What's the difference between "reliable" and "dependable"?

Question: Do the adjectives "reliable" and "dependable" have the same exact meaning?
If not, what is the difference and when is best to use each of them?
Comment: We have a really great post about [how to ask meaning questions](http://english.blogoverflow.com/2012/09/writing-good-meaning-questions/). It applies equally to difference questions. Please edit your question to better fit those guidelines.
Answer: Here is the discussion of reliable and dependable in Webster's Dictionary of Synonyms (1942):

A person or thing is reliable when one can count on him or it not to fail in doing what he or it is expected to do competently (as, she is a very reliable servant; one of the most reliable of our employees; a reliable washing machine), or to give or tell the exact truth (as, a reliable work of reference; reliable testimony. A person or thing is dependable to whom (or which) one can go in full confidence that one will get the support or assistance required in time of need or in an emergency; as, to ask a friend to recommend a dependable physician; he is the most dependable of our friends; a dependable source of information. Dependable is also used merely as a descriptive term  implying a character that admits nothing that is incalculable, or that is the antithesis of that which is fickle, capricious, or the like. "Laura wasn't pretty, but ... healthy-looking and dependable" (M. Austin).

Here is the corresponding discussion in James Fernald, Funk & Wagnalls Handbook of of Synonyms, Antonyms & Prepositions, revised edition (1947):

Reliable denotes the possession of such qualities as are needed for safe reliance; as a reliable pledge, reliable information. A man is said to be reliable with reference not only to moral qualities, but to judgment, knowledge, habit, or perhaps pecuniary ability. ... A dependable person or thing can be relied on to help whenever a need arises[.]

Interestingly, the first edition of Fernald's dictionary (1896) opens with the comment that "The word reliable has been sharply challenged, but seems to have established its place in the language." Fernald then goes on to show why the criticism "on the ground that the suffix -able can not properly be added to an intransitive verb" is baseless, and then compares reliable to trustworthy and trusty—but not to dependable, which it doesn't cover at all.
Finally, here is the discussion of the two terms in S.I. Hayakawa, Choose the Right Word (1968):

Reliable suggests competence and consistency: A reliable judge is one who has a record of sound opinions. A reliable person can be counted on to do what he has promised or been told to do: a reliable baby sitter.When applied to things, reliable means adequate, serviceable, or true; a reference book, for example, might be called reliable if the information it presents is accurate. Dependable is akin to reliable, but is a little more subjective; reliable is often used of relationships based on service  between superiors and inferiors, whereas dependable more often suggests an attitude of personal allegiance rather than one of honesty or scrupulosity in the performance of a duty. One goes to a dependable person confident of receiving loyalty, support, or aid: a dependable ally. When applied to things, dependable suggests stability and consistency of performance: a dependable drug.

As with all books that attempt to delineate fine distinctions between words that have similar meanings, the ones I cite here inhabit a gray zone where distinguishing between actual differences in preponderant informed usage (on the one hand) and the authors' desire to establish differences that may not be widely observed in practice (on the other) can be difficult.
Answer: The OED gives the following definitions of reliable and dependable:

Reliable—1. That may be relied on.
1a. Of a person, information, etc.: able to
  be trusted; in which reliance or
  confidence may be placed; trustworthy,
  safe, sure.
1b. orig. U.S. Of a product, service, etc.: consistently good in
  quality or performance; dependable.
Dependable—That may be depended on; trustworthy, reliable.

Both definitions list the other word in their definitions, with no special qualifiers attached. In addition, both words use the word trustworthy, also without qualifiers. Therefore, it is safe to say that the two are synonyms and may be equally used.
Comment: Additionally, the first line is a circular definition.
Answer: Obviously "reliable" means "can be relied upon" and "dependable" means "can be depended upon", but both my Webster's and etymological dictionary give near-identical usages, even using the other as synonyms.
Google Ngram viewer shows "reliable" as far more common than "dependable".
Answer: Reliable and dependable are interchangeable when they refer to things (i.e. a clock), or to oneself vis-a-vis someone else. However, there is a nuance when the terms apply to someone else vis-a-vis oneself. In this case reliable implies a decision to commit oneself to another and to acept the consequences in the event of failure. With dependable, the commitment is not a free choice. (Source: The Heritage Illustrated Dictionary of the English Language, International Edition, McGraw Hill.)
Comment: "With *dependable*, the commitment is not a free choice": Really? That distinction is made in your dictionary?

What's the difference between “reliable” and “dependable”?


I have a Blutooth Keyboard connected with my Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro, and the Keyboard works, but I dont want the on screen keyboard

Question: I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro, and recently bought a blutooth keyboard for it. They keyboard works, but whenever i click on the area that i want to type something, the on screen keyboard shows up, and i cant use the blutooth one. How do i disable the screen keyboard and only use the blutooth one. Thanks!
Answer: You can install and select different keyboard apps from Play Store. Some of them only have a few or even no key(s). Therefore this should be the way to go.
An alternative would be deinstall all keyboard apps, however this is dangerous as there may be situations where the Bluetooth keyboard does not work and you have to enter a password to unlock the device but without keyboard app this won't work.
Answer: Open Settings, search for Show virtual keyboard. Disable it.


Bitcoin migrating to a ASIC resistant mining algorithm like RandomX used on Monero

Question: What would need to happen for Bitcoin to fork to a ASIC resistant mining algorithm like RandomX used by Monero for CPU mining only?
Answer: The bitcoin community would have to decide that they don't particularly care about having significant security anymore. ASIC-resistance weakens the security of proof of work chains because it eliminates the need to invest in a chain in order to attack it.
Someone who owns lots of expensive ASICs will not want to let them be used to attack the chain they are mining because if they harm that chain, they will significantly reduce the value of their own ASICs. By contrast, if you can mine with commodity hardware, attacking the chain does not significantly reduce the value of your hardware, so you have no real incentive to prevent your hardware being used to attack the chain. Worse, commodity hardware is easy to rent or steal (with malware) to attack a chain.
So the entire bitcoin community would have to change their opinion on how to make a chain secure to a worse opinion.
It's also important to understand the security is a huge limiting factor on price. If the benefit from causing a double spend exceeds the cost of doing a double spend, there will be double spends. Nobody wants that. So market forces will act to keep the benefit of a double spend below the cost of a double spend.
ASIC-resistant algorithms have much lower cost to do double spends (because you don't need to invest in ASICs but can instead rent or hack commodity hardware) so the profit from a double spend must necessarily be much lower. That will mean either waiting for many more confirmations, dropping the price of bitcoin, or some of each. Who wants that?
Comment: @toolforger Read what I wrote above. If a chain is not ASIC-resistant, you have to invest in ASICs to attack it, and then attacking it makes your ASICs worthless. If it's ASIC resistant, you can rent access to commodity hardware to attack it and you lose nothing in the attack. It's very hard to rent, borrow, or hack into someone's SHA256d ASICs to attack bitcoin because everyone knows that such an attack makes their expensive ASICs less valuable. You can rent, borrow, or hack CPU time easily.
Comment: @toolforger there have been many attacks against ASIC-resistant chains, cost of ASICs does seem to be a larger factor than 'a much larger normal userbase'. See: vertcoin, eth classic, verge, etc. In any case, ASIC-resistance leads to more centralization of hashing power, as it is impossible to create an algorithm which is most efficient to mine on commodity hardware. It will always be possible to create optimizations in the hardware, ASIC-resistance just makes it harder to do (which means, less people are capable of doing it = more centralization of mining power). It's bad all around.
Comment: How is ASIC resistance weakening the security of the proof of work?
Comment: If commodity hardware is useful for mining, then a malicious miner has to outmine a much larger normal user base. Given that I haven't heard of any attacks against ASIC-resistant blockchains, and assuming that such blockchains already do exist and are worth an attack, it seems to me that this outweighs the ability to attack.
Answer: Agree with David's answer, but the security detriments of ASIC resistance (of which there are many) is somewhat besides the point.
The entire value proposition of bitcoin, and what makes it so valuable above all other coins, is that it cannot be controlled by humans. If such a large change were to be made, the chain would not be considered "bitcoin" by current miners (who mine with ASICS and thus have everything to lose) nor the community (who recognize the importance of protocol stability).
Answer: I essentially disagree with David Schwartz here. The aim of bitcoin was decentralisation, and never high prices. And to say commodity hardware promotes the idea of attacking the chain is simply ridiculous. Why will anyone who has the ability to bring so much malicious hardware together, will ever use it to make all his bitcoin useless? Since compound interest is obviously better than a one time cash out.
So do we want decentralisation or higher prices is essentially the question. Do we give power to centralisation of ASICs and forget decentralisation, or actually go back to the roots of the problem. Can hear anyone's suggestion on this one.
Comment: "Why will anyone who has the ability to bring so much malicious hardware together, will ever use it to make all his bitcoin useless?"

Yes, keyword is "short position" - if you can profit from making BTC worthless, then you  suddenly have a completely different set of incentives. This is also a point against David's argument btw. If a 5B$ investment into hardware can move a 650B market downwards and you can profit from that, then you don't really care if you sell your hardware to the second market later. All these arguments about how safe BTC is, work only for miners with a long position.
Comment: Why would an entity choose a one time cash out of bitcoin after investing so much money into the hardware, in effect making the recurrent income possibility of bitcoin mining essentially 0?
Comment: Because if you know you could do it, then you know that someone else could do it and there goes your recurrent income possibility.
Comment: Fair point. Will have to think through it.
Comment: This answer seems to be mostly based on the assertion that ASIC-resistance would lead to a more decentralized outcome in the long run. This assumption as well as the notion that decentralization is opposed to the Bitcoin network being economically successful are not clear to me and should be substantiated further.


Which gears combinations shouldn't be used?

Question: Is there any general rule or recommendation to avoid usage of certain gears combinations (for 2xN and 3xN gears systems)? Do they differ for mtb and road bikes?
I know that it's recommended not to use biggest front chainring with big chainrings on cassette (and opposite) because parts will wear faster and I will loose a bit of pedaling efficiency, but I'm not sure, if I should avoid 2 or 3, or even more biggest (smallest in opposite case) chainrings on cassette.
Comment: Actually, you have it backwards.  It's preferred to use large front/small rear or vice-versa, in order to keep the chainline straighter.  But this isn't a hard and fast rule.  The only real rule is don't use combos that don't work, which is mainly a problem on bikes where the rear derailer doesn't have enough tooth capacity to handle the full range of small/small to large/large, and hence some combos are too tight or loose to use.  (This is only the case for some fairly old bikes or a bike that has been modified somehow.)
Comment: Oh, you are absolutely right. Lost concentration while translating this question. Will fix now. Thanks.
Comment: I ride a 3x9 road bike and a 3x10 mtb. The only combinations I avoid are the biggest-to-biggest and smallest-to-smallest, like you said. I avoid them mainly just to avoid chain wear, and I'm not obsessive about it. If I'm on the big ring and need a lower gear, I do it. Chains are cheap.
Comment: Google "cross chaining"
Answer: This is an old chestnut from the days of 5 speed freewheels and chainrings without shifting ramps. With modern hyperglide cogs and the relatively slinky thin modern chains, cross chaining is simply no longer an issue. While there are very few studies on this, the one I've seen suggests that there is no loss in mechanical efficiency for cross chaining at the angles typical of most bikes.
In general for a given gear ratio, big/big is more mechanically efficient than
small/small. So the only science out there suggests that cross chaining on the big
chainwheel is actually more efficient.
http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/home99/aug99/bike.html
Use the gears you like, check your chain wear and replace your chain often and the expensive bits of your drive train will last a long time.
Answer: The reason to avoid using, say, the larger front chainring with the larger rear sprockets (or vice versa) is nothing to do with loss of efficiency or anything like that, but because of a phenomenon called cross chaining.
If you're in the smaller chainring, which is more inboard, then you should be on the more inboard rear sprockets, the larger ones, and similarly, when your in the more outboard chainring, the larger chainring, you should be on the more outboard, smaller sprockets. Cross chaining happens when the chain has to cross from being inboard at the cassette, to being outboard at the cranks.
Cross chaining puts quite a lot of stress on your chain and gears, can lead to a noisy, squeaky drivetrain (chain rubbing against the inside plate of the front derailer, for example), and causes your chain to wear quicker. Quicker chain wear then leads to quicker cassette wear, and quicker chainring wear.
This is why gears are positioned as they are, to encourage you to use the bottom 7 rear gears with the smaller front chainring, and the top 7 rear gears with the larger front chainring. This means that the middle 4 rear sprockets (on a ten speed bike) can be used on either front gear, while the bottom 3 and top 3 should be used with the corresponding chainring.
A typical change-up (based on a 53-39 front, 11-23 rear setup) will go like this: Start off low, maybe 39-21, change the rear up until you get to maybe 39-15, then shift to the larger chainring and at the same time, do what's known as a recovery shift, which is shifting the rear gear down 2 or so sprockets so that jumping from the small to the big ring isn't such a massive increase in gear (53-15 compared with 39-15). This way you find yourself in 53-19 with a good, steady cadence. Then simply proceed up the sprockets as far as you need.
A change-down might go in reverse, or you might simply change to the smaller ring when you get down to the middle sprocket if you know you're going to be slowing for some traffic lights, or getting prepared for a climb.
I see too many cyclists simply going into lower gears in their rear sprockets while leaving the front in the big ring. It's a good idea to stick your head between your legs every once in a while to see where your gears are. Without those fancy indicators on your brifters and shifters, you can forget which ring you're in!
Comment: While correct this is a bit of a road-bike answer: 2 fairly widely spaced chainrings.  With 3 chainrings the recovery shift might be only 1 sprocket, or in everyday riding you can spin up to a faster-than comfortable cadence before shifting (this is better for your knees than grinding away in a slow cadence after shifting).  Re the last point I have a personal rule of thumb that I never stop in the top (of 3) chainring.
Answer: I try to avoid the two biggest/smallest rear sprockets when in the large/small chainring, but that's just a rule of thumb. In the flat, I try to stay around the middle sprockets in the cassette to have as wide a gear range as possible without switching chain rings.
Using these combinations will indeed increase wear and reduce efficiency, but how often do you really have the need to ride these combinations?


Host Selenium(eclipse) and application on citrix and run Automation Test's

Question: Is there a way by which we can we host eclipse(with selenium) and application on which we want to run automation test's both on citrix and run the scripts via citrix itself?
Currently our project cannot afford more remote machines, but they have a need in which all the functional tester's should be able to run Automation scripts.
Answer: You can run automation scripts in virtual machine..
Executing selenium automation scripts in virtual machine is same as executing in physical machine..
If you want eclipse and selenium configured already in your Citrix vdi, then I suggest you to contact your system admin of your company to configure the same in one machine and create a snap shot of that machine..then whenever you provision a new virtual machine then your selenium and eclipse would have been already configured..


Playing chords with a severed ulnar nerve

Question: This may sound strange, but about 5 years ago I suffered an injury to my forearm that severed my ulnar nerve. Now this may not sound like much to those not versed in the arts of medicine, but that means I cannot feel my pinky finger. I have very restricted and limited use of the little bugger. I still play guitar after 12 years of playing and I can work around most chords without needing my pinky finger, but I'm having quite a bit of trouble playing a B. Any guitar gurus out there please come to my rescue and show me some cheat "B's". Even though my pinky finger is dead, my love for guitar is still very much alive.
Comment: You might find it useful to read this question and its answers (its about Bb chords, but basically the same): https://music.stackexchange.com/q/29197/9198
Comment: You could manage an E-shaped bar chord rooted on the 9th fret of the D string. It's pretty high up, but if you plan ahead and play other chords up there it would work. You could also play a G shape on the 7th fret of the E string, but only play the bottom 4.
Answer: Q1. Is your issue one of numbness or also control?
I ask because it may be possible to train yourself to use the finger w/o feeling as long as it moves.  That will be difficult but not impossible.
I'm pretty sure Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath is missing the tips of his ring and middle finger of his fretting hand and has prosthetic finger tips.  No feeling but can still play.
Q2. What's so special about the B chord, as opposed to the Bb or other chords?  Is your real question, how do I play Bar chords with a damaged pinky?
I would expect other chords to suffer as well, open G chord often uses the pinky.  Also the 13th chord would use the pinky.  If you have found ways to modify these chords you can do the same with the others.
I would add to the above answer that you may want to investigate alternate tunings of the guitar.  Something like an open major or minor chord would allow you to bar a single fret with the index.  Of course you will need to relearn scales, but that is what it might take.
Good luck.
Answer: There are a few ways without a pinky finger to do a B major chord.

Cut capo
Stretch middle and ring finger to fret 4 while index is on fret 2
Index finger on fret 2 A string - ring finger bar the D,G,B string and leave E open
7th fret index bar the E and A string then use your ring finger on 9th fret of D string and middle finger on 8th fret of the G string.
Comment: It is difficult to do number 4. As the ulnar nerve is also the nerve that controls the spreading of the fingers. But thank you for your suggestions. I'll give those a shot and see if it helps
Comment: @Zach Hi - I broke my little finger (pinky) in an embarrassing car-polishing incident many years ago, just before a string of gigs. I was able to play the 3rd suggestion in this answer but by allowing the two E strings to mute on uncontrolled finger-flesh, concentrating on middle 4 strings, and just kind of grabbing the neck with forefinger on A string 2nd fret, and ring finger across 4th fret for the D,G,B strings. The hand position was almost like what I'd have if I was just picking the guitar up. Not graceful, but it worked.
Answer: You may recall, before his death from pneumonia, that Christopher Reeve was beginning to get some small bits of sensation back in his legs.  Now, he was quite wealthy, and able to afford daily massages and limb stretching from his nursing staff.
The point is: nerves can in fact regrow and reattach. If you have the time and the incredible patience, it may turn out that daily physical therapy on your finger(s) will lead, after perhaps years, getting feeling and muscle control back.


using an NSMutablearray in a different class

Question: Well im new to objective c its my second week trying to get used to it, its going well but im kinda stuck, i have readed alot of articles about this problem on the internet but none have worked...
I'm developing for a ipad/splitview. I have got an rootviewcontroller were I fill an NSmutablearray staticly and dynamicly and return them in a table on the navigation bar and this works perfectly.
And i have an detailviewvcontroller where I also want to acces this NSMutablearray of the rootviewcontroller. I can acces the array but there are no objects in it(but there are objects in it or else the navigationbar would have been empty).
i have got this so far:
Rootviewcontoller.h
@class DetailViewController;

@interface RootViewController : UITableViewController {

NSMutableArray *listoflinks;

}

@property (nonatomic,retain) NSMutableArray *listoflinks;

@end
i also synthesize the array, no problem in this class..

DetailviewController.h
@interface DetailViewController : UIViewController <UIPopoverControllerDelegate, UISplitViewControllerDelegate,UIPickerViewDataSource,UIPickerViewDelegate> {
    RootViewController *objRootViewController;}

@property(nonatomic,assign) RootViewController *objRootViewController;

@end

I also synthesize the object of the class in the detailviewcontroller.m file
and when I use the objRootViewController.listoflinks to an controller it doesnt returns annything.. I have also tried to do this by making an NSMutablearray in the detailviewcontroller.m with the same attributes as I made for listoflinks and this works.. so the problem is getting the values of the array from the other class,
Keep in mind that there were more objects in these header files, but i haven't added them because they have nothing to do with the array.
Answer: Put a singleton in your life!


Can users and forms from two free plans be "merged" into one paid plan?

Question: I'm currently using Cognito Forms as a free plan user and my colleague is using Cognito Forms as a free plan user. We plan to upgrade to one of the higher plans but would like to know if we can insert the already existing users and the forms created in their free plans into a upgraded plan so that we do not have to rebuild all the forms that were already created under the free plan?
Answer: Forms can be easily copied between organizations in Cognito Forms in two ways:

Under Form Settings, enable template sharing, save changes, and use the template sharing link to copy a form into another organization.  This approach works even when the other organization is not associated with the first in any way.
As long as you are a user of both organizations, use New Form - Copy Form to copy forms from one organization into another.  If you have two organizations on the Individual plan associated with two different users, just upgrade one, invite the user from the other organization, and use this user account to copy forms into the paid organization


Overlap or intersect two choropleth

Question: I have two choropleth of the same area but with different concentration data and I need to overlap them. My aim is to highlight the areas of intersection between the points with the highest concentration (I use a quantile interval). It is probably only a matter of mergers, but I made a couple of attemps and the graphics quality has suffered (e.g., multiply, burn).
Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.
Comment: What you are attempting to create is a bivariate map, which can be challenging from both a software and graphics standpoint as you've seen. You might search some on that term to look at example approaches.
Comment: Please clarify: Do you have raster or vector data?
Answer: As Chris W says, I think that you are trying to build a bivariate representation of your data (not spatially intersecting).
Personnally, I find this easier to do in raster. Use the intensity in red for one layer and the intensity in cyan for the other layer. Black will mean low everywhere, white large everywhere, and if you can see a color it indicates that one of the band has larger values than the other band.
to convert your vector to raster (see here for details)
then create a composite image with
gdal_merge.bat -separate -of GTiff -o output.tif input1.tif input2.tif input2.tif
you can now add the image and see how it looks like.
Comment: The bivariate map worked! There is only a problem: when I do the legend, a 9x9 matrix with the overlapping of 3 shades of blue and 3 shades of red, is not very clear. Any suggestion for other colors?
Comment: @user3322469 The best suggestion I can give is use a high contrast value between your lightest and darkest colors on both variables. You *could* use individual colors for each value, but then you lose the sense of a range for each axis as opposed to nine unique values. Label methods could help - [label two sides as an axis range](http://www.directionsmag.com/images/articles/sportsillustrated/Olympic_Athletes.jpg) or [label all four sides](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IFSmHmjQ49Q/TiOk0qGf6ZI/AAAAAAAAAFY/cOznBK6bwyk/s1600/Choropl.png) with the min/max value or range of that cell.

Overlap or intersect two choropleth


Why doesn't sugar spoil?

Question: Sugar contains a lot of easily accessible chemical energy. Why seemingly nothing likes to grow on it?
Comment: 1. lack of water. even if water is present then 2. high osmotic pressure will cause plasmolysis. Since I don't have a source I am not writing this as an answer.
Comment: Ever make bread?  Typically you'll mix a bit of sugar into warm water, add yeast, and wait an hour or to for the yeast to grow.  So the yeast is eating the sugar, but as JM97 says, it needs to be in a dilute solution.
Answer: Our food mostly gets spoiled by bacteria and / or fungi. There are 2 main reasons for sugar crystals not getting spoiled.
1- Lack of sufficient amount of water to sustain metabolic processes by microbes.
2- Even if sufficient amount of water is present , then due to high osmolality of the fluid formed, will cause plasmolysis or cell shrinkage.
Some technical data:

Microorganisms differ widely in their ability to resist salt- or sugar-induced reductions of aw. Most disease-causing bacteria do not grow below 0.94 aw (roughly 10 percent sodium chloride concentration), whereas most molds that spoil foods grow at an aw as low as 0.80, corresponding to highly concentrated salt or sugar solutions.

Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-do-salt-and-sugar-pre/
Comment: Pop-sci reference: [*"How do salt and sugar prevent microbial spoilage?*](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-do-salt-and-sugar-pre/) (from Scientific American)
Comment: @fileunderwater thanks a lot for providing source.

Why doesn't sugar spoil?


Could insurance fraud be profitable in a world of constant piracy?

Question: So I need a little bit of some legal/mercantile help. I'm crafting a story in a fantasy world where piracy is a ubiquitous practice and constant fear for sea travelers. Would it be possible for certain enterprising individuals to take advantage of this and commit insurance fraud by hiring "pirates" for a staged hijacking of an insured ship that they own? What do I need to understand about maritime insurance in order for it to be something that a person could feasibly get away with (and profit), if it's even possible in the first place? For a frame of reference, the era is similar to that of the "Golden Age of Piracy" during the 1600s & early 1700s and the maritime and trade laws reflect this time period.
Comment: Not particularly helpful, but this is part of the premise of Bodacious Space Pirates. I wondered how they worked it out there, too.
Answer: Generally speaking, yes. There are a number of complicating factors.

Lloyds was founded in this timeframe. Note that insurance rates would reflect the perceived risk, so after paying the insurance and the fake pirates there might not be all that much left for profit.
The problem of selling the loot is simplified if the fake pirates can go to a genuine Tortuga. What do the real pirates think about the fakes? They might consider this piracy by arrangement no different from any other job with inside information.
Also, insurers and governments would take a dim view on this activity, and pirates are greedy criminals. How would the "entrepeneur" prevent blackmail from the hired muscle?
Last but not least, unless the entire complement of both ships is in on the ruse, accidents can happen. A terrified merchant fires a brace of pistols. A desperate merchant blows the powder room rather than go into captivity.

The first merchant with this "clever" idea would make a tidy profit. When it becomes common, the costs of evading punishment will rise.
Comment: The increased risks and costs mean that you will sell your stuff for more (because you will do this travel only for goods worth it and that cannot be obtained in a safer, cheaper way).


How to get schengen visa if already in UK

Question: I am in United Kingdom on a visit c-type.. What if I wish to visit Paris from UK.. How to get a Schengen visa on Pakistani passport?
Comment: Check the rules and regulations of the French Embassies in the UK. They are the ones issuing Schngen visas if your main country of visit is France. It is quite likely that they only allow residents of the UK to apply there, though. In that case, you are out of luck and would need to return to your home country before you can apply. Note that questions that are very similar to yours have been answered many times on this page - just use the search function.
Comment: We have tons of questions on this. Usually it's difficult but there are some exceptions, see e.g. http://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/48756/can-indians-on-uk-tourist-visa-apply-for-schengen-tourist-visa-in-london
Answer: You need to re ask it -unfortunately- from Pakistan.
French visas issued by the french ambassy in the UK are only issued to British and residents in the UK. With your C-type visa you're not considered as one.


Are circuits with more than 1000 gates common?

Question: I have seen circuits with 30 qubits and around 500 gates. Also circuits with 32 qubits and 6000 gates. Are circuits with more than 1000 gates common in quantum computing? Are there many quantum algorithms that require more than 1000 gates? How common are they?
Answer: I'd say it's far more common for quantum algorithms to use billions of gates than thousands. And that's assuming you're ignoring Clifford gates as well as error correction overhead! If you want to count those, add in another factor of a million.
For example...
According to Table III of https://arxiv.org/abs/2011.03494 , quantum chemistry algorithms looking at properties of the FeMoCo molecule use half a billion Toffoli gates.

According to Table 1 of https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.09749 , factoring 2048 bit numbers takes 3 billion Toffoli gates:

According to Table 1 of https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.09580 , 256 bit elliptic curve discrete logarithms take a few billion T gates:
Comment: @WeatherReport Off the top of my head, the quantum supremacy experiment that google did used roughly 1500 gates and had a signal-to-noise of roughly 0.1%. So you can do classically hard things with thousands of gates, but it's a big open question if you can do useful things (as in things industry would pay for) with that many gates. The closest I know of is Scott Aaronson's client certified randomness proposal, but it rides a fine line between too-hard and too-easy due to verification being harder than spoofing (except spoofing has a strict time limit).
Comment: Wow, that's sobering. And how many gates can currently be run on a real device?
Comment: @WeatherReport I think Craig can give more reliable numbers than me. AFAIK, the number of gates is of the order of 100, depending on the platform. The problem is that the number of gates is limited by the gate fidelity since errors are accumulating and the outcomes eventually become white noise. You cannot increase the fidelity arbitrarily, that is why you need quantum error correction. Among others, this requires a notable overhead in the physical qubits. Current devices with 50-100 qubits can only provide a few (1-2) logical qubits with realistic codes, so you cannot do much.
Comment: And to add a quantum finance example (that I am shamelessly a co-author of :P), from Table 1 in https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.03819, pricing commonly used non-trivial options (autocallables and TARFs) using Monte Carlo simulations on a quantum computer takes ~10 billion gates.
Comment: In the last example, the lowest number of T gates that I see is more than 10^31. How is that ***a few billion***?
Comment: @user1271772 The base of the exponents is 2, not 10. 2^31 is roughly 2 billion.
Comment: That makes much more sense, I had first looked at the first two tables in a lot of detail, so when I arrived at the third table I was still thinking in base 10. Sorry and thanks!


Blocking External Mail Sent w/ Spoofed Email Address

Question: We recently got an email from an outside server that had a spoofed "From:" header that was the email address of one of our users.  Is there a way to have sendmail reject emails coming in from an outside network that claim to be a specfic user, but still allow that user to send mail from our own servers?  How can I set this up?
Answer: You can use SPF or DomainKeys Identified Mail. And configure sendmail to verify SPF and DomainKeys. This will reduce some of your received spam too.


What goes missing when changing your quest in Diablo 3?

Question: When I go to change my quest in Diablo 3, I get a prompt telling me "Starting a new game with a new quest will overwrite your currently saved progress".  What will be overwritten?  My checkpoints?  Waypoint access?  Achievements? Whether or not I've killed Diablo?
Answer: Where exactly you are in the current quest. For example in ACT 2 when you need to get the two bloods, if you get one blood then quit and save. When you come back you will only need to get one blood. If you change quest, and then come back you will be back further and be required to get both blood.
Comment: From what I've observed, you'll have to restart the quest that you were on.  This also happens if you join someone a little behind you but don't fully catch them up to where you were.
Answer: You lose any progress made on the current quest as well as any checkpoint you had.


Word characteristics

Question: What is the special characteristic of the following words: coughing, thirsty, defiant
Comment: Welcome to Puzzling! Try reading the help section to figure out what it expected here. I like the bit about [what is considered on-topic](http://puzzling.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic) as it also points to some other good pages. The question itself is fine but it's not expected that you would post the answer yourself. Instead, if someone else figures it out, you click the check mark next to the question to mark it as accepted (I.E., the right answer). Only you can do this because you posted the question. Take a look around and welcome to puzzling.
Answer: They each have:

 Three consecutive letters from the alphabet.

So:

 Coughing, thirsty, and defiant
Answer: Each word has

 3 consecutive letters of the alphabet-
  couGHIng (GHI)
  thiRSTy (RST)
  DEFiant (DEF)
Comment: Why have you answered your own question within 2 minutes of asking it?
Comment: because I'm new to stackexchange..learning as I go..
Comment: @pip, nice to have you here - generally you should allow for approximately 24 hours before revealing the answer to your puzzle; this allows users from all around the world to have a chance to answer your puzzle before seeing the solution. :)

Word characteristics


How can I add notification for changing users?

Question: I have a list that contains authorities, authorized person, and delegatee. Authorized person can delegate his/her authority to anyone. I want to add a notification that is when he/she delegates, he and the delegatee receive email notification. There are more than 15 authorized persons, so how can I do this whithout using sharepoint designer?
Answer: You could try using the alerts, but out-of-the-box, any user subscribed to alerts will get notified of any changes done on any item.
You could try something like this in item added and item updated event receivers. However that would be an overkill.
Or, you could send an email directly from ItemUpdated event receiver using SPUtility.SendEmail.


Tale of a Dog Chasing the Sun/Trying to Find Its Owner?

Question: So during the Korean Folktale Topic Challenge, I was actually searching for a specific story that I thought was associated with a mythical beast called "Haetchi" or a "Haetae". It's been a while, and I may be confusing the story with the story of the "Bulgae". The basic premise of the story is a dog trying to find its owner after he doesn't come home (because the owner died, I think). The dog tried to ask the sun or something for help? Something happens and it ends up chasing the sun, but it never does. I think it was a way of Korea explaining the day/night cycles. Anybody have any idea of the story? I didn't have any luck finding anything.
Comment: Any chance you're thinking of real life dog [Hachiko](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachik%C5%8D), re the name? There's several different adaptations of his story.
Answer: The closest match I can find in Myths and Legends from Korea: An Annotated Compendium of Ancient and Modern Materials by James H. Grayson (Routledge, 2001) is Tale 100: "The Origin of Eclipses" (pages 253-255). This story describes a Dark Land neither sunlight nor moonlight. Dogs were raised in that land that were known as "Fire Dogs" (Grayson's translation does not use the term Bulgae).
The king of the Dark Land sent out the strongest Fire Dog to steal the sun. However, the sun was too hot, so the dog had to drop it and return to the Dark Land to explain the problem to the king. The king then sent out the dog to steal the moon, but the moon was cold as ice so the dog had to spit it out. The Dark Land is still submerged in darkness. When the Fire Dog tries to steal the sun, people [elsewhere] call this an eclipse of the sun; when the Fire Dog tries to steal the moon, people call this an eclipse of the moon.
The book contains a total of 191 myths and legends, some of which involve dogs, but none comes closer to the description in the question.
Comment: Hm, I am familiar with the "Fire Dog" Story (as an aside, Bulgae literally means Fire Dog in Korean). I think this might've been a more modern story? My memory is vague and it is entirely plausible that I might have merged some stories together
Comment: @NorthLæraðr Grayson included this story in a section covering the "modern" period, which, in the context of this book, means after the mid-19th century.


From which level should I start learning English Language?

Question: I was learning English Language from Grade 1 until my graduation from the university. But I can't talk, write and listen good. I don't know my English Language Level. How to determine the Level? When I answer some question test, I got intermediate, advantage but sometime i got basic level. How to define the level of my English Language?
Comment: You want to enroll in an English language learning program, but don't know which level to pick?
Comment: yes! I feel What level should i enroll ?@CopperKettle
Comment: Interesting. It seems that it's not only two of my teachers that have the same problem: Teach the best grammar, while making the strangest, and sometimes funniest ;) , of sentences.
Answer: I had the same problem some years ago and figured out that there were two main goals (for me):

speaking fluently
speaking correctly (grammar)

My teacher told me that usually speaking fluently is more important because natives can see over your little mistakes. "But I can't talk, write and or listen goodvery well(?)", anyway your message is clear.
She also told me that with a lot of talking you improve your grammar but not the other way round.
So what I did was hitting up some native guys online (video games) and I started voice chatting with them for more than 2 years now. Doing so, I (mercilessly) found out about what I still had to learn. Looking for the right course was easy after this :)


Flags: disputed vs declined

Question: Just curious as to the difference between a disputed and a declined flag.
Saw this on my page today:

121   deemed helpful
    1 declined
    3 disputed
Comment: I think that means that the moderators didn't agree with 1 flag, while for 3 others community members raised different/conflicting flags, but you'd be best off checking the main stackexchange meta for details
Answer: Various flags generally account go to different places to be handled. Flags that ask for questions to be closed go to the close vote queues, as such with posts that are flagged as Not an Answer, or Very Low Quality. These posts go to the respective queues. This answer is based on flags that go to the review queues, but are not handled by diamond moderators (those can only be made declined, or helpful).
Declined flags
A flag is marked declined usually when all members that had handled the post in the queue disagree with the flag. It might look like this:

That flag ended up as declined.
Disputed flags
You can take this fairly literally. Disputed flags is when the post has various votes, such as "Leave open", or "Close". A nice thing to note is that disputed flags don't count against you, and they are not the same thing as a declined flag at all. This is to show that the outcome wasn't "directly" helpful, but that the outcome was mixed, or disputed.
Answer: There's an identical question on Meta.SE: What is the difference between disputed and declined flags?
Quoting its accepted answer:

Declined flag: if the flag was reviewed by a moderator who did not agree with you (for other, spam, offensive and comments flags) they decline them. Flagging to close a question or as duplicated will push the flag to the close review queue, and if the review is completed without any user casting a close vote the flag is declined. When flagging NAA and VLQ on answers, if none of the reviewers agree with you is shown as declined.
Having too many declined flags leads to a warning, or even a temporary flag ban.
Disputed flag: When you flag an answer as NAA or VLQ and the post doesn't result in deletion but someone recommended deletion, the flag is disputed. Spam and offensive flags on post that are rolled back are also disputed.
Disputed flags are considered neutral; they do not count toward flag ban.
Although there is no visible flag weight anymore, something alike is kept in the backend to help ordering the flags by importance. The flag weight is decreased by declined flags, but not by disputed ones.

Flags: disputed vs declined


1982 Yamaha Virago 750 won't start

Question: The previous owner I have gotten this bike from let it sit for years, knowing this I rebuilt the carbs changed the oil and put in a new battery it also had a bad starter so I replaced that as well. The bike cranks and has spark the tank does feed gas when it's cranking and the plugs always smell like gas when I pull them out. I haven't checked for compression yet but I did get the bike running off starter fluid for about 30 seconds when I first got it now I have nothing any ideas would be great thanks.
Comment: How did you set the jets on the carbs? What was the default position?
Comment: Welcome to Motor Vehicle Maintenance & Repair!
Answer: The virago carburetors are somewhat tricky to clean properly.  I have an 86 Virago 700, which has a "tube jet" instead of just a pilot jet.  I had to use the properly sized guitar string to clean these out.  Carb clean wasn't enough.
Also, there's some bad advice floating out to drill out the pilot jets.  It's possible your carbs have these drilled out pilot jets.
This link should help a bit: https://www.viragohelp.com/virago-hitachi-carburetors/
Many Viragos of that era have bad ignition units (TCIs) and intermittent spark at certain RPM ranges.
More about Virago ignitions: https://www.viragohelp.com/virago-ignition-systems/

1982 Yamaha Virago 750 won't start


How do i clone my main repository to several computers/different operating systems?

Question: I am doing my first steps in git with some personal coding projects. What I want to do is to be able to clone the main folder of each project in all computers that I have. I am basically working from a MAC at home, a Windows machine at work (where I am planning to create an ubuntu VM and run everything there), another one ubuntu machine at home and an ubuntu VPS. I also own a bitbucket account.
The only thing I have succeeded is install git on my main MAC and add/commit/push data on the remote bitbucket repo. What steps should I follow to achieve what I want ? Do I clone the main bitbucket repo in all computers with fetch/pull? Or do I set all other computers except my main MAC one as remotes and push to all from here ?
Answer: You clone with git clone and run git pull in each downstream repo periodically to update the slaves.
If you can SSH into all your boxes, you could equivalently push from the master, but the way access controls at ISPs etc are usually done, this is often not feasible in practice.
Keep in mind that Git is decentralized. Don't needlessly give your Mac a special position in the topology. If you prepare mentally for the eventuality that any one of the clients could push to master, you will be glad one day that you didn't paint yourself into this particular corner. This will be more of a mental exercise than a technical one; if you are used to a centralized topology, it's a bit of an effort to get into the habit (mainly, don't depend on anything which isn't up to date in the master repo, or easily obtained independently on any client system. Basic hygiene really).
Comment: your reply is way more than I expected. Thank you.
Answer: Use your BitBucket repo as the central repo and push/pull from there on every machine you're going to use.
That way the BitBucket repo is the source of truth. Also, it will be accessible from basically anywhere, whereas if you do work on one machine that is a remote and you move to another one you might not be able to pull from your Windows machine.
Comment: why couldn't I pull from Windows machine?
Comment: Do you turn it off? Is it a laptop and does it move? Could be behind a firewall that you can't pull from. BitBucket will always be available for you as long as you have internet access.


Android TabStrip navigation alternative on iOS

Question: I am in the process of porting my material design Android app into a native iOS app with Swift. The two apps are very similarly navigated, and share many design features (a mashup of iOS design and Material, much like the official Google apps available on iOS), but I cannot find an iOS-designed alternative to the TabStrip on Android to page between pages of content with text titles. Although there are some design elements involved, my main issue revolves around UX and how to allow the user to navigate the app.
These are some screenshots comparing the designs on Android and iOS currently (with most of the same settings enabled). First two are on Android vs iOS, and last image is with the tab strip enabled on Android (what I am trying to implement on iOS).
Although there are some libraries to mimic this behavior on iOS, none of them really feel native to iOS, and I am currently looking for an alternative. Of note, my toolbar on Android is colored, while the NavigationBar on iOS is set to the background content color (check the album above), and having the tabs attached underneath without a background color feels heavy and just looks like a waste of space in my opinion.
One thought is to have a scrolling tab bar on the bottom of the screen like the Sheets app on iOS, which would allow easy access to a scrolling list of text to shift between pages of content, and allow me to not color it along with the toolbar. iOS device screens tend to also be shorter than their Android counterparts (especially with the 1:2 aspect ratio Android devices seem to be adopting), and this could waste valuable screen space on an iOS device.
Another idea would be to scrap the paging indicator all together, and just allow the user to page between pages using a horizontal swipe, as the user can order the pages in the app settings, and there is a sidebar that lists the current pages as well (and allows selection to quickly go to the page the user wants). This would let the whole screen be taken up by content, and would make the overall display less cluttered on iOS. The downside to this is feature discoverability, and having to page through multiple items in order to get where you want if you don't use the sidebar.
One pro to trying to do the tab strip implementation on iOS is continuity between the platforms, but as I stated above, it doesn't feel native to iOS, and would require a redesign of the navigation bar on iOS.
Is there a design pattern that would work better in my case than my current choices? Any feedback would be appreciated.
Answer: Instead of a tab bar, full page menu with the hamburger icon would be the equivalent primary navigation option. Alternatively, a carousel type menu could be used as in the second image below.
Answer: I would consider using a tab bar if you are replicating a bottom navigation on android or segmented controls if you are replicating page tabs.

If you have too many tabs to fit in either of these then I would consider using a landing page which lists all of the categories that the user can tap on to show the content of that list. You are in effect creating a page to contain the tab strip on its own as a vertical list and then loading each page of the tabs as a new child route to that main page rather than inside the page itself.


How to create a callback for "monitor plugged" on an intel graphics?

Question: I've got an eeepc with an intel graphics. I'd like to hook a script to the event of a monitor plugged via VGA. How to do that?
Comment: For people looking for a Windows solution: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1440285/how-to-detect-hot-plugging-of-monitor-in-a-win32-application http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3267722/getting-an-event-on-monitor-hotplug-for-windows http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5981520/detect-external-display-being-connected-or-removed-under-windows-7
Answer: As a crude solution, you may be able to poll on sysfs. On my laptop I have:
$ cat /sys/class/drm/card0-LVDS-1/status
connected

$ cat /sys/class/drm/card0-VGA-1/status
disconnected

I'm guessing this requires kernel DRM and possibly KMS.
To see if you can trigger something automatically, you could run udevadm monitor --property, and watch while you are (dis-)connecting the monitor to see if events are reported.
With my radeon, I get an event the first time I connect a VGA monitor, but no events on subsequent disconnects and reconnects. The event should look something like (using yours as an example):
KERNEL[1303765357.560848] change /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.0/drm/card0 (drm)
UDEV_LOG=0
ACTION=change
DEVPATH=/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.0/drm/card0
SUBSYSTEM=drm
HOTPLUG=1
DEVNAME=dri/card0
DEVTYPE=drm_minor
SEQNUM=2943
MAJOR=226
MINOR=0

Unfortunately there's not a lot to match against, but as long as there's only one video card in the picture that's not too important. Find where udev gets rules from on your system (probably /etc/udev/rules.d/), and create a 99-monitor-hotplug.rules file with:
ACTION=="change", SUBSYSTEM=="drm", ENV{HOTPLUG}=="1", RUN+="/root/hotplug.sh"

udev will then run hotplug.sh when a display is connected. As a test, I put the following in /root/hotplug.sh (don't forget to make this script executable):
#!/bin/sh

for output in DVI-I-1 LVDS-1 VGA-1; do
        echo $output >> /root/hotplug.log
        cat /sys/class/drm/card0-$output/status >> /root/hotplug.log
done

With that, I got an entry in hotplug.log after I connected an external display. Even filtering for ACTION=="change", I still got some events on boot, so you may want to take that into account somehow in your script.
Comment: Thanks Andy for this! I've created a script that is inspired by this post. You can fetch it at https://github.com/codingtony/udev-monitor-hotplug .It uses xrandr to toggle the monitor on and off when they are plugged in/plugged out. I hope it will help.
Comment: Good start, but I don't like polling.
Comment: @Tass if you are getting events, ping me, and I can probably come up with a udev rule to run a script
Comment: "I get an event the first time I connect a VGA monitor, but no events on subsequent disconnects and reconnects" Same for me, but it seems to only execute my script that first time. Is your hotplug.sh custom script getting called on each time you disconnect and reconnect your monitor?
Comment: I'm trying to set this up to account for the possibility of the system being started with no monitor attached.  For me, udev shows both connect and disconnect events, but only if the monitor was attached at system boot.  Any idea how to get it to pay attention if nothing's hooked up when udev starts?  Resorting to polling would require a much messier script...
Comment: Where does the `99` come from?
Answer: This other answer is on the right path: you want to listen to DRM events from udev.
I've implemented a Python script that runs some code when either USB devices or external displays are (un)plugged. I'm including below a minimal version of that script (untested):
#!/usr/bin/env python3
import pyudev

def udev_event_received(device):
    ...  # Your code here!

context = pyudev.Context()
monitor_drm = pyudev.Monitor.from_netlink(context)
monitor_drm.filter_by(subsystem='drm')
observer_drm = pyudev.MonitorObserver(monitor_drm, callback=udev_event_received, daemon=False)

observer_drm.start()

# This will prevent the program from finishing:
observer_drm.join()

See also:

How can I run code whenever a USB device is (un)plugged, without requiring root permissions?
How can I listen for 'usb device inserted' events in Linux, in Python?
pyudev documentation - Asynchronous monitoring
Answer: You have three options:

Poll on a specific entry in sysfs.
Use inotify to detect changes in sysfs.
Use a netlink socket with NETLINK_KOBJECT_UEVENT and listen for a change uevent for the device you want.

In any of the ways mentioned, you're still going to have to poll in one way or another, so I'd just go with the first option.
Comment: inotify does not work on sysfs changes since it is not a real file system per se.  Try it if you don't believe me. `sudo inotifywait -e modify -m --format '%:e %f' /sys/class/drm/something` so your 2nd option is not valid.
Comment: Both `inotify` and `netlink` sockets enable you to use `select()` and friends.  Do you really consider that "polling"?
Comment: The beauty of using select() or poll() for "polling for updates" is that you get to sleep until either a timeout or the kernel wakes you up to tell you that one of the things you're "polling" for has happened (Kind of misleading.  It is and isn't the same thing as what most people call "polling".  It's even the interface for GPIO interrupts...  ;) )- so it's less wasteful of the CPU resources, etc.  You're better off "polling" using the select() or poll() interfaces.
Comment: *"No, inotify doesn't work on sysfs, or if it does, that's by "accident",
and any data you are getting for this is probably totally wrong."* [Greg KH on 2014-03-29](http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.file-systems/83641)
Comment: @DenilsonSáMaia Your link is broken today, or I don't have access to it...
Comment: @WinEunuuchs2Unix: New link: https://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-fsdevel/msg73924.html
Comment: @DenilsonSáMaia Thanks for the link. I'm going to abandon `inotifywait` for now and attempt `dbus-monitor` instead.
Comment: @WinEunuuchs2Unix, in case you missed; yesterday I also posted an answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/52595370
Answer: Thanks sebastianwagner!
With this information, I've been able to successfully boot my Kodi media center with the TV turned off.
Indeed, when the TV is off, the Intel driver doesn't want to set up a mode and I got a blank screen when I later powered on the TV.
The Kodi log showed the following line:
WARNING: CXRandR::Query - output HDMI1 has no current mode, assuming disconnected

So I created the following line in /etc/udev/rules.d/99-monitor-hotplug.rules :
ACTION=="change", SUBSYSTEM=="drm", ENV{HOTPLUG}=="1", RUN+="/usr/sbin/hotplugtv.sh"

Content of /usr/sbin/hotplugtv.sh (my X server is running as root) :
#!/bin/bash

export DISPLAY=:0
export XAUTHORITY=/root/.Xauthority

/bin/date 2>&1 >> /var/log/hotplugtv.log;
if [[ $(cat /sys/class/drm/card0-HDMI-A-1/status | grep -Ec "^connected") -eq 1 ]]; then
        echo "TV connected!" >> /var/log/hotplugtv.log;
        /bin/sleep 2s;
        /usr/bin/xrandr --verbose --output HDMI1 --auto 2>&1 >> /var/log/hotplugtv.log;
else
        echo "TV disconnected!" >> /var/log/hotplugtv.log;
fi

Don't forget to reload udev rules when you make any change to your script (this was driving me crazy!):
udevadm control --reload-rules

Be careful to disable any screen saver in Kodi because they stay activated forever when you finally power up the TV.
On the other hand energy saving / DPMS seems to work fine.
Answer: Assuming you're running X, a script can parse the output of xrandr to see what monitors are connected.  This should work with any graphics card.  This is the same tool you'll probably use to make use of the change in your script.
It doesn't solve the issue with notifications to automatically run a script.  While I don't have a great generic solution, a common case is detecting when an external monitor is present because a laptop is connected to a docking station.  In this case, you can have your script trigger off of something else that triggers when connecting to the docking station such as the addition or removal of a USB keyboard or ethernet.


Do Australian academic jobs have similar tenure track policies as USA?

Question: Is the Australian academia following the same system as the US one? i.e., tenure track for a few years, and then tenured? Or it is more like the British one where there is 'probation' period?
Answer: I don't want to contradict Samuel too much, but his account of what can happen has definitely happened to some people. But it is extremely rare and I would argue a little over-simplified.
For starters, my paycheck from a major Australian university has the word "tenured" on it. So my first point is, yes, continuing positions are "tenured" - but lets not get bogged down in semantics because tenure def means something different in Australia. Indeed I believe the union considers this to be a f(ph)urfy so let's say there is some subjectivity there.
Having tenure does not guarantee that you cannot be fired though. You can be. But as one manager said to me once, it is more expensive to fire an under performing academic than to simply retain them as long as they keep doing their teaching etc. I work with lots of unproductive academics and many have been asked to leave. They simply said no thanks and stayed. The only time I have seen academics forced out, they left with large redundancies and, simply put, wanted to leave. When you read about retrenchments at Australian unis in the newspaper, often more want to leave than are given packages.
Gross incompetence or dangerous behaviour? Yes you can be sacked. But as far as I have seen you cannot be fired on a "whim" as someone suggested. A business case would be made (declining enrolments, lack of research activity, lack of administrative roles)
And yes, as Samuel said, management teams will go after departments at times. But redundancy packages are often generous and often people from an eliminated department will be shifted to another department (good academics stay, crap ones move to a lower ranked uni).
I also don't want to make this a peeing contest, but I have worked in the US system too and the Australian system is more protectionist of staff than the US system. But indeed tenure is probably harder to lose than in Australia.
I am tenured at a Australian uni. I say this to people regularly and no one corrects me. But yes, I know union types that tell me my tenure is not tenure. I heard this a lot 5 years ago, but not recently
In short, to answer the initial question, the Australian system, broadly speaking, is the British system. Tenure with probation (3 years, recently raised to 5 I think)
Comment: This is the best answer. Australian academics in continuing positions who underperform at research are usually just assigned more classes, as many as a prof at pure teaching University in the USA.
Comment: I think this answer is great on the "ordinary operation," and mine on "worst case" for ongoing contract / permanents. Neither answer is great on the large proportion of casual and non-ongoing positions and their increasing proportion of teaching load. For the individual academic the answer is usually "get so good you get permanent," but this often requires long instability and location agnostic applications (ie: 2 body, single parent issues).
Answer: Australia does not have a US-like tenure system. Academics at all levels are occasionally
scrutinized, and advancement is not automatic.
Comment: @John There are many that would argue that it is the US system that is bizarre :)
Comment: @John How did you go from "occasionally scrutinized, and advancement is not automatic" to "kicked out anytime without any serious reason"? That's quite a leap…
Comment: @john Tenure does not exist in Australia.  Academics can be dismissed at will.  The provisions governing "at will" dismissal generally require a six-month stitch up attacking a disciplinary area or sub-discipline; but, the substantive effect is managerial perogative over research and teaching.
Comment: So, in Australia, any academic can be kicked out of the university anytime with or without any serious reason?! That sounds bizarre!
Comment: I didn't go from 'occasionally scrutinized'. I took the general message that in Australia does not have a US-like tenure system. The question is simple: can the academics in Australia have a tenured position or not? Sure, there may be some differences between a US tenure and Australian tenure. But the over all idea of a tenured position is that the academics don't get fired unless there is some serious reason.
Answer: Australian Academics do not have tenure.  They are either appointed on an on-going basis ("Permanent" staff) or on contract (year-to-year, three-year to three-year) or casual (hour to hour) bases.  All three categories of staff can effectively be dismissed at whim by management.
Appointment to permanent positions in Australia is on the basis of:

Merit selection to externally advertised positions (with a probationary period)
Corrupt selection to unadvertised strategic appointments (with a probationary period and the possibility of "non-conversion")
Absence of selection or merit selection to contract or casual positions followed by a lengthy union fought conversion process

While the conditions of appointment to ongoing positions vary from field to field, you should expect that the conditions of appointment for a Level B "Lecturer" are broadly similar to the requirements for either entry to a tenure-track position or achievement of tenure in a tenure track position.  (Varies by field and labour supply).  Appointment to Level C "Senior Lecturer" often occurs 3 to 6 years after first appointment on the basis of another unit of research output equivalent to the unit of research output required for initial appointment.
Academics may be dismissed at will by forced or "voluntary" redundancy processes covered by weak industrial provisions in Enterprise Bargaining Agreements (site specific industrial instruments).  These dismissals need a fig leaf of reduced student numbers or institutional renewal; but are effectively managerial dismissals.  Individual academics are constructively dismissed through bullying processes, change fatigue, and general managerialism.  Management has the power to entirely defund teaching streams and then claim that positions are no longer required due to the lack of teaching.  Australian University management is adept at manufacturing both immediate and long-term funding crises to achieve fundamentally political ends in terms of attacking specific work-cultures or disciplinary research programmes.  In addition, freedom of research has been significantly eroded by quantity and quality audits of research output which often involve politicised sub-disciplines indicating their preferences (Consider the Business Dean's journal quality list, for example).
The only defence Australian academics have against management is unity in the National Tertiary Education Union.
Sources: Industry experience, NTEU membership, 40 years of union journal back-issues.
Comment: "The only defence Australian academics have against management is unity in the National Tertiary Education Union." In the USA, many academics do not have any union protection.  Unions are usually local, which weakens them.  In the USA, tenure is not a defence against bullying or a lack of funding.  I would say the Australians have it pretty good.  They are paid more too.


Life in prison is already long enough, why add 30 years?

Question: Saw the original sentence for Adnan Syed and I couldn't understand why it's life AND 30 years. What does that mean?
Comment: I would think that if the murder conviction were overturned on appeal, he could still be kept in prison because the 30-year sentence would still stand.
Answer: Syed was convicted of two crimes: first-degree murder and kidnapping. In many American court systems, including civilian criminal courts in the state of Maryland, convicts receive a sentence for each offense. They don't get one overall sentence to address all their crimes. Sentencing guidelines may make sentence calculation work by computing one sentence for all the offenses, but the sentence is actually imposed by specifying a certain sentence for each offense and setting them to run concurrently or consecutively to match the guidelines sentence.
The judge gave Syed life on the murder charge, but he also needed a sentence for kidnapping. The judge picked the maximum of 30 years. Thus, life plus 30. The sentences can run either concurrently or consecutively; if one sentence is life, that isn't necessarily an important issue, but it could potentially have parole implications.
Comment: Also if one of the sentences is invalidated on appeal, this guarantees the criminal won't get out anytime soon.
Comment: Forgetting appeals, think initial trials too. If somehow the prosecution fails to prove one count, hey that's okay, because we added 10 more that all carry huge sentences too and we're bound to get you on at least one of them.
Comment: @Viktor that makes a lot more sense.
Comment: I think in the USA a prisoner on life sentence could get parole, and then the 30 years would start running.
Comment: @gnasher729 That'll depend on the jurisdiction. For instance, with federal charges there is no such thing as parole anymore, unless your crimes were before the mid-1980s.
Comment: @user900 - especially when the police work is sketchy across the board.
Answer: I've always believed one of the core reasons for the sentence per offence approach is that each victim, community, and society at large will have justice provided on their behalf regarding the offence committed against them.
For example should someone have their brother murdered as part of a serial of homocides the person, community, and society, would still receive a recognition and recompense from the justice system in the form of the sentencing even if the practicalities of multiple life sentences mean that not all the allotted time would be served.


Starts when cold, runs at low rpm, dies, then won't start

Question: I have a 1993 Honda Civic Hatchback with a 1.6 liter v-tech. The other day I was driving to work in the rain (there were deep puddles on the road). Suddenly, my check engine light came on and I lost power, not completely, it just bogged out. The check engine light shut off and I got power back. I made it to work and after I left work, my check engine light turned back on and I lost power again. Since then, it will start up first thing in the morning, it drives but there is no power. It won't go above 2,500 rpm. It eventually dies and won't start again until the next day. I don't have the plastic motor cover on the bottom of the car. Is there something that could have gotten water in it? My friend tested the distributor and it's fine, but my other friend said it isn't getting adequate spark. My catalytic converter went out and was plugged up, and I thought that might be the issue. I can't afford another one for a couple more weeks so I hallowed it out. That didn't do it. Any ideas?
Comment: My first guess will be the spark plugs/spark plugs wiring. With an old car like yours, this could need to be changed. This shouldn't be too expensive.
Answer: Splashed water up into the engine compartment can cause issues with the wires or the distributor. Start the car (if possible) at night in the dark while looking under the hood. Check for a light show (blue arcing) from the spark plug wires. If there is, these need changed and is most likely the problem. Secondly, pull the distributor cap and spray the inside of it with WD-40. While WD-40 is used as a lubricant, it's original purpose was as a cleaner on air craft surfaces. Part of the protection of it is as water displacement, thus the name (WD = Water Displacement). It works good in distributors to keep water out and misfires to a minimum. If this helps clear things up, the distributor cap/rotor should be replaced. If this does not help, you will need to check your coil to ensure it is working correctly. I found an excellent diagnostic site to show the tests for all of this. It is too extensive to copy onto here, but should answer all your questions how how to test the entire system from wires to coil and everything in between.
Comment: Thank you. I will let you know if it works. We tested the distributor on another civic, but with a different coil.
Comment: @user9467 ... Using known good parts, such as the coil, is a good diagnostic method if it's available to you.
Comment: I bought a new coil and it didn't work. I was hoping it was the problem since the coil is almost $150 cheaper than the distributor.
Comment: @illicit ... just because you bought a new coil does not mean ***it*** isn't bad as well. Like I was saying, using a *known good* (such as one from a running car of the same make/model) works really well when doing diagnostics.
Answer: If I were you I would try the main relay and the fuel pump relay next. My Honda accord had the same symptoms until I replaced those two relays.
1999 Honda Accord Coupe Stalls After Warm Startup and Shaky Idle TSB
Comment: We were looking for those relays and couldn't find them. Where are they located?
Comment: Never mind. I found the main relay, it's the grey plug behind the hood latch under the driver side dash. Are the main relay and fuel pump relay the same thing? That's what some of the sites I searched said.
Comment: Yeah they do appear to be one in the same on the 93 Civic.
Answer: Just another idea. You said you went thru a large water puddle and then problems started? Where is your engine air intake. Many newer engines(after 1990) esp. have an air intake that is routed to the area behind the front bumper. In a high water situation water can be drawn into the engine. It is possible that happened fouling one of several sensors controlling air/fuel mixture.
Comment: Thank you for the response Elwood. This car was sold a few years ago to a man who rebuilds Civics. I believe it turned out to be a head problem. He has since fixed it and the car is running again.
Comment: Glad you found the "solution".   Ha,ha.


Home equity split when one partner is not on the deed

Question: 2 people buy a home. Both are on the mortgage but only one is on the deed. 5 years later the house is refinanced and now both are on the deed and mortgage. One year later one walks away and for the next 6 years the remaining owner makes the payments. Who gets what portion of the equity? There was no equity when one walked away. The person who walked away is demanding the house be sold and wants 50% of the equity.
Comment: Wait, so as of right now, both people are on the deed? Your question has two different scenarios and doesn't match the title.
Comment: So as of right now, both people are on the deed?
Comment: when house was refinanced he was put on deed.
Comment: yes as of now both are on the deed
Comment: As joint tenants, each owns an equal share and is entitled to 50% of the proceeds of the sale.
Answer: According to Time:

If both partners sign the title as tenants in common, then each owns a
  specified percentage of the property. One person may own a 60%
  interest, while the other owns 40%, for example. This split is
  specified in the deed. (Emphases mine.)

There is another form of ownership call "joint tenants". This is where everything is shared equally.
First find out what kind of ownership you have, then consult an attorney if you feel that legal action might be needed to resolve your issue.
Comment: it was joint tenants.
Comment: Even when one partner stopped contributing to the mortgage? That seems to be the real question here.
Comment: @Rup Yes. It's like when you co-sign a credit card. You are essentially saying "I'll be responsible if the other person can't pay."


Android WIFI connected without internet

Question: I have Galaxy s20 with android 11. I am connecting at work to WIFI which require to login using a browser. After that unless admin do not change the password mobile connecting automatically without any problems.
After several hours(2-3 usually) of smooth working connection I start having a problem - like connected without internet, or it become very very slow that browser will not load any page.
Here is what I did so far

checked other users and no one has this problem which means
router and internet is OK.
switch off and on WIFI several times no succuseed.
turned off/on the the mobile no succeed
Forget WIFI which worked first time only- then forget stopped working
and it keep connecting again without asking for password.
I have search on the internet and tried all possible solution nothing
works.
Any one have idea how to solve this problem.
Comment: I would first disable privacy setting for that WiFi (use real MAC address). Second disable Private DNS for all networks as this could prevent you from reaching the captive portal.
Answer: you must visit the url of captive portal manually by typing in address bar of your browser

Android WIFI connected without internet


Leaderboards Not Updating

Question: I am looking at my rank this week for gained reputation and I found something weird. It said that my reputation was 399, even though right now its is 433 (I have no idea why it is 418 here). I thought it was a bug, so I checked it later. Same thing happened. Why is my reputation change, rank, and total reputation not changing? Here is my current standings as of now : https://stackexchange.com/leagues/1/week/stackoverflow/2014-12-28/4052384#4052384
Comment: You have earned 34 rep so far today. 433 - 34 = 399. Today's changes will be reflected in a few hours.
Answer: The leaderboards only update once a day. Based on the following MSE answer, this happens at UTC 00:00:
StackOverflow user leagues reputation doesn't match
The reputation numbers shown on MSO are also delayed. I believe they update once every hour. Source:
SO reputation is different from MSO reputation
Even though that is probably not what you're seeing, there can also be a (typically small) difference between the league score and your reputation. The reason is that certain events, like the 1 rep point you lose when downvoting an answer, are not counted for the league score. Details:
Why is my total reputation less than my monthly reputation?
Comment: Even after two days, the score is still the same.
Comment: @PythonMaster: no, you had 399 points at midnight UTC. You [gained 34 points so far today](http://stackoverflow.com/users/4052384/pythonmaster?tab=reputation), giving you the score of 433 you have right now.
Comment: @PythonMaster: yesterday (UTC), your score in the rankings would have been 399 - 52 = 347.

Leaderboards Not Updating


Monte Carlo Convergence

Question: Let $\{X_i\}$ be an i.i.d. sample of $X$ with $E(X) = \mu$ and $Var(X) = \sigma^2$.  We know a MC estimate converges to the true value almost surely by the SLLN.  That is,
$$
\bar{X}_n \to \mu,   \text{ a.s.}
$$
This doesn't tell us anything about the convergence rate.  To get that, it seems we consider the CLT, for which we have
$$
\bar{X}_n - \mu \to^d \mathcal{N}\left(0, \frac{\sigma^2}{n}\right),
$$
where "$\to^d$" is convergence in distribution.  Thus, an approximate 95% confidence interval for $\mu$ is
$$
\bar{X}_n \pm 1.96\frac{\sigma}{\sqrt{n}},
$$
and I suppose now I can see where the statement, "Monte Carlo converges at the rate $\frac{1}{\sqrt{n}}$" comes from.  What people mean by this is, the half-width of the approximate confidence interval decreases at the rate $\frac{1}{\sqrt{n}}$.
Is this correct?  If so, this seems like a very different notion of convergence than I'm used to.  For example, look at the $L^2$ norm, which gives
$$
E((\bar{X}_n - \mu)^2) = Var(\bar{X}_n) = \frac{\sigma^2}{n} \to 0 \text{ as } n \to \infty,
$$
so we also get that $\bar{X}_n \to \mu$ in $L^2$, which is not expected in general solely from the a.s. convergence.  However, I don't see how this implies a convergence rate of $\frac{1}{\sqrt{n}}$ as advertised; rather, it says $\bar{X}_n \to \mu$ in $L^2$ at a rate $\frac{1}{n}$.  Now this seems like a rigorous notion of the convergence rate - we've shown the sense of convergence, and know exactly the rate at which it does so.
So why do we insist on using the CLT-implied "convergence" rate of $\frac{1}{\sqrt{n}}$, when it is just an approximation to begin with, and the weakest form of convergence to boot?
Comment: The issue is that the $L^2$ convergence is not guaranteed, while the convergence in distribution is generally true.
Comment: @Gordon would you elaborate?
Answer: for the L2 norm you have to take a square root and then you get $1/\sqrt{n}$ convergence as before.

Monte Carlo Convergence


When to repot a young juniper bonsai?

Question: I live in an area of the United State where it's never really safe to say that winter is over.  Just when you think it's spring, it can be blizzarding and below zero.  Anyway, should I wait until it's for sure spring to repot my Juniper bonsai? Will it show signs of life that it is out of dormancy?
Answer: I always do my repotting and trimming of roots and heavy pruning during the time the plant is dormant.
Others might argue with me, but I don't think the beginning of spring is the best time to do it because the plant is coming out of dormancy and wants to be growing. The idea of pruning and repotting during dormancy is to do it at a time when the plant is going to experience the least amount of shock.
My father in law raised bonsai for over 50 years and he taught me to do heavy pruning and repotting in winter when the plant was dormant and light pruning during late spring.
There is usually a second growth spurt during mid-autumn and then late autumn the deciduous trees will drop their leaves. I try to do it a couple of weeks after the cold has set in rather than late winter. In late winter you are running the risk of shocking the plant when it is coming out of dormancy.
Comment: Sounds like good advice.  Is it okay for the plant to be thawed out during repotting like this in the winter? Would the sudden temperature change adversely affect the plant?
Comment: Can you give me more info. Is it just snow / ice on the plant or is the actual soil frozen? From what I am picturing in my head you are just swapping the soil and trimming the roots as necessary and then placing it back in its original spot. If the soil is not frozen stiff then there shouldn't be a problem as you won't have the plant inside for more than an hour. My worry at this point is it is almost spring and the plant will want to become active which is not a good time to repot or prune roots.
Answer: Every trees (though dwarf) have to be replanted during winter, when sleeping.
When they sleep, the metabolism of the plant is stopped, so do not be afraid to thermal shock. but above all, you need not to fear a biological shock, relating to remove the roots from the earth. This means that the lymph flow is almost stationary, so you need not fear losses of sap from the roots (which the cold makes it harder to heal), or, worse, infected infiltrations into roots: the sap stops ago by cap.

When to repot a young juniper bonsai?


Should web application for methods PUT and DELETE return the same response as for GET

Question: My web application for methods PUT, DELETE and any junk HTTP method return the same response as for GET method (html main page, nothing is uploaded or deleted), for TRACE there is response 405. Is this insecure? Many resources recommends to allow only GET and POST, does this mean that the response should be "405 Method not allowed"?
Comment: We need a bit more context here.  What prompted this question?  Is it in relation to some sort of compliance?  At face value, returning data with a PUT or DELETE verb would be confusing to someone making that call, but there is nothing inherently insecure about it.
Comment: It depends on what your web application is doing. Each HTTP verb should trigger a different action (what happens on your server, not necessarily a different reply to client), if that is not the case, you should not allow anything like PUT or DELETE.
Answer: Quite a lot of effectively static sites ignore the HTTP verb used, treating them all as GET, with the exception of HEAD, which only returns the headers for the response. This isn't necessarily a problem, if the site will never make use of the other verbs, but can contribute to a technical debt if you start using them at some point in the future.
For example, if you implemented an API which did allow the replacement of content via PUT requests, using the same code as your main pages, but forgot to restrict the use of PUT to the API, you could end up with people able to edit your main pages. This is a bit contrived, but this kind of thing does happen.
In general, it's just sensible to use an "allowed verbs" approach and to ensure that if you need something different for a particular section of your site, it only works there.
Answer:
My web application for methods PUT, DELETE and any junk HTTP method return the same response as for GET method (html main page, nothing is uploaded or deleted), for TRACE there is response 405. Is this insecure?

Since this is security.SE, not programmers.SE, I'll answer only about how this applies to security: there is no real security implication of choosing 405s vs pretending everything is a GET.


StarCraft 2 leaver's resources

Question: In Starcraft 2, after a player drops/leaves on a team, the resources already gathered by that player is split and distributed among allies that remain.  But will the resources (mineral/gas) that are continually being gathered be split amongst allies?
Comment: +1, I wondered this myself. My team once fought a 3v3 where 2 opponents dropped immediately. We wondered if it was intentional, since the remaining player built a large force very quickly with all the resources.
Comment: @Wikwocket there are probably some people who do this on purpose, and some to whom it happens by accident.  Either way, don't get complacent (see my answer for more)
Answer: Yes, resources gathered will be continuously split among allies.
Also you can control his units after he leaves, train units in his building, and build new buildings in his base using his workers.
Comment: Units built from his buildings count toward his food supply, not yours. Because of this - be careful of getting your dropped teammate supply blocked if you want to keep using their buildings.
Comment: Just to add some important information. All the resources the dropped player continues to harvest are shared with allies. And producing any units/buildings with the dropped player requires your own resources, but does not use your own food count.
Comment: Do units you build from his buildings count towards your food-supply? (What about units that were queued when he left? :)
Comment: @BlueRaja - that sounds like a new question :D
Answer: Yes.  This is sometimes used to perform turbo cheese rushes.  Normally, you are not allowed to transfer resources to your allies until several minutes into the game.  Dropping out is a way around this.  When the ally drops out of a game, all their starting resources plus all minerals gathered by their workers get transferred to the remaining player(s).  If I recall properly, a 6 pool can get the initial 6 lings out 25 game seconds faster this way, and have the speed upgrade and plenty of lings pumping faster than normal.
If you are in a team game and see one or more opponents drop out immediately, but the other player doesn't surrender, be prepared to defend an early rush, then immediately counterattack to kill the empty bases of the dropped players.  Do not relax and think "oh this will be an easy 2v1" until you've killed off the extra base.  The single player using two players' minerals has certain advantages over the remaining team, like the initial head start in minerals, and only having to build tech buildings once.  This advantage wanes over time, but can be used to eke out a victory over an unprepared team.

StarCraft 2 leaver's resources


Turn bmx bike to 3 gear

Question: I have a 29" S.E  Big Ripper And I want to add 2-3 gears on it to ride hills . I don't want to buy another bike but would like some ease in my older age .
Comment: Does this answer your question? [Turn single speed into multi speed!](https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/49532/turn-single-speed-into-multi-speed)
Comment: Also, see previous answers to similar questions: https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/49532/turn-single-speed-into-multi-speed
Answer: You can buy basic 3 speed freewheels on eBay. With that and a claw-style derailleur you should be able to set up a 3 speed system. You might want to just get a different bike instead though.
Answer: The bicycle in question has single-speed rear hub and aluminum frame:

Let's consider your options.

There is no space to fit any sort of a cassette or a multispeed freewheel to provide more than a single gear at the drive side (but see below). You might be able to find a two-speed freewheel like the one on the picture below. Even if it fits the hub and frame (which is unlikely), to change between the gears you will have to unscrew the wheel and manually reroute the chain. It would be problematic to weld on a derailleur hanger to have a place to attach a derailleur to avoid that.

Adding a front derailleur and keeping a single rear cog could be an alternative, and there are triple MTB front rings to offer three speeds. That would mean changing the crankset and the bottom bracket (let's assume it is possible to find a new one compatible with the frame, which is  unlikely). To control the chain, a front derailleur has to be installed (should be possible with some luck). To pick up chain slack, a chain tensioner has to be installed at the rear (should be relatively easy as tensioners are often designed for single-speed bicycles). Frame clearance at the bottom bracket or chainstay might limit your options of which front rings could be installed, and whether or not chain would rub against the frame (which would be not OK at all).

Changing the rear wheel to one with an internal gear hub. There exist hub variants from 3 to 11 speeds. The hub width must match the dimensions of the existing hub, and of course a handlebar shifter, shifter cable/housing and anti-rotational washers are needed.

The bicycle has a flip-flop hub, meaning two different cogs can be installed on it. Unscrewing and flipping the wheel will allow to chose one of two gear combinations. It is impossible to have cogs' teeth difference too big (max two half-links), unless a chain tensioner is installed to pick up the chain slack.

The integrated rear gearhub seems to be the only practical option for converting it into a "real" multi-speed bike. This option's applicability heavily depends on the rear hub spacing, as gear hubs do not come in all possible hub widths. It is unsafe to attempt to alter your frame's spacing to fit a hub of a different width.
Two cogs at the flip-flop hub is the easiest option. Other options can be truly considered as kludges.
Comment: The internal-gear gub is not a cludge, but its also not cheap, roughly costing as much as another bike.

Turn bmx bike to 3 gear


Can my sister-in-law be barred from my parents' will?

Question: My sister-in-law is a horrible person, and I was wondering what would happen if my brother passed away after my parents' will was already executed. In the event my brother passed first, it's obvious I would be the sole heir. However, if my parents pass first and their will was distributed to me and my brother and then my brother passed after them, can my parents add a clause to their will to deny his wife any part of the estate? If he had children, I'm sure they'd want it to go to them. However, if he didn't have children, can a clause be added to have it go back to me? She's entitled to 1/2 their accumulated assets during the marriage, but is there any way to deny her anything related to my parents' will?
Comment: Are you asking if the property can be "clawed back?" Your brother inherits 1/2 the estate and he dies some time later; are you asking if that property your brother inherited can then be given to you? How long would your brother have to survive your parents before the property would be inheritable by your sister-in-law? Or, are you looking for a forever claw-back?
Comment: Yes, something along those lines. Is there any way to guarantee she never sees the estate? If he has kids, I could be the executor until they come of age, or if he never has kids, it's passed back to me.
Answer: In some jurisdictions, certain relatives cannot be disinherited without their consent (e.g. in community property states, your wife's right of inheritance is independent of any will). Daughter-in-law is not one of the statutorily-protected relations. So, in will, a parent can distributed their property as they see fit -- all to sister 1, split evenly between the brothers, split evenly between oldest son and oldest daughter, and so on. They can explicitly include a daughter-in-law if they want; they can include me if they want. Nobody gets a share if they are not mentioned.
A will can have conditions, e.g. "all to my wife, but if she dies before me, all split evenly among children A,B,C,D". The hard part if for the testator to decide on / think about a hierarchy, such as "Wife first; if wife dead, oldest female child; if oldest female child dead then children of oldest female child...". Painful statements like "Person X shall in no circumstance receive any portion of the estate" indicates testator's intent, and following the testator's wishes (hence "will") is the basic principle of inheritance law.
It's certainly possible to write a will, especially if it is really simple. Attorney's generally do not charge a huge sum to write this sort of stuff up. What you really need is to figure out in advance is what you want the will to do.
Comment: This will not let a person leave money to a son and then restrict the son not to leave it to his wife. Once the son inherits outright, it is his.
Comment: Indeed: OP was not at all clear that he had in mind a claw-back provision. There is no means of preventing the sister-in-law from accessing the money, if the brother can also access it: not even with a trust.
Comment: The OP wants a way that the sister-in-law never gets her hands on the money. If it is left in a trust to the brother to get the income during his life with the principle going to the children upon his death, the sister-in-law doesn't get the principle.
Comment: But the brother also does not ever get his hands on the principle, and the sister can still access the interest. So it depends on whether the parents want to partially disinherit the brother but still give outright ownership to the other siblings; do they want a clause to give the brother the principle in case he divorces horrible wife (problems with an "and never remarries her" clause).
Answer: They might need to do this via a trust rather than a bequest.
Someone I know has a trust from their parents that says they can use the money during their life for their needs (and lists a fairly comprehensive set of examples) and upon their death the remainder goes to their children. I think you can has some control over what happens to your money after you die.
I think your parents could leave your brother's portion to him via a trust that provided for him to use the money during his life but had the remainder go to his children. As someone said in answer to that other question, if money is left to your brother in their will, it is his at that point and he can leave it to his wife  or to his dog if he likes.
Their attorney may be able to structure a trust that solves the problem.
Comment: Thanks. So even if my parents specifically add a line to the will that it can never go to his wife or that there are restrictions on how the money can be used, it won't work? Wills cannot do that? However, you can structure a trust in a such way?
Comment: That is my understanding


Thieves guild radiant quest glitch

Question: I finish the thieves guild questline, but I can't seem to get more than $200 when I completed the radiant quests from Vex or Delvin. In an old account I was able to get $400 from these radiant quests after I finished the questline but now I can't.
Is this some kind of glitch?
Comment: I think this has to do with your current level? i.e. The higher your player level, the more money you make.
Answer: The lower the level you are the less gold you get from contracts. Your old acc was probably a higher level that your new one.

Thieves guild radiant quest glitch