How can we make Just One more difficult/competitive?

Question: Our friend group has been playing Just One a lot but it gets a bit boring quickly as 95% of the time the person can guess their word, even if we follow all the rules strictly (only dictionary words, no punctuation, no capitalization, singular form only). Is there a way to make the game more competitive and challenging?
Comment: How many people are you typically playing with?
Comment: @PatLudwig 5 to 8 people
Comment: With prior agreements, this game is trivial. Something like "A will always give the total number of characters of the word", "B will always give a synonym", "C will always give a word that begins with the same character as the word", etc. It's why I quickly lost interest in it. Would suggest playing something else.
Comment: @Allure um, we're playing it as a group of friends, not in an online tournament. No one is going to do prior agreements.
Comment: @JonathanReez it doesn't have to be prior agreements though. In my case, I started giving the total number of characters every word. At first it didn't make sense to the others what I was doing, but once I explained it, it was quickly apparent that I was "breaking" the game by making it too easy. The only options remaining then were to intentionally play worse than possible, or to leave the game. That was when I lost interest.
Comment: @Allure It does feel that is players are going to prior agreements about types of clues to give then are kind of missing the fun of the game of trying to not to the same any anyone else.  Is having that kind of system in place not a bit joyless to play?
Answer: One simple idea has been posted here. In short:

Each turn, select two words to be guessed. If using the provided cards, this can be done by selecting two numbers, as described in the linked post. However, if you have played a lot, you might start to remember some combinations of words found on the same card; in that case, it may be better to take two cards and select one word from each.
Each player other than the guesser still writes a single clue.

To further adjust the difficulty, you can choose whether or not to allow players to indicate which word or words their clue is intended for.
Answer: Here is one idea I had.

Each turn, two players will be guessers (instead of one).
As usual, the other players each write a clue.
After removing duplicates, divide the remaining clues between the two guessers. (This decision could be made by the other players together, or if it proves impractical to do that without leaking information, a single player could be designated to do the division.)
Each guesser writes down a guess, seeing only the clues assigned to them. (If playing in person, have the guessers positioned opposite each other, to make it easier to show clues to only one of them.)
Score a point only if both guesses are correct. (This avoids having it be optimal in some situations to assign all the clues to one guesser, unless that is unavoidable because less than two clues remain.)
Answer: Add a traitor?
Find a deck of cards, take (n-1) hearts and 1 spade, and everybody draws a card.  The one who draws the card is the traitor, and his job is to sabotage your attempts without being identified.
Comment: Too easy to identify the traitor as they would have dissenting clues.


why program running time is not a measure?

Question: i have learned that a program is measured by it's complexity - i mean by Big O Notation.
why don't we measure it by it's absolute running time?
thanks :)
Comment: Sometimes you would measure a program by its running time. It all depends what you were trying to measure.
Comment: I would be pleased for an example
Comment: You can measure it by its absolute running time, but stopwatches are only reliable when you're running Windows.
Answer: You use the complexity of an algorithm instead of absolute running times to reason about algorithms, because the absolute running time of a program does not only depend on the algorithm used and the size of the input. It also depends on the machine it's running on, various implementations detail and what other programs are currently using system resources. Even if you run the same application twice with the same input on the same machine, you won't get exactly the same time.
Consequently when given a program you can't just make a statement like "this program will take 20*n seconds when run with an input of size n" because the program's running time depends on a lot more factors than the input size. You can however make a statement like "this program's running time is in O(n)", so that's a lot more useful.
Answer: Absolute running time is not an indicator of how the algorithm grows with different input sets. It's possible for a O(n*log(n)) algorithm to be far slower than an O(n^2) algorithm for all practical datasets.
Answer: Running time does not measure complexity, it only measures performance, or the time required to perform the task.  An MP3 player will run for the length of the time require to play the song.  The elapsed CPU time may be more useful in this case.
One measure of complexity is how it scales to larger inputs.  This is useful for planning the require hardware.  All things being equal, something that scales relatively linearly is preferable to one which scales poorly. Things are rarely equal.
The other measure of complexity is a measure of how simple the code is.  The code complexity is usually higher for programs with relatively linear performance complexity. Complex code can be costly maintain, and changes are more likely to introduce errors.
All three (or four) measures are useful, and none of them are highly useful by themselves.  The three together can be quite useful.
Answer: The question could use a little more context.
In programming a real program, we are likely to measure the program's running time. There are multiple potential issues with this though
1. What hardware is the program running on? Comparing two programs running on different hardware really doesn't give a meaningful comparison.
2. What other software is running? If anything else running, it's going to steal CPU cycles (or whatever other resource your program is running on).
3. What is the input? As already said, for a small set, a solution might look very fast, but scalability goes out the door. Also, some inputs are easier than others. If as a person, you hand me a dictionary and ask me to sort, I'll hand it right back and say done. Giving me a set of 50 cards (much smaller than a dictionary) in random order will take me a lot longer to do.
4. What is the starting conditions? If your program runs for the first time, chances are, spinning it off the hard disk will take up the largest chunk of time on modern systems. Comparing two implementations with small inputs will likely have their differences masked by this.
Big O notation covers a lot of these issues.
1. Hardware doesn't matter, as everything is normalized by the speed of 1 operation O(1).
2. Big O talks about the algorithm free of other algorithms around it.
3. Big O talks about how the input will change the running time, not how long one input takes. It tells you the worse the algorithm will perform, not how it performs on an average or easy input.
4. Again, Big O handles algorithms, not programs running in a physical system.


Swiftkey - How to handle Auto Capitalization with URL and Email Strings

Question: I like a lot about Swiftkey. But after a few years of using it, some of the annoyances haven't been fixed and I haven't "eventually got used to" the nuances of it like I thought I might.
This one has me stumped.
Enabling auto-capitalization means typing out a web address, or email (or anything with a period in it for that matter), adds spaces and capitalizations throughout the string. Trying to get it to type out correctly, while the fragmented string is also changed to auto-corrected words is unimaginably infuriating.
So I gave up and turned off auto capitalizations, lowering myself to texting like an imbecile, all in lower case (because who's got time to hit the shift key - am I right?).
Enter a second bug.
Swiftkey, when I can be bothered manually capitalizing a word at the beginning of a sentence, seems to think I want that text saved to the custom dictionary. So, for example, the text: Swiftkey drives me crazy. Absolutely throw my phone against the wall crazy. Will result in the word Absolutely being saved to the dictionary. Next time I go to use absolutely in a sentence it comes in capitalized as Absolutely.
Enter a third bug.
Swiftkey has a neat feature where you can long press on a predicted word, and elect it not to be predicted again. Great, if it worked. Long pressing Absolutely and selecting this, removes the word from the custom dictionary, completely, including the original, correct word. Next time you go to type absolutely and type accidentally type abbsolutely or some other fumble, it is not corrected to absolutely because that word is gone. Instead something else is dropped in. absolute for example, or worse perhaps, your mistake goes in abbsolutely.
Ideally I'd rather use auto caps. And have some way to enter strings with periods better. But with it off there is an unacceptable series of bugs that I think need to be fixed.
Am I doing something wrong?
Comment: The email thing is really annoying and it's shocking that it still hasn't been fixed.
Answer: For typing a web address if you start typing with www (case matters here) and then hit period, the auto-capitalization does not work and you can normally type your URL. For other queries I think posting them at SwiftKey's Support page for Android would give you better responses.
Comment: OK that's good to know. Thanks for the response. What about typing email addresses?
Comment: @square_eyes: Regarding email addresses I don't have any idea.


what is the cost for rolling 5 year german future?

Question: im looking at the bobl future for september and for december and see 1.8 basis points difference.
i wanted to know why there is this gap?
and if im holding a position in september and want to roll it to december what is my cost?
thank you
Answer: Ignoring delivery option and margining, then you can treat bond futures like a bond forward. Like any forward contract, fair values of bond forwards are determined by
$$ \text{forward price} = \text{spot price} - \text{carry}. $$
The calendar spread is therefore nonzero for several reasons:

The underlying cheapest-to-delivers might be different, so both spot prices and carries differ for the two contracts;
Even if the underlyings are identical for both contracts (so the spot price is the same), carries can differ – for the December contract, you'd earn three more months worth of accrue interest, but must also pay three more months worth of financing cost.

Flows and other factors can also drive the roll away from fair value. For example, if a lot of longs decide to roll together, then the back contract (December) will no doubt richen relative to the front contract, cheapening the roll.
Other factors such as delivery options can also play a major role in determining the value of such calendar spreads, depending on the interest rate environment.


Refridgerator evaporator not cooling enough to cool fridge

Question: I think it's called the evaporator/cooling element, the coils inside the refrigerator where the r134a gas passes through cooling it. About a week ago our refrigerator stopped working and I found what I thought to be the problem, there was corrosion on the condenser tubes on the bottom of the fridge allowing all the r134a gas to leak out (likely due to dressing spilling repeatedly in the fridge and leaking onto them). I went in and replaced the corroded sections of tubing, and then added a valve onto the tubing so that I could pump more r134a gas back into the system. After bringing the pressure up to slightly less than 10 psi (got this figure from the internet) by adding r134a the cooling element is pretty cold, but not near as cold as it should be. I'm thinking I may have gone wrong in the way I added the r134a, I've seen online where people vacuum all the air out before adding the refrigerant, which I did not do since I do not own a vacuum pump. This will be my next step, but I figured I would ask here since I don't know much about these things and vacuum pumps are fairly expensive
Answer: You'll need to evacuate all the air that leaked into the system.
The vacuum is also an opportunity test to see if the repair is done properly.
It's a similar process to refilling the AC in your car after it leaked so if you use the same fittings a car shop may let you rent/use their equipment.


Logic: can I define a domain containing distinct names referring to the same object?

Question: For example, would a domain {Eric Blair, George Orwell} contain two things, or one thing?
Answer: In the "standard" treatment of first-order logic, the domain of the interpretation contains objects; this is the semantical side.
The language contains "names", i.e. individual constants; this is the syntactical side.
When you interpret a language you have to assign "meaning" to the symbols of the language, like assigning a reference to the individual constants. This amounts to assign to every name of the language an object as its reference.
We can have distinct names having the same objcet as reference.
In your example, Eric Blair and George Orwell are two names of the same individual.
Answer: You actually have to be really careful. There is a classical separation between intension and extension. Keep this in mind: you have on the one hand the language, on the other hand the world. When you are considering a term of a language, it denotes an object of the world, which is its extension, and it does it in a certain way (with a particular intension). Gottlob Frege called theese two aspects Sinn (Sense, Intension) and Bedeutung (Reference, Extension). So we can say that, in your example, you are denoting the same object with two different intensions.
During the last century, logicians focused on the estensional logic, which is logic that doesn't care about the intension (For example, if I write "a -> b" [a implies b] it is the same than writing "~a OR b" [Not a or b], because theese two propositions actually say the same thing, in different ways though.)
So, if you have a domain in which two terms refers to the same object, it is like if you have two variables, let's say X and Y, and X = Y. The form, the syntax is different, but the estension is the same.
But, you could also want to write the domain which has, as elements, every name of an object of the world.

{Eric Blair, George Orwell, the author of 1984, ...}

Now, you are considering, as objects, the terms of the language. "Eric Blair" doesn't denote the man in the world who has that name, but it denotes itself, "Eric blair" (between quotes), is the object of the world. In this case, since the names are the objects, you can call them with another term of the language. You can say that the X term for Eric Blair (without quotes) is "Eric Blair". And so, X is the element of the language which denotes the object of the world "Eric Blair".


Can I disable syncing when WordPress users create accounts?

Question: I have a CiviCRM database on my WordPress site. When new members sign up for our organization they create a CiviCRM account via the profile. Later they create accounts in WordPress to access certain members-only sections of the site. I do not want these WordPress accounts to sync. How can I disable that feature? I am now getting many duplicate records (and I need to allow duplicates as we have individual records -- children -- with same email -- parent).
Answer: You can unhook CiviCRM's hook callbacks like this:
add_action( 'plugins_loaded', 'my_disable_civi_user_sync' );
function my_disable_civi_user_sync() {
    if ( ! function_exists( 'civi_wp' ) ) return;
    remove_action( 'user_register', array( civi_wp()->users, 'update_user' ) );
    remove_action( 'profile_update', array( civi_wp()->users, 'update_user' ) );
    remove_action( 'deleted_user', array( civi_wp()->users, 'delete_user_ufmatch' ), 10 );
}

Disclaimer: this is untested code. You may need to hook into a later action, e.g. init.
Answer: When members sign up you can give them the option of creating a WordPress account at that time. It is in the Advanced Settings of the profile. You can give the option or require account creation.
This will not stop the sync but should reduce the number of duplicates.
Hope it helps...
Answer: From reading between the lines of your question, I think you're taking the wrong approach. Rather than not syncing the contacts, why not prevent deduplication unless the names, DOBs, and the emails are the same? This is doable through the interface, allows you to have genuine matches between accounts where correct, and meets the need you stated.


Mutual information between continuous and discrete variables from numerical data

Question: I am looking for references/measures to estimate the mutual information between a continuous (C) and discrete (D) variable, given a real-world (i.e. finite sample) data set. C is uniformly distributed between Cmin and Cmax, and D is a positive integer whose distribution depends on the value of C (e.g., a poisson distribution with mean f(C)). Any suggestions (methods based on binning over the data set, or independent of binning) are welcome.
Comment: Since you already know the prior distribution of C, it would be probably easier to estimate the conditional entropy of C given D to estimate mutual information. (Curiously, this is something you may encounter in neuroscience applications for spike counts.) As for the binning question, MO is probably not the best place to ask since it is not really a math question. Try stats.SE?
Comment: Thanks for the clue. Will try implementing it.
Comment: Do you have a response to the answer below?
Answer: $\newcommand{\de}{\delta}
\newcommand{\ep}{\varepsilon}
\newcommand{\thh}{\theta}$
Let $D$ be any discrete random variable (r.v.) with distinct values $d_i$ taken with probabilities $p_i=P(D=d_i)>0$ for $i\in I$, where $I$ is a denumerable (that is, at most countable) set. Let $X$ be any r.v. (defined on the same probability space as $D$), with values in any nonempty set $S$ (given also some sigma-algebra $\Sigma$ over $S$, to make $S$ a measurable space). Let $\mu$ be the probability distribution of $X$, so that $\mu(B)=P(X\in B)$ for all $B\in\Sigma$. For each $i\in I$ and each $B\in\Sigma$, let
\begin{equation*}
 \mu_i(B):=P(D=d_i,X\in B).
\end{equation*}
Then $\mu_i$ is a (sub-probability) measure absolutely continuous with respect to $\mu$, so that we can consider a Radon--Nikodym density
\begin{equation*}
 \rho_i:=\frac{d\mu_i}{d\mu} \tag{1}
\end{equation*}
of the measure $\mu_i$ with respect to $\mu$, so that the values of $\rho_i$ are in $[0,1]$.
Then the mutual information between $D$ and $X$ may/should be defined as follows:
\begin{equation*}
 I(D,X):=\sum_{i\in I}\int_S d\mu\;\rho_i\ln\frac{\rho_i}{p_i}. \tag{!}
\end{equation*}
Justification: Take any natural $n$. Let $J:=J_n:=\{0,\dots,n\}^I$, the set of families $j=(j_i)_{i\in I}$ with $j_i\in\{0,\dots,n\}$. Let us assume that $I$ is finite, so that $J$ is countable.
For any $j\in J$, let
\begin{equation*}
 \de_j:=\de_j(n):=\{x\in S\colon j_i/n\le\rho_i(x)<(j_i+1)/n\ \forall i\in I\}. \tag{2}
\end{equation*}
Let $J_{n;0}:=\{j\in J\colon\de_j\ne\emptyset\}$.
Note that the sets $\de_j$ with $j\in J_{n;0}$ form a partition of $S$.
For each $j\in J_{n;0}$, pick then an arbitrary $x_j\in\de_j$, and let $X_n$ be the r.v. taking value the constant value $x_j$ on $\de_j$ for each $j\in J_{n;0}$, so that $X_n$ is a discrete approximation to the r.v. $X$. Then, according to the standard definition, the mutual information between $D$ and $X_n$ is
\begin{align}
 I(D,X_n)&:=\sum_i\sum_j P(D=d_i,X_n=x_j)\ln\frac{P(D=d_i,X_n=x_j)}{P(D=d_i)P(X_n=x_j)} \\
 &=\sum_i\sum_j P(D=d_i,X\in\de_j)\ln\frac{P(D=d_i,X\in\de_j)}{P(D=d_i)P(X\in\de_j)} \\
 &=\sum_i\sum_j \mu_i(\de_j)\ln\frac{\mu_i(\de_j)}{p_i\mu(\de_j)};
\end{align}
here and in what follows, $\sum_i:=\sum_{i\in I}$ and $\sum_j:=\sum_{j\in J_{n;0}}$; as usual, the $(i,j)$-summand here is understood as $0$ whenever $\mu_i(\de_j)=0$. Next, by (1) and (2),
\begin{equation*}
 \frac{\mu_i(\de_j)}{\mu(\de_j)}=\frac1{\mu(\de_j)}\,\int_{\de_j}d\mu\;\rho_i
 =\rho_i(x_j)+\thh_{ij}/n
\end{equation*}
for some $\thh_{ij}\in[0,1]$. So,
\begin{align}
 I(D,X_n)&=\sum_i\sum_j [\rho_i(x_j)+\thh_{ij}/n]\mu(\de_j)\ln\frac{\rho_i(x_j)+\thh_{ij}/n}{p_i} \\
 &=\sum_i\sum_j \rho_i(x_j)\mu(\de_j)\ln\frac{\rho_i(x_j)}{p_i}+O(1/n) \\
 &\to\sum_i\int_S d\mu\;\rho_i\ln\frac{\rho_i}{p_i}
\end{align}
as $n\to\infty$, which completes the justification of the definition (!).


Chiral anomaly and decay of the pion

Question: I am told that if all classical symmetries were reflected as quantum symmetries, the decay of the neutral pion $$\pi^0 ~\longrightarrow~ \gamma\gamma$$ would not happen. Why would the conservation of the axial current in QED prevent the decay of the pion? What is the non-conserved charge in this decay?
Answer: 1) The axial vector current $j^{\mu 5}$ is a pseudovector
$$j^{\mu 5}~:=~\overline{\psi}\gamma^{\mu}\gamma^5\psi~=~j^{\mu}_R-j^{\mu}_L,\qquad
j^{\mu}_{R,L}~:=~ \overline{\psi}_{R,L}\gamma^{\mu}\psi_{R,L},  $$
$$\psi_{R,L}~:=~P_{R,L}\psi,\qquad P_{R,L} ~:=~\frac{1\pm\gamma^5}{2} . $$
The $4$-divergence $d_{\mu}j^{\mu 5}$ is a pseudoscalar. That the axial current $j^{\mu 5}$ is conserved classically means that the $4$-divergence $d_{\mu}j^{\mu 5}=0$ vanishes classically, and if one defines the axial charge
$$N^5(t)~:=~N_R(t)-N_L(t),\qquad N_{R,L}(t)~:=~\int {\rm d}^3{x}~j^0_{R,L}(t,\vec{x}),$$
then $N^5(t)$ is conserved over time classically.
2) It follows from the Dirac equation that a spin $1/2$ particle and its antiparticle must have opposite intrinsic parity. Conventionally, for quarks $P(q)=1=-P(\bar{q})$.
Thus the parity of a meson is
$$P({\rm meson})~=~P(q)P(\bar{q})(-1)^{L}~=~(-1)^{L+1}.$$
In particular, a pion $\pi^0$ with $J=L=S=0$ is a pseudoscalar, with parity $P(\pi^0)=-1$.
3) A pion is a bound state of a quark and an antiquark, which is difficult to directly relate to the Lagrangian density of the standard model, and ultimately to the two photons $\gamma+\gamma$. In practice, one instead studies how the $\pi^0$ and the two $\gamma's$ couple to the axial vector current $j^{\mu 5}$.

Quoting Peskin and Schroeder on the bottom of page 669: We can parametrize the matrix element of $j^{\mu5a}$ between the vacuum and an on-shell pion by writing
$$ \langle 0 |  j^{\mu5a}(x) | \pi^b(p) \rangle~=~ -i p^{\mu} f_{\pi} \delta^{ab} e^{-ip\cdot x}, \qquad (19.88) $$
where $a,b$ are isospin indices and $f_{\pi}$ is a constant [...]. As a consistency check of eq. (19.88), note that lhs = pseudovector $\times$ pseudoscalar=vector=rhs.
On the other hand, it is e.g. argued in Chapter 76 of Srednecki, QFT, via a LSZ formula and a Ward identity, that the $4$-divergence
$$d_{\mu} \langle p,q | j^{\mu5}(x) | 0 \rangle \qquad \qquad \qquad (76.20)  $$
vanishes classically, where $\langle p,q |$ is a state with two outgoing photons with $4$-momenta $p$ and $q$.

So in a nutshell, the pion decay $\pi^0\to \gamma+\gamma$ is classically forbidden because a photon two-state doesn't couple classically to the axial current $j^{\mu5}$.
Comment: This is only approximately true in QCD, because the axial current is conserved. The violation of the Ward identity is not surprising because it is nonzero, but because it is an order of magnitude bigger than other chiral symmetry non-conserving things, which are suppressed by the smallness of the quark mass (this one isn't).
Comment: I know for 4-component spinor, $\bar{\psi}=\psi^\dagger \gamma^0$. What's the definition of $\bar{\psi}_L$?
Answer: Neutral Pion would not decay (in Your discussed case) only if the constituent quarks forming the neutral pion were massless. The professional answer to Your question can be found here:
http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Axial_anomaly .
It clearly states (between Eq. 14 - 15 and Eq. 24 - 25), that zero mass of Fermi-Dirac field is required for the axial current conservation at classical level. If that is the case, quantum effects still allow the pseudoscalar bound state (particles) to decay into two photons due to the quantum anomaly.
However, quarks are not massless, and neutral pion can decay even at classical level into two gammas, in the same way, as para-positronium (e+e-) quantum state annihilates = decays into two gammas. Nobody speaks about anomalies in the para-positronium case, since mass of electron is clearly 0.5 MeV. In this sense, axial anomaly role in the decay of neutral pion may seem to be overestimated. R.Jackiw says (physical pion's mass can be accurately described as "approximately" vanishing) in his explanation (http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Axial_anomaly). Neutral Pi0 mass is 135MeV, which is 135x more massive than the Positronium is. If one finds 135 MeV to be approximately vanishing, than Pi0 decay can be related to the quantum anomaly, I think.
Comment: Note to reviewers: this answer has been substantially edited.
Comment: Yes, but... Jackiw implies that simply using massive quarks (without using the anomaly) is not enough to explain the decay width of the pion, implying you would get an answer a factor of ten too small (if I read that right). So my understanding is that you still need the anomaly to fully obtain the correct decay width. Oh, and bonus points: you only get the right answer with 3 generations of quarks, not four or more.

Chiral anomaly and decay of the pion


In terminal-ide how do I get telnetd to start automatically whenever the device turns on?

Question: I think terminal-ide is the best thing since sliced bread but I am not sure how to get the telnetd to start automatically.
Answer: I don't know of a better solution for now, but I could do it by adding telnetd in the end of the .bashrc file. It is run many times, but the command fails if the address is already in use anyway.
This is a quick hack, but it would be nice to have an initialization script run when the app starts.


What is the function of the と particle in this sentence?

Question: The text on which I found the following sentence is here: http://watanoc.com/post-1608-gozira
So... There's a part where it says:
『すごく面白い』とネットで評判です
So my question is what does the と particle do in this sentence? And also why "すごく面白い" is between these symbols "『    』"
Answer: So, as Micah has said, this と is indeed the quoting particle.
That said, Japanese is a lot more flexible with the grammatical concept of quotation and how it fits into sentences than English is. Quotes can attach to things that you wouldn't expect them to in English - like in this case, the noun 評判.
If you look here (and ignore all the examples involving 名声と評判 because that's the exhaustive listing と), you can see that ~と評判 is a construction roughly meaning "have a reputation for". Jisho's second example sentence is in much the same vein.
In short, this comes out to something like:

It has a reputation online for being super interesting/funny

Or more in more colloquial English:

Everyone online says it's super interesting/funny

The quotation marks (『 』) are simply there to disambiguate the fact that quotation is going on; the phrase would be comprehensible (but perhaps not as immediately obvious to learners of the language) without them.
Comment: I thought that the meaning of the と particle was "and" something like "it is very interesting and has a reputation on the internet" but I never thought that the と particle was doing its function of quoting, anyway thanks a lot, I appreciate your input
Answer: According to https://jisho.org/word/と:

と can be a particle used for quoting (with speech, thoughts, etc.)

Concerning 『 』, according to https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2017/05/quotation-marks-japanese.html:

There is no difference between how 「」 and 『』 affect a phrase. They are both just quotation marks and don't impact the grammar, add nuance, or whatever. There is as much difference between them as there is difference between ' and ".

EDITED
I could not find the phrase on the page you linked, but @DariusJahandarie pointed out it's actually on the page without kanji, with regular quotes 「」, and with extra whitespace.

「すごく おもしろい」と ネットで ひょうばんです。

I've also removed my incorrect translation, please see the answer by @Mindful
Comment: @DariusJahandarie Thanks for alerting me to the incorrect translation and showing it is the right linked page. I originally searched the page for `』` and a couple word combinations including the kanji, but never for the plain kana. I've updated my answer.
Comment: It is on the linked page, just in kana. Also that's not what it means.


Etymology of 'ballpark figure'?

Question: I know ballpark figure means estimate, but I don't understand why it means estimate. Literally, how does ballpark make figure an estimate? Ballpark means a baseball stadium or field from google definition.
Answer: From Paul Dickson, The Dickson Baseball Dictionary (1989):

ballpark figure n. EXT[ernal use:] A rough estimate. This has [a] decidedly odd connection to baseball given that most figures having to do with the game (batting averages, earned run averages and other statistics) are relentlessly precise. Lexicographer Stuart Flexner is quoted by William Safire on its evolution in the book I Stand Corrected: "Our Random House dictionary citation files show the term first started out as in the ballpark (1962), as when talking about figures, estimates, etc., with "I hope that's in the ballpark.' Then, in 1968, we first recorded ballpark figure from The Seattle Times."

So according to Flexner, via Safire, "in the ballpark" to mean "approximately" goes back only to 1962.
The first metaphorical (non-baseball) use of "in the ballpark" in the sense of "approximately correct or accurate" that an Elephind search finds is from "The Supreme Court Mallory Ruling," the Detroit [Michigan] Tribune (November 7, 1964):

The speaker was critical of the Supreme Court Mallory ruling, saying the court "wasn't even in the ballpark" when it FREED A "CONFESSED RAPIST" because too much time had elapsed between the man's arrest and his arraignment on formal charges.

However, "in the ballpark" in the sense of "near success" appears in a cartoon called "Freckles and His Friends," in the Sweetwater [Texas] Reporter (August 20, 1951), where a youth sitting some distance outside the doorway to a curio shop tells Freckles and another buddy:

"Get to first base with her? I didn't even get in the ballpark!"

From this early example it seems very possible that "in the ballpark" originally meant something like "in the vicinity of a desired place" and that it subsequently evolved to mean, in effect, "close to an accurate number or prediction."
A Google Books search yields some other interesting early instances of "in the ballpark." From Review of the Space Program: Hearings Before the Committee on Science and Astronautics (1960) [combined snippets]:

Mr. BASS. Do you know how much?
Dr. DRYDEN. I have said that in the super booster program it will be in the "ballpark" area of another hundred million areas.

From Proceedings of the Power Reactor In-Core Instrumentation Meeting, Washington, D.C., April 28–29, 1960 (1961) [combined snippets]:

In reference to this Teleflex cable, I would like to say that we have not eliminated them from consideration on our project. They had some encouraging test runs at KAPL, as you have heard;  although, it did not meet the requirements for the specific detector we were considering. They were in the ballpark. Teleflex has stated that they intended to do further development and testing on their current cable and at other independent laboratories. They are still a possibility.

And from The Role and Effect of Technology in the Nation's Economy: Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Select Committee on Small Business, U.S. Senate (1963) [snippet view]:

Mr. Komsky: I think two and a half billion would be quite sufficient. As large as it sounds, it is simply getting in the ballpark of what we have learned from previous aid programs is necessary to get out of the aid business. It actually takes more aid to get out of the aid business. This is a hard thing to get across in many areas. Obviously it is difficult from a political standpoint, it is a long-range concept, and it is hard to sell a long-range concept.

Another interesting early metaphorical usage appears in a caption in "School Segregation Up North," in Ebony magazine (June 1962):

Picketing, like that in Chicago (l.) and Cleveland, protests Northern de facto school segregation. "No one will desegregate you except you yourselves," sociologist Saul D. Alinsky told an approving Chicago audience. "If you accept segregation, you will continue to have it. If you stay in the ballpark and keep trying, the game is yours."

Here, "stay[ing] in the ballpark" seems to mean something like refusing to give up or go away. This does not appear to be in the same line of usage that may connect "Freckles and His Friends" in 1951 to government hearings in 1960 and from there to the example in the Detroit Tribune in 1964, however.
Comment: That cartoon makes by far the most sense of this expression, since ordinarily "out of the ballpark" is a *good* thing in baseball.
Comment: Did you point out that the baseball expression "first base" in a guys-talking-about-girls context has a specific meaning.  So "not in the ballpark" makes it funny.
Comment: @alreadypuzzled: The history of the expression "get to first base" deserves  its own separate question and answers. The phrase seems to have originated in a nonsexual sense, but by 1928 was showing up in romance-related contexts. And yet "get to second base" and "get to third base" are hard to find until after World War II. ("Get to third base" shows up in The Naked and the Dead" [1947].) So I'm not at all sure that readers of a family cartoon strip in 1951 were supposed to make a sexual connection with the phrase "get to first base." On the other hand, there is a 1930s-vintage...
Comment: ...[cartoon](https://books.google.com/books?id=puAyAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT713&lpg=PT713&dq=Thurber+%22old+beau%22+%22never+got+to+first+base%22&source=bl&ots=AX4Dt8Nden&sig=3Xk1zCE5EMWT9yEGgOeFHck7VDI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj-moffxa3fAhVrylQKHT8xDIAQ6AEwAHoECAYQAQ#v=onepage&q=Thurber%20%22old%20beau%22%20%22never%20got%20to%20first%20base%22&f=false) by James Thurber in which a father looking at a photo album with his young son, says "And this is Tom Weatherby, an old beau of your mother's. He never got to first base." Meanwhile, the mother sits in a chair nearby with a rather fiendish look on her face.
Answer: If someone asks you how accurate some estimate of something is, you can say "it's in the right ballpark".
It's a way of saying the estimate was not especially wrong, but not especially accurate either, since a ballpark is really a fairly large area of land.
So a ballpark figure or ballpark estimate is an one that's "in the right ballpark".
Comment: @alexsms, I don't think I would say that, or that I've ever heard it. I'd probably understand it if I heard it though.
Comment: I've been wondering do native speakers of English sometimes say smth. like: *Give me the ballpark here*. I understand it could be used with 'estimate, figure, number', etc. or 'to be in the ballpark'. But that phrasing or similar (without number, figure, etc), is it OK and do people say it?
Comment: i see. I think everyone (who knows the word 'ballpark') should understand it. Probably 'ballpark figure' sounds just normal, no need to make it shorter
Answer: The Fifties
Both in the ballpark and the closely related ballpark figure emerge in the mid- to late 1950s in the published proceedings of scientific conferences and government hearings exploring similar topics: peacetime nuclear power, the space race with the Soviet Union, and the money to pay for it all.
Given post-war America's renewed passion for baseball and the almost exclusively male community of aerospace engineers and military scientists, it's hardly surprising that a sports metaphor would be employed in either expression.
The earliest sources for both terms have a decidedly oral, even dialogical character: both conference discussion and government hearings were carefully protocoled and only mildly edited. Even remarks previously prepared, whether lecture or testimony, were designed for oral delivery.
This also helps explain the lag between this more ephemeral literature and other genres such as newspapers or popular fiction,  which is likely the reason a number of online sources give a later date for the first attestation of the two expressions. The term ballpark figure, for instance, didn't appear in Time Magazine until April 1974 (BYU Time Corpus), and even there, it's in a direct quote.

The large dots above represent reactor costs. All of them are experimental reactors at the present time, and none of them are in the ballpark as far as competitive plant costs are concerned. The picture is a little more cheerful if you turn to over-all power costs. — Proceedings, Ohio Conference on the Peacetime Uses of Nuclear Energy and Radiation Safety, Columbus,  29 Aug. 1956, 23.

Representative VAN ZANDT [James E., R-PA]. Would you say $2 million is the money you needed in 1958 as a supplemental?
Colonel ARMSTRONG [Jack, Aircraft Reactors Branch, Atomic Energy Comm.]. I said I thought that if we get this additional money in 1959 we would probably need about a million more here in 1958 to build up to that effort. I hope I am not out of the ballpark. — "Outer Space Propulsion by Nuclear Energy," House Subcommitte on Research and Development, Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, 22 Jan. 1958.

Colonel ARMSTRONG. If you can have power without any moving parts, you are really in the ballpark.
Senator BRICKER [John W. R-OH]. With a good pitcher. — ibid., 23 Jan. 1958.

The "ballpark" figure has been extremely useful in estimating reliability of systems ...  — IRE [Institute of Radio Engineers] National Convention Record 6/6-10, 1958, 170.

For example, at 250 miles altitude the period is 90 minutes, and this is in the ballpark as far as the orbits that have been achieved so far by the Russians and by us. The periods have run from 90 to 134 minutes. — John P. Hagen, "Satellite Tracking" (lecture), 29 April 1958, Problems of satellites and space operations; lecture series sponsored by Office of Naval Research, April-July 1958, pub. 1961.

While in the ballpark frequently locates a quantity or value, i.e., a ballpark figure, an estimate acceptable within a certain range or tolerance, Col. Armstrong's nuclear power with no moving parts puts a quality rather than quantity in the ballpark. Sen. Bricker's quip also suggests the expression was not unknown to him. Armstrong also uses the opposite out of the ballpark when he doubts his own estimate.
House Review of the Space Program, Jan. 1960
A hearing on the expanding space program in the House of Representatives in late January 1960 offers further attestations — and one for a older expression which essentially vanished before the turn of the millennium:

Money is only one element of it and we use the money estimate in relation to the other factors in his proposal, principally to see if he is in the ballpark of sensible estimating.  — "Review of the Space Program," House Committee on Science and Astronautics, 22 Jan. 1960, 43.

Mr. Daddario [Emilio Q., D-CT]. How many people do you have involved in this space medicine field ?
Captain Phoebus [Clifford P., Dir., Astronautical Div., Bureau of Med. and Surg., Navy]. I would say in top-notch scientists scattered around these 6 laboratories there may be something in the ballpark of 75, in this vicinity. — "Review of the Space Program," ibid., 49.

The Chairman [Overton Brooks, D-LA]. You are $50 million short from the original request, roughly.
Dr. Dryden [Hugh L., Dep. Admin., NASA]. It depends on the exact number that comes out of this study. I said of the order of $100 million. If it is $125 million or $75 million — I am just giving you a "ballpark" estimate of the order of magnitude. — ibid., 228.

A minute or so earlier, Dryden had used an older expression with the same meaning:

Dr. Dryden. As compared with the 957, we were allocated or allotted $802 million and there is still to come before you the requests resulting from this study for which I gave a "horseback" estimate of the order of $100 million. — ibid.

The horseback estimate dates at least to 1920:

It is estimated that the water front of New York is 500 miles In length, and with that liberality of margin characteristic of horseback estimates the cost of this improvement would be "from $50,000,000 to $100,000,000." — New York Herald, 20 Dec., 1920, 10.

More Sixties
Though ballpark figure isn't firmly established until the mid-70s (cf. Time above and this NGram) the expression shows signs of broadening in the 1960s. Even an Oregon congressman tries in the ballpark on for size:

Mr. PORTER [Charles O., D-OR]. Right now, at least 25 percent at the end of next year will be going through your hands, according to the Postmaster General, if his figures are in the ballpark, although I am not sure they are.   — "Postal Rate Revision," House Committee on Post Office and Civil Service, 26 May 1960, 382.

In reference to this Teleflex cable, I would like to say that we have not eliminated them from consideration on our project … although, it did not meet the requirements for the specific detector we were considering. They were in the ballpark. Teleflex has stated that they intended to do further development and testing on their current cable and at other independent laboratories. They are still a possibility. — Proceedings of the Power Reactor In-Core Instrumentation Meeting, Washington, D.C., April 28-29, 1960, pub. 1961.

I think Herb is in the ballpark. We have made outlandish guesses, too, as to what it costs and what happens, … — Proceedings of the Symposium on Uranium Carbides as Reactor Fuel Materials, Germantown MD, April 4, 1961.

MR. COLOMB: Do you have the measurement, just a number?
MR. HILL: Well, it drops from 5 down to 2.5 or 3.
MR. COLOMB: In a steel target?
MR. HILL: Yes, in a thin shell and in a one-inch stainless-steel capsule. This is sort of a ballpark number. —
Conference on Light-Water-Moderated Research Reactors : held at Gatlinburg, Tennessee, June 11-14, 1962. Book 3 / Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 1963, 1256f.

Not all of that $7 billion could legitimately be handled that way or should be handled that way by any means. But this gives you a ballpark number as to what is involved. — House Appropriations Committee, 3 Mar. 1966, 607.

Mr. Seidman. We could certainly put forth an estimate of the staff time in the Bureau specifically allocated to this objective.  … That is, with a pretty clear understanding that it would be an arbitrary allocation.
Mr. Conte. Well, call it a ballpark figure.
Mr. Seidman. Yes. About 25 professional and secretarial positions in the various offices and divisions of the Bureau are directly concerned with work primarily on management improvement. Varying amounts of time of other staff members is devoted to this work. A ballpark figure would be about 50 man-years for the Bureau as a whole. — ibid., 795.

Conclusion
Unless there are further instances of in the ballpark or ballpark figure lurking somewhere forgotten and undigitalized, the first attestations of ballpark estimate suggest an origin among engineers and scientists in the mid-50s who needed a precise — and at least initially clever — expression for imprecision. In the 1960s the expression began to move from jargon to the general language, where through the rest of the century its frequency steadily increased.
Comment: Excellent answer, But I believe the origins date back earlier to WWII at least. Baseball analogies were common, and bombers, who were given a specific military target IAW the Geneva Convention rules about protecting civilians, were really just told to make sure they dropped their bombs in the right ball park, meaning behind enemy lines. This is in line with other BB references like homefield advantage. Also note that many airfields looked like giant ball parks from the air. I found a 1947 usage in a Rand doc. (I think). I'm trying to find a better source than Google books.
Comment: It's starting to look like a bad date from Google on the Rand doc.
Answer: Probably an  allusion to the relatively large field in the game of baseball and to the fact that baseballs are seldom hit out of the ballpark, but instead land anywhere within it.
The expression derives from earlier similar usages as in the ballpark, out of the ballpark:
From the AHD

This term alludes to a baseball field, which is always an enclosed space. The expression is basically an extension of the somewhat earlier in the ballpark, meaning within a reasonable range, and out of the ballpark, beyond a reasonable range. [Slang; late 1960s]

The Phrase Finder notes that:

The term has a decided odd connection to baseball given the most figures having to do with the game (such as batting averages and earned run averages) are relentlessly precise. Lexicographer Stuart Flexner is quoted by William Safire (I Stand Corrected, 1984) on its evolution: "Our Random House dictionary citation files show the term first started out as 'in the ballpark' , as when talking about figures, estimates, etc., with 'I hope that's in the ballpark.' Then, in 1968, we first recorded 'ballpark figure' from the Seattle Times."
From The New Dickson Baseball Dictionary by Paul Dickson.

NAL guaranteed Whalen an advance of $100,000, which is not bad for a first book. "The other bids were in the same ballpark," Whalen said. (San Francisco Examiner Book Week, March 28, 1965)

I think they accepted it as a guess. I thought it was a ball-park figure. (Wall Street Journal, June 7, 1967)

Etymology of 'ballpark figure'?


Which tools can create a Star Trek / Iron Man computer voice effect from a normal voice?

Question: I need to convert a normal voice to a more interesting sounding high tech Science Fiction computer voice.
I suppose there are dedicated tools for this task that go beyond a simple flanger?
Comment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Lo-dragP9M
Answer: My suggestion: focus on the performance. It's the one aspect of the sound that no piece of software can touch (or fix), so see if you can get 90% of the way there with your voice actor alone. These computerized voices all seem to have a layer of performance magic, whether it be a gentle clarity of the star trek computer voice or the sarcastic monotone of Jarvis in Ironman.
Once you've got that, there are plenty of tricks like vocoding, pitch shifting, utilizing granular synthesis, melodyne (as Andy said), and probably other specialized plugins for the task. There's also the speaker which produces the voice—not to be forgotten. A youtube search for any of these will provide tutorials.
Try to have a clear idea of the sound you're going for before you do a recording session. It will help you coach the performer(s) to give you what you need the first time around.
Have fun,
~Matt
Answer: To create a robotic voice quickly, the trick is to duplicate your voice, and move the second voice of an image to the right. Listen to the result.
Otherwise, the plug mentioned above are good. You can also use a vocoder.
Comment: @lili I really like your first suggestion, nice idea, and simple!
Comment: Thanks Skarik ;) Yes, it's simple, and it works really good.
Answer: Check out a YouTube vid on how they got the GLADOS voice sound for the game Portal using Melodyne. Should give you some ideas. Also if you check out the trailer for Pacific Rim you'll notice it there too!
Answer: Just to add a couple of other suggestions: the SciFi bundled Pro Tools plugin would work to get the computerised 'twang'  of Jarvis, if used in moderation, or even Adobe Audition has a 'Robotic' preset for the Echo effect, I think..!


Beyond the chain, what other parts of the bike do I need to lubricate, and how?

Question: Beyond the chain, what other parts of the bike do I need to lubricate, and how?  Can anyone provide some guidance of how to get to the hubs, derailleurs, brake parts etc, that need occasionally lubrication?
Answer: The hubs, crank (if not a sealed cartridge), and headset bearings need lubrication perhaps every 10K miles, depending on severity of service.  Brake arms, brake levers, and shifter levers need an occasional squirt of spray lube.  Derailers also need to be sprayed with lube and wiped clean occasionally, or you can clean them up good with WD-40 before re-lubing.
Bearing lubrication involves disassembling the item, washing the parts, and reassembling with new grease.  This is something that an competent tinkerer can manage, if one follows the directions on, say, the Park Tools website.  The tricky details are having the right tools for removing some parts (such as freewheels/clusters) and then reassembling everything with the right torque and tension -- something you want to learn on a $300 bike, not a $3000 bike.
Comment: Cables/cable housings?
Comment: Yeah, the cables can stand a shot of spray lube once a year or so.  They don't need much.
Comment: What is "spray lube" in this context? Is that the same stuff as chain lube?


Control Structures- why is switch and goto not in Solidity?

Question: I was surprised to not see this question here already, and I've either missed the explanation in the docs or it's just not there. It's appreciated. Thanks.
Comment: Here's an answer on [why goto is discouraged](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3517726/what-is-wrong-with-using-goto).
Answer: Solidity isn't Javascript. Neither of them are there.
switch offers nothing more than a convenient if...else shortcut. I don't know why it wan't implemented in Solidity.
Admittedly subjective, but I've never worked anywhere that didn't explicitly outlaw goto as a bad idea. (Have a read of the infamous 1968(!) "A Case against the GO TO Statement".) In an arena where defensive coding is particularly important, goto isn't something that would be considered good practice.
Comment: Using switch instead of a large if-else tree can make optimization easier for compilers, because a switch can be directly converted into a branch table.
Comment: Although I completely agree that goto should generally be avoided, I'm not sure why JavaScript is brought up in your answer, since JavaScript doesn't (natively) support goto neither AFAIK. Surely you can implement goto functionality easily with JavaScript, but that's the case for all languages with metaprogramming capabilities, and metaprogramming is not a bad thing, albiet for a contract oriented language such as solidity, metaprogramming capabilities may be undesirable and should be avoided.
Answer: There is no goto in Solidity but you can somewhat emulate it using the break and continue statements, which compile directly to jump instructions.

break jumps to the code right after the current innermost loop.
continue jumps to the start of the current innermost loop.

To jump forwards you can break out of a do ... while(false); loop like this:
do
{
    // Code here is always executed
    if (a) break; // if (a) goto label1;
    // Code here is skipped if a evaluated to true.
}
while (false);
// label1:

To jump backwards you can continue in a while(true) { ... break; } loop:
// label2:
while (true)
{
    // Code here is executed at least once, and repeats while a is true.
    if (a) continue; // if (a) goto label2;
    // Code here is only executed once.
    break;
}

Of course this is not recommended at all :)
Comment: This doesn't work in cases where the gotos and the labels intersect. a: if (something) goto b; c; b: if(something) goto c;


how to test the TPS in private blockchain

Question: I have set up a private blockchain and I design a new block structure, I want to test the relationship between TPS and block size, are there already some test tools for this use?
Answer: TPS can be calculate as
gasLimit of block divided gasLimit of transaction divided blocktime.
e.g. If a gasLimit of a block is 4700000,
gasLimit of a transaction is 32000,
blocktime is 10sec
then, (4700000/32000)/10 = 14.68
gasLimit of a block increases dynamically to adjust transaction in a network hence you can achieve 15 to 20 transaction TPS
Comment: Note that all transactions do not require the same amount of gas, depending on what the transaction does.


HTML 5: how to make stackable images?

Question: Is it possible to load up 10 images (same dimension), stack them on top of one another only showing 1 image at a time and then by holding down the left mouse button and dragging the mouse up you scroll in one direction and moving the mouse down scrolls in the opposite direction?'
if so how can this be done? canvas element would be the begining, no?
Answer: This sounds like a job for... Javascript!
This solution isn't perfect, but it's an example of mouse scrolling images: https://github.com/kamranayub/Just-Another-Carousel

HTML 5: how to make stackable images?


Swollen leg of red ear slider turtle

Question: Recently I came up with one of the red ear slider turtle that has its one of the legs swallowned up . It is so worse that he is suppose to keep the leg out of the shell. Is there any treatment I can provide to him. My vet says its case of ganagarin and there is no treatment for it.
Answer: The most common treatment for gangrene is surgery to remove injured tissue. Generally this is by amputation of the leg. It is followed up with antibiotics and normal post surgery treatments.
If the gangrene  has traveled into the body, it is usually fatal.
If you vet is saying

its case of ganagarin and there is no treatment for it.

I assume this means that it is past the point were amputation might be effective.
Getting a second opinion, from a different vet is probably a good idea. If the second vets says the same you may want to discuss euthanasia options with the vet.

Swollen leg of red ear slider turtle


How often should I notify referees about my PhD application?

Question: I will be applying now for PhD programmes and I wonder if I should notify my referees about every single application, providing data, such as: title and brief description of the project so they can tailor their references? Or that would be too much for them to get every single time an email like that? I know that they are busy with academic or own research commitments so I don't want to pile them with emails if that's not necessary. They are aware that I'm applying now.
Comment: Why don't you ask them if they want you to keep updated? It is, after all, their preference.
Comment: Possible duplicate of [Are letters of recommendation usually meant to be tailored to a specific programme?](http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/76335/are-letters-of-recommendation-usually-meant-to-be-tailored-to-a-specific-program)
Answer: My suggestion would be to get in touch with your referees and tell them you that you will be applying for several PhDs, so they should expect to potentially get multiple requests for references.
You can then tell them that if they receive a request for a reference and would like more information about the PhD, so that their can tailor their references, then you'll be very happy to provide that for them as necessary. It may of course be the case that your referees will not be inclined to tailor references to individual projects.
This way they're only receiving information when they would like it.
Comment: @HoldenDK I've never had to write a reference, but from reading the references that were written for me when applying for PhDs a lot of what was said was relatively general (e.g., something about demonstrating critical thinking, something about practical research skills, something about writing), so I'm not sure that PhD references necessarily need to be tailored to the project in order to be persuasive.
Comment: Thank you for your reply. Yes, they are aware that I'm applying for several PhDs. They know what my research area of interest is but they are not asking for specific details. It's just probably me thinking that it would make it easier for them to write a reference for me if they have more data but I wonder if I'm not bothering them too much if I keep sending an email every time I submit an application. They haven't say anything but the academic year is starting now so I'm sure they will get busier now.
Comment: @HoldenDK - If an application would be strengthened by a recommender tailoring his letter to the particular school, then okay, risk getting on the recommenders' nerves by sharing specifics.  But try to plan ahead, figure out all (or almost all) the schools you will apply to, so you can send, preferably, ONE email with the info they need, organized in an easy to read format.


How do tokens that pay dividends work?

Question: If a token is created as a standard eosio.token, what are some approaches for paying out dividends to token holders?
Comment: Do you mean in the scenario of having a new block chain, or do you mean if someone issues their own token based on the eosio.token system contract?
Comment: Dividend is an economic right, so please see my article what else could apply there https://tokenmarket.net/news/security-tokens/what-are-security-tokens/
Answer: It's hard to visualize a dividend because to me that would imply paying others in EOS (a currency in which you do not directly control the inflation nor supply of).
With that said I see a few approaches.  One would be just artificially increasing the supply of the token and issuing that over time.  This would be an inflation effectively, but with a dividend type feeling due to the shareholders potentially receiving an equal share based on total stake.
Another approach could be where the dapp takes a cut each time the token is used for its utility or transferred to another user.  This could create a fund from which dividends could be redistributed to everyone using the token (or just burning the token effectively causing deflation equally to all users).
From a psychological perspective, I think the end user would rather see the additional tokens coming in rather than not being able to see the tokens destroyed.
Dividends traditionally come from excess profit a company is taking in, so not all of the funds in that account would have to be redistributed.
You could also limit the accounts the dividend could apply to by creating a stake-like option like steemit used where users would elect to lock up their tokens for a longer period of time (weeks to months) in order to be eligible to receive the dividend based on how many tokens they've locked up.
By incentivizing users to lock up their tokens, this effectively reduces the float, or total amount of tokens that can be traded.  In simple terms, less supply with the same demand leads to a price appreciation of the asset in question.
Answer: If you mean on a technical level there's a few ways of giving out this effect.
Some dApps I've seen have a very centralised method where they'll calculate the dividend rewards for users every 24 hours perform the dividend by transferring the EOS to the users in bulk.
I'm currently developing another method, done entirely on contract.
It's based off the eosio.token contract, which allows people to create dividends by simply transferring EOS to the contract and specifying the token you want to issue a dividend towards in the memo.
This will record the total dividends for the token, then, when people want to claim their dividend they just hit a claim action and they will receive whatever EOS they're entitled too.
This makes it very scalable as there isn't a need for bulk CPU every 24 hours, users can get their dividend every 5 minutes should there be a new dividend every 4. Plus, the claim action can be triggered by anyone, so your users can enjoy their EOS rewards being sent to their accounts automatically if that's something the dApp developer wants to provide.
I think it's very important that we think bigger with token contracts on the network, too many dApp devs just fork the eosio.token contract and do what they want with it, despite plenty of other dApp devs who would have similar feature requests.
Let me know if you'd be interested in checking it out when I release the contract.

How do tokens that pay dividends work?


whirlpool washing machine stops after rinse cycle, will not spin, and knob makes a noise

Question: I have a Whirlpool Ultimate care 2 and it stopped draining water and entering the spin cycle. I initially thought it was the water pump and replaced it. The draining lines seemed clear(no issues with draining water from washer, even the ones connected to the water pump ;) ), but I am running into the same issue. Now I've noticed that when I set the machine to rinse(from empty) it filled with water and that was it. When I turned the knob to another cycle for rinse, the knob would begin make a noise kind of like a timer then eventually stop. Not sure if it is something intrinsically wrong with the knob mechanism or the lid switch. Please help!
Comment: Is this a knob style timer ? Does it not advance through and is stuck on a setting ? May be a fault with the timer, seen similar on a dryer that wouldn't advance, you could hear a very faint ticking/grating in the mechanism. Is the noise unusual for thr machine?
Answer: The most common reason for this is a bad lid switch. The drain function is part of the spin cycle, which will not start unless the lid switch closes a circuit to indicate that the lid is closed. If you are reasonably handy you can jumper the switch to prove this out. Since you already replaced the pump (which, by the way, would be the second most common cause of your problem) I would assume you are capable of testing/replacing the lid switch.
The "timer" noise you are hearing from the knob is likely normal, you just never heard it before because you never had to pay close enough attention to it before you had problems.
Comment: ...and the spin cycle makes a lot of noise that covers it up, when spinning...


Why did different cultures develop different philosophies?

Question: Why did places like India develop things like Vedantism and Buddhism while Greece developed Platonism and Rationalism? If peoples have the same cognitive equipment, why develop different philosophies?
Comment: Because they have different cultures... Art, religion, philosophy are part of *culture* (and not *nature* : environment, biology).
Comment: @MauroALLEGRANZA: While correct in principle, philosophy, sure enough, claims to describe the nature/reality of things in all cultures, so this objection can be but the start of an answer.
Comment: I wonder if you are reading a particular philosopher that brings this question to mind? That would provide some context on which an answer could be based without it being primarily opinion-based. If the question does get closed try again with another one. Welcome to this SE!
Comment: Why not? People's "cognitive equipment" is very plastic, much of it is shaped by inherited custom, cultural practices, geographic environment, etc. And even the inborn aspects of "equipment" are likely subject to geographic variation.
Comment: It strikes me as here there's a short answer and a long answer.  The short answer is the one you're seeing a lot of "culture and environment."  The long answer is to pick any two particular philosophies (such as Vedantism and Platonism), and try to compare their cultures and environments.  Needless to say, there's a large number of philosophies to consider (one could even argue the number is unbounded), but the general short answer will hold regardless.
Comment: If you like memes, different environments and natural selection on memes would bring about the differences, in the same way potatos were present in America but not in Europe due to natural selection I guess...but that is one possible explanation...nice question
Comment: See 'Western Empiricism in Eastern Philosophy?' https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/23510/western-empiricism-in-eastern-philosophy/73463#73463 And, the it comes down to war & politics argument: https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/38873/why-is-the-emergence-of-monotheism-a-cultural-milestone-in-the-development-of-ma/48925#48925 & https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/72420/what-are-the-origins-and-evolution-of-mythology-religions/72425#72425
Answer: Actually, if you look at the entire range of philosophers in different cultures, many have covered at least parallel territory.  As an example, there were many ancient Chinese philosophers (largely unknown in the West) whose work paralleled or anticipated different schools of Western thought. (Bryan W. Van Norden's Taking Back Philosophy does a good job of highlighting the parallels.)
What does vary widely is which philosophies have been embraced by different cultures and why.  While it may be impossible to answer this definitively, it at least seems plausible that different cultures have gravitated to philosophies that address questions that are particularly pressing for them.
As an example, in his book Guns, Germs and Steel, ethnogeographer Jared Diamond proposes that China's large, connected land-mass, without natural barriers, made warfare particularly disastrous and unbounded, and led to a society focused around peace, stability, and cultural unity.  Given that, Confucianism was an ideal Chinese philosophy.  On the other hand, Europe's hide-and-seek geography encouraged the constant formation of little kingdoms, and small, contained wars, and produced societies that embraced more competition-focused philosophies.
Answer: Nice question.
Heidegger blames the difference you mention on the loss of the idea of Unity from Western philosophy, a loss he blames on the Greeks after Socrates. This seems reasonable to me. Roman Christianity must later have had a lot to do embedding this profound difference.
With this philosophical element missing from the Western tradition it developed a philosophy within which it has proved impossible to construct a coherent fundamental theory. Meanwhile the Vedantists and the Perennial philosophy carried on regardless grounded on an axiom of Unity and the non-dual nature of Reality.
As far as logic goes the two traditions share the same results but the interpretation placed on them by the Vedantists is off-limits for the scholastic tradition that emerged after Plato and this ensured that the two traditions maintained their distinct identities.
Differences in language, choice of metaphors, style of argumentation and presentation are often philosophically trivial and derived from culture and history. But in the case you mention it's not quite as simple as just a difference between Greek and Indian culture. There is a fundamental philosophical disagreement on how to interpret the result of logic.
For Indian philosophy the Unity of All would be the correct interpretation of metaphysics. For Greek philosophy there isn't one. Thus the only people who claim an understanding of metaphysics endorse the Indian Upanishads and everyone else has to scratch their heads at its incomprehensibility.
At the risk of being a little rude I'll suggest that the distinct difference in this case is mostly to do with how well the respective camps do philosophy.
Answer: I also believe that "peoples have the same cognitive equipment" and in the Grand scheme of things, we are all members of one giant human family.  However, within our giant human family, there exists-(and has existed), a wide range of thought and intellectual expression.
For example, why is it that the world's major religions-(i.e. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism and Buddhism) all originated in the continent of Asia? Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Zoroastrianism originated in the Middle East, whereas Hinduism and Buddhism originated in Nepal and the greater Indian subcontinent. Is there a single, all encompassing answer to this question? The answer is most likely...no. The reasons can vary from diverse geographies and climates, to random historical circumstances, to the commercial wealth of a society, to the political status of a particular country.
And I believe the same can also be said for other landmark ideas and pioneering systems.  The intellectual All-Stars of every society throughout History-(and into the present-day), while noted for their originality, novelty and ingenuity, are also, in many ways, products of their civilization and culture. On the one hand, the great Philosophers, Scientists and Mathematicians, have produced unique ways at better understanding the world and the Universe; though on the other hand, these same Philosophers, Scientists and Mathematicians, were also lifelong members of a specific society which had distinct values and particularized visions of reality.
Answer:
Why did places like India develop things like Vedantism and Buddhism while Greece developed Platonism and Rationalism ...

First, Vedantism is a non-dual philosophy and is akin to the Pythagorean doctrine of the Monad/One. Whilst Rationalism is associated with Greece other places developed similar ideas, for example again in India, we have the secular school of Lokyata.
That different cultures develop similar ideas show that they touch upon some aspect of the truth as the truth is everywhere and at all times the same. The differences arise from different emphases and the different ways that insight, intuition and ideas are expressed by those that think upon them.

If peoples have the same cognitive equipment, why develop different phikosophies.

This is because philosophy is orientated towards truth and though truth is unitary it is many-faceted (and in fact, infinitely so), to us finite creatures, it appears in different guises.
Answer:
If peoples have the same cognitive equipment, why develop different philosophies?

Philosophies are basically the result of the human mind, which we can categorise as rational. Rationality is essentially logic plus empirical experience. The human capacity for developing articulated languages with unlimited semantics for verbal communication is crucial to explain the development of human civilisations requiring political coordination across a large number of human beings.
Given this context, there are two thing which explain the variability between different regions of the world. First, logic is agnostic about the furniture of reality. It only assumes that something exists. All our inferences therefore can only follow logically from whatever we take the responsibility of assuming as true. We are responsible for our assumptions.
The second point is that our assumptions are mostly a function of our personal experience of reality and it seems that not two humans have exactly the same experience. This largely explains that we can disagree about most things.
So there is variability but there is also uniformity. Europeans tend to have some beliefs in common while Asians may have some other, very different beliefs in common. This we can trace in a large part to language. Verbal communication is the principal means for spreading ideas across a population speaking the same language. Different regions of the world may have different languages so that ideas born in one region will spread easily throughout this region but will more easily fail to cross over to other regions.
Another aspect is the genesis of ideologies. What is plausible is that ideas are accepted in one population when they are perceived by some people as useful. Some people here may be the whole population or particular groups of people. It seems unlikely that any idea spread to very many people if it does not fulfil some useful role. Thus, ideas tend to spread as a function of the particular historical events of the time.
Since regions of the world are by definition relatively isolated from each other, we should expect that possibly very different ideas will prevail in different regions.
The notion of philosophy covers a very large spectrum of systems of ideas, from individual philosophies to massive cultural fixtures like Confucianism. It seems plausible that each philosophy is initiated by one individual thinking things through on his or her own. However, once a philosophy spreads to other people, it is susceptible to modifications brought by different people. Further, the spread of a philosophy should broadly follow the rule governing the spread of ideas, and so a philosophy should be somehow perceived as useful by those who use it and spread it. Thus, all successful philosophies probably are useful to at least some people.
There are also factors that affect equally all regions. For example, the physic of elementary particles is the same everywhere and therefore in all regions of the world. Geographical features are local to each region but everybody can see the Moon and the Sun whatever the region they live in. Thus, some ideas should be able to spread to all regions of the world despite natural and linguistic barriers.
Answer: Philosophy is basically related to thoughts.  As you know, there are so many factors that affect our thoughts. Nature, environment, atmosphere, climate, food, etc. affect them. All these factors are inter-related also.  So we cannot stick to only one of these factors to reach a conclusion. Great ideas related to great philosophies are discovered in solitude.
Food is one of the most important factors mentioned above.  1. Importance of a sattvik diet ( Satvik food )  2. Sāttvic, Rājasic and Tāmasic food.  The effect of different variants in spirituality is seen in philosophy also.
I believe you have noticed the last part in the first link and came to a conclusion.
As a tailpiece you can think of the reason for the different variants in spirituality.
Comment: -1: Plato's works are *dialogues* where we see people discuss philosophical ideas between them. It's misleading to think great ideas are discovered solely in isolation. It's probably a symptom of the modern eta when people hid behind books and more modernly, behind screens. What Plato was describing was an oral culture of philosophy. Moreover, the same culture was in early Indian philosophy.
Comment: @MoziburUllah:Some basic ideas might be so. I meant base of bases. Thanks
Comment: No matter how I parse your comment, it makes no sense in the context of what you wrote in your post or in the context of my comment above. Can you explain further?
Comment: @MoziburUllah:'Great ideas **related to** *great philosophies*' -- this was what I said. I believe ideas related to nothingness, consciousness etc are great. And no findings on them are possible in a noisy environment. Solitude / introversion is necessary for the discoveries regarding such ideas.
Comment: I said I couldn't "parse your comment" and was not referring to your answer. What do you mean by "some basic ideas might be so. I meant base of bases?" By your last sentence, presumably you are saying, "some base of base ideas might be so?". "Might be so" what? And what is a "base of base ideas?" This is what I was asking about - not a precis of your answer.


What object should one focus on when meditating to reduce anxiousness?

Question: Just the header really! A friend is very self reflective, builds herself up into a tempest thinking about her situation (not terrible, but below where she is comfortable being, I guess).
Answer: Just feel the body in general as one breath in and out. Then allow the body to relax. As the body relaxes, so does the cognitive mind.
Answer: Saripathana based on breath and walking meditation could be the best.
I am more inclined to practice walking meditation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngEhlYiM--E&t=2s
Comment: Agree on breathing.
Answer: Try to remove notions of "I", "mine", "myself" and fear/anxiety will have no anchor to latch onto:

"Herein, Bahiya, you should train yourself thus: 'In the seen will be merely what is seen; in the heard will be merely what is heard; in the sensed will be merely what is sensed; in the cognized will be merely what is cognized.' In this way you should train yourself, Bahiya.
"When, Bahiya, for you in the seen is merely what is seen... in the cognized is merely what is cognized, then, Bahiya, you will not be 'with that.' When, Bahiya, you are not 'with that,' then, Bahiya, you will not be 'in that.' When, Bahiya, you are not 'in that,' then, Bahiya, you will be neither here nor beyond nor in between the two. Just this is the end of suffering." ~~ Ud 1.10 ~~
Comment: Don't you think the teaching for Bahiya is a tad too spiritually advanced for someone dealing with anxiousness?
Comment: @KumāraBhikkhu Bhante, I don't think so. Just because someone seemingly affected by some anxiety issue does not mean that his potential for enlightenment is limited. Hey, you never know, his or her latent potential might even be far greater than a seasoned professional monk who can recite most suttas by heart!
Answer:
There is unrest of mind; frequently giving unwise attention to it — that is the nourishment for the arising of restlessness and remorse that have not yet arisen, and for the increase and strengthening of restlessness and remorse that have already arisen. — SN 46:51

Denourishing of Restlessness and Remorse

There is quietude of mind; frequently giving wise attention to it — that is the denourishing of the arising of restlessness and remorse that have not yet arisen, and of the increase and strengthening of restlessness and remorse that have already arisen. — SN 46:51
"Monks, when the mind is agitated, that is the wrong time to cultivate the enlightenment-factors of investigation-of-states, of energy, of rapture. Why? An agitated mind is hard to calm through these factors.
  "When the mind is agitated, that is the right time to cultivate the enlightenment-factors of tranquillity [1. passadhi], concentration [2. samadhi], equanimity [3. upekkha]. Why? Because an agitated mind is easy to calm through these factors. [...] As for mindfulness [4. Sati] that is always useful. -Aggi Sutta

Here the meaning of the principles;

Passadhi

Therein what is calmness-awakening-factor? That which of the aggregate of feeling, of the aggregate of perception, of the aggregate of volitional activities, of the aggregate of consciousness is calmness, serenity, being calm, being serene, state of being serene, calmness-awakening-factor. This is called calmness-awakening-factor. (5)For him of raptureful mind the body (of mental aggregates) becomes calm, also consciousness becomes calm. This is called calmness-awakening-factor.

The serenity, the composure which there is on that occasion, the calming, the tranquillizing, the tranquillity of the aggregates

Samadhi

Unshakability by agitation as the meaning of the concentration power

Therein what is samādhi-awakening-factor? That which is stability of consciousness. right samādhi, samādhi-awakening-factor, path constituent, included in the path. This is called samādhi-awakening-factor. For him of calm body (of mental aggregates) and mental pleasure, consciousness is in samādhi. This is called samādhi-awakening-factor.
The stability, solidity, absorbed steadfastness of thought which on that occasion is the absence of distraction, balance, imperturbed mental procedure, quiet, the faculty and the power of concentration, right concentration—this is same as composure [collectedness/self-collectedness/onepointedness]

Upekkha

Therein what is equanimity-awakening-factor? That which is equanimity, having equanimity, supreme equanimity, state of balance of consciousness, equanimity-awakening-factor. This is called equanimity-awakening-factor. He, having consciousness in samādhi in the above manner, is well balanced. This is called equanimity-awakening-factor.

The mental [condition] neither pleasant nor unpleasant, which, on that occasion, is born of contact with the appropriate element of representative intellection; the sensation, born of contact with thought, which is neither easeful nor painful; the feeling, born of contact with thought, which is neither easeful nor painful—this is the feeling that there then is.

Sati

Unshakability by negligence as the meaning of the mindfulness power

Therein what is mindfulness-awakening-factor? Herein a monk is mindful, furnished with excellent mindfulness-penetration, he remembers, remembers constantly, what has long been done and long been said (concerning release). This is called mindfulness-awakening-factor.
That which is mindfulness, recollection, recall, mindfulness, remembrance, bearing (in mind), not losing, not confusing, mindfulness, the Faculty of Mindfulness, the Strength of Mindfulness, Right Mindfulness: this is called 'mindfulness.'
The mindfulness which on that occasion is recollecting, calling back to mind; the mindfulness which is remembering, bearing in mind, the opposite of superficiality and of obliviousness; mindfulness as faculty, mindfulness as power, right mindfulness—this is the faculty of mindfulness that there then is. - vibhanga
The Blessed One said, "Suppose, monks, that a large crowd of people comes thronging together, saying, 'The beauty queen! The beauty queen!' And suppose that the beauty queen is highly accomplished at singing & dancing, so that an even greater crowd comes thronging, saying, 'The beauty queen is singing! The beauty queen is dancing!' Then a man comes along, desiring life & shrinking from death, desiring pleasure & abhorring pain. They say to him, 'Now look here, mister. You must take this bowl filled to the brim with oil and carry it on your head in between the great crowd & the beauty queen. A man with a raised sword will follow right behind you, and wherever you spill even a drop of oil, right there will he cut off your head.' Now what do you think, monks: Will that man, not paying attention to the bowl of oil, let himself get distracted outside?"
  "No, lord."
  "I have given you this parable to convey a meaning. The meaning is this: The bowl filled to the brim with oil stands for mindfulness immersed in the body. Thus you should train yourselves: 'We will develop mindfulness immersed in the body. We will pursue it, hand it the reins and take it as a basis, give it a grounding, steady it, consolidate it, and undertake it well.' That is how you should train yourselves."

Some notes on these;
When developing the passadhi, mindfulness of the in&out breathing which is then mindfulness of bodily fabrications as in things tied to the body, that is usually the go-to for object of meditation.
When developing the samadhi, it's power is that of unshakability by agitation. Non-distraction is to be known as the meaning of the concentration faculty.
When developing uppekha, i primarily use the theme of four primary elements that are internal or external. I also think that one may use the theme of general unattractiveness which ie is in case of the body generally tied to the graveyard contemplations given in the Satipatthana Sutta but isn't limited to it, if one practices those equanimity or loathing will be established. Id also use 'non-delight in all worlds' and like Vsm suggest general contemplation of dhamma tied to unattractiveness, impermanence, drawbacks and whatever else makes one reject the bait.
The commentary of Vsm lists six things as conducive to the abandonment of restlessness and remorse:

Knowledge and pondering of the Dhamma;
Asking questions about the Dhamma;
Familiarity with the Vinaya (the Code of Monastic Discipline, and for lay followers, with the principles of moral conduct);
Association with those mature in age and experience, who possess dignity, restraint and calm;
Noble friendship;
Suitable conversation.

In general i think one should investigate the cause of anxiety to address it most appropriately and if one can't know the cause one probably has to cover all the bases because anxiety manifests due to many things like one's behavior, views, fears, regrets and resolves.
Where no references it's either patisambhidamagga or vibhanga, except that sutta excerpt w beauty queen that is sutta pitaka.
Answer: I think it depends on the person's personality. Mindfulness of fear is pretty effective. Just like the Buddha saying to Mara, "I see you, Mara". I recently read an article called Inviting Mara To Tea. It talked about welcoming and thanking Mara. Treating Mara as a messenger to teach you.
In line with that, I think the Brahmavihara should be quite effective. It diverts your mind from your own fear, and redirects it to the welfare of others. It changes your mind from negative to positive.
Metta (loving kindness)
Karuna (compassion)
Mudita (empathic joy for others)
Upekkha (equanimity, even-mindedness to everyone)


What is the earliest example of a 'gag reel'?

Question: Having just watched a string of gag reels on youtube, I would like to know what the earliest examples of this extra material would be. I found one from 1946 on youtube but it would be interesting to know of anything earlier and when they became popular. Does anyone know more about this? Not sure about appropriate tags.
Answer: Back in the 30's and 40's, Warner Brothers used to produce a yearly "Breakdowns" film containing bloopers from films produced during the last year. They'd show the films during an annual dinner for the staff.
You can find a collection of these films on archive.org. The earliest one in their collection is Breakdowns of 1936. The films are in the public domain so they're also easy to find on Youtube.
Breakdowns of 1939 is somewhat well-known for having a sequence of Porky Pig "bloopers", contributed by the cartoon division--which was actually produced especially for the blooper reel, because the cartoon-making process at the time wouldn't produce bloopers.
This youtube video has the Youtube title "Breakdowns of 1935". The actual film has no title card or date. But the end card says it's from Warner, and it contains segments from Warner films from 1934-1935. It could be another gag reel from before they adopted the "Breakdowns" name.
Answer: Not an answer, just an 'interesting' anecdote. Please don't vote it either way, it's just a bit of background info.
Back in the 80's - before the days of YouTube or even "It'll be Alright on the Night" which was the first UK show to air out-takes and bloopers from recognised actors and broadcasters - the BBC's VT department used to edit together a gag reel from their own shows during the year. They would set it up like a single presenter show, probably using down-time in one of the news studios, and use a famous face from the time to actually do a quick & dirty presentation for it.
These were then broadcast internally around the various local BBC satellite stations around the country in the run-up to xmas, and either watched by groups of people at lunch-time in a spare room, or the canteen etc; or they could grab a copy on VHS to bring home to show their friends.
Because this was known and quite 'famous' inside the organisation, you would often see bloopers/gaffs made by actors or presenters who, once they realised how badly it had gone wrong, would often turn to camera with a sheepish grin and say "Merry Christmas, VT"
I thought I'd Google "Merry Christmas VT" to see what I could find - seems it even has its own Wikipedia entry these days - Christmas tape
BBC4 even made a show about it - The Secret Story of the BBC Christmas Tapes. The show itself is no longer available on there to watch, but there's a long write up about it.
A quick trip round YouTube brought me this list - many of the BBC and other networks' xmas tapes. Note: bad language is likely to be unexpurgated, these were never designed to be seen by the public.
Comment: Interesting. Thanks for this. That is around the same time (early 80s) as the earliest outtake segments that I personally remember. While not a separate feature, the outtakes at the end of 'Smoky and the Bandit' still make me laugh.
Answer: Star Trek conventions often showed blooper reels or gag reels from Star Trek: The Original Series back in the 1980s and probably even the 1970s.
As I remember there were separate blooper reels for the first, second, and third seasons.  Thus it is possible that they were compiled at the end of each season, and thus in 1967, 1968, and 1969.
So if that dating is correct any earliest American television blooper reels would have to be made before the Star Trek blooper reels and/or shown to the public before the Star Trek ones were first shown at conventions in the 1980s or 1970s.
Answer: In 1937, the Hal Roach Studio cut together scenes from various Laurel & Hardy films as well as bloopers of actors swearing into a short called That's That. It was a gag reel for Stan Laurel's birthday.  It will be included on the Laurel & Hardy BluRay collection that will be released in June, 2020.