Can't brute force password cracking somehow be throttled?

Question: Online articles mention the importance of a strong password and suggest that hacking tools allows bad guys to attempt millions of passwords per second.  I am wondering why OSes and websites and such are not throttling attempts.  That is, if 3 bad attempts happen why wouldn't additional attempts be rejected for say at least the next 10 minutes?  Is there no low-level way of securely closing the floodgate of "millions of attempts per second"?
Comment: In linux, [fail2ban](http://www.fail2ban.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page) does exactly what you're asking for; it uses iptables to analyze syslogs for login failures and then it blocks the IP of persistent failures for a configurable time.
Answer: You are talking about online attacks, somebody is entering passwords via website. This you can slow down by the methods you described, though it is not as easy as you may think.
When you read about cracking passwords, normally you are speaking of offline attacks, that's why you calculate hashes after all. Think about the situation that somebody could read all your password hashes (e.g. SQL-injection, or from a thrown away backup...). Then the attacker can brute force as fast as his hardware can do, he can e.g. use the GPU to calculate hashes. Even then you can slow down the attack, this is why nowadays you use slow key-derivation functions like BCrypt or PBKDF2. This algorithms allow to define a cost factor, which defines how many iterations are done, so you can control how much time is used to calculate a single hash.
An example: If you can calculate 8 Giga MD5 hashes per second all password combinations up to 6 digits can be calculated in 2 seconds. If you even need 1 millisecond per hash, you already need 8 month.
Answer: Yes, this control is available in many systems - it's just not been mentioned in the articles you are reading.  Many systems do exactly what you are suggesting.  Standard approaches include:

lockout for a time duration - like 10 minutes.  Not perfect, it will slow down the cracking attempts.
monitoring - if a system is showing repeated attacks beyond what a normal human who's forgotten their password might do, it can trigger an alert to start tracking the source of the activity - not perfect as there are ways to obfuscate the source of the attack, but at least someone knows the problem is occurring.
semi-permanent lockout - use of backup questions, transmission of a reset password by an out of band means (message to phone, email to email address), or a "please contact the administrator".

What the form of the control is has a lot do with:

the type of product - OSes work differently than websystems.
the risk to the environment of a successful breakin - full on lockout is (sometimes) more secure, but also more time consuming to administrate than any self-unlock feature.
the nature of the userbase - for example, Google will HAVE to use something extremely handsoff, the Google Account user base is enormous.  An OS in an IT shop with 100 employees where everyone is on site can do a much more intimate form of lockout and recovery.
Comment: If passwords can be throttled then that would essentially render brute force attacks lame.  Even when millions of attempts per second can be made I've read statistics that this can take years or even decades; but once you've throttled attempts with even 10-minute pauses, we're talking well past the age of a human being.
Comment: I've run into several web sites where, after a failed attempt, each successive try takes longer and longer.  But note that throttling/lockout strategies are not very robust in the face of a bot attack.
Answer: Well-designed operating systems and websites do throttle login attempts, as you've described in your example.
However, it is also true that millions/billions of guesses per second are possible - but only against offline "simple-hashes" of passwords. Ars-Technica has a very good article by Dan Goodin that you've probably read. While it's not focused on, it's clear that these are "offline" attacks against a list of MD5 hashes. MD5 of course, is not designed to protect passwords.
There are indeed many ways to reduce the rate at which guesses can be attempted:

Instead of a general purpose hash (MD5, SHA1) use a proper Key Derivation Function like PBKDF2 with as many iterations as is feasible for your environment. This would increase the computation time per-guess significantly, perhaps up to several tenths of a second per-guess.
Salt each password, which protects against users choosing weak passwords (e.g. dictionary words)

In short, if the password database from a well-designed login system is compromised and the salted hashes obtained, the risk from brute force is much lower compared to an unsalted, MD5 password database.
Answer: Most online websites already have protection against brute force attacks. Many websites (like online banking) have countermeasures such as limiting the password attempts, or introducing time relays between successive attempts. CAPTCHA is also put in place on many websites including g-mail, yahoo etc. to prevent automatic attacks.
Offline attacks usually occur when a hacker steals hashes from the website, and then uses brute search to find the passwords. The type of hash algorithm used also determines the vulnerability of the passwords. "Salting" the hashes provide some security against brute force attacks.
To learn more : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_%28cryptography%29


Can all songs be transposed to fit any voice type?

Question: Since every voice is different and bridges/tessitura are in different areas can any piece be transposed to fit any voice type? If you have tenor singer "X" who alternates between head and chest voice a lot in a song and want to transpose it for bass singer "Y", you could just lower the piece sung by "X" to suit singer "Y" but will his bridges and tessitura all be the same relative to each other once the piece is transposed? I read that a bass singer has a wider "chest" voice range than a tenor but that a tenor has a much stronger head voice than a bass. If all this is true then wouldn't transposing be impossible since once the piece was low enough for the bass singer "Y" the head voice notes might be too low.
Answer: It's very dependant on a singer's range, and where the break point comes - everyone is different.
Changing the key will work for most songs, as most songs do not have a huge range - an octave and a half covers an awful lot of songs. The tessitura - the part where more notes of high or low pitch are found will confound some singers, but in a song with, say, a high tessitura, it may well be possible to drop the whole song some more.
So, by and large, yes, most songs can be transposed to fit most voices. The bigger problem that occurs is that when more than one singer is singing the same song, either in unison and especially in harmony. Occasionally in a situation where, say, four singers do this, the key may not suit all four. At that point, a harmony may need to be changed, someone is tacit for a few lines, and fun is had finding what is a compromise of key!
Comment: Thanks! You are right that 1 and a half octaves goes a long way but the problem is singing head and chest voice in a vocal line. I was working on a song the other day that was consistently flipping between head and chest voice and I found that if I sang in the original key, I could sing the head voice notes fine but then the chest notes were too strained and too high. I dropped the key so that my chest voice was comfortable but then the head voice was too low. I might as well sing the whole thing in chest voice because it sounded better.
Comment: For songs with instrumental, especially piano, accompaniment, there are some other problems. The most important one is that for large transpositions (like more than a fifth), the sound of the accompaniment may change too much (by sounding muddy or tinny perhaps.) Often this can be handled by using different inversions of the associated chords but the bass line may still be a problem.


Is the Proto-Indo-European "ǵenh₁-" (to produce) related to "gʷḗn" (woman)?

Question: I noticed a possible connection between the Ancient Greek "γυνή" and "γένεσις". I think semantically a relation between the two terms is plausible. Unfortunately I don't know enough about PIE phonology. Please help.
Answer: The answer is no. A palatalized /g/ is a different phoneme from a labialized /g/, and there is no obvious way that they are connected.
Comment: @Sverre I agree. We would have to recourse to something like Nostratic, whose adherents propose the distinction was brought about by former allophonic variation before front as opposed to back round vowels which got later reduced to schwa and raised to */e/ (*-gʲe- < *-ɡi- and *-ɡʷe- < *-ɡu-), but that wouldn't explain the other differences, not to mention the necessity to explain and prove the existence of a productive ablaut-like patterning (would */gun-/ be the nominalized */gin-/, or */gin-/ the verbalized */gun-/, for instance?) and a dozillion other questions arising there.


InDesign: how to have editors collaborate on the content

Question: We're working on a magazine in Adobe InDesign. Is there a way to include the text content dynamically, so that a person who doesn't have InDesign can edit the text and the edits will automatically be reflected in the source file?
Answer: If you use XML to import content, then it is possible to update the content if the manuscript changes. The XML shows up as a link in the palette and shows the yellow triangle if the file is changed, and can be managed just like art.
If you don't use XML for content, then Adobe does offer InCopy, which has the added benefit that the editor can see the text within the layout. We've looked into it from time to time, but the associated costs holds us back (not that XML is a cakewalk either).
Answer: InCopy immediately comes to mind, but you may also consider DocsFlow or WordsFlow for dealing with shared text contents:
Answer: You can write your text in any text editor in Markdown and use Pandoc to export it to InCopy ICML:
<code>pandoc input.md -s -o output.icml
</code>
That ICML you can place in turn in InDesign. See Importing Markdown in InDesign in the pandoc wiki for details.
Comment: This is a new one to me, but it looks excellent!


Do other numbered terms for spices besides hitoaji (一味) and shichimi (七味) exist?

Question: I came across some words for spices, hitoaji and shichimi. It occurred to me that I have never seen the terms for 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 spices and so on. Do these terms exist?
Answer: Words of the form [number] + 味 do exist:

一味【ひとあじ】 hitoaji ≠ 一味【いちみ】 ichimi
三味 = 三味線【しゃみせん】 shamisen
五味【ごみ】 gomi "five flavours" (sweet, spicy, bitter, sour, salty)
六味【ろくみ】 rokumi "six flavours" (sweet, spicy, bitter, sour, salty, bland)
七味【しちみ】 shichimi
百味【ひゃくみ】 hyakumi "hundred flavours"

Shichimi is a particular blend of seven spices (chili pepper, sesame, tangerine peel, poppy seed, rapeseed, hemp seed, sanshō — of course recipes may add other / leave out some ingredients).
As @Chocolate pointed out 一味唐辛子【いちみとうがらし】 ichimi tōgarashi (or ichimi for short) is sometimes used to refer to straight chili pepper (tōgarashi) without the other ingredients.
The others (3, 5, 6, 100) don't refer to a particular blend of spices.
Comment: `Except shichimi, they don't refer to a particular mixed spice` -- [七味]{しちみ}(= [七味唐辛子]{しちみとうがらし})のほかに、[一味]{いちみ}(= [一味唐辛子]{いちみとうがらし})ってあるやん?
Comment: @Chocolate Edited.
Answer: Kōshinryō means spice too. Though I only know this from Spice and Wolf. :P
in addition there are several synonyms of spice which use the 味 kanji, and are translated as "condiment", "flavor", "flavoring" and so on, like kōmi 香味
@Blavius (who deleted his comment) is right, the only "number" attached to 味 that means "spice" or rather "seasoning" is 七味... all other number variants would simply translate to "number of" flavors...


Multiple business unit configuration

Question: If I want to use each country's local language on my email then do  I have to configure multiple business units or can it be achieved with a single BU?
Answer: You can do this through different email template depending on your requirement.
Comment: Unless you are planning to roll out Marketing Cloud in the different countries, i.e. there will be dedicated people running their own campaigns etc, there's no need to go down the route of multiple BUs. The use cases that you mentioned, language version, different physical address can all easily achieved using Dynamic Content. As long as each subscriber receiving the E-Mail has an attribute indicating the country you can use this attribute for a simple If/Then rule using Dynamic Content.
Comment: Does this mean that to separately track information for campaign sent by each of the offices, I have to put them in separate BU's.
@ChristophCuquemel
Comment: But won't creating multiple BU will be a one time effort. In that case singler email template can be used for all territories.
Comment: @GajendraSingh creating email template for one business unit than having separate Business Unit will save you from lot hassles in long run. Again it depends on what kind of requirement it is. You can do that by creating separate business unit of course.
Comment: Also, if i want to have the physical email address in localized language then i would surely need multiple BU's.  Is this understanding correct. Please help me on this as well. Thanks again!
Comment: Hi @gajendra, did you find the answer?
Answer: Not necessarily. You can either deploy different single sends from one single Business Unit using a dynamic template, i.e. you hit the send button multiple times for each corresponding target group, or you send one single, dynamic message to all recipients and look at the tracking for each country/region either using the Email Performance By Attribute Report (https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=mc_re_email_performance_by_attribute_report.htm) or if you have the right edition of Marketing Cloud you could use Discover for reporting.

Multiple business unit configuration


Why is the "que" in "pienso que" obligatory?

Question: I mean the reason why that part is different from English. I understand that it may be used as a marker for changing subject but I don't understand why it's required to the extent that removing it will be grammatically incorrect.
Comment: Why are certain rules necessary in one language but not another?  Only two answers are possible:  to avoid ambiguity or to preserve tradition.
Comment: @Paul That still doesn't answer the question. You just made a comment, because I made a reference to English. I think that part of my description was misleading, because that's not the major point. The major point was, why the "que" part obligatory? Even in English, there are some obligatory and non-obligatory uses of various words that have etymological reasons for them.
Answer: There are different cases:
Not in all cases you have to put que.

Pienso + infinitive  is used to express an activity you want to do. For example, Pienso ir a la playa este fin de semana

In another cases you have to put it, and in these cases you are expressing an opinion:

Pienso que + infinitive  For example, Pienso que ir a la playa este fin de semana estaría bien.
Pienso que + sentece   For example, Pienso que la playa es fantástica.

Think that pienso que is like phrasal verb in English. It's always like this, the same way to creo que, opino que, ... and other verbs that express opinion. If not, it will sound really weird to the interlocutor, like something is missing. You need this connector.
It's funny because in Spain, when imitating American Indian accent, we omit connectors like this.
Comment: There is NO difference between the cases you call "Pienso que+ infinitive" and "Pienso que+sente[n]ce". BOTH are cases of "pensar" (sense: creer/opinar) + a complement clause introduced by "que". The infinitive "ir a la playa" is just the subject of the subordinate clause "ir a la playa este fin de semana estaría bien" and is perfectly parallel to the subject (= "la playa") of the complement clause of your 2nd. example (= "la playa es fantástica"). Then, "pienso/creo que" are in NO sense comparable to English phrasal verbs. Simply: "pensar", in THAT sense, 'selects/governs' "que"-complements.
Answer: It will not be grammatically incorrect if you remove the "que", but it will have a slightly different meaning. "Pienso que" translates to "I think that", you could similarly say, for example, "Pienso comerme ese pollo.", which translates to "I think (of) eating that chicken.", in this case, the "of" is omitted in Spanish.
Comment: A side note: in Castilian, we use `Pienso comerme ese pollo` to mean something like `I'm definitely eating that chicken`. The `I think (of) eating that chicken` (as in "think about") translation would be `Pienso en comerme ese pollo`.
Answer: In English, "that" is implied and therefore does not have to explicitly appear. I think [that] you are correct. In Spanish it simply can't be omitted; "que" as a conjunction can never be implied. It must always be stated.
Comment: "I than [that] you are correct". Did you mean "I **think** [that] you are correct"?
Comment: Yes I meant think. I should proof my own work more, grammar cop that I am.
Comment: The English 'complementizer/subordinator' "that" MUST also appear in certain cases, especially when the subordinate clause it introduces functions as the SUBJECT of the main clause (cf. *You are correct is beyond discussion/That you are correct is beyond discussion).
Comment: And, conversely, in certain cases "that" MUST be omitted even when the clause it introduces is the COMPLEMENT of "think" and similar verbs, although "that" is generally obligatory in such cases. That happens when the subject of the "that"-clause is successfully 'extracted' in questions and relative clauses, as in e.g., "Which candidate do you think *that __ is more likely to win?" or "The candidate that I think *that __ is more likely to be elected is a Republican."
Answer: The reason is actually rather simple.
In Spanish, you have words that are nouns, adjectives, or adverbs (say, gato or negro or ahora). You also have things that act as nouns,  adjectives, or adverbs but are actually entire phrases.
The simplest of these are just known in Spanish as locuciones or phrases, and are more idiomatic in structure.
But the recursive nature of language allows us to use entire clauses (replete with their own independent verbs, subjects, objects, and complements) to take the place of a standard noun, adjective, or adverb.
Take a simple phrase like
(Mañana) viene el (gato) (negro).
The three words in parentheses can be described with a whole phrase. Hence we can say

gato: tiene cuatro patas y es pequeño y antipático
negro: parece ébano
mañana: cuando salga el sol

In the case of mañana, notice that it's hard to express without including a relative pronoun. That's common for adverbial ones. Let's start by replacing mañana with that phrase:

Cuando salga el sol, viene el gato negro.

Now let's replace the negro. In switching to new clauses, Spanish requires some sort of relative pronoun. With adverbs, it's generally obvious (temporal phrase: cuando, locative: donde, etc). But for adjectives, there might not seem to be a good choice. The "default", absent any other relative pronoun, is que. So we use that to signal the start of the new clause:

Cuando salga el sol, viene el gato que parece ébano.

The Spanish speaker knows this functions as an adjective because the que comes where an adjective would be expected and the subject matches (if the noun is being acted upon, more complex rules with prepositions come into play).
With nouns, the same logic applies. If you would expect a noun, and you see/hear que you know to wait for an entire clause before processing it all as a single noun. While the sentence is now rather unwieldy, we get1

Cuando salga el sol, viene el que tiene cuatro pata y es pequeño y antipático que parece ébano.

Now, let's say I want to discuss the fact that the cat is black. Here, I need to use the phrase parece ébano not as an adjective but as a noun. Here, we simply use the que all by itself without any demonstrative.

Que parece ébano es obvio.

The whole phrase here is the subject. How did we determine the forms for the verb and adjective? Well, phrases used like this are consider to be neuter. Neuter things are always singular even if combined with y and will always be third person. So singular and third person leads us to es, and singular and neuter leads to obvio (neuter forms of adjectives are identical in Spanish to masculine forms, except for demonstratives).
Now... How does this apply to pienso que?
What comes after pienso normally? A noun. (Pienso algo being as basic as we can get).
But often we think things that are best described with their own entire clause. What is it that you think? You think (something doing something). That bit in English parentheses is a clause. English has a variety of ways to construct it depending on context and verb, but Spanish nicely has one single way — using a full clause that functions as a noun.
So when you say pienso algo, that algo can be replaced with our phrase, for example, the cat being black.

Pienso algo.
algo = el gato es negro

But remember, we said all clauses functioning as a noun/adjective/adverb need to have a relative pronoun. Lacking anything better, we use the default, que to head the clause:

Pienso que el gato es negro.

How can we prove that we're using this as a noun? Let's formulate it as a question.

¿Piensas que el gato es negro?
— Sí, pienso eso.
— Sí, lo pienso.

Notice the demonstrative and the direct object (singular and neuter). Those can only replace nouns — or noun clauses, which is what we've used.

1. Okay, technically, this el que... is actually described as just another adjective clause. Meh. I think the point is made, nonetheless.
(Battery dying on laptop, posting this before I lose it)
Answer: Pienso que is an introduction to a subordinate clause, meaning that an actual full phrase s coming.

Pienso que los perros se los comen los gatos

That clause in bold can stand on it's own as a sentence, but in this case it is subordinated from a verb.  I think you would call this a subordinate verbal clause... ?
When you use prepositions you're not subordinating anything.  The use of que is generally a dead giveaway of a subordinate clause.  No matter what the verb.

Me gusta que me das dinero.
Bebo alguna bebida que se llama "Negra muerte"
El jefe siempre hace que todos hagan su propio trabajo.
Creo que los cuellos de las jirafas son demasiados largos.
Answer: In English you can say: I think [that] WE go to blablabla... You must use pronoun [WE] as subject but in Spanish it is not obligatory. So, to mark subject grammatically you must use que.
Comment: The "que" is not marking the subject. Realize that with "que" is impossible to know the type of person (1st, 2nd or 3rd) or to know if it is singular or plural, so the "que" doesn't stand for a "we" or "I" or "you". Also, "pienso que estáis equivocados" is the same as "pienso que **vosotros** estáis equivocados" so you can see that the function you described (mark subject grammatically) is actually not needed and has nothing to do with the "que".
Comment: I know that it is not exactly marking subject. It is marking a place the subject would occupy.
Comment: Imagine the sentence just like a structure and you easily understand why in spanish que is obligatory and is not in english
Comment: I still disagree that that is the function of "que". To start with, realize that "que" is not always is mandatory: "Pienso salir estar noche" vs. "Pienso **que** salir esta noche no es buena idea". Why would I need it for one but not for the other? Also, don't focus too much about if it is mandatory in English and not in Spanish. That is not the real question nor leads to understand what is the function of "que" in this case.
Comment: You don't need personal pronoun with infinitive, so you don't need que in this case.
Comment: Pienso que salir esta noche no es una buena idea - salir in this case serves like substantive not infinitive.
Comment: The question was why this part is different that is why I compare English grammar structures with spanish ones


Recovery mode doesn't accept sudo commands

Question: I was trying to fix the kernel panic-not syncing, in this case the number is (179,6) using this guide Kernel panic-not syncing: VFS: unable to mount root fs on unknown- block(179,6) running Raspbian on top of NOOBS
But when I was using the recovery mode replies me: "-sh: sudo: not found". How can I fix this? I have some important configurations in this SD
Comment: you're aleady root, no need to sudo
Answer: When using "Recovery Mode" the normal Pi startup process is interrupted very early to allow you to gain access to the command line as the superuser (root). At this point in startup the Pi is still running a in-memory filesystem with a limited set of commands.
The result of all this is commands such as sudo are not available (it's on the SD card but the whole SD card is not mounted yet) but, because you're logged in as the superuser, you don't need to elevate your privileges to do anything (as @Jaromanda-X has already commented). It's worth pointing out as well that, because you're logged in as the superuser, you don't need to elevate your privileges and can do anything --- be extra cautious before hitting the "Enter" key!
Other things to remember when in "Recovery Mode" are...

The file system is in memory, not on the SD card. To change the second partition of the SD card you first need to mount it. For example you might want to change /etc/fstab, to do this you'd first mount your SD card (mount /dev/mmcblk0p2 /mnt) and edit the file under the mount point (vi /mnt/etc/fstab).
Environment variables and short-cuts might not be what you expect because you're not logged in as pi. For example, something like cd ~/somedir/ might not do what you expect because ~ points to /root, not /home/pi/ as you might be used to (or, more importantly as assumed in some tutorial you might be following).
The shell is a lightweight one provided by BusyBox so some scripts or one-liners that use "bash-isms" might not work as expected.


Importance of the neck joint on an electric guitar

Question: Many electric guitar builders stress the need for a very tight-fitting neck/neck pocket. I find this the most difficult aspect of the build.
Question 1: if a neck is bolted (4 bolts) but is not a tight fit (say 0.5 mm - 1.0 mm gaps around the neck in the pocket) will this significantly lower the sustain from the overall instrument?
Question 2: if I fill these gaps with epoxy or glue+wood sandings (for looks, mostly) - will it make a difference? Many thanks
Comment: Good question. I thought about this myself on a JP strat that I have on the wall. The reason I love my LP collection is for the sustain they provide. But the strat is sooo easy to play, the neck is such a fit for me... Wonder if anybody answers with some experience on this.
Comment: Can you clarify whether you are only concerned about sustain, or whether you are also asking about tone? In my experience, it's hard directly compare bolt on versus set neck designs because usually there are many other differences. At this time, the most direct comparison one can make is probably between the PRS Custom 24 (set neck) and the PRS CE24 bolt on, both made in Maryland.
Comment: This reviewer said his CE24 has as much sustain as his Les Paul, but there's no comparison with a custom 24: http://forums.prsguitars.com/threads/ce-24-initial-impressions.18803/
Comment: I've added a more in depth response below, but I don't personally understand the need or drive for sustain? Stratocasters lack sustain for a number of reasons; I personally hold the bridge design accountable, but no doubt there are other reasons. Are you talking purely about how long notes 'ring out' for once struck? If so I'm not convinced that this is superior in Les Pauls or other set-neck instruments because they are set-neck designs, purely because of the myriad other differences between the two designs. I think the attack and decay envelope is totally different between the two designs.
Comment: Many thanks for this input. Being largely deaf from too many years of music, all of this probably makes little real difference! However, to clarify, my concern about the tightness of the neck pocket was probably about tone, not sustain, and I thank you for the advice. I was also a bit concerned about the strength of the join. You'd think 4 bolts would hold tight, but I guess a close neck pocket would add strength, hence my idea abou filling the gaps.
Comment: If the neck isn't in the right place then all the notes that are being fretted will be out of tune.
Answer: Having built various electric guitars and experimented with neck fixing, I have a pretty good viewpoint on this, achieved through testing and comparison.
For you, filling in the gaps will be almost irrelevant. The key linkage is that direct line between bridge and nut, through the wood between the bridge and the neck joint, the bolts that hold the neck tight against the body, and the wood of the neck.
Yes, for very high end guitars (way beyond my price/skill bracket) the shape of the surrounding wood has an effect on sustain/resonant frequencies, but it probably isn't going to be important at your level either.
High end luthiers would concern themselves with this, as would other high end woodworkers such as furniture makers, but for the purposes you describe, you can fill the gaps in without worrying about loss or improvement of sustain or tone.
Answer: Some luthiers demonstrate that their bolt-on necked guitars can hang together without the bolts being inserted. I think this more an attempt at showcasing/showboating carpentry skills than musical instrument building skills, personally. Conversely a lot of highly coveted pre-CBS-era Fender instruments have visible gaps either side of the neck, big enough to get a guitar pick, if not several, into.
Ultimately I think it is a matter of personal taste. You can cook up a legitimate-sounding pseudo-scientific reason for both a tight and a loose neck pocket. After all, a lot of guitarists and luthiers think nothing of inserting a folded up piece of sand paper or bus ticket into a neck pocket to 'shim' a neck. This instantly breaks the solid wood-to-wood joint being made in the neck pocket. Moreover I've seen numerous Fenders with that finish crack in the body around the heel of the neck, indicative that perhaps the geometry of the neck heel or neck pocket has altered over time and cracked the finish. Does then a loose neck pocket allow for wider variation in climate without the risk of harming the finish, or does a tight neck-to-body join provide a robust barrier to moisture ingress, preserving the structural integrity of the instrument overall? And what impact does this have on the perceived tone of the instrument? Will your audience notice?
The legendary tone-chasing guitarist Eric Johnson claims he can hear different battery manufacturers when he uses their products to power his fuzz pedals. He also angles his fuzz pedals carefully in or out of alignment with his other pedals as he feels this is also important to the tone of them. Finally he likes to remove the finish on the bodies of his Strats where the bridge is mounted, to provide a rawer bridge-to-wood coupling, again in the name of tone. Reckon you would find folded up bus tickets in the neck pockets in his Strats? Reckon he will have a strong opinion on shimming necks?
This is all, unfortunately, a matter of personal opinion, and the science just isn't there, either way. I wouldn't use epoxy or filler material as you never know when that neck might have to be removed! Consider using threaded inserts to get a solid neck-to-body join, but consider also that you need a drill press, this is a destructive modification, and you need to measure twice and drill once!
Comment: thank you so much for these comments. i am on guitar 4 and with better tools they are looking better. From all this kind advice, I think I will stop worrying about getting super- tight neck pockets! I followed the tone wood /sustain debates with great interest and have concluded that it's better to just get out and make guitars than worry about things that might make 0.5% difference!


Why hasn't Scarlett Johansson performed either of her Oscar-nominated songs at the Oscars?

Question: This might be too tangential for the Movies Stack Exchange, but I think it's an interesting question. Scarlett Johansson is a singer as well as an actress. She's made two albums and been nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Song (for Before My Time from Chasing Ice and for The Moon Song from Her). J. Ralph, the composer of "Before My Time" is even quoted as saying that Scarlett Johansson was 'the only person I want to sing this song.' Typically, the Academy Awards try to get the original performers to sing at the ceremony, but Scarlett Johansson has always been replaced. Does anyone know why?
Comment: Perhaps because, unlike for example Adele with Skyfall, she had no writing credits for either song - just performing? Have had a little look online, but it's very hard to get anything definitive. Can't even get a straight answer to whether she was even asked to perform at ceremony or not.
Comment: @vastra360 Who is *Idina Menzel*? Oh, you mean *Adele Dazeem*. ;-)
Comment: No, they often have performers that didn't write the song, think Idina Menzel this year, Zachary Levi and Mandy Moore in past years. It may be that when the song is easy enough for the composer to sing comfortably with an audience they can opt in.
Comment: Was Scarlett even at the Oscars?  I don't remember seeing her in the audience or the pre-show.
Comment: After a level of research that makes me embarrassed of myself, I can't find a picture of her at the Oscars since 2010.
Answer: With deference to Ms. Johansson, she's not a particularly strong singer. WHile that hasn't stopped other performers on Oscar programs in the past, it's safe assumption to believe that Ms. Johansson has people around her who wouldn't like to see her possibly embarrassed by singing during an awards program alongside people with greater measures of talent than herself.
J. Ralph was likely being generous and more than a little bit of a sycophant when he stated that Ms. Johansson was " the only person" that he wanted to sing this song. While modestly talented, she certainly couldn't make a career of being a singer.
Reference:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACfmparmCdg
Comment: Her performances weren't nominated; the songs that she sang were. There's a huge difference as the song,and not the performer, wins the Academy Award. Part of the reason that the songs may have been nominated is that Ms. Johansson is currently a hot commodity in Hollywood. However, since neither song won, it is safe to claim that her singing them neither helped nor hindered them.
Comment: Did you read the full article? Johansson isn't a wonderful technical singer, but she's got an unusual voice and a particular quality. Thus why two of her performances have gotten nominated for Oscars. For the movies, where tone and ability to make that moment in the film perfect, I think she's preferable to more technically talented singers. (Although this is absolutely all opinion and not really worth arguing about)
Comment: @vastra360 There's also a huge difference between giving a vocal performance for a recording, and doing it live. Plenty of bands and top singers don't perform certain songs live because, while they could create a top performance in the studio with unlimited attempts and pro sound engineers fixing minor defects, they couldn't count on performing it right each time live on stage.
Answer: Okay the reason she didn't preform Before My Time was because she indeed wasn't at the 2013 Oscars because she was doing a performance in New York for the Broadway Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and I don't know why she wasn't at the 2014 Oscars
Comment: Can you provide citations for your answer? As it stands this is kinda sort of more a comment.
Answer: It firstly has to be said that Scarlett herself wasn't nominated for the Oscars, as she only performed the two song in the respected movies. To correct a little bit of your question, the writers of the song are the ones who get nominated, not the performers, unless they are one in the same, e.g Adele - Skyfall (Skyfall), Celine Dion - My Heart Will go on (Titanic).
As for why she didn't perform I don't believe she was at the Oscar ceremony this year. But also although she has albums released she may have been nervous to sing live, especially as the song itself is one of the better songs that adds to the movie, through a touching moment rather than a song that is used for pre/post credits filling. Hope this helps.
Comment: "It firstly has to be said that Scarlett herself wasn't nominated for the Oscars, as she only performed the two song in the respected movies, to correct a little bit of your Question, the writers of the song are the ones who get nominated, not the performers, unless they are one in the same, e.g Adele - Skyfall (Skyfall), Celine Dion - My Heart Will go on (Titanic)."  -
That's one sentence?
Comment: @MeatTrademark No, after a tiny little edit it isn't.


why did the Battle of Badr Start?

Question: I heard that Rasulullah (P.B.U.H) migrated from Mecca to Medina (Hijra) as many muslims were being tortured and killed,to retaliate, he raided many caravans coming from Mecca, is this completely true, if so, why did the Prophet (SAW) do this?
Comment: Because Allah allowed or ordered him to do so. And by logic it wouldn't make sense to stay passive against the aggressions of the Meccan pagans.
Comment: Cutting trade of the enemy is one of the most basic steps of any war.
Answer: The first verses of the Quran that were revealed about fighting are in Surah Hajj:

Permission (to fight) is given to those (believers) who are fought against, because they have been wronged; and surely, Allah is able to give them victory.

Those who have been expelled from their homes unjustly only because they said: "Our Lord is Allah.'' For had it not been that Allah checks one set of people by means of another, Sawami, Biya, Salawat, and Masjids, wherein the Name of Allah is mentioned much, would surely have been pulled down. Verily, Allah will help those who help His (cause). Truly, Allah is All-Strong, All-Mighty.

From the translation of Tafseer Ibn Katheer:
Al-Awfi reported that Ibn Abbas said, "This was revealed about Muhammad and his Companions, when they were expelled from Makkah.'' Mujahid, Ad-Dahhak and others among the Salaf, such as Ibn Abbas, Urwah bin Az-Zubayr, Zayd bin Aslam, Muqatil bin Hayan, Qatadah and others said, "This is the first Ayah which was revealed about Jihad.''
Ibn Abbas said, "Then Allah revealed the words: (Permission (to fight) is given to those (believers) fought against, because they have been wronged; and surely, Allah is able to give them victory.)'' Abu Bakr, may Allah be pleased with him, said, "Then I knew that there would be fighting.'' Imam Ahmad added: "Ibn Abbas said, `This was the first Ayah to be revealed concerning fighting.''' This was also recorded by At-Tirmidhi and An-Nasa'i in the Book of Tafsir of their Sunans. At-Tirmidhi said: "It is a Hasan Hadith.''
The magazi, raids, of the Muslims in Medina began directly after this. These were military expeditions, in some cases as just a show of force, ordered by Muhammed peace be upon him. There are several such expeditions listed by Ibn Ishaq in his Sirah.
Ibn Ishaq further relates the events leading up to Badr, and how the prophet peace be upon him sent out an expedition to pursue the caravan of Abu Sufyan, and the other well known events surrounding the battle.
As for why, verse 40 of surah Hajj above:
"For had it not been that Allah checks one set of people by means of another..."
is similar to verse 251 of surah al Baqarah:
"And if it were not for Allah checking [some] people by means of others, the earth would have been corrupted, but Allah is full of bounty to the worlds."
Fighting, I.e. the conduct of war and fighting to defeat others with force of arms and other means is a general fact of human existence and civilisation, and Muslims were command to engage in it against others to prevent corruption and oppression, strengthen and defend the Muslims and to make Islam prevail over other religions.

why did the Battle of Badr Start?


Copy synchronized Data Extension in Exact target to Data Extension

Question: I am trying to create a copy of Synchronized Contact Data Extension (from Salesforce) into the non sync Data extension using Query.However none of the records are populated. can anyone help?
Answer: is the issue still open, because i was able to do it by creating a data extension with same columns and fetching using query from sync DE


Can I do brevets (long distance rides) on my hybrid bike? If yes, how to start?

Question: I have a hybrid bike with 27" large frame,  700c wheels and 35mm tires. Can I do brevets (long distance ride) on this bike? If yes, what are the points I should start working on to achieve this? Currently I am a beginner and riding around 40 minutes per day and little more on weekends.
Comment: I've toured over 14000km on a similar bicycle, doing between 50km-160km each day.
Comment: There were once riders who, it was claimed, did a century a day on penny-farthings.
Comment: @ChrisH - In the case I'm thinking of the guy supposedly did a cent a day for a year.
Comment: @DanielRHicks such as in [2003](https://hochrad.wuk.at/berichte/georg_australien_2003_eng.php)? (Technically only one imperial century and several days of back-to-back metric centuries)
Answer: This question gets asked quite often. The short answer is that you can do long distance rides on basically any bicycle as long as it's comfortable for you.
There are a few things you can do to your bicycle to make it more efficient and easier:

Make sure your seating position is good. Especially that your saddle is high enough. This will improve power output and reduce risk of knee pain/injuries.
Reduce air resistance by lowering the handlebar.
If you have front suspension, lock it (or get a rigid fork).
Wear tight fitting bicycle clothes.
Keep it well maintained.
Get road bike tires with low rolling resistance.
Get clipless pedals and shoes.

In the end the most important part will still be training. Training for long distance rides basically boils down to riding a lot. During long rides nutrition (and of course hydration) is also very important.
Answer: You can certainly do Brevet Populaires (100 km).  Plenty of people do them on all sorts of bikes.  I've seen a few people on flat bars on Brevets de Randonneurs 200 in the UK, including an MTB with knobbly tyres (the one with the backpack in this picture).  Hybrids on these rides tend to be set up as flat bar road bikes, i.e. smoothish tyres around 25-35 mm and to have gearing comparable to a tourer. I don't think I've seen flat bars on a 300 (but I'm doing one tomorrow so I'll try to remember to look out for them).
You might end up as a full-value rider (i.e. close to the time limit) especially if there's a headwind, but no-one will think any the worse of you for your choice of bike.  One day I may do a 100 on my hybrid but not with its current saddle - hybrid saddles can be rather fat and chafe.
Comment: No hybrids or similar on the 300km I've just finished, but it was a fairly small ride with plenty of fast riders (not me)
Comment: Last month I've done ~100km (a bit more) ride on my 29r ht mtb - the other bike which is more suitable for that was waiting for a new fork. It was a road club event, so I had to go fast. I've made it, so even an xc bike can be used for 100km ride
Comment: @k102 that seems reasonable.  The furthest I've done on my hardtail was 80km (of which 12km in the middle was trails)
Answer: In practice, most people find hybrids rather uncomfortable for long rides. What "long" means varies from person to person so, to a large extent, you'll just have to try going on longer and longer rides until you find out what your body is comfortable with.
I would note, though, that 40 minutes at the 11mph you said you average in your other question is a long way from brevet-style riding. Don't try to run before you can walk.
Answer: Two summers ago I rode 1,300 miles around Lake Superior on a Trek Verve 2, averaging about 70 miles a day.  I am over 60 years old, and I like a more comfortable ride at this stage.   The more durable tire of a hybrid came in handy when I needed to navigate rougher terrain.  These days I am riding a Specialized Cross Trail on long rides.  I love it.
Comment: That's great, welcome! Is there any wisdom you can share about getting started?
Comment: Wow! That's incredible. Thanks for motivating people us.
Comment: Very inspirational! I've finally finished fixing up my old 90's rigid mtb. It now has smooth tires (1.75" wide), and my plan was to slowly get into randonneuring with it. I never actually went off road with it.  The reason to fix up the old bike rather than get a new one was twofold: 1) it was relatively cheap to do the fixup, and 2) I'm dealing with knee bursitis so I don't know what the future holds and this old bike lets me ease into it. If I can keep doing this, I can always get a bike more suited to randonneuring and the fixed-up mtb will still be a great in-town bike.
Comment: Specialized Cross Trail's front fork shocks have interesting tech.  They lock automatically on smooth surfaces, while flexing on bumpy unpaved terrain
Answer: Last year I rode the Houston MS-150 on a hybrid.
This year some guy rode it on a penny-farthing.
Your bike should be no problem, as long as it's a bike that fits you.
Comment: Now I want to see a bike fit question about penny farthings
Comment: Accuweather just told me about baseball-sized hail and flooding in Houston over the past couple of days so, if that's where you live, I hope you're OK.
Comment: @DavidRicherby: Both days of the ride weekend (27-28 April) were sunny. The only weather-related issue was a stiff headwind during the afternoon of the first day.
Answer: My experience is that pretty much any bike can do pretty much any type of ride (within reason; a track bike cannot do mud racing, for example). I've done a 160 km ride (60 km sportive, 20 km to get there and 80 km to get home) on a fixed gear bike with narrow raiser bars. That worked fine. Was it the ideal bike for such a long ride through mostly countryside? Certainly not. But it was still very enjoyable. An endurance bike would have been faster. A tourer would have been more comfortable. But it was fine. A hybrid would have worked, too. Heck, even a town bike can do that; it just takes a very long time.
This weekend just passed as of writing this answer, I did maybe 100-120 km around the southeast of Scania in the south of Sweden, on a gravel bike. It has the same 700x35C tyre size as on your bike. 35 mm tyres are fine even on long stretches of road; the rolling resistance is comparable to the 28 mm tyres on my fixie, but the ride is more comfy.
I find that on longer rides, the different hand positions of drop bars really help. If possible, I would recommend looking into a different handlebar. The typical wide, mostly flat bar that most hybrids have gets really uncomfortable after a while. Look for something that gives you a few different hand positions. That's probably the single most important upgrade you can do to your bike for longer rides.
Comment: Welcome to the site. When people have asked about putting drop bars on hybrids it is usually considered unfeasible due to cost, complexity and geometry. You might not have meant drop bars at all but they spring to mind most readily for the uninitiated. Maybe butterfly bars as per [this question](https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/1195/different-kinds-of-handlebars/1208), if you have any other ideas not listed, they could be a welcome addition to the wiki page
Comment: @Swifty thanks for the welcome! It does get a bit expensive to replace the levers and all that, but it's not really necessary. You can put a drop handlebar on there and just put the levers etc on the top near the stem. You won't be able to shift or brake from the drops, but it works fine for climbing or long stretches of road with good visibility. Loads of fixie/single speed bikes do that and use old-style track handlebars, and put the brake lever in the middle. You still get three decent hand positions, and the drops are great for climbing.
Comment: Most people find the drops pretty terrible for climbing and much prefer the tops or hoods.
Comment: I really like getting out of the seat and using drops on short, steep climbs. Not so much on really long ones. Using the tops just seems like a terrible idea though.


What is a correct sequence of notes in Chopin Prelude in F# Minor, Op. 28 No. 8, played slowly, both hands?

Question: What is a correct sequence of notes in Chopin's Prelude #8 when playing slowly? How should 32nds be played against a triplet of 16ths plus and 8th? It seems that there are no together played notes in both hands like some tutorials advise (except the first). Should it be played like together-right hand-left-right-right-left-right-right-left-right-right, or how?
Comment: Does this answer your question? [how to line up these notes, the 4 over the 3](https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/82571/how-to-line-up-these-notes-the-4-over-the-3)
Answer: There are, but that's not the point of this piece.
As long as you play this prelude slowly enough that you can distinguish these cases, it's way too slow for the intended effect. Once you've managed to reach the proper agitato speed, all that matters is that the first note of each beat should be simultaneous for both hands, and the second large note of the right should come after the lowest bass note. The small notes have to be as fast as possible in order to fit between those notes at all. Neither the player nor the listener will be able to perceive the exact timing between those notes anyway; the effect to achieve is that of a haze of chord notes.
(If you examine the score mathematically, you'll see that there are two more simultaneous notes in each beat: the lower bass note and the 5th demisemiquaver. But as noted, the point is not to hear this; if you can, it's not agitato!)
Comment: But how is it possible to have more beats than a time signature should have? When composing a piece with a program, this shouldn't be possible too. In the bass staff you have more beats than in the treble staff. There are 3 semiquavers and one quaver. If you multiply this with 4 it has way more beats than common time should have.
Comment: However 5/32 = 2,5 /16-s notes, so how have you calculated that 5th note in right hand corresponds to the last lower bass note in the left? However first note in the right with a dot prolongation it shifts somehow situation, i guess
Comment: @player777 The 16th notes form a *tuplet*, as indicated by the *3* below. That means that they only have 2/3 of their normal length.
Comment: There are NO extra notes in this piece. Your eyes are deceiving you. RIGHT HAND 1. There are 4 beats in each measure. (2)There are eight 32nd notes per beat (this equals thirty-two 32nd notes in each measure). (3) each set of dotted eighth and sixteenth notes are equal to 2 eighth notes(or four 8th notes in a measure or four sets the dotted 8th and 16th note. LEFT HAND= Each "triple 16th note" is equal to one 8th note, plus the 8th note barred to the triple=1 beat each set, therefore, together equals one beat (or two 8th notes)
I hope this helps.
Answer: The passage should be played as follows:

T = together
L = left hand
R = right hand

first half-beat //  second half-beat
T R L R L R     //  T R R R

More precisely:
<code>X:1
T:Chopin Prelude in F# Minor
T:Order of notes
K:F#min
M:C
L:1/32
[V:RH] "_T"C"_R"c"_R"G"_R"B"_T"A"_R"F"_R"D"_R"d
[V:LH clef=bass middle=d] (3"^T"a2"^L"c2"^L"f2"^T"F4
</code>
For this and an excellent approach to practicing the piece, see "A Pedagogical Approach to Technique in Chopin's Preludes Op. 28" (Sheila Kay Barnhart, 2014, Ph.D. diss, West Virginia University, pp. 41-45).


customized xkb layouts not working (in KDE?) after upgrade from Ubuntu 9.10 to 10.04

Question: I customised my keyboard layout in 9.10 by editing the appropriate /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/ file. After upgrading to 10.04 I noticed it had overwritten all my modifications, so I recovered the layout and overwrote the symbol file's base entry.
Sadly KDE (and, presumably, the entire OS) seems to ignore the files altogether. The help files don't mention anything about modifying layouts anyway (and the layout switcher seems to be using setxkbmap, which uses the above path according to its man page), so I'm at a bit of a loss.
Do I need to compile this into some other format somehow or how do I get it to work?
Comment: Have you tried to edit manually the xorg.conf file?
Answer: The X server stores compiled keyboard layouts in /var/lib/xkb/*.xkm. Deleting them should force recompilation.


Malware-free DVD Maker

Question: I'm looking for a free DVD maker program that works on Windows 10, but I can't find any "official" programs from a trusted brand, which makes me paranoid about viruses. Does anybody know of a known safe DVD maker?
Comment: What is a *DVD maker*? Do you want to burn just data DVDs, or videos? Do you want to *author* your videos, i.e. combine fragments, edit menus, etc? Please [edit] your question.
Comment: And asking for malware-free is a bit strange. *No one* publishes software saying "Look, has malware!". Maybe you mean to ask ""without adware", "without [PUP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potentially_unwanted_program)s"?
Comment: @jan I mean a program that burns video files onto DVDs. I know no programs tell you they contain malware, but for example Windows Movie Maker definitely has no malware because that would destroy their brand. I'm looking for a trusted brand that has nothing to gain by giving you a virus.
Comment: Did you ever find an answer? If so, could you either please accept one of the answers here, or post your own answer, in order to help others who read this in future? Thanks.
Comment: You're not coming back, are you? You haven't logged in since the day that you posted this
Answer: There's DVDStyler which can be used to author and burn DVD discs. It's distributed under GNU GPL license.
Answer: beside DVDStyler i can also recommend Bombono DVD, both of them are GUIs for DVDAuthor.

some features of DVDStyler:

user-friendly interface with support of drag & drop
import of image file for background
flexible menu creation on the basis of scalable vector graphic
change the font/color and other parameters of buttons and graphic objects
place buttons, text, images and other graphic objects anywhere on the menu screen
create and burn DVD video with interactive menus
design your own DVD menu or select one from the list of ready to use menu templates
customize navigation using DVD scripting
add multiple subtitle and audio tracks
support of AVI, MOV, MP4, MPEG, OGG, WMV and other file formats
support of MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, Xvid, MP2, MP3, AC-3 and other audio
and video formats
use MPEG and VOB files without reencoding
support of multi-core processor

some features of Bombono DVD:

Comfortable Drag-n-Drop support
Motion menus
Real WYSIWYG Menu Editor with live thumbnails
Subtitles support
Excellent video viewer: Timeline and Monitor
Transcoding, if necessary (from AVI/MKV/MOV/MPEG4...)
You can author to folder, make ISO-image or burn directly to DVD
Reauthoring: you can import video from DVD discs
Answer: Not gratis but Nero has been a very well known and respected brand of DVD Authoring & Burning software. If obtained from the official site you should be good to go and you can also sometimes find magazine cover discs with a copy of a slightly dated version.
Comment: I don't think Nero is free to use.
Comment: Missed the second "free" I'll add the gratis tag.

Malware-free DVD Maker


What transaction information is recorded into the blockchain?

Question: I've searched for a while, but only found a simpler version of an answer. I saw where a transaction's addresses and value field would be recorded, but I'm not clear on what else might be. If I send a transaction to invoke a contract, providing the contract address and a contract function input, what is actually recorded? Is it just the hash of the transaction? Is it all of the actual arguments in the transaction? If I wanted to record multiple pieces of user data, could I just gang them up (as an array) and provide that as a contract function input? Is there any maximum length/size for this? I saw a post where one could view this as a cheap form of long term storage by using logs and events in the contract body that did a Print or console call instead of assigning to explicit contract state. Or, should I create a hash of the data I want to record, save the data and its hash myself in a local database, and just pass this data hash as a single contract function input? Thanks for any clarification/guidance.
Answer: In short, everything is recorded, and everything has an associated cost.
https://programtheblockchain.com/posts/2017/12/29/how-ethereum-transactions-work/ might be helpful reading for you.
Comment: Thanks, but this didn't really clear things up. My main question is what is recorded, the transaction details or its hash.
Comment: The full transaction is recorded. (It kind of has to be... otherwise how could nodes validate the transaction?)
Comment: Hmmm, I guess I kind of suspected that. But if the whole transaction is recorded, does it cost more if the contract invoking transaction contains more data? Anyway, that gives me better direction, so I'll mark it answered. Thanks.
Comment: @smarx Can you include the main point from the link in your answer? Link only answer are not very useful if the site is down or the site disappears.


How do you fulfill Steven Seer's upperclassman goal?

Question: Steven Seer's upperclassman goal reads "You are affected by 'double symbols' 3 times on your turn."  It is not clear to me what 'double symbols' are thus not clear how to fulfill this goal.  Any insights?
Answer: There is speculation on https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1705755/rules-problemsclarifications that the 'double symbols' refer to the card backs of the school deck, which is also what I assumed.  However, that entire thread seems to be people asking and answering their own questions and I am hoping for a more official source (or at least some people voting this way).
If you have the same answer but a better source, I am happy to delete this answer and give you answer credit.


What is the origin of Y2K?

Question: To commemorate the 2,000th question on the English Language & Usage stack, I would like to actually know the origin of that word, and whether it originated for the negativity of the "end of the world" or otherwise.
Answer: I'm not sure if it's apocryphal, but there is this article on Slate regarding the etymology of Y2K:

Y2K was born on Monday, June 12, 1995, at 11:31 p.m. It was delivered in the middle of an otherwise unintelligible e-mail, a contribution to an Internet discussion group of computer geeks exploring the millennium bug long before most people were surfing the World Wide Web.
The efficiency of the term is undeniable--"Y" for "year," the number "2," and "K" for "thousand" (from the Greek "kilo")--and it eventually caught on. But its creator remained unidentified until just over a year ago, when someone performed the equivalent of a computer paternity test by searching the discussion group's archives for the term's first use.
The father of the phrase is a 52-year-old Massachusetts programmer named David Eddy, who's now the president of a Y2K consulting business (click here to visit his Web page). "People were calling it Year 2000, CDC [Century Date Change], Faddle [Faulty Date Logic]," Eddy says. "There were other contenders. [Y2K] just came off my fingertips."
Comment: Everything I could find attributes the term Y2K to this same guy.
Comment: That is actually a good article and covered what I was looking for -- thanks!
Comment: ghoppe @Kosmonaut: I found an earlier Y2K, but used in a variable name to fix a year 2000 bug. I couldn't find anything else earlier than Eddy's "Y2K". See my [answer](http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/7739/what-is-the-origin-of-y2k/46742#46742).
Answer: Y2K stands for "the year 2000." This was the year all the ancient computer systems were supposed to crash because they couldn't handle 4-digit years. This was called the Y2K bug, and because of it banks were supposed to fail, airliners to fall out of the sky, and the digital world to come to a messy and somewhat ignominious end. But for a couple of digits the world could have been saved!
In fact the world went blithely on about its business. Reports of its impending demise were, in the words of Mark Twain, "an exaggeration."
Comment: Note that the world went about its business only because nearly every important piece of software had this bug fixed (partly because of the hysteria, even).
Comment: To clarify the abbreviation, in case it isn't obvious, k is the SI abbreviation for kilo, a prefix denoting 1000. So Y = year, 2K = 2,000.
Comment: More specifically, many programs were written to only use the last 2 digits of the year, e.g. "81" rather than "1981".  The problems happen when computing things like interest over time - after Y2K, you end up with negative values: 01 - 81 = -80, and you can't compute a valid interest rate or other values over a negative time.  Some of us spent a lot of time fixing these problems.
Comment: The world did not go "blithely on about its business."  In fact, millions of dollars and countless hours were spent reviewing and updating computer code, or outright replacing equipment which was not cost-effective to fix.  A perfect example of people recognizing a problem and fixing it, rather than sticking their heads in the sand and pretending it doesn't exist.
Answer: David Eddy used the term Y2K on 12th June 1995 on Peter de Jager's Year 2000 mailing list. (Unfortunately I've not been able to find a copy of the original email.)
I found an antedating on Usenet, but as part of a variable, posted by Bob Brown to comp.lang.cobol on 2nd May 1995:

Newsgroups: comp.lang.cobol
From: MBGF...@prodigy.com (Bob Brown)
Date: 1995/05/02
Subject: Re: Year 2000
I've been working on this problem for a while now. The most popular
solution seems to be changing procedure rather than file conversions. The
problem with file conversion is that all programs using files being
converted must be completed at the same time. With procedure only,
programs can be converted individually. Two problems with this: 1) when
the date is part of a sort 2). when the date is part of an index or key
to a file. In both of these you must do a file conversion.
I will change procedure as follows:
If effective-date > expiration-date  (I work for an insurance company)
move xyz to abc.
Change to:
call "convert-year" using effective-date, ws-date-y2k-1.
call "convert-year" using expiration-date, ws-date-y2k-2.
if  ws-date-y2k-1 >  ws-date-y2k-2
move xyz to abc.
A copy book will be inserted in each program where this is used.
We have macro's for TSO that make coding the call statements and changing
the IF statements very easy.
As far as I can tell only IF statements with > or < won't work. EQUAL's
should still work. COMPUTE's need special care but coudl be handled in a
similar way.
Any thought's on it?
BOB BROWN  MBGF...@prodigy.com

The next Y2K on Usenet is in misc.jobs.misc on 4th October 1995:

I've been looking since '75.
In a recent discussion on the Y2K mailing list, we all agreed
There are NO OBJECTIVE STANDARDS.

This "Y2K mailing list" is most likely the one that David Eddy had first posted Y2K to in June 1995.
Y2K is used half a dozen more times on Usenet in December 1995 (including one referring to the De Jager list: "... where everyone else is discussing Y2K issues, including IBM's VM/VSE/MVS developers"), then it really takes off in 1996.

What is the origin of Y2K?


How can I set IP , do not hide my real IP

Question: I want Tor Browser to use my real IP address when I use my Google account and my Facebook account so as to skip the security question. I want to use Tor Browser as my default browser because Mozilla crashed too much. I don't need to hide my IP.
Answer: Welcome to Tor SE, I'll try to answer your questions, but I also have some comments.
Although it is possible, you should never attempt to use tor browser without tor. Switching back and forth between your hacked not-anonymous tor browser and the not-hacked tor browser would be a personal burden on you that you will eventually make a mistake doing that. If you want to remain anonymous, only use tor browser with tor. If you want to use your real ip address, don't use tor browser.
Assuming by "Mozilla" you mean "Firefox" (made by Mozilla), I would take a step back and look at your situation. If firefox is crashing so often that you are getting annoyed by it, then you have probably done something very wrong. I would look into why your firefox is crashing. Is it a virus? Have you installed a buggy extension? Is your firefox severely outdated? An up to date firefox should not be crashing at all.
As for accessing google and facebook. Once you establish a track record of using these services through tor, they will stop questioning you about why you are connecting from a weird ip address. If by security questions, you are referring to having to solve captchas (or similar), then this is unavoidable through tor at the moment, as this is how most services allow you to prove that you are a human.
Final note: it's tor, not TOR. Although tor was originally nothing more than "The Onion Router", it has since evolved into an entire anonymity ecosystem, and the change in nomenclature to tor is to break the idea that tor is nothing more than a router.
Answer: Like the above, there's no point in using the Tor Browser Bundle if you don't want to use Tor.  It's slow and cumbersome if you don't need the features.
You can try using Firefox ESR 31.6.0, which is what Tor Browser 4.5a5 is based on.  It should be functionally equivalent, aside from the ability to browse hidden services and connect via Tor not being present.  You can install NoScript as an addon if you still want to disable scripts in Firefox ESR.
If you want to keep the ability to use Tor but want to avoid some hassle with Facebook, in October 2014 Facebook launched a hidden service.  I believe accessing Facebook over the Tor hidden service reduces the hassles involved, but I may be mistaken.  Either way, it lets you take advantage of the enhanced security offered by Tor Browser.  The service can be accessed at https://facebookcorewwwi.onion/.  Google has yet to implement a Tor hidden service, so you're out of luck there.


What benefit do you get from posting terms of service, privacy policy, etc.?

Question: Just wondering why you'd post terms of service, privacy policy, etc. on a website.
Comment: **@John_Conde:** Thanks for editing the tags, still haven't found a good way to find the most relevant exist tags... :-)
Comment: Mostly you just have to start typing and see what autocomplete suggests. Otherwise, you can look at the tags used in the similar questions that SE displays when you type the question title. The last place to look would be the "related tags" section of each [tag page](http://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/legal).
Answer: If you are applying for a merchant account this is a common requirement of the merchant account provider as this helps them to understand your business model and determine the risk they will be exposed to (e.g. chargebacks). Basically, the more customer friendly they are the less risk they are exposed to.
Privacy policies are good to have as some users, can't quantify how many unfortunately, will at the very least check to see if you have one and some do actually read it. If they don't know what your policies are they may not use your site at all. Additionally, if your website becomes popular ad famous you may catch some flak for not stating your policy at all.
Terms of service are a legal aid to you in case someone abuses your website in some way. It may give you legal recourse should it be necessary but that will vary by country (and state in the US) so you should always consult a lawyer to make sure yours is enforceable.
Answer: Depending on the country/state you're sire is available in or services you are providing these may be required by law there. California requires a specific privacy policy term that most websites break off as it's own additional policy for CA residents. If you're gathering any data on your users without informing them you are there is the potential for them to take legal action against you if it's used in a way they don't agree with and feel they were misinformed you were collecting it.
Answer: In some cases, like for example Affiliate Marketing, it is required by law in the USA to disclose such information on your website.
As this article on the Washington Post explains.
Comment: Here's a link to an archived cache of the page titled: "[The FTC's Revised Endorsement Guides](http://web.archive.org/web/20110213132633/http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/business/adv/bus71.shtm)" - If you have any issues accessing it, let me know. Cheers!
Comment: Yep, that is a good example -- appears those guidelines are meaningless though, in the sense that no one has been fined for not following them. Here's a link to the updated guidelines: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/business/adv/bus71.shtm
Comment: @blunders, this your link currently gives "The Bureau of Consumer Protection's Business Center website, run by the Federal Trade Commission, was hacked on February 17, 2012. The FTC takes this malicious act seriously. The site has been taken down and will be brought back up when we're satisfied that any vulnerability has been addressed"
Comment: Can you post the title to search for its webcache if not the text of that article?
Answer: ToS (Terms of Service, Terms of Used), Privacy Policy of web sites and on-line services are nothing more than unilateral declarations, i.e. help that does not have any juridical force.
To be legally enforceable, they should have been formalized as 2-sided contracts.
Even in this case, of contract formalization between sides, any contract is made null by omnipresent in ToSes illegal claims infringing any laws like reservations (and common use of) of the right of unilateral retroactive (and without any notice!) of an agreement.
Read, for example:

Court Rejects Online Terms Of Service That Reserve The Right To
Change At Any Time

with comments to it
Comment: Privacy policies may not be legally binding, but they are sometimes [legally required](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy#Applicable_US_law), especially if you do intend on collecting and distributing personal data.
Answer: In addition to these all good answers, I would say Privacy Policy, Terms of Use etc. make your business more serious and your future clients more confident. Many customers don't trust businesses without legal information.


Does it make sense to self-host?

Question: Providing a company has offices, does it make sense to start small, build a server farm there, rather than go with hosting? If not, Is there a cutoff point after which it makes sense to do that? The big players have their own data centers- they don't outsource hosting - do they know something the rest of us don't?
Comment: There's no way to definitively answer this.  This will completely depend on any given company's situation.
Answer:
Providing a company has offices, does it make sense

Maybe, probably not. On a small scale if you're only providing access to your local users and you have the skills in house to manage the system then it may make sense. But if you're providing services to the public across the internet then you need to running with a high volume of traffic before it's cost effective to provide the level of service that you'd get from a quality datacentre (power management, redundant routing, environment management, 24x7 support). Using a hosted server falls somewhere between the 2 extremes.
Trust me - when you're the 'computer guy' in a small company you want someone else to take the calls at 2am and when you're on holiday.
This is somewhat complicated by Content Delivery Networks where the objective is get your data closer to your users.
Comment: Another case where it it makes sense to host in house is when you have very special computing needs and generate huge amounts of data locally.  Video production and weather forecasting are examples.
Answer: Unless you can guarantee power, connectivity, cooling, etc to your in-office datacentre, your best bet to "start small" is to use a semi-managed service like Amazon EC2.
You don't actually state what you are trying to host however?
Comment: LAMP web appication
Answer: Here is a real life scenario that I am currently working on.  Maybe this will help you, maybe it won't.
Currently, our website is hosted in a colocation facility.  Our business and website traffic has been increasing over the past couple years, to the point where we need additional servers to support the increase.  A few months ago, we purchased a new building which included a server room with ample cooling, generators, security measures and a fast internet connection (OC3).  Instead of adding more servers to the colocation facility, we have decided to host our website in-house.
Now, I wouldn't even consider hosting the website in-house if we didn't have the new server room and the other resources.  But because we do, it works for us to bring our web servers home.  We feel that having the flexibility to grow and add additional technologies at any time (which we plan to do) out weighs the cost of supporting our website 24/7/365.
Answer: It's not just offices.  Offices are the least important part of the infrastructure with which to make that decision.  "Big players" already have the necessary infrastructure to support their big internal demands; the additional load of supporting external hosts is small.
If you don't have that infrastructure, hosting companies provide it.  For a fee, of course, and including their profit margin.  But you get to amortize the costs over all their other clients as well, so it works out to be a good deal for smaller companies.  It's not a good deal for larger companies, since they're paying to duplicate resources they already have.  Where's the crossover?  Detailed calculations are complex, but if you're close and not likely to need a larger IT infrastructure, go with the hosting.  If you're likely to expand, build your own infrastructure.
Some of the points to consider

Continuity (multiple data centers with failover between them)
Backups, onsite and off
Power (multiple sources, conditioned)
A/C
HW Support staff (it's 2am.  Who's going to replace that blown fuse?)
SW Support staff
Data isolation and integrity

etc.

Does it make sense to self-host?


Do the pilots have to recalculate the balance when 6 passengers show up last minute in a 737?

Question: Few years ago me and my mates forgot the checkin time and were late for flight. We were late for check-in counter closure (30 minutes before flight if i'm not wrong) but the staff allowed us to go on. We had no checked luggage. There were 6 of us so at least 400 additional kilograms to be carried. Do the pilot need to recalculate mass and balance or is it within the allowance?
Comment: If you were booked onto the flight, what makes you think your weight *wasnt already accounted for*?
Comment: IIRC, there is a document which lists all cargo and passenger carried on a flight. This document must be accurate and is updated for any last-minute changes. Therefore the check can be done when updating this document (which is done by dispatch anyway, not the pilots in the cockpit).
Comment: @Jamiec or the reverse of this question, do pilots have to recalculate these weight if 6 of us didn't make the flight?
Comment: Yes, that goes for the reverse as well. Airline manifests have to account for each person aboard. Depending on how the load schedule (envelope) is constructed, they don't necessarily worry about actual seat location so long as they know which zone you're sitting in.
Answer: Loadsheets have a section called 'last minute changes'. As the name implies, pilots can record last minute changes here. If the changes are minimal, there is no need to recalculate the mass and balance, and trim settings.
What constitutes 'minimal' depends on many things, principally limits set by the operator or manufacturer. I can't verify this but think 400kg would fall within these limits, unless the aircraft was already at its performance limits.
Comment: You are correct in that using the LMC section may simplify the calculations, but you would never depart with an incorrect passenger count on the loadsheet.
Answer: Chances are pretty good that the W&B was recalculated automatically as soon they decided to let you board. Pax manifests have to be accurate and just about everyone uses software tools to manage this. Once you have a pax & bag count, you plug the numbers into whatever zone they're in and boom done.
Answer: It depends. If the pilots had already completed the loadsheet, or received it from the handling company (more likely for a larger operator), then yes, they do have to recalculate, or request a new, updated loadsheet.
Otherwise, since no loadsheet has been issued, there is nothing to recalculate, for the pilots, but WHEN the loadsheet is calculated, it WILL include the latest numbers. Bottom line is: you will be included.
400 kg is enough to make a noticeable impact on performance (engine thrust setting) and take off speeds for a 737.
As another poster implies, there is often a last minute change (LMC) section for, well LMC's. There is also an upper limit of how large this LMC can be (ranging from 500-1500kgs for the 737-operators I have been with). An LMC usually takes about a minute.


Aperture of Photography

Question: I am a beginner.
Can anyone state what it means if anyone says "The aperture of the photo/pic is not correct."?
I donot know what actually aperture means.
Answer: That statement means that he/she thinks that the aperture that was used during the capture was too narrow or wide. The aperture's size affects (among other things) the depth of field and the sharpness of the image. It could also mean that the exposure was incorrect and that it could have been compensated for using another aperture size.
Lastly statement "The aperture of the photo/pic is not correct." isn't really very helpful unless he/she explained why. Of this comment comes from a good photographer it may be worth asking why and what aperture should be used, but keep in mind that you are the photographer and decides what is the "correct" aperture for your photograph.

Aperture of Photography


Usage of the word Zarigüeya

Question: I know that Mexico uses tlacuache, but by action of the TV zarigüeya is entering to Mexico, so I'm curious about the countries were the word is actually used. I'd like to know if there are countries where zarigüeya is not the prefered word.
Comment: Just for those who are wondering like me, it's worth mentioning this: tlacuache = possum or opossum.
Comment: @TheLearner possum is not opossum. They are different animals. http://writingexplained.org/opossum-vs-possum-difference
Comment: In Colombia that animal is called **Chucha** or **Zarigüeya** but never tlacuache since that word is completely unknown here
Comment: @ukemi it doesn't make sense to close a 4 year old question. (I think) :-)
Answer: RAE definitions:

tlacuache.
(Del náhuatl tlacuatzin).

m. Méx. zarigüeya.

and

zarigüeya.
(Del port. brasileño çarigueia).

f. Mamífero marsupial de tamaño mediano o pequeño y aspecto que recuerda a la rata. Las extremidades tienen cinco dedos y las de atrás el pulgar oponible; la cola es prensil, lisa y desnuda. Es mamífero nocturno y omnívoro, que hace nido en los árboles y su preñez dura trece días.

Zarigüeya is used in any Spanish speaking country, it is a word borrowed from Portuguese-Brazilian language. So I dare to say that is not by the action of the TV.
Tlacuache has been maintained in Mexico because Náhuatl was used as lingua franca in some regions before Spanish appearance that borrowed this word. Náhuatl is currently spoken by more than one million and a half only in Mexico where is an official language.
Comment: Just to confirm that is the word that we use in Spain, although I haven't ever seen one of these animals in there. When I came to New England I started to see many of these little critters trying to cross the road just in front of my car (not the smartest). I was told they were possums and I had to google for them to find a translation (and word reference told me both _zarigüeya_ and _comadreja_...).
Comment: I jus want to clarify that when I said the tv thing I was specifically speaking of Mexico. In Mexico the main word is tlacuache but recently zarigüeya is increasing in the spoken language because kids watch tv and the tv cartoons say zarigüeya.
Answer: It also depends of the region of México, for example here in Yucatán they call the zarigüeya "zorro" and that's just limited to some parts of the mexican south, in Veracruz we maintain the name and don't use the nahuatl depiction of since Veracruz is historically an olmec region, also Yucatán is a maya region so that's why they don't use traluache either.

Usage of the word Zarigüeya


How to set an exposed filter to enable current user to view nodes that he has not commented

Question: On my D7 site I am trying to create an exposed filter where current users would choose whether he wants to see all nodes, or only those that current users have not commented. Tried adding 'Comment: Comments of the node' and 'Comment: Author' relationships, 'Comment: Author uid' contextual filter. I didn't want to set a  default value because I want users to switch between all nodes and ones commented by current user. Then I added a filter criteria 'Comment: Author uid' with setting up grouped filter using [current-user:uid] token. No success yet.
Answer: As I understand it, this is impossible with just the views module by itself.
You can easily filter for nodes that the user has commented on, but filtering for nodes the user hasn't commented on is difficult for reasons I'll go into later, so you're going to have to install additional modules or write your own code.
First of all, to get the nodes the user has commented on, you've already added the correct relationships ("Comment: Comments of the node" and "Comment: Author"). However, the filter you actually need to use is "User: Current" with your author relationship selected and the option "Is the logged in user: Yes". You probably also want to use the "Distinct" option in the view's "Query Settings", otherwise you'll get duplicate rows if the user has commented multiple times on the same node.
Now, the reason you can't easily get the nodes the user hasn't commented on is because you can't just change the filter option to "Is the logged in user: No".
Why not?
Because that will go through every comment on the node, and if any of the comments are not authored by the current user, the node will be included in the results, even if it has other comments that were authored by the current user.
So, what you'd actually need to be able to do is take the list of nodes which the current user has commented on, and then exclude them from the results of the view, which simply can't be done in the standard views UI.
Without writing your own module to modify this behaviour, the best option seems to be the OtherView Filter module.
With that module, you can create a second view of nodes, which excludes the results of the first view I described above, using a "Content: Other view result" filter. For usability you'd probably want to set this up as a grouped filter to avoid having the operator and view names exposed to the user.
Comment: @TimurKutuev Sounds like you might have run into the [bug I reported](https://www.drupal.org/project/other_view_filter/issues/3115112). I provided a patch there so you might like to give it a try and comment on the issue if it works for you. If you don't want to try the patch, a workaround is to check the "Allow multiple selections" option on the filter, save the view, then uncheck that option and save the view again.
Comment: Thanks, it worked fine with a single filter, that I am basically satisfied with since the nodes commented by current-user are not visible. But when I am trying to create a grouped filter with two items ('one of'  and 'not one of' + my new view) I am getting following message: 'Warning: explode() expects parameter 2 to be string, array given in other_view_filter_handler_filter_view->query() (line 142 <...>'.  Is there any workaround for this?
Comment: Fine! Checking/unchecking "Allow multiple selections" worked nicely. Will note your patch as well for future.
Comment: FYI, the maintainer of the OtherView Filter module has committed my patch to the dev branch (as well as another of my patches which fixes an issue with "Allow multiple selections") so you could use that now instead of the workaround.


Which language is ubuntu-desktop mostly coded in?

Question: I heard it is Python
Comment: Do you mean the metapackage ubuntu-desktop? Or the default applications, gnome-panel, and such that make up the Desktop install of Ubuntu?
Answer: ubuntu-desktop is a meta packages that only has one purpose, which is to install a collection of packages by the Debian package system. Therefore, the package itself has no source code in this sense, but only information for the package system.
What you probably really mean is about the packages that are installed when you install ubuntu-desktop. However, this is a very broad question, since it is a collection of packages.
Some packages are written in C++ (as the main Gnome windows libraries are). Other packages use the Python gtk bindings and are hence written in Python. There are also packages that are written in mono.
I do not think, that there is a list that is kept keeping count of how many applications are written in which language. This would also be difficult to keep maintained, since the set of packages being "part of" ubuntu-desktop vary from release to release.
Comment: Hm... not too hard to maintain, I think. It should be possible to write a script that apt-get source's each package and runs sloccount on them to figure out what language they primarily use. Don't know of anybody that does it, though.
Comment: Yes.. you could use apt-rdepends for creating a list. However, it would even with such a script quite cumbersome since every package's source would need to be downloaded.
Answer: Poked around in Launchpad: ubuntu-desktop to and browsed the source for a few mins. It appears to be a mix of Python and shell scripts.
Comment: ubuntu-desktop is a metapackage: it only depends on other packages and does not contain any source code. The only data in the package are a copyright and changelog file. You can download the package and look through it here: http://packages.ubuntu.com/lucid/ubuntu-desktop
Answer: I think the question referred to the language used to write the applications running on the default installation.
It's hard to say which language is used the most, but i would guess C or C++. This is just a guess and since all languages are pretty equal in terms of outcome, it doesn't really matter.
Comment: It could matter if a young non-programmer were considering Software Engineering as a career.  He could come here looking for guidance of which languages to specialize in.
Comment: If a young programmer was looking for a language to specialize in, my answer would be the same. It doesn't really matter. There is a demand for all kinds of programmers and focusing on java or .Net, just because it is in high demand now, might be a mistake in the future. Who knows...
Comment: It matters a little bit, depending on what you want to do. If you want to become a kernel hacker and/or write device drivers for linux, you will need to learn C. There are a few other domains in which a particular language is appropriate.
Comment: I too disagree with the statement that programmming language choice does not matter. The OP may be looking for advice regarding what language to study next etc. The fact that Unix has historically been tied to C and to a lesser extent (and more recently) to C++ does matter.
Answer: The primary languages are C and Python, with Go making significant inroads. C++ is merely a means to an end which is why Qt is tolerated so well. It's more like Qt's judicious use of C++ gives it a good name :-).


Why don't forest fires in Western Australia get as much attention as forest fires in the southeast of the country (including SA)?

Question: WA gets plenty hot and dry in the summer (especially Exmouth and points south where Top End moisture isn't as prevalent), but I don't hear so much about catastrophic forest fires hitting WA, like I do about those that hit SA, VIC/TAS, NSW/ACT/SE QLD year in and year (it's events in these states that most often make international news), with the odd exception like the Perth bushfires of November 2011. Is there a meteorological or geological reason that the WA wildfire season can be forgotten as compared to wildfires in the eastern states of Australia?
Comment: I suggest that it's more about the number of people affected by the fires than anything to do with Earth Science.  Same reason fires in Santa Barbara & Napa (California) get more attention than bigger ones in the Sierra Nevada.
Comment: I agree - there are a lot of news stories about fires near Perth or other populated areas
Comment: To the people voting to close: IMO this question is undoubtedly on topic. It asks "Is there a meteorological or geological reason that...". That the answer is "no", and that a longer answer is about off-topic reasons, does not make the question itself a bad one.
Comment: @SemidiurnalSimon: Maybe if you add an "interaction-of-politics-and-earth-science" tag :P
Answer: Forest fires, and natural disasters in general, get attention when they affect people.
Bush fires outside of metropolitan Perth or far away from populated areas do not affect many people. Therefore, media attention is diverted elsewhere. This is not unique to WA: you have the same in NT, northern SA, and the west of eastern states.
This is also not unique to bush fires. Volcanoes only get media attention when they affect people: recent examples are Fuego in Guatemala or Kilauea in Hawaii. The other 50 or so active volcanoes in 2018 get close to zero media attention, because they do not affect anyone (or at least, they do not affect people that the Western media cares about).


What is the story behind the tall Northern offshoot on the West Virginia map?

Question:
It seems like such a tall thin slice should have a story.
Comment: FWIW, if you are often interested in such stories, you would probably find the book [How the States Got Their Shapes](http://www.amazon.com/How-States-Got-Their-Shapes/dp/0061431397) a good read. There was a TV series too, but I haven't seen it, and can't bring myself to recommend a show produced by the History Channel that I haven't seen.
Comment: @TylerDurden Is it too much to ask that SE to be a place for objective discussion rather than trotting out Appalachian cultural stereotypes?
Comment: @AHigh Yeah, I will do that right after the State of West Virginia refunds the money I paid on that ticket.
Comment: Look at that strange piece of Maryland between Pennsylvania and West Virginia…
Answer: Some colonies, including Virginia, claimed all land to their west. Other states, including Pennsylvania, had defined western boundaries:

Ever since the proprietary grant to William Penn in 1681, the border
  between Virginia and Pennsylvania had depended upon defining the
  eastern edge of Pennsylvania. Once that eastern edge of Pennsylvania
  was resolved, surveyors could locate a north-south line "five degrees
  in longitude, to bee computed from the said Easterne Bounds..." to
  mark the western edge of Pennslvania. Until then, land speculators in
  Pennsylvania chartered the Indiana Company, while Maryland speculators
  formed the Illinois and Wabash companies, and sought rights to the
  same lands being claimed by the Virginia-based Ohio Company. (source)

Here's a map showing the state of claims in 1755, with VA in brown and PA in yellow:

You'll note that the map isn't great. (Look how squat western PA is, because Lake Erie looks too far to the south.) Poor mapping gave states with unlimited western territories room to maneuver in making claims on western territory. Land to the west of PA's western border thus had the potential to be claimed by Virginia. Indian fighting and the Revolutionary War prevented the settling of the boundary dispute. All of this geographical ambiguity meant that settlers in this disputed area were confronted with dual local governments, one loyal to Pennsylvania and the other to Virginia:

. . . there were, west of the Alleghanies, not only two different sets of
  magistrates, with their subordinate officers, constables, assessors,
  and organized companies of militia, over the same people in the
  Monongahela valley, but within a few miles of each other had been
  established two different courts regularly (or irregularly)
  administering justice under the laws of two different governments.
  These conditions, with these Virginia Courts exercising judicial
  powers in the same territory with the courts of Pennsylvania,
  continued until August 2S, 1780. (source)

Upon peace with Britain, a final surveying trip was completed during 1784-1786. Having definitively set the southeastern corner of PA, the surveyors could then definitively set the western border of PA. But by then, the Land Ordinance of 1785 gave all territory north of the Ohio River to the federal government, which would sell the land in order to raise revenue and (eventually) form new states. So Virginia was left with the tiny sliver of land west of Pennsylvania and south of the Ohio River. And of course, West Virginia took control of the panhandle after the Wheeling Convention of 1861.
Comment: TL:DR :) The western border of viriginia was set by the Ohio River; the western border of Pennsylvania was set by being 5 degrees west of the eastern border, which is why it's a straight line.
Comment: Maryland, due to its history of having slices carved off by it bigger neighbors, [refused to ratify the Articles of Confederation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_Confederation#Ratification) until the big states gave up their western land claims, setting up the Land Ordinance.
Answer: Panhandle Maryland

Look at that strange piece of Maryland between Pennsylvania and West Virginia… – @o0

I have also wondered about this while studying maps when younger.
On a visit in the later half of April 2013, driving from Kentucky to Maryland, we drove through this area.
One possible reason became clear: this was a valley where it would be difficult to cross over in the westernly direction when Maryland was formed in 1696.
The southern boundary was the Potomac River (just as the western boundary of West Virginia to Ohio is the Ohio river).
Only the northern boundary was an artificial, man made, boundary (which is also true for the eastern boundary between West Virginia and Pennsylvania).

Interstate 68
A road cut at Sideling Hill exposed geological features of the mountain and has become a tourist attraction.

Sideling Hill Road Cut (I-68 and US 40, Maryland)

Sideling Hill Road Cut
Photographed from Interstate 70

When in Kentucky, I noticed a certain tree that had a reddish/purple colored leaves. I was told that this happened only for a few weeks in spring.
These trees, that intermingled with other 'normal' trees, could still be seen while driving through West Virginia. In Maryland they, however, 'disappeared'. My friend pointed out a tree with a more darkish colored green leaves and said that it was the same tree we saw before that had lost the reddish color.
It was, climate wise, as if one had traveled 2 weeks into the future. I found that very impressive.
Answer: The two key states in this drama were Virginia and Pennsylvania. The former, Virginia, initially claimed all of the land west of it all the way to the Mississippi River, with the Ohio River as its northern border. On the other hand, Pennsylvania, founded by the orderly and pacifist William Penn, defined itself as a rectangle (except where geographical features like the Delaware River in the east, and Lake Erie in the northwest prevailed), with the boundaries of 42 degrees to the north, 80 degrees 31 minutes to the west, and the Mason-Dixon line to the south.
After the founding of the United States, the 13 colonies were asked to limit their western claims to roughly the line of the Alleghany and Cumberland mountains to allow for the creation of new states to the west. This led to a partial "rollback" of Virginia's claims out of modern Kentucky, paving the way for the 15th state. When Ohio became the 17th state, it adopted the Pennsylvania border as its eastern boundary only as far south as the Ohio River, and the Ohio River itself as a "southern" boundary. This created the sliver of land between Pennsylvania's western boundary and the Ohio River (which veered to the southwest instead of due west) that was left in the hands of Virginia. Ohio may have done this in order to have a defensible border and avoid the fights the preceded the establishment of the  Mason-Dixon line.
This realignment also began a debate as to whether Virginia should pull back further to (roughly) its current western borders, leaving room for the modern state of West Virginia. That debate was settled in June, 1861 at the Wheeling Convention, as "West Virginia's" response to the start of the Civil War, and Virginia's secession from the Union.
Comment: Ohio had no need for a defense against Virginia in 1803. The Southern Border and Eastern borders were set by the Northwest Ordinance in 1787, and all these areas were already in preexisting states.
Comment: Please see my comment to @twosheds's answer.