What's the etymology of "humdinger"?

Question: A humdinger is a remarkable or outstanding person or thing.
The OED has it as originally US dating (as hum-dinger) from 1905, but says the origin is unknown.
Where does the word humdinger come from? Was it used before 1905?
Comment: "Anglicized versions of Irish expressions" http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/nyregion/08irish.html?_r=0
Comment: @Susan: The "define dinger" Google result says *late 19th cent.: shortening of humdinger.*
Comment: @Susan: I did but the graph has no indication of OCR errors or other meanings. I clicked through to see some examples and they appeared to be OCR errors of "danger". Is there any evidence to suggest *humdinger* comes *dinger*, rather than the other way around, as Google's definition states? Or that this "outstanding" meaning of *dinger* is really around since before 1800?
Comment: @Susan: No problem! Who knows, perhaps it did exist with this meaning before 1800. OCR is "optical character recognition", or what computers do when they scan a page and try and recognise the printed letters and turn it into text. Sometimes they make mistakes, especially with older, less clear type. So a smudgy *a* in *danger* may be misattributed by the computer's OCR program as an *i* to create *dinger*.
Comment: @Susan: U.S. immigration records begin with 1820, so there isn't a reliable way of comparing immigration figures after that date with levels of immigration before then: not just for the Irish, but for any immigrant group. Most documented "Irish" immigration before the Potato Famine of the 1850s was Scots-Irish (mainly of Presbyterian background from Scotland, previously relocated to northern Ireland). It would be interesting to know whether "Irish expressions" refers to one of these groups or to both.
Comment: Just for the record: The etymological claims made by Mr. Cassidy in the NYT article linked to above are quite often demonstrably false. Most of them are folk etymology, often quite tenuous ones at that. His book and claims have become popular, but have been debunked time and time again by linguists and etymologists working with the Irish language.
Comment: The word was used by Character John Sims in the 1934 film "Our Daily Bread" to describe something that pleased him. I believe it's the first time I'd heard the word.
Answer: Here is the entry for humdinger in Eric Partridge, A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (1961):

humdinger. A fast aircraft or vehicle; a smooth-running engine: Services, but mostly R.A.F.: adopted in mid-1940 from American airmen. American s[ource]: echoic: hum (speed) + dinger (something forceful).

Partridge published a dictionary of RAF slang in 1945, so he's especially knowledgeable about words used in that service.
Wentworth & Flexner, Dictionary of American Slang (1961) addresses the dinger part of the term in its entry for humdinger:

humdinger n. Something or someone very remarkable or admirable. See dinger. c1905: archaic and dial. now. adj. Remarkable.

And here is part 1 of the dinger entry from that same source:

dinger n. 1 Any remarkable person or thing. Obs. See hum-dinger. 1951: "President Truman used it not once, but twice, in characterizing a sermon he had heard. ... 'That was a dinger, chaplain,' said [he], and a moment later: 'I said it was a dinger.'"

Chapman & Kipfer, Dictionary of American Slang, Third Edition (1996) removes its predecessor's comment that humdinger is "archaic and dial. now," though it reasserts the "by 1905" coinage period. I can't help wondering if Bob Dylan's rhyme in "I Shall Be Free" ("She's a humdinger/Folk singer/Dead ringer/For a thingamajigger"), which came out in 1963, helped bring humdinger back into popular usage. The Ngram Viewer graph for humdinger is not inconsistent with that possibility, though the relationship does seem rather far-fetched.
The third volume of the prodigious Farmer & Henley, Slang and Its Analogues, with alphabetical entries ranging from "Fla. to Hyps." was published in 1893 and has no entry for humdinger, so the term certainly wasn't in widespread use long before 1905.
A Google Books search, however, turns up Roberts et al. v. Date et al. (1903), a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision involving interests in an Alaska mining claim called "the Humdinger" that had been filed by the defendants in the case on June 22, 1900. Other mining claims under dispute in the same case were called "the Marie," "the Discovery," and "the Eagle Canyon." The Humdinger claim was located on Slate creek, so "Humdinger" does not appear to be a place name (as opposed to a descriptive name).
Another early reference appears in the Paint, Oil and Drug Review (February 6, 1907):

A little incident that occurred in Indian Territory recently shows how the Indians are cheated. Some time since a well drilled by a Mr. "X" was reported as having been found to be dry. The rigging was removed, the derrick torn don,the hole capped and apparently the well was abandoned. A short time thereafter there appeared an advertisement offering for lease the 20 acres belonging to an Indian girl and adjoining the lease where Mr. "X" had found the "dry" hole. The lease was offered for sale by a master in chancery. It was sold for a cash bonus of $2,550, together with one-fourth royalty on all oil discovered. A representative of Mr. "X" was the purchaser. After the sale had been made to him Mr. "X" confided to a friend that the "dry" hole had not been quite so dry as reported. In fact, it was, in the parlance of the craft, a "humdinger."

Yet another early Google Books mention of humdinger comes from the records of the Brown Swiss Cattle Breeders' Association (1908), which details the parenting exploits of a bull named Humdinger that lived in Illinois and sired 18 registered calves that were born between January 31, 1906, and November 19, 1907. Humdinger himself was born on December 5, 1903, and registered (#2187) at some unspecified time thereafter.
Comment: Thanks! It seems likely *humdinger* is from *dinger*. OED has *dinger* chronologically from 1809 and etymologically from the verb *ding*: "**3.** *fig.* To 'beat', overcome, surpass, excel." This is from [?a1513] or 1724.
Answer: I found a humdinger earlier than the OED's 1905. I'll quote a large section as it gives the full context of why the "rhetorical humdinger" under discussion "is one of the architectural wonders of word construction".
The Butte Inter Mountain, January 27, 1902:

REPRESENTATIVE SIBLEY'S SPEECH
[Denver Republican.]
If it were not for the fact that he is
  from the staid and conservative Keystone
  state, that has never encouraged
  wind-jamming politicians, it might be
  suspected that Representative Sibley
  was trying to make himself popular by
  using the brand of oratory that
  stampeded the democratic national convention in 1896.
When a man gets up in congress and
  says that the present accomplishment
  of irrigation will be "pressing a poisoned
  chalice to the lips of the farming classes
  of this nation," it is time for the people
  to look out for another boy orator.
But we fear that Mr. Sibley was so intent
  on springing his "poisoned chalice"
  smile on congress that he lost sight of
  any such trifling thing as truth in his
  speech. We admit that the metaphor,
  epigram, or whatever Mr. Sibley choose
  to call it, is one of the architectural
  wonders of word construction.
We have analyzed it from all sides --
  full face, three-quarters and profile, and
  we can find no laws in it from the stand-point
  of the debating society. It is
  rhetorical humdinger that will doubtless
  be accepted as standard, and that will
  figure in many a country schoolhouse
  debate.

And Stephen Goranson found a 19th century humdinger:

In an ad for new cabs, of five levels of quality, the best being "A humdinger, only… [$]15.00"
Paper: Daily Register Gazette, published as The Rockford Daily Register-Gazette.; Date: 04-07-1896; Page: 2; col. 7 Location: Rockford, Illinois. [Amer. Hist. News.]

As Sven Yargs' answer shows, it seems likely humdinger is from the earlier dinger:

Any remarkable person or thing.

The OED has the noun dinger chronologically from 1809 and etymologically from the verb ding:

"3. fig. To 'beat', overcome, surpass, excel."

This ding is from [?a1513] or 1724.
Comment: This is irrelevant to the discussion of _humdinger_, but I note that the _Denver Republican_'s comment about "boy orator" is an allusion to William Jennings Bryan (aka "the Boy Orator of the Platte [River, in Nebraska]," aka "the Great Commoner," aka "the Silver Knight of the West"), the Democratic nominee for President in 1896 and 1900 (he lost both times to the Republican William McKinley). Bryan is most famous for his opposition to the gold standard ("You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold") and for his participation as an anti-evolution witness in the Scopes "monkey" trial.
Comment: I've sent this antedating to the [OED](http://global.oup.com/uk/oedsubform/).
Answer: " Dinger " or "Ding" suggests bell ringing.  Does not the "winner"  ( of anything ) sometimes ring the bell or cause the bell to be rung ? Particularly in past days of circus or public gatherings.    How "hum" became attached to dinger...?   Some times something thrown or fired makes a humming noise in flight.  Therein lies a theory. Perhaps a winner at a gathering threw or fired accurately and hit the bell or the bell was rung when the target was hit by whatever was thrown or fired.   All supposition of course.
Comment: Welcome to ELU! As you suggest, this is theory or supposition, both of which are welcome and discussed liberally on this site. You might, however, want to transform your answer into a comment, just because comments on the site are more suited to opinion than answers are. The site's help center offers suggestions about writing answers for the site.

What's the etymology of "humdinger"?


Jacoby transfer bid after responder bids

Question: If my partner responds 2D to my 1NT opening bid. I have zero to 2 cards in Hearts.
What do I bid?
Comment: Why would you open 1NT with less than 2 cards in every suit? How can your 1NT opening have less than 2 hearts? Can you elaborate on that?
Comment: @steenbergh: It s not at all uncommon in top level play for 1NT openings to be made on a holding of stiff K in a suit, for example. At that level, it may be more important systemically on some awkward distributions to show point count and even distribution of strength. OP is unlikely to be that category of player, but you should not assume he is unaware of the possibility.
Comment: I have even attempted it myself a couple of times, with a partner who will understand if it goes wrong. one attempt was a flat result. On the other I had Joel Wooldridge completely fooled on defence for a 13 IMP swing, but partner lost faith and gave the even result  back to him.
Answer: tl;dr 2H
I think you need to understand the concept of Captaincy.
During the process of bidding, it is not always the case where both players are trying to exchange information on an even ground. Sometimes one player will become the Captain and await his partner to give him the information. In other words, the Captain has the say to this bidding sequence. His partner should follow and respect the Captain's decision.
In your scenario, whenever you open a natural 1NT, you immediately surrender your hand to his partner. Your partner will dictate how the bidding should go. If he decides a transfer should complete this bidding, you are obliged to accept this transfer.
There are two circumstances that you can have a say about the bidding:
1) When partner passes the ball back to you. Example: You open 1NT, letting your partner do whatever he likes. He now bids a natural 2NT as an invitation. Now he passes the ball to you and you will decide whether you should go game or settle for partscore.
2) When you like what your partner is doing and decide that a simple "I accept" response is not enough to allow partner make the correct decision. Example: You open 1NT, your partner bids 2D as a transfer to 2H. You hold massive (say 4-card) support and good controls, and you are afraid that a simple 2H response will make your partner ship miss a light game. You can refuse this transfer by bidding 3H, or some other bids that your partnership has agreed to.
You open 1NT thereby letting your partner be the captain. He asks you to bid 2H. He does not pass the decision to you and you actually dislike Hearts. You have no choice but to believe 2H is the correct bid. After all you are not sure what hand he has - he may have a massive hand wanting to bid some more after you accept the transfer, or he may have a Yarborough with only a string of Hearts and you definitely want to play in 2H. Your partner is the Captain and you better respect his decision.
As for why you would have a void in Hearts after opening 1NT, you will explain this to your partner. But even holding a void you should still accept this transfer: better play in 2H than some four-level nonsense doubled.
Comment: Where is my DOUBLE card? I want to up-vote this multiple times.
Answer: (Note that some unusual systems may behave differently, but I think I'm giving the right answer to all of the common systems employing transfers, including Standard American (and 2/1), Acol, SEF, and Precision.)
A 1NT opening bid promises a balanced hand (or sometimes a semibalanced hand) as well as the agreed point range.  This means you must have at least 2 cards in every suit to open 1NT.
If you have only 2 cards in hearts, you still bid 2H.  If partner has a weak hand, then playing in a 5-2 fit at the 2 level is still your best contract (and, in particular, better than 1NT or 2NT).  If partner has an invitational or better hand, you will have more chances to clarify whether you have only 2 or at least 3 cards in hearts.


What resources are recommended for learning biblical exegesis?

Question: Inspiration for this question comes from reading Avigdor Bonchek's "Studying the Torah: A Guide to in-Depth Interpretation". What is unique about this book is the way the author has chosen just a few methods of interpretation and given examples to help highlight the process. I've walked away with a few more 'arrows in my quiver' as I go to learn. But I am looking for more.
Answer: This is a very good question and something that should be developed throughout ones life.
Particularly in newer reprints of classics, they are heavily footnoted with both additional explanation and source notations. The books of Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan are a great example. A key to developing tools for exegesis is to learn the notes in addition to the text.
That means go to those actual sources and learn what is being brought. You will quickly see how each author approaches looking at each subject.
The set Torat Menachem Hitvadiyut by the Lubavitcher Rebbe is another excellent source to learn from as are the writings of Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzato.
What you will discover is that most of the greats walk down the same or very similar paths.


History of measuring the mass of the Earth

Question: I am interested in a timeline for the history of measuring the mass of the Earth from the first estimates to the currently accepted value, and in references containing more details.
Comment: Before and also after Cavendish, there were several measurements with pendulum at different elevation,  see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_mass. An interesting article is this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schiehallion_experiment
Comment: cf. Jungnickel & McCormmach's excellent, open-access [_Cavendish: The Experimental Life_](http://www.edition-open-access.de/studies/7/index.html) (596pp.)
Answer: Newton's gravity law says that acceleration of gravity on the Earth surface
is $\gamma Mr^{-2}$, where $\gamma$ is the gravitational constant, $M$ is the mass of
the Earth, and $r$ is the radius of the Earth. Radius is easy to measure (by astronomical means) and the acceleration is also easy to measure. One can use
instead the distance to the Moon and Moon's acceleration, for which you only need astronomical observations, which are usually more precise than any measurement
on the Earth). This shows that
the problem of measuring the mass is EQUIVALENT to the problem of finding the gravitational constant: once you measure one of them you obtain the other.
The gravitational constant was measured for the first time directly by Cavendish (1798)
with the result: $6.754×10^{−11} m^3⋅kg^{−1}⋅s^{−2}$.
(Modern value is $6.672×10^{−11} m^3 kg^{−1} s^{−2}$. So Cavendish's error was $1.2\%$.
Actually Cavendish actually stated his result in terms of the mass of the Earth,
(or the average density of the Earth) rather then in terms of the gravitational constant. There is no much to say about measurements between the time of Cavendish and present (see Wikipedia ("gravitational constant") which explains why it is difficult to measure). I do not think there is another reliable method of accurate measurement of the  mass of the Earth, except the direct measurement of the gravity constant.
(Any method based on the knowledge of what is the Earth made of will be much less accurate. Actually it works in the opposite direction: we guess the composition of the Earth using the knowledge of its mass).


how to transfer data from one server to new one for Civi CRM on wordpress

Question: we have data in wordpress based Civi CRM on one server and want to migrate to another server with wordpress. please guide us.
Answer: There is a section in the CiviCRM documentation on moving to a new server. Its not so thorough on WordPress as the other platforms but you should be able to work it all out from the information at https://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/Moving+an+Existing+Installation+to+a+New+Server+or+Location


Not a tender steak

Question: I have just grilled a AA boneless strip loin on the B.B.Q.  I thawed it out in the fridge overnight. It was about 1" thick. I removed the outside moisture with paper towels and seasoned with salt and pepper. I grilled it on just off high (the thermostat read 400). Aesthetically, it was cooked to a perfectly medium rare, quite pink in the centre with distinctive grill marks. Only problem, it was dry and tough. It tasted like a well done steak!  Did I miss an important cooking technique or was it simply the quality of the meat? Again, it was a AA with a reasonable amount of marbling.
Comment: Did you rest the steak after cooking? If so, how long?
Answer: You must be in Canada.  The Canadian beef grading system is as follows, and these are all considered in the category of "high quality":
Prime - abundant marbling, about 2 percent of beef is graded as prime
AAA - small amounts of visual marbling, very high quality, up to 50% is graded AAA
AA - slight amount of marbling, a step down from AAA, 45% of beef is graded AA
A - the lowest rating, up to 3% of Canadian beef is rated A. Less evenly distributed fat...needs more attention and care when cooking.
Given the AA rating, you probably did not have much fat/marbling to help the texture.
One suggestion is to employ sous vide cooking.  With this approach, you can make cuts more tender by cooking them longer, but also retaining the desired level of doneness.
Answer: I agree with part of moscafj's answer in regard to grading: the lack of marbling may have contributed to dryness as well as some reduction in tenderness.
However, I'm not sure that I agree that a strip loin steak is "not the most tender cut of meat to begin with."  It's cut from the back part of the longissimus dorsi muscle (a muscle that receives very little work, and is thus tender), the part that makes the ribeye segments in the front of the cow that dreams are made of.  Yes, it's not as tender as a filet mignon/tenderloin or ribeye, but it's difficult to find anything else on the cow that's as tender as a decent strip steak.  (So, it probably beats out maybe 90% of the other meat on a cow for tenderness.)
All of that said, I've had very tender great strip steaks, and I've had others that were chewy and dry (as you experienced), even when cooked properly.  Just as I've had awful ribeye and porterhouse steaks from some stores.  Meat quality can vary a lot depending on your source, and a lower grade won't help.
It's tough to know what else may have gone wrong, but here are a few thoughts:
The question mentions "thawing in the fridge," so I assume this was a frozen steak too.  Freezing, particularly when done in the home fridge (rather than rapid commercial freezing) can also remove moisture and have detrimental effects on texture.
Also, I'd note the description of the cooked steak: "It was cooked to a perfectly medium rare, quite pink in the centre with distinctive grill marks."  Grill marks may look pretty, but they won't make a steak tender or juicy (and actually can harm these qualities slightly if you go overboard).  As for "pinkness," I might recommend checking temperature with a thermometer the next time to see exactly what temperature you're ending up with.  Color is not always a reliable indicator of doneness, and sometimes by the time a steak looks "pink" (instead of "red") it's well past the maximum juiciness medium-rare stage.
Lastly, if you're looking for cooking techniques to maximize tenderness and juiciness of steaks, you can't go wrong with moscafj's sous vide suggestion.  But if you're looking for something less involved and which may not require specialized equipment, I might look into the so-called "reverse sear" technique, where you heat the steak for a while in a low oven, then just sear quickly at the end on your grill (or in a pan).  (It's called "reverse" as it's the opposite of what steakhouses traditionally do, where one sears first and puts into an oven to finish the steak throughout.  Both techniques will avoid wider gray bands of overdone and dry meat near the edges, though the "reverse" is better for maximizing tenderness with a longer slow cook at the outset.)
Comment: @dwizum: Yes, sous vide is typically followed by a sear.
Comment: Thanks for all the great input. I actually was thinking of buying a sous vide. I will definitely try that cooking method!
Comment: Is sous vide really appropriate for a medium rare steak, where part of the "charm" is a barely warm and somewhat raw interior, yet an exterior that has been singed by intense heat and is slightly charred in spots? It strikes me that sous vide does the opposite of that (cooks the entire protein evenly inside and out). Or, do you use the sous vide to cook it through, and then sear afterwards?
Answer: I see nothing about letting the steak rest after cooking, which should be done for at least 5-10 minutes if not more for really thick cuts. If you cut into the steak immediately, all of the juices end up on the cutting board/plate, and not in your mouth.
Comment: After 5-10 minutes, how is the steak still at an appropriate temperature?  Does it rest in a warm oven or suchlike?
Comment: Welcome to our site!  Actually the steaks had rested for a good 20 min.  There were no juices on the plate OR in my mouth!
Comment: @Kingsley If you have a large BBQ, you can let it rest on the side (where there is only passive heat) in aluminium foil. Depending on the heat in the BBQ you might want to pull the steak early, because it might become too done.
Answer: I think what you might have experienced is - a tissue steak. I frequently buy strip loins, and there's a very specific thing you need to look for when buying them. If there's a prominent 'half circle' of gristle - you're probably dealing with a strip loin that was cut from the less pleasant end of the primal (sirloin end.) They are notoriously chewy and fibrous.
For more information see here
Comment: I had no idea. Now I am armed with great ammunition when visiting the butcher shop, or the supermarket!!  Thanks!
Answer: For tough cuts of beef, dry brining is a wonderful technique. I also question, as above, if this cut would be considered tough.

Not a tender steak


GSM library_ all examples ar working except GPRS?

Question: i am using arduino uno and sim808. i connected the sim808 to pins 2,3 on arduino uno and used GSM library. i tested all examples: make and receive a call or messages. the part of GPRS initialization is not working after many tries in changing APN and pin number.
i want to use the arduino as a webserver exactly as the example includded in the library.
any one can help?
thanks,
https://www.arduino.cc/en/Reference/GSM
Answer: I had the same problem I solved it by moving the jumper wires on the shield(if you are using one) to SW serial. if that doesn't work try testing it with AT commands


Whats the best techniques and acessories for siphoning?

Question: Due to the risk of contamination and oxygenation, siphoning is one of the most delicate moments of homebrewing. What are your favorite techniques and accessories for doing it?
I also welcome some nice videos about siphoning.
Answer: Good question. Due to ease of use, I like to use an auto siphon, although there is a small drawback. When the sediment blocking tip gets blocked by trub or hop debris, the inner valve starts sucking air in.
However, I find it so comfortable to work with, that I haven't used another type of siphon in five years time.

...due to the risk of contamination and oxidation...

Don't let these spectres haunt you. Don't splash. Make sure the outgoing end of your siphon is at the bottom of the racking vessel and let it cover as fast as possible in the liquid. Keep your siphon properly in the source vessel.
I don't have many possibilities, I have to rack my beer from my fermentation vessel into my bottling bucket, and that means it is wide open. I haven't had any oxidised or contaminated beer in 50 brews. And my beers keep for over a year.
Answer: My personal attitude toward siphoning is that it is a completely unnecessary pain in the back. I ferment in buckets fitted with a tap. Siphoning carries a much higher risk of introducing contamination and oxidation.
I have never seen the need for fermenting in carboys. They are expensive, difficult to clean, relatively difficult to handle when full, and require siphoning. Food grade plastic buckets have none of these drawbacks. I agree that glass is a much better oxygen barrier than PP or HDPE, but over the course of a normal fermentation this hardly has any effect at all.


Is it experimentally proven that photons travel at speed $c$ in vacuum?

Question: Are there experiments which show that single photons (not classical em waves) travel exactly at $c$ in vacuum?  What is the error bar in that case? The question is posed due to the fact that loop quantum gravity predicts variations in the speed of light.
Comment: If you are referring to photons as the particles in the corpuscular theory of light, then they would be traveling at c in vacuum. If you want to do quantum mechanics, then the only self-consistent interpretation of photons is as locally measurable quanta of a quantum field. The error bar in either case is 0 because c is a definition as of lately and no vacuum dispersion of light has ever been detected, not even beyond the Planck energy scale: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_searches_for_Lorentz_violation#Vacuum_dispersion. This probably puts strain even on LQG predictions to the opposite.
Comment: I removed your second question because there should be one question per post, but I encourage you to post the other question separately. Also: can you elaborate on the difference between photons traveling at $c$ and classical EM waves traveling at $c$? Because they're the same thing. Are you looking specifically for experiments in which the photon count was low enough that the particle behavior of the photon field came into play, in which the speed was also measured and found to be consistent with $c$?
Comment: @DavidZ i mentioned photons as i thought that probably classical light would have difficult to detect vacuum dispersion and assumed that the same thing might be easier working with single photons. Turns out it is the other way round as pointed out in a previous comment. Thanks
Comment: Related: http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/92969/2451 , http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/90469/2451 , http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/140923/2451 and links therein.
Comment: @BruceLee if you're not particular about photons (as opposed to waves), I would suggest changing your question to ask about light, in general, not photons specifically. I think it would make the question *much* better.
Comment: @DavidZ: I can't give a definitive answer with regards to LQG... that has to be done by a theorist.
Answer: This link summarizes the measurements of the speed of light.

The first measurement of c that didn't make use of the heavens was by Armand Fizeau in 1849.  He used a beam of light reflected from a mirror 8 km away.  The beam was aimed at the teeth of a rapidly spinning wheel.  The speed of the wheel was increased until its motion was such that the light's two-way passage coincided with a movement of the wheel's circumference by one tooth.  This gave a value for c of 315,000 km/s.  Leon Foucault improved on this result a year later using rotating mirrors, which gave the much more accurate value of 298,000 km/s.  His technique was good enough to confirm that light travels slower in water than in air.
After Maxwell published his theory of electromagnetism, it became possible to calculate the speed of light indirectly by instead measuring the magnetic permeability and electric permittivity of free space.  This was first done by Weber and Kohlrausch in 1857.  In 1907 Rosa and Dorsey obtained 299,788 km/s in this way.  It was the most accurate value at that time.
Many other methods were subsequently employed to further improve the accuracy of the measurement of c, so that it soon became necessary to correct for the refractive index of air since c is light's speed in a vacuum.

So the speed in vacuum is accessed through the refraction index corrections for air.
Classical electromagnetic beams emerge from a confluence of photons an the velocity measured  is the group velocity of light.
Have a look at this answer and links therein which discusses the experiment where the relative velocity of two photons is measured to retain the slow group velocity of an optical path through a medium.
I do not know whether single photon experiments have been attempted and whether finding a constant speed c in earth experiments would say anything about the loop quantum gravity (afaik it has lorenz invariance problems too).
Later addition on excluding gravitational models:
In this wiki entry the velocity of light and the structure of photons is studied using gamma ray bursts from the cosmos . Through vacuum dispersion

Especially the Fermi-LAT group was able show that no energy dependence and thus no observable Lorentz violation occurs in the photon sector even beyond the Planck energy, which excludes a large class of Lorentz-violating quantum gravity models.

Lorenz violation and the constancy of speed of light in vacuum are correlated.
Also  vacuum birefringence studies would show up Lorenz violations.
The very strict limits from the measurements are used to exclude alternate gravitational models, even though individual photons are not measured.


Getting too much organic traffic? how to identify is it real or fake?

Question: Some days ago I used some traffic generator sites to increase traffic for my site. But after doing log out from this sites. The traffic which is coming to my site from these sites should stop, but still, traffic is coming and this traffic showing as organic traffic in analytics under not provided keywords. I also read about how to identify fake traffic. The answer is if your getting it from the same location again n again or having high bounce rate so it may be fake traffic. But there is no high bounce rate also getting traffic from a different location but most traffic is from the USA. For reference, i'm attaching my GA audience overview of today. In blogger dashboard under traffic sources Referring URLs and Referring sites are showing from google.com. Really not getting is it fake traffic or real traffic. Also checked Exclude all hits from known bots and spiders in analytics setting. I heard about captcha setting so can I add CAPTCHA before entering my site? So it will avoid bots. Please any solution as soon as possible I want to avoid it.
Answer: The best way to check weather organic traffic is real or fake, I use mostly Google search console, why? Because it is not normal analytics like Google analytics which track something when someone land in your website (including spam bot) or using http headers(Which is easy to spoof for many spammer).
To make it fake search console analytics report, your competitor or any third party tool have to search that phrase in search and also have to click on search result, which is not easy and required more CPU resource. At this time there are some tool which track keyword position, but they just check the position, and does not click on search result pages. So you will get better assumption with number of impression and number of clicks from search analytic report.
To see your search analytics report go to your search console, click on search traffic and finally click on search analytics. Or simply click here and choose your web properties. Hope you have already added your website on search console.
Comment: Thanks for the help. I checked the search analytics in search console. There are some queries showing with some keywords. But organic traffic which is coming on my site is on homepage.
Comment: So it means no organic traffic clicks you're getting on your homepage.
Comment: It show sub pages as well on which you're getting most of organic traffic. Just tick on pages instead of query.
Comment: There is 0 click on homepage
Comment: Here is one of [my search analytics reports SS](https://i.stack.imgur.com/GZ1QS.png), which show some stats number, hope it might help you.
Answer: Go to cpanel and check the traffic analytics there . Fake traffic may be comes from same ip addresses
Comment: actually I'm using blogger for my site
Comment: This is a very short answer.  Can you add to it to make it better?


Hook Pi to 12V via UBEC

Question: Simple question:
Is there any danger for the Pi 3, if I hook it to a 12V Lead Acid battery via a UBEC, on the GPIO pins 2 and 4. Specifically this one: http://dx.com/p/hobbywing-5v-6v-3a-switch-mode-ultimate-bec-ubec-15149
Answer: No problem . I have one of these UBEC Turnigy connected into 12V from my car and the output to my PI . Just remember to check if jumper is on correct voltage ,my UBEC has a jumper to choose 5V or 6V output . Also choose an UBEC with 2 or more AMPs output.
Answer: https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/schematics/rpi_SCH_3b_1p2_reduced.pdf
Never use GPIO as voltage input.
There is no fuse or protection in that case.
See link above schematic-left-top for more voltage-in points.
Good luck.

Hook Pi to 12V via UBEC


Industry term for when an app pre-fills information and remembers settings?

Question: Is there a UX industry term for the system behavior where a user's information and preferences (like name or language) is carried across pages to personalize the experience of using the site?
Answer: If your web site / application controls this system behavior, it is called personalization. If user controls it, it is called customization.
More on this you can find for instance here:
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/customization-personalization/
https://uxplanet.org/the-difference-between-customization-and-personalization-624ddd70b163


quads to tris leaving some quads

Question: I have this mesh and I did a grid filling. I converted quads to tris but why do I have quad faces left, upper left face for example?
Comment: Which method of converting did you use? For example, if using `Triangulate Faces` with `Ctrl` + `T` while in `Edit mode`, the result will look much clearer - http://i.imgur.com/jlihyeW.jpg
Comment: I used Triangulate Faces with Ctrl + T while in Edit mode. The problem is the grid filling method (bar space -> grid fill while in Edit mode), because I have this [grid fill] (https://imageshack.com/i/hlvHZoh6p) when I apply grid filling method on the mesh of the first image before converting quads to tris. And it seems you used a grid mesh ? Not a mesh like the first image, without faces.
Answer: I did the same thing shown in the images above and it looked fine to me but when I went through the Triangulate options, I found that one of the possible settings combinations did produce the results you showed.
Here are both results shown with the settings.  The dialogue box that you see in the images can be accessed by using F6

If you activate Vertex Selection mode and drag out the extra vertex that is seen, what's really happening can be seen.  The model is triangulated properly but the algorithm failed to lay out the geometry properly.  Here is an animation showing this.

You could file a bug report if you like.  https://developer.blender.org/
Personally I'd prefer to locate Ideasman42 and provide him with a link to this page so he can put some thought into this when he's not working on new tools or fixing bigger problems.

quads to tris leaving some quads


Which predators only eat some parts of their prey? (Warning — graphic content)

Question:

In an small city in middle-east somewhere near a desert, an unknown predator attacks sheeps, goats and chickens. These attacks began a few weeks ago and until now more than 150 sheeps have been attacked. It causes panic and rumors among people and despite official investigations no result has been achieved yet.
Comment: Welcome to Biology.SE. Is there a freely available report for these official investigations?
Comment: Where in Middle-East do you live? There are different biogeographical regions in the Middle-East.
Comment: I remember a show in which (maybe) this case had been investigated (near Mexico probably) and one scientist there showed a dead chupacabra (or what its called) stored in a glass container!
Comment: Any predator that cannot eat the entire animal at once.
Comment: Scavenger birds also leave carcasses like that since they can't break up the bones and only eat the soft tissue. This produces a hollowed out carcass like that. Although birds will usually eat the tongue and eyes as well.
Answer: In the pictures shown above only the soft part of the animals have been eaten. This is common for most predators as these are the easiest parts to eat.
Correct me if I am wrong but the animals seem to not have severe bite marks around the neck. This means the predator was not big. You can pretty much rule out anything around the same size or bigger than the sheep.
To exactly identify what killed them just from a carcass is hard, and even harder over the internet. However, it looks like you are dealing with feral dogs, coyotes or wolves, although with wolves and dogs there would generally be more scarring around the neck of the sheep.
Dogs: I have seen this behavior in dogs. These are normal tame dogs that have discovered the kick of hunting. Where I come form in South Africa the farmers tend to shoot dog packs if they see them on their land. This is because it is a common problem for the packs to attack chickens, sheep or even calves.  They get an immense kick from hunting the sheep but in most cases don't eat it, not like the photos shown at least.
Foxes: Although it may be hard to believe foxes have also been known to kill sheep. However, in your case it is not likely to be foxes. Foxes hunt alone and tend to kill lambs.
Coyotes: Coyote packs have almost identical behavior to dog packs. The difference being that they pick one sheep and kill it quickly. They do not do it 'for the kick' like dogs and rather for the food. Judging from the photos I would say it is possible that this was done by wild Coyotes, if they are found in your area. Coyotes are also not very shy, and will often hunt close to where people live.
Wolves: While possible, I would rule out wolves because of your geographical location. Wolves also tend to be more shy and will stay away from places with lots of people, like a city.
Source:
http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/livestock/sheep/facts/02-029.htm
Comment: Please provide some sources to back up your answer.
Comment: There is a famous fossil find of a pile of oreodont carcasses in which all but one is missing everything below the waist. the assumption is a predator ate the best parts then either left the rest behind or shoved the rest in a meat locker to eat later.


Telemetry data feeds

Question: I am wondering if anyone knows of any internet-visible telemetry feeds that provide vehicle, science and/or sensor data?  An example of one we have identified is the ISS http://spacestationlive.nasa.gov/ telemetry feed.
Answer: (note that 'telemetry' can mean a few different things ... for satellites, it's typically information about the location and other data about the operating status of the spacecraft)
NASA's STEREO mission makes their telemetry available.  See :

http://www.srl.caltech.edu/STEREO/attorb.html

Most science missions have such information available, as the spacecraft location and pointing is necessary for proper interpretation of the data.  They'll also have other 'housekeeping' information (voltages, temperatures, etc.) which may be necessary for propler calibration.
You can find ephemeris data from other space science missions in the VSPO ... use the restriction 'Measurement Type' of 'Ephemeris'.
You can also compute spacecraft locations using SPICE.

Telemetry data feeds


Why should we stop the Samsara?

Question: Throughout the holy texts it is implied that the reader is looking for a way to stop the cycle.
Why should the reader want to stop the cycle?
Comment: Welcome to Buddhism SE. We've put together [some tips](http://meta.buddhism.stackexchange.com/q/1502/157) for new users on asking questions on the site. Also we have a page of [useful resources](http://buddhism.stackexchange.com/help) that you may also find useful. Best wishes and I hope you have a positive experience on the site.
Comment: I remember asking the same question about 20 years ago... You know who is asking? It is your own Buddha-nature asking :) Welcome and good luck!
Comment: @AndreiVolkov Thanks for welcoming :) ... Should the reader want to stop the cycle just because it seems to be difficult enough to spend a lifetime on?
Comment: Samsara can't be stopped by spiritual means, you can escape it. If and when every being escapes it, it would be empty but not "stopped".
Answer: I think that dukkha is the reason why the reader is looking for a way to stop the cycle.
I think that, because the "four noble truths" were the first thing that the Buddha explained, during his first sermon after enlightenment (with dukkha being the subject of the first of these four noble truths).
The fact that dukkha is the cause of the search (i.e. that "the search is the result of stress") is also stated explicitly, in the Nibbedhika Sutta:

"'Stress should be known. The cause by which stress comes into play should
  be known. The diversity in stress should be known. The result of
  stress should be known. The cessation of stress should be known. The
  path of practice for the cessation of stress should be known.' Thus it
  has been said. In reference to what was it said?
Birth is stress, aging is stress, death is stress; sorrow,
  lamentation, pain, distress, & despair are stress; association with
  the unbeloved is stress; separation from the loved is stress; not
  getting what is wanted is stress. In short, the five
  clinging-aggregates are stress.
"And what is the cause by which stress comes into play? Craving is the
  cause by which stress comes into play.
"And what is the diversity in stress? There is major stress & minor,
  slowly fading & quickly fading. This is called the diversity in
  stress.
"And what is the result of stress? There are some cases in which a
  person overcome with pain, his mind exhausted, grieves, mourns,
  laments, beats his breast, & becomes bewildered. Or one overcome with
  pain, his mind exhausted, comes to search outside, 'Who knows a way or
  two to stop this pain?' I tell you, monks, that stress results either
  in bewilderment or in search. This is called the result of stress.

Saying that dukkha is the reason for the search might seem like a one-size-fits-all answer: if several/many people want to stop the cycle, do they all have the same reason for wanting to?
For that reason, dukkha is a broad term with apparently several meanings or usages; the WIkipedia article starts with ...

Dukkha (Pāli; Sanskrit: duḥkha; Tibetan: སྡུག་བསྔལ་ sdug bsngal, pr. "duk-ngel") is a Buddhist term commonly translated as "suffering", "anxiety", "stress", or "unsatisfactoriness".[a] The principle of dukkha is one of the most important concepts in the Buddhist tradition. The Buddha is reputed to have said: "I have taught one thing and one thing only, dukkha and the cessation of dukkha."

... and then continues, with many various categories (and translations) of dukkha.
Answer: Unless we have great faith, we don't actually start with wanting cessation of Samsara. If we started out truly not wanting Samsara then we would be starting out almost enlightened, wouldn't we?
We start out practicing because we  want smaller attainments and realizations within Samsara(smaller than Nibbana) because we can only see things from the ego's point of view and to the ego, Nibbana looks very scary. At some point in our practice we drop our false ego view and can truly see deeply in our   hearts why we should get out of this endless prison towards freedom from suffering.
 A little correct meditation practice will show that a little of the Buddha's teaching is in harmony with a little of the meditator's meditation experience and so the meditator gets a little faith in the rest of the Buddha's teaching that has only been read about. A lot of correct practice will result in a lot of the meditator's experience being inline with a lot of the Buddha's teaching and so the mediator gets a lot of faith in the  rest of the teachings not yet experienced.
Answer: The reason is to stop the samsara is we are having more, more and more dukkha than the happiness in the samsara.
It cannot be measured with only concerning one life. we have to consider massive collection of lives (example- billions of lives). After analyzing those massive number of lives Load Buddha have seen that largest portion of the lives we were in the hells (4 hells. narakaya, thirisan, pretha, asura. Sad but that's the truth). Because of the desires in creatures they always trends to make pleasure out of things. So the possibility of doing bad karma is very high. So out of Billions of lives, creatures come to human and heavens very few times that can be counted with fingers in one hand. That means time we spent in the good times are neglectable.
If we had a teachings of a Lord Buddha we can get rid of usual cycle for a time. But if we didn't take actions to attain nibbana, we have to face usual cycle again.
So we have to stop this cycle now or suffer from the sadness for unlimited number of times. Intelligent people understand this tragedy and get rid of samsara as soon as possible.
Answer: Well there are things which all living beings undergo. Birth, Aging, Illnesses, death, loss of loved ones, company of disliking ones. Well people tend to believe birth is a good thing, but none of the babies smiles just after birth. No one is happy with aging, getting ill or dying. When you are done with all these four and loss of loved ones and company of bad ones, you again undergo this. You are a victim of something. That thing(Greed, aversion and delusion) have made you a servant of them. I explained this assuming a human life or something higher.
Let us take a life in one of the four hells. Infinitely long times beings get so much harsh punishment. And what should a human do to have a birth in the hell? He just has to have a thought of greed, aversion or delusion at the moment of death. None of us know what will be our last thought. Although we have a control over it. A being in a hell is very unlikely to have a thought free of greed, aversion or delusion at the moment of death. So he gives a cycle of countless rebirths in a hell, it is an extremely lucky event for such a being to have birth as humans which is a very  unlikely event.
Some sentences like above cannot convince you why the samsara should be stopped. You have to really think deep on this case. Remember, a birth of a being in a hell is extremely punishing. And having birth in a hell is not a difficult thing at all. So we should all try to stop samsara. On the top of everything, human life is also not a place of happiness, even a heaven or higher is also the same.
Answer: It is actually the cycle of dukkha/afflictions that is stopped (initially).
The interesting thing that should motivate everyone to work towards enlightenment is this: it is due to these afflictions/dukkha that we are forced to take on certain rebirths--as punishment/reward for our action... even the smallest action.
Also, nothing is actually "stopped"... There is no end to the Buddhist quest, not even Buddahood! As a Buddha one still takes on rebirths but now these are intentional rebirths! One intends to be reborn in such and such place and such and such place in order to accomplish Compassionate Action 924,322,322...
That is a Buddha's existence. Being perfectly at ease with the universe, free from dukkha and forced rebirth, emanating only to complete their vow to help all  beings and solve the universe's karma -- one of the many reasons that they have such power in the first place!
Buddhism places no strict timeline and potentially one can become a Buddha anytime (because one is fundamentally so). (Although this is like saying one can definitely win the lottery any time.)

Why should we stop the Samsara?


Managing Large Conference Sub-Programs in CiviCRM

Question: I work for an organization that has a long history of putting on large conferences and we want the workshops and panels of these conferences to stored in CiviCRM connected to those who spoke and attended. Where would be the best place to do this? Should I create a Custom Field for Programs or should they each be activities so I can have more than one contact record connected to it?
Answer: CiviEvent works marvellously for conferences. As Erik suggests use different roles for your delegates, speakers etc. From Civi help: "Participant Role:
The Role you select here is automatically assigned to people when they register online for this event (usually the default 'Attendee' role). You can also allow people to choose a Role by creating a Profile with the Participant Role field. Then include that Profile when you configure the Online Registration page for this event.
Answer: I am not sure I fully understand what you want to achieve. You will probably need to explain in some more detail. My first reaction is: use the participant role so you can see which role the contact had on which conference?
Comment: The way the conference works is there are breakout sessions. So we wouldn't create a whole "event" for each session right? So how would I handle that because these breakout sessions are what we want to keep track of. You can't create sub-events so would I make it an activity? Or a custom field in their profiles?


Was mythology created by Stargate aliens or did they just use it?

Question: In the Stargate franchise, the basic idea is that many aliens have assumed the roles of Terran mythological figures, including the Goa'uld (Egyptian), the Asgard (Norse) and Alterrans (Buddhist?). My question is, did they create these religions or did they just use them to gain control over humans?
Comment: It was my then-inability to find quotes that caused me to make that a comment rather than an answer. Now that my screaming toddler is in bed, I'll see if I can track them down.
Comment: It's hinted in multiple early episodes that the Goa'uld, at least, simply took advantage of pre-existing mythology. I believe the commentary for the feature film also mentions that Ra merely took on the persona of a pre-existing Egyptian mythological figure.
Answer: Goa'uld
The Goa'uld didn't create the religion, they high-jacked it.
From series 1, episode 1 - Children of Gods

HAMMOND
  Then who's coming through the Stargate?
DANIEL
  Gods.
HAMMOND
  What?
DANIEL
  Not as in "God" god. Ra played a god, the sun god. He borrowed the religion and culture of the ancient Egyptians he brought through the 'gate and then he used it to enslave them. You see, he wanted the people of Abydos to believe he was the only one.

Here Daniel is saying that Ra borrowed the religion.
Asgard
According to Wikipedia Norse mythology developed due to the Asgard coming to Earth.

In the series, the Asgard gave rise to Norse mythology on Earth, as well as accounts of the Roswell "Greys".

And from Stargate wikia

The Asgard were a benevolent, extremely advanced race from the Ida galaxy that visited Earth on many occasions, giving rise to Norse mythology.

Ancients
The Ancients don't pose as Gods, they have strict rules surrounding not interfering with humans and other non-ascended life forms.
From series 9, episode 2 - Avalon: part 2

VALA
  (interrupting)
  Excuse me. Daniel, what if these gods, the Ori, are the people left behind by the Alterans?
DANIEL
  You think they ascended?
VALA
  It's possible. The Alterans left a long, long time ago, and what we know of the Ancients, they learned to evolve and ascend. What if the people who remained here did too?
DANIEL
  That would make these people a subsequent evolution of humans, which is apparently what happened in our galaxy after the Ancients we know ascended.
VALA
  And it would explain why they're not as advanced as we might expect.
DANIEL
  No, but the religion doesn't fit the profile. The ascended beings I know don't pose as gods. I mean, that's the one explicit rule they DO follow, is that they don't meddle in the affairs of the lower planes of existence.

The relation to Buddhism appears to be coincidental. The only link I can find is that Oma Desala lived in a Buddhist-style temple. There's nothing to suggest this is connected with Buddhism on Earth so this seems to be just a resemblance rather than a connection.
Ori
The Ori use religion and peoples' worship to gain power. It's not clear whether they created the religion to suit their purpose, or whether their presence inspired a religion.
From series 9, episode 3 - Origina part 3

DANIEL
  I guess what I'm trying to understand is whether the Ori have spoken to you directly and told you to worship them, or whether you've…misinterpreted some evidence you've found along the way and developed this religion on your own.
Comment: we also have newer, goa'uld masquerading as greek/roman gods as well, also chinese gods(or emperors) so its not just the Egyptian gods.
Comment: Good answer. It fits the timeline- the Asgard would have been around long enough to have inspired a religion, whereas the Goa'uld wouldn't have been around that long. What puzzled me was how they got stuck into those roles so completely, but then I suppose that's their parasitic nature at work.
Comment: @LightnessRacesinOrbit: I don't think that is a problem: The Goa'uld may have "hijacked" pre-existing religions, but that doesn't mean those religions had not been changed over time. For example, the concept of a sun god may have existed before the Goa'uld Ra's arrival (as stated by the movie quote), whereas some of the other gods, maybe even his name, and all the relationships between those gods, had not been a part of that religion before, but simply became a part of the lore due to the contact with the Goa'uld.
Comment: But then what about the others? Asgard, Ancients etc, is there anything to confirm whether they created those religions?
Comment: @PointlessSpike I've added all the evidence I've found. I'll keep looking for more concrete evidence (particularly around the Asgard) but I hope that this will suffice.
Comment: @PointlessSpike: Yeah, that their familial relationships followed the mythos always bothered me. We can't even throw early canon out and pretend that the Goa'uld were "living it" rather than simply copying existing mythos, because they're living it thousands of years after-the-fact. I think this was ill-thought out by the production team.
Comment: @LightnessRacesinOrbit I think the reason is that many humans were taken from Earth to other planets. So while they were no longer practising it on Earth, the mythology/religion had proven to be a useful tool for controlling humans, so it continued on the other planets.
Comment: @Moogle: I've expanded on this a little more in my own answer.
Comment: Remember that it's been several *thousand* years since the Goa'uld were on Earth. I would expect that in that time alliances would have shifted dramatically given the System Lords' feudal nature.
Comment: @O.R.Mapper: That doesn't work. Some of those events took place in Goa'uld culture long after the lore was written on Earth.
Comment: @LightnessRacesinOrbit: As far as I remember, the references cited by Daniel usually described the roles of the Goa'uld (i.e. something theoretically permanent) rather than specific events (that would have happened at a particular time), but my memory may be incomplete.
Comment: It's hinted in a flashback in the Ark of Truth, but not explicitly stated, that the Ori became their own gods - the religion existed before anyone ascended, Ancient or Ori, and was the reason those two populations split
Answer: tl;dr They must have been playing out characters from an existing mythos.
The Goa'uld characters don't just represent a single, point-in-time pantheon character list. There's a whole family heirarchy of wives, husbands, sons and daughters, which develops over time, and the way the Goa'uld play these roles almost entirely mirrors those of their historical, mythical namesakes (as referenced by Daniel every time he goes into one of his books).
This was never terribly believable for me, because you'd basically need to engineer your entire society's history as theatre, which is silly and does not mesh with the Goa'uld's preference for self-gratification.
But the alternative, that the myths came from the Goa'uld rather than the other way around, does not really fit the timeline; from what I remember, many of the references Daniel digs up predated the respective Goa'uld activity by hundreds or even thousands of years.
Answer: I always thought it was inspired as the film says the Goa'uld came to Earth ten thousand years ago, before Egyptian Culture really existed and Ganos Lal implies that when the Lanteans (Ancients/Alterrans) returned to Earth via the Egyptian Gate.

When we first abandoned Atlantis all those years ago the Earth was so harsh, it's people so primitive by comparison that there was no hope of living amongst them as Lanteans and rebuilding our society, so we spread out, to many lands. Some planting the small seeds of civilisation among the first tribes of man, some made their way to the Stargate at your Southern Pole. Still others chose to spend the rest of their lives in seclusion and meditation…

Which is highly suggestive that the beliefs of native were influenced at their inception by the Goa'ulds
Comment: That doesn't really fit with the Lantean's scientific, non-controlling nature. By "planting the small seeds of civilisation" it more likely means things like writing, agriculture, politics etc.


Is there a drupal.org API for retrieving the list of available modules?

Question: Is there a drupal.org API for retrieving the list of available modules, a description of them and available versions?
Comment: Call `modules` to `projects` is a common mistake. Projects are compound of modules (or themes, or install profiles,...).
Answer: Very recently there's an API published: https://www.drupal.org/api
Answer: There is no such API or mechanism at this time.
There is talk about extending Drush to support a Search functionality:
https://drupal.org/node/1389460
But that's after a database of dependencies is created for all modules and stored in a binary-ish form fetchable by Drush:
https://drupal.org/node/1299332
Comment: Can't help but mention that I made a really simple drush search extension: https://drupal.org/sandbox/Letharion/1833420
Comment: changed the answer to the one just submitted by pcambra as it the up to date one now..
Answer: Turns out there is a big machine-readable list of Drupal projects available here:
http://updates.drupal.org/release-history/project-list/all
Warning: Very large. :-)
Courtesy of this comment, which also tells you a URL pattern to crawl for release information: https://groups.drupal.org/node/65023#comment-204808
I wish there were good documentation about the availability of other such easter eggs.
Answer: There's an issue to Expose list of projects to external services (via JSON, XML, etc). That issue ended up providing a tsv file with a list of all stable releases (no -dev) for all projects in drupal.org. The list is generated each 4 hours, after http://updates.drupal.org/release-history/project-list/all is regenerated.
https://drupal.org/files/releases.tsv (~4MB)
The rationale for this file is in comment #88 if the linked issue.


Maintaining Temperature in wine production

Question: In wine production is maintaining a 20 degree C temperature a critical factor after first fermentation?
Answer: After primary fermentation maintaining 20C is not critical, you would probably want to store it a bit cooler, I always do my secondary conditioning in the cellar at about 12C.
During primary fermentation temperature control will affect the esters and higher alcohol production from the yeast. After the first 5 days this become less important, but will still have a small affect.


Why does no one remember Gildartz?

Question: During the Battle of Fairy Tail, no one mentions the S-Class wizard, Gildartz, when suggesting who is the strongest. Why does no one remember him? Do they assume that he would be on a mission that would take too long, and would take perfect timing for him to show up?
Answer: He is mentioned. In chapter 119, Mystogan mentioned him to be the strongest of Fairy Tail and I quote:

Mystogan: I have little interest in such things, but I would propose Gildartz.
  Laxus: Eh, he's no use... He ain't coming back.

Presumably, Laxus knew Gildartz was undertaking the 100 year job involving Acnologia and had assumed him to have died, since no one else has ever come back from that mission alive.
Comment: Ah, I was re-watching the anime (and I had not gotten to that part again).
Comment: I just wanted to make sure that no one had anything else to say on the topic.
Comment: @ShadowZorgon look at my answer for more clarification about the anime :)
Answer: If you ask about the anime specifically, there is a different reason as to why he is never mentioned.
This is because it was never expected to reach the point when Gildarts would show up, so instead of mentioning a character who wouldn't appear in the anime, they left him out completely.
The anime ended up lasting longer, and his character is still introduced as normally intended - the only change is that there is no mention of him before that point.

In the manga, Gildarts is mentioned several times as being the strongest Mage within Fairy Tail before his actual appearance. However, there had been no indications or mentions of him in the anime prior to Episode 74. This was because the anime was initially supposed to stop before his appearance.

Source: First bullet in the 'trivia' section. This is the answer to a question asked at a convention, I think, although I can't remember which one.
Comment: Wow, imagine a Fairy Tail without Gildarts. Im glad they continued the anime after all.

Why does no one remember Gildartz?


Why is there blood dripping from the middle of the wall at the end of S06E05?

Question: At the very end of the episode 5 of season 6 of The Walking Dead, a growing blood trail is shown going from the middle of a wall section. It doesn't look like someone died up above because there are other horizontal bars above it that would block the flow. What is going on?
Comment: Its going to be speculation until the next episode, or the episode after that if the way they are building the suspense through the series is continued.That said we speculated that the number of zombies is piling up so much that they are squishing up against the wall, foreshadowing the walls collapse due to sheer weight of numbers.
Comment: Zombies piling up makes sense. But then I think the wall wouldn't need to collapse, they could just walk right over the dead pile and this is why characters can't kill and leave them near the walls.
Comment: Maybe pile wasn't the best choice of words. The zombies aren't creating a pile they are just pushing each other into the walls. Excuse my colloquialism  say things like piling into a bus here...
Comment: Oh I thought that would be pretty logical for them to step on each other and create a pile of bodies. Always thought it was silly that they just stood still and waved their hands in the air. Guess it depends on the kind of zombiness. In any case, this is a reasonable explanation of what could be happening. I just thought I missed some clue about it during the episode, but if it's not there, we'll have to wait for the next episodes.
Comment: I thought there was something odd about it too, it kind of creates an optical illusion. Also, I noticed it makes a brief re-appearance in a subsequent episode; shown from a different perspective, in which it's quite clearly a bullet hole. I'm unsure of its apparent significance, however.
Answer: The obvious implication is that the herd outside the wall is now so enormous that the zombies closest to the wall are being crushed by the sheer weight of the horde behind them.
In the first episode of the season, we see something quite similar happen when the herd is being led around the bend in the road, at the point where a temporary wall was erected to direct the zombies in the desired direction.  The mass of the herd squashes the zombies who are unlucky enough to be between their colleagues and the wall, and when the herd passes, the walls are smeared with gore.
The same idea applies to Alexandria's walls.
Comment: There are plenty of examples of walkers being crushed against walls or fences by the sheer numbers behind them. One of the extras on the Blu-rays for season 3 or 4 shows a walker being literally cut into pieces by the force pushing it into the prison fence. This is why I assumed your answer is the correct one - the only question is "how long will the wall hold?"


How to Best Grant Full Guest Access To A Microsoft Teams Site?

Question: Federico is an external user from another company that needs access to SharePoint resources on our company side, mycompany.com. I'd rather have him access our resources via Microsoft Teams on the web because that's the user experience I want to give him. However, though I grant him guest access using his Erik@hiscompany external e-mail address, both the SharePoint web interface and Teams will request he logs in using a password.
We had a similar situation with Myrtle as well in the past. She's another external contractor. I tried allowing her in as,

Her original firstname.lastname@example.com email--but since this understandably has no credentials within our domain and thus no password, she couldn't get in at the login prompt
A new, personal email@example.com address we created for her uniquely for this purpose so she could actually have a password to login with as it seemed SharePoint/Teams does allow a Microsoft email address to login via the credentials prompt
A company-assigned email@example.com username/password I gave her within our domain

Ultimately, after trying unsuccessfully to grant her access to the files she needed with the first two methods, we ended up giving Myrtle a mycompany.com login (the last email address assigned to her, per the above). That worked, but didn't fully satisfy me as now it might seem as though she's employed by us--which she is not.
Federico's trouble accessing our resources now might be similarly best resolved by granting him the same--a mycompany.com address within our domain. But is this truly my best and only option?
I know I gave Myrtle an Exchange mailbox with a mycompany.com email address, so that she can use our calendars, browse our Teams folder structure, etc. I set up a contact for her in my ActiveDirectory with what amounts to a dummy internal address and her personal external mail address. All this worked. I suppose I could likewise create and set Federico's dummy internal e-mail account to forward to his @hiscompany.com address also, and then just hide his dummy contact from the GAL afterwards.
Is this what others recommend as well?
Answer: The below article should get you started.  Because Teams consumes resources from different O365 "systems" you need to enable external access in a few different places for external users to have full access in Teams.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/teams-dependencies


Review of case control matching algorithms?

Question: Can you suggest a good review of case control matching algorithms? Algorithms that can be used to set up the matched pairs of one case and one control, or matched blocks of a case and multiple controls.(Preferably a paper, book chapter or website discussing recent developments.)
Comment: Are you specifically looking for a review of algorithms or a more general look at the methods and design of studies? Is this in an experimental or observation context?
Comment: @JWM Thanks for the question. I'm particularly interested in descriptions of database handling procedures and computer programmes for the situation when a database of rare cases is available and it is easy and cheap to get appropriate controls. But an overview of matching algorithms would be nicer.
Answer: For an overview of some matching algorithms as well as clear examples of applications in everything from education to medical experiments, I would suggest:

Paul R. Rosenbaum (2010). Design of Observational Studies. Springer.

Rosenbaum's earlier book provides a more technical review, though because matching is such a hot topic at the moment, it may not cover the most current techniques:

Paul R. Rosenbaum (2002). Observational Studies, Second Edition. Springer.

Even if Rosenbaum doesn't hit on a particular topic of interest, his chapter bibliographies are an excellent resource (particularly those in Design). He has also done some very valuable work on matching sensitivity analyses, which are covered extensively in these books.
Of course, you would probably also be served by going directly to the source (I haven't read this myself):

Donald B. Rubin (2006). Matched Sampling for Causal Effects. Cambridge University Press.

As mentioned above, matching is something of a hot topic. So, generally, I would look through the citations of more recent books and articles. Besides work by Donald Rubin and Paul Rosenbaum, I would look for work by Alberto Abadie and Guido Imbens (both at Harvard) and James Heckman (Chicago), probably in that order. Of course, depending on your particular research interests, others may be equally as important.
Answer: Try the What's New in Econometrics section by Imbens and Wooldridge here:
http://www.nber.org/WNE/lect_1_match_fig.pdf
There is a section on matching and it is aimed at the informed practitioner, not suitable for the complete novice.


What is the best method for classification of time series data? Should I use LSTM or a different method?

Question: I am trying to classify raw accelerometer data x,y,z to its corresponding label.
What is the best architecture for best results?
Or, does anyone have any suggestions on LSTM architectures built on keras with input and output nodes?
Answer: I would not use the word "best" but LSTM-RNN are very powerful when dealing with timeseries, simply because they can store information about previous values and exploit the time dependencies between the samples. That said, it is definitely worth going for it.
It has been proven that their performance can be boosted significantly if they are combined with a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) that can learn the spatial structures in your data, which in this case is one-dimensional.
Take a look at this state-of-the-art method that combines LSTM and CNN, published in 2019.
Answer: Gated recurrent units (GRUs) is an advanced version of RNN and LSTM. It has less time complexity and good prediction results than LSTM ann RNN. You can use it for dealing with time series dataset.
You can boosted it performance by combining advanced version 1D CNN like ResNet, etc.
Answer: using lstm or rnn's for time series data is like using a hammer to swat a fly. have you tried time series modeling using classical stat techniques ARCH, ARIMA etc ? the issue of using individual number as inputs (which is what your speedometer is going to give you) means that the states in each lstm / gru cell or unit will have like a 1x1 matrix , meaning 1 parameter. The reason lstm's have been so good with languages is that languages have words / chars and each of them have rich emeddings / encoding schema's that allow the weight matrics inside the lstm cells to have sufficiently large number of params allowing for better generalization. In your case, once u pass single digits of a sequence (i dont know your data so maybe you do have some form of encoding), your model will most likely overfit and perform poorly on real world data.
Stat models on the other hand work on generalizing co-effecients for different variables in your system and are, in my view, far better
BUT if you do have other features that you can pass and have a rich enough contextual representation of your input data, then nothing comes close to lstm's and even transformers


How to repair Puzzle marked as ??? in Puzzle Swap?

Question: At the last StreetPass-exchanges, I saw in Puzzle Swap a puzzle marked as ???. Normally that's a new puzzle, but on the other side I also saw no pieces. I think it can be linked to the new puzzle recently came here in Europe via SpotPass (Kid Icarus I think). I got the message and the new puzzle, but that's no longer available in my puzzles. How can I repair that?
Comment: So are you missing the Kid Icarus puzzle? Or something else?
Answer: Ok, I gave up on the puzzles (my heart bleeds) and started it anew. After a day I got via SpotPass the first puzzle with red tiles, and later the Kid Icarus-Puzzle. This time it didn't broke, it was all available in StreetPass-encounters. Only I had to start fresh. :-(
I don't know, why it was broken in the first place, maybe some error while writing the flash-memory.
Answer: Since I don't see the correct answer here I suppose I'll revive this question...
Certain puzzles are only available in certain regions. If someone you streetpass has a puzzle that is not available to your 3DS's region, it will show as a blank puzzle labelled "???".
For information about which puzzles are available in which regions, see http://nintendo.wikia.com/wiki/Puzzle_Swap.
Answer: That's odd, when you get Kid Icarus you should also automatically get 1 random piece for it. Maybe see if you can streetpass with someone who has a piece to that puzzle you can take?
Comment: I got a piece, but the puzzle is vanished now. Also I think the others have parts of the puzzle, but I don't see it. :-(
Answer: Here is a list of all of the puzzles that are available as of this posting - if you are missing one, then that might be where your problem is, and you can try to get the puzzle from other people (if they have a puzzle you do not have, it will show on their iist as ???, and you can pick a piece from it to start your puzzle.)

Metroid: Other M (15 pieces)
Mario and Bowser (15 pieces)
Super Mario Galaxy 2 (15 pieces)
The Legend Of Zelda (15 pieces)
Kirby's Dream Land (15 pieces)
Pikmin (15 pieces)
New Super Mario Bros. Wii (15 pieces)
Ocarina of Time 3D (24 pieces)
Star Fox 64 3D (24 pieces)
Super Mario 3D Land (0 pieces)
Mario Kart 7 (40 pieces)
Rhythm Heaven Fever (24 pieces)
Donkey Kong Country Returns (24 pieces)
Pilotwings: Resort (24 pieces)
Kid Icarus: Uprising (40 pieces)

You can also try deactivating StreetPass for the Mii Plaza and reconnecting it (by going into System Settings > Data Management > StreetPass Management > Then select the software you wish to deactivate StreetPass on > Then click on Deactivate StreetPass. After that, go into the Mii Plaza, and it should ask you if you want to activate StreetPass. If that does not happen, there is the option to reactivate it manually in the software's network settings.)
Other than that, there is no real way to force the Mii Plaza to update.
If you still have the message from Nintendo that talks about the update that added Kid Icarus as a puzzle, you can try using that to enter the plaza, maybe it will trigger whatever is missing.


How can I make my Flash movie automatically be fullscreen?

Question:
Possible Duplicate:
Is there a way to start the flash player (or program) in full screen through the shortcut target command?

I have a kiosk.  Its only reason for existence is to show content in a Flash movie, which lives on a webserver.  I don't want to have a keyboard and mouse hanging off the damn thing, so I've uninstalled or disabled everything that can possibly start a dialog in front of my content.

The machine is running Windows 7.
I have set the user to auto-login.
I have set iexplore.exe to be the shell (using the winlogin registry key).
I pass /k to IE so that it runs in kiosk mode, which is full screen.
I set the homepage of IE to be the page with my Flash movie.

The last remaining problem is that it seems I need to click on the Flash movie with a mouse to make it full screen.  I don't want that.  I want to be able to just hard-reboot the machine in case of any problem and a few minutes later it's back up and running without any user intervention.
So, how can I do this?  I'm not married to anything in my setup other than Windows.  I don't have a mac and I am not going to install a different OS on the box.  But browser, shell, etc, can all change.  If there is a better container than a browser, great, let's do that then.  Pretty much any ideas are welcome.
Answer: I would use autohotkey and the Run + Click command. Look up the examples, its easy to implement. Start your browser by Run, use Sleep to wait till loaded and website loaded, double-click on the screen position
http://www.autohotkey.com/docs/commands/Click.htm
http://www.autohotkey.com/docs/commands/Run.htm
http://www.autohotkey.com/docs/commands/Sleep.htm


Design of PID control for a vibration exciter (shaker) without having the plant model

Question: I want to design a PID controller for a shaker. But I don't have the system's differential equation or transfer function. I find the system identification algorithms complicated. Can I design a controller based only on the input and output data and without the plant model?
Comment: The Ziegler-Nicholls method was developed for just such situations. You could start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziegler%E2%80%93Nichols_method
Comment: A little too less info for an good answer. If you can't calculate the PID, you may have to try different P- and I- values and do trial and error engineering until it runs ok. Not an highly technical solution, but it does the trick sometimes. Of course only if it is safe to try it out without killing your hardware.
Answer: Yes! There are several methods for PID tuning based on the output of the system for specific input. These methods will require you to choose input that is close to the operation conditions of the system and will determine the PID parameters based on the output from the system for the inputs you chose.
Keep in mind that each of these methods tune the PID controller optimally for some performance indicators (depends on the method), and that the tuning is optimal only for input close to the one you chose, so none of these methods will actually work very well for very non linear systems that have to work with a large variation of input.
Some methods that may help you:
- Ziegler-Nichols Continuous Cycling Method
- Ziegler-Nichols Reaction Curve Method
- Aström-Hägglund Relay Method
- Tyreus-Luyben Method
- Chien, Hrones and Reswick (CHR) Method
- Cohen-Coon Method
- 3C Method
- Lambda Tuning Method
Some of these methods are in the book Advanced PID Control, by Karl J. Astrom and Tore Hagglund, which in my opinion is a very good book in this subject.
Hope I could help!


Touch detection on big LED screen

Question: I have a big LED screen covered by plastic surface (removable). I want to change image on that screen when someone touches it. Could you give me advise how to do it or some sensor names for further research?
Comment: How big do you call big?
Comment: 2 х 2 meters. I need to detect single touch only, x and y are optional.
Comment: Do you care where it is touched or do you need an (approximate) x,y reading of the touch event?
Comment: How about one large price of transparent conducting film used like a touch lamp?
Answer: One common way is to have a grid of infra-red emitters and receivers around the edge of the screen pointing at each other (say all emitters at left and top, and all receivers at right and bottom).  A touch to the screen interrupts the beams, and the intersection of two interrupted beams gives the location of the touch.
Comment: These are commonly available as "**light curtains**" for safety equipment in industrial processes; I've used models by Banner Engineering before with success.   Their redundancy and industrial design are probably overkill for this application, but the design work is done...
Answer: If you want it to be able to sense a touch anywhere on the screen you will need something like this:

At £22 this seems a bit overkill to me just to change a picture, but I'm not aware of anything else out there that would do.
If you can make it so the user touches somewhere just off-screen it would be easier. For this you could use capacitive or resistive touch sensing and design as you like.
Another option that might work okay if the screen is set into a casing of some sort, is to have a pressure sensor/switch underneath the screen.
EDIT - 2x2 metres!
Hmmm, I don't think you're going to find anything commercially available at that size, and if you could I wouldn't like to imagine the price...
You could maybe "roll your own" - grab some electrostatic film and use this to make a large/transparent capacitive touch sensor.
Or conductive film and make a resistive touch sensor (probably easier)
The site at the above link has conductive coatings and fine wire meshes that may be usable also, depending on the goals of your project.
Comment: I thought about touchfilms, but my led screen is 2x2 meter :(
Answer: There is a nice Wii remote project which will allow you to track IR objects on big white boards. It doesn't matter if it is a whiteboard, projected screen, or a big 2x2m LED display. It requests an IR emiter source, which is solved in the project by having a button that switches on an battery powered IR led inside a custom made pen. With a little mechanical design changes, you can make a pen that will automatically switch on a LED when pen is pressed on the surface. That will simulate touch on a LED screen that you want, but a user will need to have a pen. If that is not an option then you might consider putting a lot of horizontal direction IR emitters on left and IR receivers on right (very close to the surface). When user interrupts IR beams you have a touch.
http://johnnylee.net/projects/wii
Answer: Depending on how the screen is built, you might look into using the LEDs themselves as touch sensors.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJ2v4-QvGuU
This assumes of course that the screen's LED driver circuitry is accessible and the firmware is available for modification.

Touch detection on big LED screen


Single url for a product which is in different category in magento 2

Question: I have a product black-jacket under the category men->tops
when i click on men the url is like http://magento2/men/black-jacket.html
and if i click on tops under the men then the url is http://magento2/men/tops/black-jackets.html
i want the url like http://magento2/tops/black-jacket.html on the click of both the menu in magento 2.
please suggest me, i tried to do it with url-rewrites.
Answer: Please do try with this option :  setting up the search engine optimization settings by configuration / catalog / catalog
As shown in the picture, Use Categories Path for Product URLs to No
Comment: Yes, i know this. it will remove all categories from the url but i want to show the subcategory in the url


What's the point of a benchmark?

Question: What is the point of comparing a security portfolio's returns with a benchmark? You can find out whether you incurred an opportunity cost for not investing in the benchmark, but isn't the benchmark as arbitrary a collection of securities as any other portfolio? You might as well compare your returns to any other randomly selected portfolio's. Some years your portfolio may perform better than the benchmark, and some years it may be the other way around. It seems that what really matters is whether you're making or losing money, not whether you're beating the S&P 500.
Answer: Yes an index is by definition any arbitrary selection.
In general, to measure performance there are 2 ways:

By absolute return - meaning you want a positive return at all times
ie. 10% is good. -1% is bad.
By relative return - this means beating the benchmark.
For example, if the benchmark returns -20% and your portfolio returns -10%, then it has delivered +10% relative returns as compared to the benchmark.
Answer:
Some years your portfolio may perform better than the benchmark, and some years it may be the other way around.

Without a benchmark you will never know. And by the way if you choose poorly, you will never beat the benchmark. If the benchmark goes up 20% but your fund/investment only went up 3% you did make money, but you might want to reevaluate your strategy.
Answer: Markets tend to go up over time, so most things you could buy would make money. A benchmark is meant to represent the market as a whole (or a subset that is relevant to what you are trading), so you can tell if your specific choices helped or hurt your return.
As an example, say you pick two financial stocks, Citi and Goldman.  They get you a return of 10% for the year, so you think you made good choices.  But if the financial sector as a whole had a return of 20%, your choices weren't actually that great.
Comment: This is a decent answer. Benchmarks are effectively defined as such by, for most of us, by the user interface in place on one's brokerage's website. Sorry, that is an awful sentence, but that's why I'm commenting, not answering! That is justifiable as it serves the broadest range of users. Yet a good benchmark is one that is chosen appropriately. Most major discount broker websites don't offer a financial sector index as a benchmark. But it is a good idea to supplement with  *ad hoc* MS Excel or OpenOffice ;o) spreadsheet-ing, as outlined by this answer, as a benchmark comparison of one's own.
Answer: One reason it matters whether or not you're beating the S&P 500 (or the Wilshire 5000, or whatever benchmark you choose to use) is to determine whether or not you'd be better off investing in an index fund (or some other investment vehicle) instead of pursuing whatever your current investment strategy happens to be.
Even if your investment strategy makes money, earning what the S&P 500 has averaged over multiple decades (around 10%) with an index fund means a lot more money than a 5% return with an actively managed portfolio (especially when you consider factors like compound interest and inflation).
I use the S&P 500 as one of my criteria for judging how well (or poorly) my financial adviser is doing for me. If his recommendations (or trading activity on my behalf, if authorized) are inferior to the S&P 500, for too long, then I have a basis to discontinue the relationship.
Check out this Wikipedia entry on stock market indices. There are legitimate criticisms, but on the whole I think they are useful.
As an aside, the reason I point to index funds specifically is that they are the one of the lowest-cost, fire-and-forget investment strategies around.  If you compare the return of the S&P 500 index over multiple decades with most actively managed mutual funds, the S&P 500 index comes out ahead.
Comment: Good answer! Remember though, that one can use indices as benchmarks without using index funds for investment vehicles. That's a separate decision.

What's the point of a benchmark?


Backlight control for official Raspberry Pi 7 inch touchscreen

Question: I recently received the official Raspberry Pi 7 inch Touchscreen. It works fine so far, but I would like to control the brightness and switch off/on the backlight.
I tried xbacklight, it is not working. /sys/class/backlight is empty. I didn't find a clue in /sys/devices/.
Comment: Raspbian Wheezy is installed. `sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade` was executed.
Answer: There apparently have been 2 versions of the 7" touchcreen. The 1.0 versions did not support adjusting the backlight brightness, but the 1.1 versions do, and you can do it by setting a value from 0 to 255 like this:
sudo sh -c "echo 80 > /sys/class/backlight/rpi_backlight/brightness"

There's a lengthy thread here that discusses this feature:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=108&t=120968
Comment: This doesn't answer the question.  The user said, "`/sys/class/backlight` is empty".
Comment: If you read the linked thread, I think the reason for /sys/class/backlight being empty is either you have the older 1.0 touchscreen, or you need to update the Pi's firmware to get the touchscreen support
Answer: I have found that as of 01/12/17 the method Kevin mentioned in his answer to echo to bl_power to turn the backlight on/off does not always work consistently.
As the question linked describes, an alternative to turning the backlight off via bl_power is setting the brightness to 0 in the brightness file which does the same thing in my experience.
Also, in order to not have to use sudo sh -c create the file /etc/udev/rules.d/backlight-permissions.rules and add this line:
SUBSYSTEM=="backlight",RUN+="/bin/chmod 666 /sys/class/backlight/%k/brightness /sys/class/backlight/%k/bl_power"

Answer: I also had the same problem in the end i sent it back as it broke within a 2 weeks the problem is due to the on board graphics driver raspberry say there are going to release it i class the screen as a unfinished prototype they should not have released it without backlight support or even a dim switch would do it does start to hurt eyes u could vnc to an android tablet as a altenitive
Comment: Please make an effort to use reasonable grammar.


Does Ubuntu support USB 3.0?

Question: I have a Western Digital My Book 3.0 - 1 TB USB 3.0 Desktop External Hard Drive, and I wanted to know if it would work on Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat.
Comment: My USB3 thumb drive only gets detected as a USB2 device. I've got a bug report confirmed ([Launchpad Bug #710153](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/710153)). Does anyone have an idea hot to get that fixed?
Comment: Ubuntu 10.10 will not boot via USB 3.0. I have yet to find a fix. [See this thread.](http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1628665)
Answer: Yes, Ubuntu supports USB 3.0.
Linux started supporting USB 3.0 in the September 2009 release of the 2.6.31 kernel, and Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala was the first version of Ubuntu to support USB 3.0.
In Ubuntu releases older than Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, there is a bug in the XHCI (USB 3.0) kernel module that prevents suspend: Bug #522998.
Answer: apparently there is an issue : (522998)
When the XHCI module is loaded for USB 3.0 operation the system cannot suspend. Manually unloading XHCI will allow suspend to complete normally.
To avoid future suspend problems, the workaround is to add SUSPEND_MODULES="xhci-hcd"
to /etc/pm/config.d/unload_module then the system can suspend normally.
Comment: Thank you. I was wondering why suspending did not work on my new computer.
Answer: Yes, it will. Current kernel does support usb 3.0, so you should have no problems using your drive.
By the way, linux was the first os to have usb 3.0 support: http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/06/11/linux-is-first-os-to-support-usb-30
Answer: It may be worthwhile to note that USB 3.0 boot is not supported yet.
Refer bug 565047.
Answer: Yes it supports usb 3.0 see the link below,I have connected two via usb 2.0 it works perfectly.USB 3.0 is down complaint with 2.0.My USB ports are 2.0 but the HDD is 3.0 capable.
http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/06/11/linux-is-first-os-to-support-usb-30
Answer: I have Ubuntu 11.10 running in VMware Player 4.0, and after much searching, I found the following in the VMware release notes:

USB 3.0 support is available for Linux guests running kernel version 2.6.35 or later (Ubuntu 10.10) through a new virtual xHCI USB controller. To enable this feature, add the following line to the .vmx file: usb_xhci.present = "true". Do not enable this feature for Windows guests. Because Windows does not currently have a generic xHCI driver, this feature will not work in Windows.

After adding this line to my .vmx file, the system now detects the USB 3.0 HDD I have plugged in.
Answer: I believe the problem is hardware related and nothing to do with (k)ubuntu. I have a new PC with 2 USB3 ports setup to dual boot between Windoze 7 and Kubuntu 13.10. The ports worked fine under Windoze but not at all under Kubuntu.
Browsing the forums for a solution I came across the answer in a Linux Mint (Ubuntu derivative) forum. Apparently internal USB3 ports plugged into the motherboard 20 pin header will not be recognised by Linux.
The answer is to buy a PCI-E to USB 3 expansion card. I bought the Inateck Superspeed card from Amazon, plugged it into my motherboard's PCI-E expansion slot (MUST be a PCI-E slot, will not work with standard PCI) and on booting my PC Kubuntu recognised the ports and connected drives instantly. (Windoze had to wait until I installed the supplied driver).
Answer: Apart from the posts above i need to also add that Linux is the first operating system to support USB 3.0 thanks to Intel's hacker Sarah Sharp. Which makes it one of the first steps that makes a small suggestion into how linux will be in the near future in comparison to other ..... "systems"
Answer: It seems as though system looks for a USB 2.0 drive somewhere during the boot sequence, even if it started off form a USB 3.0 drive.
This is what I did:
I have a Western Digital MyPassport (USB 3.0) drive and a HP Elitebook 8540W PC with 2 USB 3.0 ports and with 2 USB 2.0 ports.
When I boot from a USB 2.0 port, everything is fine.
WHen I boot from a USB 3.0 port, booting starts, but stops somewhere in the middle reporting an error (no live system found or something - I can send the specific code if desired)
So I created another bootable HD : Lacie 300GB (USB 2.0 and installed the same ubuntu version on it:Ubuntu 10.10 i386 (My PC is a 64 bit processor, but I use the bootable USB disks on other PC's as well)
Strange:
When I connect BOTH the Lacie to a USB 2.0 port AND the Western Digital to a USB 3.0 port AT THE SAME TIME and I boot the PC, I manage to start booting from USB 3.0 (via the Bios boot sequence of my PC) but I obtain the desktop of the system which is on the Lacie USB 2.0 drive.
I used a different desktop background to be 100% sure for distinguishing both systems. Apart from the desktop, they are identical.
So I think somewhere during the boot sequence, the system looks for a drive that is connected to the USB 2.0 port and not the one that is connected to the USB 3.0 port even if it started booting from USB 3.0
Answer: Had the same problem.  This was an expantion card.  After an hour of messing around I thought to look at the card inside again. and of course I forgot to plug the power cable to the card.  Simple fix.

Does Ubuntu support USB 3.0?