can I publish a Query Layer as a Feature Access service?
Answer: I recently ran into this issue and found out when querying a view, rather select all the fields in the query as opposed to select * from view.


What do these money-related gestures mean?

Question: The following images come from the Korean manhwa Aura From Another Planet, chapter 35. I can guess that the gestures they are making refer to monetary amounts, but how much are we talking here?
Comment: The first one is common across East Asia and just means "money". It is roughly equivalent to the American gesture where you rub your thumb and index finger against each other. The second and third ones I don't recognize; they might be uniquely Korean. Perhaps chisanbop?
Comment: Yeah, I know the first one just means money-- question was directed towards the other two
Comment: Could be chisanbop, but then it would seem the two signs are equivalent?
Comment: That's not something we use in ordinary life.
Answer: As the comments said, the first one means generic "money" (she's making the shape of a coin with her thumb and index finger.)
The other two, I have no idea, but considering that the comics was full of absurdist humor, I think the author just made up some nonsense gestures.  (These two girls are aliens, after all, if I remember correctly.)
Comment: Well, I don't know 지산법, so I can't be sure, but the possibility is: (1) the comics' author made up gestures for two alien girls, where exact value is not important (indeed, I think "the reader has no idea what they're talking about" is part of the joke), or (2) the author is a master of an obscure finger-based counting method, and wants to show it off as an "easter egg".  I think (1) is much more likely.
Comment: So nothing to do with [지산법](https://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/%EC%A7%80%EC%82%B0%EB%B2%95)?


Extra-solar identification of binary planets

Question: Pluto and Charon orbit about a common barycenter that isn't inside of either planet. Let's assume that this relationship was scaled up to the point where it could be detected by a search for extrasolar planets. Could any of the methods we currently use tell us the difference between one massive body vs two bodies of nearly identical mass?
Answer: Yes indeed there could, especially in the case of a transiting planet system. Whilst the radial velocity curve would be nice and smooth, reflecting the position of the barycentre of the double planet, the transit light curve would show structure associated with the two planets obscuring the disc of the star. Essentially the transit shape would vary depending on the orbital phase of the double planet and on occasion the transit would occur in two steps as first one planet then the other
passed in front of the stellar disc. No such objects have been found.
People are already looking for this in the context of searching for "exo-moons" - for example,
the "Hunt for Exomoons with Kepler" programme. Finding a double planet with equal sized components would be comparatively easy compared with the tenuous signals expected from exomoons.
Comment: Given the observational bias of Kepler, do we know that we would have discovered our moon if we were looking from one of the Kepler systems? Also, do observations suggest that "binary planets" (or planets with a large exomoon) in the "habitable" zone of K and M dwarfs are very rare or non-existent. (Do we have enough date yet for rough statistical analysis?) I wonder because such a planet system may not be tidally locked to the star giving it a better chance to harbor life.


When you take a very cold or hot bath how is that influencing your breath?

Question: It looks like when you take a cold shower or bath your veins get smaller and when you take hot shower your veins get wider. But is that right and do you need to breath more in both cases because you got less oxygen? If so how does it work in both cases?
Answer: There is an adaptation to being submerged in cold water in mammals called the Mammalian diving reflex.  Have you ever noticed when you jump into cold water, or enter a really cold shower you take a big breath?  While not exactly correlated with the dive reflex, it shows that there is a neurological reflex of entering cold water.  Here is a brief overview of what can happen when you submerge yourself in cold water:

Lower heart rate - aka Bradycardia, slowing down the rate of blood pumped will decrease the oxygen requirement of red blood cells, which in turn allow organs like the brain to use oxygen.
Smaller veins - aka Vasoconstriction, the blood flow in your fingers and toes is reduced, allowing more blood to be used in the more important organs.  Eventually the vasoconstriction will apply to hands and feet.
Blood shift - this adaptation allows the submerged animal to dive without having their thorax to collapse due to increased pressure.  Not necessarily attributing to breathing patterns though, so I left the boring stuff out and paraphrased.

In hot water, the opposite happens with respect to #'s 1 and 2.  Increased heart rate, like when you go running, tends to increase breathing frequency.  Vasodilation allows blood to flow more easily and is primarily for heat exchange.  Have the warmer blood in your fingers exchange heat to the environment will cool it for the return to systemic circulation.  Surface area is a large factor with heat exchange.  Hope this provided some insight.
Comment: Do you perhaps know what chemical proces causes the drop of heart rate in cold water. And is it true that when you take of hot shower you veins are getting bigger and because of that the bloodpressure drops so you get less oxygen and need to breath more?
Comment: The chemical process is just nerve signals that lower the heart rate.  I'm fairly certain it is parasympathetic regulation including the vagus nerve.  When your "veins" get bigger, and blood pressure drops, the heart compensates by increasing the pumping.  So technically you may need to breath more due to the increased heart rate.  You do not get less oxygen though.


Real Time Push Server for Media

Question: I am currently using a real time Push server to push text and small binary data. I am looking for a similar service for Media. Pubnub, which I currently use, limits data transfers to 1.8k, does anyone know of a similar service or setup for larger files?
Answer: I think you can be any size.
Check out this answer:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8193761/how-can-i-send-larger-messages-over-websocket
A better approach might not be to actually push the media, but only push the location of it.  So have your script push the new location of an image, or mp3 or video file, and then have the page (js event) update that item.
This handshake approach might come in useful if you are using static resources hosted on a CDN.

Real Time Push Server for Media


2GB .KMZ file wont't open

Question: Not sure if I'm asking the right question. Never used Google Earth Pro before, but I have a 2GB KMZ file and I can't open it. Is there a way to break it down further or is there a limit to how large a kmz can be for Google Earth Pro?
Comment: I found a post on a Google Group suggesting to Add a Network Link rather than open it. The post indicated the software copies the data into your myplaces file when opened, whereas it doesn't with a link. I also saw [this question](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16975155/is-there-any-maximum-size-for-kml-files-to-open-in-google-earth) over on Stack Overflow which might be relevant.
Answer: I don't think KMZ has a size limit, but I'm pretty sure that a 2gb kmz file would be hard to manage by Google Earth/Pro. I would suggest you to clip it into different regions, so that you have smaller files.
You can open/change format/clip the KML using different softwares, the ones that I would use are Global Mapper / ArcGIS with Xtools.
But perhaps someone knows about a specific (and cheaper) tool for doing this.
M

2GB .KMZ file wont't open


Should I Put a Phone Number in the Header?

Question: I see that it is really popular with web services nowadays to have their phone number in the header of the website. Is it really that effective? Does it make the company look more legit?
Comment: This is a bit vague. What kind of company is it? Does the company *actually* want customers to call them as a means to communicate with them?
Comment: as @msanford said, try to elaborate a bit here. If that number is core to your business or website and is a primary means of communication with users, you may want to do it. It depends a lot on the context.
Answer: In general, adding information like phone numbers or physical addresses to a site, makes it appear more trustworthy (or 'legit').  In a number of tests that I know of, this has been the case.
However, the side effect of putting your number in your header is that people will call you more, so don't do it unless you can actually handle the support calls.  Zappos place their phone number very prominently in their header because they want to be called, so it fits in with their overall strategy.
Don't just put a phone number in your header to look 'legit'. Do it because you are 'legit' and because you want people to call you.
Comment: *"In a number of tests that I know of, this has been the case."* do you have any examples for this?
Comment: @JonW In the marketing world, Corey Rudl tested this extensively many years ago, and found it to be true.
Answer: We made a user test about it. We have a hotel reservation portal and we have telephone support for it. People look around in the portal, choose a hotel, but before reservation they like to ensure about it, and call the number in the header. It makes the page reliable.
Comment: Out of interest, did you test it with and without the number in the header? Is the number displayed anywhere else?
Comment: Just with the number in the header. It's just display here in the site in all subpage.
Comment: "It makes the page reliable." how do you come by this statement? As you yourself state you haven't tested it without the phonenumber there so it's not really an accurate test, it's just anecdotal currently. Who's to say that you might get *more* business through the website without the phone-number being displayed so prominently?
Comment: Before dealing with small e-commerce sites - I always phone to make sure a person answers the phone and that it sounds like there actually is a company behind the website...
Answer: If it's a common user task to visit the site to get the phone number and then call, then your users will appreciate it. If the business wants then to do this, even better!
It's a UX pattern I always apply when designing a site for a business where the service performed is not necessarily done online.
If the number is needed to help a user out of a jam or as a means of getting support, consider fixing the site issues that lead to the calls.


What half-bandgap voltage reference is?

Question: I came across term "half bandgap voltage reference". I expect it is somehow related to bandgap circuit. Do you know what it is, know its schematic or principle of operation?
Comment: Maybe you should mention where you "came across" that term.
Comment: Maybe he just didn't finish his work on a bandgap circuit, so it was only half. ;)
Comment: @AndreKR That was informal conversation with engineer from other company. He work on this type of circuits (design them). From conversation I got impression that it is standard industry name for such device but I did not get a chance to ask for details as we had to do other things.
Comment: I got info what it is - it is synonym of sub-bandgap voltage reference. This is easily "googlable" term and several circuit solutions are posted on the net.
Answer: A bandgap voltage reference is a circuit that is relatively easily made on an integrated circuit. The basic premise is that it uses two different sized NPN transistors driven at the same current, and the sum of these two voltages can be an accurate reference voltage near the bandgap voltage of silicon at 0K, which is 1.25eV. There are many descriptions of the circuit, which began as the Brokaw cell, then the Widlar bandgap, and then the many variations you can see today. The Wikipedia page is a decent brief read.
It has several benefits:

It gives roughly the same result regardless of power supply (PSRR)
It can be temperature-compensated to give a very flat response over temperature
It derives its accuracy from the ratio of transistors instead of the absolute value of components, which is a major benefit for integrated circuits.

The traditional method for generating the reference voltage is to add the voltages at the two paths, which will give the typical bandgap voltage of 1.25V, or two forward diode drops. As supply voltages have dropped, there has been a push for lower output voltages. They typically use more current mirroring to derive an output voltage that is closer to a single diode drop.
While I have never seen the term "half-bandgap" while doing research on low-voltage reference circuits, there are plenty of bandgap reference based circuits with an output voltage of 0.5 - 0.7V.
Comment: Thanks for the answer but what you are describing is "bandgap circuit", my question was regarding "_half_ bandgap circuit". (Note: I am linking to the same Wikipedia article in question)
Answer: Sometimes we use a phrase like this to represent a portion of a bandgap circuit inside an IC. Often there isn't the feedback loop (which regulates the transistor currents to be equal), or it is used as a comparator with a built-in reference.
Comment: Thanks, that was good hint, but it turned out this was synonym for sub-bandgap voltage reference.

What half-bandgap voltage reference is?


During the avatar state can Aang's past lives bend the four elements?

Question: According to Roku in ATLA the past lives and experiences come through during the avatar state?  Why then did Aang have to master the four elements if his past lives theoretically could use them for him in the avatar state?  Or is this an incorrect assumption?
Comment: he can't ALWAYS be in the Avatar state. Also, if he dies while in the Avatar state, the Avatar is dead (and I mean dead!dead) forever.
Comment: A better question that would be related to this one would be to know what the average age of the Avatar is for those who die from natural causes, as Aang did. I suspect it'd be a whole lot higher than 55. Considering the answer you have there has a range of ages from 33 to 230, I'm not really sure what the average lifespan tells us. How often do Avatars die during conflicts? What percentage of Avatars actually reach the average lifespan?
Comment: @William: Do you have any citation for the average lifespan of a person in Avatar? There's actually a couple of sources in the Avatar Wiki's article on [Aang](http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Aang#Later_life), stating he died at age 66 and would have lived longer had it not been for the strain of being in the Avatar state while frozen. Unfortunately, one of those sources is a Wall Street Journal article about LOK that is behind a paywall, so I can't verify it. As for my original comment, I simply stated there was speculation. Reddit seems to be a perfect source for speculation.
Comment: I don't think it's *possible* for either Raava or Vaatu to die. Like the *taijitu*, there is a portion of Raava in Vaatu and a portion of Vaatu in Raava, which will, over time, eventually lead to the "dead" spirit reforming.
Comment: As for why couldn't Aang just stay in the Avatar State (which sounds like what you are actually trying to ask), there's speculation that [Aang's continued use of the Avatar state for a century while frozen in a block of ice contributed to his "early death" in his 70's](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskScienceFiction/comments/4xq9n9/avatar_why_did_aang_die_so_young/).
Comment: Considering the whole point of the Avatar is to bring balance to the world and therefore seek out imbalances, I'd be surprised if there are any Avatars that die _outside_ of conflict.
Comment: @Kreiri and, LoK implies, we'll be absolutely stuffed next time Harmonic Convergence rolls around because Raava will be *gone*.
Comment: @Darael why will Raava be gone?
Comment: @Adamant: Agreed. However, there would still be serious consequences. The Avatar cycle would be broken, and Raava would be trapped with no easy means of escape, assuming she can even escape on her own.
Comment: @Ellesedil  that makes perfect sense considered the average life span of avatar is 55 years  I love that you used reddit as a source
Comment: @Ellesedil here is a source https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/163263/are-you-born-an-avatar and here https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/46908/how-many-avatars-have-there-been I'm not opposed to reddit as a source but aang did not die young according to math calculations
Answer: Cost of the using the Avatar State
Using the Avatar State is a powerful tool, but comes at equal cost. Remember that Aang consumed a lot of his life force after preserving himself in an iceberg for 100 years (using the Avatar State). It can also be seen that Aang is visibly drained after his usage of the Avatar state for prolonged periods of time. In season 2, episode 1 of A:TLA, Roku speaks to Aang and states that

"In the Avatar State, you're at your most powerful... but you are also
  at your most vulnerable."

So depending on the situation, Aang risked ending the Avatar cycle completely, as Roku also states that

"If you are killed in the Avatar State, the reincarnation cycle will be
  broken and the Avatar will cease to exist."

Cost summary: It was more physically demanding and risky to use the Avatar State as your only source of bending power.
Bending Strength and spirituality
Note: Some of the points in this section may be seen as primarily opinion based. For instance. To explain my reasoning on these, I will include brief notations.

Balance
One major points of emphasis for Avatar Korra is her lack of spiritual
sensitivity. She is eventually able to master these whilst mastering her
remaining bending technique: air. She was overly aggressive and eventually the
adoption of air-bending ideologies helped to balance her. Had Aang forgone
mastery
of all of the bending techniques, he wouldn't have mastered his spirituality. He
would probably still be peaceful and enlightened, but would've lacked the
discipline and head-on attitude that earth bending required out of him. I summarize this point by saying that balance was necessary for an Avatar to achieve. Mastering all of the elements helped create a balance within each Avatar.
Bending Strength
It is suggested through various interactions in both The Legend of Korra and A:TLA that your own ability as a bender was enhanced by your past lives. Thus, you would be at a disadvantage had you not fully mastered each elements. Take Avatar Aang's many experiences in the Avatar State for example: He is generally shown to lack control and full rational-thinking whilst in the Avatar State, which results in very dangerous behavior. So even though he channeled the power of his past lives, he lacked control over those elements due to his lack of spiritual training and bending mastery (this is explained in Season 2, Episode 19 "The Guru") . To summarize this point, It is evident that control over the avatar state and bending in general was reliant on your mastery and spirituality, which would be absent without the later. Here is a quote (again, from Roku) that briefly explains the strength of the avatar state:

"The glow is the combination of all your past lives, focusing their
  energy through your body."

Summary
In summary,

The Avatar State was a costly tool that was both physically and mentally draining
Aang, being the Avatar and all, needed balance to achieve his purpose. Had he not struck a spiritual balance through the mastery of his bending, he would not be effective in gifting the world balance it required from him.
The Avatar State was never shown or meant to be the end-all bending tool. It was to be used in moments that required great strength from the wielder ( EX: Aang raising the oceans to extinguish the fires caused by Sozins comet).
To say the least, without learning to control the Avatar state as he could at the end of Aang's journey in A:TLA, the tool would make him an uncontrollable and unstable bending-ball of chaos.

There are some more reasons, but I felt this provided an adequate answer to your question.
To my previous point of the Avatar dying at a young age, we do indeed know that many known figures in A:TLA lived very long lifespans, so there should be no discrepancy. Sixty Six is still not the longest of lifespans.


Is Norway significantly more expensive than other European destinations?

Question: As a budget traveller, i.e. staying in hostels, using public transport, self catering where possible, is Norway significantly more expensive than say Germany or France? If so what's the best way to minimize the cost?
Answer: It's a generally accepted fact that the Scandinavian countries are the most expensive places to travel. But personally, having travelled a lot within Europe and within Scandinavia, I don't think it's SO much more expensive in comparison to the rest of Europe.
Where prices differ is generally when it comes to alcohol (much more expensive), junk food/convenience food and eating out. If you're willing to buy your own food (and eat a lot of veg and not so much meat) and stay in the most basic hostels then the price difference is negligible. Public transport is in some places cheaper than in other parts of Europe.
But at the same time remember that you can expect to be paying 10kr ($1.8) for a can of coke. A beer can be anywhere upwards of 50kr, often as high as 80-90kr. The tap water is great though, so drinking should not be a problem.
If you're really careful you can probably get by on 6-700kr per day. Don't buy any fast food or junk food, this will really hit you in the wallet.
e: A slightly funny way of measuring relative expensiveness is the Big Mac Index: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index
This is the Norwegian hostelling international website, membership is very much worth it in my experience: http://www.hihostels.no/no/ You can get accomodation for as cheap as 220/night even in summer if you're lucky.
Comment: Just nitpicking regarding your two first paragraphs: No, whether Norway is _more expensive than other European countries_ does NOT depend on the asker's country or exchange rate. Great info otherwise :-)
Comment: +1 for the alcohol example. I was only in Oslo ten years ago and I found prices increased along this scale at that time: Germany < Denmark < Sweden < Norway. I decided I couldn't afford to travel beyond Oslo on my budget. Your hostel and per-day prices make Norway seem more expensive than Australia which is definitely outside my budget these days and that's where I'm from (-:
Answer: victoriah wrote in her answer:

It's a generally accepted fact that the Scandinavian countries are the
  most expensive places to travel. But personally, having travelled a
  lot within Europe and within Scandinavia, I don't think it's SO much
  more expensive in comparison to the rest of Europe.

I'm from Finland—another Nordic country generally considered expensive—and my understanding (anecdotal, from friends and colleagues who have visited or lived in Norway) is that Norway is significantly more expensive than Finland.
So the short answer is: Yes, Norway most certainly is significantly more expensive than European destinations in general. It resembles Switzerland in this regard.
Which is not to say that you shouldn't visit! :-)
On the other hand, if you have the possibility to work there, it's a great place to earn money. :-)
Some examples: A beer in a bar in Oslo can set you back as much as 10 € (~80kr). In Helsinki 4-6 € is normal and considered expensive by most foreigners. Price for a dorm bed in an Oslo hostel seems to range from 29 to 51 € (!), while in countries like Germany or France I've generally paid around 15-25 €.
In any case, I guess victoriah is right in that if you're careful you can keep your costs relatively low even in Norway. One obvious way to save heaps would be to pay nothing for accommodation, through CouchSurfing or a similar service, if that's your cup of tea. Norway has a high density of hospitable people opening their homes to strangers. One British CS guest of mine, for example, had great experiences in Norway and said it was much easier to find a host there compared e.g. to Baltics.
Edit: I just noticed that the Norway guide on Wikitravel has a good section on costs. Quoting a little bit:

Norway is an expensive country. While it is possible to travel in
  Norway on a limited budget, some care must be taken. Because labour is
  costly, anything that can be seen as a "service" will in general be
  more expensive than you expect. Travel costs can also be a killer,
  because the country is large and distances long, so a rail or air pass
  can save you a lot of money.
As rules of thumb, subsisting on under
  500 kr/day (~65 €) will be difficult even if you stay in hostels and
  self-cater, with 1000 kr/day allowing a more comfortable mid-range
  lifestyle and over 2000 kr/day needed for good hotels and restaurants.

Update: Here are some actual statistics
(Which happen to support my anecdotal knowledge perfectly.)
A recent (2012) Eurostat study on prices of goods and services found that if EU zone average price level is described with 100, the most expensive countries in Europe are:

Switzerland 162 (i.e., prices are 162% of the EU27 average)
Norway 151
Denmark 142 (the most expensive EU country)
Sweden 128
Finland 125 (the most expensive eurozone country)
Luxembourg 122
Ireland 117

Looking at prices of alcoholic beverages & tobacco only, Norway is far and away above everyone else at 250 (followed by Iceland 155, UK 147, Sweden 145). Also for food & non-alcoholic beverages Norway is the most expensive: Norway 164, Switzerland 156, Denmark 136, Sweden 120. The same goes for restaurants & hotels: Norway 184, Swizerland 157, Denmark 154, Sweden 147. In other words, in things most relevant to a traveller, Norway is the most expensive country in Europe.
The cheapest European countries included in this study were Macedonia (45), Albania (51), Bulgaria (51), Serbia (57), and Bosnia and Herzegovina (57), with Bulgaria (51) and Romania (60) being the cheapest EU countries.
Sources:

Eurostat: Price levels varied in 2011 from 51% of the EU27
average in Bulgaria to 142% in Denmark (PDF)
HS: Eurostat: Suomi kallein euromaa
Comment: My latest "anecdote" came today from a workmate who just got back from 1-week holiday in Norway. He liked it, but considered the country "absurdly" expensive, with many things costing 1.5 times what they are in Finland.
Comment: Btw, if anyone wonders *why* Norway is even more expensive than its Nordic neighbours, well, largely it stems from the fact that it is an [oil-rich](http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2004024446_norway20.html) country, with [one of the biggest reserves](http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_oil_res_percap-energy-oil-reserves-per-capita) per capita.
Comment: Related travel story by Seth Kugel (aka [@frugaltraveler](https://twitter.com/frugaltraveler)): [A $100 Weekend in Oslo](http://frugaltraveler.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/26/a-100-weekend-in-oslo/). The closing remark was funny.
Comment: Good background reading on Norwegian economy: [The Economist: The rich cousin](http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21570842-oil-makes-norway-different-rest-region-only-up-point-rich)
Answer: With Norway, it is easier to point out what is cheap rather than what is expensive.
In contrast to iHaveacomputer's answer, I find all kinds of fruit and vegetables cheap. That is because the fruit and vegetables are subsidized, and would otherwise cost a fortune.
First Price is a low cost brand that provides cheaper alternatives, sometimes equal in quality to its competitors. First Price products can be found at Kiwi or Meny (both grocery stores) and probably some other stores.
Landlord is a brand similar to First Price, but I only remember seeing their products at Rema 1000 (another grocery store).
Answer: I've never been to Norway, but I lived with a norweigan guy in Ireland for a year. Ireland is/was more expensive that most the rest of europe. He said that coming from Norway was great cause Ireland was cheaper than home, an experience not many visitors can say!
I've heard anecdotially that Norway is more expensive that the rest of europe.
Comment: It will affect the things you need to buy though. I found fast food more expensive and lower quality. Oslo kebabs were the worst I've had and kebabs are standard hot food for budget travellers who don't do their own cooking and are not vegetarians (-; (Greek gyros are the best and German döner are next best)
Comment: @ihaveacomputer Those costs will affect hostel owners!
Comment: Sure, but i that imho refers more to the costs of living - rent, power, gas, heating or things like new cars, home electronics etc. which is way more expensive because of the high taxes in Norway - but this is stuff that wont affect most travelers much who use public transport and stay in hostels. :)
Comment: FTR this Norwegian guy said that lots of things that would affect travelers are more expensive in Norway, e.g. drinks in a bar are more expensive in Norway.
Answer: For you as a Backpacker, Norway will be on pretty much the same level as for example Germany, France or Sweden, but slightly more expensive than eastern Europe. The Hostel rates should be about the same.
However some things are more expensive in Norway: Beer and Alcohol - i went out on a saturday with something equal to 20 Euro, and i got 2cl of whisky and some change for it...
Tropical fruits like Bananas, Oranges and everything that wont grow in cold climate costs more, especially in all the small villages up north.
Domestic flights are also way more expensive (possibly because there is not much demand for it because few people live up there; and they only use small planes), and im not aware of any budget airline. Take the train or bus instead, unless you are in a hurry.
Comment: Are you sure? I found Germany to be cheap for western Europe and Eastern Europe where I am now in an utterly different ballpark. Right now I'm living on 75 Romanian Lei per day, more extravagant than some of my friends here but I know it's at the extreme end for users of this site. That's about 135 NOK or 17.50 Euro. I doubt I could get anywhere near that in Norway no matter how extreme my budget tactics.
Comment: There's more to travel than youth hostels.  As a simple example, a doner kebab in Germany costs around 3 euros, while one in Oslo is 60 kr plus, or around 8 euros.  That's a 250% difference in what's basically the cheapest hot take-away meal you can buy!
Comment: I was backpacking from Germany up to Sweden and Norway in 2006. As far as i remember the prices for hostels where all around the 20 Euro/night mark at this time. Dresden, Germany was imho the cheapest with 16, and in stockholm 22 or 24 as far as i remember.
East Germany might still be a bit cheaper than West Germany (Frankfurt, Munich or Cologne).


"Access denied" with a custom list form and list with unique permissions

Question: I have created a list which has unique permissions. It's an order submission form. I want end users to be able to place order using this list form.  The whole site has only read permissions but this list should have contribute permissions so that end users can submit the form but every time i try to submit the form as an end user, i get Access Denied error. What I am missing?
Answer: I'm not able to reproduce your problem here.
These are the steps I followed.

Logged in a Admin user
Create a site
Edit Site Permissions
Stop Inheriting Permissions,
Remove all permissions (I am admin so I will still be able to access the site)
Grant Read Permission to "User A"
Create a Custom List
Edit List Permissions
Stop Inheriting Permissions
Grant Contribute rights to "User A"
Log Out
Log in as "User A"
I have read access to the site
When I visit the list I see the add item button
Create an Item
Save.

No access denied error is displayed and the item is created.
When you get the access denied page can you check the URL to see exactly which page SharePoint was trying to access?
Maybe there will be more information in the SharePoint log file.
Answer: try putting insert code in
SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(delegate()
{
//your insert code
});


Will developing my leg muscles improve my running?

Question: Will doing strength exercises and working out the leg muscles like the thigh and calve on machines improve speed or endurance in running?
Comment: If anything, it might give you more stability in your joints, which helps preventing injuries
Comment: VERY good statement.  Out of 7 years of running, this is the first year that I cut weight-training out of the program.  It is also the first time I have ever been injured (knees), and a severe injury at that -- I'm going on seven months of not being able to walk normally even.
Answer: Yes. Training for strength & power - low reps, heavy weight, compound lifts, explosive movements - can help your speed & acceleration. If you train your muscular endurance - high reps, low weight, Crossfit or Crossfit Endurance style metcons - you'll help your endurance running. However, it's worth mentioning a few things:

Not all exercises are the same. There is a big difference between machines and free weights and between compound exercises and isolation exercises. See my answer here. You'll see MUCH more of an effect from squats, deadlifts, cleans, snatches, lunges and step-ups than you will from leg curls, leg extensions, and calf raises.
Depending on your current level of running & exact goals, weight training might not be a high priority. It should go without saying that the best way to improve your running is to do more running. Any cross training you do is secondary in importance and should be scheduled accordingly.
Watch your diet. Weight training benefits from increased mass. Running, at least for any distance over ~400m, doesn't. It is certainly possible to build a ton of strength/power without gaining any extra mass, but you have to watch what you eat. Don't get me wrong - you won't become the hulk overnight or even over a year - but adding 5-10lbs by squatting & eating a lot is easy and could negatively impact your running. Just eat maintenance calories and you'll be fine.
Answer: For someone who is new at the sport, strength training not only helps prevent injuries but will increase muscle mass thereby making running easier which means your endurance and speed improves.
However, for the elite-athlete (i.e. marathoners) the endurance gains are far less from strength training but more from just honing their craft - they just run a lot. All their muscles are used to it.
Comment: Elite athletes weight-train and cross-train as well, although I'm not sure if the purpose is injury prevention or improvements to their running.  Gebrselassie both weight-lifts and rides the stationary bike.
Comment: Agreed. I didn't mean to imply that elite marathoners don't cross-train as well. I meant that cross-training is a small percent compared to how long they spend doing training runs.


What are best practices for registration process?

Question: I'm designing an mobile app. There are 4 input fields that users must fill all to complete the registration. Those are full name, email address, password and username. First, I thought placing all in one screen might give users a simple registration experience, but later it looked scary to see too many fields in one screen. Should I divide all fields to steps provided that each field will be in one screen? Or, there is a common practice for the registration process?
Comment: Username is unique and mandatory to distinguish user accounts. Full name is just a display name that can be anything. I want to keep full name because there is interaction between users and they need real names to call each other. I think it wouldn't be user-friendly to use only username.
Comment: Why do you have a separate username & full name?
Comment: But can't you use the email address to distinguish user accounts?
Answer: I would make it a 2-step form: first username + password, then full name & e-mail ('To get to know you!').
This resource might also be of help: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/checklist-registration-login/
Answer: I would start with a 2-step version and then a/b test different registration flows in the live product.
Hypothesis to start with:
By splitting the flow into two steps, with each step having a more specific purpose, the completion rate will be higher.
Step 1: Essentials (email + password)
Step 2: Welcome (enter name + pick username)
Rationale for starting with 2 steps:

fewer inputs per step allow for more focus
fewer inputs per step are easier to design in a conversational style
flexible, e.g., you can do email verification first and after users clicked the link in the verification email, you can direct them to the app, welcome them and ask them to enter their name and pick a username

Once the product is live and has real users, I would use the above as a control version and test against a 1-step flow. I would look for completion rate as main KPI, but also for data quality as a secondary KPI.
Last one: It might be helpful to speak to developers early so that they can plan for a/b testing from the start.


When did the term "Space" first come into use?

Question: When did "Space" become the accepted terminology for the area beyond the Earth's atmosphere? What, if anything, was it called before it became known as "Space"?
Comment: I agree with @TildalWave. It is about terminology. This is relevant for understanding old literature. Space exploration is a rather young field, so changing or adjusted terminology is a relevant issue!
Comment: @Undo - It's a terminology question, I think it's not necessarily suitable only for [english.se] or even [ell.se], but also equally so on [SE] websites it pertains to. Terminology questions related to [space.se] can as well be defined here, where they'll possibly be most frequenty mentioned.
Comment: I'm voting to close this question because it belongs on another Stack Exchange Site

(Specifically, English Language Learners)
Comment: Definitely belongs on [English Language & Usage](http://english.stackexchange.com)
Comment: This question is relevant to Space Exploration, but we lack the body of experts to *properly* answer it and evaluate that answer, as evidenced by the fact that the current accepted and most upvoted answer is simply wrong.
Comment: I'd almost say this should be on ELL, not here.
Answer: Milton is not, in fact, the first English author to use 'space' in this sense. He is antedated by Lucy Hutchinson and John Evelyn, both of whom use 'space' to translate 'spatium' in their English versions of Lucretius's De Rerum Natura. Milton probably did help the English sense to catch on, and he too was alluding to Lucretius. By the way, Paradise Lost, book 1, line 650 (which has the singular, 'space may produce new worlds') is a better example to use than the lines in book 8.
Answer: The English word space originates from Latin word for expanse - spatium (also written spacium in Medieval Latin), and later French word espace, through the use of which English variant space was formed.
The earliest mention of space in relation to the 'outer space' is attributed to the 17th-century English poet John Milton, that used it in his epic poem Paradise Lost to much the same effect we now use it to describe 'outer space' beyond the Earth's atmosphere too thin for aeronautical purposes (or other non-arbitrary definitions):

When I behold this goodly frame, this World, Of Heaven and Earth consisting, and compute Their magnitudes—this Earth, a
  spot, a grain, An atom, with the Firmament compared And
  all her numbered stars, that seem to roll
Spaces incomprehensible (for such Their distance argues, and their swift return Diurnal) merely to officiate light
  Round this opacous Earth, this punctual spot, One day and night,
  in all her vast survey Useless besides—reasoning, I oft
  admire, How Nature, wise and frugal could commit Such
  disproportions, with superfluous hand So many nobler bodies to
  create, Greater so manifold, to this one use, For aught
  appears, and on their Orbs impose Such restless revolution day
  by day Repeated, while the sedentary Earth, That better
  might with far less compass move, Served by more noble than
  herself, attains Her end without least motion, and receives,
  As tribute, such a sumless journey brought Of incorporeal
  speed, her warmth and light; Speed, to describe whose swiftness
  number fails. — viii. 15-38.

Milton's description of the Universe and its celestial bodies is described in detail in The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost', by Thomas Orchard.
Comment: What is the literal meaning of the original Latin word?
Comment: @Undo - Expanse. But it would be used in any sense describing time or space (space, room, extent, distance between points, a square, period or interval of time, time or leisure, as with opportunity,...). Also as a quantitative measure, e.g. for "a lot", "much", "all", e.t.c. Etymologically, it comes from the proto Indo-European _"spe-"_ for pulling, stretching, expanding.
Comment: Oh how difficult to read any poetry in English! No rhyme ever!
Comment: Both [@TiltalWave's](https://space.stackexchange.com/a/903/12102) and [@Miltonist's](https://space.stackexchange.com/a/5185/12102) answers refer to [John Milton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Milton). While an excellent reference, Milton is referring to the vast space within the firmament. He also most eloquently states the Earth is at rest - which of course it is (as opposed to the modern religion of science which states the Earth is a spinning ball flying around in a vacuum). *Luckily,* @Miltonist goes on to cite even earlier references.


Re-usable Field Layouts

Question: I've Googled & searched on here, but have not been able to find the answer I need.
I come from using Advanced Custom Fields in the WP environment, and one feature that was great about ACF was being able to define the templates a field grouping would/can show on.
Take Craft for example. I have a grouping of fields that when combined form the banner "field layout" for a section. However, that "field layout" can be used on multiple other sections and even single pages. Without me having to re-create it on every single or section, is there a way that's much more efficient?
I am also using the Reasons plugin https://github.com/mmikkel/Reasons-Craft which enables me conditional fields. And I believe this is where the efficiency concerns are coming from. Because I am having to set the conditionals on each field layout. And if I decide to change something, I will need to change it across all other field layouts.
Answer: No, unfortunately there's no way to re-use a Field Layout in Craft.
You might want to consider adding a feature request at http://feedback.buildwithcraft.com.

Re-usable Field Layouts


3 year old sleep regression

Question: I have a nearly 3 year old daughter who has always slept in her own bed, and has always previously been able to just read and book and then shut the door and leave her to fall asleep by herself.
I have recently started taking her to a childminder for 3hours a day twice a week. And since this as soon as we go to leave the bedroom she screams and seems all panicky, we don't need to touch her she doesn't try talking it's just as long as she can see us there she will eventually go to sleep.
But most nights now she also wakes in the middle of the night around the same tome screaming for mostly daddy  and then we have to sit in till she falls asleep again.
We have massively creaky floor boards which is super annoying now and completely gives out sneaking away game away. Does anyone have any ideas, I have just tried staying by the door woth her for hour and half and now it's daddies turn coz I needed a break.
We did initially try the no talk just put back to bed.....continuously, and after a week I think the last one took  3 hours it lasted until I Gave up and just sat by the door(which is where I have then sat on till she falls asleep started) because just putting her back in and leaving was making her worse.
She also has a night light with lavender oil to try and help... which I feel it does not.
Please can anyone help, I just want to be able to do what we did before, put her to bed have a evening have a full night sleep, and not have her waking every night and every morning crying. It is draining
Comment: How well do you know the childminder? Obviously, your daughter is not coping well. "...I just want to be able to do what we did before..." For this, you'd need to stop taking her to the childminder and go back to your old routine. You are suffering, but I guarantee you, your daughter is also suffering equally if not more than you are. You have an adult perspective on the world; she does not.
Comment: Hi, she has never been away from us like that and hasn't really been able to socialise either. She is starting to come out of her shell now and interacting with the other children, she is only there for 3hours, and they are nice older people. I don't feel they are doing anything they shouldn't be or treating her in a way that they shouldn't, therefore I don't have a choice but to get her used to it.
She managed to fall asleep today after 40mins sitting in with her and hasn't awoken as of yet tonight
Comment: Good to hear. I hope, along with you, that it continues to improve.
Answer: It sounds like she has - as yo point out - regressed. I'm sure it doesn't happen to everyone but I'd say at least that it's completely normal, given the newly introduced separation at daytime.
It also seems, from what you describe you've tried, like you're approaching this as though she hasn't regressed at all. I don't think you'll have much luck just pushing on, expecting to continue where you were before the setback. You'll likely need to take a few steps back.
I don't know what that might look like in a manner that is feasible for you; if it's cosleeping, sleeping in a bed in her room or something else. But in one way or the other, I think you need to regress in your sleep training and rebuild the sense of security that may have been challenged by the introduction of a childminder.
Comment: @anon: apologies if it came across that way. My intention was merely to stress that I do think this is within the normal range; that it wasn't just an unreflected routine reassurrance, as may sometimes be the case with such phrases.
Comment: Yeah I didn't know what may have caused the change to be fair, I didn't realise there was a common sleep regression at 3, but I also didn't know if it's the case or mixed in together. Thank you for your reply.
I know we have allowed if she wakes near 4 we allow her to come sleep with us because just waiting in her room to fall asleep isn't worth the time of loss of sleep when I have work, but if she wakes before hand then I do. Do you think playing in her room more during the day and then waiting in her room till she sleeps will help?
Comment: I think the scariest part for small children when it comes to sleeping - alone or at all - is the separation from the parents. I think more parent-child time close to bedtime is the best way to boost them with closeness. Being with her till she falls asleep provably helps, yes.
Comment: "...it's completely normal" While some regression may occur, I'm not sure the extent to which the child has reacted is completely normal.
Comment: @anon: oh, you think? Is it a three year old sleeping alone who wakes up screaming every night you're reacting to? Or the "just go back to sleep alone" approach not working? I'm wholeheartedly unsurprised by both.
Comment: Wow, that's a hostile reaction to a simple observation... O_o

3 year old sleep regression


What can I do before buying and learning violin?

Question: I'm going to buy and learn violin in next several months. I want to ask what I can do now, such as ear training or anything to improve my "sense" on music. I usually listen to baroque music and Suzuki's lesson for entertaining. I'm planning to practice ear training but I'm not sure how and will it be effective when do it myself. So do you think I can do anything before learning violin (yes, I will definitely learn with teacher at first)?
Comment: Try to find a teacher would can give you some lessons even though you don't have an instrument.  It is a big step to buy a violin if you don't know that you will get on with it.
Answer: Well, there's a big range of possibilities here, since everybody's approach has at least some individuality. But there are some generally useful things. Do you already read printed music? And do you already sing (whether by ear or as you read the music)? Learning and doing both of those things, reading and singing, can and will help your musical receptiveness and action very much -- it will help move you along to an altogether more active kind of musical participation than you have needed in the role of a listener.
Learning to be musically active with singing:
You don't need a voice-quality that you would rate as good enough for singing to an audience, it's ok if you can just tell that you're singing (e.g. a scale) in tune, and in time with whatever rhythm you choose. Hopefully you can have some fun as well as learning, when you sing along with any music that pleases or interests you. Source doesn't matter too much, best to choose any recorded music that you can repeatedly play and practice singing with it as often as you want.  Just so long as you check yourself carefully, and get into the practice of singing with the music both in time and in tune (correct pitch).  It can often help to ask some friend or teacher to check you out on whether you are in time and in tune. (It's important that it's not only you who thinks you are getting there! If you yourself think you are in time and in tune, but the friend thinks not, then maybe you have some more practice to do!)

Reading music (and then singing/playing as you read):
There are some good learning-tools online: you can consult and study them already before you begin to read and to sing or play from actual sheet-music, and use them as reminders later on. But get hold of some sheet-music too.  For my tastes, http://www.wikihow.com/Read-Music lays it out neatly, and builds up logically.  If that doesn't appeal to you, there are also other useful approaches, perhaps especially http://www.musicnotes.com/blog/2014/04/11/how-to-read-sheet-music/ , then the 'Four secrets' page at http://oneminutemusiclesson.com/2014/03/01/the-4-secrets-to-learning-to-read-music-for-the-beginner/ , then  http://www.essential-music-theory.com/learn-to-read-music.html , and many more. Something on which there can be more than one view: one webpage says that "If you are learning to play an instrument ... piano ... or ... violin ... you should learn to read music as you learn your instrument." -- Yes, up to a point. But you can also do valuable build-up learning even without the specialist instrument, when you learn to sing the notes that you read. Your voice is a valuable learning and training instrument, even if you don't feel ready for others to listen in.
I hope that helps. Good luck!
Comment: I dont have a really good vocal, not sure if it's because of my physical vocal or because I haven't practiced, but I offen sing along my favorite songs. I also know a little about music theory like notes and rhythm but cannot read music sheet. If reading and singing can help me now can I learn it myself by Youtube (if so, which channel I can use)?
Comment: I added extra things to my answer, I hope they help.
Comment: Thank you, your suggestion about reading music sheet is really helpful. I appreciate your advice though I marked the psosuna's reply as answer. Both of your advice are valuable and I will make a careful plan to start practicing now with them!
Comment: +1 because this is great information for all starting musicians. @Feliks would do well to regard your information as well as mine
Answer: This is to complement the answer that was already given:
As a violinist, a few suggestions I have are to look up charts that you can review and quiz yourself on flash-card style. For example, musical symbols, key signatures (a common introductory one for violin is D major), easy time signatures (such as 4/4, C, 3/4, etc.) and clefs (treble, alto, bass, etc.) In addition, a diagram of where the finger positions are, what notes they produce by name, and where they fall on the treble staff, enough to at least be able to display all of 1st position. You might not be able to play all of it, but it's material that you can begin steeping yourself with.
Since you mentioned that you are listening to baroque music and stuff to prepare, you might choose to pick up a physical or online copy of Suzuki Book 1 and look for the audio. Try to read along the music as you listen to it. See if you are able to identify rhythms and general reading sense (as notes increase in pitch, they go further up on the staff, for example) from hearing and seeing them at the same time. Sometimes, looking at the big picture helps when starting out.
In addition, a rounded stick such as a pencil would be helpful for practicing bow grip. Practice your bow grip on it until you get a comfortable grip that simulates a bow grip that does not create undue stress on your hand. Diagrams and videos that show how to position your hand are great for this.
Also, look up videos for how to properly draw the bow and get accustomed to the motions. This will be of great help in avoiding scratchiness (or else getting rid of it quickly) when actually playing the instrument. Some beginners have trouble relaxing their bow hand and understanding the way the arms and wrist bend and when they do when playing.
By the time the instrument is in your hands, you should be able to recognize clefs, simple time signatures, simple key signatures, basic rhythms, and the location of the open string notes on the treble staff. You should also have a basic understanding of how to properly make sound from the instrument, and can begin making an attempt at locating the notes on your instrument as you begin to learn them.
All of this should prepare you very well for your first lesson with your instructor. Be sure to wait on getting an instrument until you discuss it with your instructor, as you want to avoid getting a "Violin-Shaped Object" that will not play well and will only serve to muck up your expectations of progress. Your instructor should be able to recommend an affordable instrument from a reputable workshop and good quality strings for your level so that you can make beautiful sound on your instrument from early on.
Comment: Thank you for your very detailed and specific information for my situation. I will definitely apply now!


How can I check if swap is active from the command line?

Question: How can I check if swap is active, and which swap devices are set up, on the command line?
Answer: in linux, you can use

cat /proc/meminfo to see total swap, and free swap  (all linux)
cat /proc/swaps to see which swap devices are being used  (all linux)
swapon -s to see swap devices and sizes (where swapon is installed)
vmstat for current virtual memory statistics

in Mac OS X, you can use

vm_stat to see information about virtual memory (swap)
ls -lh /private/var/vm/swapfile* to see how many swap files are being used.

in Solaris, you can use

swap -l to see swap devices/files, and their sizes
swap -s to see total swap size, used & free
vmstat to see virtual memory statistics

On some systems, "virtual memory" refers only to disk-backed memory devices, and on other systems, like Solaris, Virtual Memory can refer to any user process address space, including tmpfs filesystems (like /tmp) and shared memory space.
Comment: Also, `free` should tell you how much swap is available to your system.
Comment: `cat /proc/meminfo` should be `cat /proc/meminfo | grep Swap`
Comment: The swapon -s (--summary) seems to be deprecated at least in util-linux 2.37.2.  The swapon --show shows similar information.
Comment: use `free -h` for human readable sizes.
Answer: swapon --show
This is a bit better than swapon -s as it provides human friendly size units. E.g. if swap is active you could see:
NAME      TYPE      SIZE   USED PRIO
/dev/dm-1 partition 7.5G 563.8M   -2

If swap is not active, it doesn't show anything.
man swap says:

-s, --summary
Display swap usage summary by device.  Equivalent to "cat /proc/swaps".  This output format is DEPRECATED in favour of --show that provides better control on output data.
--show[=column...]
Display a definable table of swap areas.  See the --help > output for a list of available columns.

Tested in Ubuntu 18.04, util-linux 2.31.1.
Answer: Try swapon -s for a list of current swap devices and other relevant information.
Answer: With Linux you can use the top command to see if the swap is active or not, in which you can see something like kswapd0. The top command provides a dynamic real-time view of a running system, thus you should see the swap there.
If you don't see it there, it's more then likely it isn't working. to restart it or enable it, you can use this command: sudo swapon --all --verbose (source)
Then by running the topcommand again you should see it.


Blender export (start game from file)

Question: I'm exporting a blender game as an .exe file and it won't export properly because my blender file uses Start game from file... How can I export the file?
Answer: If you have multiple files, you simply have to distribute all of them. They are not packed into the exe, but are still required.
Relative paths must be maintained.
This means that you must distribute your project as a zip file, with the executable and the required files.

If you have a game with two files:

menu.blend
game.blend

And then export menu.blend into menu.exe
Then you need to put in your game's folder:

game.blend
menu.exe
2.78 (or whatever the folder number is)
???.dll (all the .dll files)

These can all be put into a zip file for distribution.

One of my projects recently looked like this:

Hiding in there you can see the blend 'Game.blend'
This blend file is then exported to an executable, and to distrubute the game, all of these files must be kept together. The easiest way is to export into the same folder as the blend and zip everything. (And when you're making the game make sure all file paths are inside a project folder)
Comment: Added more text. Not sure if it made things clearer though.
Comment: It's not working :(

Blender export (start game from file)


Oil pressure low turn engine off will my car work again?

Question: My car key is actually stuck in the ignition battery died out after some days after the car wouldn't start. While driving my car told me turn off the engine oil pressure low. but I didn't kept driving until it turned off its self. My car shook itself slow down and came to complete stop then I saw smoke. Is it repairable? It's a 2006 Buick Rainier used I'm the 4th owner. Do I buy a new battery and get oil added? I had it towed home dont know what to do with it.
Answer: Generally an oil light is highlighting a lack of oil pressure, often the lack of any oil pressure at all. On many cars it is imperative that you stop immediatly when they come on, and even then it can easily be too late to save the engine.
Most modern cars rely on plain bearings for the crank which rely on a supply of oil under pressure. Without that oil they will be rapidly damaged. Very shortly after that major engine damage will occur (eg, snapped connecting rod)
If you are lucky there is some kind of cut off when pressure gets low as suggested above. However if the vehicle has run low on oil it has probably gone from full oil pressure to zero oil pressure and it still might not have activated quickly enough.
If you are very lucky then new bearings shells will fix the problem.
But given you say the car slowed down while shaking and with smoke I would guess it is highly likely that the engine has serious damage.
Answer: I'm not too sure if your vehicle does this, but some GM cars kill power to the electric fuel pump when the oil pressure drops below a certain level.  Check in a dedicated service manual to see if yours has this correlation.  I'm sure you have, but check your oil, also look to see if the pressure sender is plugged in properly.  But first check the service manual to see about the fuel pump/oil pressure thing-a-ma-bob.  Depending on how far you drove with no oil pressure will depend on how much if any damage occurred.  You'll more than likely need to get it running and give a good listen to the engine to find out.  Low oil pressure won't necessarily damage the engine. Try giving the battery a good charge first.  Just because it went dead doesn't mean it's hopeless.
Comment: The smoke would indicate to me damage was done.


Would a more general version of "why was [X] light novel not animated" be on-topic?

Question: I recently voted to close Why wasn't the Death Note light novel animated? for being opinion-based, but it got me thinking: would a general version of this question (e.g. Why are light novels not usually animated?) be on-topic? It seems like it would have a non-opinion-based answer. But if it is on-topic, why is the more specific version not?
Answer: Update: The question has been posted at Why do light novels tend not to be animated directly?

If you can create a more general (or "canonical") Q&A for this topic, then go for it!
At least we have precedences for this:

Why do anime have manga adaptations? Why don't authors just focus on one medium at a time?
Why don't more video games get full anime adaptations?

The reason why (I believe) the Death Note/specific version one is off-topic is because we have to know that certain reason why it's not yet adapted. Unless it's mentioned somewhere else, then it's speculation at best. (note: I've done some quick research before closing it, but nothing came up, thus I feel it's better to close it before it gets speculative answers)
Providing a canonical Q&A at least can point the asker safely for "the possible reasons". (Whether to link it as "related", or close as a dupe, it's another question...)
Answer: The problem is not really about the question (and others like it), but our lack of expertise and inside knowledge. Questions such as "Why was X not B" expose an inherent flaw with our community -- the fact that we cannot are able to draw from industry specific knowledge even if it was made public in some magazine, tweet, or TV interview, simply because we are secondary consumer of the media.
I'm sure the question mentioned by the OP has been brought up by other fans in Japan closer to the source. Information from those involved in the production rarely ever trickles down from overseas unless it's a hugely popular and well-known franchise, simply due to costs. We can't provide non-opinionated sources unless we can either draw on anecdotal analogies or try to piece thing together from bits and pieces gleamed from Japanese media sources (magazine, videos, tweets, etc).
Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange by association has been overly rigid with criteria in an attempt to make things more readable. Questions that are answerable with simple yes or no are discouraged, you may say because it's a question and answer site. There are times that a question just does not have a concrete answer, but the question itself is still valuable and so are any answers. I believe that questions like the one mentioned by the OP are like these type of questions and we should look at approaching them in another direction in order to be more welcoming to new contributor.
Just like in programming, things like best practices, or conventional approaches, possibly what existing tools/frameworks/libraries might solve a problem. Yes, those are going to be opinionated answers. That doesn't make them not valuable. It also doesn't detract from more concrete questions and answers. I do not believe we have to budget space and needs to prioritize one set of questions/answers over another. We are a recreation site. We should at least explain why these questions are hard to answer. It frustrates new contributors when well simply close things and tell them it's too broad. Try as we they may to accommodate, but our lack of expertise on certain areas make it difficult to explain why we can't help them.
I am finding that the "downvote and move" methodology on has the be one of the worst internet philosophies to develop, when applied to literally anything other than spam or duplicated posts it poisons online communities. We should we try think or converse with new contributors and explain what the problem may be on both sides instead of hiding behind canned messages. We need new blood in order to grow, but in order to attract new blood we need to be more welcoming and empathetic. We're a niche space on a niche topic, we can afford to do some experimenting to see where we can go.


JPEG base map doesn't match shapefile locations

Question: Relative Newbie Question: I have Civil War earthworks tied to the State Plane Coordinate system with a jpeg of the terrain as a 100k scale USGS Quad of the area that is not georeferenced. When I work with the features in CAD, they all have georeferences. But when I export the shapefiles out of CAD and into QGIS, all of the shapefiles come into QGIS where they should be. BUT, the jpeg is not only not under them, but it is 10x larger than it should be and displaced by some absurd difference. Can anyone shed some light on what I'm not doing in order to get them all into one area and at the right size?
Answer: JPG is not a spatially aware raster format, and the process by which different programs independently georeference rasters and save that transformation information doesn't necessarily transfer. I see two potential options. In CAD export the image as a georeferenced tif file (you may or may not be able to do this depending on what software you have), or alternatively redo the georeferencing directly in QGIS. See
How to align (georeference) images using QGIS? or this tutorial for that.
The reason the image is so large is that a pixel is counted as a raster cell, and cell size can be defined. If not defined (ie, in a spatially aware format or reference file), it is assigned by the software and rarely correct.  And of course the reason it's in the wrong place is there's nothing in a jpg to tell GIS where the right place is.
Also, I'm assuming you say the shapefiles are where they are supposed to be as confirmed by other data or basemaps.  While the process you generally describe could/should allow your CAD data to be correctly projected, if you're not actually comparing it to anything other than itself there is a possiblity it, too, is not in the correct place. Much of that depends on knowing Vectorworks and how those tools work, which I do not. Therefore I have to solve from the other direction (not that I'm a QGIS expert, but more from the GIS side than from the CAD side).
Step one would be to go into Vectorworks (or QGIS, having just loaded the layer and done nothing else) and find the coordinates of a point. If it's in the hundreds of thousands x/y value, it probably is state plane. If not, you have a different problem. Step two is to go into QGIS and for each one of those vector layers (as they come in, don't move anything) define the projection to whatever state plane you're using (see also this alternative information page). QGIS knows the values of the coordinates but not what they are referring to, and by defining the projection you establish where the x/y origin should be among many other things. As an aside, if you're exporting actual shapefiles (.shp) from Vectorworks and the data truly is georeferenced to state plane, it really should be saving a prj file that defines what projection the data is in.
Once you have your vector lines in the right place, then you can load your image in and georeference it as above. I don't know how Vectorworks stores the info for a georeferenced image, and whether those files can be used by QGIS to get it into the right place - and this is making the assumption you had the image file referenced in Vectorworks to begin with; I might have misinterpreted your original post. You definitely don't want to move either your image or your vector lines to match the other unless you know whatever you're matching is for sure in the right place. I suggest using an additional base layer from somewhere (ie, find a PLSS grid from the county or BLM, as your topo map is going to have multiple sections at that scale) to get your control points for referencing and/or verifying your data is where it should be and you think it is. Also note that georeferenced images rarely line up exactly with other spatial data unless they've been orthorectified or are the source it's been digitized from.
Comment: @LyleBrowning GIF isn't spatially aware either. It's pretty much georeferenced tif or some image file with [additional location files](http://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/64599/geotiff-explanation-of-aux-xml-and-tfw-world-file), some of which can be read by multiple softwares. Also, careful with the term 'shapefile' vs just any file with vector lines. CAD formats typically only store as a local coordinate system. If Vectorworks is truly storing state plane coordinates, you just have to define it as the correct projection in QGIS to get it in the right place.
Comment: Thanks for the info. I've now exported the image as a gif. The CAD program (Vectorworks) allows each layer to be individually georeferenced. All are in the State Plane Coordinate System. When I import the vector layers in QGIS, the georeference information does not appear to come along as QGIS states that there is no georef with it. The 15 layers all appear in the correct relative position to each other when imported into QGIS but are not confirmed by other data.
Comment: Another layer of the knowledge onion peeled. Now I need to learn how to put all that together. What I've now managed is to get the shapefiles and the gif image to overlap to about 80% with each at the relative apparently correct size in relation to one another. All this was by setting the VW georef parameters. Unfortunately as yet I have not figured out how (or whether if) QGIS can select items from multiple layers and move them. I thought to select the shapefile items and move them where they should be, assuming the gif is accurately placed.
Comment: That would be the opposite of what you want to do if your vector data is truly in state plane. I'll edit my answer for more clarification.


Newly seeded lawn growing unevenly

Question: I seeded the lawn with Tall fescue 12 days ago. We tilled the existing soil, added more soil and compost, seeded and lightly raked the seeds after spreading. I could see grass on the 6th day and it has grown almost 1.5 inches tall. The problem I am having is that the grass is all dense in few spots and then few spots are almost barren. What did I do wrong? I did spread the seed evenly using the rotary spreader. What can I do now?
Answer: At this point I would do nothing to disturb the other areas.
Wait until the lawn is at least 4-6 inches, then give it the first mow. Then inspect the patchy areas and see if the seeds are there, washed away, or maybe the new soil washed into other areas and nutrients need to be applied to the ground.
After inspecting, reseed the areas and do not mow lawn again for 3 more weeks.
Tall fescue is highly adaptable to wet & dry conditions, so most likely watering won't be the issue even in germination periods.
Answer: Wait few other weeks, and eventually over seed again.
At this stage humidity is the relevant factor: seeds and initial stem have very tiny roots, so were the seedling found more water in the few millimeters, they tend to growth earlier. Just shadow or humidity on air on the morning could make such spots.
Answer: Another possibility is that the flow of water over the soil, either from watering or rainfall, moved the seeds.  You could try to reseed the bare  sections now, but you'd probably have to step all over the new seedlings to do it, possibly killing them.  So, I'm not sure it's worth it.  Might as well wait and re seed the bare patches in the spring.

Newly seeded lawn growing unevenly


Link Styling - Active, Hover, etc

Question: I've noticed many sites throughout the web from SBNation to smaller sites not having an 'active' (selected) style for their links. Sites like USAToday do have active states highlighted. My assumption was the best practice is to highlight or indicate an active link depending on what view the user is on. Has this changed or is there any positive in not indicating the active page/view?
Comment: Active as in 'currently selected' - pattern similarly to how navbar indicates which page you currently are on. For example the nav bar state for the tech section of [USAToday] (http://www.usatoday.com/tech/) is styled with a solid orange block instead of the default black/gray
Comment: When you say active do you mean that it changes color/style as it's being clicked (on mouse down) or that the style is different if you are on the page the link leads to (such as in a nav bar)?
Answer: Jakob Nielsen is a guru in User Experience. He has made ten heuristics for usability. They've been developed in 1990, but can still be used today. They still count as guidelines (well more rules of thumbs as Jakob says himself) for developing good usability on your website.
One heuristic is Recognition rather than recall. You can also call it reducing cognitive load or helping the user think as little as possible.
In this case, making clear where the user is at that moment and where they come from, helps reduce cognitive load. It's not a major crime not having an active state on links as these heuristics are rules of thumb and not actual rules. But there is nothing positive in decisively not implementing an active state.
Answer: Personally, I would use active link styling if it was one link out of a long list, e.g. articles, so when I return (by means of back button) to that page, I will know where I came from. In webapps, however, I wouldn't do that, mainly because now I'm into AJAX and clicking links on lists of items rarely takes users off the page. I'm indicating changes on a page with e.g. a fade from yellow to background, like stackoverflow does.
Answer: From my personal experience, frontend developers not always pay enough attention to such details, simply forgetting to define the style for active and visited links. So it's not intentional loss of functionality. And it's definitely a loss: as Paul already said, it breaks one of the Nielsen usability heuristics.
Comment: This isn't really a useful answer. Your first part of the paragraph just sounds like you've never worked with a front-end developer who knows what they're doing - the front-end devs I've worked with always pay attention to details - that is their job, they wouldn't last long in the profession if they repeatedly 'forgot' to include such things. The second part of your answer just reiterates what Paul has said.
Comment: I have 15 years of experience in web, mostly on large enterprise projects. People significantly vary in skills and attitude and definitely there are good guys who do care about UX. But it's not the case quite often. If your experience contradicts my observations, it does not mean I'm wrong. It just means that you haven't seen all front-end developers in the world.

Link Styling - Active, Hover, etc


The form of the verb to be in the questions with "and" and "or"

Question: Should I use was or were in sentences like this:
Who was/were the bride and groom?

In my opinion, both are possible, but I don't know why. What to use if there is or instead of and?
Comment: *Was* is only possible if a single person could be both bride and groom at the same time.
Answer: The correct answer is:

Who were the bride and the groom?

The past form of the verb TO BE is: I was; You were; He/She/It was; We were; They were; You were. So, Was represents a singular form, while Were is the second person, singular, or a plural form.
In your sentence, the bride and the groom means they, which is plural, therefore you need a plural form for the verb, that is why you need to use were.
If you use OR instead of AND, it means you refer to only one of two people, so you need to use a singular form of the verb: WAS.
However "Who was the bride or the groom?" doesn't sound natural to me. I'd say: "Who was it, the bride or the groom?"
Answer: Was is used in the first person singular (I) and the third person singular (he, she, it).
Were is used in the second person singular and plural (you, your, yours) and first and third person plural (we, they). More Info
So based on the above facts, it's

Who were the bride and groom? (It's a Plural form)

What to use if there is or instead of and?
Now, if we say "or" instead of "and", we refer to a merely singular person.
Hence, it will be..

Who was the bride or groom?

Cheers!
Comment: "Your" and "yours" are possessive forms, we can use "was" with "your" if the **noun** is singular e.g. "Your **car** was parked illegally"
Answer: Here is why you may think was could be used in this case. I'm going to add a few words in brackets to highlight an implied parallel structure if you use was:

Who was the bride and [who was] [the] groom?

Parallelism is common in lists of two or more items, as it is a way to reduce repetition by suggesting that every item should be read from the first part. It's evident from that reading-by-parallelism that the speaker is asking who the bride is and who the groom is. Compare this to a more straightforward example to see why your singular verb might not be preferred here:

The coach told the players that they should get a lot of sleep and not eat too much.

You don't need to read "that they should" before every statement individually, because it's implied structurally. Your example with was adds a wrinkle because the subject "who" doesn't strongly signal number (singular or plural) on its own. With a plural verb, "the bride and groom" is easily read as a unit. With a singular verb, "who" could be read as a singular subject and "the bride and groom" could be read as two separate people acting, each preceded by "who was."
Now, this may be a more awkward reading because it requires readers to fill in more of the blanks, for reading it as a parallel structure makes the reader work more than just changing it to a plural verb. Furthermore, usage suggests that the phrasing in singular form does happen, albeit more rarely than the plural verb counterpart. So it's not a matter of one version being correct (unless the speaker doesn't have a grasp of singular and plural verbs and intended "who" to be plural but used the singular "was", which goes down a rabbit hole of intent that's difficult to prove), but rather the plural version being more common, more conventional, or easier on readers.
Still, if you said "who was," you'd have an argument for it. One final example of using a singular subject and verb with a noun list in parallel structure:

Her purpose was to impress the ignorant, to perplex the dubious, and to confound the scrupulous.


Perspective text in InDesign

Question: I have a building I made in InDesign and I need to put text on it. I need the text to look like it is on the wall and I'm having issues trying to figure this out. The white space is where the text is suppose to go.
Comment: Do you have access to Illustrator or Photoshop?
Answer: Graphic development is done within Adobe Illustrator or Adobe Photoshop (or an equivalent graphics program based on your needs/preferences) as @AndrewH was hinting towards and then brought into InDesign.
While you do have basic transform controls when dealing with text in InDesign, you'll find that it lacks the ability to transform text to provide an accurate perspective for what you're trying to achieve.
How to shear text in InDesign:

Select which text you want to transform by right clicking it.

Using the shear (right click the text you wish to transform) option you can only control one axis, and it can become a tedious process as you lose control of the source content when provided the pop-up menu to begin adjusting values.

Perspective text in InDesign


2006 Hyundai Tucson no heat

Question: I have a 2006 Hyundai Tucson v6 and the heat stopped working. It blows out fine but only cold air.  I've checked the coolant level which is fine and all fuses that relate to the heat and ac.
Comment: Welcome to the site. So when you turn the heater on, the air moves but doesn't heat correct? Have you noticed any other symptoms? Is it getting unusually hot (coolant temp) or unusually cool while driving (hard/long)?
Comment: I have the same problem and I do not hear any noice under the dashboard
Answer: In your vehicle there is a heater core inside the dashboard. Engine coolant runs through this core all the time. There is a small door inside the HVAC (Heater, Ventilation, Air Conditioning) system that controls air flow through the heater core. When you want full cool that door shuts off all airflow through the core. In full heat mode all the air is forced through the core. That door is controlled by either a cam and cable or by small electric motor and plastic gear train.
I'm pretty sure you have the electric motor version. If none of the different HVAC modes work check your fuses. If everything works but the heater blend system you've probably got a bad motor control element (or perhaps broken plastic gear in that doors drivetrain.)
I'm guessing that if you try to adjust the temperature on the controls (key on, engine OFF, radio OFF, low blower), you will hear some odd clicking sounds from inside the center of the dash board.

2006 Hyundai Tucson no heat


SEGD and SEGY recorded data

Question: What is the difference between a segd recorded data and a segy recorded data and can we convert from segd to segy and vice versa?
Comment: Maybe with this tool: http://users.chariot.net.au/~witek/segd2segy.htm
Comment: You can also try Seismic Unix SEGDREAD I had success with that.
Answer: SEG-D is a specialized format, while SEG-Y is a general-purpose format.
In general, SEG-D is intended for field recordings of seismic data, and SEG-Y is intended for 'seismic data exchange'. Having said this, SEG-Y is so general-purpose, and so ubiquitous, that I'm not surprised to hear (anecdotally) that people are using it for data acquisition. Certainly, the recent release of Revision 2 — which allows for high sample rates, variable trace lengths, long records, and large files — facilitates this.
As an interpreter, I use SEG-Y all the time, whereas I've never come into contact with SEG-D. Thus, I don't know enough about it to go into any detail, but a quick look over the SEG-D specification suggests it has better support for describing receivers, channels, sources, and including things like observer logs. Which is what you'd expect in an acquisition format.
SEG's formats are notoriously, er, flexible. So converting directly between the two formats may or may not be possible, depending on which fields have been used, and the lengths to which you're prepared to go to 'adapt' the target format to your use case. The usual way to convert, as it were, would be to process (i.e. demux, sort, image, and maybe stack) the field data in the SEG-D file(s), and write out one or more SEG-Y files.
Good luck!
References

SEG-D Rev 3.1 description, SEG Technical Standards Committee, 2015.
SEG-Y Rev 2.0 description, SEG Technical Standards Committee, 2017.
Comment: Just to elaborate a bit on the use of the SEG-D format: It's commonly produced as raw data from sensors, with no source data applied. As a survey tech, I normally deal with Seg-D, then the QC department processes this into Seg-Y for delivery.

SEGD and SEGY recorded data


History of Software Quality Assurance & Testing

Question: Looking for a single source that covers the history of software quality assurance and testing stating what over time were the different approaches, and why practices have evolved the way they have over time.
Answer: Great starting point would be Wikipedia's history sections on the pages for Software Testing and Quality Assurance.
For example, the Wikipedia page for software testing cites an Association for Computing Machinery journal article by Gelperin and Hetzel (1988) titled, "The Growth of Software Testing" which list the following eras of software testing:

Until 1956 - Debugging oriented
1957–1978 - Demonstration oriented
1979–1982 - Destruction oriented
1983–1987 - Evaluation oriented
1988–2000 - Prevention oriented

You might also browse some of the books returned on Amazon by querying: "history of software testing and quality assurance".
Comment: I agree, but often the References in Wikipedia are worth more than the articles themselves. When doing research, it's a good place to start.
Comment: I think I remember there being some testing techniques mentioned in "Mythical Man Month".  Of course it is not a book on testing, but it talks about software development in general, and it qualifies as historical.
Comment: +1 I've been doing ad-hoc software QA for more years than I'd like to recall, so no this isn't for a paper, or a book.  Most of my experience has been driven by the task at hand and the related experiences/needs of those I was working with, and I've never taken a step back to attempt to gain a broader understanding of where the domain came from, where it is, and maybe even where it's likely to go in the near future. Thanks for your suggest, guess while I've always found wiki a good starting point, I've rarely found it to be the answer.
Answer: If you looking for experience and suggestions about testing I recommend for you check out some books on amazon (depend on experience which you are looking mostly). The fact is that all best testing approaches is not invented without knowledge and failures of past. So you do not need relearn all testing history to reinvent testing approach which cover your application needs. As QA your main goal is check software quality, catch bugs and if you good at this with ad-hoc testing style there are nothing to worry about. However if you need train new software testers I think best write them detailed Test Cases because tester experience gather when working with application.
Personally I do not believe that books or articles with topic like "Millenium Quality Assurance Failures" could make tester work better with specific application.
Comment: Dont want to sidetrack this discussion but as long as parties ar having a conversation the format of a user story does not matter. Having the conversation is the point. Now back to the discussion at hand - and I dont think you will find a One True Source. That book hasn't been written. A gap in the market ?
Comment: You assume I just want to use what others have made... "The fact is that all best testing approaches is not invented without knowledge and failures of past." ...if only it were so easy, or that people always learned from, or truly understood the past; not saying I do, only that you assume others have.
Comment: @blunders, they do not need "understood the past" because some of them live in that past and wrote books having 20+ years testing experience. I always say, real-live experience is far more better than any book. However if you looking for testing theory, book is good start.
Comment: Learning is best experienced first hand, but to say learning from others is meaningless would be a huge leap, and likely mean 80%+ of what you know was a waste of time. Also, when you said, "book is good start" did you mean "books are good start", meaning books in general - or is there a book you had in mind? As for having "having 20+ years testing experience" in the end, "With a thousand eyes, all defects are shallow"; which is to say collective intelligence ultimately beats expert intelligence in the end.
Comment: For example, I found what is in my opinion a major [error](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/132114/two-different-user-story-forms-are-both-correct) in a ["top rated" book](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0321635841/?tag=stackoverfl08-20) just today ([with the help of others](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/a/132145/4942)), and I'm no expert on the subject either... :-)
Answer: Try this site ?
http://www.testingreferences.com/testinghistory.php
Comment: +1 That's a great timeline, though there are a lot of randomly add items like "Apple Founded" - that appear to have nothing to do with the topic.
Comment: @blunders, If you think that such big company like "Apple" founded is nothing to do with software quality assurance testing history then you are very wrong.
Comment: @xeranas: Why stop there then, why not say Steve Jobs was born, or for that matter died. Saying Apple was founded has nothing to do with software quality assurance and testing history in my opinion, just like the [butterfly effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect) has nothing to do with "[real programming](http://xkcd.com/378/)".