Is there a way to set a custom Steam Download speed?

Question: My internet is 5MB/s, which is exactly one of the steam's download speed option. The next lowest option is 3MB/s.
I.e. I can't choose 5MB/s - it is too high since it spoils my browsing experience while steam is downloading. But 3MB/s is also not good since it is much lower than necessary. Something like 4.5MB/s would be ideal.
Is there a way to do it? A way to edit steam files may be, and to change the default options list?
Comment: Just to clarify question, closest Steam options are 3MB/s and 5MB/s, OP wants something in between
Answer: I found (and slightly redacted) this solution on SuperUser, which was copied verbatim from Reddit, whence it was sourced from the Steam community:

Go into your Steam directory, and open the config
  directory [C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\config by default.]
Go into the config directory and open the "config.vdf" file.
Find the DownloadThrottleKbps setting, and set it to the desired speed (take
  the amount in Mb/s you want to set it to, and multiply it by 8000 - e.g. 4.5 Mb/s makes 36000).
Save the file, open Steam, and verify that it is working.

Make sure to set the "config.vdf" file to 'Read-only'. Steam changes the file on start-up and exiting (when set to be run as administrator).

Note that the file contains more settings, so customizing other settings might require the file to have the 'Read-only' flag disabled.

Works with the New Steam Library update
Comment: I can confirm it works. Thank you.
Comment: Although this setting will be lost if you change the speed. It can also sometimes get lost in a steam update. I wish there was a way to add it to a permanent list of custom speeds.
Answer: As of October 7th, 2020, you can now specify an exact speed simply by inputting the amount you desire.  Go to Steam → Settings → Downloads and in the "Download Restrictions" part of the window, check the "Limit Bandwidth to" checkbox and input the amount you wish (in KB/s).  4500 KB/s would equate to 4.5 MB/s.
Answer: Based on the answer by Joachim, I created a little Python script that sets the DownloadThrottleKbps in the config.vdf file, so you don't need to redo it manually everytime the setting gets overwritten.
Recommended use: create a shortcut to the script with the bandwidth in Kbit/s as first the argument.
Example:
To set a bandwidth limit of 4.5MB/s, in the shortcut's properties, edit the Target of the shortcut as:
C:\path\to\bandwidth-limit-script.py 36000
Note 1: Close Steam before running this.
Note 2: I hardcoded the path to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\config\config.vdf, so change that line of code if you've installed Steam to a custom location.
Note 3: I used f-strings so you need Python 3.6 or higher.
# Set Steam download bandwidth limit (for Windows)

import argparse
from time import sleep

# Config
configpath = "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Steam\\config\\config.vdf"
throttlestr = "DownloadThrottleKbps"

# Make the user at least see error messages when launched from a shortcut
# Please don't judge me for my lazy exceptions XD
try:
    # Parse bandwidth argument
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description='Set Steam download bandwidth limit in Windows.')
    parser.add_argument('bandwidth', metavar='bandwidth', type=int, nargs=1,
            help='Bandwidth limit in Kbit/s. 0 = no limit.\n\
            Recommended use: create a shortcut to the script with bandwidth as first the argument.')
    args = parser.parse_args()
    bandwidth = args.bandwidth[0]

except:
    input('Press Enter to exit')
    exit()

try:
    # Open config file
    with open(configpath, 'r') as f:
        contents = f.readlines()

    # Find DownloadThrottleKbps line
    for n in range(len(contents)):                  # Loop over lines of config
        if throttlestr in contents[n]:              # Check for 'DownloadThrottleKbps'
            contents[n] = f'\t\t\t\t"{throttlestr}"\t\t"{bandwidth}"\n' # Replace line
            break                                   # Exit loop

    # Write new config to file file
    with open(configpath, 'w') as f:
        f.writelines(contents)

except:
    input(f'Error during file access of {configpath}\nPress Enter to exit')
    exit()

print(f'Steam bandwidth limit was set to {bandwidth} Kbit/s')
sleep(1)

Answer: Apart from editing the config.vdf file, another option is mentioned on Reddit:

Enable the Steam Console: either start Steam with the -console argument or open the link steam://open/console in your browser
Click on Console which appears at the top, right next to your name.
Type set_download_throttle 8000 to set the download limit to 8000Kbit/s = 1MB/s.


Why didn't the fog enter the supermarket in The Mist?

Question: In The Mist (2007), a white fog covers a small town, and a number of residents take refuge in the local supermarket.  But the fog stops at the glass windows, never seeping through the cracks around the doors, or later in the movie, through the broken windows or the opened garage door. Why?
Comment: I'm pretty sure that the mist *did* come in a bit when the windows broke, just not as a big, rolling fog, but rather as a thin veil that was dispersed by the AC. I'd have to check again, but I'm sure the color palette of the scene got a little faded once the windows broke. As for the loading-dock door, if I remember correctly, I think it did indeed seem like there was a barrier.
Answer: I'm going to speculate that it's because the fog was not necessarily supernatural in nature and the supermarket had a climate control system.
Buildings in San Francisco don't get filled with fog even if they're surrounded by it.
Comment: The source of the monsters was never really answered definitively, only speculations about scientific experiments and such, but even then, it was not really supernatural, just alien. So I agree that there was nothing special, intelligent, or alive about the mist itself (I think the same can be said about the fog in *The Fog* as well). I can completely imagine and even *feel* the chill in the supermarket due to its air-conditioning, which of course would make the windows and air cold, causing molecules of water vapor cold and thus to condense outside instead of seeping in and staying aloft.


Drupal generating broken URLs containing "http" twice

Question: My drupal site website started recently generating broken links/URLs within markup. It might have happened after I updated to version 7.41 or due to recent module update. I'm not sure.
Example:
<code><link rel="canonical" href="http://www.mydomain.nethttp:/" />
<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="http://www.mydomain.nethttp:/sites/default/files/css/css_xE-rWrJf-fncB6ztZfd2huxqgxu4WO-qwma6Xer30m4.css" media="all" />
</code>
Any idea what is going on? My drupal is hosted at the top of domain and not in a subdirectory. I was fine for years and didn't have to set $base_url in settings.php or anything.
My site uses clean urls and I double checked that rewrite apache module is on and working correctly.
I did try setting the $base_url in settings.php, this made the front page load correctly, however when I visit any node the apache returns 404, e.g. in access.log I see:
"GET /content/some-nice-article-i-had HTTP/1.1" 404
I'm using Apache/2.4.17 and PHP 5.6.14 on Archinux.
Any ideas?
Answer: It appears that Apache 2.4.17 break rewrite functionality when fastcgi PHP is used. With mod_php everything is working fome but I'm looking forward to Apache 2.4.18 or 2.5.


Why can't Alphonse repair Edward's automail using alchemy?

Question: Edward's automail breaks many times during animation, but every time even if Alphonse didn't take any damage they go after Winrey to fix Edward's automail. Now I'm wondering if Alphonse can easily repair a radio or any other mechanical device, why can't he fix Edward's automail? Also, why does neither Edward nor Alphonse try enhancing automail using alchemy?
Comment: Edward uses alchemy to enhance his automail, the spike or knife at the top of his automail came from himself. he modified his automail to get it.
Comment: @Tartori I was talking about the materials used in the automail, enhancing as in making his automail strong enough so it doesn't break.
Comment: Ok, then just read Madara Uchiha answer, it covers this one to.
Answer: The first step of alchemy is understanding. That means, understanding the raw materials you are going to use, and how to break them down. It also means to understand the resulting item. You can't make something you don't know anything about.
A radio is a very simple device. It contains little to none electronics, and is rather easy to understand.
An automail on the other hand, is a very complicated piece of engineering. It contains engines, circuit boards etc. Which make it hard for a "simple" alchemist to construct.
If Winry for example were to be an alchemist, she would probably be able to fix automail using alchemy, but even that would only be emergency fixes, and not a full repair.
Comment: @nhahtdh: You must differentiate between Alchemy and Engineering. Just because you know how to manipulate matter, doesn't mean you know how to make a working automail.
Comment: @nhahtdh the truth of the world refers to alchemy. It doesn't teach you everything, only alchemy.
Comment: Beat me to it. Hit every point I was working with. +1
Comment: But Alphonse also knows quite a lot of truth in the accident at the beginning of the story - which allows him to be able to use alchemy later in the story when his memory recovers. Shouldn't he be able to use that?
Comment: @MadaraUchiha: It is the truth of the world, though.


Does everyone have a unique set of fingerprints?

Question: Fingerprints are often used by law enforcement to identify individuals, even with a partial print.  Are there any cases where people had the same fingerprints? Is there a limit to the number of unique fingerprints that can possibly exist?
Comment: @ChrisW Saw that question but it relates more to possible human errors and other factors when processing fingerprints, so I thought this deserved it's own question
Answer: In theory, no, but the odds for it happening are really low.
This presentation has a slide with an overview of the literature on the subject. If I'm interpreting the chart copied below, estimations of the possible configurations of fingerprints (i.e. the probability of a given fingerprint occurring)  range from 1.45x10-11 to 1.20x10-80.  Given that the number of people who have ever lived is estimated to be 100 billion to 115 billion (1.15x1011), then it's mathematically possible for every human who ever lived to have unique fingerprints.

Since there's nothing which hands out fingerprints and ensures uniqueness, it's quite possible that there have been duplicates at some point.  However, the odds for duplicates actually coming up in a real world scenario (i.e. two people living in the same country within the same general span of time, instead of anywhere in the world at any point in history) are infinitesimal.
Added to address comments:
It's worth noting that all these probabilities are based on the granularity of the method involved.  The Galton method, for instance, seems to involve dividing the finger up into 24 regions, and identifying the most prominent feature of that region.  This leads to a fairly granular set of results, which, in turn, means that it's much easier to find someone else who would register as having the same set of fingerprints.  This would be roughly equivalent to a version of the birthday problem where you're trying to find people who have the same birth month, instead of the same birthday.
Modern matching systems use the minutia of the fingerprint to provide a much more accurate match.  My understanding of it is that there are 36 points selected based on finding certain features in a general area (i.e. five points of interest in this small section), and the precise relative location of each point to each other is what makes up the modern fingerprint record.  This produces a far more accurate digital record of the fingerprint, although still not a 100% perfect one.  Correspondingly, this makes the chances of finding two fingerprints considered to be a match much lower.  To extend the previous analogy, you're now trying to find two people who share a birth minute, not just a birth day.
Comment: This begs the question of how similar two "different" fingerprints might be. Are we talking about differences you could see with the naked eye, or microscopic differences? Also as a point of interest, if Galton were right, then it only takes around 400K people to get a 50-50 shot of two people having the same fingerprint, meaning it would be very unlikely for there NOT to be two people in the US with identical fingerprints.
Comment: @RobWatts - The presentation I linked to goes into somewhat more detail, although it's obviously meant to accompany a talk.  I did [a bit more reading](http://books.google.com/books?id=duUJEp4WbQ8C&pg=PA335&lpg=PA335&dq=galton+regions&source=bl&ots=Hj3wXY51JR&sig=w2zz-HLHe5nScS4USx_jNWbp8fY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=nIYAVMyEOtDLggSZ44HQCg&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=galton%20regions&f=false) and basically, Galton's method isn't considered very accurate.  The "minutiae" method uses each ridge split or join, which is more precise and what most use today (I think).
Comment: @Bobson: You oversaw the problem of the [birthday paradox](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem). If we assume a fair distribution each fingerprint occupies randomly one slot. The birthday paradox approximately increases the probability squarely with the number of people involved (Halmos upper bound for p=50%: sqrt(2*N*ln(2)). If N = 10e11 then a duplicate is to expected with 370 000 people ! Given the number of people on earth we need at least a probability of 1/2.59e19 which is much more than expected. Galton will lead to a duplicate, Henry, Balthazar and Bose are possible.
Comment: @ThorstenS. - Since you're the second person to mention that, I edited the answer to address it.  Basically, Galton's method was the very first, and isn't in use today for precisely that reason.
Comment: Is there any reason to believe that Stoney's 10^80 "possible fingerprints" are anywhere close to being equally probable?  If two people were to each flip 1,000 coins, there would be 1,001 different values for the number of heads each person flips, but the probability of two both people flipping the same number of heads would be much greater than 1/1,000.
Comment: @supercat - Honestly, I have no idea.  My default assumption from some of the diagrams I was looking at were that each part was pretty independent (and thus each fingerprint is equally probable), but I didn't find anything specifically stating one way or the other. Feel free to dig into it a bit more, if you're curious.
Comment: @Bobson: The figures you cite make it sound as though the probability of two randomly-selected people having a Stoney match would be about 1/10^80; I was wondering if that claim had any real statistical basis beyond a hope that the variables aren't so biased as to make the probability high enough to matter.
Comment: @supercat - Check out [this paper](http://www.ee.nthu.edu.tw/whhsu/homework/hw_4.pdf) - it discusses Stoney's model (among others) in much greater detail than I've seen elsewhere.  At a *very* brief skim, it seems that his model specifically does take into account that certain features are more likely to be near other ones.
Comment: Not that it matters, but the "birthday collision" mistake is being made here.
Comment: @Fattie How so?
Comment: hey @Bobson, happy new year; sorry I just glanced over the discussion and was not addressing you in particular.  Consider a group of people (365 possible birthdays).  For there to be a 50% probability of a collision, surprisingly **you only need twenty-three people**, not (as one would assume without analyzing it) 360 or 180 people.  This surprising statistical result has already been mentioned in other comments.  Cheers!


Is there a simple and inexpensive way to generate nitrogen gas?

Question: It's fairly easy to generate a significant yield of hydrogen gas simply by reacting zinc metal with $\ce{HCl}$ or aluminum with $\ce{NaOH}$ solution. But is there a simple and inexpensive chemical reaction that generates a significant yield of pure nitrogen gas?
Comment: Liquid nitrogen is rather available, I think from welding supply stores.  Some tire stores inflate tires with nitrogen and will have compressed gas available.
Comment: @trb456 really had the best answer regarding this question as I don't consider heating or even working with azides as a safe and practical means. The potential $NO$ and $HNO_3$ byproducts are poisonous and so its probably a good idea to provide the means suggested to scrub these gases from the gas produced.
Answer: Per Wikipedia, we have this laboratory method:
$$\ce{NH4Cl(aq) + NaNO2(aq) → N2(g) + NaCl(aq) + 2 H2O (l)}$$
Also per Wikipedia, this method generates small quantities of impurities of $\ce{NO}$ and $\ce{HNO3}$, which can be eliminated by passing the gas through potassium dichromate $\ce{(K2Cr2O7)}$ dissolved in sulfuric acid $\ce{(H2SO4)}$
Both ammonium chloride and sodium nitrite are reasonably available chemicals, and the other products (table salt and water) are undeniably safe. Sulfuric acid might a bit tougher to get depending on where you live, and potassium dichromate will be the most difficult given that the use of hexavalent chromium is discouraged (and you should research procedures to reduce the $\ce{Cr2O7^{-2}}$ to $\ce{Cr2O3}$). But otherwise, this looks like the best approach.
Answer: You could try a simple two step process. Take some air, burn some carbon-rich material in it until no further burning occurs. Then pass the remaining gas through an alkaline solution to remove the carbon dioxide. The remaining gas will be more than 95% nitrogen.
And you get this with no expensive chemicals.
Comment: clever approach. I suppose you could increase the purity by selecting the right material to burn, and controlling the temperature. For $CO$ that might result, are there other inexpensive filtering methods that could remove it?
Comment: @docscience There are lots of industrial methods (e.g. passing the gas over copper oxide) and many physical methods (if the concentration is small, activated carbon will work).
Comment: How about using an O2 scavenger, depending on the tank volume you could also get mostly nitrogen; also add a co2 scavenger for more effect. I do this at home and it works for me.
Answer: One more classic method for $\ce{N2}$ preparation in the lab that hasn't been mentioned yet is oxidative dehydrogenation of ammonia to nitrogen, typically with the help of transition metal oxides, e.g.:
$$\ce{2 NH3 + 3 CuO ->[\pu{500 .. 550^\circ C}] 3 Cu + N2 ^ + 3H2O ^} \tag{1}$$
Reaction with copper(II) oxide is considered canonical and is often listed in textbooks and lab manuals, for example A Text-book of Practical Chemistry [1, p. 6] from 1921 describes this process as follows:

Nitrogen is obtained by passing air first through ·880 ammonia and then over red-hot copper turnings. The oxygen of the air is absorbed by the copper and the resulting copper oxide is at once reduced back to copper by the ammonia. The frequent renewals of the contents of the copper tube are thus entirely avoided.
\begin{align}
\ce{2 Cu + O2 & = 2 CuO},\\
\ce{2 NH3 + 3 CuO & = N2 + 3 H2O}
\end{align}
The gas should be washed with sulphuric acid (1 : 4) to free from excess of ammonia, and dried by strong sulphuric acid. The use of dilute acid to free it from ammonia is to avoid the danger of a great rise in temperature should a large excess of ammonia come over.

Method of obtaining nitrogen via thermal decomposition of $\ce{NH4NO2}$ is criticized as a rather inconvenient one that may potentially result in an explosion.

Small quantities of nitrogen may be prepared by carefully heating a solution of ammonium nitrite (sodium nitrite and ammonium chloride in molecular proportions). [...] The method is not recommended as it is difficult to control, and the nitrogen is generally contaminated with oxides of nitrogen, especially when the action becomes violent.

Instead, one can utilize "volcano demo" (thermal decomposition of ammonium dichromate) as somewhat safer alternative:
$$\ce{(NH4)2Cr2O7 ->[\pu{170 .. 190^\circ C}] Cr2O3 + N2 ^ + 4 H2O ^} \tag{2}$$
These days various sources provide slightly deviating techniques for reaction type (1). Other metal oxides such as $\ce{TiO2}$, $\ce{V2O5}$, $\ce{MnO2}$, their binary and ternary mixtures on silica- and alumina-supported substrates doped with rare-earths (Y, mostly) are capable of selective catalytic oxidation at lower temperatures [2, 3].
References

Hood, G. F.; Carpenter, J. A. A Text-Book of Practical Chemistry; J. & A. Churchill, 1921. (Google Books).
Li, Y.; Armor, J. N. Applied Catalysis B: Environmental 1997, 13 (2), 131–139 DOI: 10.1016/S0926-3373(96)00098-7.
Gang, L.; van Grondelle, J.; Anderson, B. G.; van Santen, R. A. Journal of Catalysis 1999, 186 (1), 100–109 DOI: 10.1006/jcat.1999.2524.
Answer: There is one incredible simple, cheap and easy way to make nitrogen gas with near 99 percent purity if you don't need it compressed.  I've used this method in my chemistry experiments when I needed just modest amounts of nitrogen or when I need to do reactions in the absence of reactive oxygen.
Simply buy handwarmers from Walmart or many other sources. Use a heavy duty, large resealable bag and fill it as best you can with regular, uncontaminated air. Drop the hand warmer in there and it will absorb almost all oxygen, leaving you with about 1 percent "all other gases" that are naturally in the atmosphere. Personally, I glue an airtight small rubber tube (a hose from aquarium bubblers, also found at Walmart or any pet store) then clamp it shut with a small but strong spring clamp (although other clamps will due). I've found the hand warmer can dry out before it loses its capacity to absorb O2, so I cut one end open, seal it with laundry clamps (just to keep the contents from spilling out, making a mess) and spray it LIGHTLY now and then with mist from a stray bottle. However, if your not worried about the carbon, iron powder, and table salt contained in these packets (all very harmless) you can cut the packet open and just dump it in the bottom of the bag, and spray as described above once in a while. You would be surprise how long they last and how many bags full of nitrogen you can get from just one hand warmer packet. If you're not worried about adding excess heat to your O2 purged experiment, just put the handwarmer in the bag containing the enclosed beaker. Otherwise, you can purge air out of a different bag, vessel by inserting the hose, and squeezing the nitrogen filled bag.
Comment: How do they work? As I can see, they burn charcoal. So the result won't be nitrogen, but an $\ce{N2}$ + $\ce{CO2}$ + $\ce{CO}$ mix.
Comment: (+1) This is a nice example of thinking outside the box! I am going to try it and up vote right after this is posted. Thanks!
Answer: According to Wikipedia you can generate pure nitrogen by heating metal azides, which gives out
nitrogen and the metal. Sodium azide is not really expensive.
$$\ce{2NaN_3 ->2Na + 3N_2}$$
However, as you may expect, this may not be a very safe reaction as the first reaction that came to my mind when you asked for a reaction with large yield of nitrogen gas is that of TNT, though that would not give a pure yield as you have required. Azides are also explosive. Sodium azide is used in car airbag and airplane escape chutes where this exact reaction is used to quickly inflate these safety features. The metallic sodium formed is then further reacted to less dangerous sodium compounds.
Comment: Please nobody use this. Not only is sodium azide explosive, it's very toxic.
Comment: This can be an extremely violent decomposition reaction.  It's the reaction that generates enough gas in an instant to fill an airbag...
Comment: Even though the reaction and the reactant are rather unpleasant, this is one of the methods that produce purest nitrogen at a lab scale.
Comment: It's also interesting that Brauer's *Handbuch der präparativen anorganischen Chemie* recommends this method exclusively for the nitrogen generation in the lab.
Answer: To generate nitrogen you could mix potassium nitrate, hydrochloric acid, and zinc.
It would generate nitrogen and the byproducts will be zinc chloride, ammonium chloride, and potassium chloride.
The nitrogen would be mixed with some HCl vapors, which you could remove through bubbling it in water.
The combustion of dinitrogen monoxide can also produce nitrogen.
Answer: Thermal decomposition of ammonium nitrite:
$$\ce{NH4NO2 -> N2 + H2O}$$
Comment: I guess it's worth mentioning that solid ammonium nitrite decomposes with an explosion.
Comment: Please elaborate more. At Chem.SE, we like answers to include reasoning and explanation, otherwise they are likely to be downvoted and/or deleted.
Answer: Ammonium Dichromate reacted with heat produces only one gaseous product, Nitrogen. FIlter through a bubbler to get particles out of it. See Wikipedia under Ammonium Dichromate for the reaction equation and stoichiometry.
Comment: It's considered a good practice to include an actual reaction, conditions and [original source](http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/j150556a040) (use ACS bibliography style) in your question. Avoid citing encyclopedias and link-only answers. Also, chemical names are generally starting with low-case letters unless it's a first word in a sentence.


If I respond to a permanent resolving is it in play when my spell/ability resolves?

Question: Lets say that at my opponent's end step I cast Bile Blight on his Pack Rat
that he already has 3 of total on the field, then he activates the ability of pack rat in
response, can I respond to the new pack rat resolving with Golgari charm and kill all 4 rats?
Comment: The proper wording is "to respond to him *activating the ability*", not "to respond to it *resolving*". e.g. "I cast a spell." "In response, I ..."
Comment: Just to make what @ikegami says clear: You cannot respond to a spell resolving. After a spell resolves, the active player gets priority. There is no way for the non-active player to say at this point "before anything else, I do X". The active player has to pass before the non active player can do anything. Just bringing this up because it is a common misconception among newer players.
Comment: @jakeP Is "respond" actual official terminology in the rules, or just a common English word being used here? If the latter, then there's nothing wrong with "responding" to a spell having resolved. It would just mean taking an action that you are taking as a response to what just happened.
Comment: @GendoIkari From the comprehensive rules, 116.7: "If a player with priority casts a spell or activates an activated ability while another spell or ability
is already on the stack, the new spell or ability has been cast or activated "in response to" the earlier
spell or ability. The new spell or ability will resolve first." The glossary entry for "Respond" (specifically "respond", as opposed to "in response to" in case you feel the phrasing is relevant) reiterates this and references 116.7
Comment: I should of worded it more clearly. I had meant to ask if the 4th rat would be in play if I cast the GC while the ability resolves. Since an ability resolving creates a window that give priority to the active player, and if that player then passed priority, I could (technically) be able to cast a spell in response to something resolving.

   Further digging has shown that it would not be in play yet, but there are several ways to get the result I wished and that I was just over thinking things.
Comment: Re "I had meant to ask if the 4th rat would be in play if I cast the GC while the ability resolves.", You have the choice. If you cast GC in response to PR's ability, GC will resolve first. If you cast GC after PR's ability has resolved, PR will obviously have resolved first. I showed both scenarios in my answer.
Answer: Yes, though it happens in a complicated way.
Golgari Charm's first mode creates a continuous effect that modifies characteristics (power and toughness). It only affects the creatures on the 'field when it resolves.

611.2c If a continuous effect generated by the resolution of a spell or ability modifies the characteristics or changes the controller of any objects, the set of objects it affects is determined when that continuous effect begins. After that point, the set won't change. (Note that this works differently than a continuous effect from a static ability.) [...]

(Same goes with Bile Blight. Any Pack Rats entering the field after it resolves won't be affected by it.)
That means the following will happen:

You cast BB
In response, opponent activates his PR's ability
In response, you cast GC
GC resolves: 3x 2/2 PR
PR's ability resolves: 3x 3/3 PR + 1x 4/4 PR
BB resolves: 3x 0/0 PR + 1x 1/1 PR
SBA kills the PR with non-positive toughness: 1x -2/-2 PR
SBA kills the PR with non-positive toughness: No PR

It's a little cleaner if you wait before casting GC.

You cast BB
In response, opponent activates his PR's ability
PR's ability resolves: 4x 4/4 PR
You cast GC
GC resolves: 4x 3/3 PR
BB resolves: 4x 0/0 PR
SBA kills the PR with non-positive toughness: No PR

No matter the order, creating a 5th PR before BB resolves would save them all. But which of the approach you used will affect how strong they are.

Using the first approach, he'll end up with 3x 1/1, 2x 2/2.
Using the second approach, he'll end up with 4x 1/1 and 1x 2/2.
Answer: Here what will happen.

You cast Bile Blight, targetting Pack Rat
Pass Priority
Opponent Activates Pack Rat ability
Opponent passes priority
You cast Golgari Charm (presumably with the -1/-1)
Full priority pass (you and opponent)
Golgari Charm resolves, the current 3 pack rats all get -1/-1 so they are 2/2's now.
Full priority pass (you and opponent)
Pack Rat ability resolves, there are now 4. The original 3 are 3/3's, and the 4th is a 4/4.
Full priority pass (you and opponent)
Bile Blight resolves, killing the original 3, then when state based effects are checked the 4th one dies because it's a 1/1 with -3/-3.

Now, if you waited for the pack rat ability to resolve first, then the 4th would end up getting 1 more -1/-1 which although useless in this case, may be relevant if your opponent has more spells. So it is worth doing like this (and it seems this is what you meant in your question)


Removing the onion layers in an intact way without cooking them

Question: I was wondering if there is a way to remove the onion layers in an intact way so they're not broken or damaged. I've done this before by slightly baking the onion until it softens
Comment: Could you say why you're attempting to do this?  There might be different suggestions based on what the end goal is.  (eg, the mention of making a bowl)
Comment: @Joe - I'm trying to preserve as much of the layer as possible, the end goal would be to stuff it. I have an idea of what i want to stuff it with, but have yet to succeed in the "taking the onion" apart
Answer: I once made onion bowls by slicing the onion at the point where it just starts to curve back in and soaking in water while I seperated the layers.  It worked for my purposes but I did destroy a few in the process.  I think I might have added some salt to the water they were soaking in to boost the water content of the onion, which could have affected how easily they seperated.
Comment: I agree, and I usually bake them with a bit of water in the oven until they soften, and "squeeze" them out
Answer: It depends on how much of the "bowl" you need to be intact. If you don't mind cutting the onion in half and then slicing off say about 1/2" off each end, so you have a truncate hemisphere, then you can wiggle off individual layers pretty easily.
Comment: I'd rather keep the layers intact, but I wouldn't mind losing some of the middle ones.


Is there a widget for Twitter search?

Question: I'd like to monitor Twitter for certain keywords.  I wonder if there is a widget which displays live search results on my home screen, which are automaticly updated at a certain interval. I've tried almost every app in the store, but none provides this simple functionality.
Comment: Have you tried Falcon Widget (for Twitter)? https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jv.falcon
Comment: @IvanChau It misses that functionality
Answer: There don't seem to be any widgets that let you monitor twitter for certain keywords, but here's a workaround that might do the trick.
Try an application like Meta widget. It can turn any webpage to a widget.
Comment: That's an original work-around, but not really what I'm after. I doubt it will have any transparency for example.
Answer: Since the anwer seems to be: "no there isn't", my workaround was to use an RSS-reader widget, and the following RSS URL: search.twitter.com/search.rss?q=keyword.
I think its strange I have to go through such hoops, since Twitter provides a HTML-widget for exactly this purpose.  I was expecting at least one Android app to mimic this functionality.
Comment: Unfortunately, this solution will stop working when [Twitter will retire its old API on June 11, 2013](https://dev.twitter.com/blog/api-v1-retirement-final-dates).
Answer: I don't think you can do something like that in a widget. However i allways wanted to test this app Falcon Pro (for Twitter), but i don't think you can have a widget, but you can make a search and save it for latter and do not have to retype every time.
Janetter for Twitter has this option of saving searches and notifies you about them, but it doesn't have a widget...
Comment: There is an official HTML widget from Twitter to display searches, so all somebody needs to do is put that code in a Android widget, doesnt seem like rocket-science.
Answer: Maybe u can try this (TweetCaster for Twitter)   https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.handmark.tweetcaster&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5oYW5kbWFyay50d2VldGNhc3RlciJd

Is there a widget for Twitter search?


Why didn't Russia colonize in the scramble for Africa?

Question: Russia was a European empire (one of the biggest) when the scramble for Africa happened and they had enough resources to get a ton of Africa, so why didn't they colonize in Africa? It could have been a really good opportunity for them.
Comment: [Documenting preliminary research will improve both the probability of an answer and the quality of the answer(s)](https://history.meta.stackexchange.com/a/785/26786)  Russia had Siberia - all the natural resources it needed, but it lacked the capital to exploit. Resource extraction requires an educated workforce, industrial capacity, etc.
Comment: What would they need from Africa? They already had plenty of resources and land.
Comment: They could not manage (without high financial losses) all what they got, that's why they sold Alaska in 1867.
Comment: Look up Russian attempts to colonize Ethiopia. They did their best!
Comment: Another explanation lies in A.T. Mahan's 1890 book *The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783*, a wonderfully well informed and thoughtful book. Mahan makes the very strong case that sea power underlay the early modern history of Western Civilization's empires and, by extension, the colonization of Africa. In comparison with European powers, Russia's ocean footprints were limited and did not include easy access to the African continent.
Answer: You got your facts wrong.

The peak of the scramble for Africa was the Berlin Conference of 1878.
Alaska was sold to the USA in 1867.

Russia had (and has) great resources, but always had (and has) problems monetizing them. They didn't sell Alaska for pennies on the dollar because they are such generous people, but because they desperately needed the cash. Especially after loosing the Crimean War in 1856. That's probably the reason why they sold it to the USA, not to Great Britain.
Russia doesn't have too many warm water ports. Maritime trade never has been that important for Russia. Today the sanctions they face would cripple any other nation, but Russia seems to endure it. Why? Because it doesn't really need outside resources.
Apart from that, they already had a colony. The largest in the world, it's called Siberia.
Even so, a Mr. Nicolas Ivanovitch Achinoff did try to set up a colony in Africa, in Somaliland. His colonial experiment was not supported by the Russian government, and wasn't successful.
Comment: If [this](https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/5/24/how-russia-tried-to-colonise-africa-and-failed) piece is to be believed, Moscow only withdrew official support [which was rather nominal] after the colony had failed.
Answer: During this time Russia was already engaged in a colonial enterprise on a staggering scale - the conquest of Central Asia. Conquering and then digesting such a vast territory more or less took up most of Russia's attention and resources available for colonization.
Answer: The colonial interests of Russian Empire lie elsewhere - notably in Central Asia (as has been already pointed out in the answer by @FelixGoldberg). In part this was due to geographic and historical factors, but also due to the competition with other colonial powers, notably Britain and France. Just to give a few points (a rather incomplete list):

Russian attempts to profit at the expense of the Ottoman Empire and to increase its influence in the Balkans were repeatedly countered by France and Britain, eventually culminating in the Crimean War.
Not the least in the competition for Turkey was the Russian Navy access to the Mediterranean sea via Bosphorus and Dardanelles - this may be counted as one of the more explicit reasons why Russian Empire never git to Africa.
The conflict between Russian Empire and Britain in Central Asia is known as Great game. On occasions this came close to an outright war, but the issues were eventually settled diplomatically, notably through Pamir Boundary Commission protocols in 1895 and Convention between the United Kingdom and Russia relating to Persia, Afghanistan, and Tibet in 1907.
Finally, the culminating point of the cooperation between the colonial powers was the Sykes-Picot agreement, where the British and French empires divided their spheres of influence in the Middle East, while the Russian Empire renounced its claims to the region in exchange for having a free hand in Central Asia.


Why is Goku not using instant transmission?

Question: In the recent episode of DBS we see that Goku is seen flying to Krillin and Dendy - why he is not using instant transmission? If he used it, he could save some time and train for the tournament of power. Why is he not doing it?
Answer: Goku is not about optimization or not concerned regarding the tournament. He is only looking forward to meet people with great power and test his limits against them.
Plus, many times it was shown many times (I know I'll get roasted for this) that Goku has become over confident of his power and even becoming vulnerable to attack during battles.  Also, its fun to fly around at high speeds.
So, he doesn't use instant transmission until its absolutely necessary and doesn't think he needs to train in the mean time.
Answer: Goku is not an engineer, he does not aim to optimize his lifestyle nor does he plan  that far ahead.
If he started doing that he wouldn't be the Goku we know of he simply wouldn't be the character we know and love.
There are lots of things he could have done that would have been smart in Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, GT and now super but he is who he is because he doesn't do those things.


In what ways did the Rus worship their gods?

Question: I don't know much about the Kievan Rus, and I can't find any good sources about the worship practices of the Rus or much about their mythology. I have found a load of sources for the baptism of the Rus, but nothing about how they worshiped their own pantheon.
Comment: Great question.  I'm very interested in this subject as well!
Answer: Stacey Watson wrote an article on "Vladimir's pantheon", which is a reference to Vladimir the Great's reform of the Slavic paganist practices by unifying them into one central cult that worshiped a pantheon of seven deities (some call this a six-deity pantheon, as Veles was separated from the others (see below)). In short:
Perun: The god of the sky, thunder and war. Most of the statues were made of oak or stone and, in Perun's case, oak was the most common material used to create his statues. Many villages would carve his statue on the most note-worthy oak tree in the area.
Dazhbog: The giver god.
Stribog: The son of Perun and god of winds, air and sky.
Simargl/Semargl: The god of fire and fertility.
Mokosh: The goddess of fate and the protector of women in childbirth. She also watched over the weaving and spinning.
Khors: The god of the solar disk.
Veles: King of the underworld, harvests and cattle. Veles was separated from the other deities of the pantheon for some reason. As such, he had a separate cultic center a the bottom of the Kievan hills.
Watson also mentions a pre-Vladimiric deity:
Rod: The creator of all things that exist, including the other gods, which makes him technically the supreme Slavic god.
According to Wikipedia, Rod was worshiped with offerings of bread, porridge, cheese and mead. He also had a manifestation of the microcosm of kinship called Domovoi/Domovoy, the god of the household and kinship ancestry. Domovoi sometimes had a female counterpart called Domania, goddess of the household. According to Wikipedia:

"Sacrifices in honour of the Domovoy are practised to make him participate in the life of the kin, and to appease and reconcile him in the case of anger. These include the offering of what is left of the evening meal, or, in cases of great anger, the sacrifice of a cock at midnight and the sprinkling of the nooks and corners of the common hall or the courtyard with the animal's blood. Otherwise, a slice of bread strewn with salt and wrapped in a white cloth is offered in the hall or in the courtyard while the members of the kin bow towards the four directions reciting prayers to the Domovoy."

According to the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, the Rus at a time had a ruling god named Troian, who seems to have been the father of Khors, Perun and Veles. Sometimes Troian was identified with Svarog, god of celestial fire and blacksmithing (source 1, source 2).
Other pagan practices are mentioned in the essay Principal Aspects and Problems of Theology in Kievan Rus' by Gerhard Podskalasky and Gerald Chapple (available now on JSTOR):

"In the canonical questions and answers of the Novgorod deacon Kirik (b. 1110) Bishop Nifont threatened with a powerful "woe [unto you]!" both the offerings of food to the nature gods Rod and Rozhanitsa and the violators of their prohibitions. Regarding the blessing of the funeral feast - whose pagan origin led to its radical suppression in the West...On the other hand, six weeks' penance awaited women who took their children to the "Varangian" (i.e. Latin) priest or the pagan magician to be blessed...Another sermon "on the true faith" describes and condemns...the frequent occurence of dvoeverie among the neophytes who retained their faith in the pagan pantheon after being baptized...as expressed - especeially at weddings - in games, songs, dances, and sacrifices to idols..." (pg. 6-8)

According to Petro P. Tolochko in Religious Sites in Kiev During the Reign of Volodimer Sviatoslavich (available at JSTOR), Vladimir built a temple for the six central deities of his pantheon in the Kievan hills. It was comprised of:

"a stone shrine made of slabs of sandstone mixed with clay and had an ellipsoid shape. Four-cornered projections emerging from the four sides of the temple were oriented to the four points of the compass." (pg. 1-2)

Another structure was found beneath Kiev itself:

"Trenches had ben dug beneath [3 Volodymyrs'ka Street] in the loess to a depth of 60 to 90 centimeters. The trenches were filled with large stones, broken pieces of thin, large bricks, pieces of slate, fractions of lime-water with admixtures of ground-brick, and other materials...The plan was an elongated rectangle...Projecting from the rectangle's northern, southern, and eastern sides were six rounded symmetrical projections shaped like flower petals...They could well be the remains of the temple that is mentioned in the chronicle entries for 945-980. The six petal-shaped projections could have served as pedestals for the idols of the six Slavic gods, namely, Perun, Khors, Dazhboh, Stryboh, Symarhl, and Mokoshka. This is supported by the discovery of a large ashpit located in a cup-like dperession...it contained layers of coals and ash, burnt clay, and a large quantity of animal bones, mostly of bulls. A study of the stratigraphy of the ashpit confirms that it was formed by the burning of a ritual fire. This finding fits in well with the Hustyn' Chronicle, which reports that an eternal fire was maintained beside the temple of Perun." (pg. 2-3)


Is there a demand for large liquid engines (> 5 MN)?

Question: In other words, why was the F1 rocket engine programme stopped? Is there a sense that solid motors can take care of high thrust cases in a better way? Or is it an unfortunate fallout of the end of the space race?
Answer: It's likely a mix of both factors.
First, there's little demand at present for 100-or-more-ton-to-orbit launchers like the Saturn V. Robotic exploration of the solar system is cheaper and safer than crewed missions, and requires payloads less than a tenth the size. New Horizons, for example, massed only half a ton. For the vast majority of space launches, the payload is under 20 tons. Very large engines like F-1 aren't needed for rockets that size.
Second, solid rockets provide much more thrust per dollar in expendable systems than liquids, so the large solid booster + medium liquid sustainer first-stage strategy is preferred for large uncrewed launchers, and even some crewed ones (shuttle and SLS), though many people challenge the wisdom of using unstoppable solids for crewed flight.
SpaceX believes that reusability can reduce the cost of large liquid-fueled launchers to a point where latent demand manifests, but they haven't proven this.
Comment: Plus, SpaceX goes the route of using many small engines instead of few large ones. F1 had combustion stability issues, G9H/BFR/IPS will have to prove the can cope with pogo oascillations from that many engines. Furthermore, F1-B was part of the liquid booster design that was under consideration for SLS.
Answer: Most of the rocket engine producers and consumers seem to have bought into the idea that more engines means more chances of failure without considering the many other things that affect reliability, such as good engineering that provides adequate testing and accounts for all factors that affect reliability and ample testing and evaluation of flown engines to preclude unknown factors that affect reliability.
One of the major innovators in rockets is SpaceX and their choice to use many small engines was wise. Unlike NASA, they saw that reducing cost was very important and made two important decisions to reduce cost which also improved reliability.
The first choice was reusable rockets. This returns the rocket engines to the factory for inspection. It is much easier to analyze an intact engine for developing flaws (cracks that have started but are not a failure yet) than an engine that has exploded and burned.
The second choice was a production line that was as automated as possible. In addition to greatly reducing labor costs, it also means more consistent quality, especially for machine welds instead of hand welds.
Finally, the availability of multiple rocket engines means potential redundancy but the engine controller must be able to use them well. In the days of the Russian N30, the controllers were very limited in their ability to respond to engine failures. SpaceX has shown that today's computer systems can do remarkable things.
Answer: The other answers here are wrong. They provide good explanations for why there isn't more demand for large liquid engines, but there is demand since there is one that is still in active use. The RD-171 has 7% more thrust at sea level then the F-1 had. It is used on the Zenit rocket. Which has launched as recently as December of 2017.
Comment: Although I prefer more neutral wording like "I would not agree" instead of "wrong" - yes, big engines are not undemanded in fact. The Russian rd-171 is also planned for Soyuz-5 rocket (=upgraded russian-built Zenit). China is considering design of YF-660  engine for superheavy CZ-9 rocket, although maybe has not decided finally is it better than multiple small engines or solid fuel boosters.
Comment: The difference between the RD-170 and F1 is that the former uses four combustion chambers and the latter uses one. I think most answers here assume that single-chamber engines were meant by the OP. Furthermore, while it has seen recent use, its an old design, and I think most people understood the question to mean why there isn't demand for newly designed engine in that power range. That being said you are right, there is demand. For example F1-A / F1-B was under serious consideration for the SLS as late as 2015.


2003 Ram 1500 4.7 Misfiring Cylinder 3

Question: Would a bad fuel injector cause plug not to fire? Weird voltages at harness for cylinder 3 compared to other cylinders. No spark at plug. Coil and plug new and tested on other cylinders. I am leaning toward computer.  Any ideas?
Comment: A bad fuel injector will not cause the plug to have an absence of spark. It will cause the engine not to run right, though, due to lack of fuel in that cylinder.
Comment: True, Paulster... very literal. Weird voltages can show up on digital meters when they're "not really there" as found by a lower-impedance analog meter, too... you can actually read some pretty high voltages on a wire that's not connected to anything at all if you use a high-impedance digital meter. Induced currents & all that. 293336, check for continuity (low resistance reading) across the injectors' coils, one at a time, with the power off. If #3 injector tells you a significantly different story than the rest, you'd best replace it.
Comment: Your best bet in this case is to change the coil with another coil and see if the misfire follows the switched coil. If it follows the coil, get **another** new one. It is not unheard of to get a bad coil from the parts store. If the same cylinder is not firing, your problem lies in the engine harness wiring.
Comment: Coils and plugs have been swapped around. Its is just cylinder 3. Was just curous if the computer would see bad fuel injector and stop plug from firing. Guess I am just hoping it is something cheaper than computer. Basically its either computer or wiring.
Comment: You should also check the computer end of the wiring harness for corrosion. Also, while you have the wiring harness plug disconnected from the computer, check resistance between the pin on the connector to the coil. If you have low resistance, the wire between pin to coil is not your problem ... you'd need to look at the computer. If the resistance is high (or infinity) you'll have to run this wire down to see where it is having its issues. You'll have to figure out which pin is for the coil. Also, check to see if there are any recalls on your computer or other things ... you never know.
Answer: As they are 'pencil coils' on your vehicle, you can transfer the supect coil on to a differant plug. If the coil now works correctly whilst the one it was swopped with starts to 'misfire' on number three plug then you know you are dealing with a fault with No.3 cylinder. Secondly try replacing No3 spark plug with one you have removed and know to be working previously. Thirdly, unplug the No 3 injector-just the electrical connection- and measure its resistence with an Ohm meter. Now compare the resistence of any other injector. Your injector is a simple solonoid and can be tested with an Ohm meter. Open circuit on number 3 injector, or a very much lower reading will pinpoint a faulty injector. If every thing runs to expectations then you very well may have a fault on your wiring harness, or blown power diode(s) in your ECU. In this case, and before deciding on any expensive expenditure, have the vehicle scanned with an OEM/compatable scanner. If you have an analogue volt-amp set, do not use it on any modern vehicle. Its low internal resistence will allow it burn out modern electronics. In passing, an Ohm meter must never be used on any vehicle circuit that includes a Hall generator (three wire sensors for example), as the Ohm meters testing voltage will destroy the Hall generator.
Answer: On Chryslers it's the other way around. When the PCM detects concurrent misfires on a cylinder it'll shutdown injector pulse.
Check pin 1 on the coil harness tan/orange for signal from the PCM and pin 7 on PCM connector 2. If you're seeing voltage drop on the power side of the coil you're gonna have to unwrap some tape and check your splice and wiring.
Answer: If the coil keeps burning through check for cracks inside the threads of spark hole. Sometimes it so small it cant be seen an even the Dodge dealer couldn't find it. Need to inspect with bore cams.

2003 Ram 1500 4.7 Misfiring Cylinder 3


Convert region/subtree from Markdown to org

Question: I often have Markdown text in my clipboard that I would like to insert into an org file. After pasting the text into my org-mode file, is there a quick way to convert it to org format? For example, invoke Pandoc on a selected region/subtree?
Answer: You can select the pasted-in region (if you do it right after you paste it in, it should already be marked) and then run pandoc on the region with C-u M-| pandoc -f markdown -t org RET. The prefix argument says: "replace the region with the output of the command". This is a bit fragile: if you mistype, you might end up with the region erased, but you can always paste it in and try again.
Comment: thanks, this is exactly what I needed. @matteol [answer](https://emacs.stackexchange.com/a/60736/25547) wraps it in a function --- also quite useful.
Answer: This function executes the same command of NickD's answer, without the risk of mistype.
(defun my-md-to-org-region (start end)
  "Convert region from markdown to org"
  (interactive "r")
  (shell-command-on-region start end "pandoc -f markdown -t org" t t))

Comment: Indeed - both answers use `shell-command-on-region`, one under the covers and the other explicitly. The trade-off is between flexibility (the key sequence in my answer allows you to specify any shell command, but you have to type the command) whereas the function in this answer is safer in that you don't have to type the command but it is less flexible in that it only executes *one* command - you'd have to define a different function to run a different command. Which one the OP picks is very much a matter of personal choice.


My Macbook Air won't connect to the internet

Question: I have a Macbook Air I bought in November 2011, v 10.7.4 and I have issues connecting to the internet. Though the wifi symbol shows that I have a strong connection, I have no internet access. The only way to get it is to shut down my laptop, and reset my router by turning the power off and waiting for a bit then turning it back on. I know I don't have a problem with my router/internet access as other users in my flat have no trouble. Anyone have any idea what the trouble is?
Comment: Hi, I have a number of questions.

1. Did you ever have a wifi connection? If so, has something changed?

2. If you connect your computer through Ethernet, does that work?

3. If you take you computer to a Starbucks or equivalent, do you get wifi access?

4. Can you update your question with a screenshot of your internet connections?
Answer: Things to check:

If you are using WIFI only, you need to set the Service Order and the first will be your WIFI.

From System Preferences > Network

Then Click "Set Service Order"
Drag and drop the WIFI connection to the top of the order list

On your Network Settings > Wifi > Advanced > DNS, add your Router IP there.

HTH


Is SSTO viable on Mars?

Question: I know that Single-Stage-to-Orbit is quite challenging from the surface of Earth, but it's relatively straightforward from the moon (as demonstrated by the Apollo LM). What about Mars? Let's assume in-situ fueling of methane-LOX.
Comment: A follow up question could be "Is it desirable ?"
Comment: There isn't a point in having an SSTO for mars right now. LEaving debris isn't a large concern and a two stage rocket is far more efficient.
Comment: @SSTO Reusability on a planet with scarce resources an no "natural outcroppings" of steel an aluminum to mine. Currently there are no opportunities for non-destructive splashdowns and no highway infrastructure to bring a first stage landing back to the launch site. **So there really can be a good point to considering this!**
Answer: It's definitely viable. By the rocket equation:
$∆v = v_e \ln \frac {m_0} {m_f}$
Methane-LOX gives an exhaust velocity around 3500m/s. Mars surface to orbit requires the expenditure of about 3800 m/s of ∆v.
So the ratio of initial (fully fueled) mass to final (fuel spent) mass need only be around:
$e^{\frac {3800} {3500}}$
or
$e^{1.09}$
or about 3:1 -- 2 tons of propellant per 1 ton of empty ship/payload.
This is as compared to an Earth-launched SSTO, which needs about 9500 m/s, about a 15:1 mass ratio for methalox!
Comment: Drag is included in the needed ascent ∆v figures. The exact ∆v required for ascent to orbit will vary substantially with the rocket's thrust-vs-time profile (faster ascent incurs slightly more drag, but much less gravity loss). The figures above are "typical", but Earth ascents will vary from something like 9200-10000 m/s with different launchers. The drag penalty portion is fairly small; for the Saturn V, drag accounted for around 50 m/s of the ∆v budget, and on a Mars ascent it will be far less due to the thinner atmosphere.
Comment: How does atmospheric drag factor in?
Answer: Yes. Though one vs. two stages is always a trade. From what I've seen from Mars Sample Return studies anyway, two stages is usually the winner, mainly due to mass and volume constraints.
Comment: Likely SSTO wouldn't be much of trade-off. SSTO-and-anywhere-else though definitely would be. Even back to the surface.
Comment: If you're designing a one-time system to return samples or even astronauts from Mars once, then the only reason not to go two stage would be complexity. On the other hand, if you are designing infrastructure for a colony then SSTO (and back) is hugely advantageous because of the reduced manpower and support needed to reuse the vehivle.

Is SSTO viable on Mars?


1998 jeep grand cherokee parasitic draw

Question: My jeep has a parasitic draw I traced them back to my cluster, my cigar lighter, and my rear washer I took a part my dash and tried seeing if there were any bad wires I could not see any help would very much be appreciated. I how ever cannot pull those fuses seeing how I need them to drive.
Answer: If it were a "bad wire", I'd assume you meant a dead short which would be much more likely to blow the fuse than drain the battery. If you still have the dash apart, it wouldn't be hard to disconnect the cluster and lighter to see if the draw still exists, would it? If there's still a draw it must be the rear washer. Else plug in the cluster or lighter and see if the draw appears. I'll take the cluster for 50¢, Alex.
Answer: The draw may be isolated to one of these individual components. First unplug the rear windshield washer motor and see if draw goes away. If not plug it back in and repeat with the other 2 components. If unplugging one of these components eliminates the excessive draw you have found the faulty component. If not then you may have a short somewhere. But a component check is a good place to start.
Comment: ok thanks you although it couldn't be the cluster could it? because all my gauges still all work perfect and my cigar works also and my componentes when unplugged or fuse pulled the excessive draw does go away
Comment: If you pull the fuse and the excessive draw goes away, the fault is in one ore more of the components in that fused circuit. So yes it could be any one of those components, or it could be a positive to positive short from another circuit.

1998 jeep grand cherokee parasitic draw


What does "inertial" refer to in "inertial reference"?

Question: An ADIRU makes use of air data reference and inertial reference. Inertial reference calculates the heading, position, ground speed and attitude. I was wondering why is it called inertial. Is it related to the term inertia/mass?
Comment: yes, based a/a few gyro(s)
Answer: It is called inertial, because it works by measuring—and integrating—inertial forces¹, that is forces due to acceleration of the reference frame (i.e. the aircraft). Gyroscopic effect used to measure rotation is also due to inertial forces.
The measured forces include gravity², which can't be easily separated, but this is done by observing that the speed is limited, so the average acceleration must be zero and therefore the long term average equals gravity.

¹ In general relativity the inertial forces are usually considered as real as any other, so the term "fictitious" is not really appropriate.
² In general relativity gravitational force is considered an inertial force. In standard English terminology, gravity also includes centrifugal force due to rotation of Earth.
Comment: @mins, the sum of inertial forces it measures is called g-force. It includes gravity. According to the principle of relativity, gravity *is* an inertial force. In standard English terminology, "gravity" also somewhat confusingly includes centrifugal force due to Earth rotation, another inertial force. In other words, it is not force due to gravitation, it is the g-force in Earth reference frame. But either way it is inertial.
Comment: +1, but "*the measured forces include gravity*" should refer to the [g-force](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-force) actually not to gravity which is not inertial :-)
Comment: Might be worth mentioning laser gyroscopes in ADIRUs do not use the gyroscopic effect to detect rotation.
Comment: You must be right, I'm not familiar with general relativity and a bit confused with the difference (that I understand now doesn't exist) between inertial and gravitational accelerations. All that seems to be an old story of classical mechanics.
Answer: Inertial refers to any forces - Any forces acting on a body which produce an acceleration via Newton's second law of motion ( F = ma ).
In this respect, gravity, is not a force, as it does not produce an acceleration, it only causes a distortion in the geometry of space-time. By Mach's principal, The physics in an enclosed volume in outer space accelerating with one G of acceleration are identical to the physics we experience on the surface of the earth, just as the physics in a free-falling elevator, or an aircraft in a zero-G ballistic trajectory, are identical to the physics in an enclosed volume in free fall in outer space.
From this perspective, which is more accurate that traditional Newtonian perspective, the frame of reference we normally perform calculations in, the earth-bound 1-G frame of reference, is not an inertial frame of reference, as it is always experiencing 1 "G" of acceleration due to the "force" the earth itself exerts on the soles of our shoes.
... The frame of reference of a free-falling elevator, on the other hand, is an inertial frame of reference.
The word inertial does indeed come from Inertia, because the mass of af any body is a key property of all objects in the universe, but it participates in two physical relationships, which ostensibly seem to have no connection to one another. The first one is Newton's Second law, (F = ma ), which says that a body will accelerate when a force is exerted on it, proportional to it's mass. This is the law of inertia.
The second is Newton's law of gravitation, which stated that a body in a gravitational field of another body will experience a force proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.
For many years scientists were perplexed by how incredibly identical the masses measured by these two physical processes were (Force and Gravitation).
It was only when Einstein proposed the General Theory (Gravitation), that this mystery was explained. These masses were the same because there is no force of gravitation. The "force" we think of is a fictitious force, which only exists because we are measuring things in an accelerated, not an inertial, frame of reference (the surface of the earth, which, in space-time, is continuously accelerating upwards at 32 ft/sec2). It is just as fictitious as the force we would think we see if we were in an enclosed spaceship accelerating at 1 "G" In outer space.
Answer: https://www.ion.org/publications/online-tutorial-intertial.cfm has my online tutorial for GPS/GNSS and inertial navigation, free to Institute of Navigation members.  This basic material is also available at low cost to nonmembers.
An inertial measuring unit "IMU" typically has a triad of gyros and a triad of accelerometers.  These sensors DIRECTLY provide angular rate and "specific force" (defined shortly), and INDIRECTLY (by propagating the effects fo those direct measurements) provide velocity, position, and attitude.  Gyros sense absolute (i.e., total) angular rate with respect to an inertial coordinate frame (i.e., one that doesn't rotate and doesn't accelerate).  Specific force is the total NONgravitational force; if you dropped an accelerometer it would read close to zero (e.g., a drag effect), not 32 ft/sec/sec down -- and in a cruising aircraft a vertically aligned accelerometer would show the 1-g lift.


Which tense to use in this situation?

Question: I am writing a summary for last year and I have just realized that I do not know what tense to use in the following situation: Since 2009 I have been developing a computer program. As I am describing what I was working on last year, what tense should I use? I think I cannot use simple past tense because I am still working on that. I also think I cannot use present perfect because the description will relate to period of time that passed. Could anyone help me on this? Thank you
Comment: You could use several different tenses depending on the way you want to say it. Could you give an actual sentence where you would want to use this tense?
Answer: If your summary focuses on what happened in 2011, but you are still working on the computer program now, then you could write something like this: "I continued working on the computer program which I started developing in 2009."
Comment: If you say that you "continued" working on the program, two things are clear: (1) that you started working on the program before 2011 and (2) that you didn't finish the program in 2011.
Comment: thans but doesnt this imply that I do not work on it anymore? I thought past simple should not be used for something that still continue..?
Comment: @Confused1 - the key point is that PaulaJo's answer says "I started developing", not "I developed".  Starting development is an activity that did indeed cease in 2009.
Comment: The sentence "I have been developing a computer program since 2009" is grammatically accurate, as the others have commented, but that puts the point of reference at the present, and as far as I understand your question, your summary just refers to what you did in 2011. In this case, the verb "continue" is the best choice.
Answer: That looks right to me, you're using the present perfect continuous tense. I would move since 2009 to the end of the sentence though: I have been developing a computer program since 2009 feels more natural to me.

Which tense to use in this situation?


Are we seeing the past when we look at the stars?

Question: Suppose a star is 100 light-years away from the Earth. Therefore, the light coming from the star (which carries its information) takes roughly 100 years to reach Earth. However, if in the meantime the star dies, we would still be able to see that star in the sky. Is that truly right? If yes, how often does it happen when we look up in the sky (any guesses)?
Comment: See [this comment](http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/154461/how-can-we-take-pictures-of-something-billion-of-light-years-away#comment322934_154461) re taking a picture of something 26 billion light years away.
Comment: We're seeing *our present* at this location, and *the star's past* at that location. Since no events can travel faster than light, neither can causal effects. Thus, from where we are, the star is still in our sky, because the space we can interact with goes further into the past as its distance from us increases. In other words, we're always surrounded by the past.
Comment: You are seeing the past when you look at your hand.  Around a nanosecond or two.  Your hand could have blown up a nanosecond ago, and you wouldn't know.  Yet.
Answer: Yes this is correct. However the kind of event you are thinking about rarely happens for stars in our Galaxy. The reason for this is that the size of our Galaxy is about 100,000 light years across, but the ages of most stars is measured in millions or billions of years. So, the travel time of the light to us is a tiny fraction of the stellar lifetime.
For a star to die whilst its light is "in transit", you would need to be observing the star very near the end of its life. Such an object is Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion. It is a massive supergiant that may be somewhere in the last 100,000 years of its life. It is however only about 600 light years away, so there is less than a 1% chance that this has already exploded and the light is on its way. It is however your best bet of seeing (with the naked eye) the progenitor of a star that is now dead.
If you go further afield though, to objects in other galaxies, then this issue does arise.
Gamma ray bursts are thought to signal the deaths of very massive stars. They are seen in galaxies billions of light years away, but the lifetimes of the stars that produced them may have been a million years. In these cases we don't even see the long-dead star that exploded with big telescopes.
Somewhere in between we can see (with telescopes) the brightest massive stars in nearby other galaxies like that in Andromeda, at distances of millions of light years. Here, these stars are very likely to have already exploded as supernovae, as they have lifetimes of a few million years too, but we still see them "as they were".
Comment: @JerryGoyal Not individual stars, though occasionally a super nova (e.g. SN 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud) will reach the necessary brightness.
Comment: thanks for the thoughts, are we able to see stars (naked eye) outside the milky way galaxy?
Answer: Yes, as you said, the starlight we see from a star 100 light-years away was emitted 100 years ago, and yes, the star could have evolved into a white dwarf or gone supernova.
According to informal google research, in our galaxy, around 1 star per year "dies" (which usually means turns into a white dwarf).  There are around 200 million visible stars in our galaxy, and around 200 billion in the whole galaxy, so the rate of star death amongst visible stars is about 1 star every 1000 years.
So, just for fun, if you stare at a star for 10 minutes, there is a 20 in a billion chance that the star you are staring at will have died while you were watching.
Comment: You can stare at almost all stars for your whole life with zero chance that they will die. You have to pick massive supergiants like Betelgeuse.
Comment: Well, it really depends on what you mean by "die".  Turning into a white dwarf was included in my definition.
Comment: I'm not sure where the 200 million figure comes from -- some telescope no doubt. For naked-eye visible stars, there are only a few thousand from even the darkest places on Earth (and fewer than 10 for those who live in cities).
Comment: Stars that become white dwarfs live for a billion years or more. At th ends of their lives they become huge red giant stars, that even then live for some millions of years. Unless you are looking at one of these red giants in our Galaxy, or possibly a very massive main sequence star in another nearby galaxy, there is zero chance of it having "died" during the time it takes the light to reach us. Even the process of forming a white dwarf takes tens of thousands of years.
Comment: One supernova per year is overrated, I think. To my knowledge, the SN rate in the Milky Way is poorly known, but some (mostly pretty old) observational and theoretical estimates yield values of the order of one every 50 to 100 years (van den Bergh 83, Liller & Mayer 87, van den Bergh & Tamman 91, Cappellaro+ 99, Diehl+ 06).

The last directly observed SN was Kepler's, over 400 years ago (remnants of a few more recent ones has been observed), but there have probably been more in the meantime that are just hidden by interstellar dust.
Comment: Folks, please read the answer carefully - I included "turn into a white dwarf" in the definition of "dying" for a star.
Answer: Yes.
When we look at the stars, we are seeing them as they were years ago. If a star is 100 light years away, we are seeing it as it was 100 years ago, etc.
If a star dies (goes nova), we won't know about it for the year-equivalent of its distance in light-years. Then, one day, we'll see a flash in the sky and we'll know that if it is 27 light-years away, the star died 27 years ago.
Answer: That's exactly right.
Now, if you want to know "how often it happens", you'll have to be a bit more precise: do you want to know how many of the stars we can see today are already dead? or how many stars die on average on a certain period of time in the visible universe (i.e. that we will be able to watch die at some point)? or in the whole universe?
Also, you have to take into account stars that you can see explode, and stars that simply cool off.
Answer: I believe that you are correct in what you say. Because of the time it takes for the light to reach us here on Earth, we would be unable to know about the fate of that star, and the star would still be visible to us here on Earth, at least until the information of the star's end reaches us. I don't have any idea how often it happens. Maybe someone else has an answer to that?


Why doesn't the LaTeX code under the tag "operators" shows what it's supposed to show?

Question: For a question about physics, I accidentally came along the "operators" tag. Why is the LaTeX code visible below this tag and not what it is supposed to show? I can't see a mistake in the code. Or am I wrong?
Answer: I believe that the tag wiki excerpt (the thing that pops up when you hover over a tag or try to add it to a question) is supposed to contain plain text only. Or if I'm wrong about that, at least it is a very limited set of allowed markup, like only links. The point is, I don't think MathJax is supported in tag wiki excerpts, and this one should be edited to remove the math markup. This is not about an error in the code.
I'm not sure whether it would make sense to allow MathJax in tag wiki excerpts, but that's a matter for a separate discussion. (Honestly, I don't think that feature is likely to be implemented.)
Comment: Actually, it seems that MathJax in tag wiki excerpts works everywhere except on the [tags page](https://physics.stackexchange.com/tags). Based on that, I'd say that it probably *should* work there too.
Comment: From this post it seems that MathJax works in tag excerpts since 2012: [LaTeX in tag wikis](https://math.meta.stackexchange.com/q/6574). (At least on Mathematics, but treating this in the same way on all sites that have MathJax enabled seems like logical thing to do.)
Answer: The MathJax code in excerpts does get parsed on the tag page:

on the tag wiki page:

and in the hover popups on question pages (and elsewhere):

Based on that, I'd say that the fact that it doesn't get parsed on the tags page is probably a bug, and should be fixed.

In fact, it even works in the hover popups on the tags page:

The actual bug seems to be a missing MathJax.Hub.Typeset() call in the AJAX code that loads the tag list (taken from the tags page HTML source):
var request = null;
function finished(txt) {
    if (request) { request.abort(); }
    request = $.ajax({
        type: "POST",
        url: "/filter/tags-for-index",
        data: { filter: txt, tab: 'Popular' },
        dataType: "html",
        success: function (result) {
            var domelement = $(result);
            $("#tags_list").html(domelement);

            if (txt == "") {
                $(".pager").show();
            } else
            {
                $(".pager").hide();
            }

        }
    });
}

Adding the following lines after the $("#tags_list").html(domelement); statement should fix it:
if (window.MathJax) {
    MathJax.Hub.Queue(['Typeset', MathJax.Hub, "tags_list"]);
}

Comment: Interesting observation, but I actually don't think so. Whether MathJax is enabled is (closer to being) a property of the browser window the text is displayed in, not a property of where you enter it. So e.g. since questions need MathJax enabled, a popup on a question page will be parsed for math markup as well, even if it's not really supposed to contain that markup. Similarly with tag wiki pages (because the full tag wiki can contain math) and the tag page (because there are question excerpts and titles). The fact that it happens to work doesn't mean it's supposed to be allowed.
Comment: I mean, if we wanted to decide (or SE wants to decide) that MathJax should be enabled in tag wiki excerpts, that's a reasonable position to take. It's just that I don't think the fact that it happens to work in certain places (as you've pointed out) should be taken as evidence that it's supposed to work that way.
Comment: @DavidZ: Actually, for content loaded via AJAX (which includes both the popups and the tags list), whether or not MathJax works basically comes down to whether a) whether it has been deliberately disabled or not, and b) whether the AJAX loading code properly calls `MathJax.Hub.Typeset()` after adding the content to the page. Looks like, in this, the tag list code is missing that call.
Comment: Sure, I'm saying I don't think it should have that call. Or actually, what I'm saying here is that I don't think we can conclude it was meant to have that call.


Can I forward/reply calls/SMS to PC?

Question: I wonder if it's possible to forward calls or SMS to PC where I can then reply or at least get notified of a call/SMS? For example, calls might be forwarded to Skype, is it possible?
Comment: Related: [How can I be informed through my computer if a new SMS is received?](https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/4738/how-can-i-be-informed-through-my-computer-if-a-new-sms-is-received), [How do I send SMS from PC through Android Phone or to Android Phone?](https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/1784/how-do-i-send-sms-from-pc-through-android-phone-or-to-android-phone)
Comment: Does this answer your question? [How can I be informed through my computer if a new SMS is received?](https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/4738/how-can-i-be-informed-through-my-computer-if-a-new-sms-is-received)
Answer: As of June 2014, I've moved on and developed MAXS. See my answer here.
Below is the original answer.

GTalkSMS is an alternative for Android-notifier which works over XMPP (GTalk, Jabber). It allows you to control various aspects of Android, including an SMS/Call/Battery notification and reply system. Additionally, it is able to send and receive files to and from your Android device. There are many other features too.
Using XMPP as transport, the "desktop app" can be every XMPP Client. This is one of GTalkSMS's big advantages, as it does not need a dedicated desktop app.
Disclosure: I am involved in GTalkSMS. GTalkSMS is an open-source GPL-licensed Android app. Everyone can contribute.
Comment: Neato!  While I'm not sure it's all that handy for the OP, that is a nifty app...
Answer: The free Windows program MyPhoneExplorer and its companion Android app MyPhoneExplorer Client (also free) enables you to:

get notified of incoming texts (using a Windows tray tip, optionally with sound)
read incoming texts and reply to them
write and send new texts
read and reply to all previously received and send texts on the phone

using an Android phone connected either via the local network (LAN/Wi-Fi), Bluetooth, or USB cable.
You can also:

be notified of incoming calls, including who is calling, and
pick up and hang up a call from the computer,

but you have to conduct the actual call through the phone, using the phone's speaker and microphone or a headset connected to the phone.
The program has many other nice features, including:

backing up and archiving of your text messages (using a local archive of all text messages in which you can search, filter, organize into simple folders, reply to specific texts, etc.)
edit text fields from the computer in any phone app, including copying text from the computer clipboard into the phone's text field (the client app installs a remotely controlled soft keyboard on the phone to be able to do this)
making the computer keyboard act as a phone keyboard when the phone is connected to the computer via a USB cable
taking screenshots from the phone when it is connected to the computer via a USB cable
editing of contacts and calendar
working with files on the phone, synchronising photos and other files between the phone and the computer
getting Android notifications from all apps as Windows tray notifications.

The program has been a trustful companion for me for 8 years. It is mature and stable. It used to only work with Sony Ericsson phones (before Android) but now it also supports Android phones of any brand.
For a time in the past, the program was distributed with OpenCandy, which "recommended" other software to install during the installation, but that has luckily been removed now.
Disclosure: I am the Danish translator of MyPhoneExplorer. But I do it absolutely for free, simply because I love the program and want the translation I use daily to be of high quality.
Comment: I can confirm that this works really well.
Answer: I have Google Voice set up which allows this. If you were to call or text my Google Voice number and I was signed into GMail in a web browser (I exclusively use Chrome) I can answer the call using either my phone or the computer. I can also send and receive text messages from the computer. I'm also able to answer calls using my house phone, too. I know that this doesn't answer your question but it may solve the problem of being unable to get the question answered.
Answer: You can use Google Voice to have calls ring your cell phone and any other phone you like; as vyse mentioned, you can use it directly with Google Chat, but with a little extra effort, you can hook it into any SIP phone like Skype.  This also works for SMS messages, which will show up in your email and you can reply to them exactly as if they were on your phone.
Aside from GV, there really aren't any good alternatives for what you want to do without setting up your own vPBX like FreeSWITCH or Asterisk.
Answer: Highly recommend SMSSync. It's opensource, it doesn't try to do too many things, and it does this specific thing very well.
Answer: For SMS, I highly recommend MightyText.
For controlling your phone, you can use Airdroid, which is great.
For receiving calls on your computer, I haven't found any solution besides Google Voice, and I live outside the USA, so it's a bummer for me :-(
Answer: MAXS (Modular Android XMPP Suite) forwards all kinds of notifications (calls, SMS, etc) to your PC over XMPP. It also allows you to control various aspects of Android, including an SMS/Call/Battery notification and reply system. Additionally, it is able to send and receive files to and from your Android device. There are many other features too.
Using XMPP as transport, the "desktop app" can be every XMPP Client. This is one of the big advantages of MAXS, as it does not need a dedicated desktop app. Although there may be one in the future.
Disclosure: I am involved in MAXS. MAXS is an open-source GPLv3-licensed Android app. Everyone can contribute.
Answer: This works with mysms.com. The app syncs your text messages and calls and you get notified via a popup window - similar to Skype.
Answer: If you have a Samsung Device, SideSync is a great way to accomplish what you're trying to do.
Sidesync has a lot of great features:

Display your phone or table from your PC and control it.
Send and receive phone calls from your PC
Access all of your apps (like sending/reading SMS messages)
See notifications from your device directly on your PC (like incoming SMS)
Access your Phone/Tablet via USB or wireless on the same network
Drag and drop files to and from device
Comment: My coworkers connect headsets to their PC, and access their phone via SideSync for most of their work day.

Can I forward/reply calls/SMS to PC?


Can one conduct "novel" research without an advanced laboratory? Has it been done by school pupils?

Question: I want to conduct an experiment but as a secondary school pupil I will be using my school's laboratory and to make novel or interesting discoveries, wouldn't one need advanced equipment, a prospect which is not feasible for one of my station in life? I want to know if anybody has done a simple experiment and discovered anything new? Thanks.
Comment: I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it has nothing to do with biology specifically, and can be applied to most fields of scientific research.
Comment: Do you mean a groundbreaking discovery? That would be hard. But smaller ones that built upon others works are really feasible.
Comment: @Charles It is about science but since I wanted to experiment in Biology I posted it here.
Comment: I would advise to conduct a field experiment. Field work typically requires many eyes (school pupils) and not necessarily a lab.
Answer: I can point to two published papers in which students performed useful experiments.

The present study (on the vision of bumble-bees) goes even further, since it was not only performed outside my laboratory (in a Norman church in the southwest of England), but the 'games' were themselves devised in collaboration with 25 8- to 10-year-old children. ... They also drew the figures (in coloured pencil) and wrote the paper.
Principal finding 'We discovered that bumble-bees can use a combination of colour and spatial relationships in deciding which colour of flower to forage from. We also discovered that science is cool and fun because you get to do stuff that no one has ever done before. (Children from Blackawton)'.

--Blackawton bees

As part of a high school class project, influenza sequences with possible errors were identified in the public databases based on the size of the gene being longer than expected, with the hypothesis that these sequences would have an error. Students contacted sequence submitters alerting them of the possible sequence issue(s) and requested they the suspect sequence(s) be correct as appropriate.

--Sequencing artifacts in the type A influenza databases and attempts to correct them
You'll notice that both of these projects were guided by "professional" scientists. The biggest problem with doing your own experiments is that you're very likely to simply repeat something that's already done, or else do something that's not useful or is trivial. It's very difficult even for professional scientists to have a reasonable grasp of even a very focused field of science, and for someone outside the field to try to understand what has and hasn't been done, and what is and isn't considered interesting, is nearly impossible.
Comment: Thanks. I am not sure I will be allowed to do a data-based project for the science fair though.
Answer: All kinds of interesting stuff you can do.  How novel it is depends largely on your approach.
While it didn't lead to a paper, I heard the following story from a microbiologist an New Mexico State. I think it was second hand then.
School loses it's science teacher.   It's a small college town, and it was only a part time position. One section of biology is for "kids who are good with their hands" a euphemism for ones not on the college track, the dummies.  They take a lot of shop, industrial arts etc.
They hire a grad student from the local college to fill in.  The principle tells him that if can just keep the dummies quiet that's sufficient.
Grad student goes away and thinks about this.
Comes in first day of class with a mouse trap.  Doesn't say a word.  Sets the trap, then with a pencil nuzzles the trigger until SNAP.  Makes choking sound.  "Dead Pencil"
"As you can see, this is a trap for getting rid of mice.  But it makes the mouse hard to reuse.  I want a live trap.  I want a trap that will catch a mouse without hurting it. How do we do that?"
The rest of that class was spent brainstorming ideas.  At the end of the period he gave each kid a trap.  "Make a live trap."
Most of them came with traps the next day.
They went into the rough country behind the school and set the traps.
Next day some of the traps were gone.  Trap and all.  Coyotes thought they were box lunches.  The ones that were alive  were anesthetized, banded, sexed, weighed, and released.
The quality of the traps got better.  Fewer mice died.  Less bait used with no mouse to show.  Some of the kids had a half dozen traps.
He made them pool their data and make a map of every trap, and the distances to other things.  Trees, grassy areas, bushes.
After a couple weeks he taught them how to determine their age.
As they accumulated data they started catching some mice that had already been banded.
By asking questions he got the idea of sampling to them.  Based on the number of banded ones to unbanded ones, they could figure out how many mice there were out there.
He had them plot where the 2 and 3 time mice were caught.  From this they figured out how big a world a mouse lives in -- what was their territory.
They kept a few in the lab, and the kids watched them.  Watched them mate, and later deliver litters of pups.   They weighed pups.  Weighed mom.  Measured the food they ate.  Figured out how much food it would take in the wild.
Some of htem asked if wild mice would behave the same, eat the same.  "Good Question.  How would you find out?"
Often when they caught a mouse, it had been in there long enough to crap.  He taught them how to analyze the crap for parasite eggs.  He showed them lice, and fleas.
By mid winter they were doing all kinds of stats.  Since they were 'good with their hands' their math was chequebook and carpenter math.  He had them calculating variance, and correlations.
This is solid science.  Papers?  Probably not.  You'd have to find something different from the literature.  But as a teaching or learning exercise it's first rate.
There are lots of critters out there that we don't know a lot about.
Google "Citizen Science" for more ideas.  Locally we have a prof that crowd sources climate change indicators over western Canada.  She has a web site where you report when wild flowers bloom, when you hear the first boreal or chorus frog, when the first flight of geese with more than 12 birds goes overhead.  First tiger swallowtail.
Turns out that some of them don't correlate well with temperature.  Some do.  Then someone realized that this same dataset can be used to measure biodiversity, and see if the ranges are changing.  People near a sighting of X last year were asked to watch for it this year.  People were given a protocol for walking a known strip of land, and counting this and that.  If they couldn't id it they took a pciture with their phone, and said "30 of these thingies"  Prof had a grad student to turn 'thingy' into blazing meadow star.  Grad student asks people to stop in the middle of the strip and take 4 shots with their phone with the bottom edge of the image about 10 feet away.  From this and looking at grass seed head shapes, he gets an idea of what the relative population of different classes of grass are.
Citizen science.

The class of dummies doesn't have a happy ending.  Two weeks before the end of the year, the school inspector comes in, and sits in on the class.  The class is excited.  A lot of their mice got through the winter and they are seeing small mice -- mouse teenagers -- appearing in their traps.  The grad student is talking about reproductive success and population dynamics.
The superintendent goes to the principal.  "He's not teaching the state bio
curriculum."  Principal explains that no one has ever had this kind of success with the dummies.  "Doesn't matter.  He's not teaching the curriculum.  Fire him."

Can one conduct “novel” research without an advanced laboratory? Has it been done by school pupils?


Let's head for vs Let's head to

Question: I wanted to use something different than "Let's go to the party",
so I tried "Let's head to the party", but then, I found other examples with "Let's head for the party."
I wonder which one is more correct.
Comment: As a native English speaker, "let's head to the party" sounds more correct if you're going directly there and "let's head for the party" is more correct if you're going to the party but will go somewhere else first. Both sound fine to me though and your meaning will be understood either way.
Comment: I think 'Let's head for' gives the impression you are heading for an event. Eg. Let's head for the graduation. While 'let's head to' gives an impression that you are heading to a place. Ex. Let's head to the house. I'm sure both are correct.
Answer: They're both correct, but with slightly different meanings.
"Head to" connotes that you're confident that you'll actually arrive. A college student might say, "Classes are over, let's head to the bar."
"Head for" connotes that you're going in that direction, but you might get waylaid or you're unsure of the route. A tourist in New York might say, "We're lost; let's head for the Empire State Building so we can get our bearings."

Let's head for vs Let's head to


How to get dispersion parameter from a binomial mixed model?

Question: I am modelling data with a generalized mixed model with binomial error distribution and I am concerned about overdispersion. I know that dispersion parameter can be measured as deviance/df, but for mixed models (= with random effect), the number of degrees of freedom cannot be extracted (I am using the function lmer from R). Is there any way to find out if my data are overdispersed?
Answer: You may be able to use this function attributed to D. Bates to get the scale parameter:
<code>dispersion_glmer<- function(modelglmer)
{
# computing  estimated scale  ( binomial model)
#following  D. Bates :
#That quantity is the square root of the penalized residual sum of
#squares divided by n, the number of observations, evaluated as:

    n <- length(modelglmer@resid)

    return(  sqrt( sum(c(modelglmer@resid, modelglmer@u) ^2) / n ) )
}
</code>
This is a link to more information on the scale parameter.


infura vs Eth Node

Question: I want to connect web3 services with public Ethereum (main net/test net) to execute my smart contract method. Which is better Infura or to create my on Node?
Please suggest.
Comment: It has pros and cons. If you use Infura, then you depend on it. I am sure they will give uptime all the time. But if they are down, you will be down. If you setup node, then you are independent, but you have to maintain it. But for simple use case, yes Infura is best.
Answer: In other hand, centralization of INFURA is one of the problem of Ethereum eco-system.
So, using your own node is still considerable. IMO ;)
Answer: I use both,
For development with remix IDE / truffle or working with Metamask wallet in Chrome I like Infura for its simplicity.
When I want full control over every aspect of the development and deploy pipeline for production deployments or sensitive smart contracts I will work with my own node.  I know the environment the node is deployed and managed in.
Answer: If you make a node for yourself, the main problem will be maintaining it online every time and it will cost for you.
Otherwise if you use Infura, It is free and its uptime is more than we can access it normally.
So I recommend to use Infura instead of your full node.

infura vs Eth Node


"I was all but angry" vs "I was angry"

Question: Why, when people are angry, do they say "I was all but angry" as opposed to "I was angry"? What's the difference between the two and why are they used interchangeably?
Comment: Where did you see it?  I googled it and I only found it in very old texts and in text that did not seem to be written by native English speakers.
Comment: @aparente001 I saw it in an old book; I can't recall the title at the moment...
Answer: "All but" is (rather old-fashioned, in my view) idiom, meaning "nearly".
I don't recall having heard "I was all but angry", but to me it means "I was almost, but not quite, angry".
Comment: It's possibly not used with gradable adjectives.
Comment: It sounds an odd thing to say. Like the beverage made by the Heart of Gold: almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.
Answer: Actually, "all but" literally means "everything except". When you say "I was all but angry" what you are really saying is that you are everything except angry, or that you are not angry. It is usually used in the exact opposite sense, though.
According to the grammarist website:

All but is a compound adverb that means almost or very nearly. Be aware that it is also used without being a compound adverb to meaning everything except.

As an example, consider that I paid a $1000 damage deposit when I began renting, then I recently moved out and made the following statement:

My landlord returned all but $100.

He actually returned $900.
My main point is that I would never be too sure what someone means when they say "all but" unless I consider the context.

"I was all but angry" vs "I was angry"