According to the Catholic Church, how do you perform an examination of conscience?

Question: When preparing for the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we are instructed to perform an examination of conscience.  How exactly are we supposed to go about doing this?  I am looking for a thorough, sourced, pragmatic, and detailed answer focused on the spiritual actions of the penitent in sequential order.
Comment: For the VtC's there's actually a lot of published instruction on this.  Hardly opinion based.  [USCCB has some nice digital stuff here](http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/sacraments-and-sacramentals/penance/examinations-of-conscience.cfm)
Comment: @KorvinStarmast there are a lot of such pamphlets, and the details in them vary slightly.  They are also aimed at an introductory level, like, I feel like they are perhaps more intended for children and those recently baptised, even if they don't explicitly say this.  I'm hoping for a more detailed, sourced, and thorough answer here.
Comment: Are you seeking an experientially based answer?
Comment: @KorvinStarmast I hadn't thought of that.  I suppose experience could be a kind of support for a position, but I was definitely thinking more of papal encyclicals, passages from the catechism, and other official Church statements.  Maybe a book from the early Church or something, like the Didache but regarding reconciliation rather than all the stuff that covers.
Answer: There a guides for helping with examination of conscience, such as this short examination of conscience and this longer version. They often go through the 10 Commandments

Thou shalt not have other gods besides Me
Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain
Remember to keep holy the Lord's day
Honor thy father and thy mother
Thou shalt not murder
Thou shalt not commit adultery
Thou shalt not steal
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods

and give particular examples of violations of each commandment. Reviewing the commandments of the Church:

To go to Mass and refrain from servile work on Sundays and holy days
To go to Confession at least once a year (traditionally done during Lent)
To receive the Eucharist at least once a year, during the Easter Season (known as the "Easter duty")
To observe the days of fasting and abstinence
To help to provide for the needs of the Church according to one's abilities and station in life
To obey the marriage laws of the Church

and the capital sins (i.e., sins from which others arise):

Pride
Greed
Lust
Anger
Gluttony
Envy
Sloth

can also help.
As the Council of Trent says:

Tell your sins as they are in your mind, that is, as they appear to you, according to your own feeling about them.

See the appendix of The Secret of Confession: Including the Wonders of Confession for a short "How to Go to Confession."
Also, the Veni, Sancte Spiritus (Come, O Holy Ghost) prayer is commonly said at the beginning of the examination of conscience, to ask the Holy Ghost to enlighten you with the graces to discover your sins and make a good confession. You can hear it sung here.
Comment: Hadn't heard about the Veni. Good one!
Comment: Accepted for the quote from the Council of Trent, which was helpful in directing me towards the sort of further reading I am looking for.  (Also the rest of the advice is accurate, and it's my fault for not being clearer in my question as to what I was looking for that it isn't what I was looking for)
Answer: While it's tough to beat Geremia's excellent answer, the USCCB has an easy to access page with a variety of examinations of conscience that are tailored to fit a particular place in life.  We had good luck with those for some of our RCIA candidates who were coming to the Catholic Church from other confessions.
Our Church seemed to change the chosen hand outs about every three years (I think the diocese ordered such things in bulk) so suggesting one of the little pamphlets probably isn't as useful an answer as digital products.
This is the one pager for the Ten Commandments based inventory of where one is spiritually.
http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/sacraments-and-sacramentals/penance/upload/Examination-of-Conscience.pdf
There are .pdf files with helpful guidelines for the following common situations for where one is in life:
Examination of Conscience based on the Ten Commandments
Examination of Conscience in Light of Catholic Social Teaching
Examination of Conscience for Children
Examination of Conscience for Young Adults
Examination of Conscience for Single People
Examination of Conscience for Married Persons
Answer: The examination of conscience is a really complicated method of testing or measuring one's conscience. First, you need to really know yourself. Second, we really need to admit that we've done something that upsets the Lord which is known as a "sin". Third, if you are attending or receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation, tell all the sins you have committed to the priest. The perfect conscience is measured by honesty to him/herself and the presence of Lord in one's soul.


How is CMB related to the temperature of the universe

Question: As I understand it, CMB (cosmic microwave background) is the radiation emitted when matter decoupled at the early stages of the big bang. The thing I don't understand is do all stars emit this kind of radiation or just the ones formed at the early stages of the big bang and are those stars travelling at the speed of light away from us also how is the fact that light is redshift related to the temperature of empty space.
Comment: Just one small comment: at the time of decoupling there were no stars. The universe was (more or less) homogenously filled with Hydrogen and Helium (+ photons, dark matter and neutrinos) and that's pretty much it. No stars, no planets, no galaxies, no dense objects. The density of the gas was very low, essentially it was a good vacuum. And a side note: the mean free path of photons was around 1000 light years shortly before the recombination: http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~dhw/A5682/notes10.pdf
Answer: Today, stars don't emit the CMB – they emit much more energetic (hotter, higher-frequency, shorter-wavelength) radiation in general. CMB was emitted by "everything" that could emit radiation at the relevant time, around 400,000 years after the Big Bang. At that time, the radiation was in thermal equilibrium with everything else, so its distribution to frequencies was fully described by the Planck black body curve.
The universe was expanding and the wavelengths were just being expanded linearly with the size of the universe. The temperature was dropping inversely proportionally to the size of the Universe. At some moment, the radiation got decoupled so it started to live its own life, with the temperature no longer linked to the temperature of the matter around. The temperature continued to drop inversely proportionally to the size of the universe while the temperature of the stars etc. stayed higher and independent because the two subsystems no longer interacted.
None of these things has anything to do with the speed of divergence of mutually distant galaxies. The temperature is a local quantity and it's determined by the local physics while the mutual speed of distant galaxies is not a local effect. It is a global effect and an illusion of a sort, too. The increasing distance between the galaxies is due to the expansion of the space in between them. However, all the calculations of the temperature and its evolution may be applied locally at each place of the universe, independently of distant places of the universe, and this calculation of the temperature and its evolution is moreover the same at every place because the universe is uniform at cosmological scales.
Comment: Will CMB always be there for us to detect as time goes on? Also how do we know its 400,000 years after the big bang?
Comment: @user3911153 it will, as long as the observable universe keeps on getting bigger. If we somehow reach the end of the universe, the CMB will stop at some point.
Comment: @user3911153: As it continues to redshift, at some point it will stretch to such vast wavelengths it will be impossible to observe for all intents and purposes, though (think antenna the size of the Solar System...)


Restore farm backup and rename databases?

Question: I'm using the Backup-SPFarm PowerShell cmdlet to backup our SP 2010 Server farm and all of its associated databases. We want to test our restore process, and I'm wondering if it's possible to restore the farm databases (using the Backup-SPFarm backup files) to the same SQL Server instance, but with all different database names, so that our restoration test doesn't conflict with or overwrite the live farm databases. If not, we can stand up another instance of SQL Server for our restoration testing.
Comment: I understand why you want to do this, but don't use production for test.
Answer: I dont do this, even you can rename the DB while restoring the from backup but still you are on your production server.
Just think, more pressure on the SQL Server, resource fighting, and just a single mistake blow up your production Data.
I would go for separate SQL server for this test.
Comment: @Robert and Waqas, you are both right; we'll use the "NewDatabaseServer" parameter for Restore-SPFarm to point to a new SQL instance. Thanks for the reminder to keep it safe and simple :)


How to walk while using Azmodan's "All Shall Burn"ability?

Question: How to walk while using Azmodan's All Shall Burn ability? I see people do it. But when I channel and start to walk the ability stops, if I walk and then channel I stop.
Answer: On level 13, you take the talent March of Sin that makes you able to move while using your ability.

March of Sin
Azmodan can move at 75% speed while channeling All Shall Burn.

Note that you can try any hero, even if you don't own it, from the Shop tab and pressing "Try" button. You can try every hero (every skin) and see how they work, as well as experimenting with their talents.
Comment: It's also worth suggesting that you can play around with hero builds in *Try* mode. If you go into the Shop and click a Hero in there (whether you own it or not), you can test builds out even when you're still talent-gated.
Comment: Nice point. I will edit the answer for newcomers to the Nexus :)
Answer: As of the 1/4/2017 patch Azmodan can walk while channeling All Shall Burn at 40% move speed by default without talents. Additonally, the level 7 March of Sin talent increases the move speed while channeling to 80%.
Comment: I think your answer might fit better as an edit or comment to the accepted answer.  That would keep the relevant information together.


Is it safe to cook in discolored stainless steel pots?

Question: I sauteed some fresh cut veggies in a stainless steel wok and it has a rainbow tinge on the inner bottom? Is it safe to continue using this wok for future cooking?
Answer: If the pan has been always used in the kitchen and for cooking,
then is absolutely safe.
The phenomenon you observe is due to thin film interference. Is the same iridescence that we observe on soap bubbles or where a thin film of a greasy matter spread on a water surface.
In the pan case, the thin film causing the interference and the related coloured fringes is formed by metal oxides already present in the pan. Actually these oxides are exactly what makes the steel of the pan stainless and resistant to corrosion.
The phenomenon can be amplified if the pan has been overheated for instance while sauting to dryness.
The rainbow might be an annoyance but does not compromise your pan nor the quality of your food.
For those onto the physics and chemistry of this here are two possible starting links:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-doesnt-stainless-stee/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin-film_interference
In principle a thin layer of grease/oil can give the same effect. This is obviously not the case for a washed pan.
EDIT: As for OP mentioned a stainless steel pan I forgot to say that obviously also a non homogeneous thickness of reticulated fat can lead to fringes or spot in a seasoned iron pan.
Comment: I've discolored stainless by heating to a dull red glow. The pan is never the same, but you *can* cook in it. The color comes from having changed crystal structure and tempering, not any food substance. Don't do this.
Comment: @rackandboneman : polymerized oils on stainless steel are typically orange and splotchy (turning brown if you then overheat it).  The rainbow effect comes from overheating a dry pan.  (leaving it too long to pre-heat, when I've done it)
Comment: Could be polymerized oil (also presumably safe, given it is used as a seasoning in cast iron pans)?
Comment: @rackandboneman I see what you mean. Like in old warnish based on oils. Honestly I am not sure. It might be a possibility that some reticulation happens giving the same effect. But I would see it as a transient phenomenon as  the " warnish " should burn or continuously detached while cooking. Honestly as a chemist I cannot exclude something like that at least in principle. The rainbow should detach anyway during standard cleaning of the pan, as I would not expect any mechanical resistance from such as hypothetical but *thin* film.
Comment: @rackandboneman indeed seasoning an iron pan means reticulate some oil or fat on it. I did trascure that as OP mentioned a stainless steel, but the same can happens.


Why the name "optical phonon"?

Question: Why do we have two different types of phonons, optical and acoustical? Why are they called optical phonons?
Answer: As I understand this occurs when a cystalline solid has more than one atom in the primitive cell of the lattice. For simplicity I'll consider the case of two types of atoms, distinguished by their position in the primitive cell (but which may or may not be otherwise identical).  This gives rise to multiple modes of vibration.  The acoustical phonon corresponds to both types of atoms moving in phase in the long wavelength limit (that is, near the center of the 1st Brillouin zone), whereas the optical phonon corresponds to the two types moving out of phase, such that adjacent atoms move in opposite directions in the long-wavelength limit.
(For the case of only one atom in the primitive cell, you can also get adjacent atoms moving in opposite directions, but this happens at the edge of the 1st Brillouin zone, in the limit where the wave becomes a standing wave.)
They are called "optical" because in ionic crystals they can be excited by EM radiation, with the positive ions moving one way while their negatively charged neighbors move the other way.
We can see the two modes from the dispersion relation, which for two atoms in the primitive cell (in the 1-dimensional case) is given by:
$$\omega^2 = \beta \left( \frac{1}{m} + \frac{1}{M} \right) \pm \sqrt{\left( \frac{1}{m} + \frac{1}{M} \right)^2 - \frac{4 \sin^2 ka}{Mm}}$$
Here m and M are the masses of the two types of atoms.  There are two branches, the lower of which is the acoustical branch and the higher of which is the optical branch, with a gap between them.  (Note that the two branches still exist for equal masses, but the gap closes.)
Equation copied from this site, which also has this nice animation of the two modes.
Comment: why couldn't the atoms in a one-type-of-atom solid move out of phase also? Wouldn't those be optical phonons also?
Comment: @Seanny123 Yes, it's a very important fundamental concept in solid state physics.  I'm not sure if I can do justice to it in a comment, perhaps you should post a separate question on that? (Or have a look at an introductory text on solid state.)  The short version is that it's a cell of the reciprocal lattice (the lattice of k-vectors that arises from the Fourier transforms of the states in your original lattice).  It is relevant both to the case where the primitive cell contains one atom or multiple atoms.
Comment: To clarify, I believe they'd be 180 degrees out of phase if the wavelength of the radiation is large compared to the lattice spacing.
Comment: @BeauGeste I had seen some references to "two types of atoms", but on further review I think this really means "two atoms in a unit cell of the lattice".  I.e., the two atoms are distinguished only by the geometry of the lattice.  For instance, this page http://www.chembio.uoguelph.ca/educmat/chm729/phonons/optical.htm shows how the dispersion relations give rise to acoustical and optical branches -- the calculations are for different masses but you can see that the branches still exist when the masses are the same, just without the gap between them.
Comment: That should say "I.e. the two atoms *need only be* distinguished by the geometry of the lattice, they can of course also have different charge, mass, etc.  With one atom per unit cell you can also get neighboring atoms moving in opposite directions, but I think they only go 180 degrees out of phase in the limit that the wave becomes a standing wave.  This is different than the optical mode, which is more like two propagating waves (one for each "type" of atom) that are out of phase with each other.
Comment: I've expanded (and hopefully improved) my answer
Comment: What's this Brillouin zone you mention? Is it important? How does it apply to the case where the primitive cell only contains one atom?

Why the name "optical phonon"?


Yahoo account "secure" but spam sent from my address

Question: My Yahoo account shows no suspicious activity, only log-ins from my desktop and 2 of my devices. But a friend was spammed twice within a short time today from my email address. I use Yahoo's Account Key system, so there is no password to change. Should I be concerned about this? And what likely happened? Nobody else has reported getting spammed by me, so far at least. Thanks!
Comment: it is trivial for someone to set the "from" address as anyone's address - it's possible that your friend's account got hacked, and the attacker is using sources from their own address book to set the "from" address. There are lots of possibilities that could have enabled this to occur.
Answer: As mentioned by @schroeder, it is easy to fake the sender address when sending an email. Because of this, the value of a stolen account is not the address itself but its contacts.
The value in sending spam with a faked origin is to make mail seem to come from a trusted origin. By stealing your contact list and/or the list of people you have emailed, spammers are able to send everyone you know messages with your name on it. You might not trust an email from email@example.com but would you trust a hair product recommendation from your wife (or more precisely her email)? Often, the answer is yes.
If you are wondering if your account was compromised, ask your friends. If your account was hacked, they'd probably notice the recent increase of spammy emails with your name on it.
In addition, you can return the favor by telling your friends if you suspect that they've been hacked. While I don't suggest doing this by emailing them back (since that might alert a spammer that you are receptive), you could casually bring it up in a conversation (your mileage may vary ;)


Viewing Trello cards I am subscribed to

Question: Is there a way to view all of the cards to which I am subscribed in Trello? I would like to be able to see a listing of all the cards that I am subscribed to (similar to viewing all cards which you are a member of), but I don't see anywhere in the menus that you can do this.
Answer: If you click on your user portrait in the top right of the web application, you will see an option 'Cards'. Clicking this will display a list of all the cards you are subscribed to.
You then have the option to sort this list either 'By Board' or 'By Due Date'
Comment: I suppose it's a wrong answer. If I unsubscribe from a card it remains on my cards list. So I'm still curious where to find the list of all cards I'm subscribed to.
Comment: That shows cards you're a Member of, not what you're Subscribed to.

Viewing Trello cards I am subscribed to


Poster lay-out congress poster

Question: I was wondering if it was possible to make a poster with the following lay-out (this was made in Microsoft Office PowerPoint, but I've had a hard time with images and dragging everything everywhere so I'd like to make it in LaTeX).
Could anyone help me in any way to do this? Thank you very much.

I have heard of a beamer, but I have no clue on how to make the yellow frame and the blue frame around the text in the blocks.
EDIT:
I managed to do something with mdframed and put it like this in the beamer style:
<code>\setbeamertemplate{block begin}{\vskip.75ex\begin{beamercolorbox}ht=5ex,dp=0.5ex,center,leftskip=-1em,colsep*=.75ex]{block title}%\usebeamerfont*{block title}%{\phantom{Gg}\Large\insertblocktitle}\end{beamercolorbox}{\ifbeamercolorempty[bg]{block body}{}{\nointerlineskip\vskip-0.5pt}}\usebeamerfont{block body}\begin{mdframed}linewidth=1.7mm,linecolor=ugentblauw,leftmargin=-.30cm,rightmargin=+.58cm,skipabove=-60cm]\begin{beamercolorbox}[leftskip=1em,colsep*=.75ex,sep=0.5ex,vmode]{block body}   \ifbeamercolorempty[bg]{block body}{\vskip-.25ex}{\vskip-.75ex}\vbox{}}\setbeamertemplate{block end}{\end{beamercolorbox}\end{mdframed}}
</code>
Yet, this gives me the following result:

Leaving ugly and very thin lines at the left. Any way to fix it?
Comment: Go to http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/341/how-to-create-posters-using-latex and read about the different options in LaTeX with examples.
Comment: Please review edited post.
Answer: Personally I like the baposter class (  http://www.brian-amberg.de/uni/poster/ ) . It's somewhat limited and I usually end up hacking horribly, but boxes like that are precisely in the scope of that class

Poster lay-out congress poster


Is there a limit on how many distinct tokens can be sent in one transaction?

Question: Let's say someone has 10'000 different tokens on one address. Each token is in a single UTxO. Would it be possible to send them all in one transaction to another address (or the same address), so they are all in one UTxO? Or is there a limit on how many distinct tokens one can send in a single transaction?
Answer: The maximum transaction size is specified in the genesis configuration of the chain. For reference, here is a genesis config for the Shelley Testnet.
The maxTxSize is set to 16384 (bytes, I assume).
"maxTxSize": 16384,

So. Yes, there is definitely a limit to how many different tokens you could include in a UTxO.
This doesn't answer the question on limits to the number of inputs for a transaction. Obviously these couldn't result in an output larger than maxTxSize, but I can't say if there are additional constraints on the number of inputs. I'm curious to know so I might keep looking. In the mean time, I hope that helps.
Answer: We can simulate this in the playground. I set up three tokens T1,T2 and T3 and gave one of each to Wallet 1 at the beginning.
Then I sent three separate transactions, sending each token in its own transaction to Wallet 2, resulting in 3 new UTxOs in Wallet 2, one for each token.
I then paid all the tokens back to Wallet 1 in a single transaction.
If you zoom in on the image, you can see that there are four inputs, which are the lovelace for fees plus one UTxO for each token. One of the outputs to Wallet 1 is a single UTxO with all three tokens included. The other output is the change given back to Wallet 2 after Lovelace fees are deducted.
As mentioned by Aoaddeola, there should be no theoretical limit to the number of tokens this can scale for.
Answer: To the best of my knowledge, there is no limit to the amount of tokens a transaction can contain.
A Value itself has the following Signature Map CurrencySymbol (Map TokenName Integer). Which literarily means an unlimited number of tokens, since Map poses no limit to the amount of elements it can contain.


Zoom to the whole page using ArcPy

Question: I work with several MXD files. When opening those MXD files, i want to see the whole layout view, as this button function:
.
Is there a way, using arcpy, zooming to the whole page in the layout view, so in the next time i will open those MXD files, the default will be the layout view, zooming to the whole page?
I started to write this code, but i don't know how to continue with it:
<code>import arcpy,os,sys,string
import arcpy.mapping
from arcpy import env

env.workspace = r"G:\desktop\Project"
for mxdname in arcpy.ListFiles('*.mxd'):
     print mxdname
     mxd = arcpy.mapping.MapDocument(r"G:\desktop\Project\\" + mxdname)
     df = arcpy.mapping.ListDataFrames(mxd, "Layers")[0]
     mxd.activeView='PAGE_LAYOUT'
     print 'PAGE_LAYOUT'
     mxd.save()
del  mxd
</code>
This code don't zooming to the whole page, but change from data view to layout view, and that isn't my complete goal.
Answer: I am afraid this is not exposed via arcpy. You will need either to write a .NET/Java add-in or call ArcObjects from Python using comtypes.

Zoom to the whole page using ArcPy


Should I ask generic questions here or on main meta?

Question: It's sometimes not clear whether to ask here or on main meta (an example Q: What about questions already answered elsewhere?). Advantage here is that the answer would be more specific to our site, and the advantage on main meta is that there's more eyes on the question. What criteria do you use?
Answer: Ask here if it only applies to this site; ask on the main meta if it applies to all the sites (or at least multiple sites). The question you linked to probably belongs on the main meta; I'll move it there
Answer: If in doubt, ask here.
Stack Exchange staff monitors all the Meta sites. Even if your question is intended for the developers, they should see it.
Questions that are specific to this site, such as discussing tags (discussion tags) or rendering bugs (bug design), must be on this meta.
If your question is applicable to the whole network, it would be a good idea to search the main Meta first; many ideas have been discussed there before. But this is not compulsory; it's fine if you want to be a member of this site and don't care that it's part of a wider network.
If you ask here and the question turns out to be applicable site-wide, a moderator may migrate it to the main Meta. This will be handled transparently: a link is kept here and will redirect you automatically.


Is there any evidence of half (or quarter etc) giants in Game of Thrones/ASoIaF?

Question: There are several people (seems like mostly in Westeros...) who are very tall, like 7 or 8 feet tall or more. The Cleganes, Hodor, Greatjon Umber, etc. are described as extremely massive men. Is there any evidence that they have giant ancestors? There doesn't seem to be much information on giants, but interestingly I can't think of any huge men from Essos and as far as I know we have only seen giants in the north of Westeros so I'm wondering if there is some sort of connection there.
Comment: I think Mero "the Titan's Bastard" from Braavos was described as being pretty huge? While Hodor and possibly the Umbers are probably part giant I think the others are more likely to be natural cases of gigantism, much like Tyrion is a natural case of dwarfism (and that such people will tend to be very visible and won't struggle to find work...).
Answer: We don't have any definite proof and the only mention I remember is about Hodor.  In the first book, chapter 53 (Bran's POV), Osha makes this remark about Hodor:

"Now there's a big man," she said. "He has giant's blood in him, or I'm the queen."
Comment: @TheMathemagician, I think the fact Osha is a wildling makes her opinion more pertinent, not less. After all, wildlings are aware that giants still exist and have lived alongside them for centuries. They know much more about them than some southern Maester. Also, if there are part-giants they probably live north of the Wall, where they are in frequent contact with people and can therefore mix with them.
Comment: Well, that answers the question pretty clearly I think. Thanks.
Comment: Osha is a wilding and her opinions cannot be taken as fact. Cross-breeding with giants is not likely and hardly necessary to explain a 7 ft man. There is some evidence that Hodor is a descendant of Ser Duncan the Tall.
Answer: Yes
...according to Osha she even mentions about the woman giants taking human men to create half bloods.

"Let Maester Luwin ride beyond the Wall," Osha said. "He'll find giants then, or they'll find him. My brother killed one. Ten foot tall she was, and stunted at that. They've been known to grow big as twelve and thirteen feet. Fierce things they are too, all hair and teeth, and the wives have beards like their husbands, so there's no telling them apart. The women take human men for lovers, and it's from them the half bloods come. It goes harder on the women they catch. The men are so big they'll rip a maid apart before they get her with child." She grinned at him. "But you don't know what I mean, do you, boy?"
A Game of Thrones, Bran VI

When she spies Hodor she even seems to believe he must be part giant.

Osha eyed him with a sour smile. "Now there's a big man," she said. "He has giant's blood in him, or I'm the queen."
A Game of Thrones, Bran VI

There's lot of talk of people being the size of giants or a giant of a man but nothing really links them to actually being the blood of giants over just being abnormally large. These have referred to Robert Baratheon, The Cleganes, House Umber and many others. Note though that House Umber's sigil is a giant breaking chains and they do have their roots in the First Men so they have potential to have giant's blood in them.


Negative SEO impact of offering free stuff on website?

Question: If I'm not mistaken, emails offering free stuff are more likely to be considered spam by spam removal software. Is there a similar problem with offering free stuff on a website? Of course, if someone will be searching for "free cake", he'll be shown those results. But what if he's searching for "cake"? Will a site offering "free cake" rank lower because it will be considered spam-like?
Comment: I'm guessing that Google doesn't have an algorithm that specifically deals with "free" from a spam perspective.  Any rankings effect would be the result of how users react to it.  I'd imagine that "free" would increase CTR (and raise rankings).  If users don't ultimately like your free offer (just a trial, for example), they would click back to the results and choose a competitor.   That click back would lower rankings.  Interesting question.
Comment: Short of actually being spammy, which by the way, also includes e-mail, there should be no negative effect what so ever. Free stuff is offered on the web all the time. Just the use of the term *free* should not be a show stopper. However, since the term is soooooooooo common, it really has no value in weighting as a term. This means that matches can be made, but other SEO factors can make this match moot and any site should easily overcome the value of the word *free* with just plain ole SEO. So I would not expect to compete *with* this term. But I would definitely use the term if it applies.
Comment: The term is important to use if people are searching for "free widgets".     If that phrase gets lots of searchers, I'd consider a free offering to cater to users.
Comment: No it not impact on SEO, until you add a lot of freestuff spam links on your website.
Answer: If your site is useful, relevant, and does not participate in spammy practices, there should be no adverse effects for using the word "free". I have worked on legitimate erectile dysfunction (big pharma) sites, which is normally a spam-heavy subject, and they rank just fine. Now, if you are buying links, link to "bad neighborhoods", and cloak keywords - yes, you'll be penalized. Stay legit and you will be fine.
Comment: Do the legitimate big pharma sites use the word "free"?
Answer:
But what if he's searching for "cake"? Will a site offering "free cake" rank lower because it will be considered spam-like?

Google's objective is to serve the most relevant content as fast as possible to user queries.
So if user are querying for 'free cake', Google will serve 'free cake' content of high quality and skip 'free cake' content of low quality. In other words, the word 'free' has no positive of negative impact on rankings by default. Only the content determines whether stuff is spammy or not.
If users like your 'free cake' content and Google sees it, it may decide to show it in 'cake' search results too. And if 'cake' users like it too, it will rank there too on the long run.


Small bedroom studio, what type of lighting for portraits?

Question: I have a study which I use for a studio. Effective space is about 6x9 feet. Celling hight is only 7.5 feet tall. I usually take portraits (mostly self portraits) in the studio. Walls are white and the ceiling is white as well. Currently using CFL continuous lighting diffused with 43" shoot through umbrellas. Having the greatest difficulty shooting portraits where the background (thunder grey muslin) is 1-2 stops darker than the subject because of light spill. What would be the ideal lighting equipment for this space? Speedlights in a SoftBox? Monolights?
Answer: I recently visited a professional photographer to learn some portrait techniques, and he used some black "boards" that he placed up against the white walls to avoid light spill.
The boards were simply long boards of polystyrene painted black (I think they are made for heat insulation purposes). So they are easy to pull out and set up when you need them.
Answer: Small rooms make very bad studios. No lights or light modifiers are going to help you much, if the light reaches you subject then it's going to past your subject and bounce off every surface.
Your only hope is to reduce the amount of light bouncing off your walls by covering them with a dark material. You can use velvet or any widely available slightly shiny black material for this purpose, or if you can, get something like this:
http://www.filmandvideolighting.com/ducocl54x15.html
Answer: The type of light you use has approximately zero effect (unless you're using the CFLs "naked" rather than in a reflector, which will necessarily increase spill). No matter what you use, you need to manage the task of putting light where you want light and not putting light where you don't want light.
Both of the previous answers posted (by Pete and Matt Grum) concentrate on one aspect of the problem you're facing, and that's managing wall/ceiling reflections. Both have suggested using black panels of one sort or another to cut down on those reflections, and that's a valid suggestion. But it's not the only tool at your disposal, either.
The only good things you can say about shoot-through umbrellas is that they are big, portable and (relatively) cheap. And on an exterior location or in a very large space, those are the only things you'd really care about. In a small studio, the downsides far outweigh the good. They reflect more light than they let through, so there's an awful lot of rear spill, and the front surface (when used as a shoot-through) is convex. That does two relatively evil things: it throws light everywhere, and it creates a light source that is significantly closer to the subject at the centre than it is at the edges, so it's not nearly as soft as it could be for the size. Something built along the lines of the Westcott Halo will fix the rear spill issue; something more like the Apollo or Apollo Orb will fix both the rear spill and the convex surface issues. (Note: those are the brand-name items; rip-offs abound at much lower prices. And don't feel guilty about them, since any patents on the basic design would have expired years ago. The Apollo is at least 25 years old, and probably older.) If you can use a brolly and the lights aren't of the "hot" variety, you can use a Halo- or Apollo-type modifier.
That handles the basics of pointing the light. Then there's the whole inverse-square(ish) law thing to take into consideration. Get your lights closer to your subject, and they will be proportionally further from the background (even if that means that the actual distance to the background is smaller). The same goes for reflectors/fill cards: get them in close enough that they're only doing the job you want them to do (and you'll have to bring the reflecctors closer if you bring the lights closer, otherwise you'll get a lot more contrast).
If you need to light someone full-length in a small space, it's far preferable to use a tall light in close than a mid-sized or smaller light at a distance. That can mean something like two or three smallish square softboxes stacked, which is often easier and cheaper to do than a single large strip box, especially if you're using CFLs or speedlights. (Square softboxes are easy to fill with light, but they're the least-handy shape for most lighting. Strips are almost always a better choice. In this case, making a "strip box" out of small, square softboxes that you can easily fill with inexpensive light is a great compromise.) A C-stand with clamps and arms would be the usual way to build the stack, but it's something you can easily DIY for under $50 as well.
Grids, too, will help a lot when it comes to keeping light from winding up where you don't want it. But they can be expensive, or fragile (poor stitching and fabric), or both, so they may not be the best option for you. If the budget is there, though...
Finally, you can flag the light(s) to keep them from directly hitting the background. If the reflections hitting the background are from those very distant walls and ceilings (distant, now that you've brought the lights in tighter), they'll be at a relatively low intensity.
Answer: With so much white space around that close to the scene you will never ever be able to control the light in the way you aim for. The white walls act like big but uncontrollable reflectors.
So turn the small room into a black box and use some sort of black curtains or carton to darken the wall(s) and ceiling.
The next thing your set would require is space, meaning distance between the sujet and the background. Unfortunately you don't have that.
So use barn doors or build your own from black carton (should be cheap in every stationary shop) that shields the key light (the main light source for your model) from falling onto the background.
You may want to use separate lights for the background which you need to shield from falling onto the sujet.
And that's basically it. Everything else is up your creativity.
You can achieve all that with one or two torches as well as with an army of the most powerful studio flash lights available.
However, as you photograph real humans, those who breathe and blink and always bounce a bit, I'd strongly suggest flash lights. You may go for used or cheap ones but ensure that their power can be reduced in a controlled way up to 1/32th at minimum, preferably 1/64 or 1/128.


Why can Perrin's study of Brownian motion demonstrate the existence of atoms

Question: I really cannot see why the Brownian motion is linked with the being of atoms. Cannot it be explained without atoms? You just need some fluctuations.
Comment: Perrin wrote a very famous semi-popular book on his work, and [an English translation appeared in 1916](https://archive.org/details/atomsjean00perrrich) that is freely available on the internet. I'd be very surprised if your concerns are not very adequately addressed in his book, so I recommend looking there.
Comment: Perrin performed his experiments in 1908 after [Einstein and Smoluchowski](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownian_motion#Einstein.27s_theory) came up with a detailed quantitative theory of Brownian motion based on the atomic theory and Boltzmann's statistical mechanics. "Some fluctuations" could not make predictions which Perrin confirmed, so his results were seen as confirmation of both atomism and statistical mechanics (which Boltzmann unfortunately did not live to see).
Answer: More precisely it has to do with existence of molecules. The demonstration was obtained after Einstein and Smoluchowski developed a QUANTITATIVE theory (based on the molecular theory) whose
predictions could be measured. Measuring parameters of Brownian motion (by Perrin)
confirmed the theory. There was no better (or competing) explanation of these measured parameters.


2hrs 15 mins layover time sufficient for Chicago?

Question: I am travelling from India to USA. 1st stop is at Chicago and a layover for my next flight is 2hrs 5 mins. starting to end is single ticket and same airlines. is this time would be sufficient considering the immigration and customs check at Chicago as port of entry.
Answer:
Handy connection guide https://www.flychicago.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/O%27Hare/MyFlight/TransferGuide.pdf
You have a good chance of making it unless your inbound is significantly delayed, there are baggage problems or lines at immigration, customs, or security are unusually long.
If you miss the connection, the airline will simply put you on the next available flight.


postgres npgsql DDL statement success or failure

Question: I am using npgsql with a postgres DB, writing a DB updater that will need to execute a series of (usually) DDL statements like "ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN blah..." and the like. The simple way to do this is with Command.ExecuteNonQuery, however I need to know if each statement succeeded or not. ExecuteNonQuery returns "the number of rows effected" but it appears that this is always 0 for DDL regardless of success or failure, since the content of the table is not altered, only the structure.
What is the simplest way of determining the success or failure of arbitrary DDL (and update) commands read in from a text file? Can/Should/Must I wrap each statement in a procedure with an exception handler? Is there a simpler, more straightforward way?
One issue I see with wrapping in a procedure is that the procedure itself must then be part of the DB, and the update process is no longer as independent. I would like to avoid this. Of course, my updater could create the procedure if needed, and remove it after, but this seems cumbersome. Am I missing something obvious?
________Edit for clarification:
@Laurenz Albe is of course completely correct, if there is a syntax error, key duplication, missing column referenced, etc., an exception will be thrown. This probably covers nearly all cases. However, I have encountered issues where the SQL is valid but may or may not actually do anything useful - for example, if there is a WHERE clause, I may be expecting some (particular) number of 'rows effected'. The absence of an exception merely tells me that the statement was valid. When can or cannot I rely on the return value of ExecuteNonQuery, or is there a simple alternative?
Answer: If a statement fails, you'll get an exception.
There is no way to miss that unless you catch and ignore exceptions, which is never ok.


True from false

Question: Today, I was reading an article about the new info regarding the 9th plannet in the system .I tried to understand more,hence I researched the net and I got into Youtube videos and pages written about that topic. A lot of other info about similar things like twin sun came up as well. My issue started when I realised the more I look into it the more "specialists" with impressive credentials I find and
more conspiracy theory come up.
QUESTION: for a non scientist person like me how would you recommend to filter info and what can be done to keep on the science path when all the lecturers look "qualified". How do you decide what to belive in?
Thank you
Comment: In most scientific matters, Wikipedia is a good start, much better than Youtube. In this case, the relevant page is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_Nine. Even if you do not read it completely, it should help dispel crazy claims (jut see if they are reflected there).
Answer: Perhaps the best advise I could give you is: learn the basics!
It is very difficult to get fooled by those 'specialists' once you understand the basic facts: what can you learn from the motion of the planets, how gravity works, ... these are all questions that will help you understand and be critical about all the mis-information you will find around, and they are not too difficult to digest for a person already interested in science such as yourself.
From my experience as a member of Physics SE I can tell you are in the right place already, if you're curious about a subject, ask around, I am pretty sure somebody will come up with an outstanding answer.
Answer: There are a number of heuristics that can help.
First: Anybody talking about a conspiracy of scientists to hide scientific knowledge has already demonstrated that they're either delusional or dishonest. The whole social basis of science is that people get rewarded for finding and disclosing info. Even one person presenting real evidence is enough to get others trying to prove or disprove it. Any "vast conspiracy" about twin suns or polar ice wall would break down quickly.
Another heuristic is bad logic. Quora questions have a lot of this: "Since we don't even claim to have gone to the Moon in decades, how can anybody believe we did 50 years ago?" Or more recently "what can we learn about the location of Martian cities from which space probes they code to shoot down?"  Not a real need to read much further on those...
Answer: people, who are true specialists, have the ability to explain their stuff in simple easily understandable language to anyone, if you have difficulty understanding someone even with a lot of credentials, then they are likely have poor understanding of what they talk about too

True from false


run LEDs with cellphone charger

Question: I wanted to run LED bulbs with a mobile phone charger/adapter ( input: 220v AC, output: 5v 350mA, nokia). but the LEDs become very hot & I'm afraid they may burn. i don't know the ratings of these LEDs bcoz the shopkeeper from whom i bought these also doesn't know. but they r the common type in market.  i think I should reduce the power. but which one? (ampire or volt, which harms LED?) & how can i do that? i tried to add a resistor in 'series connection' but it make the LEDs very dim. i heard resistors in series don't reduce voltage, they reduce ampire. is it true? should i add resistor in parallel to reduce voltage?
please pardon my poor English. I'm not a native English speaker & also newbie to electronics.
Comment: What value of a resister did you use? LED's primarily operate via current. Resisters in series do drop some voltage, but it's primarily acting as a current limiter for an LED. We can guess, but it would be helpful to have some data on the LED's in question. Your resistor choice should be based on how much voltage you want to drop across the resistor to provide the LED with it's forward voltage (which in turn feeds it the proper current).
Comment: Are your LEDs in series or parallel? How many are there? By common type do you mean 5mm? What color are the LEDs?(I've found that forward voltages can vary quite a bit depending on LED color). Without knowing the LED specs (forward voltage and current rating) it's really just a guessing game. Choose a resistor that would work for a same color/size LED that you have specs for, and then adjust the value to get the right brighness/current.
Comment: Follow advice here BUT also do some reading on voltage, current, and resistors and "Ohms law". Once you understand the basics add LEDs. This learning will reward you many times over. If you just accept answers without understanding you will remain bemused,
Answer: For most common red, yellow and green LEDs, you should use a resistor of 150 to 510 Ohms in series with each LED.
150 Ohms will limit the current to about 20 mA - the recommended maximum for common LEDs.  Higher resistance will reduce the current, and LED brightness.
Answer: You should a resistor in series with each LED in order to limit the current through them, unless the LEDs contain their own resistor.
If the LEDs become too dim, try a smaller value resistor.

run LEDs with cellphone charger


Present perfect tense and specific time expression?

Question: According to many grammar textbooks, present perfect tense should not be used with specific time expression. Therefore, it is grammatically wrong to say "I have sold my house on 10 December 2018."
However, I often see this type of sentence in the writings from the United States:
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and affixed the Official Seal of said City this 26th day of August, 1954.
Questions:
Does the word 'this' make it an exception that 'present perfect tense' can be used with specific time expression in this construction?
or
Is the use of present perfect tense with specific time expression allowed only in American English?
Comment: The tense seems redundant if you mention a specific date.  "I sold my house on 10 December 2018" says the same thing in fewer words.  In regards to the American English usage, I wouldn't say its common.  The example you gave seems to be very formal, perhaps a speech or legal statement, which may bend the rules to add emotion/emphasis/flow/procedure.  Also - your example seems to come from 1954, usage rules have evolved a lot since then.
Comment: We are required to show background research effort to avoid the question being closed.
Comment: This is not much of American English.
Answer: The signer of a legal document is not narrating a past event, as in your example

I sold my house on 10 Dec. 2018.

but testifying that he/she has very recently signed and applied an official seal to the document on a specific date.
This usage is called the present perfect of the recent past. The whereof and hereunto are also clues that legal jargon is filled with 18th and 19th century forms which have no bearing on present day English.
Comment: Jargon apart, it's still a valid and necessary structuring. Btw, this is **present** perfect, not past perfect. Also, rather than a recent event, it's an event that has relevence to the present (context).
Comment: Oops, past perfect of the recent past would be an interesting tense. Corrected. I disagree with your analysis, as the relevAnce of the document doesn't affect how the event is depicted. Validity also doesn't enter into the mix because simple past would be just as valid if custom didn't suggest otherwise.
Comment: @KarG Note the "necessary" in my comment above.
Comment: Re: In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and affixed the Official Seal of said City this 26th day of August, 1954. I randomly picked this sentence as an example. The year suggests that it's archaic usage. I work as a translator.  I often see use of present perfect tense with specific time expression in modern day notary public forms from the United States. Any suggestions?
Comment: @TanchnitRhutnkzin: That would depend on the target language. Slavic languages, for instance, would use a perfective verb. Just use a formal register or compare similar legal language.


My cast iron has become flaky, did I damage it?

Question: So I am quite new to this cast iron thing. After few uses I tried to clean it with kosher salt. Now some parts of it look like it's all flaky, as if the layer will come off if I scratch it with my fingernail. The part is grayish in color. Is it the seasoning that has come off, or have I damaged my pan? How do you really know the difference? I mean, how easy it is to damage a cast iron pan in a way it is no longer useful, and what will that damage look like?
Answer: If it's flaking, it wasn't seasoned right to begin with. However it really only matters on the cooking surface. You want seasoning to build up, but it shouldn't flake.
See if it really is coming off, try with you fingernail. If it's coming off then get all of it off that you can by chipping it away. Scrape it off. If it doesn't come off then leave it alone, and season as normal another new layer.
If you aren't happy with it, you can always strip it and start over but that's usually something you end up wishing you hadn't done. You do this by putting your cast iron in the oven and running it through a cleaning cycle. Be warned, don't do this unless you already know what to do and how to season your newly bare cast iron.
Old cast iron seasoning is the best, you don't want to start over. I have some with a 1/4 inch of seasoning (I am exaggerating) on the outside of the pan and it looks crusty, but the inside seasoning and finish is baby skin smooth and slicker than any Teflon coating. I keep it that way by scrubbing lightly with a green scrubby to "tip" the bumps down before putting back in the hot stove to cook another thin layer of oil.
You can't ruin cast iron except by breaking it. Don't worry, it's not ruined, it just needs some care. Some of my best cast iron was a lump of rust I rescued from the junk store.
Comment: You are so right about buying old, used cast iron — it's like gold. In fact, I can't think of any other object that retains its total usefulness and functionality, no matter how old it gets. Indeed, some of the oldest, US made cast iron is far, far superior to anything available in stores today.
Answer: I have a decades old Indian "tava."  It's an 8", round, concave, cast iron surface for cooking flat breads on a stove top.  The outer 1" of the tava (the 1" around the edges, furthest from the center or the flame, routinely flakes for two reasons:
1.  Because the outer edge typically doesn't get hot enough, as it's furthest from the flame.
2.  Because the outer edge typically doesn't get cooked upon.  (A typical flat bread is less than 7" diameter).  So, oils that I add to the flat bread only minimally, if at all, reach the outer edges of the tava.
Bottom line, flaking is normal under these conditions.  About once a year I have to scrape the flaked material off.  After doing this I very lightly coat the entire cooking surface with canola oil and place the tava in a 450-degree oven to season it.  Regardless, the outer edge of the tava will start to flake again because of how I use the pan.  I suppose I could overcome this imbalance in the cooking surface by routinely seasoning the outer edge, but that's a lot of work.  The main thing I care about is that the inner 7" is smooth as glass and performs beautifully - even after 50+ years (My mother used this tava and now I use it).
Answer: I had that problem at first — I believe it was because I had been too aggressive in my initial seasoning process, by using too much oil.
I decided to start over by leaving the pans in a super hot oven (550°F) for a few hours — you could also use the self-cleaning cycle if your oven has one. After cooling, all the old seasoning can be scrubbed off with soap and water and you'll be down to bare cast iron. It's important to immediately season the pan again or it will start to rust.
People have differing philosophies about what kind of oil to use. I used plain old canola oil, with very good results. The most important thing I learned was to only use a very thin coat of oil — wipe it on, and then off again with a paper towel. If there's a "layer of oil" on the pan, that's what will form that soft coating that flakes off.
It'll take a few cycles of seasoning before the pan is ready to use, but the thin coatings will result in a much harder seasoned surface that will remain beautifully non-stick, the more you continue to cook with it.
Answer: The flakes are burnt oil. They occur because oil residue has built up in the pores of the pan and when it gets too hot they flake off. Companies who make such pans often deliberately place such oil deposits on the pan to retard corrosion. Also, many cooks will bake on oil to regenerate this oil layer, called "seasoning," as kind of a non-stick surface.
You can recondition the pan by scouring it with Scotch Brite and renewing the seasoning oil.
Personally, I don't mess with seasoning at all because it is a hassle and it can absorb bad odors and bacteria. Corrosion is caused by acids; so long as you keep the pH of the pan basic it will not rust. This can be done by rubbing it with baking soda.
Comment: Dude, this answer doesn't apply to cast iron. Not sure what you have, perhaps seasoned steel pans, but you would not be able to cook on cast iron at all with how you care for your pans.
Comment: I don't think you have cast iron, I think you have what's called seasoned steel which is an entirely different animal. Cast iron is cast in a mold, and it's inherently porous kinda like clay. Seasoned steel is stamped or forged from sheet steel which is relatively speaking anyway, not porous.
Comment: either that or you don't realize your pots and pans are seasoned and you have been maintaining a thin scrubbed down seasoning all along and just don't understand that.
Comment: @Escoce The idea you need to "season" a cast iron pan is just an old wives tale. Sure if you cook something like an egg in a new iron pan with no oil or butter some will stick. Well, I USE BUTTER. This whole "seasoning" thing is just a lot of hullabaloo.


Basketball - Blocking and Catching Shots

Question: Let's assume an offensive player takes a shot on the basket.
If a defensive player catches the shot in the air without goal tending, is that considered a block, a steal, or both in the statistics?
Answer: According to the NCAA 2018-19 season Statistician manual Section 1 Article 6:

Blocked shots are counted as attempts when, in the opinion of the statistician, the ball clearly was in  flight before being blocked; the player was in the obvious act of shooting with the shooting hand moving toward the basket; or the player was airborne and moving toward the basket with the intention of a dunk or layup and the ball in position for the shot. If there is doubt about whether the player was in the act of shooting, the interpretation shall be that he or she was not.

Section 6 of the same document outlines a steal as follows:

A steal is credited to a player when the player's positive, aggressive action(s), which includes contact with the ball, causes a turnover by an opponent. This may be accomplished by:
A. Taking the ball away from an opponent in control of the ball.
B. Getting a hand on the ball in control by an opponent and causing a
  held ball to be called, and having his or her team be awarded the ball
  for a throw-in.
C. Batting a ball in control by an opponent to a teammate.
D. Batting a ball in control by an opponent away from and off the
  opponent and out of bounds.
E. Intercepting an opponent's pass.
F. Deflecting an opponent's pass to a teammate.
G. Deflecting an opponent's pass away from and o  an op- ponent and
  out of bounds.

Based on the finding that a block is defined specifically in the context of the act of taking shot, this would ultimately be defined as solely a block/blocked shot by the statistician even if possession was changed to the defending team.
Answer: When I first read the question, I read it as the player grabbing the ball after it missed the rim.  But Coach-D pointed out that the better interpretation is that the ball is caught immediately after the shot.  I've changed my answer to reflect that scenario.
The NBA rulebook does not have concrete definitions for some of these terms, so I'm going to refer to the FIBA Statisticians Manual.
Steal:

A steal is awarded to a defensive player when his action causes a turnover by an opponent. A steal
  must always include touching the ball, but does not necessarily have to be controlled.

Intercepting or deflecting a pass
Taking the ball away from an opponent holding or dribbling the ball
Picking up a loose ball after a mistake of an offensive player

Steals happen interferes with normal handling or passing of the ball, not from a shot.  No steal is awarded.
Block:

A blocked shot is awarded to a player any time he appreciably makes contact with the ball to alter
  the flight of a FGA and the shot is missed. It recognises a clear rejection or deflection of a shot by a
  defensive player. The ball may or may not have left the hand of the shooter for the block to be
  counted.

The defensive player's catch is indeed responsible to change the shot, so a block (and a rebound) are awarded.
Comment: You should probably add the definition for *rebound* too. It may turn out not to be one of those either (or at least, not for the player who catches the ball).
Answer: If it is a "shot" - a player attempting to score - then it is a block and a rebound. A shot cannot be a steal.
Below is someone summarizing basketball scoring.   As mentioned there are no "official" guides made by NBA or like federation so these are basically guidelines passed down and often different organizations will vary (there is no variation on your situation but there is on assists, turnovers, and FGA).  But I could have easily been the person writing the guidelines below.
So it is clear if it is a Field Goal Attempt (a shot) that if a person jumps to catch it, that is a block.   But in bold below - it also clearly shows it is a rebound.   Every time a team gains a possession of a ball there needs to be a stat that reflects that.   The options are a steal, a rebound, foul, turnover, or a made basket.   Even if the other team goes for a rebound and knocks it out of bounds the rewarded team is honored a "team rebound" that is not attributed to a player.   The team rebound confuses people because it does not add up in the player stat sheet.

In the past, basketball statistics were a luxury available only to professional and major college teams. For the average coach, statistics were a nightmare, requiring great amounts of time and effort in acquiring and training statisticians and then manually compiling the various stats and percentages. For most coaches stats were just not worth all the effort. But, computers have changed all of this. They have taken the huge burden and responsibility of statistics off the coaches' back, while providing them a wealth of information that coaches only a decade ago dreamed about. And, the best news of all is that the same software that is currently being used on the university and professional teams is now available for any team on any levels. There are even tablet and hand held versions available.
To be of value, though, statistics must be accurate. Inaccurate or incomplete stats have about as much value as no stats at all. Today's software programs insure accuracy in stat keeping. By using prompts, they actually lead statisticians into making correct data entry. No longer will there be score sheets with more rebounds than missed shots, more steals than turnovers, or more assists than made shots. Software programs, such as Cybersports for basketball, also have built in logic and powerful editing capabilities along with intensive built in help utilities that include official rules and guidelines. In addition, instant cumulative or season statistics are also now available, a task that once took weeks to achieve.
Official Statistics Rules and Guidelines
FIELD GOAL ATTEMPT (FGA)
A field goal attempt is credited to a player anytime the ball is shot, thrown, or trapped at the proper basket. The act of shooting begins with the shooting motion and ends when the ball has left the shooter's hand.
A field goal attempt is not credited when a player is fouled in the act of shooting and the try is unsuccessful.
A field goal attempt is not credited when an official rules that a foul occurred prior to the attempt.
A field goal attempt is not credited when an official rules that a violation occurred prior to the attempt.
A field goal attempt is not credited when offensive basket interference or goal tending occurs on the try.
A field goal attempt is not charged if a shot is taken near the expiration of time for a period or shot clock when the shot is not made and the shot was either a desperation attempt or not a reasonable attempt to make a field goal.
Blocked shots are counted as field goal attempts.
FIELD GOAL MADE (FG)
A field goal made is credited to a player when an attempt is successful or when an official awards points for defensive basket interference or goal tending.
A made field goal is credited when a player tips the ball into the basket.
A made goal is credited when a player is fouled in the act of shooting and the try is successful.
When a field goal is made at the wrong basket, it is mentioned as a footnote, and is not credited to any individual player.
A field goal made is not credited when a defensive player tips the ball into the basket, but instead is mentioned as a footnote.
REBOUND (REB)
A rebound is credited to a player or team every time a field goal or free-throw attempt is unsuccessful. A rebound is credited to a player when:
A player who immediately gains possession of the ball after a missed shot.
A jumper whose team gains possession on a jump ball situation created by two opposing players rebounding the ball simultaneously.
A player who tips a missed shot in an attempt to score.
A player on a tap-out if a teammate receives the ball; otherwise, to the opponent gaining possession.
A player retrieving a blocked shot.
Team Rebounds are credited to a team when:
A missed or blocked shot goes directly out of bounds or is deflected out of bounds before individual player possession can be established.
A free-throw attempt misses the rim completely, and the ball is awarded out of bounds.
A missed shot bounces over the backboard or touches a guide wire or support of the backboard.
Dead Ball rebounds are credited to a team when:
Possession is retained after a missed free-throw attempt which is followed by another attempt.
Possession is retained after a missed technical foul shot.
Time expires prior to a player or team gaining possession of a missed shot.
A foul occurs on a missed shot and the ball becomes dead before a player or team can gain possession.
A rebound is not credited on a missed shot when:
A player is fouled in the act of shooting and the try is unsuccessful.
A player is awarded a substitute free-throw because the opposing team committed a free-throw violation.
An official rules that a foul or violation occurred prior to the attempt.
A team is awarded two points on defensive goal tending or basket interference.
STEALS (ST)
A steal is credited to a defensive player who is directly responsible for causing an opponent's turnover. Steals are credited to a defensive player who:
Intercepts or deflects to a teammate an opponent's pass.
Takes the ball away from a dribbler or taps the dribble to a teammate.
Takes away or taps the ball to a teammate from an opponent who is holding it.
Taps the ball or deflects a pass off an opponent out of bounds.
Creates a held ball by grasping the ball while an opponent is holding it, and the defensive team gains possession.
Steals are not credited when:
The opponent's turnover is caused by a violation (traveling, double dribble, etc.).
The turnover is a result of an offensive foul.
ASSIST (AST)
An assist is credited to an offensive player whose pass, in the statistician's judgment, is directly responsible for a for the principal pass that resulted in a successful field goal. The pass needs to be a major portion of the play in order for an assist to be given. Assists are not dependent on the degree of difficulty however an assist should be more than a routine pass that just happens to be followed by a field goal. Every made field goal could have an assist except for any unassisted play such as:
A successful tip or rebound shot.
A successful field goal following a steal when no passing occurs.
An assist may be given on a successful field goal attempt by a player after he dribbles, if a pass contributed directly to the dribble and resulting basket.
An assist is usually but not always credited to the player making the last pass prior to the successful field goal.
Only one assist may be credited for each successful field goal.
On situations where multiple passes lead to a successful field goal, the statistician must judge or determine which pass contributed most.
TURNOVER (TO)
A turnover is credited to an offensive player whose actions are directly responsible for losing ball possession to the opposing team prior to shooting. When a team has gained control of the ball or having become entitled to the ball does not put the ball in flight for a try at a field goal before an opponent gains control of the ball - then a turnover situation exists.
Individual turnovers are credited when:
An offensive player who loses the ball to an opponent while holding, dribbling, passing or receiving.
An offensive player who is called for a violation (traveling, double dribble, etc.) by an official and the ball is awarded to the opposing team.
A player who commits a personal foul or is called for a technical foul while team has or is entitled to possession of ball.
A team turnover is credited when:
A team is in or entitled to possession of the ball, and a technical is called on the coach or the bench.
If no player can be judged responsible then the team is charged with the turnover.
Turnovers are not credited when:
A double violation or a double foul occurs, and ball possession is retained.
A violation occurs during the first of a two shot foul.
FREE THROW ATTEMPT (FTA)
A free throw attempt shall be credited anytime a player shoots a free throw.
A free throw attempt is not credited when an official disallows a free throw attempt because of a violation by the shooter or a teammate.
A missed free throw attempt is not credited when the shooter is awarded a substitute throw because of a free throw violation by the opposing team.
A free throw attempt is not credited when a double violation results in a jump ball.
A free throw attempt is credited when the ball fails to touch the rim on the attempt.
FREE THROW MADE (FT)
A Free throw made is credited to a player when the attempt is successful or when an official awards one point because of defensive goal tending or basket interference.


Coordinate System Google Maps API

Question: I am making an application in java using GMaps4JSF where the person will enter the address on the map I'll take this coordinate and consult on my postgis base regions in which region this point is inserted and return this information on the screen.
It's very simple. Google Maps Api uses the Mercator projection (EPSG: 3857), the coordinate of the queried map will be returned in this projection? I must redesign my data to it does not need to do conversions.
Comment: postgis can transform the coordinates into lat/lng for google maps http://postgis.org/docs/ST_Transform.html
Answer: Although the underlying tiles are projected to epsg:3857, the Maps API accepts Latitude/Longitude pairs in epsg:4326 (vs y/x coordinates in meters, which would be implied by 3857).
Therefore if you want to draw a polygon on the map, you would pass the API latitude/longitude and it will be projected appropriately to match the underlying data (note you may wish to specify geodesic:true in your overlay options in the API)
That said you didn't specify what projection your data in PostGIS is index as, so I can't say whether you need to change anything.
Comment: I do not want anything to plot on the map. Only'll get coordinated the geocode returns me something like: latLng: (-30.046793600271663, -51.215002834796906) and pass as parãmentro for a postgis query. Have tried with the postgis table in EPSG: 3857 and 4326 and returns nothing.
Answer: Expanding on what Mapperz noted, one way to do this is by creating views in postgresql replacing the geometry field with a calculated field that transforms the coordinate system of your data to a coordinate system that the Maps API can use, 4326 or 3857. Something like:
CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW vw_MY_VIEW AS
SELECT ID_FIELD, st_transform(GEOMETRY_FIELD.geometry, 3857) AS geometry,
    FIELD3, FIELD4
   FROM TABLE_NAME;
This would allow you to intersect the point geometry from the map, which  is natively 3857, with the view you created, also in 3857.
Alternately you could transform the point geometry from the map into the table's arid in the intersect operation.
This  prevents having to reproject and persist your data permanently to meet the needs of a dependency. Instead you can continue to use your postgis data in the coordinate system that best fits your needs.
Answer: Am not used to Java but I think the Google API's coordinate system can be transformed on render to suite the system of interest.There are two ways to go around this issue:
1. Make sure all the layers in your application are on the same projection.
2. Redefine the projection of one layer to suit another.Example: If your point layers is in EPSG:4326 and want it to overlay on the Google's 3857,you can transform the system to fit the Google's.
Hope this helps!

Coordinate System Google Maps API


What happens if no nonce is provided for a transaction?

Question: The nonce parameter seems to be optional for transactions. Its goal is to protect from replay attacks. In that case, why is it optional, and what happens if it's not provided? It leaves the particular transaction prone to replay attacks?
Comment: General community reminder for https://ethereum.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1/vote-early-vote-often  (I stumble on this question, see 3 answers and 0 upvotes.)
Answer: If not provided then the nonce will be read from account's state on the blockchain (it is part of the blockchain state).
However, it can sometimes be useful to specify it explicitly. It might be useful, for example, if you need to re-send a transaction with a higher gas price if the first one is not being mined. If you send it again with the same nonce it will (may) over-write the first one.
So, the nonce does appear in all transactions whether you specify it or not, and it does protect against replay.
Comment: But if someone captures the raw singed transaction message that is sent to the network, they can re-send the same message?
For example if I use etherescan.io/pushTx with a raw message, it will pass without a nonce. What stops Etherscan (or a MITM) to get the raw transaction and push it again?
Comment: The transaction nonce from the sending account is included (always - but see Edmund Edgar's note about future plans) within the signed data when the transaction is generated.  It is not possible to change it or replace it.  I.e. the raw transaction includes the nonce. (Also sending the same message twice (with the same nonce) is not an error - it happens constantly within the network.)
Comment: Hm,, I'll double check. I'm pretty sure I generated a raw transaction with no nonce and it got accepted :) (and nobody could have included it, as I didn't have a connected peer, it was just local RLP serialization)
Comment: It's section 4.3 in the [Yellow Paper](https://ethereum.github.io/yellowpaper/paper.pdf) for reference. The nonce is within the signed data of a transaction. If it isn't present the transaction will be invalid.
Comment: maybe because it was my first transaction, it encodes null and that's the same as 0..

Thanks.
Answer: The nonce is not optional. To be valid, a transaction must provide a nonce.
The nonce that you need to supply for the next transaction can usually be calculated by looking at the blockchain. Most wallets and other software that makes transactions will do this for you behind the scenes, so you don't need to supply the nonce yourself manually, unless you have unconfirmed transactions that the software you are using does not know about.
There is a plan to allow users to define their own schemes for signing transactions. If and when this is implemented, it will be possible to dispense with the nonce altogether if you don't need replay protection, or use a different system that better fits your needs.
Comment: But if someone captures the raw singed transaction message that is sent to the network, they can re-send the same message?
For example if I use etherescan.io/pushTx with a raw message, it will pass without a nonce. What stops Etherscan (or a MITM) to get the raw transaction and push it again?
Comment: No, the raw message is a signed transaction that includes a nonce.
Comment: The ethereumj transaction seems to support getEncoded() (raw RLP) with null nonce: https://github.com/ethereum/ethereumj/blob/develop/ethereumj-core/src/main/java/org/ethereum/core/Transaction.java#L471

I think I used that and pushed the result to pushTx and it passed (in ropsten), but I'll double-check, maybe I missed something
Comment: maybe because it was my first transaction, it encodes null and that's the same as 0..
Comment: Yup, that's what I was going to suggest it could be. BTW the code you link looks like it also lets you encode a transaction without a signature, so it's conceivable that it lets you encode one without a nonce to then come back and decode and reencode it later, this time with the nonce and signature.
Answer:
what happens if it's not provided?

The nonce parameter gets incremented every time((Like an Identity column in SQL) when transaction happens and its not mandatory for you to set.
Optionally you can also set nonce for a transaction and there is a bonus answer below from reddit.

To proactively answer your next question.
What happens if I submit a transaction with a nonce that has already
  been transacted?
It will be rejected by the network What happens if I submit a nonce
  that's higher than the correct next nonce to use?
The transaction will get stored in the mempool of the nodes in a
  pending state. It will remain in the mempool of the node until
  transactions with all nonces between the last valid incremental nonce
  for the account and the transaction stored in the mempool have been
  transacted to the network, and then the transaction will be executed
  as normal. It's possible that the nodes eventually drop your
  transaction out of the mempool if it's been waiting there for too long


the room down underneath the lighthouse

Question: In the room that appears under the bridge in the lighthouse area, that has appeared now that I have lowered all of the water, when I go I don't know how to uncover the secret.
Comment: If you are talking bout the room with the tuning fork, then related question - http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/62533/what-do-we-do-with-the-u-shaped-tuning-fork-pillars
Comment: The tuning fork room is the one accessed by lowering the water.  Confirmed here: http://www.ign.com/wikis/fez/Lighthouse_Door
Answer: The comments above are valid. This tuning fork question can be answered  here: What do we do with the U-shaped tuning fork pillars?
Solving this puzzle lies in listening to the vibrations made on each side of the controller when you get close to the tuning fork.

The explicit answer is: LT,  RT, RT,  LT, LT, LT,  RT, RT, RT, RT
Comment: you can also tell by stereo sound if you turn up the volume or use headphones. on ps4 i found it easier to tell this way. maybe the x360 controller has more distinct left/right vibration than the ps4 controller does.

the room down underneath the lighthouse


Terminate batch job in SPFx

Question: In spfx, If we press 'ctrl+c' during any continue process then display a message 'Terminate batch job (Y/N)?'
you press Y for yes and N fro No, but both the case y and N terminate the batch job. so it is error or anything else ?
Answer: I agree, this is annoying. But it's not spfx that's doing this, it's the command shell itself that controls this behavior. If you google 'Terminate Batch Job' you'll find all sorts of people annoyed by this quirk.

Terminate batch job in SPFx


Is there some cultural significance in the "chhanna" or metal bowl?

Question: The Punjabi poem "Chhanna, the Metal Bowl" is about a "flat-bottom metal bowl" which is apparently some kind of family heirloom, "filled with memories". What's so special about a metal bowl? Is it only because it's been in the family for a long time, or is there some special cultural significance attached to it, perhaps some Punjabi tradition? What is "the chhayapatra hovering in a nook", and why is this word untranslated?
Comment: I really can't in all conscience post this as an answer, because there is nothing i can add to it, but [this link](https://poets.org/print/poem/085e0a32-0868-445b-aaf7-6d4f5f41b4c9) explains both terms. As to why it isn't translated, I'd guess that's because the author is writing in Indian English, where that would not be necessary.
Comment: @Spagirl: In the poem, *chhana* is explained quite clearly to be a *metal bowl*. And *chhayapatra* is not translated because there isn't an equivalent practice in Western culture, so whatever word you used in the translation would fall flat.
Comment: From the link in your question : "The Sanskrit word chhanna is both a noun meaning a bronze bowl with its rim inclined inward and an adjective meaning hidden, mysterious, secret. According to Indian astrology, a chhanna is used for chhayadan, a practice—believed to negate the debilitating influences of malefic planets—in which the donor looks at his or her reflection in the mustard oil contained in an alms vessel before dropping a coin into it. That is why the vessel is also called chhayapatra, meaning, literally, "reflection vessel." "
Comment: I'm Indian but not Punjabi, and from what I know channa = chickpea(s). Today I learned, I guess
Answer: The bowl's significance is that it is used to practise chāyā dān, chhayadan or chaaya daan (depending on the transcription). In Northern India, the chāyā dān can be part of one of the seven pheras of Hindu weddings, as explained in Gloria Goodwin Raheja's study The Poison in the Gift: Ritual, Prestation, and the Dominant Caste in a North Indian Village (University of Chicago Press, 1988):

At the conclusion of the pherā, an additional prestation is sometimes made. A dish filled with clarified butter is brought and a ten-paisā coin is placed in it. Both the bride and the groom are made to cast their reflections into it. This chāyā pātra ("reflection vessel") is then given to a Dakaut, with an appropriate sankalp. Wenever a chāyā dān is given, the purpose, as we have seen, is to remove from the donor negative substances engendered by particular circumstances. The words of the sankalp once again describe the purpose of the chāyā dān: "to remove the various afflictions" (...) caused by the marriage (...), this chāyā dān is given to the Dakaut.

According to other sources, e.g. Hindusphere.com, chāyā dān is also performed on Shani Amavasya. (Shanivara means Saturday; Shani refers to the planet Saturn; Amavasya refers to the lunar phase of the New moon in Sanskrit.) According to the above Hindusphere.com article,

On Shani Amavasya Chaaya Daan has to be performed. The process of performing Chaaya Daan is very easy. Pour Mastard Oil in  a bowl and place it beside your head or under the bed right under your head on the night before to Shani Amavasya. As soon as we get up the first thing to do is to look into bowl and see ones reflection in the oil. Then this oil has to be donated to a Brahmin or to be given away in the temple of Lord Shani on Shani Amavasya. This is called Chaaya Daan.
Performing of Chaaya Daan on Shani Amavasaya would please lord Shani immensely and people under the effect of Lord Shani would get relief in the difficulties caused in their lives because of Shani.

The "relief in the difficulties" sounds similar to the removal of negative substances mentioned in Gloria Goodwin Raheja's study.
It is not clear whether he poet's parents used the bowl only for Shani Amavasya or also during their wedding; in the latter case it would definitely be filled with significant memories. Since it is an heirloom, it may also have been used by ancestors, but since the poem does not explicitly mention ancestors, this remains speculation.


Learning electronics

Question: I am perplexed about learning electronics. I have basic understanding of components such as inductors, capacitors, etc. But I don't know how to proceed further in field of electronics. *Please suggest me resources and techniques to enhance my aptitude in this subject.
Comment: I would recommend an electrical engineering degree program :)
Comment: My point is that you've spent countless of hours studying it. There's no blue/red pill for learning electronics.
Comment: How did you become good at physics and math?
Comment: @Harry, physics is a broad subject, there are many other branches like mechanics, optics which have concrete reasoning associated with them, hence I find it easy to grasp, whereas with electronics, it is hard for me to formulate what is going on.
Comment: @Selvek, i am already perusing my undergraduates in electronics, but i am not happy with the quality of education.
Answer: It sounds like the concepts you want to learn are incredibly broad. I would suggest first finding a project that intrigues you, and learning what you need to do to complete that project. How comfortable you are with the skills needed for that project will determine how far you delve into any individual concept, which will help you identify where you could potentially improve.
For example, let's say you want to build a robot. If you have little experience with this, your best bet might be to buy something like an Arduino and a pre-assembled chassis with motor driver electronics. You would learn how to write code for the Arduino and connect it to the electronics, and when it's all done, you have a neat little robot. This would give you exposure to basic concepts like the mechanics of small robots, the electronics needed to control them, and the control system needed to command those electronics.
After doing a project like that, you might find yourself saying "gee, I really want stronger motors" which would lead to research on different motors and types of motors as well as bulkier electronics to drive them. Or perhaps you'd find yourself saying "the Arduino was nice but I want to use a different custom system" and then you could research how the Arduino works and figure out how you might replace it with your own system.
The gist of this all is that my recommendation is to complete a project that will expose you to many different paths of learning you could take, then after you finish, choose a path to follow deeper.
Comment: I second that. But, alongside the software side, he should implement hardware as well. OP, try to be creative with your little project. For example, add a proximity sensor to your robot, so that he won't collide with objects in his path. Then, for this to work, you need an analog to digital converter, which could be an A/D IC or just a simple comparator. Then maybe add LEDs, and so on... Enjoy!
Answer: LTspice is an electronic software simulator (free) where you can draw circuits using the basic components and then simulate the behavior of the whole. In the past, I have advised friends to start tinkering with circuits on the simulator first, they enjoyed it.
Answer: Build an amplifier, using bipolar transistors, such as this one:

simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab
Comment: regarding a breath upsetting the circuit: this is a gain-of-ten circuit. The open loop gain is mostly in the 2nd stage Q3,Q5. The purpose is to demonstrate a COMPLETE analog circuit: diffpairs, current mirrors, constant current collector loads, emitter followers, and short-circuit protection, plus big-cap stabilization. Will a breath upset this? At the 1 millivolt level, probably. If used as an audio "power" amplifier, not likely. I've built circuits like this, using matched transistors from the Motorola rep, both NPN and PNP pairs. Decades ago.The emitter 100 ohms allows discretes to be used.
Comment: @analogsystemsrf Huh, interesting. Thanks for elaborating, much appreciated.
Comment: While I absolutely agree that building a circuit like this can be extremely educational, a circuit like this can be quite daunting for a beginner. Perhaps OP could start a bit smaller?
Comment: Can this even be done with discrete components? Don't you *need* to do it on silicon? Otherwise a breath on the parts or other.. real life disturbances, will affect the circuit.
Comment: When I started out, at a small telemetry company, designing discrete FAST opamps was part of the skill-set for analog designers. As well as designing FAST (1 MegaSample/second) 10 bit ADCs. I was put to work on Modems (aka BitSyncs/ PLLs/ VGAs/ MatchedFilters). But yes, I have archives of schematics of discrete opamps used  after a FET telemetry Multiplexor, the opamp driving a Sample-hold into the ADC. Not my design.

Learning electronics


Cipher that interleaves rounds from other ciphers?

Question: Is there a cipher that interleaves rounds from other ciphers (with the same block size)? For example, interleaving the rounds of AES/Twofish/Serpent/RC6?
Comment: I guess that would require compatibility of the internal state and key schedule.
Comment: @MaartenBodewes I was thinking it could be done by leaving each cipher's key schedule alone, just passing the intermediate ciphertext block from cipher to cipher. So the internal state size would be the sum of the internal state sizes of the constituent ciphers.
Comment: I have several such designs, only 2 of them are semi-public in design but not source code, and those are not suggested to use in practice
Comment: @RichieFrame I guess if you say "yes" and link to the two semi-public designs then this would automatically constitute the most complete answer; there aren't any other requirements listed by DepressedDaniel.
Answer: kodlu mentions the interactions of the key schedules; with such a design, I would worry far more about the interaction between the round functions themselves.
A single round of AES, Serpent, Twofish, RC6 has high probability linear and differential characteristics; there's a reason why we have multiple rounds.  Now, the round functions within these ciphers are designed so that they play nicely with themselves; that while (say) a single round of AES has high probability characteristics, these high probability characteristics do no apply to multiple rounds.  That is, while we can find a high probability characteristic for a single round, we cannot join these high probability characteristics across multiple rounds.  This isn't by happenstance, the designers of these ciphers deliberately set things up this way.
This is not necessarily true while you mix-and-match round functions; while we can't find a high-probability characteristic that goes through several AES round functions in succession, there's nothing that says we can't find a characteristic that goes through an AES round function, followed by a Serpent round function, followed by a Twofish round function.  I'm not saying there is such a characteristic; I am saying it would appear foolish without doing a whole lot of analysis first.
If you feel an absolute need to do this sort of thing, it would make a lot more sense to keep the round functions from the same cipher together; do a bunch of AES round functions, followed by a bunch of Serpent round functions, followed by a bunch of Twofish round functions.  There, we can at least leverage some of the security proofs inherent within the separate ciphers.
Comment: Being more of a hardware person and a self-declared novice at cryptography, does a cipher exist where the block logic changes everything round?  Effectively, this is what you are describing describing here.  Just from the standpoint of linear cryptanalysis, you could have an interesting progressive function.  In hardware, I could implement this by just using the "round counter" to select a different mux for a bit in a Feistel network, or a different entry for a SPN.  Are there any examples of this as I would love to see how it would be analyzed.
Comment: @bdegnan Such a thing exists. *It is called a block cipher.* From a hardware stance, you do want multiple, largely identical rounds, not one huge round.
Answer: I am not aware of any such design.
It would be complex (more complicated than just composing the ciphers, which is not of clear benefit either, by the principle of weakest link) and inefficient since you'd have 3 times as long keylength.
Worse, it would be much much harder to cryptanalyze than straight composition, and thus no one would take it up. You'd need to consider interactions of 3 key schedules, and different design philosophies of the components may introduce unforeseen weaknesses.
Comment: Why "weakest link"? If we assume the keys are completely independent I don't see how a break of B allows you to break `A(B(C())))`. Certainly you can't expect *3k* security if each cipher has *k* security, but you should get at least *k* security if up to two ciphers are broken.
Comment: That's just a general principle, from a conservative point of view. If you are assuming all the ciphers are secure what's the point of your inefficient design?
Comment: Well intuitively it ought to scramble things up better than more rounds of the same thing.


How do I force YouTube to play videos in their lowest resolution?

Question: Is there any good method that forces my web browser to play all YouTube videos on the lowest definition, even if the video offers a higher resolution?
Answer: Log in to YouTube, go to the playback settings and select that you have a Slow Connection.
Comment: This will use a lower resolution, but often not the lowest. e.g. 360p vs 240 or 144.
Answer: By adding the parameter fmt to the URL. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube . Google can help you find Greasemonkey scripts that do that automatically.
Comment: This is better than what I posted! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube#Quality_and_codecs takes you right to the section to which he's referring.
Answer: Add &hd=0 to the YouTube URL. That will display the video in 360p.
Ex. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxdtVWvfFSU&hd=0
Additionally, you can add &hd=1 instead of &hd=0 to the URL to get 720p (if available).
E.g.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxdtVWvfFSU&hd=1


Browsers that use compression

Question: I know that Opera Mini is available on Android. Are there any other browsers available that compress content to work faster when not on Wi-fi or 3g?
Comment: Just to warn you: these sort of browsers depend on third party servers to receive, compress and feed you the webpages you want. Sensitive data isn't encrypted, and can be accessed from the third party.
Comment: Do you mean can handle receiving compressed content from the originating web server, or that do something like Opera's TurboBoost that dynamically compresses anyone's originally compressed content to speed up mobile access?
Comment: @Mufasa: I mean anything like TurboBoost
Comment: Note that a lot of content today on normal http communication is already compressed through gzip. What Opera did was more than just compression, but also rewriting of HTML content to their own binary markup language.
Answer: I think not. A least, not efficiently. If you want to do that, you need servers, big servers, so you need a big company to run thoses big servers. So I would be very surprised if that big company doesn't advertise for its product, as Opera did.
Comment: amen brother. Its true such efforts require bandwidth and computing power. Which means money, you ain't getting that from random developers.
Answer: There is the turbo feature in Opera Mobile -- the same UI as Mini with a more normal renderer. The compression is less effective, though.
Comment: Ha.. Ha.. Liked this answer.
Answer: UC Browser is as efficient as Opera in compression.
Comment: I tried it using 2G connection and it isn't even close to Opera speed.
Answer: There are also UC browser and Puffin web browser that have data compression feature. But I always prefer Opera Mini.
Answer: yes! Google Chrome and ucmini.co.in are browser that compress the website before showing the result to get fastest access. They use Proxy server for this.
Now VPN Enable concept will be soon launch by browser like Opera, Google, Mozilla to get result fast and accurate in upcoming version.
Answer: UC Mini, Opera Mini and CM Browser they all compress data and speed up browsing. Besides lowering image quality can also increase the websites loading speed.

Browsers that use compression


Why does $TERM var equal linux with virtual terminals

Question: Is there a terminal linux?  I was experimenting with the machine to see how the virtual terminals work and when I echo $TERM it printed linux? Is this the default linux terminal? I tried searching for man pages on linux but only results about the operating system return.
Answer: Yes, there is a terminal description identified by the name linux.
The infocmp program will show you the details of a given terminal identifier. On Debian-based systems, infocmp is in the ncurses-bin package.
$ infocmp linux
#       Reconstructed via infocmp from file: /lib/terminfo/l/linux
...

I've elided the escape codes for the capabilities. The man page for terminfo(5) describes all the capabilities and what they mean.
Answer: The linux terminal type is for the virtual consoles (also called virtual terminals or consoles), the text-mode consoles provided by Linux on PC-style hardware and reached by Alt+F1 or Ctrl+Alt+F1 and so on. Like all modern terminal types, it's a variant on VT100 and successors.
Answer: The TERM environment variable identifies a terminal description.  The name linux has been used since its introduction in ncurses in 1994 as the preferred name for Linux console (rather than console).
The ncurses terminal database defines more than a dozen variants, which some people use.  In the terminal database, linux is an alias for the version which most people are expected to use. Most people use the alias, for the usual reasons relating to terminal descriptions:

while changing the alias is trivial (using infocmp and tic), most people don't modify their terminal database to point the alias to a different version,
the name is used in the getty definitions (or equivalent), and again, most people don't change that, and of course
some programs (such as GNU ls) have their own idea about how to manage the linux name (and do not bother to use the terminal database).

Expanding on that last item, the initial version of GNU ls in June 1996 used these names for values of TERM that supported color:
TERM linux
TERM console
TERM con132x25
TERM con132x30
TERM con132x43
TERM con132x60
TERM con80x25
TERM con80x28
TERM con80x30
TERM con80x43
TERM con80x50
TERM con80x60
TERM xterm
TERM vt100

using several "console" variants which were not ever provided by ncurses but apparently had some use.  That likely motivated the comment in ncurses' INSTALL (first seen in September 1995):
In various systems there has been a practice of designating the system
console driver type as `console'.  Please do not do this!  It
complicates peoples' lives, because it can mean that several different
terminfo entries from different operating systems all logically want to
be called `console'.

Regardless of use, none of those were dropped, and (for Linux console), only linux-c was added (in 1999, versus 1996 in ncurses).  The current file has for instance
TERM con[0-9]*x[0-9]*
TERM linux
TERM linux-c

Further reading:

Origin of /etc/termcap linux entry
How do I get color with VT100?