Is there room for vegans in the Harry Potter universe?

Question: Boomslang skin, leeches, bicorn horn... it seems that to make any decent potion, you're going to need to use some kind of animal product.  Could a vegan or vegetarian get through Hogwarts, and otherwise fare well in the wizarding world?
Comment: Don't forget the wands!  Most contain something from a magical animal.  Although that isn't ALWAYS the case as apparently Dittany stalk can be used.
Comment: Given that there's animal-like plant life (i.e.: Mandrakes) in this universe, perhaps we should also ask if a vegan might add more than just conventional animal products to their lifestyle exclusions.
Comment: @Dason I don't think there is any problem to use a wand containing material that the beast has willingly given. A phoenix might give feathers or a unicorn might give hair and no bad things would come to them for it.
Answer: Yes. You don't need to consume - and especially know how to make - potions to live in a wizarding world, and you don't need to pass Potions class to be in school.
Neville Longbottom had about as much Potions success as a vegan student would, considering practical results of his potions. Somehow he managed to graduate and become a professor.
You also don't need to consume potions for daily wizarding life - the only time where you'd unavoidably have to consume them would be a life and death situation, in which case I'm sure most normal vegetarians would not have any issues with animal based potion used to save their life.

As far as food (which you didn't ask about but a vegetarian would surely care): from "World Exclusive Interview with J K Rowling," South West News Service, 8 July 2000

Q: Do Hogwarts chefs accommodate vegetarians ? (Alexandra, from http://www.hpfactsandfun.com/)
  A: If you ask them very nicely. You'll find out something about that in Book Four as well. . .these are all very good questions.
Answer: It would certainly be difficult. Barring having to find a wand without an animal core, you would have to contend with parchment, quills, dragonhide gloves, etc... potions is really the least of our worries.  That said, given that this is MAGIC, perhaps one could transfigure common items into what you actually need.  Depending on how flexible you are as a vegan, you could also make-do with used items, or animal by-products that weren't actually taken from animals (i.e., quills that were shed from a bird or unicorn hairs that naturally fell out).
Also, I believe that the school robes and most of the other uniform gear (in the films at least) are made of animal fibres.  Obviously this is not canon as it isn't in the books, but given that this is a private school, one can assume that the uniforms would be high quality, which normally means wool.  Again, it depends if this bothers you, if used items are available, or if you would have to transfigure objects accordingly.
That said, if the house elves are willing to accommodate a vegetarian diet, I don't see why the school would be unwilling to accommodate a student who is veg.
All of this begs the question... are synthetically/magically created animal by-products fair game?
Comment: Being that PETA, fairly radical in its stances despite being one of the major animal rights groups, is offering a reward for the first edible synthetic meat, I think that magical or synthetic animal byproducts would definitely be on the table for many vegans and vegetarians.
Answer: Regarding Hogwarts, yes, actually. This question was posed to JK Rowling and she said that if one asked the House-elves "very very nicely" then they would accommodate a vegetarian (and I'm presuming that would include vegans as well) As far as potions class goes, there's no canon that addresses this issue, as far as I know. One could always refuse to take potions on ethical grounds (as Muggles can refuse vaccinations in some states).

Q: Do Hogwarts chefs accommodate vegetarians ?
  A: If you ask them very nicely. You'll find out something about that in Book Four as well. . .these are all very good questions.
SOURCE - Accio Quote - World Exclusive Interview with J K Rowling - South West News Service
Answer: Robes: The list only says plain and black, you can surely choose the material yourself.
Potions: If I went to Hogwarts I would experiment with vegetarian ingredients, I think some of them work the same way as animal products. I don't think Snape would accept it though...
Transfiguration: It is probably painful for an animal to be transfigured into a teacup or something. I would ask if I could do some other task instead.
Food: This would be no problem for me, as a Hufflepuff I would live near the kitchens and house elfs are always so helpful.
Wand: I would not use one with a dragon core, but I think that unicorns and pheonixes are far to respected for a wizard to do them harm, so I could use their wands.


is there a hardforked version of ubuntu ethereum ppa package?

Question: The ubuntu ppa still contains ETH classic.  Is there a ppa for the hard-forked version of Ethereum?
Answer: Summary

The ethereum-dev ppa currently has geth v1.5.0-unstable
The ethereum ppa currently has geth 1.4.10-stable
Remove / purge your ethereum-dev ppa to use the non-dev v1.5.0-unstable version.

Details
From http://ethdocs.org/en/latest/ethereum-clients/cpp-ethereum/installing-binaries/linux-ubuntu-ppa.html:

Installing the "eth" command-line tool
WARNING: The ethereum-qt PPA will upgrade your system-wide Qt5 installation, from 5.2 on Trusty and 5.3 on Utopic, to 5.5.
For the latest stable version:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ethereum/ethereum-qt
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ethereum/ethereum
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cpp-ethereum

If you want to use the cutting edge developer version:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ethereum/ethereum-qt
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ethereum/ethereum
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ethereum/ethereum-dev
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cpp-ethereum

If you have added the ethereum-dev ppa repository, you will currently have geth v1.5.0-unstable installed.
If you have only added the non-dev ethereum ppa repository, you will currently have geth 1.4.10 installed.
user@Kumquat:~$ dpkg -l ethereum
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name                         Version             Architecture        Description
+++-============================-===================-===================-=============================================================
ii  ethereum                     1.4.10+83trusty-0ub amd64               Meta-package to install geth (CLI) and other tools

To remove ethereum-dev ppa:
user@Kumquat:~$ sudo apt-add-repository remove ethereum-dev
...
user@Kumquat:~$ sudo apt-get update
...
user@Kumquat:~$ sudo apt-get upgrade ethereum
...
user@Kumquat:~$ geth version
Geth
Version: 1.4.10-stable
Protocol Versions: [63 62]
Network Id: 1
Go Version: go1.5.1
OS: linux
...
user@Kumquat:~$ geth help | grep dao
  --support-dao-fork   Updates the chain rules to support the DAO hard-fork
  --oppose-dao-fork    Updates the chain rules to oppose the DAO hard-fork

A safer way to remove your ppas would be to use the ppa-purge tool. From How can PPAs be removed?:

Use the --remove flag, similar to how the PPA was added:
sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:whatever/ppa

As a safer alternative, you can install ppa-purge:
sudo apt-get install ppa-purge

And then remove the PPA, downgrading gracefully packages it provided to packages provided by official repositories:
sudo ppa-purge ppa_name

Anyway, this won't uninstall packages that were on the PPA but not on tha official repositories. If you want to remove them, you should tell it to apt:
sudo apt-get purge package_name

You can also remove PPAs by deleting the .list files from /etc/apt/sources.list.d directory.
Last but not least, you can also disable or remove PPAs from the "Software Sources" section in Ubuntu Settings with a few clicks of your mouse (no terminal needed).
Comment: Okay, this is what I was looking for. I've deleted my answer as this one is clearly the right one :)


How to track Google Translator in Google Analytics?

Question: How can I track Google Translator which is installed on my website to track how many people translate from Spanish to English through Google Analytics or any other way? I already have Google Analytics setup for the site.
Answer: During the setup process for Google Translator it should have asked you if you wanted to track translations inside of Google Analytics. From here give it a few days as you need to wait until users actually start translating your site then go to Google Analytics > Behavior > Events to find the Google Analytics translation events shown.
Comment: It isn't clear from the question, but they may be asking about users that use Google Translate from Google rather than from a site integration.
Comment: They do specifically mention translator as being installed on their website.


Do all notes of a chord belong to the same scale?

Question: I know that a chord is built around a bass note, and depending on the type of chord this bass note will dictate what other notes go into the chord. But do all notes in a chord belong to the same scale?
Answer: According to the chord-scale system, all notes in a chord WILL belong to the same scale. That scale may be pretty exotic (the C Lydian dominant scale is used in one Wikipedia example), and it likely won't be the scale of the piece's home key.
Comment: In this sense, the statement that all chord tones belong to the same scale is a tautology. There's a chord scale for each and every chord.
Answer: A scale is simply an ordered set of notes. It could, if you wanted, be all the notes, semitone by semitone. Called the chromatic scale. So, yes, I suppose, using that scale, any chord, common or very unusual, will have notes that belong to 'the same scale'!
In the general run of things, the majority of chords will contain notes that belong to one scale (or key, which are not the same). Major and minor triads contain the notes from major and minor scales respectively, as do maj. and min. sevenths. Dominant sevenths found in a key (as C7 in key C) contain the notes from F maj. scale.(Not the C maj. as may be expected).
It's when we consider dim and aug, or m7♭5 that extra thought is needed. Let's take Co - C E♭ G♭ B♭♭. Could be considered to contain notes from a diminished scale; not sure if the OP wants to go that far. Or, something such as C7♭9 - using the scale notes from C D♭ E F G A B♭. Look deep enough, and there's a plethora of different scales, and just about enough for any chord to be deemed to use some of those notes. Although thinking along those lines isn't too helpful in understanding that section of music theory for most.
One thing's certain though about chords: this product may contain notes...
Answer:
do all notes in a chord belong to the same scale?

Chords that naturally occur within a key and contain only the notes found in the scale (or key) that you're working in are diatonic chords.
http://musictheorysite.com/major-diatonic-chords/
In this link you'll find the
Diatonic Chord Formula for a Major Key
"For new songwriters this is a must know concept for your chords to sound right."
Answer: I think there are two concepts you want to consider:

local tonality
chromaticism versus diatonicism

Even in short pieces of music it is common for the tonal center to change. The music may do something like start in C major, briefly touch on D minor, and then modulate to G major. While we say the music is in C major we get _local tonalities of D minor and G major. The scale then changes with those local tonalities. Considering the local tonality many chord then belong to the scale. For example, using the tonalities above a D dominant seventh chord does not 'belong' to C major, but when it's used locally in a G major passage it does belong to the scale, the scale of that local G major tonality.
The convention for music notation is to use one key signature for a piece of music. In the example above the key signature would be C major - no sharps or flats - and the D dominant seventh chord would require an accidental - an F#. The chord is foreign to the overall key signature, but not foreign to the local tonality.
There are varying uses of chromatic and diatonic, but for this question I consider diatonic to mean the tones of the major scale and its permutations like the 'natural' minor. You could also define this meaning of diatonic as the tones of the key signature.
Returning once again to the example above, the D dominant seventh chord is chromatic in terms of the key signature, but not really chromatic to the local tonality G major.
However, there are times where a chromatic chord occurs without a change in the local tonality. I think the easiest examples to give are from minor key harmony. Let's switch the key for our example and use C minor - three flats in the key signature.
If we play a G dominant seventh chord - the V chord - in C minor we need a B natural which isn't in the key signature. The chord is part of the C minor tonality, but we need an accidental to spell it. The local tonality has not changed, but the chord is chromatic relative to the key signature.
What really is going on with this chord and the scale is the raising of the seventh scale degree. In minor key music the seventh scale degree gets raised and lowered depending on the harmony. Some get bogged down in talking about various minor scale forms: natural, harmonic, and melodic. But, suffice to say natural minor is the basic diatonic form - it's the one used by the key signature - and the raised seventh degree is spelled with an accidental - i.e. chromatically without a change of local tonality.
The second example from minor is not complicated by the 'forms' of the minor scale. It involves a special chord that is usually considered an 'advanced' harmony topic. But, it is used regularly in minor key music so let's not be intimidated. The chord is called an augmented sixth chord.
The description of the chord's basic construction also explains its chromatic identity. Staying in the key of C minor lets start with a iv6 chord which is tones Ab C F. Note that the interval from Ab to F is a major sixth. Alter the F and make it F#. That changes the major sixth to an augmented sixth and the resulting chord Ab C F# is called an augmented sixth chord. Normally this chord will move to the G major chord, the dominant V in C minor.
Notice that the altered note F# is the altered fourth degree of the scale. This is an alteration that has nothing to do with the 'forms' of the minor scale in the previous example. The raised fourth degree simply is not in the minor scale. Clearly the chord does not belong to the minor scale. The chord is chromatic, but not involving a change of local tonality.
That was a lot of technical detail, but to summarize the two basic points: many chords can be understood as diatonic to the local tonality (belonging to the scale), but some chords can be truly chromatic and despite being part of the local tonality use tones that don't belong to the diatonic scale.
Answer: Not always. For instance a diminished 7th chord like G B-flat D-flat E. No normal major or minor scale has those notes in it.
Comment: Being picky, the E is really Fb, as the dim7 interval from G is Fb. G>E is M6.
Comment: So the diminished and suspended chords are the exceptions?
Comment: But doesn't the F harmonic minor scale have all those notes (G, B flat, D flat, E) in it?
Comment: The diminished 7th chord is the VII chord of the harmonic minor scale.
Comment: Oops. You're right. Two tri-tones in the harmonic minor scale.
Answer: There's no way to answer the question without addressing the implied assumptions or misconceptions.

Probable misconception about scales: If the OP assumes that all ordered note sets that can be called a "scale" are diatonic, then the assumption is wrong. There are many other kinds of scales, like the whole-tone scale, pentatonic scales, chromatic scales, diminished scales.
Probable misconception about chords: If the OP assumes that all the notes of any note-combination that can be called a "chord" can be placed on some diatonic scale, then the assumption is wrong. Counter-examples are: cluster chords, 7♭9 and many other jazz and modern classical chords, anything that has too many consecutive semitone or whole-tone intervals when all the notes are placed within a single octave.


Is it possible to add a new sequence to a blast database without recreating it from scratch?

Question: I have a new sequence and I want to add it to a pre-constructed BLAST database containing other sequences. The makeblastdb help does not give any hint on this regard.
Answer: You can use blastdbcmd to extract FASTA sequences from the BLAST database. Then you can append your extra sequence to the newly created FASTA file, and remake the BLAST DB using makeblastdb. Assuming you have a protein BLAST database in the current working directory, and a sequence you want to add to it in new.fa:
$ blastdbcmd -db proteindb -dbtype prot -out db.fa -entry all
    $ cat new.fa >> db.fa
$ makeblastdb -in db.fa -out newproteindb -dbtype prot

(Replace prot with nucl if you have a nucleotide database)
Answer: You may create a new database with the new sequences and create an alias linking the old and new databases with blastdb_aliastool


Joomla php function which prints the pagename

Question: Is there a php function to insert in the template which prints the name of the menu item of the displayed page?
Comment: Welcome to JSE,  please take our [tour].  Can you please edit your question to include any research/attempts that you've already done? By showing us which documentation pages you have already read, volunteers will know that they do not need to be recommended to you.
Comment: have you tried `echo Factory::getApplication()->getMenu()->getActive()->title;`
Answer: In this case, the name of the menu item is called "Page Heading" in the Joomla! backend, first you need to have is this option enabled .

Go to the Global Configuration > Menus > and change "Show Page Heading" to "Yes"
You also have this option into your menu items, in the tab called "Page Display", by default is enabled.

So, the code is generated by com_content, and here is the code:
<?php if ($this->params->get('show_page_heading')) : ?>

 <?php echo $this->escape($this->params->get('page_heading')); ?>

<?php endif; ?>

If you need to add this code, maybe the best optión is create an override for one of the com_content options, once this is done you can find a folder called html inside your template.
Hope this helps.


What is the best drill bit to use to drill a hole in a chainsaw bar?

Question: I need drill a 3/8" diameter hole in my chainsaw bar to attach a plate on it.
Comment: Sounds like a bad idea to me. Why do you want this plate on your chainsaw's bar?
Answer: I sincerely doubt that you should be custom hacking something onto your chainsaw bar. If this was a legitimate attachment that is provided by the chain saw manufacturer then there should already be mount points defined and instructions provided for installing such option.
Custom modifications to a tool, especially one that is already as dangerous as a chainsaw, should not be done because of the additional danger and risk to safety that can come into play.
Answer: dont listen to these other guys.  i have done the same thing with one of my saws to build a portable sawmill with it.
because the bar is hardened, use this great trick (can be used on any hardened item).  get yourself a set of carbide masonry bits.  grind the carbide teeth on the end of the bits (they come usually with a double bevel for masonry percussion drilling) to match the type of cutting edge on a normal drill bit (more like a chisels cutting edge), just not quite as acute of an angle.  then start drilling, slowly and with lots of water for cooling.  once the hole is through, move up to the next size.
most carbide inserts on drill bits are c3 carbide and top out at about 68 on the c scale.  so you can drill anything that is softer than that.  your bar is only around 50 - 55 on the c scale, so it will work fine.


PayPal buy now button to charge different amount depending on the country the user is from

Question: Customers to my website who are from the USA need to pay more P&P then UK customers. How do I make a PayPal button which charges a different amount depending on the country the user is from?
Answer: You should have two pages that sell the product.  One that targets US customers and has the price listed in USD, and another that targets UK customers and has the price listed in GBP.  Then you can have two different buttons based on the page they are on.
Answer: This can be done with encrypted non-hosted PayPal buttons. You can construct data for such buttons dynamically based on user's country.


Do 401K contributions reduce MAGI as it pertains to Roth IRA income limits?

Question: My wife and I are looking to make around 200K this year, putting us past the Roth IRA income limit.  It may be possible for us to get under that limit if we both ratchet up our 401K contributions from our employer matches to the max, but before we make any changes I want to confirm that it will reduce our MAGI.  My research on the subject has turned up a myriad of yes's and no's on the subject.  From what I understand 401k contributions reduce AGI but then get added back in for the calculation of your MAGI.  Is that correct?
Comment: You shouldn't worry about the Roth IRA income limit. If you don't have an existing deductible Traditional IRA, then you can completely get around the limit by contributing to a (non-deductible) Traditional IRA and then immediately converting to a Roth IRA (a "backdoor Roth IRA"). There is no income limit for this and the tax consequences and everything is completely identical to contributing to a Roth IRA directly.
Comment: I echo what @user102008 said. You can just do the backdoor Roth IRA contribution and not have to worry about income limits. But only if you don't have any existing deductible Traditional IRAs or else things become much less favorable.
Answer: Straight from Publication 590
Modified AGI. Your modified AGI for Roth IRA purposes is your adjusted gross income (AGI) as shown on your return modified as follows.

Subtracting the following.

a. Roth IRA conversions included on Form 1040, line 15b; Form 1040A, line 11b; or Form 1040NR, line 16b. Conversions are discussed under Can You Move Amounts Into a Roth IRA, later.
b. Roth IRA rollovers from qualified retirement plans included on Form 1040, line 16b; Form 1040A, line 12b; or Form 1040NR, line 17b.

Add the following deductions and exclusions:

a. Traditional IRA deduction,
b. Student loan interest deduction,
c. Tuition and fees deduction,
d. Domestic production activities deduction,
e. Foreign earned income exclusion,
f. Foreign housing exclusion or deduction,
g. Exclusion of qualified bond interest shown on Form 8815,
and
h. Exclusion of employer-provided adoption benefits shown on Form 8839.
You can use Worksheet 2-1 to figure your modified AGI.

I don't see 401(k) contributions being added to get MAGI
for Roth IRA purposes.  But note that various other MAGIs that
are used. For example, MAGI for Traditional IRA purposes
is somewhat different (though that too does not include
401k contributions in MAGI).
Comment: Just a correction since the IRS has removed their p950 file. You can get a copy of the Oct. 2011 revised version here - http://508fi.org/docs/?file=p950.pdf
Comment: @AvaLawrence The document in question is Publication 590, and not 950.
Comment: (@AvaLawrence) actually since 2014 it's split; contribution requirements and limits are now in 590**A** while distributions are in 590**B**.


Passing reclassification values to the Reclassify tool in Model Builder in ArcGIS 10

Question: There is a set of point features that fall within polygon features, and I want these polygon features (after converting them to raster) reclassified based on how many point features fall in them. If the reclassification method, the number of classes, and the new values remain constant, is there any way of passing these to the Reclassify tool every time I run the model?
Answer: You can save and load Info Tables.


Is it possible to play with Tigers in Thailand?

Question: A friend of mine told me that some Thai temples holds tigers and that is possible to touch, play with them and take pictures. What are the most famous and safe places to go?
Comment: Before playing with a tiger you might want to watch the movie "The Life of Pi."
Comment: Sitting next to a wild animal isn't a great idea for either you or the animal. How about going on safari and trying to spot one ethically in the wild. https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/animal-selfies-tigers-elephants-the-cruel-truth-thailand-a7623311.html
Comment: Hi @Stuart! I can't tell how embarrassed I feel by looking at this. I was younger and just curious about visiting such amazing animals. I had - really - absolutely no idea how bad treated they are in so many places. My sincere apologies and thanks for the insight.
Comment: @Machado, the fact you are embarrassed is good, means you're a good human. We need more good humans. I went for a ride on a elephant my first time to Africa; something I now deeply regret. Since then I have aimed to see all my wild life in the wild (its way more exciting) and when I do visit rehabilitation centres I do enough research to ensure they are ethical and by visiting I'm not encouraging more suffering.
Answer: I'm aware of only two:
Tiger Temple, close to Kanchanaburi
You can have your picture taken with grown up tigers. Fascinating. I've been here and don't remember young tigers.
Tiger Kingdom, close to Chiang Mai
Here, the draw is being able to play with young tigers. I've been here, it was awesome.
'safe' is very relative. It's extremely unlikely anything will happen. But, if you decide to play with live tiger tails and have no desire to stop until the tiger in question is thoroughly provoked, you might be in for some unhappy consequences.
if you behave in they way your told to behave, there's no real reason to assume you will not be safe.
Comment: I note that Tiger Kingdom show a [**Gallery Phuket**](http://www.tigerkingdom.com/gallery-phuket/) but that their gallery Chiang Mai is 'under construction' - which may not relate to [**Tyger**](http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/takingliberties/staritems/634blaketygerpic.html)  availability
Comment: Hm. So, I suppose they have a presence in Phuket as well.


What should I say when I see bad deed?

Question: There are some specific words for certain deeds like when someone give us gift we say "jazakAllah". Then what should I say when I see bad deed.
Comment: In case you see bad deed you should even consider changing it or advising the person doing it too. In Islam witnessing something wrong and keeping silent is a sin unless one is not able to act!
Answer: whenever we see bad deeds first of all we shuold try to stop them.

On the authority of Abu saeed al-khudree(ra) who said:
  "I heard the messanger of ALLAH (saw),"whosoever of you sees an evil,let him his hand;and if he is not able to do so then[let him change it] with his tounge; and if he is not able to do so'then with heart -and that is the weakest of faith"
     [MUSLIM]

or we shold say "NAUZBILLAH" WHEN see the bad deeds.
and shold also pray that:

"allahahuma innee auudu bika min munkaraatil-alkhlaq, wal-amaal wal-ahwaa.(sunan ATTERMIDHIY#3591.
"O ALLAH!I seek refuge in you from reprehesible deeds and whims"

What should I say when I see bad deed?


Is untasty a valid English word?

Question: I cannot see untasty in Oxford dictionary. Also spelling checker tells it is invalid. But in dictionary.com , I see it is a related form of tasty. Please see screenshot below.  So is it a valid English word?
Answer: Because people use "untasty", it is a word. It also has a long history, since it dates back to at least 1566 (assuming it only entered the language once):

If, one..drincke nothing but vinaiger, Vntastie and vnfyne.
A medicinable morall

It is listed in the Oxford English Dictionary, with the above quote and another from 1733 but the entry hasn't been updated.
It's easy to understand its meaning because it's formed by derivation of an existing word. Given that it's not in many dictionaries, it's probably not very popular. In any case there are plenty of widely-used alternatives: yucky, gross, disgusting, etc. However, that isn't to say it's not used at all. A quick search brings up many results of it being used recently in publications:

However, there are some limitations to this intuition, depending on the extent to which healthy food actually is considered untasty [...]
Affective Determinants of Health Behavior

No one wants to eat a food that is untasty or spoiled. Jesus is the Bread of Life. He is the spiritual bread; and no bacteria can destroy it. For the spiritual bread is everlasting, and can never be untasty or spoiled [...]
Main highway to God's kingdom

Three or four untasty-looking pumpkins came falling down with the vines.
Twenty-four Eyes

After sampling both, my own judgment is that pitcher-plant water is generally less untasty than bog water, but that the likelihood of protozoan presence in the pitchers would give preference, for safety's sake (should the need arise), to relatively plankton-populated bog waters.
Wildflowers of the Eastern United States: An Introduction to Common Species

For many years, he has fed his pigs the food left over from the local university cafeteria, which is known to be low in protein, deficient in vitamins, and downright untasty.
Loose-leaf Version for Genetics Essentials: Concepts and Connections
Comment: @wetcircuit All of the quotes except for the first one are from this century, most of those are from the last 10 years, and 1 is from this year. I haven't heard of them before but that's normal for this type of answer. Anyway there's nothing special about these examples. There are plenty of other examples I could have quoted.
Comment: It's only a subjective "word" (currently) in a particular dialect where it's used—and that's not really a good objective definition. Most people would accept this statement this as an objective statement if it were included in a commonly  accepted dictionary (in a non-archaic sense).
Comment: @JasonBassford I don't see evidence that it's only used in a specific dialect. I found examples from both the US and the UK, for example.
Comment: **Sunsational** and **Funtastic** are other non-words that would be like "untasty". Just because you can find them in a google search does not make them valid English words. Have you HONESTLY heard of ANY of these texts you have quoted? Are ANY of them from this century?
Answer: Untasty is not widely in use today, though people would know what you mean if you said it.
Words that mean "untasty" include disgusting (for food that is viscerally terrible), bland (for food that has no no taste at all), or unpalatable (for food that may not be bland or disgusting, but is otherwise undesirable).
Hope this helps.
Comment: What do you mean by "not officially a word".  Whose "office" is responsible for accrediting words? *Untasty* does at least have an entry in the OED, though a very brief one with only two examples: *1566 T. Drant tr. Horace Medicinable Morall sig. Gv If, one..drincke nothing but vinaiger, Vntastie and vnfyne. a1733   Ld. Binning Lady's Complaint v, in Maidment Ball. (1844) 62   But camblet's an untasty thing.*
Comment: @WS2 Edited for better reality.  I know that there is no "registry of words" per se, and that words that are in use ARE words.  I do not recall hearing untasty in conversation. Ever. But maybe there are pockets of current usage, as cited by Laurel. I can picture using it in writing much more readily than in speech.
Comment: @WS2 Even if there were an 'official' office for accrediting words, that wouldn't mean that an official accredited string is an actual word. French, whatever you may think of it, has all sorts of unofficial words that are not accredited by its Académie.
Answer: No, "untasty" is not a valid English word. It is a construct of familiar word-parts like sunsational or funtastic (which no doubt can be found in more recent examples than the obscure centuries-old texts quoted in another answer) so the meaning is understood.
"Untasty" does sound amusing, as if you are being over-polite about something that is horrible – or possibly as if you are from the 17th Century, but it would get a laugh from any native speaker for sounding so wrong.
The valid English word might be:

tasteless, bland, flavorless, uninspired, boring, lacking flavor

If it truly tastes bad, the word might be:

unappetizing, inedible, undigestable
Comment: I don't see how _untasty_ is anything like _sunsational_ or _funtastic_. Those two are blends that incorporate existing words by superimposing one over the other (_sun_ + _sensational_ = _sun/sational_), whereas _untasty_ is simply an adjective that has a completely productive prefix added to it. It's no different from _unable_ or _unwieldy_, structurally; it just happens to be much less frequent. It is, actually, very similar to _undigestable_, which you use in your answer, and which is also a recent coinage. The more common version there is _indigestible_.
Comment: I think Laurel's first statement "Because people use "untasty", it _is_ a word." settles it (I'd add things like consistently). It is certainly an infrequent word, sounds weird to me and probably so to most people (so 'non-standard'). Probably should not be used in serious newspaper correspondence. But it is still a word. I don't like it any more than you, but for the word 'word' to have any meaning, we probably need to accept 'untasty' as one, as untasteful as that might be.
Comment: This might be a good time for me to remind everyone on this comment thread of our code of conduct: [help/behavior]
Comment: @JanusBahsJacquet Seeing as how the OP changed the title to include the word "valid", I'd say that you are arguing against the OP's intent. The question is not whether it passes as a word that has **ever** been used, but if it is a **valid** word. Since we are arguing the subjective meaning of "valid" and "word", I see no reason to edit my answer or keep beating a dead horse. You are of course free to use whatever word you like, or write your own answer to the OP's question.
Comment: My point was that your parallels, _funtastic_ and _sunsational_, **are not in any way parallel**. They are a completely unrelated phenomenon which is quite irrelevant to _untasty_. That doesn't necessarily make _untasty_ a word (though I agree with Lauren's answer that there is no reason not to consider it one), but it does make part of your answer irrelevant. It's also obviously not true that any native speaker would laugh at _untasty_, given that quite a few of them use it themselves. It doesn't sound amusing or strange to me at all, as it happens, though I don't recall hearing it before.

Is untasty a valid English word?


Why doesn't changing a 32bit PNG to 8bit PNG quarter the saved image size?

Question: I have a 32bit PNG converting to 8bit in Photoshop. My understanding the conversion should drop the file size of the image to a quarter of its original (because 32/8 = 4). Say a 750kb 32-PNG file should get to ~188kb 8-bit PNG, but my 8-bit image still has 333kb in size. Why?
Comment: Graphic Design might be appropriate. But please do consider that not every possible question _has_ a specific home, and that just because there isn't one doesn't necessarily change what should be on topic here. You might try https://superuser.com/, which is the Stack Exchange site for general computer questions, which this seems to really be.
Comment: I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's about image file formats without a photographic context.
Comment: File formats like PNG and JPEG are certainly relevant to photography, even if the OP didn't say specifically that the file in question came from a camera.
Comment: @PhilipKendall, please suggest a better stackexchange site or suggest migrate this question to a suitable place.
Comment: @KMC https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/
Comment: This question does have a photographic application (aren't we all concerned with storing photos and file degradation?) - though the audience here might not have the answer. SuperUser or GraphicDesign may also be only semi-appropriate, but may also expose the question to someone who has an answer - thus, OP gets some help. IMO - leave this q here, and also seek advice elsewhere.
Answer:
My understanding the conversion should drop the file size of the image to a quarter of its original (because 32/8 = 4).

PNG images are compressed, so your 750KB file is already much smaller than what you'd get if you multiplied the number of pixels in the image by 4 bytes (or 32 bits). When you convert to 8 bits, you do reduce the amount of information that needs to be stored, but you don't reduce it by a factor of 4.
Comment: and also, if used for photos, the 32 bit PNG is actually 24 bit (as the transparency channel is not used). even ignoring compression, the file size would be 3x smaller, not 4x.
Answer: It comes down to compression.

Note: This is answer tries to be technical, but on an understandable level. Therefore, there might be some (hopefully small) inaccuracies.

Different file formats have different methods for achieving different goals. BMPs, TIFs, and OpenEXRs, for example, can all be saved with different compression algorithms - or no compression at all. That way, the user can decide if they want to have bigger files that can be saved with less CPU time or smaller files that will need some additional computation.
PNG, like JPEG, does not offer a modular solution. PNG will always be compressed by doing some filtering (meaning that the encoder will look for a way to efficiently "pack" the pixels) and then by compressing it via DEFLATE, which basically tries to reduce redundant data1 and then, it uses a Huffman table / Run Length Encoding, which basically tries to store information into binary in the most efficient way. Both sub-steps are lossless and relatively easy to compute.
1 Reducing redundant data: E.g. a 8x8 checker field can be saved as 1 black and 1 white square with each of them repeating itself 32 times in alternating order.

A basic example:
Say your 32 bit image looks like this:

Stolen from Wikipedia's article on Color Mixing
This image contains 8 colors - cyan (RGB 0, 1, 1 2), green (RGB 0, 1, 0), yellow (RGB 1, 1, 0), red (RGB 1, 0, 0), magenta (RGB 1, 0, 1), blue (RGB 0, 0, 1), black (RGB 0, 0, 0), and white (RGB 1, 1, 1 ). Therefore, it can (in theory) be saved by saying From pixel position X=0 Y=0 to X=100 Y=0: RGB=1, 1, 1; from pixel position X=101 Y=0: RGB=0, 1, 1; [...] (this is the DEFLATE-part) and then, this information is saved via a Huffman coding, meaning that the most repetitive part of the information gets a binary value of 0, the second-most repetitive part gets 10, the third most repetitive gets 110, etc.p.p..
2 Representation from 0 to 1, as this is usual for 32 bit pictures.
Therefore, your image can be stored relatively efficiently if compression is at hand - and as discussed, PNG always compresses your images.

Now, if you convert a picture from 32 bit to 8 bit (or do any downconverting), all that happens is that the discrete values will get a new, coarser-grained scale (as in: less sub-steps). For example, a 32 bit pixel has to hold the information for each channel in steps of 0.000000001 from 0 to 1, while an 8 bit pixel has to hold the same information in steps of 1 in a range from 0 to 255. Each value from 32 bit now has to be mapped to a new value on our 8 bit scale, which means that usually, many values of the 32 bit scale will get packed into a single value of the 8 bit scale.
However, our picture has no gradients but only solid colors, so we had no need to save our picture with a precision of 0.000000001 per channel per pixel in the first place - in reality, we would only need 8 different values.
Therefore, our 32 bit picture will ideally not have 4 times the file size of the 8 bit picture, as the bit depth reduction can be achieved losslessly (so the 8 bit picture is not smaller) and filtering and DEFLATEing should reduce the file size of the 32 bit file in the first place. Now, if we would add a few gradients, the 8 bit would either be far more efficient - or far worse, as it would show banding artifacts.

What this means for you:
Bit depth reduction not always leads to smaller file size - especially when your codec has some compression implemented. However, it does not mean that 32 bit is useless by any means: It is always better to work with a picture (or anything, really) with no reduction in its information as long as it is possible. This however does not mean that you should go ahead and save all your pictures as 64 bit OpenEXRs: If you care for file size, try to approach this topic with the sensible attitude of "how much do I need?". If you do not care for file size, go with as much bit per pixel as you like.
Comment: You lost me at "less granular," but it's probably just a matter of how you look at it. I think most people would say that "more granular" means larger steps, which is what you get with 8-bit color. Instead of more/less, it might work better to talk about granularity using words like *coarse* and *fine*. Also, it's a little hard to see how the very simple and somewhat contrived example image here relates to the 750KB file that the OP was talking about.
Comment: @Caleb Oh - that might be true. As English isn't my native language, it might well be that I misinterpreted the meaning of `granular`, as it is not a word that correlates to anything we use regularly in German (`fein` and `grob` relate to `fine` and `coarse`). Will change that ASAP. As to "simple image != 750kB": you are absolutely right - however, **I could not see a way to stay simple AND talk about edges, repetitive patterns, noise/grain, and gradients**. If you have any suggestions about that, I'm of course all ears :-)
Answer: There are a lot of factors regarding image compression and bit depth.

My understanding the conversion should drop the file size of the image to a quarter of its original (because 32/8 = 4).

No. The conversion drops the bit depth from 24 to 8. If it was a png with alpha channel included the transparency will be dropped. That is the bit depth, not the file size.
To estimate the file size you need to take into account what is the content of your image.
A photo of a forest, where you have a lot of tiny details and changes in color will be significantly bigger than a photo of a blue sky.
So trying to drop the bit depth of a blue sky will not reduce the resulting file weight much, because it is already optimized.
But a funny thing is that probably the forest will neither because there would be a lot of changes in regions of color.
A compression basically tells "Here is a large zone of similar colors" and in the forest image could potentially not be a large zone of similar colors next to each other.
Where you potentially will notice more difference in compression is in colorful gradients, where you "Flatten" a 256 levels gradient to a posterized version of only let's say 8 colors for each gradient. But again, depends on the photo, the final palette.
If you dither your image you can potentially increase the file size!


What would have happened if Guiseppe Garibaldi had died before he could begin unifying Italy?

Question: In OTL Giuseppe Garibaldi unified Italy from a region of different states with a common language (including many very different dialects) to a single country. What would have happened if he died before he could make any progress in unifying Italy?
Comment: A interesting fact about Garibaldi is that he was a hero not only for Italians, but to South Brazilians and for some people on Uruguay too! The guy really loved a revolution!
Answer: The short answer is this: Someone else would have done it.
I know this isn't the answer you're looking for, but something like unification has a lot of social momentum. Maybe it would have taken longer but the same thing happened in every country across Europe sooner or later. It was not a one man operation, it takes a lot of people working together to make disparate city states into one country. This was a thing happening, it was unlikely that any one person could have stopped it rather than saying one man did it.
People had been calling for unification since the 15th Century, Machiavelli called for it, the Medicis supported it. The Hapsburgs unified Spain in the 16th C, England unified in the 11th C. Germany unified around the same time as Italy (1871).
Answer: Expanding on user16295's answer, some form of unification probably would have happened because of convergence of multiple social, economic and technological factors, but the end result might not resemble Italy as we know it today (the same may be said of other European nations).
Given the cultural and economic differences between northern and southern Italy, we might have seen two separate kingdoms arising where Italy is today. A "Northern independence movement" actually exists in the form of the "Northern League", an Italian political movement which advocates separating the wealthy north from the south (among other things. It is also a Euroskeptic party and advocates withdrawing from the EU as well).
Another factor that wasn't at play in places like Spain or Germany is the existence of Rome as the seat of power for the Catholic Church. The Church was a major political power in Italy from the fall of the Roman Empire onwards, and a politically astute and active Pope or series of Popes could have derailed the project, or united Italy under the political leadership of the Church, making Italy synonymous with the Papal State. Even without such activist Popes, it is quite possible the Papal State could have ended up being much larger and temporally more powerful than it is in OTL.
Combining these factors might see the Italian peninsula divided between several principalities, a "Northern Italy" dominated by the cities of the Renaissance (with perhaps Milan as the capital), the Papal State centred on Rome and a poor and rural Southern Italy. Although the "Serenìsima Repùblica Vèneta" had been extinguished by Napoleon, it is quite possible that that city state might have re emerged in the chaotic conditions given the lack of a centralizing force if a fractured Italy was created.


in microgravity do you need fuel to continue same velocity?

Question: To be more specific:
Suppose a space station is orbiting in a cislunar orbit (about 1000 miles away from the Moon). Now you keep adding more mass (huge cargo) to the cislunar space station. The space station departs for Mars with that huge cargo (much more mass). There will be fuel needed for putting the ship on the trajectory to Mars and initial change of velocity. But will the fuel required be much higher or the same if the mass is added, say, 1000 times more? Thank you for asking for clarification.
Comment: This really isn't clear. Please explain what situation you are thinking about - a ship in orbit? If so, i am going to guess at what you are really asking although it isn't how you said it - a ship that has gotten to orbit is moving fast enough that it doesn't need to use any more fuel to stay in orbit - until drag from the teeny amount of atmosphere that is present even hundreds of kilometers above the ground slows it down enough that it's time to boost the orbit by firing engines. The ISS does this [once every month or so](https://space.stackexchange.com/q/9087/4660)
Comment: The revised question is *entirely* different from the original question, invalidating all the answers. The fuel needed to put a mass on a trajectory from lunar orbit toward Mars will indeed be proportional, generally, to the mass being sent.
Answer: In short, no.
Velocity implies direction. If you're in a circular orbit of a body (planet, star, etc), then you will maintain the same speed, but direction will constantly be changing as the body's gravitational pull curves your path.
In some cases you want to fight gravity, for instance hovering above an asteroid. In this case, since you're fighting gravity, this would require use of fuel.
Answer: Although they  made some additional comments, the first 2 answers assume orbital travel - which is of course what we usually think of when we talk about microgravity.
Microgravity is the condition we experience when we are under the influence of a constant gravitational field (possibly the earth's) as well as the influence of other minor fields and forces. Examples of these others are the distribution of the mass of the spacecraft we're in, and the friction of any residual atmosphere. In the case of the "vomit comet" they include the fact that the plane's trajectory never cancels the earth's field exactly.
As per Newton's laws of gravitation and motion, under the influence of any gravitational field, micro or not, velocity cannot stay the same; it must change. In a perfect circular orbit, the speed will stay the same, but the direction will change.
In other words, if there is any gravity, micro or not, you always need fuel to keep the same velocity. In a circular orbit your speed stays the same, but your velocity does not. In remote space, far from any stars, your velocity may be nearly constant, but it will still change slowly. Hence you still need a force, and thus fuel, to keep it constant.
Comment: Microgravity (perhaps a poor term) is a term for the internal structural forces that arise when connected objects are forced to follow the orbit of their barycenter.  More: https://space.stackexchange.com/a/20354/63


Change China tourist visa to work visa

Question: Is it possible for a Russian national to convert a Chinese visitor (L) visa to a work (Z) visa while in China? The visitor visa expires in February.
Comment: Updated with the requested info
Answer: Typically not. Any conversions of L visas to Z visas need to be done outside the country. Most people go to Hong Kong for a few days to get it sorted out. You should get the Z visa paperwork from your company, then go to Hong Kong and apply. Usually only takes a couple of days, and you can turn around and come on back.
Comment: Any references to this?

Change China tourist visa to work visa


Write plural of/to the following words

Question:
Write plural of the following words.
  Write plural to the following words.

Which one is the correct answer, and why?
Answer: Neither of them are correct, really. The first is closest but is missing an article:

"Write the plural of the following words:"

The reason it sounds off without the article is that you're referring to a specific property of the words (their plural in this case) so the definite article is appropriate. You could, however, also write

"Write plurals of the following words"

But in terms of asking a non-native speaker to do this, you risk introducing some ambiguity in that it's possible to interpret that as meaning some words have more than one plural (which they do, but I don't imagine that's an English 101 topic).
Comment: +1 but I would take your example of ambiguity up a notch. I'd say that it's possible to interpret it as meaning that _all words_ (or at least all of the words that are listed) have more than one plural.
Answer: Write the plural of the following words.
You need to use the to define the form you need - 'flowers' is the plural of 'flower'.
Answer: Of is far more common and the one you should use.
To indicates an object of a verb, a direction (e.g. where is X pointed) or motion.
So write to X is possible if X is someone that is going to receive what you wrote, e.g. I'm writing a letter to my mother.
Write to X can also mean to physically direct your writing to a specific location X, or stop writing when you reach X, e.g. Write to the top of the page.
It's not common (or very correct, probably), but the above meaning can be used more abstractly to mean "direct your writing so it has the consideration of or impression of X" - e.g. Write to your emotions, not logic.
Plural is a word that describes the form of a single word, so it doesn't make sense to be the target of write, and it's not a location or something that would influence a text.  So this is one reason why of is preferred.

However, there is another way of thinking about it which is at least somewhat valid.  Take this sentence, for example:

The counterpart to yin is yang.

There are only two possibilities here, yin and yang and the above sentence is saying yin is the opposite or complement of yang.
If the speaker is considering for the time being that there are only two forms  of a word, plural and non-plural, then the above works with the word plural.

The plural to brick is bricks.

or

Write the plural to brick.

However, this requires a context to be established where we only care about two things that are complements.  Again, generally you want to use of.
Comment: Good explanation and a lot more informative than my answer, have an upvote.
Answer: In your examples

Write plural of the following words.
  Write plural to the following words.

Of is a better choice since it is possessive, the singular's plural.
To is not correct since you're not asking to transform the word as in

Change these words to their plurals

However a native speaker would more probably say

Write the plural of the following words.
  Write the plural for the following words.

The latter being used more often in AmE.

Write plural of/to the following words


What is the idea for exchanging Alice stones for engagement based on?

Question: In Gakuen Alice, if two people exchange Alice stones that they created, it can act as the equivalent of an engagement or promise. Is this based on any specific Japanese tradition? If not, what is it based off of?
Answer: I believe this is exchange is a mix of different marriage traditions, the oathing stone and the traditions of engagement rings.
The part about the stones is probably based on an old Scottish tradition with Celtic roots.
The Oathing Stone is an old Scottish tradition where the bride and groom place their hands upon a stone while saying their wedding vows. This ritual tradition is thought to be the best way to express your solemn promise in physical form. The idea is derived from the ancient Celtic custom of setting an oath in stone.
The Scottish believe that an oath given near stone or water, being strong natural elements, make the vows much more binding. Traditionally during the reading of the bride and groom's wedding vows, they hold an oathing stone in their hands, believing that holding the stone during the reading of the vows casts them into the stone.
It's similar to the more modern version of the unity candle or sand ceremony.
The exchange is very similar to the exchange of rings that is prevalent is modern culture.
In Nordic traditions, the bride-to-be and groom-to-be exchange and were engagement rings. The Victorians exchanged "regards" with their rings.
Together this exchange probably symbolizes a literal exchange of vows.


Alan Turing Documentaries

Question: To celebrate Alan Turing 100th birthday, I want to watch a documentary about his life.  However, there are several documentaries to choose from.
Which documentary about Alan Turing is your favorite?
Please include only one documentary per answer.
Comment: Happy Turing's day!
Comment: Maybe this should be CW ?
Comment: @Suresh Agree, but I didn't see (and still don't see) how to make that happen.
Answer: a leading one is Codebreaker with a list of reviews/publicity here [unfortunately several are behind paywalls]. here is one web review by chris harvey & with quotes by the writer warner.
this documentary originated by channel 4 seems balanced and avoids hagiography, looking at all the aspects of his complex life. has award winning writer, actors and acclaimed producer.
Answer: Breaking the Code (BBC, 1996) is personally my favourite. It is, however, much more on the side of 'factual drama' than strictly 'documentary' style. It feels well researched and it faithfully sticks to what was known about him, from his academic work to his mannerisms. I don't feel it embellishes or over-dramatizes his life. There is an excellent scene (for what was a fairly mainstream show) where Derek Jacobi (as Turing) explains his work in context to his contemporaries/predecessors, Gödel and Bertrand Russell. The Enigma work features of course, but doesn't dominate the story, which spans from his school-days to his death.
Answer: this HuffingtonPost video documentary/interviews/transcript was produced at the 2012 ACM Turing Award celebration & includes commentary by prior Turing award winners incl Bachman (1973), Allen (2006), Cerf (2004), Pearl (2011), also Papadimitriou author of widely read complexity theory textbook.
Answer: closely related is a highly-viewed documentary circulating on a lego turing machine built in honor of the 100th anniversary of Turings birthday, by CWI Phd student & software engr/researcher

Alan Turing Documentaries


Can death occur without Allah's will.?

Question: This could be a strange question. I know Allah is the almighty who written our death day when we born. But i saw some accidents and some strange death's. Does saitan have a power of causing death to us? Or can death occur without Allah's will. ? Some one please answer this question. ? Thanks in Advance. . Any hadith reference would be much appreciated.
Answer: Actually no matter how we die, it Does happens with the WILL of Allah. And Yes, Satan (Jinn) can cause harm to us (but the harm will only be limited to extent, which Allah has allowed. If our time has come for death and Jinn are also harming us, so we can die too at that time, when some jinn is trying to kill us. But that will only happen if Allah wished, no otherwise.
There is simple rule in islam, whatever happens, it happens with the Will of Allah Almighty

Can death occur without Allah's will.?


Starting an internet radio station

Question: I've got a bunch of songs (in mp3 format) I'd like to have friends and relatives in the US listen to, but rather than just sending it to them through xdcc/rapidshare/AIM/Yahoo file transfer/etc, I'm thinking that it would be easier to just make my own internet radio station, ala Shinsen-Radio and have them listen to that. What software out there can I use to set one up on my local machine?
Answer: I believe ShoutCast is what you are looking for.
http://shoutcast.com/download
I used to use it back around 2003. It is a great piece of software.
Answer: As Devon said, you can use ShoutCast. There's also some other alternatives, such as Icecast. If you ever want to consider streaming other media files, such as movies or videos and not just audio streams you can try using VLC Media Player. It has a bunch of streaming features that would probably be suitable for your needs.
You didn't mention what operating system you're using, but presumably if it's Windows you can use all three but it sounds like using Icecast or VLC is better for Linux because ShoutCast doesn't officially support Mac/Linux.
Answer: well if you want to be in control of the playlist then you could try out streamerp2p or you can try vibe streamer, Subsonic streaming server & Sockso so that your friends can pick and choose what music you made availble to them. vibe streamer is incredibly easy to use out of the box solution. Campcaster is a solution you can run on linux.
Answer: As stated above you would be best trying out shoutcast and I would suggest taking a look at SMI it helps a lot.

SHOUTcast Management Interface - Create and modify shoutcast servers with the ease of a web based interface. This is a free open source stream control panel for PHP5 enabled web servers with MySQL 4.1 or newer.
Answer: Streamerp2p,
plus Winamp to play the mp3s, and Edcast encoder plugin for Winamp to create the stream data, which Streamerp2p server then broadcasts. Very simple to set up. Works through NAT/firewalls, for those people who don't know how to configure routers.
It has a built in chat room which is popular for this sort of 'friends' station. There are several stations on the network that have been set up by various web forums.
It uses p2p relaying between listeners, your pc doesn't have to send the stream data directly to every listener, so you can broadcast a higher quality/bitrate stream. With shoutcast/icecast your number of listeners and stream quality is limited by the amount of upload bandwidth your internet connection has.
Users need the Streamerp2p app to listen.
Works on Wine, for Linux users, although the original poster didn't actually mention Linux.

Starting an internet radio station


Removing Protection Around Trader Settlements

Question: Is there any way to disable protection (which prevents you from building or destroying anything in/around a trader settlement)? Are there any console commands i could use, or some other ways to get around this protection?
Answer: If you are on a PC you can modify the prefabs.xml file. Set trader_area="False" and reduce all protection values to 0 that should remove the trader protection and disable the teleport feature.
As far as I know there is no claim block in the trader area so building near it after the xml changes are made should be possible.
If you are on a console, you can't change the xml files as far as I know and you won't be able to do that.
If you play on a server, the server admin will have to make the changes to the xml files there.
Comment: Will that also allow the zombies to destroy the trader's outer walls? During the day I like the protection it offers during an ill-equipped wandering horde, because they can't damage the walls, so I stand above and plink them away with a bow, but that could be dangerous if they can now destroy the walls.
Comment: Yes, when protection is removed than the Trader Outpost becomes just like any other building and can be destroyed by zombies. However, currently, still in A18, Trader NPC cannot be killed so you theoretically always will be able to use the trader even if the outpost is gone :) I am not a modder so I can't tell you if it would be possible to only enable protection part of the time. Though if you ask Khaines on twitter (maker of Darkness Falls mod) he could answer that most likely.


Manually define product page canonical tag

Question: Can a product pages canonical tag be manually changed?
I have products which are all the same apart from colour, which is causing duplicate content. So I would like to canonical the other product pages to one single canonical page.
Answer: You could create a custom product attribute for this.
Whether a canonical tag should be rendered on a catalog product page is determined in Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_View around the line with  $headBlock->addLinkRel('canonical', $product->getUrlModel()->getUrl($product, $params));. You could adjust this code that the default canonical is overwritten when the product attribute is filled out in the admin. If not, then it will fallback to the old behaviour.
The proper way to enhance this code is by extending this block from within a custom module.
Answer: Yes you can manually define the product canonical url;
Edit the product in Magento admin and under the "Design" options add somthing like this to the "Custom Layout Update" section.
<reference name="head">
 <action method="addLinkRel">
  <rel>canonical</rel>
  <href>http://www.domain.com/page</href>
 </action>
</reference>

Answer: Steps
1) First create the product's custom attribute name is : custom_url
2) Enter the relative url of product(ie: url key).
example: abc.html
3)
   In product listing or at homepage wherever you want to show the products.
   Just get this attribute value from product object.It will definitely work.
   Replace product original url with this custom product url.
You can easily find the code  for getting attribute value on internet.
Answer: While it sounds like Tim Hofman / Rushvi's solution would be a cool customization to make overwriting product canonicals easier to manage, I found another solution that allows you to manually overwrite an existing canonical for products (or other pages that allow you to insert Custom Layout Update XML).
This worked perfectly for me, as we have "Use Canonical Link Meta Tag For Products" set in Configuration > Catalog > Catalog > Search Engine Optimizations.
This XML first removes the existing canonical link and then adds your override!
<reference name='head'>
  <action method="removeItem" block="head">
    <item>link_rel</item>
    <name>URL-FROM-EXISTING-CANONICAL</name>
  </action>
  <action method='addLinkRel'>
    <rel>canonical</rel>
    <href>NEW-URL-FOR-CANONICAL-OVERRIDE</href>
  </action>
</reference>


Can you use わかる instead of わかりました?

Question: If your teacher or your leader orders you to do sth or tells you sth, I always hear people say 'はい、わかりました。' But I also once heard somebody say 'わかる' instead of 'わかりました' to reply. Can people do that? Can I use both of them?
Answer: わかる (present form) is never used when you accept an order/request from anyone. It's used when referring to something you already know. Its politer equivalent is わかります. They are often used to show your sympathy.

わかる。: I know. I understand that. You can say that. Yeah it really is.
わかります。: (polite version of わかる) Yes. I know. I understand that. I agree.

わかった is the phrase you have to use when you accept someone's request. Its politer equivalent is わかりました.

わかった。 Okay. Got it. I see. Understood.
わかりました。: (polite version of わかった) Okay. I see. Understood. Yes sir.

See: What is different between 分かります and 分かりました。
You should almost always use the politer versions to your boss. You may occasionally see someone excitedly say わかる! to their boss at an izakaya restaurant, though.
Comment: Could you please explain that in the respect of japanese 時制 and 相, 完了and 未完了?
Comment: @Null I'm not very good at tense/aspect... Somehow I feel this わかった is simple 過去, but I'm not 100% sure.
Comment: thank you, but when talking about tense I feel that it would be complex to understand the usage, I fell that わかった is more like 完了相 rather than 過去, like somebody already know the request or order.
Answer: So broadly and almost overall saying, you can not or should I say, you'd better refrain from using.
"わかりました" is, as you can see, is including 丁寧語{ていねいご} ます、です、( which is conjugated ) so that I think almost nobody would say "わかる", especially to your leader. If your teacher or leader is almost equal to your very close friend, then "わかる" would be possible. I think somebody who is so intimate with the teacher/leader would have said so.

Can you use わかる instead of わかりました?


What exploits are possible in languages like C/C++ other than overflow errors?

Question: I know that C/C++ programs are highly susceptible to overflow errors that lead to program compromise. But I was wondering, are there any other vulnerabilites that can exist other than overflow errors? I am aware of dangling pointer references, off by one and integer errors, but is there any way other than leveraging overflow errors to exploit programs?
If yes, then please suggest some readings and references.
Thanks
Comment: sounds ominously like a school assignment... have you googled this?
Comment: Implementing encryption incorrectly, hard coding in passwords, forgetting to sanitize your inputs, leaving development code such as back doors in... I think this is a question asking for a list
Comment: Did. With little help. @LvB. And no, this wasn't a school assignment. I was randomly trying some exploits and got the thought.
Comment: A useful resource/link: https://github.com/chifflier/mind-your-languages/blob/master/C.md
Answer: Since C (and C++ which can be technically be considered an addition to C) is close to Assembly, Much of the details of the processor have to be modeled and controlled from within its constructions. The easiest example that shows this is the array index overflow bug.
 This bug entails the improper use of an array index in such a way you retrieve a piece of memory that was not allocated to said array.
int[2] arrayX;
printf(arrayX[3]);

A proper compiler will complain in the code block above about index out of scope since a static analysis of the code already shows it. You can also use dynamically created arrays that are of unknown since at compile time and there no warning will be given.
Now, when you enter a function you effectively assign a code return address into the stack. as well as locations for the return "object" in same said stack. This stack is called the call stack and should not be manipulated by the program under normal operations.
With both of these mechanics we can 'trick' a program into running our own code. we do this by adding processor instructions on a known memory location, and manipulate the call stack to change the return pointer to my injected code block. (this is called code injection).
This behavior can be triggered by an overflow error or some other mechanic to adjust the call stack, this is dependent on the OS in operation and the Hardware in use, and is the main way exploits work.
There are however exploits that exploit lower level calls than C offers (basically injecting machine code / assembly into the program code).
In C++ there are additional methods of adding code to an application, through utilization (or abusing) of the Class loading mechanics.
If you want to learn about these concepts I would suggest learning about metasploit. Reading up on how C works in detail (the c bible is a good start)
and try and read the GCC compiler documents.
Comment: `printf(arrayX[2]);` would kill the app aswell :D
Comment: yes, but is less clear as an eample ;)


Not Able to Take Screenshot on Safari using Grid and RemoteWebDriver

Question: I am trying to get a screenshot from Safari using Grid and RemoteWebDriver. I have tried the following approaches:

Using the code below. It works on all browsers except Safari. I also tried returning a BASE64 string but didn't work.
WebDriver augmentedDriver = new Augmenter().augment(driver);
File source = ((TakesScreenshot)augmentedDriver).getScreenshotAs(OutputType.FILE);
FileUtils.copyFile(source, new File("screenshot.png"));

Exception: org.openqa.selenium.WebDriverException
Using WebDriverBackedSelenium. This throws exception.
a.
Selenium sel = new WebDriverBackedSelenium(driver, driver.getCurrentUrl());
sel.captureScreenshot(filename);

Exception: java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException: captureScreenshot
b.
Selenium sel = new WebDriverBackedSelenium(driver, driver.getCurrentUrl());
sel.captureScreenshotToString();

Exception: java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException: WebDriver does not implement TakeScreenshot
I tried sending the key sequence that takes screen shots in MAC (command+shift+3) using sendKeys(Keys.chord(Keys.COMMAND, Keys.SHIFT, "3")) but Keys.COMMAND is not considered as modifier key so this also didn't work.

After some research I came across the issue below:
http://code.google.com/p/selenium/issues/detail?id=4203
I also saw this revision which is suppose to fix the issue but I am not able to figure out how to implement this
http://code.google.com/p/selenium/source/detail?r=17731
I would really appreciate if I could get some help on this. I am using MAC, Safari 5.1.7 and selenium 2.25.
Answer: For future reference: this seems to have been fixed in Selenium 2.26


Calculating Pearson correlation and significance in Python

Question: I am looking for a function that takes as input two lists, and returns the Pearson correlation, and the significance of the correlation.
Answer: You can have a look at scipy.stats:
from pydoc import help
from scipy.stats.stats import pearsonr
help(pearsonr)

Output:
>>>
Help on function pearsonr in module scipy.stats.stats:

pearsonr(x, y)
 Calculates a Pearson correlation coefficient and the p-value for testing
 non-correlation.

 The Pearson correlation coefficient measures the linear relationship
 between two datasets. Strictly speaking, Pearson's correlation requires
 that each dataset be normally distributed. Like other correlation
 coefficients, this one varies between -1 and +1 with 0 implying no
 correlation. Correlations of -1 or +1 imply an exact linear
 relationship. Positive correlations imply that as x increases, so does
 y. Negative correlations imply that as x increases, y decreases.

 The p-value roughly indicates the probability of an uncorrelated system
 producing datasets that have a Pearson correlation at least as extreme
 as the one computed from these datasets. The p-values are not entirely
 reliable but are probably reasonable for datasets larger than 500 or so.

 Parameters
 ----------
 x : 1D array
 y : 1D array the same length as x

 Returns
 -------
 (Pearson's correlation coefficient,
  2-tailed p-value)

 References
 ----------
 http://www.statsoft.com/textbook/glosp.html#Pearson%20Correlation

Comment: How about correlation coefficient of two dictionaries ?!
Comment: @user702846 Pearson correlation is defined on a 2xN matrix. There is no generally applicable method that converts two dictionaries into a 2xN matrix, but you might use the array of pairs of dictionary values corresponding to the keys of the intersection of the keys of your dictionaries.
Comment: Using python 3.9.15 I get the message " DeprecationWarning: Please use `pearsonr` from the `scipy.stats` namespace, the `scipy.stats.stats` namespace is deprecated.", with scipy.stats and scipy.stats.stats both working.
Answer: The Pearson correlation can be calculated with NumPy's corrcoef.
import numpy
numpy.corrcoef(list1, list2)[0, 1]

Comment: This does not produce the requested significance of the correlation right?
Comment: the output is confusing, but actually very simple. check this explanation https://stackoverflow.com/a/3425548/1245622
Comment: As said by others, obtanint corrcoef without significance is pointless and numpy does not return it (as of today).
Answer: An alternative can be a native SciPy function from linregress which calculates:

slope : slope of the regression line
intercept : intercept of the regression line
r-value : correlation coefficient
p-value : two-sided p-value for a hypothesis test whose null hypothesis is that the slope is zero
stderr : Standard error of the estimate

And here is an example:
a = [15, 12, 8, 8, 7, 7, 7, 6, 5, 3]
b = [10, 25, 17, 11, 13, 17, 20, 13, 9, 15]
from scipy.stats import linregress
linregress(a, b)

will return you:
LinregressResult(slope=0.20833333333333337, intercept=13.375, rvalue=0.14499815458068521, pvalue=0.68940144811669501, stderr=0.50261704627083648)

Comment: Great answer - by far the most informative. Also works with a two-row pandas.DataFrame: `lineregress(two_row_df)`
Comment: Watch out: `stderr` is the standard error for the slope, not the Pearson correlation coefficient.
Comment: Brilliant answer. Very intuitive too, if you think of it
Comment: FWIW, `rvalue` should be the Pearson coefficient.
Answer: If you don't feel like installing SciPy, I've used this quick hack, slightly modified from Programming Collective Intelligence:
def pearsonr(x, y):
  # Assume len(x) == len(y)
  n = len(x)
  sum_x = float(sum(x))
  sum_y = float(sum(y))
  sum_x_sq = sum(xi*xi for xi in x)
  sum_y_sq = sum(yi*yi for yi in y)
  psum = sum(xi*yi for xi, yi in zip(x, y))
  num = psum - (sum_x * sum_y/n)
  den = pow((sum_x_sq - pow(sum_x, 2) / n) * (sum_y_sq - pow(sum_y, 2) / n), 0.5)
  if den == 0: return 0
  return num / den

Comment: Just as a comment, consider that libraries as scipy et al are developed by people knowing a lot of numerical analysis. This may avoid you a lot of common pitfalls (for instance, having very large and very little numbers in X or Y may result in catastrofic cancellation)
Comment: As a style note Python frowns on this unnecessary usage of map (in favor of list comprehensions)
Comment: I was surprised to discover this disagrees with Excel, NumPy, and R.  See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3949226/calculating-pearson-correlation-and-significance-in-python/7939259#7939259.
Comment: As another commenter pointed out, this has a float/int bug.  I think sum_y/n is integer division for ints.  If you use sum_x = float(sum(x)) and sum_y = float(sum(y)), it works.
Comment: @dfrankow I think it's because imap cannot handle float. python gives an `TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for -: 'itertools.imap' and 'float'` at `num = psum - (sum_x * sum_y/n)`
Answer: The following code is a straight-up interpretation of the definition:
import math

def average(x):
    assert len(x) > 0
    return float(sum(x)) / len(x)

def pearson_def(x, y):
    assert len(x) == len(y)
    n = len(x)
    assert n > 0
    avg_x = average(x)
    avg_y = average(y)
    diffprod = 0
    xdiff2 = 0
    ydiff2 = 0
    for idx in range(n):
        xdiff = x[idx] - avg_x
        ydiff = y[idx] - avg_y
        diffprod += xdiff * ydiff
        xdiff2 += xdiff * xdiff
        ydiff2 += ydiff * ydiff

    return diffprod / math.sqrt(xdiff2 * ydiff2)

Test:
print pearson_def([1,2,3], [1,5,7])

returns
0.981980506062

This agrees with Excel, this calculator, SciPy (also NumPy), which return 0.981980506 and 0.9819805060619657, and 0.98198050606196574, respectively.
R:
> cor( c(1,2,3), c(1,5,7))
[1] 0.9819805

EDIT: Fixed a bug pointed out by a commenter.
Comment: Beware of the type of the variables! You have encountered an int/float problem. In `sum(x) / len(x)` you divide ints, not floats. So `sum([1,5,7]) / len([1,5,7]) = 13 / 3 = 4`, according to integer division (whereas you want `13. / 3. = 4.33...`). To fix it rewrite this line as `float(sum(x)) / float(len(x))` (one float suffices, as Python converts it automatically).
Comment: The correlation coefficient is not defined for any of those cases.  Putting them into R returns "NA" for all three.
Comment: Your code won't work for cases like: [10,10,10],[0,0,0] or [10,10],[10,0]. or even [10,10],[10,10]
Answer: You can do this with pandas.DataFrame.corr, too:
import pandas as pd
a = [[1, 2, 3],
     [5, 6, 9],
     [5, 6, 11],
     [5, 6, 13],
     [5, 3, 13]]
df = pd.DataFrame(data=a)
df.corr()

This gives
          0         1         2
0  1.000000  0.745601  0.916579
1  0.745601  1.000000  0.544248
2  0.916579  0.544248  1.000000

Comment: This is just correlation without significance
Answer: Pearson coefficient calculation using Pandas in Python:
I would suggest trying this approach since your data contains lists. It will be easy to interact with your data and manipulate it from the console since you can visualise your data structure and update it as you wish. You can also export the data set and save it and add new data out of the Python console for later analysis. This code is simpler and contains less lines of code. I am assuming you need a few quick lines of code to screen your data for further analysis
Example:
data = {'list 1':[2,4,6,8],'list 2':[4,16,36,64]}

import pandas as pd #To Convert your lists to pandas data frames convert your lists into pandas dataframes

df = pd.DataFrame(data, columns = ['list 1','list 2'])

from scipy import stats # For in-built method to get PCC

pearson_coef, p_value = stats.pearsonr(df["list 1"], df["list 2"]) #define the columns to perform calculations on
print("Pearson Correlation Coefficient: ", pearson_coef, "and a P-value of:", p_value) # Results

However, you did not post your data for me to see the size of the data set or the transformations that might be needed before the analysis.
Comment: Hello, welcome to StackOverflow! Try adding a short description of why you chose this code and how it applies in this case at the start of your answer!
Answer: Rather than rely on NumPy or SciPy, I think my answer should be the easiest to code and understand the steps in calculating the Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC).
import math

# Calculates the mean
def mean(x):
    sum = 0.0
    for i in x:
         sum += i
    return sum / len(x)

# Calculates the sample standard deviation
def sampleStandardDeviation(x):
    sumv = 0.0
    for i in x:
         sumv += (i - mean(x))**2
    return math.sqrt(sumv/(len(x)-1))

# Calculates the PCC using both the two functions above
def pearson(x,y):
    scorex = []
    scorey = []

    for i in x:
        scorex.append((i - mean(x))/sampleStandardDeviation(x))

    for j in y:
        scorey.append((j - mean(y))/sampleStandardDeviation(y))

# Multiplies both lists together into 1 list (hence zip) and sums the whole list
    return (sum([i*j for i,j in zip(scorex,scorey)]))/(len(x)-1)

The significance of PCC is basically to show you how strongly correlated the two variables/lists are.
It is important to note that the PCC value ranges from -1 to 1.
A value between 0 to 1 denotes a positive correlation.
Value of 0 = highest variation (no correlation whatsoever).
A value between -1 to 0 denotes a negative correlation.
Comment: It has amazing complexity and slow performance on 2 lists with 500+ values.
Comment: Note that Python has a builtin `sum` function.
Comment: 99% of the answers are just waste of resources. You missed the significance test.
Answer: Hmm, many of these responses have long and hard-to-read code...
I'd suggest using NumPy with its nifty features when working with arrays:
import numpy as np

def pcc(X, Y):
   ''' Compute Pearson Correlation Coefficient. '''
   # Normalise X and Y
   X -= X.mean(0)
   Y -= Y.mean(0)
   # Standardise X and Y
   X /= X.std(0)
   Y /= Y.std(0)
   # Compute mean product
   return np.mean(X*Y)

# Using it on a random example
from random import random
X = np.array([random() for x in xrange(100)])
Y = np.array([random() for x in xrange(100)])
pcc(X, Y)

Comment: Although I like very much this answer, I would advise to copy/clone both X and Y inside the function. Otherwise both are altered, which might not be a desired behaviour.
Answer: This is an implementation of the Pearson correlation function using NumPy:
def corr(data1, data2):
    "data1 & data2 should be NumPy arrays."
    mean1 = data1.mean()
    mean2 = data2.mean()
    std1 = data1.std()
    std2 = data2.std()

    #corr = ((data1-mean1)*(data2-mean2)).mean()/(std1*std2)
    corr = ((data1*data2).mean()-mean1*mean2)/(std1*std2)
    return corr

Comment: Correlation significance is not there. Numpy, Scipy and almost every stats library for python has the pearson correlation, the catch is the significance and you missed it.
Answer: Here's a variant on mkh's answer that runs much faster than it, and scipy.stats.pearsonr, using Numba.
import numba

@numba.jit
def corr(data1, data2):
    M = data1.size

    sum1 = 0.
    sum2 = 0.
    for i in range(M):
        sum1 += data1[i]
        sum2 += data2[i]
    mean1 = sum1 / M
    mean2 = sum2 / M

    var_sum1 = 0.
    var_sum2 = 0.
    cross_sum = 0.
    for i in range(M):
        var_sum1 += (data1[i] - mean1) ** 2
        var_sum2 += (data2[i] - mean2) ** 2
        cross_sum += (data1[i] * data2[i])

    std1 = (var_sum1 / M) ** .5
    std2 = (var_sum2 / M) ** .5
    cross_mean = cross_sum / M

    return (cross_mean - mean1 * mean2) / (std1 * std2)

Comment: There isn't anyone by the user name "mkh'" here. What answer does it refer to?
Answer: Here is an implementation for Pearson correlation based on a sparse vector. The vectors here are expressed as a list of tuples expressed as (index, value). The two sparse vectors can be of different length, but over all vector sizes, it will have to be same. This is useful for text mining applications where the vector size is extremely large due to most features being bag of words and hence calculations are usually performed using sparse vectors.
def get_pearson_corelation(self, first_feature_vector=[], second_feature_vector=[], length_of_featureset=0):
    indexed_feature_dict = {}
    if first_feature_vector == [] or second_feature_vector == [] or length_of_featureset == 0:
        raise ValueError("Empty feature vectors or zero length of featureset in get_pearson_corelation")

    sum_a = sum(value for index, value in first_feature_vector)
    sum_b = sum(value for index, value in second_feature_vector)

    avg_a = float(sum_a) / length_of_featureset
    avg_b = float(sum_b) / length_of_featureset

    mean_sq_error_a = sqrt((sum((value - avg_a) ** 2 for index, value in first_feature_vector)) + ((
        length_of_featureset - len(first_feature_vector)) * ((0 - avg_a) ** 2)))
    mean_sq_error_b = sqrt((sum((value - avg_b) ** 2 for index, value in second_feature_vector)) + ((
        length_of_featureset - len(second_feature_vector)) * ((0 - avg_b) ** 2)))

    covariance_a_b = 0

    # Calculate covariance for the sparse vectors
    for tuple in first_feature_vector:
        if len(tuple) != 2:
            raise ValueError("Invalid feature frequency tuple in featureVector: %s") % (tuple,)
        indexed_feature_dict[tuple[0]] = tuple[1]
    count_of_features = 0
    for tuple in second_feature_vector:
        count_of_features += 1
        if len(tuple) != 2:
            raise ValueError("Invalid feature frequency tuple in featureVector: %s") % (tuple,)
        if tuple[0] in indexed_feature_dict:
            covariance_a_b += ((indexed_feature_dict[tuple[0]] - avg_a) * (tuple[1] - avg_b))
            del (indexed_feature_dict[tuple[0]])
        else:
            covariance_a_b += (0 - avg_a) * (tuple[1] - avg_b)

    for index in indexed_feature_dict:
        count_of_features += 1
        covariance_a_b += (indexed_feature_dict[index] - avg_a) * (0 - avg_b)

    # Adjust covariance with rest of vector with 0 value
    covariance_a_b += (length_of_featureset - count_of_features) * -avg_a * -avg_b

    if mean_sq_error_a == 0 or mean_sq_error_b == 0:
        return -1
    else:
        return float(covariance_a_b) / (mean_sq_error_a * mean_sq_error_b)

Unit tests:
def test_get_get_pearson_corelation(self):
    vector_a = [(1, 1), (2, 2), (3, 3)]
    vector_b = [(1, 1), (2, 5), (3, 7)]
    self.assertAlmostEquals(self.sim_calculator.get_pearson_corelation(vector_a, vector_b, 3), 0.981980506062, 3, None, None)

    vector_a = [(1, 1), (2, 2), (3, 3)]
    vector_b = [(1, 1), (2, 5), (3, 7), (4, 14)]
    self.assertAlmostEquals(self.sim_calculator.get_pearson_corelation(vector_a, vector_b, 5), -0.0137089240555, 3, None, None)

Answer: I have a very simple and easy to understand solution for this. For two arrays of equal length, Pearson coefficient can be easily computed as follows:
def manual_pearson(a,b):
"""
Accepts two arrays of equal length, and computes correlation coefficient.
Numerator is the sum of product of (a - a_avg) and (b - b_avg),
while denominator is the product of a_std and b_std multiplied by
length of array.
"""
  a_avg, b_avg = np.average(a), np.average(b)
  a_stdev, b_stdev = np.std(a), np.std(b)
  n = len(a)
  denominator = a_stdev * b_stdev * n
  numerator = np.sum(np.multiply(a-a_avg, b-b_avg))
  p_coef = numerator/denominator
  return p_coef

Answer: Starting in Python 3.10, the Pearson's correlation coefficient (statistics.correlation) is directly available in the standard library:
from statistics import correlation

# a = [15, 12, 8, 8, 7, 7, 7, 6, 5, 3]
# b = [10, 25, 17, 11, 13, 17, 20, 13, 9, 15]
correlation(a, b)
# 0.1449981545806852

Answer: You may wonder how to interpret your probability in the context of looking for a correlation in a particular direction (negative or positive correlation.)  Here is a function I wrote to help with that.  It might even be right!
It's based on info I gleaned from http://www.vassarstats.net/rsig.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student%27s_t_distribution, thanks to other answers posted here.
# Given (possibly random) variables, X and Y, and a correlation direction,
# returns:
#  (r, p),
# where r is the Pearson correlation coefficient, and p is the probability
# that there is no correlation in the given direction.
#
# direction:
#  if positive, p is the probability that there is no positive correlation in
#    the population sampled by X and Y
#  if negative, p is the probability that there is no negative correlation
#  if 0, p is the probability that there is no correlation in either direction
def probabilityNotCorrelated(X, Y, direction=0):
    x = len(X)
    if x != len(Y):
        raise ValueError("variables not same len: " + str(x) + ", and " + \
                         str(len(Y)))
    if x < 6:
        raise ValueError("must have at least 6 samples, but have " + str(x))
    (corr, prb_2_tail) = stats.pearsonr(X, Y)

    if not direction:
        return (corr, prb_2_tail)

    prb_1_tail = prb_2_tail / 2
    if corr * direction > 0:
        return (corr, prb_1_tail)

    return (corr, 1 - prb_1_tail)

Answer: def pearson(x,y):
  n=len(x)
  vals=range(n)

  sumx=sum([float(x[i]) for i in vals])
  sumy=sum([float(y[i]) for i in vals])

  sumxSq=sum([x[i]**2.0 for i in vals])
  sumySq=sum([y[i]**2.0 for i in vals])

  pSum=sum([x[i]*y[i] for i in vals])
  # Calculating Pearson correlation
  num=pSum-(sumx*sumy/n)
  den=((sumxSq-pow(sumx,2)/n)*(sumySq-pow(sumy,2)/n))**.5
  if den==0: return 0
  r=num/den
  return r

Comment: Code-only answers are not considered good practice. Please consider adding a few words to explain how your code addresses the question. (read the help page on how to answer a question on SO)


Open corpora for modern English

Question: I need a corpus of modern English, with part-of-speech tags, in order to train language models, specifically a part-of-speech tagger. The domain I am doing this in is the Hansard, the transcript of speeches in British Parliament. I have tried training using corpora of American English, with unimpressive results. Are there any open-access coropora for this domain that I could use, or at least corpora of modern educated British English? I am aware of the existence of the Hansard Corpus, and several other similar corpora, but I would like to download the corpus for use with the Python NLTK library.
Comment: A side note: NLTK also has some generic reader modules for loading external corpora. This depends on the format they're in, but one can often find a friendly soul has written an appropriate module for NLTK.
Comment: The [NLTK book](http://www.nltk.org/book/ch02.html#tab-corpora) lists quite a lot annotated corpora for various languages. You might make a find there.
Comment: See also this question http://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/12323/biggest-freely-available-english-corpus
Answer: That I am aware of, most corpora of British English are not freely available. There are, however, corpora of British English, including POS-tags and formal language, which can be downloaded by individuals, although I am not aware of any which are open source. These include:

the British National Corpus, which can be downloaded in its XML version from the Oxford Text Archive (http://ota.ox.ac.uk/desc/2554), free in the UK (via Shibboleth).
various corpora, downloadable in various formats including a 'linear text' format, which can be purchased from the Brigham Young University corpus interface (http://corpus.byu.edu/full-text/).
Comment: Those who are not specially looking to download the corpus may find the following (non-exhaustive) list of English corpora helpful: http://www.corpora4learning.net/resources/corpora.html#BE.

Open corpora for modern English


Can we get good SEO rankings without editing our content with focus keywords as suggested by Yoast?

Question: We do not want to edit the content according to Yoast SEO plugin focus keyword. Can searching for our website in Google be effective without doing so?
Comment: I'm not sure if you are asking if modifying your content according to Yoast's suggestions would be effective or if you are asking if ignoring Yoast and trying to figure keywords out from Google would be effective.
Comment: Ignoring edit the content According to yoast seo and only just to Determining focus keyword in yoast seo. Is Google Searching Effective?
Comment: I've edited your question with my best guess of what you are asking.   If I got it wrong, please edit it again.
Answer: The Yoast SEO keyword focus feature is there to help you gauge how strong your on-page content is as it relates to the keyword you want the page to rank for. However, it is not the only truth for ranking your pages, and the keyword focus is not the only thing that determines where your page is ranked. (And has nothing to do with whether the page is in the index.) It is only a tool that aims to be helpful with one aspect of content SEO.
An experienced content producer or SEO may not even need this feature turned on. Building and optimizing sites for clients, I have found that novices benefited from this feature much more than experienced content marketers, who ended up ignoring it and even asking me to turn it off. Newer marketers told me it was nice to have.
Your page ranking in the SERPs depends on many factors, including metadata, mobile friendliness, information architecture of the website, site speed, the context of your content, links profiles, and yes, keywords. You know your content better than Yoast. Produce what makes sense for your website, and use Yoast as more a suggestion than a hard truth.
Answer: If you don't want to do something - just don't do it, nobody forces you to. This is a question of your very private opinion and is absolutely misplaced here.
The question would better match the goals of this site is rather something like "would you recommend to make an additional keyword research and/or LSI analysis of certain text along to recommendation of Yoast plugin".
The answer to this question would be: it depends from the language and the kind of your text. In English and on texts to not very special topics Yoast delivers pretty good recommendations. If you have much content, try to set priorities - for content you expect more from, do research by yourself, for content you don't expect much - trust Yoast.


Multiple snapshots of social network, showing people leaving

Question: Are there any available data sets for social networks, like facebook, where the data is longitudinal (multiple versions over time) and captures the leave (or any similar activity like inactivity, account deactivation, or account permanent deletion)?
Answer: One option would be GitHub.  Public events are timestamped and therefore one can observe a user creating an account, any public usage or contribution activity, and if the account was deleted.  Some potential sources would be the GitHub API, GHArchive, and GHTorrent.