Why are bicycles so expensive?

Question: I am looking to buy a bicycle to go from university to home everyday( about 20 KM per day), but I saw the price of bicycles are around $5000-$10000! I know I can buy many great motorcycles within this range of price and I am just wondering why is a bicycle with very very simpler frame and architecture and technology and material, etc. has same price as very good motorcycles?
Comment: You're shopping in the wrong store.
Comment: I'm not sure where you are shopping, but just about every bike shop should have basic hybrid/commuter bikes in the $300-$600 range. You can get a bike for under $200 if you get something from Walmart, but I really wouldn't recommend it, as they tend to be a little low quality and create more maintenance problems than the savings are worth.
Comment: $1300-1400 all included (bike, helmet, lock, shoes, pedals, etc) is a reasonable start. It's fun to commute on a light, fast bike.
Comment: I recently sold a bicycle for €50 which I had bought 10 years earlier for €200. And on that site there are many more bicycles for that kind of prices. While my bike was not in the 20 km/day condition when I sold it, it certainly was when I bought it. (1 € is not unlike 1 $US.) Google can find that site for us, I am sure it can find something like that for you in the USA.
Comment: I have removed the product recommendation portion of your question since that is off topic here. You are, however, welcome to ask for recommendations in [chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/214/the-velodrome).
Comment: You can buy a motorbike for 39'500eur https://riders.drivemag.com/news/yamaha-yzf-r1-gytr-price-eu39-500/
why are motorcycle so expensive? you can buy a motorhome for that price!
Comment: You can buy a motorhome for over a million https://www.lovemoney.com/galleries/62456/millionaire-motorhomes-the-worlds-most-expensive-rvs?page=22 why are motorhomes so expensive? You can buy a private jet for that price!
Comment: @DanielRHicks: please help me find a right store in US.
Comment: Does this answer your question? [Why do some road bikes cost more than motorbikes? Are they grossly overpriced?](https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/16658/why-do-some-road-bikes-cost-more-than-motorbikes-are-they-grossly-overpriced)
Answer: As stated in the comments, your main sport is a strength sport, so I assume you are looking for a bicycle to commute or to do some light aerobics on.
It's not clear which store you shopped in. There is a wide range of price points including many much lower than your stated range. US$5k will get you a mid- to high-end performance-oriented bicycle. Here, I use Specialized bicycles not as a product endorsement, but because they were the first name that came to mind and they are one of the largest US brands. Their fitness line contains the Sirrus line of flat bar bikes. MSRPs for new current model bikes range from $650 to $2,600. You could easily commute and do light aerobics on this type of bicycle. The Specialized Diverge (technically a gravel bike, but totally usable on the road, and can take cargo racks and fenders) does indeed have a version that costs $10,500. However, the base model is $1,300. Many of the major bicycle brands, like Giant, Cannondale, and Trek, will have similar bicycles to these types in their lineup.
You may also have been thinking about electric bikes. Because of the battery and the motor, these are inherently more complex and expensive than non-electric bicycles. I am not familiar with e-bikes, but I think that a more basic e-bike can be had for less than $5k.
The target riders at $4k and higher are serious cyclists who have disposable income and who have been cycling as their main sport for a long time.
Should you wish to get more competitive as an endurance athlete, I can say as someone who owns more than one expensive bicycle: it's mainly about the athlete, not the bicycle. Almost every cyclist on a $5k bicycle will have been beaten by a younger cyclist on a cheap bicycle - and many of them were once the strong young cyclists on cheap bikes. You would almost certainly be left behind if you showed up on a department store bike (barring professional-level talent), but once you are on a decent bike, it's your body which holds you back.
Tackling the question in the title, I realize that even $1,300 seems like a lot of money for what seems like a simple machine. Bicycles are surprisingly complex. For someone familiar with bicycles, there are a bunch of important components where the better choice simply has to cost some amount of money. For example, the brake pads on many cheap rim brakes are garbage. Actually, there are excellent third party replacements available for not much, perhaps US$20 at retail, but that would still raise the bottom line cost for the manufacturer. There are the bearings and seals on the hubs and in the bottom bracket and headset. There's a bunch of stuff. I imagine that you can still get a cheap motorcycle for the cost of an entry-level bicycle, and I would imagine that the answer there is that bicycles may have poorer economies of scale. In any case, given your stated use case, we can make one recommendation that should keep your costs lower: you don't need a suspension fork. Your tires offer adequate suspension for your use case. If a manufacturer specs a suspension fork for a bicycle which doesn't need one, that a) reduces the amount of money they have to make the other components better and b) it adds to your maintenance costs.
Comment: *I imagine that you can still get a cheap motorcycle for the cost of an entry-level bicycle, and I would imagine that the answer there is that bicycles may have poorer economies of scale.*  I've witnessed my brother's travails with a cheap motorcycle.  You need to compare cheap motorcycles to the worst poorly-assembled BSOs from big box stores and not the least expensive bicycles you find in a bike store.  I'd say the least expensive bicycles from a reputable ***bicycle*** source are more like the least expensive new Nissans.
Comment: Cheap motorcycles are more like a "remanufactured" three-decades-old Yugo salvaged from a junkyard.  As in "warped cylinder heads that burn your leg from the escaping combustion gases" bad. And as in "we forgot some of the bolts holding the read end together" bad.  :-)
Comment: I concur in your recommendation against suspension forks, but I'm not so sure about the reasons you cite. A cheap, unnecessary coil-sprung suspension fork certainly adds to the maintenance costs if you follow the recommended service intervals, but how many people do that? As far as I can tell, the traditional approach is to neglect the fork entirely and ride it into the ground, thereby incurring zero maintenance costs, no?
Comment: @Pisco Unfortunately, that's a good point. It's still counterproductive to include the fork, then, because the manufacturer spent additional money to basically add dead weight. This is bad environmentally as well. Additionally, one could make the case that it's a tragedy in a cosmic sense.
Comment: @Pisco further, by fitting such a rubbish fork, the bike is harder to ride (heavier, and the fork bobs, absorbing effort).  So it gets ridden less and puts the rider off.  They're common on kids bikes, which is even dumber.
Answer: Some example from Austria and Germany for new bikes:

~300€ will get you a cheap city/trekking bicycle with the cheapest components and 3x7speed gears. Often not assembled properly, low quality and heavy.
~600€ will get you a solid brand-name city/trekking bike or cheap MTB.
~900€ is where real road bikes and MTBs start.
>1300€ here you get good aluminium frames and Shimano's or SRAM's mid-range components.
>2000€ carbon frames, upper mid-range components. From this point on you mostly get improvements in weight.
>4000€. The best of the best. Road bikes with electronic shifting, aero wheels, <6.8kg weight etc.

I think for the US you can just replace € with $. Of course prices depends on region, discounts etc.
I don't think bicycles in general are particularly expensive, you probably just looked in the wrong place.
As Pere points out in the comments, used bikes are often a good idea, especially when you need a cheap (<300€) bike. But in my opinion you should have some knowledge about bike fit and bike mechanics to be able to properly evaluate (and repair/maintain) a used bike. Sometimes good bikes are sold as "broken" for a few dozen Euros despite only needing some adjustments, a new chain and new tires.
Comment: In addition to that good answer, for commuting wherever risk of bicycle theft is nonzero, and whenever the risk of changing your mind and stop cycling is nonzero, the 300€ is a good option. An equivalent second hand bike is worth considering, too.
Comment: @Pere Definitely second hand in that price range, the value will be so much better, if you sort of know what to buy. Plus it looks less shiny which additionally attracts less thieves.
Comment: In the Netherlands (with the most bicycle commuters but also with the most bicycle thieves) many bikes have locks that cost as much as the bike. Especially cheaper bikes in cities.
Answer: TL;DNR - Bikes are so expensive because people are prepared to pay that much.
Pricing of the product is a balance of the cost to supply and value add to the customer. In the perfect capitalist's world, a product is produced for nothing and sold for as much as each individual customer is prepared to pay. In (arguably disproven) theory, competition will drive the price down to the cost of supply, and drive efficiency in the supply chain lowering the cost of supply.
Cycling is the new Golf, cashed up MAMILS (Middle aged men in lycra) are setting the sell price, however, MAMILS don't buy just anything, they are paying top dollar, and expect the best of the best for it. The manufacturers have responded by supplying bikes that are the best of the best.
The profit from selling a $10000 bike is far more than the profit from selling a $1000 bike, so marketing and sales - from the subliminal images in advertising photos to bike shops upselling is aimed at getting you to buy the most expensive bike they think you can afford. Its blatant on one front, and subtle on the other, you think you have not been sucked in and settle for the $5000 bike instead of the $10000 bike, when a $1000 is all you need.
Note this is not a statement about wrongs and rights of people buying nice bikes, nothing wrong with those who can afford it filling their boots and buying a $10000 bike, or 'settling' for a $5000 bike. Its in the industries interests to sell lots of those bikes. Its up to communities like us to push back against the marketing and present a concept to people - you do not need to spend $10000 to get the bike you need, and help people understand the difference between need and want.
Comment: Excellent answer. I'd only add to that that most of the features you get on top-price bicycles, like carbon frames and such, are high-tech solutions for problems of marginal importance at best. There's exactly nothing wrong with a well-built steel frame, and it offers many advantages over carbon (like better modes of failure, and being much less fragile), but it's precisely the high-tech part that makes carbon frames sexy.
Comment: Also, just like every other product, there are always people who are willing to pay crazy prices for snake oil. If enough people are dumb enough to pay $5000 a wheel for hollow spokes filled with helium because it's lighter than air, somebody will be "dumb" enough to make and sell what they want.
Comment: (@cmaster-reinstatemonica) Among the strongest riders I know, there's far more steel than carbon. Admittedly that's more long-distance, and a few  have carbon race bikes too
Comment: I'm not sure if the profit from a $10k bike is really that much greater than the profit from a $1k bike. At the very least, it's not that straight forward. Creating a top-end bike involves substantial R&D cost. Companies have to recoup that cost. And they're not going to sell that many of them, so the cost is concentrated in a relatively small number of sales. OTH, low-end bikes use well-known design and manufacturing solutions. There's little to no R&D cost to recover. And they're going to sell a zillion of them, so what little R&D cost there might be is spread out across a lot more sales.
Answer: To use car sales analogy. If you go to a Ferrari or Lamborghini dealership, all you'll see are cars for $1 million or more. If you go to a used car dealership, you'll find quite different cars for $5000 or less (I actually have no idea how much cars cost in USA). If you want to settle on something middle range, you can find something at just about any price point.
It really has nothing to do with bicycles. It is common economy principles applied to any type of freely marketed goods.
Comment: Great analogy, those $10.000 bikes are Ferraris & Lambos.
Comment: A US$5k used car is probably going to be a private party sale for an older high-mileage car, e.g. 100k miles/160k km, so pretty cheap. Carmax's listings only start at US$8k (but their prices tend to be higher). For performance road bicycles, I think the equivalents to that price of used car might be used entry level bikes, or older mid-range bikes (e.g. 2010 and earlier bikes).
Comment: Thanks Grigory. My first used car in the US cost me 500$. The second one 5000$ from a car dealer - amazing car. When I started to make a bit more money I paid 10k for a used car with lower mileage. Maybe one day I'll get a 5k bike. Just hope I won't be so dumb to do it before owning a 1M$ home. And definitively not as a first bycicle for commuting.

Why are bicycles so expensive?


Mac OS stuck after login

Question: This screen came after I entered my credentials to login, and stayed here for a long time. I have tried reinstalling the os and clearing nvram, tried booting into safe mode and run diagnostics and tried updating the OS, but nothing has worked. How do I get to log in?
Comment: Did you do anything to it before this behaviour began, and have you left it to run for a few hours?
Comment: I have left it for two to three hours and was the same.I haven't done anything randomly one day this pops up.
Answer: Try creating a new admin user (follow the steps below) and see if this new user can login without this problem. If the new account also experiences the problem I suggest using Recovery Mode to install a new copy of macOS/OS X as it could be a problem with a preference file or other system resource.

Start up the Mac whilst holding down ⌘-S. After a few moments, you'll see the Mac boot to the command line.
The following command will check the filesystem to ensure there are no problems. Enter:
/sbin/fsck -fy

The next command will then mount the filesystem for it to be accessible:
/sbin/mount -uw /

With the filesystem mounted and accessible, it's time to remove the file so OS X will re-run Setup Assistant:
rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone

After that, simply enter reboot and your Mac will restart and boot normally. Only this time, Setup Assistant will launch.

Create the new admin user and continue through the setup process then sign in as this user.
To re-install macOS/OS X follow these steps:

Restart your Mac whilst holding down Command (⌘)-R to startup in OS X Recovery
Select Reinstall macOS (or OS X, if your using an older OS) from the options displayed and follow the steps presented

This process does not delete the original System nor does it delete your user accounts or personal data. All existing user accounts will continue to work as before and all personal data will be left intact. Some applications may require reinstallation if using this process as they sometimes install elements of their resources in the /Library folder.
Answer:
reset Nvram or Pram (Command + Option + P + R)
reset Smc  (press Shift-Control-Option on the left side of the
built-in  keyboard, then press the power button at the same time.
Hold these keys  and the power button for 10 seconds.Power Cord
Should be Connected The  Light Would Change from orange to Green
Shut down your Mac. Remove the battery.  Press and hold the power
button for 5 seconds. Reinstall the battery. Press the power
    button again to turn on your Mac.
Hardware Test .  Make sure that your Mac is on a hard, flat, stable,
well-ventilated work surface. Shut down your Mac.  Turn on
    your Mac, then immediately press and hold the D key on your
    keyboard. Keep holding the D key until you see the Apple Hardware
    Test icon: Select your language and click the right arrow. If you
    aren't using a mouse, you can use the up and down arrows to select a
    language, then press the Return key. To begin testing, click the
    Test button, press T, or press Return.   Optionally select "Perform
    extended testing" before beginning the test. This performs a more
    thorough test that takes longer to complete.     When the test is
    complete, review your test results in the lower-right section of the
    window.

https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT201257

If you have backup On time Machine Try Restoring It .
Last option Is Internet Recovery . Shut Down your laptop Press Command + R And power button to boot in internet recovery and if you were running sierra than command + Option + R and power button and format your hdd and reinstall os .
Answer: This question Macbook Pro stuck after I enter my password provided a solution for me by deleting some .csstore files.
Answer: Logging into the computer using a ssh connection I noticed that the user is fully logged, simply the loginwindow does not closes.
And what is happening is that the keychain does not unlock.
Reboot in safe mode. It will ask you to create a new keychain or update the password.
Answer: Based on the photo, this was the same situation I had after migration assistant from something old to Monterey. What worked for me was something based on a solution by Dirk: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/412232/66547.
The full solution with my additional steps are here: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/436402/66547
Hope this is of help to future viewers.

Mac OS stuck after login


What is the problem with this question?

Question: The question https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/12512/does-radical-islam-use-nazi-style-propaganda asks about the claims presented in a You-Tube video that has more than 7 mil views. While at first it had no claims in the body of the question, the question was edited (by me) to include the main claims of the video in the body of the question. Yet the question remains closed, and keeps getting down-votes. Why is it?
Answer: I can think of a few problems:

The claims you extracted (thanks!) are a bit too fuzzy to be meaningfully answered.

A lot of the claims are simply logical fallacies, trying to associate Radical Islam with Nazism.

As Konrad said, which organisations make up "radical Islam"?

If #3 were answered meaningfully (i.e. if the video made specific, disprovable accusations against a real entity), then we would still have a problem with the questions themselves:
Radical Islam is using similar propaganda to the Nazis.
Nazis used propaganda. Radical Islam uses propaganda. Pretty much any country or movement or corporation uses propaganda. Some of the imagery is similar, some other is going to be different. This is not a very good claim to debunk!
The following question would be answerable and could stand on its own feet: "Are the following images (A), (B), (C) presented by the video actually radical Islam propaganda? Are they in any form representative of their propaganda style?"
Children are being indoctrinated in an organized way to hate Jews and Israel, like the Hitler Youth.
Hitler Youth's purpose was to create adult people who would blindly obey Hitler and the Reich. Hating Jews was a consequent part of it, but not its mission. Israel did not exist at all.

The Hitler Jugend (HJ) was an offcial, state sponsored youth organization, whose primary goal was to create a class of youth totally obedient to the wishes of the German Nationalist Socialist Workers Party leadership and to Germany's Führer, Adolf Hitler.

http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=3029
So what is it that we are asking here? In my opinion, a possible meaningful question is "Does radical Islam have any organisation which systematically indoctrinates children hate Jews? If so, is its size significant?". Otherwise one could ask "Does radical Islam have any organisation similar, in size, objectives and scope, to HJ?", but this would not be a good question as I would contend that that's not what is being claim in the video.
Blood libel is depicted as factual truth and as a real Jewish tradition.
Not really sure, but this is not a question at all as is lacking a question mark. In any case, blood libel is an accusation towards the Jews to have a tradition, not the tradition itself — at least according to the Wikipedia page you linked. Thus, maybe a question could be "Does radical islam engage in blood libel?"

Finally, it is not enough to fix the questions, specify the meaning of "radical Islam" and so on. There has to be notability. The video does not really say, for example, "Hamas engages in blood libel", thus, asking "Does Hamas engage in blood libel" is not questioning a notable claim...
All in all, it can't really be easily salvaged.
Comment: Why is the last one not a question?
Comment: @IlyaMelamed see my edit.
Comment: The video does say that some muslim propaganda engage in blood libel, wouldn't the question "Do some prominent muslim figures accuse Jews of Blood Libel?" be acceptable?
Answer: I'm hazarding a guess here:
– Because it's a stupid question, and a straw man to boot. There is no one "radical Islam". It's like asking whether humans use Nazi-style propaganda. Of course. Some do. Some don't. Stupid question.
What's more, "Nazi-style propaganda" isn't all that specific. The Jesuits said "Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man". Does that mean that they used Nazi-style propaganda? Or is that simply a common way of indoctrination?
For that matter, how does it differ from normal education?
Comment: While there is no one central headquarters of the radical Islam (or even just Islam), and no one organization that is addressed in the video. There are several organizations that have Islamic roots that are addressed in the video, and a good answer would differentiate between the different organizations. And would preferably also try to make some comparison with non-muslim organization making similar claims (Neo-Nazis, KKK, Aryan Nations and others).
Comment: @Konrad Rudolph: That is not a Jesus quote. It's attributed to either Francis Xavier or Ignatius of Loyola (or Jesuits in general, anyway).
Comment: @Alenanno That exact wording, yes. But wasn't there something in the New Testament? I might be mistaken – not that the original author of the quote really matters.
Comment: @KonradRudolph *[The thing about quotes from the internet is that it's hard to verify their authenticity.* - Abraham Lincoln](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/babydoc3/9337123/11965/original.png)
Comment: @Alenanno It matters because it's a wrong fact (and I've corrected). It does *not* matter for the point I was making.
Comment: @KonradRudolph Please re-check my comment. :P eheh
Comment: @Alenanno The quote wasn't lost on me. ;-)
Comment: @KonradRudolph What does that mean?
Comment: @Alenanno Well your comment previously said something along the lines of "it does matter" (or similar; don't remember exactly), hence my reply. I did notice that the comment contained a witticism about quotes on the internet – I just didn't specifically reply to it.
Comment: @KonradRudolph Ah gotcha. :)

What is the problem with this question?


Is there a penalty for escorting light ships with galleys/heavies?

Question: Light ships have speed = 10, heavies = 5, and galleys = 8. So theoretically a fleet of light ships would cover less trade area in a given month if they were escorted.  I seem to recall an earlier version of EU IV (at least a couple of years ago...) showed a penalty to escorting light ships (lower trade income) but last I checked, it appeared to have no effect. Since I just keep my heavies and galleys in port (in peacetime), it would make sense to escort as long as there's no penalty to income.  Anybody understand how this game mechanic is handled?
Comment: Well, I think that there isn't that penalty anymore, but I'm not 100% sure.
Answer: Not a direct penalty but it does lose you money you shouldn't be losing.
Warships should not be unmothballed unless you're about to go to war or feel you're at risk of being declared on.
They add nothing to a trade fleet at all but by having them unmoth-balled you're paying half their upkeep for nothing which especially where heavies are concerned can completely overwhelm what you get from protecting trade.
And during war-time your whole fleet should be together until you've destroyed all the enemy ships and even then, blockading usually brings in more money then protecting trade does until you no longer need the light ships to help blockcade and can send them back to protecting trade.
And the speed of a light-speed is largely meaningless, as once the fleet reaches the trade node it's always considered protecting trade there until you tell it to do something else, no matter where it actually is (if you're at the edge or beyond your supply range your ship will occassionally need to head to port to repair, which doesn't affect your trade income since it's still considered protecting the node. But if you manually tell the ship to do something else, it needs to return to the node before the protect trade bonus kicks back in.
Speed matters more for exploration. And only because of the attrition, they can go farther and make it back more reliably if the fleet is only light ships. Or in the case of El Dorado where you don't give a crap about attrition while on the explore mission, it at least helps you explore a little faster.
Fleets move at the speed of the slowest ship, so mixed fleets also don't matter.


What could be causing a high pitched squeak when the water is turned on?

Question: When the water is turned on for toilet flush or sinks-hot or cold and when the clothes washer is filling (newer type washer that adds more water), many times for the first 4 minutes (starting the water and when the water add is stopped) there is a squeak in the plumbing. It seems to come from the utility room where the water enters the house (and where the house shut-off/pressure reducing valve is located). Again, even though the taps are turned on away from the utility room, the squeaky noise (high pitched) comes from the utility room.
Comment: the squeak is momentary when the water comes on and when the water turns off; not a continuous noise while the water is running... thanks for responding...
Comment: Is this a squeak that lasts as long as the water is running, or a short momentary squeak exactly when the water flow starts or stops?
Answer: It sounds like your problem is pipe movement.
During installation water pipe/tubing is suspended with metal tape, supported by brackets or run through holes drilled in the studs.

When the water flow abruptly starts or stops, this causes a pressure surge to run down the length of the pipe, causing it to move.
You will have to find the location where the squeak is coming from and modify the mounting so the friction causing the squeak is eliminated.
Rubber tape around the pipe under the bracket, repositioning, spray urethane foam can all be used to minimize the movement or separate the pipe from what it's rubbing against.
Installing water hammer arresters in the hot and cold runs can help absorb the pressure pulse and minimize the movement in a worst case scenario.
Our shower on the other end of the house was a good wash day indicator, creating a regular squeak symphony as the solenoid valves cycled to moderate water temperature. A couple squares of neoprene rubber and vinyl coated drive style brackets eliminated the issue by providing a semi-resilient attachment that separated the pipe from the sub-floor it was laying on.


Using Drop-down menu with D3 force layout graph

Question: I am trying to use a drop down menu with a D3 force layout graph so that when I select an option from the drop down menu, the corresponding node becomes highlighted and the name appears above the node. I am using jquery to get the value of the selected option and then want this option to match up with the correct node. Here is the jquery that I am currently using. I know I will probably have to add on to this but am not sure where to go next:
$(document).ready(function(){
       $('.letters').on('change',function(){
              cur_name = $('.letters').val();
              alert('The selected name is ' + cur_name);
                                            });
                              });

The alert is just for testing purposes. I have also made a jsfiddle and here is the link:
http://jsfiddle.net/ohiobucks23/xr3uE/
I am making a much larger force layout graph with a lot more options than just A, B, and C but just made this on a smaller scale really quick for proof of concept purposes. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!
Answer: If you give your nodes an id you can just select them in the usual way, so something like:
d3.select("#" + letter)

in your on change function.
You can also use d3 to create the dropdown menu, for instance:
var select = d3.select("body").append("select")
        .attr("id", "selecter")
        .on("change", mouseover);

var options = select.selectAll("option")
        .data(l);

options.enter()
        .append("option")
        .attr("value", function(d, i) {
            return d;
        })
        .text(function(d, i) {
            return d;
        });

Which was taken from this question.  This question might also help.
And to get you going I've hacked about with your fiddle and bumped it to here - not I've been very lazy and just pointed the change event to the mouseover function (which I amended for the purposes of demonstrating the concept so everything is broken but ...)


Identifying a SMD component?

Question: anyone has seen the component in picture?
I have searched google but no results.
Comment: Can you provide a bit more context. Like you I have no idea what the code means but knowing the application might help.
Answer: It looks like ESD protection diode array, probably PRTR5V0U4D. Here's datasheet: https://assets.nexperia.com/documents/data-sheet/PRTR5V0U4D.pdf
(Datasheet says the marking is "4D").
Answer: It appears this is an HDMI connection.  The serial pairs can be plainly seen and line up with the HDMI pinout:
<code>Pin     Signal  Description
1   TMDS Data2+
2   TMDS Data2 Shield
3   TMDS Data2-
4   TMDS Data1+
5   TMDS Data1 Shield
6   TMDS Data1-
7   TMDS Data0+
8   TMDS Data0 Shield
9   TMDS Data0-
10  TMDS Clock+
11  TMDS Clock Shield
12  TMDS Clock-
13  CEC      control
14  Reserved/HEC Data−  N.C. on device
15  SCL      DDC clock
16  SDA      DDC data
17  DDC/HEC/CEC Ground
18  +5 V Power   power EDID/DDC
19  Hot Plug Detect/HEC Data+
</code>
It follows that the chip in question is some sort of serial device.  Perhaps an EEPROM situated and programmed to provide information about this HDMI device.
As you provided no context these are mostly guesses.  But an obvious choice would be to say this is a monitor's board and the EEPROM is providing information to the host as to the particulars of the monitor.
Answer: No idea what it is, but it looks like you can buy them here.
They appear to have 998 left (as of now)
Answer: That does look like HDMI, but a few things don't quite make sense.  Its got 20 pins rather than 19.  The last one must be shield.  This must be a bottom view.
Its only connected to the SCL line (and the ground), which doesn't make much sense.  The DDC SDA line looks unhooked, but may be via'd under the connector pads.
A quick search doesn't turn up any I2C EEPROMS in a 6-pin package.
The part markings are unlikely to be searchable.  Its just enough to differentiate it from the manufacturers parts in the same package.  Perhaps thats a logo at the end.
One other possibility is that it's a transient suppressor or clamp.
Comment: SOT23-6 I2C EEPROMs definitely exist
Comment: Aha.   I wasn't doing that right.   I found Microchip and Atmel parts in that package, but they both have SCL/SDA on pins 1 &3, with ground on two.   That doesn't quite match up with whats going on in the picture.

Identifying a SMD component?


Finding question with an interesting comment about ReLU activation functions?

Question: A few months ago, I read an interesting comment by user shimao to a question, which linked to a YouTube video where some lecturer (a mathematician, I think) showed how ReLU activations don't solve the vanishing gradient problem (contrary to "popular" belief), but ResNets do, and went on to prove the second result for linear residual connection networks. I tried to find the question, but searching for things like "ReLU solve vanishing gradient" or even just "vanishing gradient" doesn't help. I think the question was not too old. Can you help me find it? As the link was in a comment, finding it is particularly hard.
Comment: The site search engine doesn't look at comments, but sometimes Google does.  Try keywords like "shimao relu resnet site:stats.stackexchange.com".
Comment: @AndreSilva good suggestion, I tried to do that without success.
Comment: @whuber good point, tried to do that , but still couldn't find anything. Such a pity, it was a great video....Actually Google did return a few hits that sounded promising, but they were pointing to deleted questions. That would also explain why it doesn't show up in my favorites list - years of burns with the SE search engine have taught me to immediately add to Favorites any question/answer that I find interesting. Thus, I was expecting it to be there, but if the question has been deleted in meantime, that would explain why it's no more among my favorites.
Answer: I believe I found it: Vanishing gradient vs. dying ReLU? (youtube video here).
The reason you probably did not find the comment is because it was not shimao who posted, but Jan Kukacka (see here).

 I recommend watching this talk by Moritz Hardt (youtube.com/watch?v=l1YxQ1Od1Y0) where he explains that ReLU in fact does not solve the vanishing gradient problem. – Jan Kukacka Dec 25 '17 at 20:20

I found the question putting the following in CV's search box: vanishing gradient problem ReLU (it was the first/top Q in the 'relevance' tab).
Comment: ah! That explains the mystery. Thanks a lot :-)


Referring to family members

Question: I've noticed that sometimes family members are referred to in a weird way(to me) in speech. For example, instead of "I will talk to my mum" or "Give this to your dad", I often hear "I'll talk to mum" and "Give this to dad" instead (no, whoever that talked like this surely isn't my sibling). After asking a friend of mine how his daughter was (she was in hospital), he replied "Daughter is doing well"(again, not my daughter in any sense of the word). Both of these examples sound very awkward to me. I'm wondering if this usage is related to "the wife" (instead of "my wife") or using "sir" or "miss" in third person ("miss asked me to tell you...")? What other people do you refer to in this way?
Comment: That's perfectly okay, *if* the usage exists in the local idiolect. A family member's reference with an article or possessive is grammatical and well-worn. Also note that *mom* , *my mom* , *the [sometimes] mom* have distinct implications and usage. It isn't weird at all.
Comment: I've never heard anyone refer to their children in this way, but when referring to parents, it is very common to drop the possessive. Growing up, speaking to my siblings, cousins, grandparents, etc. I would often just say 'Dad's at work' or 'Mom's at the store'. I'm more likely to use the possessive 'my' when speaking to people to whom I am not related, but not always. If I told my girlfriend that I'd have 'Dad's car for prom', the possessive is obviously implied.

To go out on a limb, I want to say that this could be a vestige of the fact that 'mom' and 'dad' are among one's earliest words.
Comment: OP, where do you come from, by the way? Are you a native speaker of English?
Answer: The examples with mum and dad are common usage, and I suspect that's because they are forms of address. My daughter Naomi calls her mother mummy, so when I am talking to my daughter, I also refer to her as mummy. This started because if I'd said Helen or my wife then Naomi wouldn't have known to whom I was referring; but, of course, it becomes established after a while and long outlives its purpose in that respect.
This does seem similar to sir and miss: these are also forms of address that then get used as third person references, though this usage is less well established, and teachers in my experience have discouraged it whenever they've heard it.
The daughter example you give sounds very unnatural to me. I suspect it was a succinct way of writing it in a text message or similar.

Referring to family members


Is kerning lacking in the Gentium font?

Question: I seem to recall from my reading (a while back) that kerning was a problem for the Gentium font in accented Latin characters.  Is this still the case?  And why would the kerning be different for accented Latin characters than for non-accented ones?
Answer: Kerning of accented characters is still suboptimal with a freshly downloaded version of Gentium Plus. Note the collision in the pairs fà and ïb as well as the overly large gap between ľ and e in the below example. By contrast, Linux Libertine solves these problems by contextual forms (for the f), better kerning (between ľ and e) or does not encounter them in the first place (ïb).

The example also illustrates why accented Latin characters may need a different kerning in the first place.
Answer: From my experience, most fonts lack proper kerning. As annoying as it can be, adjusting kerning is just a part of typography. No font can get it perfect right away and they usually needs some adjustment. The initial kerning of a font is whatever the font creator made it. So unless the difference is substantial or you are working with a ton of copy, I don't see a solution other than manually adjusting.
Comment: What program are you using? The tracking, leading etc. Can be adjusted depending on the program.
Comment: Nothing incorrect in this answer as such, but -1 since it doesn't attempt to answer the actual question that was asked at all.
Comment: How does one "manually adjust" the kerning on fonts?
Comment: I have never personally used the font in question so I could not answer whether or not the font still offered awkward kerning. I was, however, giving insight on a broader scale to the second question, by stating "...most fonts lack proper kerning." Then I briefly answered stating "The initial kerning of a font is whatever the font creator made it."(In some cases kerning is even different for non-accented characters). I then provided a solution of "...manually adjusting". Not sure how that is not an "attempt", but I'll welcome feedback.
Answer: "And why would the kerning be different for accented Latin characters than for non-accented ones?"
Because they are different in shape! Kerning is all about helping all those shapes comes together in an harmonious way. Look at the well-done visual examples in Wrzlprmft's answer.
Gentium is published by SIL and I am receiving non-regular mails about updates. I do not remember reading about kerning ever, but I recommend to get on their site and sign-up for news-mails if you are interested in the improvement of certain typefaces and their fonts.
http://software.sil.org/gentium/new-sil-font-news-announcements-list/
Another answer would be this: Download the freshest version (don't trust in what your OS is providing out of the box) and see for yourself.
http://software.sil.org/gentium/
This is assuming that you are indeed working with texts that carry accented Latin characters. Just set to all-defaults in your preferred DTP tool, paste some sample text and zoom-in muchly to look for real-live problem spots. The license of Gentium allows you to improve it for your own needs (I have hacked some SIL fonts for other issues) - one of the conditions is just that you give it a new name.
Declaration: I work with SIL but in a very different corner. So I am also a user of those fonts, not a provider.

Is kerning lacking in the Gentium font?


Absent Father of 6 years from birth with alcohol, drugs and gambling addictions

Question: My child's father has been completely absent since the first week of my child's life. There has been no contact until now (6 years later). He lives around the corner and passes us everyday, he has not paid a single penny for the upbringing of his child and he has a drug, alcohol and gambling addiction which seems to come before everything and everyone. My child has been asking about his dad recently, as his friends have questioned him about it in school. Last week i was contacted by the father asking to meet and arrange something. Should I give him the time and meet with him and possibly arrange something? or should I move on and focus completely on my child's wellbeing as he is an extremely happy boy with the life he has now and should i let my child make the decision of finding him and meeting him when he gets older?
Comment: Did you sign any agreements when you separated?
Answer:
My child has been asking about his dad recently, as his friends have questioned him about it in school.

What specifically was he asking about? Would meeting his father actually help answer these questions or what is else going through his mind?

he has a drug, alcohol and gambling addiction

This may be difficult for a 6 year old to understand and put proper into context.

i was contacted by the father asking to meet

Why did the father reach out now? Did he gave a specific reason? Is there anything different now than it was for the last six years?

Should I give him the time and meet with him

I think this would be helpful, just to assess the situation. You would need to prepare for this meeting. Things to discuss

What does the father actually want? Why interact now after six years of completely ignoring the child.
Does the father intend to play an active role in the child's live? What would that role be? How would the child benefit from it?
What are the rules of engagement. Absolutely no alcohol, drugs or gambling around the kid. What topics can be talked about. What's the story if the kid asks "why are you never there"
What changes in his life is the father willing to make, to be a better father?

Unless the father makes some serious concessions and shows real effort to make this work, I would deny a meeting.

should i let my child make the decision of finding him and meeting him when he gets older?

Not exactly. You are his mother and you probably will need to help him with this. I would take cues from the boy. Listen to his questions and answer them truthfully (but not hateful or resentful). "Your father has a lot of personal problems and at the moment he cannot be a real father to you. This may change over time but that's the situation at the moment".
If you get to a point where these answers don't work anymore and you feel it would be beneficial for the boy to meet the father you can help to facilitate that to make sure it's safe and the child is properly prepared in terms of behavior and expectations.
Answer: A first quick check: Don't reply and wait for him to ask again. If he contacts you again next week, then at least you know he has an attention span of a week. Otherwise visiting your son may have been a spontaneous idea that will be forgotten in a week.
Answer: Support groups
Before allowing the father and son to meet, you might want to join at least one relevant support group meeting: Al-Anon, Nar-Anon, Gam-Anon, and/or Smart Recovery Family & Friends. These support groups are not for addicts themselves: they are for family members and ex-partners of addicts. They offer in-person and online meetings in various countries. Arrive ten minutes early, and hang around for a while after the meeting ends. Introduce yourself to people there, and tell them that this is your first meeting.
You can tell someone from the support group some more in-depth information about your situation; perhaps they can give you some more advice which we haven't yet mentioned in this thread.
Other resources
At some point later in the future, you might also want to check out these other resources as well. They include books, websites, and YouTube videos which you may find helpful.


Auditing time while waiting for tasks

Question: Sometimes it seem that my day just go by and i am  unable to justify myself, where i spend and doing what. I am in a new role, where i am waiting for a external company to provide design and i can start working on it, meanwhile i explore and do what is told to me but again i want to audit my time and how i spend it, what i learned because if a manager asks me and I can tell.Sometimes i stray to other websites such as news or amazon but how can i manage and audit my time, especially when i got nothing to work on?
Answer: There is always something to be doing. If you have capacity, you can always ask your colleagues if they need you to do anything.
Regarding auditing your time, build yourself a work log (use MS Access, or SQL with an interface, or just Excel to get started). This will allow you to record what tasks came in on whaty day and at what time, you can filter to show active tasks, and filter to show completed tasks to show your boss.
Comment: i started using focus booster and it does help with pomodoro technique.
Answer: A good idea would be to be proactive and talk to your boss, tell them you spend a lot of time waiting and wondering if there is anything you could help you co-workersor learn a new skill.

Auditing time while waiting for tasks


How can I make monster knowledge checks fun?

Question: By now most players know, or should know, that a monster knowledge check can make all the difference when you're fighting a monster for the very first time. But how can we make them both fun and not break the flow? What techniques can be used to improve the monster check experience?
Comment: +1 I'm interested too. So far it's been "Make a dungeoneering/nature/knowledge check..."
Answer: First of all, it's a Knowledge check
Don't lose sight of the fact that the player asked to make a Knowledge check because he or she wants information. There's no way around that. Don't worry about that information breaking the flow. If the player doesn't want to break the flow by getting that information, he or she would not be requesting the check.
Tease out the information
Take a minute and give the player some information, piece by piece. Make it into a little guessing game where the player is going to get all the information, but tease it out.

"Well, they're humanoid, with orange skin."
  "Like orcs?"
  "Smaller. And they don't have the pig snouts."
  "Some kind of goblin?"
  "Yeah, but bigger than goblins. Much bigger."
  "Hobgoblins?"
  "That's it!"

The goal is to get the player, as his character, involved in the information analysis. Simulate the training the character might have.
Obviously, if you pick some obscure monster that the player has never heard of ("a fell taint? really, that's what it's called? surely that's some kind of joke!"), then you might need to help out more than usual.
Handing them the Monster Manual probably will break the flow, so I wouldn't recommend that.
Make it personal
This is supposed to be knowledge the character has, right? So make it personal. Instead of telling the player, "It's an orc," and giving all the stats the Knowledge check provides, add in some history or back-story.
This is a golden opportunity for a Dungeon Master. Don't squander it!

"I make a Knowledge check. 29! What is it?"
  "Well, your mentor, Grim Wizard Horace, used to talk about these things all the time. He said they were wisps of insubstantial evil that ripped through planar material."
  "Wow, they sound dangerous."
  "Sorta. Probably manageable. Horace said they weren't that tough for him and his adventuring party, the Wrecking Crew, and you're as powerful now as he was then, probably. But he warned of one thing."
  "Oh?"
  "Yeah, he said that when their paladin, Golden Boy Gabriel, fell unconscious, the damned things became material again and started feeding on poor Gabe. Sucked his life out of him."
  "What are these things called?"
  "Oh, you'd never forget that. Horace called them 'fell taints,' though you're not sure if those are the official taxonomic designation or if he was just being crude."
Comment: I like the character memory idea, like your Grim Wizard Horace example. If your players love RP moments and you trust them to read only the relevant portions of a monster's stat-block earned from the check, you could have another player roleplay a mentor/teacher figure from the character's past, and improvise a short flashback scene. Let the players come up with a couple details (location, situation) and have at it. When the flashback has been played through, combat resumes. You'd probably need to keep these to about a minute or two, but over time they could become a side-story of their own.
Answer: Often I have a bunch of PCs all want to make the check, to get as much intel as possible.  So I do the checks in secret and write them notes, with significant failures being rewarded with misinformation, and then am entertained by them trying to divine who is right.  "The wizard's usually pretty smart but 'fell taint'?  Really?  Both Bob and Dave the fighters think it's a dread wraith, let's go with that."
Comment: That could be a blast... I think I will have to try it.
Answer: (Amplifying my comment)
By handing players aspects of narrative control of the monsters, it can be possible to increase player investment in the setting. While the most trivial check should result in a small card being handed over for the monster defenses (because that just speeds up combat), more significant checks should allow players to describe the monsters' attacks.
Interesting monsters almost always have more than a simple at-will that they spam. While some of the encounter powers may be relevant to the story, others are merely "hey, that's cool." By letting players take ownership of the "hey that's cool" and, more to the point, describe the source of their information, they'll then start fleshing out parts of your world or their backstory for you.
The higher the role, the more generalized the addition. A "moderate" roll might be enough to describe an encounter power. A "hard" roll might go to differentiate a sub-species of monsters. Don't worry about balance as the players are not describing the mechanistic effects (use the Dm's cheat sheet for that)
For more details about this sort of play, check out the indie game Donjon, because it has quite a few aspects that could be profitably imported to 4e, and knowledge checks are the right way to hook those features in. It's also a way to make "known" monsters new and interesting for both the players and the GM.
Answer: In other systems, making a knowledge check lets you define a characteristic about the monster.  I haven't actually tried this yet (mainly because I don't trust the wizard not to assert that every monster the group fights has lightning vulnerability), but it's certainly an interesting way to handle the problem.
Comment: This seems really wrong, especially in the context of 4E.  You absolutely cannot assign features to monsters through an informational check, it simply finds out info about monsters.  In fact, you'd have to roll pretty well just to find out that a monster has an existing lightning vulnerability.
Comment: Were I to use this in 4th ed, I'd definitely retain veto rights.  It's meant to encourage collaborative storytelling, not to gain advantage in fights.  I'd still like to see how it works in 4e, but I can only speculate about whether it will be worthwhile or not.
Comment: I actually think this is the best way to go. Let players, on a /successful/ roll, know about the monster and define something interesting about it. Of course, inform them that on an unsuccessful roll, you'll add something to the monster. Make sure that you keep it karmically balanced though. If they note that this subspecies of lizard is lighting-vulnerable then well, resists are a fun consequence of failure. Encourage players to flavour attacks (and implement them as encounter powers) rather than traits.
Answer: I would give a successful knowledge check a heads up before the creature makes its next attack or give some kind of warning about what it is going to do next.
"As you are dodging out of the way, you notice the scales around the throat flare, it is getting ready to breath fire."
"An old memory from a bar long ago, the description of how a beholders eyestalk stiffens before it attacks - JUST LIKE IT IS NOW!!"
Or I would use a successful knowledge check as a negative modifier for the monster, as it is more predictable or could be anticipated.  Depends on the situation.
Answer: You could allow players to use their knowledge modifiers as a bonus to combat rolls... kind of like the 3.5e Ranger's Favored class.
So if my character has +2 Knowledge(Beholders) - or whatever the actual knowledge skill would be - I can get a +2 to Bluff, Listen, Sense Motive, Spot, and Survival checks as well as damage rolls.
So at the beginning of combat just declare "if you have Knowledge(X) treat it as a combat bonus."
Now the characters with the appropriate knowledge can treat it as an implicit benefit, and the GM can then provide information as narrative; the character with +2 Knowledge(Smaug) rolled a crit? Narrate that they strike the left breast - knowing that's where the dragon's armor is weakest.
Answer: If PC's have no way knowing, simply don't allow them a check outright, but "advice" them they should observe the creature a little longer. In stead of a lot of attack rolls, you're going to make a lot of (hide/move silent/spot/knowledge) skill checks first, where successful knowledge checks actually represent correct interpretation of its' behavior, in stead of summing up an MM-entry. Having 5 ranks in Handle Animal or the like, could result in a synergy-bonus for knowledge (whatever relates to creature).
This does however, adds that little extra nasty flavor to PC's being surprised by the monster.


How to use a 2 way ANOVA in R if pre/post is one of the factors.

Question: I am trying to run a 2-way Anova that has 2 independent factors. The experimental/control group which is easy enough and then the other factor is condition (pre-post). Basically, there were two groups of stroke patients and their movement capacity was evaluated using a test. The experiment wanted to see if traditional therapy or some new therapy is more effective and split the 2 groups up by treatment method. That is one of the factors and they state that "condition (pre-post)" was the other independent variable. They then evaluated all of the patients after treatment with the same test and took note of their net increase in score. I understand 2 Way Anovas for the most part but I am having a hard time quantifying the pre-post data to be used for a 2 way ANOVA.
Comment: [Best practice when analysing pre-post treatment-control designs](https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/3466/best-practice-when-analysing-pre-post-treatment-control-designs)
Answer:
Please read Senn article on pre-post and why these designs should be analyzed with ANCOVA model

y ~ treatment + condition

The answer to your question (if you wanted to use 2-way) is to use the interaction effect as the "difference in the change" in the response. But again, see any Senn article on pre-post

https://doi.org/10.1002/sim.2682
Answer: It seems to me a one-way anova/independent t-test since the response is the "net increase" (i.e., difference between pre and post).
If you really want to analyze it as a 2-way ANOVA, then you will need to model the dependence of pre and post.
Using gls for an example.
<code>    gls(movement~trt*time, correlation=corCompSymm(form=~1|subject),data=...)
</code>
You can model other correlations such as corAR1 and corSymm.
Using corCompSymm is equivalent to treating subject as a random factor as Sal suggested (induced correlation in random effect).
You can address heterogeneity by using weights=...
Answer: Considering the seriousness of the subject matter, I would advise you to consult with a statistician or knowledgeable person who can look at the actual study design and data and advise you as to the best approach.  This isn't me, but others on this site may meet that qualification.
That being said, from your description --- "That is one of the factors and they state that "condition (pre-post)" was the other independent variable." ---, it sounds like you are describing an analysis of covariance (ancova), where, yes, the value for movement in the pre- period is entered into the model as an independent covariate, and treated as a continuous variable (and not as a factor variable as if you were doing a two-way anova).  So your model is something like, Movement_post ~ Movement_pre + Group + Movement_pre:Group. With this approach, you can plot Movement_post vs. Movement_pre for each Group, and interpret the results as to the difference in intercept and slope of these lines.
A different approach is that mentioned by @yc_hello , which is to use the difference for each subject as the dependent variable and then use a one-way t-test or anova. This approach also allows you to easily use a different metric, like percent change, as the dependent variable.
Another approach, a mixed-effects model, with Subject as a random term might be appropriate. Something like, Movement ~ Group + Time + (1|Subject). It's not as scary as it sounds, and opens up better ways to analyze some designs. Here you might plot the mean or e.m. mean Movement vs. Time, with Group_1 one color and Group_2 another color. This is easy to interpret, and allows you to show that the two groups were similar in movement in the pre- period.


Wrist pain from drumming?

Question: I've recently started using gig grips on my drum sticks and I really like them but recently I've noticed a sharp pain in my wrist when playing the hi hat. Does anybody get this and what can I do to help it?
Comment: just don't use them
Comment: Why did you decided to use the grips? Did you just wanted to try them? Or are they meant to address an issue you have?
Answer: If that issue still persists I'd highly recommend consulting a doctor.
If you experience a direct connection between the pain and the gig grips get rid of them.
I once had a tendovaginitis, an inflammation of the tendon of my wrist/lower arm (sorry, I'm not sure about the correct english term for it).
I assume root cause was my bureau job (laying the wrists on the hard table for 8+ hours each day).
The actual cause was me overworking my wrists/arms through 2 times 5 hour band practice, setting up/carrying speakers etc for a gig and giging 4 hours and of cause carrying all our stuff back to our room - all that on one weekend.
I took a week off from work and two weeks off the drumset and applied some cooling to my wrists. Since that I use a large soft mousepad on the desk to lay my wrists on. The problem is gone for now.
Answer: A common mistake drummers can make with their grip is holding the stick too tightly. This causes the more of the energy of the stroke to be dispersed into your hand, rather than the drum and the stick itself.
Take a stick in the hand that's causing pain and hit the palm of your other hand with it. Listen for a "note" produced by the stick. If you can hear it, the grip is not the problem, but if you can't, then you need to loosen up your grip.
If you want more detail and demonstrations on technique like this, I highly recommend Jojo Mayer's "Secret Weapons for the Modern Drummer" (1, not 2) video.

Wrist pain from drumming?


When should a person file a PCT? How can I find out which countries a PCT covers?

Question: When should  a person file a PCT? How can I find out which countries a PCT covers?
How much does it cost?
Comment: I wonder if the first part of your question ("What should a person file a PCT") might be unanswerably broad, since there's no real right answer: just factors to be weighed. Unless you are asking about the period in which a PCT can be validly filed with a priority claim, I guess.
Answer: When to file
There are many possible answers here.
If what you are seeking to patent is already made public (in a brochure, a scientific paper, a presentation) then it is probably too late. A skilled attorney may get you out of this, depending on the situation, but there will be no guarantee.
If you have already filed a national patent application (e.g. in Denmark or the US) then you have strictly 12 months to file a PCT application and claim priority.
If you have done nothing of the above, you can file a PCT application as soon as you wish. That of course means you have some work to support your patent. Better have a professional to write down the patent, as it is not as easy as it might look.
PCT coverage
The current list of countries and regions under the PCT can be found here
http://www.wipo.int/pct/en/pct_contracting_states.html
Cost
As for the cost, this is really hard to answer. First of all there is the cost for filling a PCT and paying for the search report and relevant formalities, a little over 3000 euros. A quick view can be found here https://www.epo.org/applying/forms-fees/international-fees/important-fees.html
After filling the PCT, you will have to decide which countries you want to have your patent granted. For each country (or region, like the EPO) there is the cost for the patent prosecution (patent attorney cost and patent office actions) and then there is the cost for maintaining a granted patent.
Obviously there is no straightforward answer here, but for major markets expect 4-digit numbers for the first examination steps (and see again wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent#Economics the paragraph for costs)


The constant-volume gas thermometer

Question: How does the pressure change with the change of temperature in this device? and why every time the mercury level should reach Zero in the first tube?
I understood that two pressure points are measured, at the ice and the steam points. Then we plot these two pressure and temperature values. After that, we can know any other temperature from the graph.
Answer:
How does the pressure change with the change of temperature in this
  device?

The pressure changes with temperature according to the Gay-Lussac's law, which says (according to Wikipedia) that "for a given mass and constant volume of an ideal gas, the pressure exerted on the sides of its container is directly proportional to its absolute temperature".

why every time the mercury level should reach Zero in the first tube?

The mercury level does not reach Zero by itself - it is brought to Zero by physically moving the second tube up or down. Since the mercury in the first tube is kept at the same level, the volume of gas does not change and we can apply the Gay-Lussac's law.
You should be able to see how it works if you look at the diagram below (based on the image copied from this document).

When the temperature rises, the gas expands and pushes the mercury in the left tube down until the increased difference of mercury levels between the two tubes equalized that pressure. By manually moving the right tube up, we put still more pressure on the gas and force it to shrink to its original volume. The resulting difference in the mercury levels will be equal to the final pressure of the gas.
To see how it is done, you can check out this video.

The constant-volume gas thermometer


Multiple Field Widget instances on the same page, validation problem

Question: I have multiple instances of the same field widget attached to different entity forms on the same page. On validating one of these forms, when I set form_set_error($field_name, '...'), every one of these widgets get highlighted. Is there a way to get around this somehow?
Answer: Check out the API page for form_set_error. This bit should help you out:

$name The name of the form element. If the #parents property of your form element is array('foo', 'bar', 'baz') then you may set an error on 'foo' or 'foo][bar][baz'. Setting an error on 'foo' sets an error for every element where the #parents array starts with 'foo'.

In your case you'll just want to make sure that the parent item is different for each instance of that field, then set the error with form_set_error($parent_name . '][' . $field_name, '...')
Comment: Forgot to add this in the question itself but I don't want to change #parents as that would change the way I access the value of the field(s) in different parts of the code. I just want to uniquely replace the name of the fields on the client-side so that the validator can use that just to flag the correct element. Do you think this can be done?


Install XNA 4.0 Visual Studio 2010 Windows 8

Question: I installed windows 8 a month ago and now want to add xna game studio 4.0 to my visual studio 2010 ultimate. I downloaded the xna installer from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=23714 and ran the setup. First it said something about compatibility issues but the setup continued. after it finished I restarted the computer and wanted to make a xna project but its not showing in the c# drop-down menu. So i took a look at the %programm files(x86)%/Microsoft viual studio 10.0/Common 7/IDE/extensions/Microsoft, but there was no xna folder. Did I do something wrong or is windows 8 having some issues with vs2010 and xna 4.0?
Answer: XNA is not officially supported on Windows 8 and never will be because Microsoft simply gave up on it.
This solution explains how to install XNA on Windows 8 but clearly if you want a stable development environment you will have to develop on a Windows 7 machine but remember that even if you are skilled on XNA, the Framework itself is doomed and bound to disappear.
If you want to keep developing with C# on Windows 8 I can only recommend you move to MonoGame which is an open source implementation of the XNA 4 API for multiple platforms using the CLR or Mono so basically most of your XNA knowledge can be reused in MonoGame.
Comment: This is how we do it: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/astebner/archive/2012/02/29/10274694.aspx
Answer: IF you realy want to keep on programming with XNA 4.0 there is a work around.
Just install the following program (official windows program):
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/LIVE/PC/DownloadClient
This is the windows marketplace client which seems to help a lot, after installing try installing xna again it should work, atleast it did fine on my PC which is running windows 8.
Comment: This should be the accepted answer as it's correct. And more details here http://blogs.msdn.com/b/astebner/archive/2012/02/29/10274694.aspx
Comment: I installed VS2010 XNA for windows phone and the install failed. Just installed the Live client and repaired the VS installation and it works fine. This is definitely the correct answer.
Answer: XNA Game Studio installs a version of the Games for Windows – LIVE Redistributable behind the scenes. Some older versions of the Games for Windows – LIVE Redistributable attempt to install and use a file that is being installed by Windows 8, and the older versions of the redistributable are not compatible with the newer version of the file that is installed by Windows 8. Newer versions of the Games for Windows – LIVE Redistributable are compatible with Windows 8, and if you pre-install the new redistributable before installing XNA Game Studio, setup will recognize that it is already there and use the new version instead of trying to install the old version.
How to work around this issue
If you run into this issue, here are steps that you can use to work around it:
Download and install the latest version of the Games for Windows – LIVE Redistributable from http://www.xbox.com/en-US/LIVE/PC/DownloadClient
If you are installing the Windows Phone SDK 7.1, re-run setup and choose to repair it. This will re-run the previously failing XNA Game Studio installers and they should install correctly this time.
If you are install a standalone XNA Game Studio product, re-run setup and it should install correctly this time.
If you are planning to do Windows Phone development, you should also install the Windows Phone SDK 7.1.1 Update after installing the Windows Phone SDK 7.1. This update fixes an issue that prevents the emulator in the Windows Phone SDK 7.1 from working correctly on Windows 8.
Microsoft has NOT given up on XNA as far as I can tell. They just aren't updating the installer yet. Maybe they'll bring it around for 8.1. Who knows?
Answer: i have installed windows 8 developper preview
and i wanted to install xna frame work on visual studio 2012
but i had a compatibility issue
so here is what to do to fix this problem
go ahead and download Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate ISO from microsoft
Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate ISO Microsoft Center Download
Then Burn it on a cd using Burning Tool (Nero Express for exp)
if you dont have cd to burn it you can use Daemon Tools to raise an ISO into a virtual CD/DVD drive
Here is the Download Link for Daemon tools
after installing Visual Studio 2010
install the XNA 4.0 FrameWork
restart your pc
and enjoy :)
Answer: This is the official solution, where Microsoft's help points you to, to solve this issue:

How to work around a possible XNA Game Studio or Windows Phone SDK
  install failure on Windows 8
  http://blogs.msdn.com/b/astebner/archive/2012/02/29/10274694.aspx

And, if you are just trying to get XNA 4.0 working, and have nothing to do with Windows Phone SDK 7.1, then you can just install "Games for Windows – LIVE Redistributable" and then the install of XNA 4.0 should work fine. It did for me.


Let adding code wrapper in edits ignore the 6 character requirement

Question: Is there a way we can ignore the 6 character requirements if we're only adding a code tag for a question? Sometimes I see people have included code, but they haven't formatted it properly so it doesn't actually appear in the question. When you go in to edit, you can't because adding four spaces doesn't fulfill the requirement. Now you have to go in and make trivial, sometimes questionable changes in order to meet this requirement.
Answer: Never make trivial, questionable changes in order to meet length requirement. If you don't have reputation for edit you think is needed, post a comment so OP or passing-by 2k user can fix it. See this discussion on network-wide meta - Especially this comment by a moderator:

Jeff and waffles have stressed, multiple times, that if you find that rare instance that it's just a minor edit of under 6 characters, just let a 2k user handle it. Because 2k users don't need to bother 2 other users just to get their edit through.
Comment: The with here is you cite a reference answer that completely contradicts itself. She states in her answer, "Usually, in a post that forgets that kind of formatting, there's often at least one other error to be found. A miscapitalized letter, an extra space, or often just another formatting error of a different sort." to which she later appends the quote you mention as a comment. All of the things she instructs a user to search out are trivial items of change and ones she later states should be left to 2k users.
Comment: As a matter of fact, with the exception of forgetting to indent a code block, any edit I can remember made by myself or on one of my own posts has been trivial. Code is the most important aspect of a question and should have rules supporting this. There are cases where the asker does not speak English well and needs a lot of help getting their question to an understandable state, but this not always the case. The overwhelming majority of everyone taking part in the discussion you cited agreed this is a silly rule.
Comment: @RKS A lot of trivial but valid changes makes a good substantial edit. Making invalid changes only to hack around limits is not so good. And yes, code is most important part of a question and for that very reason there is a rule and custom not to edit code by others. On the other side, code blocks are often abused by low-rep users, for example to post error messages or [link lists](http://meta.drupal.stackexchange.com/q/2596/16495) - one more reason to prevent adding them by users with lower reputation.
Comment: @RKS anyway, this limit is network-wide, so you probably have better chance to attract attention of someone who can change this if you ask there. But I don't see this happening. Last but not least, I was 2k user there after about 2 months. Here after ~3 weeks. And I'm not some kind of genius. Can't you just wait a tiny bit and then edit as you see fit without these limits?


How can I make the background transparent

Question: Are there any easy way to make the white background transparent?
Comment: Hello! Did any of the answers work for you? Please follow up- thanks!
Answer: You can select "Magic Wand Tool" from tools and click the area you want to remove white space. Then hit delete. But you should double click to remove lock icon on background color if you have only one layer. Then you can save it as PNG.
Comment: Although this is one of the first lessons for an amateur Photoshop user, it is considered a "destructive" procedure and, therefore, is not a best practice. Any method that deletes pixels from the work makes it difficult to adjust later. If you do use this method, make sure to perform this on a copy of the layer or a copy of the original file.
Answer: HOW to make a transparent background for this or any image depends on how you intend to use the "cut-out" version. If you simply want to remove the background, the least-destructive and adjustable way is to use a mask.

Assuming you want to keep the "white" color in the subject of the image, most normal removal methods, like using "multiply" or the magic wand, will remove most of the white inside and outside of your character. Using a mask, you just "paint" the area you want to hide. In the case of your image, this is relatively simple and doesn't take much time while still being adjusted to your preference. Here is a quick PNG with the background masked:

Now, if you mean to overlay this character onto another background, what I normally do is use a combination of a mask and a "multiply" blending mode in order to make the edge softer and hide any white "halo" around the subject. To do this, I would take the same mask I drew for the character, move that to a white background layer and then change the subject layer blending mode to "multiply". I would then just "cut-in" the mask as necessary to blend the outline of the subject more with whatever background these two layers are on top of.
Comment: @user51918 Great! Don't forget to mark an answer as "correct" with a green check mark if it helped you.
Answer: Try changing Blending to Multiply and play with Opacity.
If multiply doesn't help try other Blending modes (e.s. Darken)
Comment: Please note that using the "Multiply" blending mode alone for the layer shown in the OP will make all white in the image to not show, including the white that makes up the subject.


To what kind of philosophy belongs the statement that you can't be a physical body because it is a projection of the mind?

Question: I think it is a kind of idealism like that of Berkeley. But can this statement also belong to phenomenology of Husserl or of the philosophy of Kant or is there perhaps a better philosopher for this?
Answer: This is known as monist idealism, or idealist monism.  Monist, meaning it believes that only one kind of thing actually exists, and idealist, meaning it believes that one thing is mind/consciousness/soul, not matter.
Bishop Berkeley is certainly one prime example of a monist idealist, but there are many others.  Wikipedia has a good article on the topic.
Kant is arguably not a monist (or at least, not committed to monism).  He does not deny that the physical world exists (or rather, something that we perceive as the physical world), but only that we can never experience it directly as it "really" is.  We interact with it always through the intermediary of our minds.
Comment: I'm no Kant expert, but "Kant is a dualist" strikes me as quite inaccurate.
Comment: @EliranH I've found evidence that some consider him as a dualist, but it's definitely not an uncontroversial classification.  I've edited to highlight the ambiguity.
Comment: I think even our minds are phenomenal for Kant.  The mind is not an intermediary between phenomena and noumena, as otherwise we could have direct experience of at least some noumena, and that would make him a good old-fashioned Platonist and do away with the notion of phenomena as a real thing.  'Transcendence' is a new idea separate from 'participation' or 'dependency'.
Answer: The word can be idealist monist, but I think Berkeley convinced us that almost all pure and consistent idealism has to be monist.  So it is often simply idealist.
I would say Plato is the prime example before Berkeley.  Leibniz is another strong option, which I feel is worked out much more reasonably.  Whitehead is a revival of Leibniz in some ways, and to that degree is also an idealist.
The two folks you consider are seen as transcendental idealists, suggesting that your body and mind are both projections of 'noumena', something more basic than either.
Kant was trying very hard not to be a simple idealist, and he is the first one to clearly and effectively put this question in the realm of the deeper reality we cannot really be sure of.  If we cannot know the deepest forms of reality, at all, how can we know whether they are single or multiple in substance?
For Kant, your body exists in space, which exists only in your mind, so much of the detail about it must to some degree be a projection of the mind.  But there is something more basic than space in which some form or precursor of your body and mind might also both exist in some way.  You just can't know; because your thinking is trapped in a model that involves space.
Husserl followed him, but emphasized the 'idealistically agnostic' direction even more consistently.  The more basic forms are there, but we cannot trust our interactions with them, so we should not rely on any information about them.


Admin > system settings unavailable after wordpress database import

Question: Part of my civicrm admin area and front-end forms are missing after import of wordpress database. I can see my contributions dashboard for example, but not the manage contribution pages section or any of the Administer area, so I cannot check systems setting > resource urls, or cleanup cache etc. This means also that my forms are missing on the front end. I have reset my WP database and Civicrm database from a couple of days ago and it hasn't made any difference. Any ideas how I can fix this?
Comment: We can give much more helpful information if you give your CiviCRM version (and the version you upgraded from).  Also, when you say they're "missing", could you please be more specific?  Are the menu items missing?  When you click the menu items, do you get an error?  A white screen?
Answer: Sounds like a permissions problem. Make sure you are logged in as a user who has full "administer CiviCRM" permissions in Wordpress.
Comment: Your user ACL permissions (Admin>Users & Permissions>Access Control)- when you log in as an admin from WP.  You can also 'sync users' in case your WP database import file had/has a different email address for you - check your Contact record in Civi
Comment: Indeed - after re-reading this and seeing the problem happened after you imported your Wordpress database, and you seem to be indicating that it's separate from your Civi database, this is almost certainly a permissions issue.  CiviCRM stores its permissions in the host CMS' native format, so I suspect you need to re-set your permissions.
Comment: Any idea what files I should be checking permissions on? To answer your earlier question, I'm not getting any errors, the menu items are there but when I select one I just get the title and otherwise the page is empty. Likewise on the front-end, I get no errors, just a grey box where my form should be but none of the fields. Thanks.
Answer: not files, your user ACL permissions (Admin>Users & Permissions>Access Control)- when you log in as an admin from WP. You can also 'sync users' in case your WP database import file had/has a different email address for you - check your Contact record in Civi - or create a new WP login for yourself as Admin and check
Answer: Thank you for your answers - upvoting your suggestions, all good answers. In my case it turned out that removing the temp files in civicrm/templates_c/en_US allowed those forms and backend areas to be rebuilt, so it was permissions in those files.
Comment: Thanks for the solution - could you have done a 'clean cache' or did you try that?
Comment: That was one of the areas that was unavailable to me, everything under the Administer menu was not there. All of that area as well as, for example, the contributions dashboard and my front-end forms rebuilt when I removed those temp files. Thanks.


Hashing passwords before sending to server

Question: When sending passwords via UTF-8 encoded socket transfer, is it considered to be secure if I hash the password using either MD5 or SHA-1 prior to sending out the data? Keep in mind that I plan to compare the hashed password in a SQL database. I am worried that someone could be able to sniff the hashed password in UTF-8 then decrypt the UTF-8 encoding and could obtain my hashed password which could potentially be used to match the password in my database.
Comment: Use SSL and compare the server certificate with a hash of it embedded in the program.
Answer: If the client just sends the hashed password, then the hashed password is the "password": a sequence of bytes which the client just needs to show to be authenticated. If the attacker can sniff that then your protocol is doomed.
If the authentication protocol consists in just presenting a piece of secret data (call it a password if you wish), then the exchange should occur within a transport medium which ensures confidentiality (so that the secret data cannot be sniffed) and server authentication (so that an attacker may not mimic a server and convince a client to send him the secret data). This is what you get out of a classic SSL/TLS tunnel (a https:// URL, in a Web context).
If you cannot establish a SSL/TLS tunnel with server authentication (i.e. the server has a certificate which the client can verify), then you may want to resort to an authentication protocol with a challenge: the server sends a sequence of random bytes (the challenge) and the client responds with a hash value computed over the concatenation of the password and the challenge. Do not try this at home! It is very difficult to do it right, especially when the attacker can intercept communications (active attacks).
A more generic answer is password-authenticated key exchange protocols. PAKE combines a cryptographic key agreement protocol (such as Diffie-Hellman) and mutual password authentication between client and server, in a way which defeats both passive and active attackers, even with relatively weak passwords (the attacker cannot get enough data to "try" passwords without interacting with either the client or the server for each guess). Unfortunately, few PAKE algorithms have been standardized beyond mathematical description, and the area is a patent minefield.
Comment: Is there a library in C++ Qt that properly uses authentication with a challenge?
Answer: Well, if someone can sniff hash - he can fake authorization request and send the hash he already know.
Making up secure system is not easy, you would need to do authorization using asymmetric cryptography with properly signed keys to make it secure.
At least add ~100byte random salt, and use SHA1 -  this way it would be way harder to bruteforce.
Comment: in 2017, SHA1 is no longer a cryptographic hash algorithm.
Answer: They could brute-force your passwords if they know the hashing algorithm. The simple (and not perfectly secure) solution is to use a challenge/response instead, the server issues a random string ("nonce") to be hashed along with the password hash. This makes your app invulnerable to the kind of replay attacks you're describing.
For more information, see HTTP's digest access authentication
Answer: How do you check the password on the database side?
If you store the unsalted hash of the password and just compare it to the input, then the hashed password can be sniffed and reused.
It's exactly as if you were storing the password itself in the database in plain text.
If you are afraid of sniffing, use a challenge-response protocol to authenticate, but in this case the secret will be stored in the database (and will be known to anyone who has access to the database).
Alternatively, you can send a password in plain text over a protected channel (SSL), but you will have to install a certificate which will most probably cost you some money (if you are using an authority from a vendor-provided list, i. e. one your customers' browsers won't complain about)
Answer: Hm, if you are talking about 'proper' hashing, that means that it will 'encrypt' your password so it won't be decrypt-able, because hashing is one way function, and to decrypt it - it till take some time, and some kind of great CPU power.
If you are concerned at password sniffers, you can take it to the next level - use PRIVATE/PUBLIC key encryption.  Server should send a challenge to the client (public key for encryption), client encrypts with it, and only server know how to decrypt it.  For same amount of bits, it offers more protection - ie. more muscle is needed to brute force crack it.
Check this out.