How can I protect my privacy against Facebook tracking my web activity?

Question: I was at CryptoParty this year and I heard that Facebook can track user's web activity even after we are logged out. The speaker didn't gave us a solution for protecting our privacy on that matter, so my question here is how can I prevent that?
Comment: @SergeBallesta: And also any website you visit which contains the Facebook "Like" button: you don't even have to interact with it, the simple fact it is displayed on the page informs Facebook that you are currently viewing this page.
Comment: Delete your facebook account. Install ublock origin, privacy badger, and noscript;blacklist all URLs with 'facebook' in them.
Comment: How can I prevent *what*? Facebook sources of information are: your own Facebook page - you should be able to control what is there -, your whatsapp activity - whatsapp belongs Facebook - and any other Facebook page speaking of you. What exactly is your concern here?
Comment: @WhiteWinterWolf: good point! I had not realized that the simple display on the page loads some javascript and an image from Facebook. Along with the Referer header, it is enough to identify what page is consulted...
Answer: To my knowledge installing the browser add-on called uBlock Origin (or something similar) would suffice, just remember to properly configure it to (also) include anti-tracking lists.
Aside from anti-tracking, this add-on is generally known to block ads. (Ad providers, to my knowledge, also have a hard-on for tracking people.)
I generally also block addresses related to social media as I don't use any myself (this can be done at router level, firewall level, or as custom rules to uBlock Origin).
It's probably also a good idea to clear cookies after installation to ensure you got rid of tracking cookies (note that this will log you out of pretty much all sites).
Comment: Regarding Ghostery: https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/97986/is-ghostery-safe-to-use
Comment: Ghostery add-on can also block many trackers.
Answer: I don't use facebook, but this can happen with other services also I guess.  My method is to use two different userids.  If that's not easy in your OS, use two different browsers.  I use one for all my "authenticated" browsing (basically anything I need to put in a userid/password for), and a different one for all the casual browsing.
The important thing is this: even if someone sends me a link on gmail or google+, I copy-paste it to the other browser and open it.  I do NOT open that link in the "authenticated sessions only" browser.
And yes I know this is cumbersome, and to be honest I don't know anyone else daft enough to go this far, but I just wanted to throw that out as a possibility.
Additional details:
Both browsers also frequently get "Ctrl-Shift-Deleted" (clear all history, cookies, form data, etc etc etc -- everything, for all time).
I also have an ad blocker; I'm not saying that's not needed.  This is just an extra layer.
Answer: It's a very difficult problem. It's you vs. a gigantic corporation whose business model relies on collecting the richest dossier on you that it possibly can. You're better off in certain areas outside the U.S. (e.g., EU) due to better privacy laws; the U.S. has extremely weak legal privacy protections for individuals.
The other answers provide a solid first step: install a tracker blocker such as uBlock Origin, Disconnect, or Privacy Badger. You could also block all Facebook-related domains, servers, and/or IP addresses in your hosts file, router/firewall, or via DNS. But this isn't enough.
Set your browser to reject all but 1st-party cookies on the current site, and make sure you clear cookies and other stored state after every logged-in session and also regularly for routine browsing. Private or incognito browsing is one way to do this, or there are add-ons that you can use to automate cookie/stored-state management. You want to separate your logged-in browsing from your other browsing as much as possible. Going a little further, you can use a different browser for logged-in sessions than you use for other browsing. Even so, you'll still have the same IP address, platform, and other detectable characteristics in common.
Device fingerprinting and cross-device tracking are very hard to detect, very hard to prevent, and allow servers to bypass traditional cookies and other stored state to correlate your activities across the internet. The most extreme solution is to dedicate a device (or a virtual machine) to Facebook use, and use a VPN or some other way to get a distinct IP address for those sessions.
If you log into Facebook from multiple devices, you compound the problem and give Facebook richer data about your devices and behaviors.
In case you get email from Facebook (or others that can track you), make sure you block images and other downloadable content within your email client. This prevents a timestamped read receipt and other device characteristics from  going to the email sender and/or their 3rd-party data services. You can always manually load important content later, or view equivalent content in a browser. Avoid clicking any links in email, as these typically go through 1st- or 3rd-paty tracking links or trackable URL shorteners.
Also keep in mind that your social graph on Facebook, and the content of your posts. likes, page follows, and other interactions tell Facebook a lot about you.
Another step to take is to do as much of your routine browsing as possible using Tor browser, but don't use it for logged-in sessions and switch Tor identities often.
But even with these steps, Facebook will still buy data about you from external data brokers who may have rich information about your online and offline behaviors.
Answer: As it was already noted, main sources of information about you for FB are:

your FB page and activity with regard to likes etc
FB pages of your FB "friends", who mark you on photos, send you links or whatever they send to you
messengers (FB Messenger and WhatsApp)

Obviously, you cannot use messengers if not logged in and you cannot control your FB "friends". To block FB "like" button tracking (and other similar ways to spy) you can use a range of techniques.
The simplest is to use uBlock Origin or similar plugin. The main advantages are that it has pretty good defaults and is relatively easy to tweak to your needs. The drawback for me is that it operates with hostnames, and some FB servers have hostnames that are not easy to associate with "Facebook".
The hardest I've seen (and use on my Linux machine) is to block access to all IP addresses belonging to FB (both IPv4 and IPv6) except for a separate virtual machine/account. This means that when I surf with my "normal" browser no connection can be made to any FB server, neither when I try to open a link to FB page nor indirectly (from a "like" button or something similar). The advantage is that this method blocks any connections to FB, no matter how they are initiated (accidentally, by a button, script or whatever). The drawbacks are complexity of implementation and some inconvenience, when some page tries to load resources from FB and "hangs" for a while.
I'm sure there are some options between these two.
Note also that in US Facebook is able to get data on you from several data aggregation companies, which sometimes use offline information collection. I have not heard of this way to collect information in Europe though.


Efficient way to go about acquiring game assets

Question: I was thinking about buying assets, but I don't want to waste time and want to acquire assets as fast as possible, and acquire a large amount of them, because I want to make several different games from the assets (rpg, action, shooter, etc.) Also, I want to commercialize the game, so what would you recommend me doing?
Comment: Welcome to GDSE. What stage is your development & design at? If you haven't locked down the art / design / feel of the game, I would recommend grey boxing over acquiring assets, but if your much further along an answer focused on that solution wouldn't really adddress your problem. Also keep in mind that requests for resources (i.e. where can I find X) type questions are not considered on-topic, so you may need to edit your question.
Comment: It's also worth mentioning that the hardest part of a game is making the code and the logic work. That means, no matter how much money you spend on assets, if you don't have the code nor the experience, you'd spend way too much time coding the game. I'd suggest first making a prototype of a game, and once it's in a alpha-ish state you can think about buying assets and replacing the template ones you already have.
Answer: I'm not sure if this is on topic, but I'll try to answer anyway:
You don't need to pay for your game's assets; That's why things like the Unity Assets store, ue4 store etc.. exist ;)
When it comes to commercializing the game, you really want to check for your assets' licence/s (unless you created them yourself of course), because they tell you if and how you can use them in your game.
If the assets are not free for commercial purposes, you probably need to pay the artist who created them (again check their licence requirements).
If you don't want to create the assets yourself, there are a whole lot of websites that you can find with a simple search on the web, but for a bit of money you can pay an artist that will make exactly what you need, exactly how you want; That's the main advantage.


Can we ask difficult math puzzles here?

Question: Can we ask difficult math questions here?  More specifically, I mean a math question that involves square roots.
Comment: You and I have a different idea of what counts as a difficult math question. Are you trying to dump your homework on us?
Comment: No.  I have solved a rather interesting olympiad problem.  Is this a place to share about the problem? @JohnDvorak
Comment: @XcoderX Yes, that sounds fine. Just remember to include a citation to where you found the problem :-)
Answer: Yes, as long as they really are "puzzles".
We have a lot of mathematics puzzles on this site - nearly 2000 questions in the tag - and many of them are Olympiad-style questions, some even taken from actual Olympiads. Square roots certainly aren't considered "difficult maths" by this site's standards - we've even had a puzzle whose solution required using the Green-Tao theorem!
A few important caveats though, before you post your puzzle:

Maths puzzles are on-topic; maths problems are not. See Are math-textbook-style problems on topic? for our explanation of the difference between the two. Basically, your puzzle needs to be somehow "interesting" and not formulaic.
Puzzles involving very advanced maths may be frowned upon. For more details on this rather nebulous policy, see What tricky mathematical questions are on topic here? and Proposed policy on mathematical questions. Basically, the puzzle (not necessarily the solution) should be at least comprehensible to a reasonable subset of Puzzling users. Again, square roots are definitely way below that bar, and I suspect all Olympiad questions easily pass this criterion. Just don't post something which requires a deep understanding of the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem ;-)
You must cite your source. If you're taking a puzzle from an actual olympiad, or a similar competition, or a puzzle book, remember to state in the body of your question where you found it. Without this acknowledgement, your question runs the risk of being deleted for 'plagiarism'.
Comment: is [this](http://puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/89362/find-the-hidden-message-in-this-weird-array/89363#89362) question okay?
Comment: @Scratch---Cat I see no reason why it shouldn't be.
Answer: There's certainly no objection to square roots, and plenty of questions have been asked here that involve some quite tricky mathematics. However, PSE tends to frown on questions that are mathematics problems as opposed to mathematical puzzles. Roughly, the question to be asking is: is this more something you might solve for fun or the sort of exercise you'd find in a textbook or mathematics class homework?
Take a look at the "mathematics" tag to get an idea of the sort of mathematical question that gets asked here (and which ones have received lots of upvotes or good answers).
Comment: Okay... by mathematics can it be sort of like olympiad style?
Comment: Some of the mathematics-tagged questions here are quite olympiad-ish, yes. Anything at IMO level or above is going to be accessible only to a small fraction of Puzzling participants (though we *do* have a bunch of IMO types here). There isn't universal agreement on whether that's a problem or not. (Personally, I enjoy such questions but am on the fence as to whether they're appropriate here.)

Can we ask difficult math puzzles here?


Store N key value pairs

Question: I have a scenario where I need to store N no. of document hashes in a smart contract with some key(id). And also fetch the particular document hash by it's key. Any help on designing the structure for storing would be appreciated.
Thanks
Answer: Here's a rough version:
pragma solidity ^0.4.24;

contract Test {

    mapping(uint256 => string) hashes;

    function addDoc(uint256 id, string hash) public {
        hashes[id] = hash;
    }

    function getDoc(uint256 id) public view returns(string) {
        return hashes[id];
    }
}

Here you can store and retrieve the hashes based on a uint256 id. The mapping will store as many id<->hash values as you need.
What you should do next is change the string types to be something else (bytes of some length) and consider adding some mass-add function if you need to store multiple hashes at the same time.
Comment: Thank you for the answer. This adds one key-value pair at a time, but I need to add multiple key-value pairs at the same time which will return one transaction Id. If I run a loop from front-end it will give me different Ids on each request that means I have to run a loop at contract itself?
Comment: As I already stated in the answer, you can consider adding some functionality to add multiple hashes within the same transaction. There are a lot of things you can continue with to make your contract better but I can't write you all of it.
Comment: I understand Lauri, but it would be really helpful if you can at least guide or suggest me, what could be used here for mass-adding.
Comment: Add a function which accepts a `string[]` parameter and loop over the contents to add each separate item. Or, even better, use `bytes`: https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/17094/how-to-store-ipfs-hash-using-bytes

Store N key value pairs


There is nothing here worth {for} dying for

Question: I found this phrase in a signThere is nothing here worth dying for and I don't understand why the for is at the end of the phrase and not after worth. I tried to search in English and I found it's perfectly normal finish a sentence with a preposition, but it didn't explain anything more.
Answer: The patterns are:

be worth + Noun / V-ing
to die for (some goal), e.g. die for your country
to die of (a disease), e.g. die of a heart attack
to die from the injuries you sustained in an accident

"There is nothing here worth dying for" means: "There is nothing for which it is worth dying" ("for" introduces a relative clause specifing the cause one would be ready to die for -- in this case, none). Notice, then, that "for which" attaches to "dying", not to "be worth".
In everyday English, we prefer to place the preposition at the end and to avoid placing it at the beginning of a relative clause, where it sounds too formal.


Increasing ADC output accuracy

Question: Say we have a 12-bit ADC with 30 MHz sampling frequency. I want to perform several DSP operations on output digital signal so that resulting signal would have increased accuracy to 14 bits and output sampling frequency would become 2 MHz. In nutshell I want a DSP block that converts a 12-bit ADC with 30 MHz Sampling rate to a 14-bit ADC with 2 MHz sampling. Even a slight tip for me to know where to look for would be helpful. (This project would be implemented on a FPGA.)
Comment: hm, sounds like this isn't the perfect project for you. But, attempting to help you nevertheless: something that changes the sampling rate of a signal is called a *resampler*; the special case where the output rate is a fraction of the input rate is a *decimator*.
Comment: No, i found the answer myself and forgot to check the question i asked.
Comment: Also, you never accepted an answer to your previous question, is that intentional?
Comment: Thank you marcus. I would research decimator implementations.
Answer: With typical sampling (not noise shaped) you get half a bit for every halving of the sampling rate (with proper filtering of the out of band noise prior to downsampling). So a decimate by two for example consists of a half band filter followed by a down-sample by two which is done simply by selecting every other sample.  Assuming white noise, the half band filter removed half the noise or 3 dB, and the the SNR of ADC's goes as 6 dB/bit.
Therefore, if you went from 30 MHz to 7.5 MHz with a decimate by four, you would gain a full bit or 12 bits extended to 13 bits assuming noise is limited by quantization noise and the quantization noise process is sufficiently white as typically assumed and approximated.
It's should be straight forward to see now how to go from 12 bits to 14 bits through successive decimations. (And the filtering and decimation can be done in one block each or distributed which gives flexibility in the filter designs used).
An additional caution when working with real hardware is to refer to the expected Effective Number of Bits (ENOB) for the actual ADC used and in what conditions of sampling, input frequency etc as the number of bits to be achieved and improved on, and pay attention to actual spur levels (as given by the Spurious Free Dynamic Range, SFDR) that will ultimately limit the SNR since decimation will do nothing to reduce the power level of in band spurs. Often these spurs are below the noise level due to quantization in which case dynamic range improvement can be gained through decimation.
Comment: Thanks a lot for your comprehensive answer.Is there any resource that you would recommend for further study?
Comment: Hi @Krsh - If you look under my name here I have several other answers related to this with more detail. As far as further study with multirate sampling I would recommend fred harris' book Multirate Signal Processing. I don't know your background but assuming you have already studies Signals and Systems and basic Digital Signal Processing you should be well equipped. I also teach DSP courses online through the Boston IEEE that you can watch for at this link (I have a Python course starting next week!) http://ieeeboston.org/2021-courses/
Comment: Thanks a lot.Yes i have the background you assumed but the problems that i solved in university usually consisted of just filtering then downsampling the signal and never needed to use this sort of problems.Thanks a lot for the mentioned courses.

Increasing ADC output accuracy


When do I get to rate a Mii fantastic?

Question: Under what circumstances are you able to rate a Mii as fantastic or not?  There are two 3DS in my household that constantly streetpass but rarely ever do the Miis get to rate each other as fantastic or not.
Comment: I've always been curious about this.  Sometimes, in my haste to get people into the plaza and mashing A I end up accidentally selecting "You're kinda OK' instead of "Fantastic", and feel super bad about it afterwards.
Answer: In my experience, you get rating opportunities if one of the following three things occur:

The second time you meet someone.
When you meet someone you've met before and they've changed their hat.
An unknown criteria when you meet someone past the max number of times (currently 999). This one seems to have a pattern (maybe every 10?) but I don't know what it is.
Answer: My understanding is that you can only rate a Mii as 'fantastic' after you've previously seen it at least once - the first meeting doesn't allow a rating to be given.
If the 3DSes are passing through the same place repeatedly (as mine does since I take it on the train to work) then you're perhaps more likely to meet the same Miis multiple times and therefore rate them.
Answer:
You are able to rate a person the second time you meet a person's Mii.
  If you rate them "Fantastic!", then they should receive that rating on
  the third time you meet them.
If their Mii changes their appearance (e.g. wear a new hat), then it
  allows you to rate them again. However their Mii can only receive 1
  "Fantastic!" rating from you.
Now I have heard that if they change their StreetPass Mii for a new
  one (created in Mii Maker), then you can rate that new Mii on the
  second encounter and they will receive it on the third encounter (i.e.
  getting a second "Fantastic!" rating from you). Note: Having not seen
  that myself, I don't know whether changing your own Mii would also let
  you give a second rating to someone's Mii. I'm guessing it might work
  though.

Credit from Gamefaqs: silktail

When do I get to rate a Mii fantastic?


WPF host Win32 window frozen because of multiple WM_NCHITTEST when moving mouse over the bottom right corner

Question: I have a WPF window that hosts Win32 window, I have class inherited from HwndHost.
Everything seems to work fine except when I move the mouse over the bottom right corner of the WPF window, the window freezes.
I used Spy++ to see what is going on. It turns out that the WPF Window receives few WM_WINDOWPOSCHANGING messages every 2-3 seconds and the Win32 Window keeps receiving a lot of  WM_NCHITTEST all the time.
How can I resolve this problem? Thank you.
Answer: I found the solution by setting the size of Win32 window to be 1 pixel (both width and height) smaller than the WPF Host Window, the issue is gone.
I think it's because both Win32 and WPF windows were sharing the same non-client area and the messages got looping.


Why are there 11 channels in WiFi communication instead of 3?

Question: I'm a little confused about subdividing the WiFi radio band into 11 channels in the USA, 14 in Japan, and 13 in Europe, and to then use just 3 of them because of the overlapping problem. Why didn't they subdivide the band into 3 channels?
Answer: IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi) uses the 2.4 GHz ISM band that existed decades before IEEE 802.11 was defined, and the band was divided into 5 MHz channels.
Wi-Fi uses 22 MHZ bandwidth, more bandwidth than a single 5 MHz channel in the ISM band provided. The required Wi-Fi bandwidth does not map directly to a single channel and overlaps multiple channels, but Wi-Fi devices can pick any of the ISM channels as the center of the bandwidth it uses, overlapping on channels either side of the center channel chosen. It boils down to three center channels that do not overlap for Wi-Fi.
Comment: @user1937198 in theory, yes. In practice, all your neighbors who use the standard 1, 6, 11 channels will interfere with you and you with them. Had this happen at my last home and office.
Comment: Additionally there may be non-wifi users of the band with different bandwith requirements meaning that the classic 1, 6, 11 scheme is no longer optimal. For example if you have a 5MHz bandiwidth user on channel 4, then it makes sense for wifi to use 1, 8 and 13. More channels gives this flexibility.
Comment: @paulgavrikov That depends on your setup though. A decent multi-AP setup with wired backhauls will functionally eliminate any issues with neighbors interfering, but won't solve  local interference from Bluetooth, IEEE 802.15.4, and a vast majority of wireless computer peripherals and AV hardware.
Comment: Also worth noting that due to government restrictions, not all channels are usable in all locations.
Answer: The other answer is correct. However, just to add on regarding the difference in availability of channels 12, 13 and 14 in the US, Japan and Europe/rest-of-the-world, it is because of differences in the regulatory situation (spectral occupancy is different in each country, and regulators want to avoid interference or excessive interference between bands).

channel 14 is forbidden (by the FCC) for use in the US, whereas channel 12 and 13 are not forbidden but need to be used with lower power; hence generally, only 1 to 11 are used in the US, and within this bandwidth, 3 non-interfering channels can be selected
channel 12 and 13 are used in most countries (including those in Europe) and Japan
channel 14 is valid in Japan only, and only for DSSS and CCK modes of 802.11b


In survival, how many blocks away from a mob spawner do i have to be for it to work?

Question: In survival, I am having issues with my XP grinder. They are a block away from each other and the killing floor is not in the same block as either of them. I do not know how far away I possibly can be for mobs to spawn into the system. I know there is no rep on this question, but I'm kinda raw because I spent the last 6 hours setting this up.
Answer: The number of chunks doen't neccessarity have anything to do with
whether or not a spawner will be activated. But, rather, how far
away a player is from a spawner. By default, a world-generated
spawner will activate when a player is within a 16-block radius.
Also, spawners can be next to each other and still work, there is no
limit on that.
So, in your case, you will have to visit each site in
order for the spawners to activate. If you wanted to recreate this
in creative mode, you could set a custom spawner with a large
"nearby player radius" using commands, but that requires cheats to
be enabled in the world.
Comment: https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Spawn#Despawning


20 month old won't eat, won't drink anything that's not in a bottle

Question: I have a 20 month old daughter who refuses every kind of food. I've tried every method to try and get her interested in it but it doesn't work. She will feed me no problem, but never brings food to her mouth and often throws it on the floor. If she sees I'm trying to feed her with my hand or a spoon she will slap me away very agressively because she is always on the defense. She likes to touch everything so it's not a sensory problem but she will only drink milk from a bottle or whatever I put in the bottle. She chews on blankets, stuffies, whatever toys she has no problem. Please help me, I have an Occupational Therapist who specializes in food who comes to the house and she is stumped as well.
Comment: @PaulJohnson I read that as "feeding bits of solid food to mum or dad, so she clearly understood how it's supposed to work".
Comment: This question was asked 20 months ago. I wonder if, now the child is almost 4 years old, the situation resolved itself and your daughter is now fit an healthy? What was it you did to resolve this issue, other than just giving her time to grow out of the behaviour?
Comment: "She will feed me no problem,*" Sorry, can't see what that means. Can you edit your question to clarify that bit?
Comment: If your main concern is to get a wider variety of foods into her, I wonder if you can experiment with mixing various pureed foods into the bottle?  For example I've occasionally seen people giving a bottle of formula plus porridge.  I think they used a nipple with a wider opening. / The most important thing I guess would be to check with the doctor to see if there's any nutritional concern with consuming formula (or breast milk) only at this age.
Comment: What did the occupational therapist recommend?  How did those suggestions work?
Comment: Has your daughter ever used a pacifier?
Answer: When my oldest was a baby, I had to put yogurt and baby foods in a bottle in order for her to have more than milk because she refused anything but a bottle as well, and one day out of nowhere she started eating food.  The squeeze pouches are a good trial also, at least a start, considering they suck on them just like the bottle, my youngest loves them!!
Answer: Do this with the help of the doctor.

Go to the ped and make sure nothing is wrong.
Place in front of her soft foods she can't choke on, be prepared for the first few times of her not eating and just throwing it. Make sure it's something that will go on her hands like carrots (mashed of course)
Don't feed her otherwise, or cut back drastically on bottle feedings.
She will eventually stick one of those sticky paws in her mouth and discover that food is good.
Lots of praise and good things.

Now, I'm am not saying starve your child. I am saying let her get hungry. I want to be clear on that. Your child may not be eating because they simply like the milk better. That's ok, but you do need her to eat more solid foods.
The idea here is that baring anything else, she should discover food is yummy and then try to eat it, but that can't happen if she is full-on milk. So, again with the help of a doctor, reduce feedings and let her "discover" foods.
Comment: Downvoting because of "cut back drastically on bottle feedings.."
Comment: **Do not starve your child, not even partially**. This is irresponsible advice. Better advice would be to first offer solid food (the other tips are okay to try), and fall back on a bottle when it has failed (or to complete the meal if they didn't eat a lot of food).
Comment: I do feel I that I was clear "Do this with the help of the doctor." being the first line, and "Now, I'm am not saying starve your child. I am saying let her get hungry." being in there too. Surely you can understand the difference between hungry and starving.

20 month old won’t eat, won’t drink anything that’s not in a bottle


Can I replace my 1/4" wheel bearings with slightly smaller ones?

Question: On my back wheel on one side balls won't fit! I am 100% certain they are the same balls I took out easily with the magnet on my screwdriver several weeks ago to mail my bike home.  They are 1/4" balls.  I'm afraid if I get new balls, they wouldn't fit either since they are not worn any smaller.  I even tried freezing the balls to shrink them and get them in, but that didn't work.  Can I use 15/64" balls?  They don't seem to fit the curve of the cone snugly anyway, but they do seem to fit the cup.  I don't really want to take a ball out since it leaves such a large gap.
Comment: You can, but should you .... NO!!!
Answer: Are you sure you're putting in the right number of balls?  Generally, when a bearing is new there is about a half-ball space left when you have a full complement of balls.  As the bearing wears this gets to be closer to a full ball's space.  It's easy to see the space and think you should put in another ball, but you don't need one.
(To hold the balls in place, of course, dab some grease into the race.  Place the balls in the grease, and install the greased cone.  This makes it fairly easy to reassemble a hub.)
Comment: +1: Don't do it. I bought a bike that turned out to have the wrong size balls. I assumed the balls were the right size and it was something bent or broken. It was not till many hours later and I discussed the problem with my LBS...  "That bike should have x size, not y sized bearings - try these ones". Its a good example of how a chimpanzee with a spanner can call himself a bike mechanic.
Answer: It is extremely difficult to put even slightly worn ball bearing back into a hub. Over time they start to wear slightly unevenly, sometimes too slightly to be seen by the naked eye but slightly enough to make it difficult to line up again. You might need to take your wheel to an expert this time.
Comment: I don't understand why you say that assembling a worn hub is more difficult.  There's nothing that you have to "line up" other than getting the balls bedded in grease in the race, a task that would only get more difficult if the balls wore down too small to see.
Comment: Well, it's probably more noticeable in bottom brackets than wheel hubs, now that you mention it, but the same laws of physics still apply to those bearings. I've had hubs in the past with bearings that didn't want to play nice together once I'd removed them, due to the bearings wearing unevenly.


Where was Dalmasz, Russia?

Question: I am trying to find information about my great grandfather.  We have a Declaration of Intention for the United States of America, division of naturalization, which he signed.  On the form it shows that his foreign residence was Dalmasz, Russia.  I cannot find any information about Dalmasz.  Does anyone know of it or have an idea of another way it should be spelled?
Comment: Please, also describe how your great-grandfather's birthplace was listed in other records - was he always born in "Russia," or of Russian ethnicity, or did some records say something else? Changing borders can add confusion but can also help pin-point a location.
Comment: Dalmasz sounds like Polish, "sz" is a typical Polish sound with pronunciation close to "sh" in English. It's typical in Hungarian language as well (as "s"), but is less likely considering that most of Poland was under Russian rule in XIX - beginning of XX centuries and Hungary was not.
Comment: The naturalization papers should give information about his immigration into the US (likely on a ship), including the date and the ship name and the port of entry. Can you go look up the original immigration record based on that information, and see if it lists the "last residence", or "nearest relative back in former residence"? Perhaps the spelling of the town name is different there than what is given on the naturalization form years later.
Comment: Welcome to G&FH SE!  Is there any chance that you can include a picture of the writing that says "Dalmasz"?  Knowing the year of that Declaration of Intention signature would undoubtedly be useful too.  There is an edit button beneath your question that you can use for adding extra details like these.
Comment: Google Translate says Dalmász is Hungarian.  Without the accent (Dalmasz) it identifies it as Azerbaijani.
Comment: @Jan Murphy, Google Translate is guessing a word belongs to a particular language; not usually relevant for placenames, especially small places and phonetic or archaic spellings.
Comment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sz_%28digraph%29
Comment: @bgwiehle I agree Google Translate is only good for guessing.  Placenames are also very conservative (note the abundance of placenames in the USA which belong to Native American languages).  However, sometimes if you know what language a particular spelling comes from, that can be an aid to figuring out what the spelling might be in other languages which exist nearby. I.e. if -sz is not a Russian word termination then it is very likely the name will have a different form when written by a Russian. It's also interesting that Google seems to be turning up Dalmass / Dalmasz as a surname.
Answer: My assumption is that immigration agent may have completed the paperwork for him and had him sign it if he was not fluent in English. The agents "assumption" that he was Russian if he spoke a Slavic sounding language at the time and if he just answered where he was from he may have said Dalmasz and that was the agents spelling of it.
I personally have encountered this in my own research as well for other spellings and how some last names got "Englishized" for example.
I believe it is The Dalmatia  (Region Along the eastern coast of Adriatic Sea) --
for a map, see http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Balkans925.png
To clarify, this region has not ever been part of Russia nor directly boarder the Russian Empire but in Russian "ц" is pronounced like "zz" or "sz" as in the English Pizza. So in the time I have looked is likely your "Dalmasz".
See Wikipedia: Dalmatia:

Bulgarian & Russian: Далмация
Hungarian: Dalmácia
Latin: Dalmatia
Croatian: Dalmacija, [dǎlmaːt͡sija]
Comment: I've changed the formatting and added the quote box for the names in different languages.  If I've changed your intent, feel free to fix it.
Comment: The question says naturalization papers are the source of the place name. These were filled out by or for the applicant, usually after several years residence in the U.S. Unfortunately, the original poster has not included any dates nor mentioned other records. While probable the placename is mis-spelled, the country or region named in the document should be valid for the individual - either ethnically or geographically.
Comment: @bgwiehle I agree that the context is important, especially for place names since the way places are referred to changes so much over time. Knowing the date for this petition would be a huge help here.
Answer: When trying to identify a placename given in a document, one should

look at the context - who wrote the entry and under what circumstances, especially the date and the languages used.
look for identifiers to help localize the place (region or country, ethnicity, neighbouring entries).
look carefully at the original entry: has it been mis-transcribed or could the writing (or even the typeface) be interpreted differently.
sound out the placename, and think about alternate spellings for the sounds (especially important for languages using other alphabets)
check gazetteers appropriate for the region and time-period. (Be aware of potential limitations due to spelling variations, population size, etc.)
look for corroborating evidence in other documents, not necessarily the place itself, but certainly regional information. Include FAN members (family, associates, neighbours).

Note: The following paragraph cannot be definitive because the original poster has not added any of the information requested in comments, and has not even returned to this site in months.
All we currently have to work with is "Dalmasz, Russia," which can't be found. An alternative interpretation could be "Talmaz", which generates 3 matches at JewishGen Gazetteer, 2 in Russia (north of Kazakhstan) and 1 in (today's) Moldova. (NB Moldova was part of Russia from 1812 to 1991).
There may be other variants, none of which can be evaluated properly without more information.

Where was Dalmasz, Russia?


How many Amperes to kill fruit flies and mosquitoes?

Question: As above. Making a homemade trap to kill them all.
Comment: I have this bug-zapper in the form of a tennisracket. It takes only two AA batteries of 1,5 Volt. It is succesfull in killing mosquitoes but often fails at big flies.
Comment: Current kills. Voltage is potential difference.
Comment: If you were to presume that the resistance of the arthropod is about 1000 ohms, then it'd require about 2 amperes.
Comment: It's not the Amps that matter, it's the voltage. humans are safe up to about 80V DC. 4V is like moving energy in a slow train, 1000v is like moving energy in a bullet. Therefore, 1000V also can arc more easily through the air. If you use 240V at 0.1 amps, that's 24W it's probably quite enough to kill a mosquito. A 200W source in 4V will not hurt a human, but in 3000V it will kill him easily. I can't confirm that 20W at 300V is not dangerous to a human. You will probably find yourself using an CC Constant Current supplying about 10W at a low voltage and upping the voltage a bit to zap the moz.
Answer: I am not an electrician and may not be the right person to answer this. But I recently read this paper (Keller et al., 2016) and maybe this helps ... Keller et al. (2016) have a look at laser induced mortality in mosquitoes. It might not be fully adaptable to your needs (there is not much context in your question, though; I have no idea what kind of trap you are trying to build ... if it's going to be a fancy laser trap, the cited paper will be your perfect guide through the building process - however, you have to figure out the automatic camera detection (they are planning that, too) for yourself as they have not published that, yet).
Now, giving a concrete answer: Keller et al., (2016) found that lasers with 0.5W to 4W are sufficient for efficient mosquito inactivation. If you are planning to use a plug bucket (230V) this would be (0.5W/230V=) 0.002A to (4W/230V=) 0.017A. You could also set this up with a 9V battery. With a 4W laser this would be (4W/9V=) 0.44A. Using a lithium-based battery this would last for about (1000mAh/(4W/9V=0.44A)=1Ah/0.44A=) 2.27h total laser time.
I do not know if this easily translates to electric current, though ...
Comment: Sorry, laser's not applicable. The trap's made up of loads of exposed wires alternating between live and ground over a food source, waiting for a fly/mosquito to close the circuit to (hopefully) fry them. Not going to plug it into the mains, though. Too dangerous. Thanks for the power details.
Comment: @user3635998: Ah, ok. Maybe you should have a look at how these  electric fly flaps work, I think they are powered with two AA batteries and get up to 1000V with a voltage converter.
Comment: What did Keller et. al. use as the ohms of the insects in their investigation?
Comment: They did not assume any. They tried this with a variety of powers and pulse lengths and then measured mortality rates.
Answer: there's an electronics topic for that, it states: Most flyswatters conform to electrical safety standards for humans: a limit on the charge stored in the capacitor. A discharge of less than 45 µC is considered safe, even in the unlikely scenario that the current from a flyswatter would be flowing from one arm to the other arm, partly through the heart.1 This means that the capacitor of a 1000 V flyswatter should be less than 45 nF. Due to this precaution for humans the initial shock is usually inadequate to kill flies. a limit on the current after the initial discharge. The maximal continuous current of most flyswatters is less than 5 mA. This current is safe, even when flowing from one arm to the other arm
here: https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/19367/can-i-test-bug-zappers-voltage-with-multimeter
there is a slow mo zapper here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUJLgKkmllA


What can this serial number say about my guitar?

Question: I've recently bought a vintage guitar "Hohner Professional L75". The serial in the back is c103731.
What information can this serial say about my guitar? Is it made in Korea or Japan? also which year was it made?
Comment: I'm voting to close this question because it's mainly a request for a resource to analyze serial numbers and not really about music practice or theory as outlined in the help center.
Comment: Whilst there doesn't seem to be a particular site-related reason, this question isn't a good fit here. Any answers will only benefit the owner of that guitar, and that's not what the site is for. I spent some time checking, and Hohner appears to have not been good at numbering and recording all their guitars. Suggest you contact Hohner direct.
Answer: The Hohner L 75 is a Les Paul copy, made between 1985 and 1993. From their historical models document at https://www.hohner.de/fileadmin/documents/service/guitars/Gitarren_Hohner-HistoricalModels.pdf;

The 'Philippines Mahogany' neck is not real Mahogany; it's most likely Meranti/Luan. I think there is a misprint on the price column, and the first price, 445DM (1990) should be 445DM (1985). At the relevant exchange rates, it was $145 (1985) - $293 (1990) new.
As previously mentioned, you'd need to talk to Hohner to get any more accurate dating.
Answer: According to the article "How to Date a Hohner Acoustic Guitar", their guitars cannot be dated or otherwise identified by their serial numbers, and one must contact the company directly. This is borne out by the company's website, which has a discussion page for this purpose. A quick perusal of the page suggests that they're pretty reliable about responding, but occasionally don't have the records to provide an answer.


Why HAIFA and sponge constructions are not prone to length extension attacks?

Question: I was writing in a document about the flaws of the MD construction which pushed cryptographers to create different and more robust constructions. However, I don't know why HAIFA and Sponge constructions don't suffer from this attack.
Answer: Sponge Construction
In sponge construction, the block size $b$ has two parts, $r$ is the rate and it is the written part and $c$ capacity is the untouched part by the input/output, $b= c+r$

The output is taken from $r$ in the squeezing stage. Therefore not all of the $b$ is the output. This prevents the length extension attack like in the truncations of SHA2, which are standardized after Keccak.
The idea is: when someone wants to extend a message $abc$ into $abcde$ they should be able to continue the hash output where it is left, the hash value. $h=H(IV,\text{"abc"})$ then using the $h$ as the IV for the $H' = H(h,\text{"df"})$ then the length extension is possible (here we did not consider the padding and not a big issue, either). Originally the length extension attack worked on MAC with $H(\text{secret}\mathbin\|\text{message})$ construction. Although the output will be different, the attacker can inject this with the new MAC tag, without the knowledge of the key, and the server will accept it. So. it works even the attacker cannot have the secret and the message. It doesn't work with HMAC, which is designed to be secure against this. On the other hand, KMAC based on SHA3 has much simpler design since SHA3's immunity.
The sponge constructions' two-stage design, that is absorbing and squeezing together with the $c$ prevents the length extension attack with a calculatable countermeasure.
Below is the capacity against the length extension attack of SHA-3.
\begin{array}{|c|c|c|c|c|}\hline
\operatorname{SHA3}\text{ variant}\  & \text{output size} & \text{internal block size} & \text{rate } r& \text{Capacity against LEA} \\ \hline
\operatorname{SHA3-224} & 224 & 1600 & 1152 & 448= 1600-1152\\ \hline
\operatorname{SHA3-256} & 256 & 1600 & 1088 & 512 = 1600-1088 \\ \hline
\operatorname{SHA3-384} & 384 & 1600 & 832 & 768 =1600-832\\ \hline
\operatorname{SHA3-512} & 512 & 1600 & 576 & 1024 = 1600-576\\ \hline
\end{array} LEA stands for Length Extension Attack.
HAIFA construction
The HAIFA construction is not mentioned about countermeasure about length extension, however, it can be designed/modified simply using a different salt in the last block as in BLAKE2 Is Blake2b vulnerable to length extension attacks?, like using $true$ for the last block and using $false$ for any other block. The HAIFA construction is simple as;
$$C:\{0,1\}^{m_c} \times \{0,1\}^n \times \{0,1\}^b \times \{0,1\}^s  \to \{0,1\}^{m_c}$$ or
$$h_i = C(h_{i-1}, M_i, \#bits, salt)$$ $\#bits$ is the number of bits hashed, $h_0 = IV$, and $salt$ is the usual salt value.
Comment: I'm sorry, but I want to ask a very basic question which is not worth posting it. I have read many articles in addition to your answer and many other forums. But I think I am experiencing a flatline with my learning curve or it is just one of those days.
Comment: Is the final hash value affected by the extension added by the attacker? I mean is it a completely different hash value or the same one, given the feature of the avalanche.
Comment: Yes, it is a new different value. If you want to have the same value, you need lots of work for this (depend on the used hash function ) and that is infeasible.
Comment: What do you mean by capacity against length extension attack? What do those numbers represent?
Comment: They represent the bits, so you need to consider the attack time of LEA over 2. If you look carefully, it is $b-r$.
Comment: It means that for a given capacity, $c$, I can perform an LEA in time $\mathcal{O}(2^{c/2})$?
Comment: Why did you take $c/2$? does something unclear in the answer?
Comment: @kelalaka, you're previous comment said "over 2". Maybe I misunderstood that.
Comment: It is just the number of bits that the attacker has to deal with a fixed number, not like freeness in the collision.
Comment: @NezarAboGhanem that is the place for our [side-channel chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/784/the-side-channel).


Do I have to pay estimated taxes if my income will be much lower this year?

Question: If I know my taxes will be much lower this year (retiring in April) compared to last year's, do I still have to pay the Estimated taxes?  Say I have to pay $3000/quarter on Estimated because of last year's earnings, but this year it's even possible that I will receive a refund, so can I safely not pay those $12k? or do I have to pay them and then receive them as extra refund over several years? (and what about State's Estimated Taxes, same thing?)
Comment: so why not to withhold more?
Comment: It would be best to mention the country you're asking about, and what is the source of your income. I'll take the liberty of marking it as "US" (since in my experience it is mostly Americans who'd think they're the only country in the world), and "self-employed", since in the US only self-employed are *required* to do estimates.
Comment: @littleadv rude, snarky comment.  This is a .com site, not a .co.uk or any other country-specific site.  Thus, it's perfectly reasonable for a US resident to not think about the US tag.
Comment: yes, US. No, not self-employed, but about half my income comes from stock gains (and without withholding, unlike my salary). I do my taxes with Turbo Tax and as I understood I had to pay the Estimated taxes, not optional (unless I missed something)
Answer: There are a number or 'safe harbor' rules that apply to this scenario, but if you won't have any tax due at all, or are getting a refund, no need to pay more via quarterly.
90% of the tax for the year, or 100% of what your total tax bill was last year is the safe harbor.
Run the numbers you forecast for 2014, and see what TT tells you.
Comment: Well, I will probably have a tax due. What'll happen is that my income for the year will be about 50% lower than last year's.


Minecraft offline

Question: I host a weekly Minecraft night.  All LAN server.  Tonight, the Minecraft authentication server was down for nearly an hour.  Blew game night out of the water.  There used to be a "play offline" ability, but now, when I start the launcher, it immediately goes to username and password, and even left blank, I can't get past that screen.  Any way to play LAN multiplayer games offline?
Comment: I think Mojang keeps getting DDOS'd for some reason. Their servers have been down a lot lately.
Answer: I would disconnect your lan from the internet, thereby allowing you to play offline, then open your game to lan as normal.
Comment: dose ninja questions tho
Answer: An easy option is to edit you hosts file (Windows and Ubuntu at least) and add:
authenticate.mojang.com   127.0.0.1 #or anything else

So every attempt to login the Minecraft will receive a null response then enable the Play offline option.
Answer: Your computer is trying to connect to mojang servers, but is failing, and is stuck in a retry loop. You should disconnect from the internet, start minecraft in offline mode, and then reconnect to the internet.
There are other to accomplish this, but they're all more complicated than you need. You could blacklist the mojang servers in your lan router, or your HOSTS file, like Aragón's suggested, but that only makes sense if you absolutely have to use other internet programs while minecraft is still online. (or planning on not having a valid connection to the mojang authentication servers, which there is no legitimate reason to do, but....)

Minecraft offline


Time Machine Backups

Question: I am doing a clean install of Mojave on my MacBook - it has simply not been possible to upgrade from High Sierra to Mojave automatically.
I understand that it will overwrite all of the HDD contents
I know I can simply copy document files etc and then copy them back into the new system
But, will a Time Machine backup from the original High Sierra be able to reinstall all of my programs?
Comment: Why can't you upgrade automatically. This problem might affect the answers.
Comment: I have tried to upgrade three times; got a different error message each time and went into a restart/upgrade failed/restart loop which I had to resolve with recovery from my Time Machine backup. The three errors were error 7E7AEE96CE
com.apple.diskmanagement error -69854
com.apple.DiskManagement error -69874
Comment: A MacBook (not a MacBook Pro) that fits a hdd might not be able to run Mojave, are you sure your system is supported?
Comment: It's a 2015 MacBook Air - and besides that, if Microsoft updates can say 'this nupdate is not suitable for this machine, then surely Apple updates with their locked down architecture can too
Answer: Thanks for the help. The problem turned out to be both more complicated and simpler than I originally thought.
I had installed a Tar Disk in 2015 and more research showed that quite a few users were having the same problems and error messages as I was.
I followed the instructions here - https://www.tardisk.com/pages/uninstall-sierra - to uninstall the Tar Disk - NOT removing it because I was coming from High Sierra, as the instructions said. It DID NOT solve the problem.
I then went through the whole rigamarole again; shut down my MacBook and physically removed the Tar Disk. I then reopened the Disk Utility and reformatted the internal Mac SSD - installed Mojave from a USB and it seems to have worked.
To answer my PRECISE question - now that Mojave is installed - Time Machine has been able to recover/reinstall all of my files and programs
Thanks again to those of you who responded
Answer: Though your proposed solution may not actually get to the root of this issue, assuming you can successfully install a fresh Mojave OS onto your machine...
Yes, a Time Machine backup can be used to Migrate to a newer macOS. The only difficulty would be if you try to Migrate to an older one.
Perform the Migration immediately at first signup/login to the new OS. If you do it later, you will end up with two accounts rather than one simple migration.
Theoretically, you should end up with essentially the same as if you had just done the update the regular way, all apps, prefs, docs exactly as you had them.
Answer: If your nervous about depending on Time Machine backups you should consider that Carbon Copy Cloner might be your best simple solution.
It will let you go into the weeds and grab the files that are relevant when transitioning OS versions and disk formats (HFS+ vs APFS).
Time Machine is great for those weekly backups in case your disk suddenly dies, but CCC is the advanced route that gives you the flexibility and options you might need (I just did a Mojave back to High Sierra restore combined with APFS back to HFS+ with CCC).
Resources:

https://bombich.com/kb/ccc5/everything-you-need-know-about-carbon-copy-cloner-and-apfs
https://thesweetsetup.com/apps/best-app-for-bootable-backups/
https://www.maketecheasier.com/create-bootable-clone-of-mac/
Just make sure that your not running into any problems because of going between a case-sensitive & case-insensitive disk format.. but https://github.com/cr/MacCaseSensitiveConversion will help with that :)
Comment: Thanks .... I haven't been able yet to clean install Mojave, so that's my first thing to eal with, but you have answerer my question

Time Machine Backups


Is the Milky Way seen as how it looked millions of years ago?

Question: The distant an interstellar object is, the more time is required for light to travel, which is known, measured as light years. So are the farthest stars and gas clusters in the Milky Way seen as how they looked millions of years ago & not how as they look today?
Answer: Most of the matter in the Milky Way is contained within a radius of 100,000 light-years from the galactic center. This encompasses the disk and most of the halo, including halo stars and globular clusters. It also includes quite a few (though not all) of the Milky Way's satellite galaxies. This is rather large - the Sun is only about 25,000 light-years from the galactic center - but not truly inter-galactic scales. Andromeda, the nearest large spiral galaxy, is 2.5 million light-years away, and so we see it as it was 2.5 million years ago. However, we see most of the objects in the Milky Way as they were no more than 100-200,000 years ago, usually much closer to the present day.
It's true that some galaxies are a couple million light-years across, but they are quite rare. In fact, the largest known spiral galaxy, Malin 1, is a mere 650,000 light-years in diameter. I should make it clear, though, that most of these galaxies are large because they have extremely large halos, consisting of gas, pockets of stars, and dark matter. Most matter is not contained in the halo. Additionally, it is not always clear where a galaxy ends and where the intergalactic medium begins.
Comment: OMG, I didb;t consider fact that sunlight was a 'light' it's amazing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIDWXNlVUaA
Comment: Is it really 25,000 LY from center now? They used to teach us 30,000. Methods improve, but I missed this one.
Answer: We can't see the stars on the other side of the Milky way, but (taking some numbers from HDE's answer), If we're 25,000 light years from the center and we're looking at the far side of the milky-way, to stars at the edge of the disk, about 75,000 light years from us, we see those star systems as they were 75,000 years ago.
75,000 years is very little time compared to the 230 million years that it takes our sun to orbit the milky way, and if the outer stars orbit slightly faster (lets say 225 million years), that's just 1/3000th of an orbit, so the stars wouldn't have moved much.
What would change, if we could see it, is that stars close to each other would dance around.   75,000 years is enough time for stars to move relative to their closes neighbors.   More info here and chart below.

We don't have telescopes good enough to make out details like that on the other side of the galaxy, but that's an example of something we see that would have changed in 75,000 years.
As a somewhat related sidebar,  Ole Rømer used this understanding to calculate the speed of light by watching Jupiter and measuring when it's moon Io passed behind it viewed from Earth.  That only works for repeating orbits though.
Comment: @user165850 fixed is a matter of perspective.   Nothing is really fixed and un-moving unless we set it as a reference point.   The Sun and rest of the solar-system along with it orbits within the Milky way, completing 360 degrees in roughly 230 million years.
Comment: Hmm, but isn't Sun fixed star?  does Sun orbit Milky Way aong With entire solar system?
Comment: Would any Stars that died & currently do not exist, appear from earth as if it was when it was alive due to speed of light travelling, reaching slowly?
Comment: @user165850  Sure, though I wouldn't say they no longer exist, just that they enter a different stage.  Most (but not all) stars leave a remnant.  You don't even have to go across the galaxy for that.    Betelgeuse may have already gone supernova.  We won't know until the light reaches us (430 years after it happens over there).  http://earthsky.org/brightest-stars/betelgeuse-will-explode-someday
Answer: Yes, every object we see is how it was when the light reflected off it's surface or left it's surface(in case of self-luminous objects).
Even the sun we see is 8 light minutes old. Proxima Centauri the nearest star to our Solar System appears as it was 4 years prior, as it is 4 light years away.
Andromeda Galaxy appears to us as it was 2.5 million years ago.
If someone is present in the Andromeda and looking at Earth, then they would see how Earth was 2.5 million years ago. Theoretically they could see ancient humans roam the Earth.


Is there any way to only do research after getting a Ph.D.?

Question: I'm currently a Master's student in my final year and I want to start a Ph.D. next year. I really like doing research (one of my papers got published in a fairly reputable journal), but I more or less dislike the teaching aspect that comes with the Ph.D. title. Is there any alternative way to do research, outside of industry, and not be obligated to teach?
Comment: Note that many "only research" positions involve work other than just research, such as proposal-writing, administration, accounting, personnel management, etc.
Comment: Yes, sure. All over the world there are research institutes whose main focus is research and where no teaching takes place. You don't specify your field of research nor your country but just to give you an example, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is a fairly large research institute in the US which collects researchers from different fields, e.g. physics, engineering, computer science, mathematics etc.
Comment: When I saw only the subject, I was going to recommend going into industry. In my experience, industry is far better than academia at recognizing that different people have different strengths, likes, and dislikes, and offering career paths to suit.
Comment: If you are exceptionally good, you could find a position in an industrial research lab or national research institute, if such things exist in your field.
Comment: Sure.  Just find a job that leaves you enough time to do research.  Now if you want to get _paid_ to do research, that's a bit harder.
Comment: If you're talking about research for your PhD, many (but far from all) major European universities will have no teaching expectations of postgraduate students.
Comment: A Massimo said,"field of research" is what matters.  Get a Ph.D. in medieval literature ... then it is probably unlikely that any (non-teaching) research institute will hire you.
Comment: @GEdgar My research is in mathematical physics.
Answer: Yes. There are national laboratories like the US DOE labs (Sandia, Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, etc), non-profit independent labs, industrial labs, and even university labs like the one I work at. You will find that many of these kinds of labs have some sort of service mission instead of teaching, but others are purely research focused. For example, researchers in my group also support users of our supercomputers when they run into problems. There are lots of these non-academic research opportunities out there in the STEM fields. I think there are probably many less in non-technical areas.
Answer: It depends a lot on the type of research you'd like to do.  For example, suppose you're in mathematics:

There are many jobs that use applied mathematics in highly directed R&D activities, where you are working in a team on some bigger project, which is not under your control unless you really rise in the ranks.  Academic publications will not be a primary outcome, but applied research could be a substantial part of the job.
There are a moderate number of more academic-style applied mathematics positions, for example in national labs, where you are in charge of your own activities (subject to securing funding) and write many research papers.
There are only a tiny number of secure, long-term jobs where you can do whatever mathematics you would like, including pure mathematics, with no teaching responsibilities (and where doing mathematics is your primary job).

So the availability of research-focused jobs really depends on how flexible your interests are and how well they fit with other people's goals.  If your work is obviously and immediately applicable to industry or government, then there's a good chance you'll be able to convince someone to pay you to do it full time.  If you are doing applied work that is less immediately applicable, then it depends on the availability of funding.  If you are doing highly theoretical work, then you'll have to be extraordinarily skilled or lucky.
Comment: I don't think most math jobs at NSA cover "whatever mathematics you would like, including pure mathematics".  I'm thinking of IAS, a tiny number of fancy chairs in universities, a handful of jobs in large industrial or government labs, etc. I haven't worked at NSA, so maybe I'm off base, but I imagine it's typically more in category 2: an ideal fit if you want to do cryptology, but not if you are trying to prove the twin prime conjecture. (Of course if "whatever mathematics you would like" happens to coincide with what someone else wants to fund, you are in luck and don't need a special job.)
Comment: Thanks! Can you give me examples of the 3rd point?
Comment: @user119264, NSA, CIA, etc.
Comment: I would imagine the NSA would have a very deep interest in prime number research. :-)
Comment: There are the rare few jobs that are permanent research positions in mathematics, such as the theory group at Microsoft Research. However, most of these eventually vanish, so there is some lack of job security relative to a tenured position.
Answer: There are many institutes called "Academy of Sciences" all around the world. In general, being member of these, you're not obliged to teach nor to supervise students. You can still be assigned some other responsibility than teaching, but it should not be really limiting you.
As an example, this exists in France as CNRS (Le Centre national de la recherche scientifique) and in Czechia as CAS/ASCR/AVČR (The Czech Academy of Sciences).
As for France, note that getting a CNRS position is very difficult, the positions are literally couple in each branch each year. Most people in CNRS laboratories (institutes) have teaching positions at the associated universities.
Comment: @dmckee No. Neither CR1 nor DR1 have teaching duty, but they can opt in. I know many people on these positions who do not teach at all.
Comment: Those CNRS professors that I interacted with on a project from my postdoc years actually had teaching responsibilities, thought they were very light. Of course those people were titled professor and supervised grad students; perhaps they have pure researchers that I didn't bump into.
Comment: Interesting. All three of the folks I knew were doing some teaching. May be connected with particle physics manpower needs.
Comment: @dmckee: beware that many people working in CNRS units (or most commonly, mixed CNRS/university units) are in fact professors who really are employed by universities, and thus have teaching duties. But CR ("chargés de recherche") and DR ("directeurs de recherche") have no teaching obligation (be they CR/DR 1 or 2). Typically, CNRS has between 2-3 and a dozen open positions every year in a given discipline (e.g. maths, physics, biology, history, social sciences...) These position are also typically more difficult to get than assistant professorships in the same field.
Comment: @BenoîtKloeckner I'm well aware of this fact. I don't mention University positions at all, do I? :) I should probably make this clear though.
Answer: I've heard that the Center for Communications Research is like this, if your Ph.D. is in math. I know people who work there and quite like it. (US Government; a security clearance is required.)
Answer: In the UK, places like the JIC,TGAC, Sainsbury Lab and IFR on the Norwich Research Park are affiliated with the University of East Anglia but are a significant distance from and have no real connection to the undergraduates therefore no teaching is expected. There are quite a lot of places like this in the UK, like CRUK and MRC as well where you are not expected to teach.
NB: You should look out for institutes funded privately or through charities as these are the ones that are more independent and less likely to have teaching commitments, if at all.


Trading with rsi index

Question: Is the rsi index used for only day trading or it can be used for long term of few months/days/week?
How reliable is it in your experience?
Answer: Not reliable at all because indicators are price derivatives, you should never make a trading decision based on an indicator (RSI, stochastic, etc.).
Learn to read naked price charts, maybe combined with a couple of moving averages.
Answer: Because the RSI calculation involves a ratio, it eliminates the problem of needing large amounts of historical data. But because a ratio is used in its calculation, it is more volatile and erratic. Shorter RSI periods result in more timely signals along with a larger number of whipsaws. Longer RSI periods result in fewer signals which are less timely and less profitable because of delayed entry and exit.
Here's the catch with technical indicators like RSI. They can provide information like support and resistance, trend, and current momentum but they are just reflection of past price and they predict absolutely nothing going forward. It's like looking in the rear view mirror to see where you have been. Any trade taken based on them is based on the hope that the trend continues.

Trading with rsi index


Is there an idiom that means "it was something inevitable"?

Question: Is there an idiom that means "it was something inevitable"? I am not sure if it's the case, but there's this idiom, it was something like "this was ought to happen", but it was an actual idiom instead of just a phrase and I don't remember what it was exactly, I had it on the tip of the tongue, but I have it no more.
Comment: "No one else had expected the factory to close, but **we saw it coming**."
Comment: Does it have something with destiny or fate or is it threatening (impending)? In what context you imagine to use the word?
Answer: Imminent means likely to occur at any moment; impending (Dictionary.com).

The birth of her child was imminent.

On the verge If you are on the verge of something or come to the verge of something, you are very close to experiencing it (Cambridge Dictionary).

on the verge of success
Answer: The die is cast.
The action was set in motion.
Comment: On this site you need to provide links and explanations for your answer.
Answer:
Like night follows day.
Like the sun rising in the East.
Like death and taxes.
Answer: "[The event] was bound to happen."
Comment: While this may be correct, we like our answers to be backed up by references. You can [edit] your answer to include one (e.g. an online dictionary). See the Help Center article [answer].


Bringing in Multiple Animations of a Single Armature to Be Used For One Animation

Question: I have created 3 animations using one rig in separate .blend files, a walk in place, run in place, and a simple front flip. If I were to create a new file with this rig in it, how would I go about importing the keyframes of each action into one file so I can chain them together? In the future, is it a big mistake to do the animating in separate files?
Comment: I hope this video can help you. Multiple Mixamo animations into a single blend project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGj19kCX9Js
Answer: Assuming you're in the file you'd like to combine the actions in:

Goto File >> Append
In the file manager, navigate to the file with the walk/run/front flip.
Click on the actual .blend, you'll see a bunch of datablock categories (Action, Mesh, etc).
Click on Action.
Select on the action you want to import, and click Append.
You should be able to load this action in the Dopesheet/NLA now.  Note that this action won't update from the original file.  If you wanted that, do the above, except clicking Append on the menu, click Link.
Answer: Using File -> Append and appending the desired actions to the current file should work. In refrerence to your question of whether or not it is best practice, there are multiple things to consider: does it make more sense for your project to have actions split amongst a set of files, or are you just making a short animation, and can therefore afford to keep all of your assets in a common file? That is a project decision which can sometimes be motivated by file size, project complexity and how fragmented and compartmentalized you want your project.


Adobe Photoshop — How do I set the arrow keys to always move objects by 1px, regardless of zoom?

Question: I want to be able to reliably move objects in Photoshop with the arrow keys by 1px, regardless of zoom. When the document is not at scale, the arrow keys randomly move objects by either 2px or 3px (alternating between them whilst zoom remains the same). Can someone help me with this? Thanks.
Comment: Hi, GreenPotato, Welcome to GDSE. We hope you enjoy your time here sharing knowledge and experience.
Answer: To my knowledge you can't change the default nudging behavior.
What you can do is record 4 actions: for moving a layer in 4 directions and assign them to hotkeys.
However another problem is that it's impossible to reassign some hotkeys in Photoshop, including the arrow keys, so you won't be able to assign the actions to arrow keys. A solution to this would be using a 3rd party remapping tool (like AHK on Windows or Keyboard Maestro on Mac) to remap keys, for example remapping Win+Arrows to whatever F-keys that are used for move actions.


External hard drive does not eject

Question: Since I encrypted my external hard drive it does not stop running after I press eject. It disappears from the sidebar in Finder but it does not stop running. I have removed it and connected it again several times and the same thing happens every time. Can this be harmful for the drive or is it ok to remove it even though it is still running? Is there anyway to fix this so that it stops running when ejected? Or is there another safe way to remove it if eject does not work? I have a MacBook Pro with OS X 10.9.5.
Answer: As long as your volume is unmounted, whether or your drive is spinning doesn't matter.  The drive will usually spin down on its own depending on when it's set to "go to sleep."
When you eject, you have successfully unmounted the drive.
If you wish to confirm, in terminal, just issue the command mount.  If you don't see the volume name of the drive you had mounted previously, you can consider it unmounted.
Comment: Thank you! I issued the command "mount" in terminal and I could not find the hard drive there after ejecting it so I guess that it works. Do you have any idea why it's functioning seems to have changed in this way after I encrypted it? Earlier it always stopped spinning more or less immediately after I ejected it but now it does not stop spinning at all, or at least not in a few minutes after ejecting it.

External hard drive does not eject


How should I reward an answerer?

Question: I'm ashamed to say I asked a question yesterday, and got an answer the same day. If this were a MS question, I would have been waiting until H--- froze over before anyone answered. Anyway, I got an answer from Christopher Kyle Horton. I tried his advice, and it worked perfectly. My new question is: How do I thank the group for help? Also, can I ask multiple questions? I am such a Ubuntu novice, I have quite a few questions. Is there an "Ask Ubuntu" etiquette I should be following?
Comment: The person who answered was actually cometix. Christopher just edited the answer. But accepting the answer (and voting for it when you can) is considered thanks enough.
Comment: Just so you know, this is the [meta] site. This is the place where we ask questions about the main site - like this. Your reputation is the same here as the main site; you don't get any for asking here. Welcome by the way!
Comment: Once you have some extra reputation, you are also able and award bounties which allows you to further reward answers if you feel they really deserve something extra.  (The primary purpose of bounties is to attract attention when you haven't gotten an answer.)
Comment: send pizza as thanks
Answer: As Oli says, accepting the answer is thanks enough (and an upvote if you can). You can thank the community by continuing to participate here: asking, answering, editing — all welcome.
You can ask as many questions as you want, as long as each post is limited to a single question, or a set of tightly-coupled questions - when in doubt, make separate posts.
As for etiquette:

A bit of diligence in searching will always be welcome. The site's own search functionality is OK-ish, so you could search using Google as well, by specifying site:askubuntu.com along with other terms.
Be clear and specific in your question. Phrases like "did not help", "did not work", "tried everything" are meaningless. Post what you did, and what happened, exactly.
Prefer text to screenshots when reporting errors from the command line.
Read How do I ask a good question?
Comment: and reviewing :)
Answer: I would suggest you to just take the 2-minutes-tour on Ask Ubuntu. It describes the most important things on how the site works supported with some nice images and provides you all useful links you might want to visit for a better understanding of the site.
To briefly answer your personal questions:

You thank the person that answered your question best by accepting his/her answer (click on the gray tick next to the answer so that it becomes green). Beware that you can only accept one answer per question and only accept answers to your own questions. This will earn the poster +15 reputation and give you yourself +2 reputation points.
You can also upvote his answer by clicking on the gray arrow upwards next to the question. This gives +10 points to the poster, but requires you to have at least 15 reputation points. Though, you can vote on questions AND answers of everybody and everywhere. The only restriction is that only one vote per post is allowed, but e.g. you can vote on two answers to one question.
The people in here who try to solve others' problems are also just humans, so except from collecting reputation points, you also can make them happy by leaving a short friendly comment on their posts. Note that below 50 points of reputation, you only may write comments to your own posts and on answers belonging to your questions.
Of course you can post as many questions, answers and comments as you want and we are happy about everybody who participates actively on Ask Ubuntu! Only make sure that you avoid duplicates whenever it is possible. So: Use the search function to look for Q&As that already might solve your problem before writing a new question and read other people's answers and comments before you write one yourself.

I hope this answers your information request on AU. Feel free to try the thanking options at this answer (although no reputation will be awarded on a Meta question). If something is still unclear, you can try out the comment function and leave me one here :-D
Greetings and enjoy AU!

How should I reward an answerer?


When do you use the exclamation mark?

Question: I get confused on when to use the exclamation mark "!". Are there concise rules on when to use the exclamation mark "!"?
Comment: Awaiting a real answer but: the only answer I've gotten to this from native English speakers so far is: don't!

And as you can see, I follow that advice religiously. ;)
Comment: English does NOT have the rule of some other languages, that a sentence in the imperative must be enclosed in ¡! marks.
Comment: At my church, I proofread the bulletin that is printed every week, announcing events at the church.  The people writing the bulletin often use lots of exclamation points in their advertisements to try to convey a sense of excitement about their event.  I limit them to at most one exclamation point per event.
Answer: An exclamation mark indicates that something was exclaimed.
It should generally only be used in spoken dialog, when someone is angry, excited, or frustrated. It should almost never be used in technical writing, or in narrative text.  For example,

Larry walked to the store! He was very excited! He shouted, "Hello."

is an inappropriate use of exclamation marks. However,

Larry walked to the store. He was very excited. He shouted, "Hello!"

would be more appropriate.
Comment: "Exclamation points are the most irritating of all. **Look!** they say, look at what I just said! How amazing is my thought! It is like being forced to watch someone else's small child jumping up and down crazily in the center of the living room shouting to attract attention. If a sentence really has something of importance to say, something quite remarkable, it doesn't need a mark to point it out. And if it is really, after all, a banal sentence needing more zing, the exclamation point simply emphasizes its banality!"
Comment: Amusing! (That was my response to Lewis Thomas's essay.) The exclamation point is intended because my thought was accompanied with an audible laugh and not merely a half-smile or slightly puckered expression.
Comment: Lewis Thomas's little [essay on punctuation](http://www.umich.edu/~jlawler/punctuation.html) makes the best point about exclamation points:
Comment: 'If a sentence really has something of importance to say, something quite remarkable, it doesn't need a mark to point it out.' The reader might.
Comment: I'd feel free to use them (sparingly) in narrative text as well as spoken / quoted dialogue. And even on road signs! Used judiciously, they can alleviate (slightly) the poverty written communication has with respect to the spoken word, as evidenced by user49891's comment. There is a very helpful article at http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/punctuation/when/when-to-use-exclamation-marks.html .
Comment: Hmph! Exclamation marks are my favorite – and dashes are a close second!
Comment: Isn't the exclamation point obligatory in a greeting?
Comment: @LeonardoCastro Not particularly.
Answer: The exclamation mark is used to indicate an increase in sound level, to be "heard" by the reader. It is also used to convey emotion.
The reader should hear a marked difference at the end of these sentences:

The usher gave us our programs and said, "This way."
Leading hikers through a thunderstorm, the guide shouted, "This way!"

The increase in sound level doesn't have to be as extreme as shouting. John Lawler provided the following quote in a comment:

And if it is really, after all, a banal sentence needing more zing, the exclamation point simply emphasizes its banality!

The exclamation mark tells us there's an intended crescendo at the end of that sentence, starting at about its.
As for emotion, let's take fluffy's example about Larry:

Larry walked to the store. He was very excited. He shouted, "Hello!"

Normally, the preceding sentences should not have exclamation points, but if Larry had been unable to walk for months or years, it would be appropriate, and accurate, to write

Larry walked to the store! He was very excited! He shouted, "Hello!"

Also, someone might grumble, "It's irritating." Another might grumble, "It's irritating!" The first case is milder annoyance. The latter expresses more emotion.
We shouldn't steer clear of exclamation marks. They help us convey just what we want to convey in dialogue and descriptive writing.
However, that's also why they should be used very rarely, if at all, in more formal writing (e.g. academic writing, developing a thesis, business communication, and the like), to keep the tone professional, neutral, or objective. This kind of writing isn't always devoid of emotion or passion, nor should it be, but emphasis and excitement should arise without manipulation from the author, from choice words and crescendos of logic and reasoning, not created arbitrarily with exclamation marks.

When do you use the exclamation mark?


2008 4.6L mustang

Question: I have been looking for spark plugs for the old H code engine. It is a fine thread and used a 5/8 socket. Its a 2008 ford gt mustang.  Any ideas of what soark plug would work? Thank you in advance
Comment: Check out catalogues by NGK or Champion or Bosch.
Answer: The easiest way I've found to find parts for any car is to use RockAuto.com (no affiliation). Go to the site, drill down to your vehicle, then find the parts. Not that you need to buy from them, as I still search other sources. However, their parts indicators are usually spot on and give you exactly what you're looking for. Use their part numbers and brands, then do a search for those specific parts to find the best prices, or go down to your local parts store and buy them their. This works well here in the States, though I don't know a good source for parts searches in other parts of the world.

2008 4.6L mustang


Un-initiated transaction

Question: I just received an email from Apple Support saying a purchase was made with my account from a previously unknown device. There was a note saying if you did not make this purchase, click here. When I clicked it, I was sent to a site that in no way was connected to this transaction. What can I do?
Comment: These mails are fake, best just to delete them. Did you enter any data on the site, or click on any additional links?
Comment: Thanks, good to know! And, whew, I did all the right things!
Answer: This is almost certainly a phishing message.
That means the sender is trying to collect your login and password. You should report this message as junk, delete it, and close it and any windows it opened.
If you've provided any details to the website thinking it was Apple you need to immediately change your password via https://appleid.apple.com
Also if you use this password on any other website you should consider these websites also vulnerable and should immediately change the password on all sites which use this password in the following order:

Email accounts + bank accounts
Social media
All other sites
Comment: If this is the answer to your question you should select the tick mark to indicate that, that way I get some points and the next person to come along with this question knows this question was already answered and doesn't answer it again.

Un-initiated transaction


How to retrive the data which was sent to previous deployed contract?

Question: I want to access the data which i sent via a function during the previous contract instance . Is it possible to retrieve the data by the the contract instance or transaction hash ?
Answer: You do not need to redeploy a contract, if it is already deployed you need to create an instance that point to the contract address
<code>async function queryContract() {
    const ContractABI = [...];  // <-- Contract ABI
    const ContractAddress = "0x1234....";           // <-- Deployed contract address

    // Assign deployed address of a contract
    const myContract = new web3.eth.Contract(ContractABI, ContractAddress);

    // Send a transaction
    await myContract.methods.sendHash("0x12341234")
    .send({
        from: MyAccount,
        gas: 2000000,
        gasPrice: '30000000000'
    });

    // Query modified data
    const hash = await myContract.methods.getHash().call();

    console.log(hash)
}

queryContract();
</code>
Comment: Thank you so much,if i want to get the hash which was sent previously via function to the contract .How do i access it, Is it possible to get via transaction sent?
Comment: To access data in a deplyed contract you need the contract address and the contract ABI. Then you can call any method exposed y the interface. Follow the examples on how to use it from web3 documentation https://web3js.readthedocs.io/en/1.0/web3-eth-contract.html


Combo Box in form not populating my table

Question: I have a form with a combo box (last name, first name, age, club) it works fine in the form but it will not work in my report or in my table it gives me the ID number instead of the information that is in the form.  What am I doing wrong?  I use Access 2010 but have had little training in it.
Answer: You need to provide that information in your query that is used to populate the report.  Reports in Access do not understand the same things the forms do.  If you need help creating the query let us know and we can help.


Power steering works normally to one side, but hard to the other

Question: My Ford Mondeo was leaking from the steering rack. So it was repaired by a steering specialist. After about 1,000 kms it steers smoothly to right but when turning towards the left it feels like there is no power assist.
Comment: Start your car.. Let it get to normal temp.... Check steering fluid... If full (hot level)... Then turn steering all the way right just before it maxs ( don't max it out!) ... Do the same but to the left.... Repeat... Check fluid again... Any change?
Comment: You may have air and need to bleed ... Or perhaps low fluid...
Answer: It's possible when he repaired it he didn't Jack it up and adjust a steering that's so you got right and left equal pressure possible one way and not the other you check the steering nut on the steering box to make sure it's a it's right if your steering column Center when your wheels are straight
Answer: Take it back and have them check it out. Maybe the inner seal is leaking on that side of the rack, slightly, causing pressure loss. It seems odd that it would not be hard to turn in both directions, however the other possibility is that if the steering rack has worn teeth. This will effect a portion of the steering (that has the bad teeth), but not all of it.. Strange..
If you didn't want to run back to your specialist just yet, check the power steering fluid resivour, use only approved FoMoCo fluid, and top off a low level as you rotate your steering wheel from hard left to hard right, at idle.
Answer: I have had a problem like this before. If it does have the 2 banjo bolts on the steering rack, 1 of them will have a little ball valve inside which can get stuck. it is normally very easy to check it by just removing it and testing the little ball on the inside. Also much cheap repair.


Will a french cleat system work against bare studs?

Question: My garage isn't finished; there's bare studs.  I want to set up a french cleat system to store my tools.  Can I do it directly against the studs?  Or do I need to hang drywall or a sheet of plywood first?
Comment: @Graphus I envisioned a long board spanning 2 studs, just like it would if there were drywall, not a 1.5" wide piece on each of 2 studs...
Comment: @FreeMan, yes I realised that was a possibility. And upon later reflection I realised it makes no difference if the plan either way was to fasten exclusively to studs anyway! The holding power is in the screws, not the length of the cleat (assuming no possibility for the material itself to break, which is exceedingly unlikely).
Answer: I think this will work fine.
Make sure you use a spacer, of the same material as the cleats, on the bottom of any storage units so they sit flat on the wall (studs) so the bottom does not teeter in.
One issue is; For any storage unit that is narrower then the stud bays, the bottom of the unit will not have  studs,"wall", to rest against. You will need to have a spacer on the  unit wide enough to bridge the studs or add a furring strip in between the studs for a smaller bottom spacer to rest against.
There are many YouTube videos on French Cleat Tool Storage.
Comment: Would a spacer not be required for the bottom of the cabinet whether there was drywall/plywood/OSB sheathing or not? I would think that _any_ French cleat system would require that to ensure that the cabinet hung square, but I have never seen mention of it in the (admittedly very limited) reading I've done.
Answer: A french cleat relies on the cleat itself- placing a furring strip to further support is a belt and suspenders approach, at which point your cabinets could be screwed to those studs that are exposed and supported by the support strip. I prefer cleats as I tend to work by myself, and they make it easy to hang a cabinet solo. Your cleat will work fine on open stud framing.
Answer: A French cleat relies on two points of contact - the rail at the top and the cabinet's bottom resting on the wall (otherwise it would be prone to rocking in and out on the cleat). If the cabinet (or whatever you're planning on hanging) is wider than the stud spacing, it would be able to lean on the studs in the same way as it does on the wall.
I would suggest reinforcing the bottom of the cabinet in this case, to make sure that the bottom that spans the studs is rigid enough to support the weight (perhaps by adding a 1x4). This will also make it easy to use a non-flush French cleat which would simplify installation.
Comment: Are you recommending reinforcing the cabinet because all the weight would be on just the contact points with the studs instead of spread all along the drywall? Even if that's the case, I'm not sure I'd be worried about that.
Comment: @FreeMan, yes, exactly. If it was me I'd reinforce it, but to each his own


How to Export EE v 1.6.7 pages

Question: Here at work we're using EE v.1.6.7 and will be moving to a new proprietary CMS, I'm looking for a way to export the individual pages to a spreadsheet - the new web company we will be working with have asked for our existing pages to be in an excel ss...is this even possible???  I am not an Expression Engine expert. Please speak slowly and clearly to me. ;) Thanks.
Comment: Ermmm.. You should send a developer over here. It'll be hard to find any addons compatible with EE 1.6.7 that do what you want, and most of us have zero access to such and old version, that this will be a custom job anyways.
Answer: Yes, it's possible. On the assumption that yours is a standard EE install, you can export the data from the database by running specific SQL queries to pull the data out in the format they want (table joins required). I suggest that you get the new web company to clarify what Excel column headers they want, to enable you(?) to construct the query to format the data. Then export the results in CSV format.
Answer: I don't believe there's any need to use any add-ons for this or resort to SQL queries.
You can just create new EE templates with exp:weblog:entries calls that produce output that can be saved in .CSV format (which can be opened in Excel).
If you update your question with some more details on what fields you have in EE and what you need in Excel I can update this answer with more complete details.

How to Export EE v 1.6.7 pages


Using App Step in 2013 workflow, shows modified by field as "Sharepoint App", how to show the user who actually modified the document?

Question: I have created an approval workflow, where I'm using App Step, because previously I'm getting an error like "Item is deleted or locked by one of the user" so, to give elevated permissions, I'm using App Step. Now, the workflow is running good, however, I see that the "Modified By" filed shows "Sharepoint App" instead of the actual user who approved the document or modified, please help.
Answer: This is the SharePoint OOB behavior. As you know, App steps are used to override the permissions. So, the field "Modified By" got updated as "SharePoint App". There is no option to change "Modified By" field, unless you are assigning permission to the non-permitted item which is used in the Workflows.
Anyhow try the below custom solution, which deals with the custom "Modified By" field

Create a custom "PeoplePicker" field named "Updated By/Actual Modified By" and make it hidden in the form.
Update it every time the workflow ends, with the "WorkflowContext:Initiator".

Note: This solution will provide the WorkFlow Initiator name. If your workflow is not approval WF, then use this solution.


PTIJ: Purim- International Forum Day

Question: Is it a bigger mitzvah to post and answer questions on Mi Yodeya on Purim (Furim)  because It sounds like Forum?
Would that make Purim International Forum Day?

This question is Purim Torah and is not intended to be taken completely seriously. See the Purim Torah policy.
Comment: Mi Yodeya isn't a forum, so no.
Comment: @Scimonster and all of Mi Yodeya, my mistake!       So Sorry!
Comment: Yes, with some minor corrections. First of all, the "bigger mitzvah" -- a d'oraisa according to some opinions -- is reading, not posting; second, it is the Shabbos after Purim, not Purim itself. Third, it can and should be all Fora, not just Mi Yodeya.
Answer: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum - Purim version...
A Persian king falls in love with a Jewish girl. The king wanted to marry the beautiful girl, but the girl didn't want to marry a non-Jewish king. She couldn't tell the king that she was Jewish. So, what to do?
She posted her question on Mi Yodeya. But, apparently it was deleted because it was written in Persian, and some moderator deleted it.
So, if there are any descendants of this girl around reading this, only they would be allowed to post on this site on "Furim".
Answer: I believe you mean International frum day, don't you?
Answer: Some have a minhag to post on forums during Purim because of the fact that you can read it as furim or fourum. (source needed)
But there is no Minhag to post on Mi Yodea, as Stack Exchange sites are not forums

PTIJ: Purim- International Forum Day


How do I reload my game in Candy Box?

Question: I saved and bookmarked my game, yet when I open the bookmark, it starts a new game... My friends told me to put my password into the URL, but it kept saying URL not found. I can't find any login button and I really don't want to lose all my progress:( I had gotten SO far(100 lollipops per second)! Please help:)
Comment: http://candies.aniwey.net/index.php?pass=YOURPASSWORDHERE
Answer: It works fine for me. I'm guessing you've got the password wrong - at a guess, you probably chopped  a character off the end without realizing it. There's not much you can do about that, I'm sorry to say.
Answer: You put this in link bar http://candies.aniwey.net/index.php?pass=xxxxx
You change xxxxx with the password you get when you save.
I'm sure it will help :)
Answer: Just a quick tip for those that have lost your save using Chrome.
Happened to me today. Chrome crashed before I could save the password.
Go to C:\Users\#YourUser#\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default
Open the file "History" and search for http://candies.aniwey.net/index.php?pass=
Your password should be one of the results.
Comment: I'm fairly certain there's a much simpler GUI solution for this than to read directly from the file.
Answer: You could go to the original candy box website, look for the FAQ in small print at the bottom, and click it. Then you should copy and paste the URL it has there under the question about saving, replace the xxxxx with your password, and you're done.

How do I reload my game in Candy Box?