Programming with white text on black background?

Question: Does anyone program with white text against black background? I have heard some rumors that it is better for your eyes. What's the case? Is it any better than the traditional black on white? What are the pros and cons?
Comment: "traditional black on white"? Kids these days...
Comment: @Tower: Ever seen a computer running DOS?
Comment: @MichaelMrozek Traditional colors are black on white (cellulose paper) and black on light brown (papyrus). In the modern digital age, we can have any color combinations we please, but none of those are traditional. The main point of this question is clearly if it's better for your eyes to use darker backgrounds rather than lighter -- so let's not try to be too clever and stay on topic.
Comment: Traditional: black ink on paper.(well, maybe not for coding, but generally we are speaking about text editing here)
Comment: @Michael Mzorek: Heh, yeah. Well, I meant to say *colors on white*.
Comment: @Tower I think "traditional" is probably green on black; grey/white on black is a close second
Comment: "traditional" is beads on string.
Comment: Also see [best-background-color-for-your-editor?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/503103/best-background-color-for-your-editor?rq=1)
Comment: I'd also note 10 years ago all keyboards were shade of gray, and now cool ones are black. Probably you'd hardly find gray keyboard at market at all. So it clearly becomes a FASHION.

I assume, that default color scheme of current-most-favorite-editor is fashionable. Check what Sublime did to the youth.
Answer: It's actually white on black, or rather green or amber on black, that is the traditional way. I've used them all. :)
I believe that the use of black on white started in word processors, because it's a lot easier on your eyes when you alternate between looking at the screen and looking at source material printed on paper.
Also, the contrast between the screen background and the surrounding lighting should be small, so a white background works best with the well lit room most people use computers in most of the time. If you are programming in the darkness a black background would give less contrast, but then it's more a question of why you don't have proper lighting in your room...
There are of course personal preferences than can affect your choise of color setting, and your eyesight (or lack thereof) might also make one setting better than the other.
Answer: There is an endless debate on slashdot one can go through for all the unintelligible technical details (the more technical analyses seems to favour dark on light side though).
This article, though about web designing, warns about the hazards of mindless black theming. The important aspect I understand is that the font is more important than coloring schemes. There is also disadvantage for black (not dark in general, but just pure black) background with white font if font is thin, since black creeps on to white and font would look a lil' blurry.
Despite all that, personally I find reading on darker background much easier for eyes. I don't think there is a definite answer for "light font on darker background" or vice versa. It will have to depend on personal tastes and habits more importantly. For sure, the right scheme lets the font (the writing) to project to fore and subdues the background. Now ask yourself is it dark on light that does this or light on dark? Here is the key, in that advocates who vouch for similarity with print suggesting that black outshines the white on paper, is blind to the fact that it is not the situation when it comes to electronic screen. Here the intensity of white beams on your eyes is much higher when compared to black.
And there is nothing like a best background color or fore color, but its the combination that matters. Right combination gives the right contrast, and contrast matters. And contrast should be sufficiently high, but not enough to be straining. Pure white on deep black can be hurting (the contrast being significantly high) but at the same time white on dark green is soothing. The same goes with amber on black.
Also when having a dark background it should be pale and not intense, so something like dark grey or teal will be better than black which in turn will be better than blue, red etc. Black on grey is excellent.
The solarized theme actually is after some good round of testing, going after their website. The good thing I love about Notepad++ is that some of the better known themes like solarized, zenburn, vibrant ink are available built in with the style configurator. Obsidian is the best without a doubt btw! :) Catch it for Visual Studio here.
Answer: It seems to be a preference thing and possible environmental thing, honestly. You'll find people who believe each method is superior.
I know that personally, I have coded since the green-on-black and amber-on-black terminals were around, and now I use light gray text on black backgrounds wherever possible. I find black backgrounds to be extremely comfortable on my eyes even for very long sessions, but white backgrounds are very fatiguing. I have heard it described as "staring into a 100 watt lightbulb" and that's how it feels to me.
Room lighting can potentially have a significant effect also. Brighter rooms may lend themselves to brighter backgrounds, and darker rooms to dark backgrounds. It reduces the need for your eyes to struggle to switch between wide and narrow pupils required for bright then dark then bright as you occasionally look away from the monitor to relax your eyes (you should always do this, right?).
The best advice is to just try both, give it a week or so, and decide which you like better. If you find both the extremes are glaring, try using a more subdued theme than pure whites and pure blacks, try some softer grays.
Answer: The quick answer is "dark text on white background suits more people".
My answer refers to this one: https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/15142/which-is-easier-on-the-eyes-dark-on-light-or-light-on-dark
As a person with astigmatism, I find white background with dark text is easier to read as the reference suggested. (I specifically experienced this after using the dark theme in visual studio 2013. It is so fuzzy to me that I had to change back to its 2012 default theme.)
Below are the quotes:
The science of readability is by no means new, and some of the best research comes from advertising works in the early 80s. This information is still relevant today.
First up is this quote from a paper titled "Improving the legibility of visual display units through contrast reversal". In present time we think of contrast reversal meaning black-on-white, but remember this paper is from 1980 when VDUs (monitors) where green-on-black. This paper formed part of the research that drove the push for this to change to the screen formats we use today.
However, most studies have shown that dark characters on a light background are superior to light characters on a dark background (when the refresh rate is fairly high). For example, Bauer and Cavonius (1980) found that participants were 26% more accurate in reading text when they read it with dark characters on a light background.

Reference: Bauer, D., & Cavonius, C., R. (1980). Improving the
  legibility of visual display units through contrast reversal. In E.
  Grandjean, E. Vigliani (Eds.), Ergonomic Aspects of Visual Display
  Terminals (pp. 137-142). London: Taylor & Francis Ok, 26% improvement
  – but why?
People with astigmatism (aproximately 50% of the population) find it
  harder to read white text on black than black text on white. Part of
  this has to do with light levels: with a bright display (white
  background) the iris closes a bit more, decreasing the effect of the
  "deformed" lens; with a dark display (black background) the iris opens
  to receive more light and the deformation of the lens creates a much
  fuzzier focus at the eye.
Jason Harrison – Post Doctoral Fellow, Imager Lab Manager – Sensory
  Perception and Interaction Research Group, University of British
  Columbia The "fuzzing" effect that Jason refers to is known as
  halation.

It might feel strange pushing your primary design goals based on the vision impaired, but when 50% of the population of have this "impairment" it's actually closer to being the norm than an impairment.
The web is rife with research on the topic, but I think these two quotes provide a succinct justification for why light text on a dark background is a bad idea.
Answer: I'm sure that plus of programming and using white on black layouts causes less energy using.
Example of site saving energy by black layout is http://blackle.com/
Comment: It only uses less energy if you are using an old CRT screen. An LCD screen is back-lit and the liquid crystals blocks the light, so it uses the same amount of energy (or even slightly more) when the screen is black.
Comment: "In 2013 the majority of monitor sales are LED backlit LCD's which do not light up the parts of the screen that are black. Some older CCFL LCD monitors worked by wastefully backlighting the entire screen. Since 2005 manufacturers have moved away from CCFL's."
Answer: well if you are programming when it is already dark outside then yes that rumor might be true becuase it is better for your eyes if the contrast between your monitor and room is smaller.
Answer: Below mixed with my own thoughts and others.

Pure Black:
Pure white text on pure black is awful for reading (it's looks awesome on some graphs). Contrast is too high, and pure black may looks unnatural. So Visual Studio is using dark grey, just like Photoshop.
Visual Studio Team Says:
According to The Visual Studio Blog, dark editor themes are overall more preferred, reduced strain over long time usage is the top reason.
Emotional Expectation:
Emotionally, at least for some I guess: things related to creation with a dark theme may feels better, like those software; things books alike, e.g. blog or something, light background may better, since it's more expected.
Black for Colors:
For eyes, generally, I'm fine for both light and dark theme, since I'll always make sure the backlit not too light. As for Visual Studio, I guess the strain for eyes comes from the scanning of colors. You know, it's already hard to recognize all those colors (okay not that hard, you got the point), then there's that big fat white on the way, all the way. Guess eyes just have a "color sensitive mode", like people may not enjoy two white bars even if it's a light colored cartoon.
Light background easily makes things look clean, leads to higher readability for articles; dark background helps emphasize the color, leads to higher readability for codes.
One difference between blog and code text is that, codes are generally colored in a way it can standout its construction. Read an article will focused more on its meaning behind the words, but reading codes focus more on its visual construction and color, focus more on words itself. In photo editing and movie playing, dark colors provides less distraction. We treat codes actually more like a photo or video where visual matters more or even lots. Dark background fades away and makes the visual construction stand out.
Comment: Interesting thoughts here! It occurs to me that: 1. when I'm looking at code, I'm not reading it. I'm looking at structure, and I'll read, usually, small fragments of it; 2. Most modern systems provide syntax highlighting, and I suspect you have more options for contrasting highlighting on a black background.
Answer: I use black background, because it wont strain my eyes. I used to regularly use white background, After 2 years, my eyes started getting strain. i tried to reduce the screen brightness, but it didn't help.
Finally i switched to black and now my eyes hardly even get stressed or watery (but still i'm going to wear spects soon)...
Answer: I know this is an old question, but I figured I'd give a little bit of my input.  Maybe it'll help someone.
Purely white background was starting to hurt my eyes from several hours of nonstop programming.  My vision was getting blurry to the point where I would have to stop.  I attempted to use darker themes, but it was harder to focus on text and that made it more difficult for me to scan through the code to find a particular bit.  Search functionality would not always work, because I might not know what I'm looking for (solving an exception-less bug, etc).
I looked around and found out that some gamers and programmers use yellow-tinted glasses.  Popular choice appears to be Gunnars.  However, I didn't feel like spending $70 on a pair of glasses, because historically, my comfort zone with glasses is very narrow and I didn't feel like wasting my time or money.
So, further searching around brought me to f.lux.  It's absolutely free. The default settings were a bit too extreme for me and I couldn't get used to them even after two weeks.  However, after adjusting them slightly, I've been enjoying it very much.  During the day time, the screen is at its normal tone and intensity, but as the evening closes, it transitions into dimmer settings.  When I tried to test the difference (after getting used to it) by disabling it, it made it painful to look at the normal screen.  So, it does work. If you decide to give it a try... just try to use it for a few weeks before dismissing it.  It took me a while to get used to it.
Anyways, if you just can't stand darker themes, like me, those two options are probably a good way to remedy that issue.
Answer: I have heard that black text on white background will not hurt your eyes, but using a black background for a long time, can make visual problems of your eyes.
Comment: I personally have felt this myself.
Answer: B.K. brings up a lot of points that I too experience. First of which I know this is an older post, but it's still a relevant question. Secondly where I differ is I use a hybrid of darker and traditional lighter themes.
Personally I find darker background to be visually better. When I code I use this type of theme in my IDE Dark Theme for Visual Studio 2010 With Productivity Power Tools. The one thing that I do differently is I do not use the very dark code area or alter the coloring of the text. I go in and change my Options > Environment > Fonts and Colors > Plain Text > Item Background > Custom > Silver. This in turn gives me the aesthetically pleasing darker menus and such in the IDE but still makes my eyes focus on the code. It also keeps all the text and color coding that is native to the default IDE. This of course is for Visual Studio 2010. Newer versions or different IDEs have their own themes.
I have very light sensitive eyes and I tend to get headaches when coding all day without breaks. So I prefer toning the menus, tool bars, and side bars of an IDE to be darker. I also do use the Gunnar glasses.
There's quite a bit of evidence supporting that white background with darker text is actually better for your eyes in well lit office situations and such. https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/53264/dark-or-white-color-theme-is-better-for-the-eyes Has some very good sources listed throughout the responses on these studies. This is mainly concerning design for end users, but at the end of the day even though we are developers we are still end users of the IDE products and the same rules still apply.
So in conclusion it has a lot to do with your environment, your eyesight, and what you prefer. I personally use a dark IDE with a gray or silver work space with traditionally dark text. This makes it still easy to spot the contrast, but doesn't hurt my eyes by overwhelming me with white.
Comment: This is more of an opinion than a list of pros/cons like the OP wanted. Also, the post already has an accepted answer.
Comment: Yes the post does have an accepted answer, but it didn't provide the specifics I was looking for when searching for answers. The OP asked a multi-part question. I answered all parts of the question except the pros and cons and provided a link to a source that handled that aspect from another discussion. This is my opinion which answers the OP's questions "Does anyone program with white text against black background? I have heard some rumors that it is better for your eyes. What's the case?". The question requires an answer that is subjective and individual per case.
Comment: @mbomb007 Additional answers are allowed, even if there is already an accepted answer.  Nothing in the website rules prohibits that.  If that was the case, one would not be able to post an answer after a question has an accepted flag.
Answer: On my laptop dark background create too much light reflection.
Answer: It is really cool for your eyes.
White means full colour -- rgb(255, 255, 255) -- and black means no colour -- rgb(0, 0, 0). So when you are reading some black text against white background, the screen is flashing a lot of light except for a small portion (the text). On the other hand, when you are reading a white text against black background, the screen emits (almost) nothing except for the text area. That's why it looks so cool.
However, the contrast and environment lighting matter. Although I prefer white on black, both pure white on pure black and pure black on pure white have a high contrast, making things unreadable. In my personal experience, 'dark white' text on 'light black' would be the most suitable and long-readable theme for any environment.
Comment: "So when you are reading some black text against white background, the screen is flashing a lot of light except for a small portion (the text). On the other hand, when you are reading a white text against black background, the screen emits (almost) nothing except for the text area." - This only applies to OLED monitors.
Comment: AFAIK only OLED and similar screens (AMOLED, SAMOLED, etc) doesn't use backlight (the allways on lighting coming from behind the screen). That meaning that if you open 100% black image on LCD screen, the backlight still shining as bright as if you're open 100% white image. On the other hand, on OLED type monitors black image produces almost no light. Further read: http://www.anandtech.com/show/8795/understanding-brightness-in-amoled-and-lcd-displays and http://www.androidauthority.com/amoled-vs-lcd-differences-572859/
Comment: That's true. But I believe a small amount of backlight is good to keep the contrast in an optimum level.
Answer: I used to program with
White background, I felt more tired and kind of flickering when going home and more tired.
Then I switched to Black background
Eye feels more relaxed and much less tiring and stressed.
I am not sure, which is good for eyes though.
Technically.
  When the background is Black the iris open more. I think it allows more radiation in. Not sure.
Answer: I'm using white background, because as a web developer you moving from browser to editor all the time and most websites are in white.
I tried to use black background and my eyes started to hurt, because of the switching between both editor and browser. (editor - black, browser - white)
I guess if you work just in black background for all your apps this might work


Master Forms in windows form

Question: Like Master pages in ASP.NET, do we have any similar concept for Windows Form application. So that I dont have to repeat the same portion of form (Header and footer) many times through out the application.
Answer: Yes.
What you have to do is to create your "Master" form, add in all the UI you want, the default buttons, etc.
For things like buttons, I typically create the methods that handle the Click events as "Virtual" so that I can implement them in the actual form that I'm then building.
Once the "Master" form is built, what you will need to do is to Right-Click on the project and select "New Item".  Once you have done that, if you're in VS.Net 2008, you can click on the "Windows Forms" categories, and then select "Inherited Form".
Once you have done that, you will be asked to inherit from which form in the project.  Simply select the "master" form, and you should be set.
Answer: Create the main form as a Form with header and footer, but leave the middle empty.
Implement "inner pages" as UserControl with a common interface, and change them as you need it. (Header, Contentpanel and Footer are Windows.Form.Panel).
<code>-------------------------------
| Header                      |
-------------------------------         ______________
|                             |         |            |
|         ContentPanel        |   <---- | MonkeyEdit |
|                             |         |____________|
-------------------------------
| Footer                      |
-------------------------------
</code>
And implement content as
<code>public class MonkeyEdit : UserControl, IContent
{

}
</code>
Implementing an interface it's usefull but not neccessary. After that, based on events/configuration, just load MonkeyEdit into the ContentPanel with a Dock.Fill. You can inhert the "master form" too, as you see here in an another post.
Answer: Not really the same as master pages, but you can create a control (e.g based on UserControl) with header and footer that all your other forms can inherit (or construct) as needed.
Answer: You can achieve something similar with inheritance; you create some parent form with controls that are repeated and then use this parent for every custom form you need.
Answer: Add a class the inherits from Form, add the headers and footers(in code) and then let all new forms inherit from this class.
Answer: Master page has capability of specifying the content area where pages will be embedded. So deriving a form, say Form B from Form A and getting features of parent form doesn't prove the point.
What Boj has mentioned makes more sense, where we are using Panels.

Master Forms in windows form


Shooting victim taken off life support. What crime would be charged?

Question: About a week ago a girl was shot in a Maryland school. Soon after that, a police officer shot and killed the gunman. The girl was critically injured, and on life support. After a few days, the family decided to take her off life support and she died soon after. Suppose the killer didn't die. What crime would the killer be charged with? The girl has died, but technically she would probably still be alive if her parents didn't take here off life support. I think in some cases, a jury could be convinced that it would be extremely unlikely that a victim would ever regain consciousness. Many would regard this as worse than attempted murder. Do some states have a crime that is appropriate for that situation?
Answer: It would be murder (assuming the facts surrounding her getting shot would support a murder charge, of course, and it wasn't something like an accidental discharge.) The fact that she was on life support for a time is irrelevant.
Under Maryland law § 2-102 it doesn't matter how much time has elapsed:

A prosecution may be instituted for murder, manslaughter, or unlawful homicide, whether at common law or under this title, regardless of the time that has elapsed between the act or omission that caused the death of the victim and the victim's death.

It's a Wisconsin and not a Maryland case, but according to State v. Below, 799 NW 2d 95 - Wis: Court of Appeals 2011, it doesn't even matter if life support was wrongly terminated; the defendant is still guilty:

[E]ven if the Defendant can establish that the termination of Madison's life support was "wrongful" under Wisconsin Law, that wrongful act would not break the chain of causation between the Defendant's actions and Madison's subsequent death.
Comment: The case I cited says, "Under Wisconsin law, whether the intervening act was negligent, intentional and/or legally wrongful is irrelevant. The analysis is the same. The State must still prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant's acts were a substantial factor in producing the death."
Comment: I think it's even murder (by the gunman) if he shoots you non-lethally, you go into hospital, and an incompetent medic manages to kill you. The distinction is whether the death is foreseeable. Yes, falling into the hands of an incompetent medic is foreseeable. I think the ambulance driving you to the hospital getting into an accident and you getting killed in the accident is different.
Comment: @gnasher729 In the end it's up to the jury, and so it probably matters exactly *how* incompetent the medic is. If I were on a jury I don't think I'd convict the shooter of murder if, say, the doctors administered a 1000x dose of something and the guy's life was not in danger before that overdose. It's a matter of what "caused the death".
Answer: It may vary by jurisdiction, but there is precedent to charge that individual with murder. Although, it is doubtful it varies greatly because, of course, the victim was murdered.
Here's one example, from New York, where a guy was charged with numerous things including attempted murder. An assault took place on December 5. It was reported on December 13 that the victim was taken off life support and that the suspect would subsequently be charged with murder.
Here's the beginning of an article on the topic (the meat of it is behind a paywall, but the relevant point is included). The article deals with a death that happens years after the initial assault, but the opening paragraph states that a subsequent victim death can lead to a prosecutor subsequently charging the suspect with murder.
And here's a 1994 article in the NY Times where the State Court of Appeals clarifies the "delayed death" exception. This holds that, in an exception to the state's double jeopardy law,

the state's highest court ruled today that a person who has pleaded
  guilty to attempted murder may be charged with murder if the victim
  later dies.

So, to answer your question (without providing any sort of legal advice, of course), a murder charge can likely stick in the situation you described.
Comment: I wonder how "double jeopardy" is affected by this, if the perpetrator was convicted for the assault and attempted murder.
Comment: @gnasher729 Indeed, that's the logical next question.  Double jeopardy would not apply.  SCOTUS has held this since at least 1912: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/223/442.html (see approx. para. 6, which begins "The provision against double jeopardy...").  When bringing another charge for acts/omissions arising out of the same nucleus of facts, in order to avoid Double Jeopardy restrictions, the subsequent charge must require at least one additional fact that the original does not (https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/the-prohibition-against-double-jeopardy.html).
Answer: There is an old common law rule that if the victim survived for a year and a day, that was conclusive proof that the victim had not died of the injury and that a conviction of homicide could not be made.
However, in many jurisdictions this rule has been overturned, either by legislation or by more recent case law. In those jurisdictions, providing the death can be proved to be the result of the perpetrators acts or omissions there is no  time limit.
Comment: This answer is ultimately correct, but you also have to explain how you get around the intervening actor problem.
Answer: There are cases where a charge of murder has been brought when the victim of a shooting died more than 20 years later.  The new stories at the following links give two examples, easily found with a Google Search: victim dies 20 years later
https://foxbaltimore.com/news/local/1996-shooting-victim-dies-more-than-20-years-later-from-wound-complications
https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/aurora-beacon-news/opinion/ct-abn-crosby-shooting-victim-st-0617-story.html


What does "cosmologies" mean in this particular context?

Question: Consider the following extract:

A skillful cook can make delectable dishes without quite being able to
tell us how. (Conversely, the possession of a good recipe book is not
sufficient to make a good cook.) By embedded understanding, I mean,
this practical knowledge that remains pre-reflective and inarticulate.
It is an understanding we acquire by being initiated into the
practices of a society. The term 'common sense' is broader and covers
embedded understanding but also, at the very least, our spontaneous
and ad hoc reflections, including reflections that are closely aligned
to our practices, which might be called practical reflections. It
usually also includes stories, epics, folk tales, legends, myths that
have been passed on from one generation to another and with the help
of which we make sense of and evaluate the entire universe. Such
nearly systematic but non-theoretical reflections which knit together
in a seamless web the physical, biological, social, mental and
spiritual worlds may be called cosmologies. Cosmologies frequently
inform and become part of a society's common sense.

According to Merriam-Webster, cosmology has the following meanings:

A branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of the universe.
A theory or doctrine describing the natural order of the universe.
A branch of astronomy that deals with the origin, structure, and space-time relationships of the universe. (also : a theory dealing with these matters)

Which sense of the word is the author referring to by cosmologies? Why is it being used in a plural form here?
Thank you in advance. :)
Comment: What is the source, who is the author? Please.
Answer: None of those meanings.  The author is using a word in a specfic and non standard way, which is why he/she defines cosmologies as

Nearly systematic but non-theoretical reflections which knit together in a seamless web the physical, biological, social, mental and spiritual worlds

This is related to the first dictionary definition: a metaphysical system concerning the nature of the universe.
Comment: Thanks @James K


Is Bahamut still alive in the Forgotten Realms in 1489 DR?

Question: I was reading about Bahamut in the forgotten realms wiki, and in it it states that he died. However it also states that he is a god. So I'm curious, is Bahamut still alive or did he simply die on the mortal plane?
Comment: Something I've personally noticed is that the FR wiki doesn't seem to have had 5e-based canon updates widely propagated through it, which may explain some discrepancies you see there. The Sundering, the 4e -> 5e lore event, shook up a lot of details about the gods that might not yet be reflected in the wiki.
Comment: Related: [Where is Myrkul's return detailed?](http://rpg.stackexchange.com/q/82643/19580), [Is Shaundakul still alive in 5e?](http://rpg.stackexchange.com/q/53985/19580)
Answer: Bahamut is alive and well
On page 86 of the 5e monster manual, Bahamut is spoken of in the present tense.

Tiamat's most hated enemy is Bahamut the Platinum Dragon, with whom
  she shares control of the faith of dragonkind.

On page 298 of the Players Handbook, under "Nonhuman Deities" the first entry is:

Bahamut, dragon god of good (Align LG, Domains Life/War, Symbol Dragon's head in profile)

PHB p.293 indicates that the table on p. 298. is shared by both FR & Greyhawk, so it should be valid for FR. (Credit to @CTWind)
The reports of his demise are premature, if you accept 5e D&D as a valid state of being.

(From comments under the question)

you're asking if Bahamut is alive in 1489 DR? Is that the question? – @SevenSidedDie
Yes Sevensideddie, that is correct. – @Bigbo Biggins

The campaign date of the Forgotten Realms 1491 DR coincides with the real-world year of 2015 (Princes of the Apocalypse campaign).  Per your comment, in terms of DR 1492 ... he's not dead (yet).
Comment: Possibly worth noting is that while the cited Nonhuman Deities table on PHB p.298 is separate from the Deities of the Forgotten Realms table, PHB p.293 states that said table is shared by both FR & Greyhawk and it should therefore be valid for FR. (Unfortunately, SCAG does not seem to go into the present state of Bahamut at all, and doesn't reference him in its deities tables)
Comment: @CTWind Good point


Dynamic generation of sheet name from cell content

Question: Is it possible to dynamically change the name of a sheet in Google Sheets based on the contents of a specific cell? For instance, I'd like my sheet to get its name from whatever is in cell A1... is that possible at all?
Comment: Yes! It's possible. Start reading [Extend Google Docs, Sheets, and Forms with Apps Script - Docs editors Help](https://support.google.com/docs/answer/2942256?hl=en)
Comment: @Rubén Awesome! But do you mean I would need to script it myself (possible, but not right now, since I really don't have the time to learn for another 2-3 weeks), or that there is a specific add-on or script hidden on that site somewhere?
Comment: I meant that you should read the referred article to learn the basics about what is possible with Google Sheets. That will help you to learn words and terms that you could use to find add-ons and scripts and to reword your question. Bear in mind that this site isn't for asking about web apps recommendations. Anyway, I think that there should be somewhere an add-on or script. Have you already tried to find them? Another recommended reading: [How do I write a great question?](http://meta.webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/3857/).
Comment: @Rubén Thanks for suggesting I learn how to ask better questions, though I'm unclear as to how I could've improved mine - turns out I couldn't have done half-bad if Normal Human understood me and suggested a perfect solution...
I did, in fact, spend a good few hours looking for scripts and add-ons and tried my hand at coding awkwardly - and only turned to SE after coming up with no working solution on my own. I guess I should've mentioned "I failed at finding something myself" in my question - but I assumed that was a given?
Seems SE is less welcoming than some of the SO sites I frequent...
Answer: Here's a script that does this: enter it in Tools > Script Editor.
It runs automatically on every edit, and renames the active sheet if the content of A1 (referred by row 1, column 1) does not match the current sheet name.
<code>function onEdit() {
  var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet();
  var oldName = sheet.getName();
  var newName = sheet.getRange(1,1).getValue();
  if (newName.toString().length>0 && newName !== oldName) {
    sheet.setName(newName);
  }
}
</code>
That said, I think this is not a particularly good way of naming sheets.
Comment: Awesome, thank you! I know, it's typically really a bad idea, but in this specific case, it's exactly what's needed, since 15+ sheets need to change names yearly (and this across a number of spreadsheets, I'm sure), so this is beyond awesome.
Comment: So, I've successfully implemented this script onto a spreadsheet of my own but I have one issue with it that I can't seem to get around. I have it set up so that the sheet name corresponds to a cell containing a date. Whenever the sheet name is updated it comes out like this : "Fri Feb 08 2019 00:00:00 GMT-0000 (GMT)" whereas the cell only contains the following: "08/02/19" Any way to have the sheet only display what is actually displayed in the cell?
Answer: Format your Tab Name referencing cell as Text. Or use =TEXT(Cell reference or Formula, "DDDD, MMMM, YYYY). In the example script above the cell would be A1. Hope this helps.


Strange behaviour of Solarized-theme in Org-mode

Question: I installed the Solarized theme through package-install RET solarized-theme, and it went largely well but .org files have a strange appearance:

Note how it hides the line numbers. Here is how it looks on other files:

How do I make it so that org files have the same appearance as other files? Please note that I am new to this so I may not understand some things that are obvious to more experienced Emacs hackers.
My init.el file:
<code>(package-initialize)

;;settings files location
(add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/settings")
(add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/elpa/")
;;import settings from other files
(require 'general-settings)

;;theme loading
(add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/elpa/")
(custom-set-variables
 ;; custom-set-variables was added by Custom.
 ;; If you edit it by hand, you could mess it up, so be careful.
 ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
 ;; If there is more than one, they won't work right.
 '(custom-enabled-themes (quote (solarized-dark)))
 '(custom-safe-themes
   (quote
    ("8aebf25556399b58091e533e455dd50a6a9cba958cc4ebb0aab175863c25b9a4" default)))
 '(inhibit-startup-screen t)
 '(package-selected-packages (quote (solarized-theme))))
(custom-set-faces
 ;; custom-set-faces was added by Custom.
 ;; If you edit it by hand, you could mess it up, so be careful.
 ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
 ;; If there is more than one, they won't work right.
 )
(load-theme 'solarized-dark t)
;;ido
(require 'ido)
(ido-mode t)(package-initialize)

(setq package-archives
      '(("gnu" . "http://elpa.gnu.org/packages/")
       ("marmalade" . "http://marmalade-repo.org/packages/")
       ("melpa" . "http://melpa.milkbox.net/packages/")))

;;org-mode

;;markdown
(autoload 'markdown-mode "markdown-mode"
   "Major mode for editing Markdown files" t)
(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\(.text\\|.markdown\\|.md\\)'" . markdown-mode))
(setq markdown-enable-math t) ;;enables math functions
</code>
my settings file (some useful things I borrowed from a friend):
<code>;;------------------------------;;
;;   Global Editor    Settings  ;;
;;------------------------------;;

(setq current-language-environment "English") ;; Language
(setq inhibit-startup-screen t) ;; Don't show the start-up Screen

(menu-bar-mode 0) ;; Toggle menu bar

(require 'tool-bar) ;; Toggle toolbar
(tool-bar-mode 0)

(global-hl-line-mode 1) ;; Highlight line with cursorx

(if window-system (scroll-bar-mode 0)) ;; Toggle scroll bar
(require 'mwheel) ;; Toggle mouse wheel support for scrolling
(mouse-wheel-mode 1)

(transient-mark-mode 1) ;; Transient-Mark Mode (highlight selection

(global-linum-mode t) ;; Display line number at left
(line-number-mode 1)
(column-number-mode 1)

;; Text decoration

;; Window resizing bindings
(global-set-key (kbd "S-C-<left>") 'shrink-window-horizontally)
(global-set-key (kbd "S-C-<right>") 'enlarge-window-horizontally)
(global-set-key (kbd "S-C-<down>") 'shrink-window)
(global-set-key (kbd "S-C-<up>") 'enlarge-window)

(provide 'general-settings)
</code>
Answer: For those with this problem, I solved it as follows:
Solarized theme has a toggle to scale font sizes of org headings. Disable that with this line in the init file to fix the issue:
<code>(setq solarized-scale-org-headlines nil)
</code>
Comment: For me, the font used in the headings is still different.  Would be nice to be able to prevent that too.
Comment: Did you try nlinum instead of linum for line numbers?
Answer: You need to set solarized-scale-org-headlines to nil before loading the theme
<code>(setq solarized-scale-org-headlines nil)
(load-theme 'solarized-zenburn t)
</code>


Stoicheometry questions: I've been having a bad time not understanding the questions and how the steps are to achieve the answer. please help

Question:
Cetyl palmitate (C32H64O2) is a waxy solid and is the main component of spermaceti, the once prized wax found in the skull of sperm wales. The heads of sperm whales can contain up to 1900 L of spermaceti. If the most famous sperm whale, Moby Dick, had a head containing 1514 L of spermaceti, consisting of 77.3% (by mass) cetyl palmitate, how many kL of liquid water would be produced from the combustion of the cetyl palmitate?  Assume there is excess oxygen and the reaction proceeds in a 68.2% yield. The density of spermaceti is 828.4 kg/m^3
Zinc metal can be dissolved in nitric acid (it actually reacts with the nitric acid to produce hydrogen gas and soluble zinc nitrate).  If a solution of nitric acid contains 2.6 mol nitric acid per liter of solution, how many mL of solution are needed to completely dissolve a piece of zinc metal that is 1.32 in wide, 4.66 in long and 0.436 mm thick? The density of zinc is 7.14 g/mL
When zinc metal is placed in an aqueous solution of copper(II) sulfate, the zinc is oxidized and goes into the solution as zinc ions.  At the same time, the copper is reduced to copper metal and deposits onto the zinc metal.  In effect, the zinc metal is slowly "dissolving" and being coated with copper metal at the same time.
A 1939.2 g strip of zinc metal is placed into a solution containing an excess of copper(II) sulfate and after some time has elapsed it is pulled out and its mass is determined to be 1927.3 g.  What mass of zinc metal was oxidized?
Comment: Homework! Please show your own attempt at a solution, and describe what difficulty you have. We're not a free homework service.
Comment: Hi Naomi, welcome to Chem.SE! We require you to show your efforts on this problem. What formulae/steps did you try? Where did you get stuck? Please add this to your question. Thanks!
Comment: @Gaurang Tandon I first have to balance the equations first. then convert my units. After that im not sure what the steps are called. The notes i have taken in my Chemistry class only help with non-lengthy questions, so the structure of these questions generally confuse me.
Comment: Also i came on this site for help. not for "free homework service" @Karl . that's why i asked for the steps so i could follow them on dozens of other assignments i was given.
Answer: It often helps to

ask yourself: What are they actually asking for?
reorder the information given in the question.

Let's try this for the first question:
Apparently, this is about cetyl palmitate ($\ce{C32H64O2}$). When the compound is burned in excess of oxygen, carbon dioxide ($\ce{CO2}$) and water ($\ce{H2O}$) are produced. It's your task to calculate the amount of water generated upon burning a certain amount of cetyl palmitate.

Do you remember the concept of the unit mole? How many molecules of water can be formed from a molecule of cetyl palmitate that contains 64 hydrogen atoms? Knowing the number of molecules and the molecular mass of a compound gives the corresponding weight.

If the initial amount of cetyl palmitate was given in moles you'd be done. Obviously, that's too easy.
Instead, the Moby Dick example was given. This adds two other concepts:

density, which correlates mass and volume
percentages: if only x% of your starting is usable, what is the actual amount work with in further calculations?

Let this sink in for a while and then give it a try. You can do this by yourself!


Europe-wide phone plan for a month

Question: I'm travelling to Europe for almost a month (Ireland, England, Netherlands, Germany). Is there a way to get a phone plan which will work in all those countries? I don't mind buying a SIM card in Ireland (my first country), but I'd rather not have to buy a new one every time I switch countries. Data is most important to me - texting/calling is not such a big deal.
Comment: @Calchas In principle yes but the new rules will be effective from July (hence my question). In the meantime, I have seen many providers advertising free roaming and apparently trying to lure people into committing for one or two years by offering something that will be mandatory in a few months.
Comment: @SheikPaul I thought that roaming charges had been abolished in Europe? But in any case, my provider ("Three") does not charge me to roam anywhere within the EEA (or in several other countries). A three sim can be picked up in large supermarkets in the UK.
Comment: Just about any SIM card you get in Ireland should work in all the countries you listed but roaming typically attracts additional charges, which are capped under EU rules, not really cheap but not hefty either. If you shop around, you should be able to find better roaming rates than the maximum allowed under EU rules but I don't know enough about current offerings in Ireland to post an answer. Starting in July, roaming within the EU (which still includes the UK for the time being) will become entirely free.
Comment: Yes there is. But be ready for hefty roaming charges. https://explore.ee.co.uk/roaming/ee/ireland.  EE is one provider. If you're from the USA and have T-mobile your data is available in Europe without roaming charges.
Comment: When will you be travelling?
Comment: I'll be traveling in May - so before the new rules, unfortunately.
Answer: Three UK provides a Pay as You Go SIM which allows you to roam freely within Europe (and many other countries) without incurring any additional fees. They advertise this as "Feel at Home". You need to "Top Up" (add credit) to use the SIM, although a small amount of credit will come with every new SIM. This may be difficult online using a foreign card, so please investigate. Alternatively you can do it in a Three store, if necessary by using cash, or at a UK ATM.
To take advantage of the "Feel at Home" offer you need to buy a data "Add On" [otherwise you pay £0.01 / MB]. You can buy a data add on using your Pay as You Go credit.
Formerly Three offered a 2 GB add on for £5, but that seems to have disappeared from the Add Ons page. Instead the best bet might be the 12 GB add on for £20. Note that the "all you can eat data" (unlimited data) Add On does not apply to roaming, there is a 12 GB cap. That cap applies to both Pay as You Go and to contract customers when roaming abroad.
The Add On does not auto-renew but it is only valid for one month. So if you don't use the 12 GB, it doesn't carry over; it's gone 28 days after purchase.
Abroad, it's worth noting that you won't usually get 4G/LTE speeds, you are stuck at 3G speeds, which can be quite annoying if you are tethering. [They also say that tethering is not allowed when abroad, but it works fine for me.]
Three SIM cards can be purchased from any mobile telephone store in the UK or from certain supermarkets (Tesco I think). There's no need to register at the shop or provide any details, you can just pick up the packet and put it through the till.
Three do have an Irish brand (three.ie) but to my knowledge the Irish customers are not offered the same deal.

In addition to this, Three do have a dedicated internet-only SIM deal, which may be a better deal, but I have no experience of these or whether they work seamlessly with telephones (instead of with Tablets).

My knowledge of Three's pricing comes only from being a lifelong customer, so there may be better options around.

Europe-wide phone plan for a month


extension of surface homeomorphism

Question: Can anyone give me a reference (or proof sketch) for the fact that there are psuedo-Anosov diffeomorphisms of closed hyperbolic surfaces which do not extend over any handlebody? Thanks.
Comment: There is even a pA map $f$ so that $f^n$ extends over a handlebody if and only if $n = 0$.
Answer: If you take a mapping class $\psi:\Sigma\to \Sigma$ whose characteristic polynomial of its action on homology $\psi_\ast: H_1(\Sigma;\mathbb{Z}) \to H_1(\Sigma;\mathbb{Z})$ is irreducible, then it cannot extend over a handlebody. The point is that if $\psi= \Psi_{| \Sigma}$, where $\Psi: H\to H, \partial{H}=\Sigma$, $H$ a handlebody, then $\psi$ preserves $K=ker\{H_1(\Sigma)\to H_1(H)\}$, which is an integral Lagrangian subspace of $H_1(\Sigma)$. So the characteristic polynomial of $\psi_{\ast | K}$ divides the characteristic polynomial of $\psi_\ast$. In fact, this argument shows that $\psi$ does not extend over any manifold $M$ with $\partial M=\Sigma$.
Since $Mod(\Sigma)\to Sp(H_1(\Sigma))$ is surjective, one also has a pseudo-Anosov element giving any symplectic matrix (see Sam Nead's comment for one possible argument, or one may restrict to a matrix satisfying Casson's criterion for irreducibility as in Rivin's answer), so there is a pA element satisfying the irreducibility criterion.
Comment: Arrange matters so that $g$ doesn't send $\lambda^+(f)$ to $\lambda^-(f)$; post-compose $g$ with a separating Dehn twist if necessary.  Now use the Brouwer fixed point theorem and the north-south dynamics of $f$ to prove (for $n$ sufficiently large) that the action of $f^n \circ g$ has exactly two fixed points: one close to $\lambda^+(f)$ and one close to $g^{-1}(\lambda^-(f))$.
Comment: Igor - take any pA element $f$ that acts trivially on homology.  Take any $g$ with the desired action on homology.  Then for some $n$ the element $f^n \circ g$ will be pA.
Comment: Why does one have a pseudo-ANosov giving any symplectic matrix?
Comment: @Sam: why is that?
Answer: You can find a proof of this in the paper
MR1885215 (2002m:57019)
Leininger, Christopher J.(1-TX); Reid, Alan W.(1-TX)
The co-rank conjecture for 3-manifold groups. (English summary)
Algebr. Geom. Topol. 2 (2002), 37–50 (electronic).
It works for any surface of genus at least $2$.
It was originally proven by Casson and by Johnson-Johannson, though they did not publish their proofs (they don't mention the pseudo-Anosov condition, only that the mapping classes do not extend over any handlebody; however, I'm pretty sure that you can get a pseudo-Anosov mapping class by following their proofs).  I have a photocopy of the preprint of Johnson-Johannson; if you want it, let me know and I can scan it.
You might also be interested in the paper "Relative Weight Filtrations on Completions of Mapping Class Groups" by Hain (available here) and the thesis of Jamie Jorgensen (available here).  They prove that there exist mapping classes that don't extend to any handlebody arbitrarly deep in the "Johnson filtration" of the mapping class group (so these are very algebraically complicated).  I'm pretty sure you can follow their ideas to get ones that are pseudo-Anoson.
Answer: In the section 3 of the article "Extending Pseudo-Anosov maps into compression bodies" (by Biringer, Johnson, and Minsky), you will find examples of pseudo-Anosov maps on the boundary of a genus 3 handlebody that do not extend to a handlebody automorphism.
Reference for the article: arXiv:1011.0021v1
Answer: Really a long comment on @Agol's answer:
One does not actually need the fact (which I was not aware of) to show  what the OP wants from what @Agol says, since by Casson-Bleiler, any mapping class whose characteristic polynomial is irreducible, non-cyclotomic, and does not have the form $f(x^k),$ for $k>1$ is pseudo-Anosov, and by my results, the characteristic polynomial of a generic element of the symplectic group has all three properties (see
Walks on groups, counting reducible matrices, polynomials, and surface and free group automorphisms,
Igor Rivin Duke Mathematical Journal 142, 2, pp353-379), and hence, the generic element of the mapping class group, by Ian's remark, has the property the OP wants.
Answer: I accidentally found this Rice University thesis (never published, it seems) which studies the question in some depth:
Author Jamie Bradley Jorgensen
Title Surface homeomorphisms that do not extend to any handlebody and the Johnson Filtration.
Comment: @Igor Rivin : If you look at my answer, I gave a link to a version of his thesis that he posted on the arXiv.  Jamie left mathematics after completing his PhD and wasn't interested in publishing his thesis.
Comment: (though I see now that I mangled the link.  I justed edited my answer to give a correct link).
Comment: @Andy: oops, I did not notice....

extension of surface homeomorphism


how do I maintain a masqueraded url in a proxy session?

Question: I have a proxypass rule in place for my website's support page (www.company.com/support) to redirect to a thirdparty hosted web site (company.custhelp.com)...but the sites link's themselves are all on the seperate domain. Is there a way I can maintain the proxy session so that links clicked within the session also pass through the proxy and maintain the "correct" url that I wish the users to see?
Answer: To masquerade the domain, you would use the below rules.
ProxyPass /support http://company.custhelp.com
ProxyPassReverse /support http://company.custhelp.com

Any URI links on the remote site would need to be relative, so that, when clicked, they remain inherently relative to your domain. For example:

vs.

If for some reason you have no control over the content of the remote site (I don't see why you wouldn't), there is no Apache module that parses pages.  You would need to create a script that serves those requests from your server. The script would act as the proxy: fetching the pages from the remote site, parsing the content and rewriting the HTML (URIs) before returning it to the end-user.
There are a handful of challenges that arise when creating this type of script. A couple that come to mind are images and css files. You will need to decide if you will handle serving the images through your site or make the script such that it doesn't rewite image URLs. If the image references are relative, you will need to serve them or make the script such that it rewrites those relative paths with the remote source domain. You will have similar issue with css files. Another is "HTTP_REFERER" rules. While rare, if the remote site has any "HTTP_REFERER" rules, those items won't work.
It certainly is not impossible, but you will need to account for many possibilities.


What is the size of the world for a photon?

Question: At relativistic speeds the distances contracts. What is the contraction ratio in the dimensions along the axis of travel between a static observer and a photon passing by?
Comment: Related: https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/29082/2451 and links therein.
Comment: Another related link: https://physics.stackexchange.com/a/227128/102232
Answer: This is a long recurring question, that keeps coming up again and again; and I'm not sure if it will stop doing so.
The truth is there is no "point of view" from a photon, there are no reference frames that travel with the speed of a photon, and there, moreover is not possible any consciousness or evolution of anything that travels at the speed of light.
When you try to use the Lorentz transformations to boost up to speed $c$, they explode - therefore, there is no reference frame with this speed. And how could there be? According to all inertial frames, light must be in motion - if there were a frame that could move along with light that would contradict that, in fact I believe this was one of the early thought experiments Einstein used to devise special relativity, so it is no surprise that the theory that was devised with this in mind freaks out when you try to do that. Some might try to say "the universe contracts to zero" but this isn't even right: the Lorentz transformation matrix does not become singular, it becomes undefined (it's a division by zero, and trying to make it defined by injecting "infinity" into the number system just causes the "spacetime" to collapse into a teeny little yuckey nonsensey thing so forget that.).
Furthermore, the proper time along any lightlike path - that is, any path in space-time corresponding to the motion of a photon - is zero, which means that an outside observer sees a photon's "clock as frozen", so it cannot undergo any internal evolution, nor could a being made up of photons. Thus there can be no living things (natural or artificial and for whatever definition of life you want to use) that travel at $c$. Thus nothing can experience travel at $c$ because things that travel at $c$ are not capable of undergoing experience, no matter how broadly you define that term. The domain of things that travel at $c$ is an essentially different domain than those traveling with a speed below $c$. The usual "principle of relativity" that says "all velocities are equivalent physics" really comes with a caveat: all velocities below $c$. Velocity $c$ is something else indeed.
Comment: Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been [moved to chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/62693/discussion-on-answer-by-mike4ty4-what-is-the-size-of-the-world-for-a-photon).
Answer: Well, just to clarify some misconceptions. The important thing about coordinate systems along the path of photons is not what you'd observe (i.e. whether you see space contraction or not) but how those define the causal structure of spacetime (what can affect you and what cannot, and inversely what you can affect or not).
You can in fact have lightlike coordinate systems, i.e., coordinate systems which would be the path that photons or any zero mass particle follows in spacetime. They are also called null coordinates because their spacetime intervals (along them) must be zero. In fact they are very important as they are the best way to understand and visualize the causal structure of spacetime. An example and reference below.
But first, that does not mean that a photon observes anything (they don't have eyes) or that anything with mass, or any person can have that frame be their rest frames. Anything along those coordinates moves at the speed of light, and must be zero mass (due to special relativity anything massless moves at speed c).
Example: consider simply a 1+1 dimension spacetime, and take it for simplicity to be Minkowski. Then one can write the metric as
$$ds^2 = dt^2 - dx^2$$
and then defining u and v as
u = t-x and
v = t+x, one has that
$$ds^2 = dudv$$
See the simple explanation by @Schirmer at Penrose Diagrams Null Coordinates
u and v are null coordinates and are used to draw Penrose diagrams. They represent the light cones in 2D, with u = constant inclined to the right and v to the left, in the t>0 half plane. You can also have the t<0 half plane, which represents the past for an observer at the origin.
See for instance about Penrose diagrams at Wikipedia at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penrose_diagram
And one can define these kinds of null cordinates for any spacetime, including curved spacetimes. When diagrams are drawn this way it is easy to see what two events can be causally connected (if one at the origin, any others inside the light cone), or not (outside). The se kinds of diagrams are very useful to understand black holes, how the event horizon on those are not singularities, and otHer causal questions. See also more Penrose diagrams and descriptions at https://jila.colorado.edu/~ajsh/insidebh/penrose.html
So the important thing in physics is not what do photons see, or anything else going at speed c, but that those define the causal structure of spacetime, as Penrose recognized.


Distance function on a pacman plane

Question: I am making a game, where if you go through the right wall, you pop up on the left. I want to have a function that calculates the distance between two objects, where we can have a line that goes through the wall. For example, if the screen width is 100 and one object was at (0, 90) and another at (0, 10), the distance between them would be 20.
Comment: Maybe adding what you intend to do with that functionality, and what you have tried so far would help us give you better answers.
Comment: Why do you need this distance? Is that for your AI? Do you have some kind of graph of places where the characters can go?
Comment: And how are they navigating the maze otherwise? Because you could rely on this other infrastructure to get the value you want.
Comment: I tried have the positions go above the screen height/width and then use modulo when I write them on the screen, but then the distance function was way of. I don't see how I can have a distance function that works both on the edges of the screen, and when the objects are on the same place on the screen but have vastly different positions.
Comment: I am making boids (with some extra stuff), and I want them to flow from one side of the screen to the other. If I do this by changing their positions when they hit an edge, the normal distance function, wont find the old flock when it has gone throught the edge. The boid might therefore go in the wrong direction.
Comment: Does the screen wrap on both the X & Y plane (i.e. is essentially a torus)?
Answer: Basically, you need to check if the absolute distance on either plane is larger than half that screen dimension - if so, wrapping across the screen is faster than the standard distance on that axis:
<code>dx = abs(x1 - x2);
if (dx > width/2)
   dx = width - dx;
dy = abs(y1 - y2);
if (dy > height/2)
   dy = height - dy;
dist = sqrt(dx*dx + dy*dy);
</code>

Distance function on a pacman plane


What do you call the steel property that reduces the likelihood of shattering?

Question: What is the property of not shattering, in for example a brisant explosion, called? And what kind of steel would I want that has this property?
Comment: For what application are you using the steel?
Answer: There are three (or four) possible terms for what you are asking: resilience, ductility or toughness (a steel that is resilient, ductile and/or tough)
A material's resilience describes its ability to absorb energy by deforming elastically. Its ductility (or malleability, there is a slight difference between the terms, but its not relevant here) represents how much energy it can absorb via plastic deformations. Its toughness encompasses both elastic and plastic deformations.
These terms are actually quantifiable and are equal to the area beneath the stress-strain diagram. Resilience equals the area under the elastic regime, ductility under the plastic regime, and toughness under the entire curve (and is therefore equal to the sum of the material's resilience and ductility).

If the second part of your question was asking for specific steels, that's out-of-scope for this site, given how different steels are available in different countries.
Comment: The answer would be more complete if it mentioned impact toughness, and maybe some tests of such: Izod, Charpy, Drop Test, etc. Just because a material appears tough at low strain rates doesn't necessarily say much about how it behaves at high strain rates or in high-velocity impact, like bullet impacts and shrapnel. All the same, solid answer.
Comment: @starrise, while I agree that would be relevant (even more relevant than my actual answer, given that the OP is asking about explosions), such things are out-of-scope for this brain.
Answer: This would be the opposite of brittleness, 'toughness' seems like the right term but 'ductility' might also apply.
Comment: Correct opposite of brittleness is ductility
Comment: @Fennekin thanks, wasn't sure which it was
Answer: I believe @squigbobble is on the right track.  The issue is related to crack propagation, namely the energy to propagate the crack in the material.  The reason ductility plays a big roll here is that ductility "dulls" the tip of this crack requiring greater energy to continue opening it.  This slows the rate of crack propagation significantly.


What happens after getting all achievements?

Question: I've finally finished every achievement in the game,  and yet nothing happens. Is this a glitch or was doing this completely pointless?
Comment: Achievements or trophies in general encourage you to explore a game to its fullest. Some games might reward you for completing certain achievements, but this is far from being the de facto standard.
Answer: Nothing gets unlocked or activated when you achieve all the achievements.
They are there to show your progress and offer additional challenges.
Answer: Much like "prestiging" in the Call of Duty multiplayer, you can choose to restart the game, which will award you with an achievement (A man, my son) and the opportunity to play through the missions again (you keep purchased items).
Answer: It's not a glitch. You can just show off your success to your friends. In my point of view, it is just for fun and gives you some challenges, skill and a lot of goals that you want to achieve.
Answer: Nothing happens there is no glitch yes you can nag your friends about it and you can start the game again but you keep your gadgets and jetpacks
hope this answers your question!
Comment: Welcome to the ArQAde. Please don't format like that, and what exactly does your "answer" contribute in addition to the ones already here?


Where can I get the correct and precise algorithms for elliptic curve cryptography?

Question: I have been asked to implement cryptographic operations using elliptic curves. I would like to get precise algorithms for various processes like key generation, digital signature and verification. I found this link, but I just want confirmation on the algorithms provided there are correct or not. I would also like to know if there is any standard site for this topic whose information are authentic and can be trusted.
Comment: Wikipedia! It's a very reliable source. :-P
Answer: Standards for Efficient Cryptography Group has published SEC1: Elliptic Curve Cryptography (pdf) about elliptic curve algorithms. If it does not explain the mathematics well enough for your purposes, there is also Fundamental Elliptic Curve Cryptography Algorithms (RFC 6090, from IETF) you could look at.
There are a lot of issues you can run into, so hopefully this is an exercise of some kind, rather than someone expecting you to write production code from scratch. For production code I would recommend using existing libraries.
Comment: @abejoe Implementing symmetric crypto is usually not that dangerous, because most mistakes lead to it not working at all (you still need to be careful about side channel attacks). ECC is subtle, you need to correctly handle various special cases, failure to do so can lead to a rarely occurring yet exploitable bugs. So I *strongly* recommend not implementing ECC for production use yourself.
Comment: @abejoe, OpenSSL or one of the other alternatives, depends e.g. on what is feasible to integrate due to licensing. I would pretty much always advice against writing your own crypto code. Whenever possible, reuse something even moderately well vetted instead.
Comment: U mean open SSL libraries? and moreover I already have libraries for RSA based cryptographic operations. I just need to implement it using elliptic cures. Given this situation...would u still advice me to use existing libraries for ECC?


How to get into accessibility consulting?

Question: I'm a totally blind software developer who does mostly server side programming. I've had some experience with section 508 assessments and am an experienced screen reader user. While I have a full time job I'd like to get into accessibility consulting part time. Is there a market for this type of thing and if so what would be the best way to get started? I'm willing to do volunteer work or help out open source projects to build my resume but haven't found any opportunities to do this with accessibility consulting.
Comment: Jared, I know a guy who is blind and he occasionally gives lectures to UX and accessibility folk on his experiences as a blind computer user, but it's not his day job, he works in tech support. If you might be interested in hearing what he has to say, I can make the connection.
Comment: Just a thought: I'd imagine that national blind people's associations might get the occasional request for advice, and they could be happy to have someone to forward those requests to.
Answer: I'd start with the industries/organizations that are likely to be held legally accountable for not following Section 508. That will likely be government entities and large companies. (That's not to say that small companies shouldn't, but it's often harder to get them to see the value in spending the extra money for 508 compliance, though your presence might make concrete an otherwise abstract audience to them.)
Comment: You might look at online universities or software companies that sell software, for student use, to universities.
Answer: I sent this question to a friend of a friend who is blind, and works full-time as an accessibility specialist for a major bank. Here are his thoughts:

Without question, there is a growing market for accessibility consulting and expertise, particularly at big companies and within government. The emailer's expertise as a screen reader user and developer give him some excellent tools with which to build a successful career. In particular, he'll have the ability to clearly understand the special importance of, and relationship between, controls and how assistive technologies deliver and rely on them.
As is pointed out by other commenters to his question, the biggest challenge I suspect he'll face is how to do work with those who'd contract with him outside their normal business hours, and outside their corporate environments. I started out as a contractor, and my manager will no doubt tell you that we faced sometimes significant difficulty getting me access to the credentials and expertise I needed to be effective.
As is also astutely pointed out by a commenter to his post, he'll want to be able to explain and market knowledge of issues and solutions around disabilities in addition to his own.
Answer: Is there a possibility of starting an accessibility group at the company you currently work for?
I worked for a large online university and a few co-workers and I just started to meet.  We proposed possible solutions to some of the issues the students were having.  All this happened "under the radar" until we started solving student issues.  Then management started to notice and "officially" recognized our group.  When I left the company, they were looking to hire an accessibility expert.
One other tip I would recommend, if you are not already familiar with them, to learn more about designing/programming for other accessibility issues like hearing loss, mobility loss, cognitive loss, etc.
Answer: I would contact existing accessibility and UX consulting firms, who might offer to take you on as an intern, and from there you might be able to go on just like anyone else. Being a techie and an expert target user might raise your chances of getting the position.
Answer: Personally as a corporate client and a UX professional tasked with carrying out accessibility testing I would much rather contract you for testing the sites and applications we audit than have some 'expert' who does not rely on the technology they are testing for. Your input, comment and real world experience will be far more insightful than anything theoretical or academic an 'expert' could offer.
This may sound like a bit of a rant but I've been on the receiving end of the damming accessibility reports from said 'experts'.
The organisation in question employees a number a blind staff to help with data entry and so their applications and back office systems need to be accessible via JAWS. After a report we were called in to face the music on the failing of one of their applications that was a number of years old to rectify the accessibility failings of the software - until that point no negative comment had been made by the blind users of these applications.
When we arrived it was quickly apparent that the software had been tested in JAWS by a sighted user as their comments were mostly related to what was display on screen when pages loaded - not something a blind user would be aware of! To cut a long story short we waited for about an hour until one of the JAWS users was able to drop by to 'show us' the problems, they sat down and their first comment being 'well this install of JAWS is not even configured for use yet is it'. They subsequently went on to prove all but two items on the long list to be inaccurate, both of which were quite complex scenarios that needed a little more thought to be accessible.
As Vitaly Mijiritsky comments on your original question I have had the pleasure of being at conferences where blind JAWS users have demoed site that have won awards for being accessible and duly fail even the most basic of tests. I strongly believe that all that care about accessibility observe and employ the services of those that rely upon the tools that they 'test' for.
I wish you good luck and success in your consulting career, you'll be in high demand!
Answer: Yes there is a market for this.  However most people are going to want you to consult during their normal business hours, when presumably you are working your normal full time job.  Also being blind does not make you and Accessability expert.  You will need to customize your resume/CV to highlight your skills and abilities in Accessability development.
If you do not have any work experience then you may want to consider getting into usability testing.  I am sure there are lots of companies that would love to leverage your abilities in a constructive manner.  If this is the case you may be best served by finding a consulting firm and having them market you to potential employers.
Comment: It may not make him an expert, but probably much more of an expert than someone who is in the field and isn't. He is out there fighting in the trenches.
Comment: I did not say he didnt not have a foundation for his knowledge or a motivation for being in the field or the capacity to perform the work.  But there is a huge difference between an enthusist and an expert.  Being in 100 car crashes does not make you an expert on designing safe cars.  The OP may have expert abilities in which case he needs to showcase them in his resume.  If he doesnt have them yet he can probably do well starting off in Usability Testing.  From there he should be able to start learning the skils he needs to turn his passion into a career.


Any workarounds for image resizing in Craft 2.5 Redactor II?

Question: Since imageResizable was deprecated for some apparent reason which I have no idea why they would do that. Does anyone know of a workaround or a plugin/config setting to enable this again?
Comment: Agree with this 100%, not sure why they removed the ability to resize an image, they should make it a plugin. I emailed the dev and never got a response.
Answer: The only really workable solution I've found is to downgrade Redactor. Fortunately Pixel & Tonic have made this fairly painless with a plugin:
https://github.com/pixelandtonic/RedactorI


How do I find my CPU's temperature?

Question: There are a number of posts that talk about CPU temperature.  Is there a utility built in to Mac OSX that I can use to determine the current temperature of the CPU?
Answer: While iStat Menus @Mark mentioned are no longer freeware, the iStat nano and iStat Pro Dashboard widgets are free.
I personally use iStat nano for my system monitoring needs. Here it is showing the temps it can read on my iMac:

If you hover over the widget, you can change the view. I usually have it running in "Overview" mode, which shows CPU, RAM, HDD*, fan*, temperature*, network* and uptime info.
*) user-configurable, e.g. which temp sensor's readings are displayed
Comment: I would like to update this answer in order to tell the reader that iStat nano and iStat Pro no longer exist, these apps can not be downloaded anymore. How are such edits usually done?
Comment: You can still find them on download sites, google for "iStat Pro download" for example.
Answer: I use smcFanControl which can tell the internal temp of your computer as well control the speed of the fan (in case you need to increase/decrease the speed manually).
Answer: There are APIs that code can call. Various utilities have been written touse them. Ones I have used are
Temperature Monitor - free - there is also a Dashboard widget
iStat Menus - which now has to be paid for the old version was free

How do I find my CPU's temperature?


Why handshake is not initiated for google webserver?? Is there any client side validation before handshake is initiated?

Question: I'm using burp suite as proxy and configured my browser to it. I'm able to intercept SSL connection traffic of only some web applications using self-signed certificate issued by burp by adding exception to my browser. But when I try to do the same to google, it does not initiate TLS handshake and we cannot add any exception (as there were no packets related to handshake checked in wireshark).  Is there any client side validation before handshake is initiated?
Answer: There could be a few reasons for this, but the most likely are HSTS, SPDY, and preloaded pinning:

HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) is a mechanism by which a server can enforce that the server is only ever connected to via a secure connection (e.g. HTTPS) and that a valid certificate must be presented. Your browser will not allow the connection to initiate on an insecure protocol like plaintext HTTP, or if the presented certificate is not valid. You can't override this. If you're doing TLS MitM in Burp, your browser will reject the certificate as invalid unless you install the Burp CA in your browser.
SPDY is an alternative HTTPS protocol that Google uses a lot. It may well be that your browser is trying to initiate a SPDY connection, and that's perhaps why Burp isn't catching it.
Chrome comes preloaded with a set of server certificate rules for pinning. The idea is essentially that they preload HSTS rules for a bunch of common sites as part of the installer, but with the additional protection of including a fingerprint of the known certificate. This will cause any invalid certificates, even those with "valid" signatures (e.g. signed by a local CA), to be rejected.

My advice would be to install the Burp CA into your system's certificate store, and your browser if applicable. That should probably fix it.
Comment: I doubt that it can be SPDY. SPDY is still using the default https port but uses the ALPN extension in the SSL handshake. By simply doing the normal man in the middle the ALPN from the original ClientHello between browser and Burp will be ignored and no ALPN will be used in the ClientHello to the server. Thus the server does not know that the client can do SPDY (HTTP/2.0) and simply downgrades to normal HTTP(S).
Comment: @SteffenUllrich While that *should* be the case, Burp does seem to have trouble with SPDY sometimes. I've run into cases where it just won't show the traffic at all, or the requests show up but no response comes back.
Comment: @Polynomial: I have tried it earlier. I have installed burp's certificate in trusted certificates in cert mgr.msc and also the fake certificate generated by the burp. Even then there no use. I cannot find client hello packet itself.(It might be burp's issue) any suggestions to get it done. (i'm using Firefox).
Answer: I doubt that there is no SSL handshake because the browser will not know up-front which certificate it will get. But I'm sure there is no successful SSL handshake.
With google.com and any other sites protected by certificate pinning you will not be able to add an exception by design. What you need to do instead is to import the CA used by burp as trusted into the browser. This makes it also easier for all the other tests, since you will not need to add an exception for any other site afterwards since they are all considered trusted because they are signed by a trusted CA.
Comment: I have tried it earlier. I have installed burp's certificate in trusted certificates in certmgr.msc and also the fake certificate generated by burp. Even then there no use. i cannot find client hello packet itself.
Comment: @NarayanKaluri: how do you look for the ClientHello? Do you make a packet capture  between browser and Burp or do you capture between Burp and server or any other ways?
Comment: I use Wireshark to observe all the traffic that passes my LAN. for other web-servers I can observe client hello in that.
Comment: @NarayanKaluri: this does not answer the question if you capture between client and Burp or Burp and the server. If you capture between Burp and the server only you will not see the ClientHello from the client to Burp but only that there is no ClientHello from Burp to the server.
Comment: no idea, whether it goes to burp or not. Can u suggest me how to get them(where to configure and how).
Comment: @NarayanKaluri: I have no idea of your network setup, which OS you use etc. But if client and Burp are on the same system you must capture the traffic on the localhost interface which might be a problem on Windows, see https://wiki.wireshark.org/CaptureSetup/Loopback.


Can we said "last morning"?

Question: Normally we'll use last night when we're talking about yesterday's night, but how about yesterday's morning? Why can't we use last morning so as afternoon? Just like last weekend, last Friday, last meant the nearest time in the past. Then why can't we call yesterday's morning as last morning?
Comment: It is just not idiomatic. These are:  yesterday afternoon or yesterday morning. But,f for example: The last morning of the event, we met for coffee. You can't say última mañana for yesterday morning in Spanish either.
Answer: We don't say "last morning". Instead we say "yesterday morning". Similarly we say "yesterday afternoon".
Perhaps the reason for this is that "last morning" could refer to the morning of today, if you use it in the afternoon. Language isn't logical, but this seems reasonable.
There are a few times when you might see these words together:

On the last morning of my vacation, I stood by the pool, and thought about what a great time I'd had.

But that doesn't mean "the previous morning".
Answer: Do you think that saying "last morning" is sensible?
"Last morning" mathematically means "this morning".
How can "last morning" be yesterday's morning?
If "yesterday's morning" is "last morning", how about "this morning" ?
Didn't it exist?
Comment: I don't think this  is about being "sensible". It also can make sense in some contexts. **The last morning they saw him was Sunday.**
Comment: I'd say: "The last day they saw him was Sunday", still not "the last morning".
Comment: That would be wrong if they had been discussing the mornings when they saw him and not the afternoons or evenings. The last night, the  last morning and the last night [something happened or of some event] is perfectly acceptable.
Comment: I'm having trouble seeing this as anything but a restatement of the question. Monday night we refer to Monday morning as "this" morning but Sunday night as "last" night. Isn't that just idiomatic, with at least equal reason to recommend "last" in each case?
Comment: It's dawning on me. The question was whether, on Monday night, we can refer to Sunday morning (not Monday morning) as "last" morning.

Can we said "last morning"?


Monerod finished syncing but now never catches up in GUI wallet, monerod still syncing

Question: I'm using Windows 7, 64 bit, on a crummy burner laptop.
So monerod finally finished syncing last week and I followed advice here and opened the GUI wallet, it was all syncing together as it should but literally only for about an hour - after that monerod never stopped adding blocks, coming up with the 'new top block candidate' message.
I had to leave it overnight and when I came back it was way out again, only by 7 days but that's eons on my old machine and slow connection. It's been the same for a week now, it never catches up to the top block and the wallet constantly says syncing to the daemon.
What am I doing wrong? I just want to use my wallet but this is about 4 weeks building it now. Everything has gone right, just that it's taken forever to do so.
Because it was synced at one point is it ok/safe to use now? Or do I have to keep waiting for it to fully sync with that never-attainable top block?
Thanks for the help, really appreciated, and my apologies if this has been answered but I can't find the answer to this on here, maybe I'm being blind or stupid or both. I am useless at this stuff, I've followed the guides here and reddit to get this far with a lot of trial and error, never fully understanding what I'm actually doing. Yep, it's bad...
Thank you!!!!!!
Comment: Have you tried restarting the GUI and daemon? Also, could you post the full output of `Show status` (on the `Settings` page of the GUI)?
Answer: Step 1:
cd ~/Downloads/monero-gui-0.10.3.1-beta2
Step 2:
wget -c --progress=bar https://downloads.getmonero.org/blockchain.raw
Step 3: I
./monero-blockchain-import --guard-against-pwnage 0 --input-file ./blockchain.raw
Step 4:
rm -rf ./blockchain.raw
Step 5:
./monerod --detach
Comment: The current version is v0.12.0.0. If you use anything older than that you will sync to the wrong (alternative) chain.
Comment: As dEBRUYNE commented, version in this answer is wrong. Further, the OP already has a near fully synchronized chain, so just needs latest binaries.


Can I transfer Minecraft PE Version 1.7.0 Worlds from my Tablet to my PS3?

Question: I just got Minecraft on PS3 from A video game store. I want my worlds from my tablet. Is it possible to transfer the worlds from a tablet to my PS3?
Answer: I would check out this, where it was already asked:
How do you transfer Minecraft PE save files to PS3 save files?
See the last answer in that thread, where they state that you first have to convert your PE/Bedrock world to PC, and then convert that PC world to Console. Although the post is from 2015, MCC Toolchest (the program that converts the worlds) is still widely used.


How and when to ask user for registration payment?

Question: Our site requires users to pay a sign up fee, but we don't want the sign up fee to prevent users from creating an account on our site.  Our plan is to allow the user to create an account without having to pay for the sign up fee.  They would be able to access a demo version of the site, but they would have to pay the sign up fee later.  But how to present that the user has to pay the sign up fee but pay it later and to remind the user to pay?  Would we have something similar to Wikipedia's method for requesting donations, where the form for the registration fee is at the top of every page?
Answer: You let the user use your site for enough time and ask for a registration fee once he finishes the first project/trail period and also keep them alerted about the registration fee in the header or through some add-ons.


Are Pokemon vegetarians?

Question: It is shown that Pokemon eat fruit, PokeBlocks or some random eatables. However, I have never seen a Pokemon being eaten by another Pokemon. Also, their trainers don't seem to eat meat. As there are only Pokemon in that world, eating fish would be equivalent to eating a Magikarp or other fish Pokemon.
Comment: Somewhat relevant: http://anime.stackexchange.com/q/836/2604
Comment: Ash/Satoshi actually does eat meat in the first seasons.
Answer: Horray for Bulbapedia!
The most commonly referenced mention of Pokemon eating other Pokemon is the entry about Pidgeot.

"When they hunt, Pidgeot fly on the surface of the water at top speed to catch unsuspecting Fish element prey like Magikarp."

It is also referenced in Shipwreck, where Meowth attempted to eat James' Magikarp.
Farfetch'd also has an entry about how delicious it is.
The general consensus from my research seems to be that, while pokemon are likely eaten by other pokemon and occasionally humans, it is rarely if ever portrayed because Pokemon is aimed towards a child audience.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
It should also be noted that normal animals exist in pokemon. There are multiple references to them, although they are rare.

In both Raichu and Gastly's FireRed entries, Indian elephants are mentioned.
In several of Bellsprout's Pokédex entries, Bellsprout is said to prey on insects.
Victreebel is mentioned to use the Sweet Aroma of its honey to lure prey such as bugs, as well as large animals.
Horsea is said to prey on bugs in several of its Pokédex entries. Some entries also mention that Horsea uses coral as an anchor to avoid being washed away, as well as for shade to build its nest in.
Lickitung's Red, Blue, and LeafGreen Pokédex entries mention that it can extend its tongue like a chameleon.
Answer: Numerous pokemons are stated as carnivorous, through generations. Some pokemons even use appearance as tool for hunting, e.g. Victreebel having shape of trap plant, or Mawile, having cute appearance in front to lure prey, and large jaws on back to grab it.
Comment: carnivorous is fine, but what do they eat exactly? other pokemons?
Comment: Yes, why not? Some even prey on humans. Also, i don't remember properly, if common animals exist in pokemon world, but if they do, they may be also eaten.
Answer: The Pokemon Alpha Sapphire Pokedex entry for Wurmple states:

Wurmple is targeted by Swellow as prey. This Pokémon will try to resist by pointing the spikes on its rear at the attacking predator. It will weaken the foe by leaking poison from the spikes.

And the entry in Pokemon X:

It loves to eat leaves. If it is attacked by a Starly, it will defend itself with its spiked rear.

These two entries show us how Wurmple is targeted as prey by Swellow and by Starly.
While Pokemon is targeted a younger audience and darker subjects like death are almost always avoided, we can conlude that the pokemon universe is not too different from our own in that pokemon, like animals, eat other pokemon.
Answer: In the games you make poke blocks out of berries ground together. Therefore I believe that they do eat vegetables but if Pokémon can kill each other in the Manga then surely they can eat each as wild Pokémon but I don't know of any certain points.
Comment: Can you include citations of specific chapters where a Pokemon kills another Pokemon?
Comment: I can cite from chapter 14 of pokemon adventures arbor was killed by blue's charmeleon

Are Pokemon vegetarians?


Don't Put a Needle in Bread? (What is the Taz referring to?)

Question: The Taz YD 116:6 on the last line brings a case that he heard that one should protest putting a needle into bread. What is the Taz referring, to and what exactly is he worried about?
Comment: related? http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/48209579/ns/travel-news/ -- MSNBC  7/17/2012 - "Authorities investigate needles in airplane sandwiches"
Answer: It seems that the Taz is saying that one should object to feeding a vicious dog a loaf of bread with a needle in it, as a way of disposing of it. Rather, the proper way to kill the dog is with poison. It seems that, according to the Taz, giving the dog a loaf of bread with a needle in it is not, in this instance, a violation of tzaar baalei chaim nor of bal tashchis. However, it is a concern that this will drive the vicious dog mad, and it can be a life-threatening danger to others.
Also, it seems that even some people nowadays think to do this. Consider this case, from Feb 2012:

A Michigan man who hid needles in meat that was eaten by a neighbor's dog faces sentencing after pleading no contest to attempted animal killing or torture.
Comment: seems like that's the pshat,thanks.It is it more advice or halahcha?
Comment: Josh, what I am having trouble understanding is, is this independent (and tangentially related, I suppose), or is this a Limud that he is applying to the case at hand? If it's the former, so what? And if it's the latter, huh?
Comment: @SethJ I assumed the same,but I guess not.
Comment: sorry, i'm not sure i understand the question. it seems like it is halacha, and dealing, i suppose, with a somewhat prevalent means of killing vicious animals in the 17th century. (One doesn't advise protest against a random practice that nobody would ever do.) And since the topic turned to killing animals via poison, he turned to cover this case as well. See also my emendation to the answer.


What is required for a remote starter system in a vehicle without a transponder key?

Question: I have been looking at remote starter information, bypass kits and transponder key boxes, but my current car starts without a transponder. A fob is required to unlock the doors without the alarm going off (just the key can still unlock the doors, but the alarm will go off although this can be turned off once inside with the key and no fob in the ignition) My key is just a flat piece of metal with no chip. Do I still need a bypass module for this? Every site for finding modules by car make/model never had my specific make/model listed. It is a 2004 Subaru Outback station wagon edition.
Comment: For clarity, the transponder is the small RFID chip embedded within the plastic shroud of the actual ignition key.  It is my understanding that most vehicles have this feature from around 1997 onwards.  The transponder is read by an electromagnetic ring embedded into the ignition barrel.
Answer: Uhm! According to this page your year model does have a transponder:
https://www.centrochiaviauto.it/tcatalogo/transponder_catalog/subaru_transponder_catalog.html
Answer: No, from what you've said your car does't have an immobilizer, so you won't need anything special at all for a remote start.
Answer: Sounds like you just need a way to disable the alarm, assuming your alarm has immobilizing features.
If your alarm does not immobilize, then you don't need anything special at all.


Which Version Control Systems support LDAP/AD users and groups

Question: Does anyone know which of the big players (if any) support LDAP/AD users and groups for authentication AND database permissions? Specifically, I'm wondering if SVN, GIT, Mercurial etc. will allow users to login/connect based on AD permissions and also allow granular permissions to be applied to folders within the VC database based on groups within AD. So far my research has not shown this to be possible....
Comment: I understand your point but disagree. I believe this to be as fundamental to development work as Visual Studio. To me it is closer to "software for devs" than infrastructure...
Comment: Yeah, but normally it is a Sysadmin who has to install and maintain the VCS, not a software developer.  You'll have a much better audience here.
Answer: VisualSVN Server allows you to manage svn repository permissions using AD users and groups. And the standard edition is free and meets most organization's needs.
Answer: Not to be flippant, but really, just about all of them do.  Since PAM on Linux supports LDAP, standard unix accounts (and therefore, standard files) support LDAP, almost all Linux-compatible version control systems should work fine.  Likewise, Windows supports LDAP through Active Directory (AD is basically LDAP with kerberos and some deployment tools, as I understand it), and so any version control that works with standard windows accounts should support it too.  I'm pretty sure this all applies to OS X as well.
Comment: You've obviously never used VSS
Comment: I only wish that were true ---  I just don't consider VSS one of the version control systems that would be in the running :)
Answer: Git certainly does - you need to set up PAM to use pam_winbind.so and pam_mkhomedir.so.  Create a group (either locally or in AD, depending on how you want to do it) and create your git repositories on the origin server with the --shared flag.  This will tell git that you are sharing the repository amongst multiple users, and it will set up permissions appropriately.
Answer: We are using Centrify to enabling various VCS (ClearCase, Svn, Git) to talk to our AD.
Not free I am afraid, but quite suited for managing user identities in a cross-platform environment since our VCS servers are Unix, while our clients are on Windows: see UNIX & Linux Identity Management
Comment: Centrify has an "Express" version that is free for use. You can also try Likewise Open for the same functionality, but its a bit hard to setup properly.
Comment: @Guss: excellent. I didn't see that Express version however, since Centrify is entirely managed by our Unix admin team (I don't install it directly)
Answer: We do authentication against AD using Apache.  You should be able to get groups working too with that.
Comment: That sounds reasonable - its easy to set up Apache to do LDAP authentication against AD. After that when you setup DAV access to Subversion you can rely on the Apache authentication to authorize using AD user names.
Answer: SourceGear Vault and Fortress supports authenticating the user via Active Directory.
Vault's Active Directory integration doesn't automatically pickup your current credentials. You enter your user/pwd, and it queries A.D. to authenticate those credentials that you enter. This is a server-side configuration item, obviously, and the server must be configured to use A.D. identity impersonation.
Unfortunately the user list is still maintained within Vault itself. CRUDing users is still up to the version control admin.
Answer: Regarding Subversion, there is a tool called svnperms, which can use LDAP to fetch group information (the ACLs are still in the configuration file, but it should be easy to adapt it).
Answer: I use Subversion Administrator it is a simple open source web app that allows for integration with active directory/ldap as well as managing post commit hook subscriptions
Answer: Perforce can do AD auth, however group management is not integrated with the directory.


Unable to switch users in Ubuntu 12.04

Question: Whenever I try to switch users in Ubuntu 12.04 it goes to a black screen with a cursor and hangs.  If I do the ctrl-alt-F6 (or any F1-6 button for that matter) it will switch to a command prompt and then if I switch back to ctrl-alt-F7 I'm presented with the login screen that you get when you return from a screenlock.  Is this a bug in Ubuntu or does something need reconfigured?
Answer: How was the user's creation performed?
If the home folder of new user was not created, you can create like this:
sudo adduser <username>

Caution: This is not the same as the useradd command. But, it is easier and safer to use GNOME Control Center or users-admin.

Unable to switch users in Ubuntu 12.04