In Romans 7 is Paul talking about before or after he was saved?

Question: In Romans 7:15 Paul said "For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I." and in Romans 7:11 Paul said "For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me." So it may seem that Paul was talking about having a sin problem BEFORE he was saved. Is Romans 7:17-34 talking about before Paul was saved or after Paul was saved? This is important because some believe we sin after we are saved and some believe we don't sin after we are saved and this is a key passage in discussions on this topic.
Comment: Of course we sin after conversion. The question is do we live in sin or only sin occasionally.
Comment: I have talked to enough Pelegian/Semi-Pelagian/Pentecostal-Holiness to know that not everyone believes they sin after conversion. I could probably link several sites as proof if you wish.
Comment: Yes, good question for sure.  People should vote this one way, way up..up..up. Sadly, several commentaries (though a minority) take all these verses to be past tense to the effective loss of all the faith building comfort that the Apostle intends to provide. I have never been able to comprehend whatever possessed them to do that. welcome to this site!
Comment: Related question on BH.SE: [Does Paul refer to his past or present evil/sin in Romans 7?](http://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/q/1401/423)
Answer: The passage was written after his conversion, and there is no indication whatsoever that Paul was speaking in the past tense.  Therefore, following the basic rules of interpretation, (particularly #3, 5, and 8) he is speaking about after he was saved.

Those eight rules are copied from the Apologetics Research page below:

1 The rule of DEFINITION: What does the word mean? Any study of
  Scripture must begin with a study of words. Define your terms and then
  keep to the terms defined. The interpreter should conscientiously
  abide by the plain meaning of the words. This quite often may require
  using a Hebrew/English or Greek/English lexicon in order to make sure
  that the sense of the English translation is understood. A couple of
  good examples of this are the Greek words "allos" and "heteros". Both
  are usually translated as "another" in English - yet "allos" literally
  means "another of the same type" and "heteros" means "another of a
  different type."
2 The rule of USAGE: It must be remembered that the Old Testament was
  written originally by, to and for Jews. The words and idioms must have
  been intelligible to them - just as the words of Christ when talking
  to them must have been. The majority of the New Testament likewise was
  written in a milieu of Greco-Roman (and to a lesser extent Jewish)
  culture and it is important to not impose our modern usage into our
  interpretation. It is not worth much to interpret a great many phrases
  and histories if one's interpretations are shaded by pre-conceived
  notions and cultural biases, thereby rendering an inaccurate and
  ineffectual lesson.
3 The rule of CONTEXT: The meaning must be gathered from the context.
  Every word you read must be understood in the light of the words that
  come before and after it. Many passages will not be understood at all,
  or understood incorrectly, without the help afforded by the context. A
  good example of this is the Mormon practice of using 1 Cor. 8:5b:
  "...for there be gods many and lords many..." as a "proof text" of
  their doctrine of polytheism. However, a simple reading of the whole
  verse in the context of the whole chapter (e.g. where Paul calls these
  gods "so-called"), plainly demonstrates that Paul is not teaching
  polytheism.
4 The rule of HISTORICAL BACKGROUND: The interpreter must have some
  awareness of the life and society of the times in which the Scripture
  was written. The spiritual principle will be timeless but often can't
  be properly appreciated without some knowledge of the background. If
  the interpreter can have in his mind what the writer had in his mind
  when he wrote - without adding any excess baggage from the
  interpreter's own culture or society - then the true thought of the
  Scripture can be captured resulting in an accurate interpretation.
  Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "Our only interest in the past is for the
  light it throws upon the present."
5 The rule of LOGIC: Interpretation is merely logical reasoning. When
  interpreting Scripture, the use of reason is everywhere to be assumed.
  Does the interpretation make sense? The Bible was given to us in the
  form of human language and therefore appeals to human reason - it
  invites investigation. It is to be interpreted as we would any other
  volume: applying the laws of language and grammatical analysis. As
  Bernard Ramm said:
"What is the control we use to weed out false theological speculation? Certainly the control is logic and evidence...
  interpreters who have not had the sharpening experience of logic...may
  have improper notions of implication and evidence. Too frequently such
  a person uses a basis of appeal that is a notorious violation of the
  laws of logic and evidence." (Protestant Biblical Interpretation,
  Boston: W. A. Wilde, 1956)
6 The rule of PRECEDENT: We must not violate the known usage of a
  word and invent another for which there is no precedent. Just as a
  judge's chief occupation is the study of previous cases, so must the
  interpreter use precedents in order to determine whether they really
  support an alleged doctrine. Consider the Bereans in Acts 17:10-12 who
  were called "noble" because they searched the Scriptures to determine
  if what Paul taught them was true.
7 The rule of UNITY: The parts of Scripture being interpreted must be
  construed with reference to the significance of the whole. An
  interpretation must be consistent with the rest of Scripture. An
  excellent example of this is the doctrine of the Trinity. No single
  passage teaches it, but it is consistent with the teaching of the
  whole of Scripture (e.g. the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are
  referred to individually as God; yet the Scriptures elsewhere teach
  there is only one God).
8 The rule of INFERENCE: An inference is a fact reasonably implied
  from another fact. It is a logical consequence. It derives a
  conclusion from a given fact or premise. It is the deduction of one
  proposition from another proposition. Such inferential facts or
  propositions are sufficiently binding when their truth is established
  by competent and satisfactory evidence. Competent evidence means such
  evidence as the nature of the thing to be proved admits. Satisfactory
  evidence means that amount of proof which would ordinarily satisfy an
  unprejudiced mind beyond a reasonable doubt. Jesus used this rule when
  he proved the resurrection of the dead to the unbelieving Sadducees in
  Matt. 22:23-33.
Learning these eight rules and properly applying them will help keep
  any interpreter from making errors and will hopefully alleviate many
  of the disagreements unfortunately present in Christianity today.
  However, these eight principles are no substitute for the Holy Spirit
  which will, if you let Him, guide you in the truth [John 14:26]. If
  you receive Christ into your heart, God will give you the Holy Spirit
  freely as a gift [Acts 2:38]. I urge you, if you have not already done
  so, to examine the claims and the work of Jesus Christ and to receive
  Him as your Savior.

To come to the conclusion that he is speaking of only before he was saved, you'd have to ignore verb tense and other basic rules of interpretation.
Comment: I agree with your conclusions. I would like to see the answer improved in two ways: 1) Demonstrate applying the rules to this passage. Note that this part of the answer seems more suitable for Hermeneutics. 2) Give examples of which groups tend to believe which way. I think many who do not hold any version of the Holiness doctrine still think it was before Paul fell off his horse. I know some conservative Mennonites who do -- they don't post much on the Internet though.
Answer: This question is to me is one of the top 10 all time questions that needs to be settled in order to have a correct view of the gospel and its application to our lives. Although possibly a minority, there have been several commentators who have assumed that Paul is taking about a sinner throughout this chapter and not a believer. In fact, when reviewing a commentary on Romans, I turn to Romans 7:14 and if I find that the interpretation is not treating the passage as Paul's description of his converted state, I actually judge the commentary as a whole as not worth reading and especially not worth purchasing.  So much for hiding my own view!
Grammatically it should be clear reading any translation that until verse 14 the Apostle is speaking in past tense, after verse 14 he uses a personal current tense.  This alone should make the answer already strong.
Paste Tense Romans 7:7-14

I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "You shall not covet." But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me etc..........

Current Tense Romans 7:14-25

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.  etc...........

Then there is the actual description to argue from. To borrow a summary from the Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, we have a good theological argument on top of the grammatical:

The person described in Rom. 7:14–25 hates sin (7:15), wishes to do what is good (verses 19, 21), in his inner being delights in God's law (verse 22), deeply regrets his sins (verses 15, 18–24), and thanks God for his deliverance (verse 25). Is it at all probable that such a person has not been regenerated by the Spirit of God? Contrast all this with the description of the unregenerate (7:5, 9a; 8:5a). Clearly, in Rom. 7:14–25 the apostle, in the words of John Calvin, "in his own person describes the weakness of believers and how great it is" (Romans, p. 264).

Furthermore this humble loathing of one's own self is consistent with Paul's attitude whenever he speaks about his own life:

Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. (1 Timothy 1:15, NIV)

Finally what really first settled it for me many years ago is that in my own experience before I became a Christian, I never once "delighted in God's law" in my inner man.

So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. (Romans 7:21-25, NIV)

I cannot accept that a sinner, who is dead in sin, delights in God's law. It is simply not a possibility to me. It must be a description of a regenerate believer.  As Paul is using "I," it must be a description of a mature spiritual believer.  In fact, I think the closer a person gets to God, the more their life is described by Romans 7:14-25. Nothing better describes a genuine, sincere and holy child of God living in the world and in the body than these verses.
Answer: Besides David Stratton's comment, in Philippians 3, Paul plainly confesses he is not yet perfect: "Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect..." (v12).
And, what it the "this" that he has not obtained?  It seems to be "the righteousness from God that depends on faith" (v9). Paul admits he still has progress to make.  Thus, he continues verse 12 with "... but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own."  He strives toward holiness.  If sin weren't still a problem for him, this wouldn't make any sense.  He continues on to again affirm his lack of righteousness and to also say that he won't let what lies behind be a hindrance to him: "Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."
Answer: Romans 6,7,8 is a very interesting progression. I believe in order to understand Romans 7 you need to know that these three chapters are connected.
Romans 6; Sin is referenced only 1 time as a verb, "Shall we continue sinning", and every other time as a noun. Namely in Romans 6 Paul first outlines that sin is a power, not simply something that we do against the will of God. He states that it is through baptism, a public denial of the fleshly past and a proclamation of living for God, that we are now "dead to sin". Namely the power of sin that was once at work in us when we were under the sinful nature no longer has a hold over us. (This is a very brief outline, but I hope that makes sense.)
Romans 7; Verse 1-6 are a summary of chapter 6. It is the declaration that because Jesus died you have been freed from the worldly ways of sin, that is the word of the law, through the Spirit of God.
The rest of Romans 7 is the self life. You do not see 'Spirit' mentioned once. Instead, I think its, 42 times says things like, 'I, me, myself' are referenced. Paul is outlying the struggle that we have in the Christian life now that we know our eyes have been opened to the sinful nature we once had. We can see that he gets to the end of self when he asks:
What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?
So often we as Christians read this section and make allowance for our struggle because, "Paul struggled", but that is a cop out. We ask the same question Paul did just above, but fail to read the answer.
Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Jesus is the answer, living out of our own strength is the issue addressed in Romans 7. We know that, "Love never fails." So we can never fail if we are living out of His strength, and by His spirit.
This is where Romans 8 comes in.
We all desire to live in Romans 8, but we don't know how to transition. Romans 8 is the place of living by the Spirit, in surrender and submission to God, and have crucified our self life with Jesus on the cross. Someone else mentioned Philippians 3 where Paul says, "Not that I have obtained all this", Paul lived out of the hope that he had been called to, and he knew that "The one who called him is faithful."
The Christian life is about faith in Jesus. That He can do and complete all that He says He can. I know saying that may sound fundamental, but just go with me. We need to come to the end that we in our own selves cannot bring about that which God has called us to. No power, nothing in us can do it. We simply end up creating rules that have the appearance of wisdom (Col 2) in order to live the holy life. Romans 8 is proclamation of God for our lives that He wants us to "become conformed to the image of His Son". But first God convicts us of our sinful lives in order that we would cry out that blessed, "Who will save me from this body of death?"
I hope all this makes sense, it's a progression from a declaration that the sinful nature that held us was nailed to the cross with Jesus and through baptism we have died to it, and we have been raised to life with Christ. It then states that we are free because of the Spirit living in us. An outline of the self life follows and that we must come to the end where we realise we cannot do it in ourselves. Romans 8 is the outworking of that surrender.
Be like Paul and hold onto the hope that we have in the completed transformation, He knew there was always more that could come. "From glory to glory."
Please ask questions if something doesn't make sense, or you would like expansion on it.
God bless you,
Hamish
Answer: In Romans 7 is Paul talking about before or after he was saved?
This question often arises as many Christians identify with the frustration and sense of defeat given in chapter seven. However, in context Paul is describing a contrast between trying to do good in the flesh (chapter seven) and by the Spirit (chapter eight).
The mixing of past and present tense in chapter sever is indicative of the problem of the flesh for both saved and unsaved people.
The solution for both unsaved people and Christians living in the flesh is the same and is found in verse 24.

Romans 7:24  O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the
  body of this death?

Paul does not describe a seven step solution, secret skills that need to be mastered, or a complicated discipline that can save us from the frustration of the flesh. The solution is not a "How" or "What", but a "Who".

Romans 7:25  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with
  the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of
  sin.

The last verse of chapter seven is the transition to being able to live by the Spirit.
We know that Christians can become diverted into a flesh based practice of religion;

1 Corinthians 3:3  For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among
  you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as
  men?
Galatians 3:1-3  O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye
  should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been
  evidently set forth, crucified among you?   This only would I learn of
  you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing
  of faith?   Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now
  made perfect by the flesh?

While walking by the Spirit can only be done by those who have new life in Christ Jesus and have the indwelling Holy Spirit, both Christians and the unsaved can experience the frustrations and failures of walking by the flesh described in chapter seven.
Answer: I like in particular the approach present in Faithlife Study Bible [FSB].

The focus of this passage is the law and human weakness, which magnified the problem of sin. In vv. 6–12, Paul spoke in the past tense ("I was"). Here, he switches to the present tense ("I am") to describe life under sin and law—a literary device to get the attention of his audience.
Paul describes either a non-Christian who is under the law or a Christian struggling with sin. If the passage concerns an unbeliever, then it reflects the struggle to do what is good while living under the power of sin and without God's Spirit (vv. 18–19). If it concerns a believer, then it depicts the Christian who, despite the Spirit's indwelling presence, struggles to live according to righteousness because of the powers of sin and death (vv. 24–25; 8:10–11). Both interpretations find support from within the text of Romans, and both ultimately agree that believers must contend with the power of sin as they learn to live according to righteousness (8:4–5).

Why? It gives space to both interpretations to be valid addressing whether it speaks of a believer or an unbeliever and goes on to explain the implications of looking at the passage from both of the perspectives. In particular, if the passage is about a…

... believer, then even as redeemed believers in Jesus, we must still fight against the continuing presence of sin in our mortal bodies. Our natural inclination is to return to our old patterns and enslave ourselves to sin again. Although we have accepted God's gift of righteousness by faith and are freed from the penalty of sin (6:1, 15), we must still choose where to devote our lives.

... unbeliever, then there's a clear struggle since there's no Holy Spirit to redeem us, but also to enable us to live free from the bondage of sin.
Answer: It only stands to reason that, the unconverted man who believes he is converted, will see Saul's struggle and bondage to sin in Romans 7 and liken it to himself. Yet the converted man identifies himself with the victory that Paul describes in Romans 8.
 Paul is faithful to deliver a clear illustration of marriage has "jurisdiction" over a person as long as he lives, the same "jurisdiction" sin has over a person who has not died to sin and been united with Christ.
 Those who are united with Christ relish and celebrate the promise of 1John 1:9,
"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and TO CLEANSE US FROM ALL UNRIGHTEOUSNESS"
 Those who are still united with their sin and death relish and celebrate 1John 1:8.
This world is filled to capacity with deceived unconverted professors who have not the slightest desire for the Lord or His ways.
Discern the distinction: EVERYONE loves the golden calf of Salvation, FEW love the Lord and His ways.
Comment: What group of Christians believes this? Can you give references? If not, this looks like just your opinion, not an answer of the sort Stack Exchange sites are expecting.


2010 Ford Fusion CARB certification

Question: I have a 2010 Ford Fusion that I will be bringing from Texas to California. Will I need to do any modifications to be CARB certified?
Answer: If your vehicle does not have CA emissions, you won't be able to register the vehicle in CA. There are a few exceptions:

Obtained as part of a divorce, inheritance, or legal separation settlement.
Purchased to replace your California-registered vehicle that was stolen while you were using the vehicle out-of-state.
Purchased to replace your California-registered vehicle that was destroyed or made inoperative beyond reasonable repair while you were using the vehicle out of state.
An emergency vehicle, pursuant to California Vehicle Code § §27156.2 and 27156.3.
Registered by you in the state of your last active military service outside California.
A street motorcycle or motor-driven cycle year model 2005 and older, with an engine less than 50 cubic centimeters (cc) displacement. Beginning January 1, 2006, street motorcycles and motor-driven cycles year model 2006 and newer, with engines less than 50 cc displacement, require an emission label certifying them to meet U.S. Environmental Protection Agency emission regulations, and may be registered regardless of mileage.

To figure out if your vehicle is CARB compliant, the emissions sticker should be under the hood and look something like this:

Mind you, this doesn't apply to you if you are Military and are a resident of another state. CA has a lot of other strange rules, so best to read up on them at their website (found through the link above).

2010 Ford Fusion CARB certification


O2 sensor replacement

Question: I'm leaving on a 800 mile trip tomorrow and check engine light came on. Took it to autozone and computer said it was the o2 sensor. Is this something that should be replaced prior to the trip or can it wait?
Comment: Which O2 sensor did it say was a problem? Upstream or downstream?
Comment: It will adversely affect your fuel economy. But than again autozone sells parts and does not diagnose cars so something worse could be wrong with it.
Comment: What was the exact code that was set? You should investigate the particular code for your vehicle before you replace any parts.
Answer: I agree with the others it's hard to start anywhere without knowing the exact code that was set.
Even it was an O2 sensor code that doesn't always mean the O2 sensor is faulty, often there are other issues that affect the O2 sensor performance which cause O2 sensor codes which are often misdiagnosed.
If it was an O2 sensor code relating to range/performance you would then test the sensors under different conditions to see if they are actually faulty and also read the live data in the engine to identify any other potential issues.
Answer: You can do either, if you drive in town short distance then leave it, and maybe the long drive will clean it and it will be fine after.  It won't cause any problems on the trip except maybe? Your mileage won't be optimum.
Answer: Without known the exact code you got, it is impossible for us to gauge if this is an issue or not.
For example, if its the heater circuit, then you will probably be OK.
If the sensor is measuring rich the whole time, then you will probably not be OK (the catalytic converter could overheat and internally melt/get plugged).
Answer: Given that typically cars these days have two O2 sensors, there is some level of redundancy. Also, do note that the car when warming up operates in an open loop mode. The absolutely worst that could happen is that your car continues to operate in an open loop mode even when warmed up. It may mean worse fuel economy and possibly higher emissions.
So, if you ask from Greenpeace, they will probably say that the car should not be driven. But my opinion is that you can perfectly well take the trip and replace the sensor when you have time for that.
Comment: There's not any redundancy between the two oxygen sensors because the upstream and downstream sensors measure different things. The upstream sensor measures the oxygen concentration before the catalytic convertor and provides feedback to the ecu to help adjust the air fuel ratio. The downstream oxygen sensor measures after the catalytic convertor and ensures that catalyst is working properly. They are not redundant at all.
Comment: -1 because like Robert said o2 sensors do not have redundancy and secondly because a bad o2 sensor may cause serious power delivery issues or at least awful gas mileage.
Comment: On most control systems designs where pre and post catalyst sensors are used the system can and does, to some degree, use both sensors for fuel control. Both report mixture to the PCM, so it can use both for fuel control if the engineers chose to do so. The only vehicles that I have found that do not use the post cat sensor for some degree of fuel control are late 90's Subaru.
Answer: The O2 sensors do a couple of things each. The one above the exhaust is there to tell the CPU, that the air/fuel mixture is perfect and can only work with the ambian temp from the sensor in the water jacket and the Mass air flow sensor in the intake. The MAF tells the CPU how much air is coming thru, the ambiant temp sensor tells the CPU that the engine is warm enough to run in normal mode the crank sensor tells the CPU when to inject fuel for a maximum imput and the camshaft sensor tells the CPU when to set off the spark. Now the O2 sensors tell the CPU that the mixture is perfect and the one after the exhaust checks the amount of co2 and when the ambiant temp sensor tells the CPU it's warm enough then the O2 sensor tells the CPU to open the valve between the positive Crankcase Ventilator and the intake manifold to burn the excess gas. Until it's warm enough then the excess gas goes into a carbon filled tank which holds the gas until it's warm then the O2 sensor tells the CPU to open it up and the car... Runs great . I would not like to have my engine turned into a stationary engine, and that is basically what happens when the CPU doesn't get the signals it needs. It keeps putting the engine into start up mode. Then you get to take it to a dealership to get the CPU reset. $1,700.00 is about what it was when I worked for one. I was just a tow truck driver.
Comment: -1  You do not understand what the O2 sensor does.  It simply indicates if you are running rich or lean.  Running rich is dangerous to your catalytic converter.  It will overheat.  Its not a big deal during startup, but over a long trip (especially at high speed cruise) it could be an issue.   As for $1700 for a CPU reset - complete rip-off.  1) resetting the CPU fixes nothing.  2) primary O2 sensor failures are detected right away.   BTW, after 2 minutes, whether the car's sensor indicate its warm or not, the car must go out of 'warm-up' mode.  That's a federal emissions requirement.
Comment: That is exactly what I said!
Comment: I have downvoted this answer due to it not really being accurate.
You have made some specific statements there that may apply to some specific cards but in my experience are not typical, and there some statements that are not accurate.

The O2 sensor just measures the remaining Oxygen in the exhaust, and tells the ECU to add or remove fuel when it is in closed loop control mode.

It only indicates to the ECU how the engine is burning fuel. Nothing else!

O2 sensor replacement


Do readers not like a book if it's too dark and the characters almost never win?

Question: I started a book and although I wanted it to be dark, will the readers find it too dark if the characters almost never win? Or are a lot of readers into that? In my book the two main characters' whole lives are terrible, but the point is they've been together through it all since childhood. It's kind of like Forrest Gump (and Jenny) but without any comedy, is that too much?
Comment: Even the children's books *A Series of Unfortunate Events*, so disappointingly adapted for the screen, are mostly dark yet remain classics. Loved them as a kid.
Comment: Three billboards?
Comment: Pretty much anything from Dostojevskij as far as I know.
Comment: If I answer, I don't want to simply give examples like others — nevertheless upvoted by me — have done:  what exactly is it that you want?  Are you concerned that the characters you chose don't relate enough of a story to interest the readers, or would you like to revise the events of the story so that the chosen characters do have a profitable perspective?
Comment: @Flater Agreed. Those strategies might also make a good answer. We might also say that moments of beauty or laughter save an adult downer like Saul Bellow's *Seize the Day* from being off-putting...
Comment: I'm concerned that the characters only losing in the book will be too much like "reading torture" where you only get saddened by the book but then your like " oh atleast they have each other"
Comment: If the story is dark or not is irrelevant. If the character growth and conflicts are interresting you should be fine.
Comment: your idea is "nobody likes seeing these nice people go through hell"? try "Lord of the Flies"
Comment: @LukeSawczak ASOUE does havei ts comedic notes, albeit an off-beat type of comedy: smart children dealing with idiot adults, witty analogies that often hinge on dictionary definitions, and then seeing those definitions weaved into scenarios in unexpected (and less well defined) ways. It's a type of obervational comedy that's clever to an outside observer, while dreary to a character in-universe. Comparatively, Forrest Gump was perceived as comical by in-universe characters as well. Without the narration or fortuitous "hand of fate" events, ASOUE would've been a downer with no ups whatsoever.
Comment: @LukeSawczak If you were disappointed by the movie check out the Netflix series, it might redeem the medium for you (or not; it's probably very polarising — but definitely interesting).
Answer: Hmm. When I'm not sure about something, I like to look at some examples.
All Quiet on the Western Front has the characters never win. In fact, they all die, and their side loses the war (something we know from the outset, since that's Germany in WWI we're talking about). Nonetheless, All Quiet on the Western Front has its moments of warmth: there's camaraderie aplenty, there's gallows humour, there are the lighter moments with the French prostitutes and with the food. It's those warm moments that help the reader connect to the characters, and feel a loss when they die.
Dr Zhivago is not happy reading either. With Russian Revolution as the backdrop, and an intelligent, warm, honourable MC, it's set for tragedy. Every time it appears things are starting to go right, something happens that makes everything go terribly wrong. But there are those times when things start to go right. There's love, and there's the breathtaking beauty of rural Russia. Those draw you in, and keep you hoping, even as the MC hopes, for a better future, not just for him, but for Russia.
Finally, Hamlet, as an example of a tragedy. It starts bad, and it gets worse. At the same time, it offers plenty of wit. ("- What do you read, my lord? / - Words, words, words.") There's comedy (the gravedigger in the 5th act, for example), and there's Horatio's warm, unwavering friendship, offering some release from Hamlet's lonely lot.
So, it would appear that a novel can be quite dark, but light is still needed in it. It is the light that sets off the dark. It is the warm moments that make loss meaningful. There needs to be hope, for it to be dashed. And in real life too, there is light to be found even in deepest dark. In greatest hardships, people still find a way to love, to be friends, to give each other hope, to laugh at their executioners. I guess it's human nature to keep striving, and we expect stories to do the same - to keep finding a bit of light in unlikely places (until, if you so wish it, there is no more light to be found).
Comment: A sense of loss requires a sense of worth.
Comment: Thanks for some reason I had forgot about tragedies like Hamlet
Answer: It's a matter of taste. The "A Song of Ice and Fire" series is quite dark and its main characters are usually having a bad time. Its books are quite popular, but I know people who stopped reading them because they found them kind of despairful.
Comment: @DonQuiKong What did I spoil to you? That the main characters are doing bad? Well, that happens since book 1 (or chapter 1 in the TV series). Other than that, is quite generic information.
Comment: It's worth giving a bit more analysis of why this series works: it subverts expectations. It sets up what looks like a familiar genre story line ("a hero steps up for the protagonist", "a protagonist does something inspiring and noble", "a hero assembles a mighty army"), leading the reader along, and then chooses an unexpected but realistic and believable moment to take a dark twist (and usually not an obvious one). Mostly, it is carefully paced such that when one storyline explodes, at least one other character's story still full of hope (this slipped in the less popular later books).
Comment: @DonQuiKong It's well known that this series is dark. I don't think anyone will approach the series with the expectation that it's about bunnies and unicorns and sunshine.
Comment: A completely unnecessary and unexpected spoiler. Thank you.
Answer: To be frank, such a book would depress the heck out of me, but I'm just one person. If you're interested in taking a poll, then my vote is: give me some light! Life is already full of challenges and people (generally) use books to escape from their problems into a place where everything is sunshine and flowers (or at least could be if only the protagonist could get over his/her problems).
That said, there are 7,626,346,576 people (as of 15:38hr 2nd Jun 2018) in the world and so I always say that there's a market for pretty much any kind of writing. But I think that you might be heading for a niche with what you're proposing.
Tell you what would float my candle: Character A is having a really shoddy life (knock yourself out giving dark details) and just over the valley, Character B is having a different kind of horrible life (more detail to satisfy your urge for darkness). Then A meets B and somehow, by the magic of your pen, A's and B's misfortune comes together in such a way that they cancel each other out and (yep, you guessed it) we get a happily ever after to satisfy the reading masses.
As Galastel points out - let there be light (yeah, I'm paraphrasing). The above is just one way to provide that light whilst still giving yourself space to indulge your darkness-writing tendency. There are other ways.
Good luck going forward.
Answer: It depends on the book and the reader but broadly I believe it has to make sense either way. For example Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm by George Orwell wouldn't make the least bit of sense if the protagonists won, that's just not what they're about, they're both no win situations from the get go. Equally the protagonists of the Narnia books have God on their side, at least that was always my understanding of what Aslan is supposed to be, so they always win and it's only sensible that they do.
In most cases it's not so clear cut, you don't know until the bitter end who's won or lost, and in some cases, like the end of Prince of Chaos you don't even know for sure who won even after the story ends. This can be satisfying too though, because it makes sense within the context of the story that definite answers are beyond reach.
Comment: The middle part of Nineteen Eighty-Four is pretty optimistic actually – which, of course, is in part set up to make the third part even more devastating, but it's also those glimpses of hope which keep the reader attached to the story.
Comment: Animal Farm is different. It creates a plot without victory specifically to go against the grain here. The reader is _expected_ to respond that "a story with no victory is not fun", at which point the response to that is "so why are you not protesting the current state of communist ideals?". The writer specifically does not give a resolution to the plot because it wants to urge the reader to proactively seek the resolution (in real life). If he had provided a resolution, then readers would not be urged to act in real life since a solution already exists (the one given in the plot).
Comment: Aslan isn't God, [he's the parallel universe Jesus](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/117792/in-universe-is-aslan-actually-jesus). (You might not have been trying to imply that Aslan is god, but it's possible to infer that from what you have written.)
Comment: "Winning" can take more shapes than just defeating evil. In 1984, a sort of victory is achieved by seeing how the protagonist can almost independently develop a renouncement for the world in its current state. This is similar to why **one** plant is a reason for celebration in Wall-E because it means that the Earth _can_ be saved (even if not by that one plant alone). It's also similar to how in The Matrix, the recurrent emergence of a "the one" gives the viewer hope that the cycle will be broken one day. Proving that the cycle **can** be broken is a victory in and of itself.
Comment: 1984 paints the world as a world where the reader has no clue how you can ever win against it. And the _small_ victory that the protagonist achieves (developing a sense of private individuality), while not overthrowing the entire machine, still changes the perception of the reader who initially considered this world view to be inescapable.
Comment: @Pharap I haven't read _The Chronicles of Narnia_ in nearly twenty years, I was in primary school, my interpretation at that time was that Aslan was God and we'll leave the holy trinity out of it too.
Comment: @Flater _1984_ proves the cycle **can't** be broken, that's the point of how it ends; the protagonist becomes the perfect product of the system he once railed against, one more cog in the machine. _Animal Farm_ isn't about communist ideals it's the French Revolution retold and it ends by saying "meet the new bosses, same as the old bosses" which is exactly what happened in the real world.
Comment: @Ash The victory isn't the ending, it's the inception of the plot. I find the Matrix analogy works here. In the end, Neo agrees to create a new Matrix, even though he had fought to break people out of it, which is a similar "nothing changed" ending as in 1984. Neo was the 6th iteration and many more would likely follow, gaining a bit of ground every time. Similarly, the protagonist in 1984 isn't able to overturn everything by himself, but the plot does prove to the reader that it's possible to reject the system, even if you've known nothing but the system your entire life. That is the victory.
Comment: @Flater You have clearly read a completely different version of _1984_, we'll have to agree to disagree.
Comment: @Ash _The author_ has all but outright stated "Aslan is Narnia's Jesus", as is mentioned in the answers on the scifi.stackexchange link.
Comment: @Pharap And [Jesus is God](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity). More importantly the author's intention has no bearing whatsoever on _my personal interpretation_ which is what is stated, clearly defined as, in my answer.
Answer: Check out The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant for a supreme example of this "genre".  When I read the series, it was just the first two trilogies, and in writing this answer, I just discovered that Mr. Donaldson has since written a follow-up tetralogy.  So the answer to your question is no, for gifted authors.
Comment: The last series of the Covenant books, IMO, wasn't as gripping as the first two, but I think it reinforces your point. The original books are ones I've re-read over and over, despite their being incredibly dark they're well-written with excellent characters and a good story to tell. I think you can write books where bad things happen repeatedly but you have to be a good enough writer to pull it off.
Answer: There are a lot of great answers here, and from my perspective they all have there own merit, but in my personal opinion, you shouldn't get hung up on such matters when writing a book. Most people have waaaaaayyy different tastes in reading, and there's no way to be sure if such a book would sink or swim. I'm an all genres type of person and enjoy both nuclear ends of the spectrum so I think long as the writer cares enough, the story will be good for what it's meant to be.
Realistically, if it's a passion project, I'd say you should just write your story the way you want and judge it for yourself, look at, and ask yourself "would I enjoy a story that is this dark?" and if you can honestly say yes to that, then you know someone else in the world is bound to enjoy reading it somewhere, whether they do so now, or 20 years from now doesn't really make a big difference.
However...if certified money and fame is all your looking from writing, then it'd be better if the book was out in a time when darkness and tragedy is in more in vogue. But trend surfing when writing can be really tiresome for some people, so it's all on you, and what it is you're trying to achieve with the book really.
Whether you decide to stick to your guns keeping it dark, or to bend your tale into something slightly more sunny, I do wish you and your book the best of luck.
Answer: The specific problem you're trying to avoid is called "Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy". If you feel like destroying your productivity for the next week, you can look it up on TV Tropes. People can (and do) get turned off a story if it's too dark for too much of the time. There are shows I've dropped in the past, and shows I plan never to watch, for that exact reason.
In your case, I think the issue is that your antagonist - fate - is too powerful. It's constantly beating your characters, time after time, for the entire length of your novel. As other answers have mentioned, that's just as boring and tedious as if the protagonist is all-powerful and wins all the time.
What you need to do is give the protagonists small victories that end up being entirely inconsequential. They succeed at something, or have something good happen to them, but it's quickly cancelled out by something else, or has no effect on how terrible their situation is, or in fact, they realise too late that it's actually made things worse.
Halo Reach is an excellent example of this. You know ahead of time that the protagonists will fail, and Reach will fall to the Covenant, but the game still gives you missions at which you succeed, because a game where you always lose is no fun to play. It's just that those victories don't matter. Most famously, one of your squadmates sacrifices himself to destroy a Covenant battleship... and then six more jump out of hyperspace. You win, but you still lose.
Answer: The key question is: Why should I care?
Part of the reason people like a book is because they get invested in the plot and the characters. They continue reading because they have a vested interest in seeing things play out. They care about what the characters do, what happens to them, how goals are achieved, how the antagonist is foiled, etc.
A potential issue with (bad) "dark" books is that there's never anything to get invested in. The characters are shit, their lives are shit, everything they try turns to shit in a rather predictable way. There's no reason to read on because there's nothing to get invested in.
Dark books aren't the only ones who suffer from this. "Happy" books can fall into a similar trap: the protagonist are perfect paragons, their lives are perfect, everything they do turns out perfect in a very predictable way. Readers don't get invested in those books either. The only difference is that writers are aware of that trap, and there's plenty of writing advice to make sure you have "conflict" in the story. Dark books, though, suffer from a misperception that "conflict" means "bad things happen to the protagonists", such that people mistakenly think a dark book has conflict by the very nature of being dark.
That isn't the case: "conflict" goes both ways. Yes, there isn't any conflict if the protagonist simply waltzes through the story, but there also isn't any conflict if the antagonists (be they animate or inanimate) just waltz through the story. If the protagonists never productively engage the antagonists (even in an inevitably futile sense), you don't have any conflict and you don't have a story.
Readers can get invested in a dark and tragic book, but they need some reason to care what happens. There needs to be productive conflict, even if the protagonists are fated to fail. There needs to be some reason to care about what happens to the main characters and their struggle - not like, necessarily, but care. There needs to be some mystery in how things turn out. Not necessarily if the protagonists will succeed or fail (there's a slew of books where the heros' eventual winning is never in doubt), but more of how they're going to succeed/fail. All of that is achievable with a "dark and tragic" book (as pointed out in examples in other answers).
A final note - you will inevitably get some subset of your readers who won't like your book because of the dark tone, or the fact the protagonists almost never win, or that it's lacking any "likable" characters, etc. That's okay. Not every book has to appeal to every reader.
Answer: I know that my answer might get lost in the hundreds of helpful answers above, but I'll just pitch in.
I find that if a story is too dark/sad, it gets a bit depressing. If the characters hardly ever win and the villain is always victorious, then it makes the reader want to throw the book on the floor with loath.
So here are some tips for your story...

Don't make the story too dark that is, from a reader's perspective, miserable.
At the same time, don't make your story so happy-go-lucky that the reader is bored. I've read some stories where the character is carefree, and it's boooring!
Make your story exciting. If you're writing a mystery story, give a sense of suspense and adventure.

And most importantly...

Keep the reader hooked!
Answer: I've recently finished reading Donna Tartt's 'The Goldfinch', which sold exceptionally well.  It starts very depressingly, and things just get consistently worse.  The moments of lightness are incredibly brief, there is no comedy, and everyone seemed to love it.
Answer: On the contrary, I think readers are more likely to lose interest if the work isn't dark enough.  Barring young children, no one wants to read a book in which the heroes easily accomplish all their goals, the villains never really posed a threat, and nothing was ever really at stake.  Obviously some readers will be turned off by constant, unyielding darkness, but constant unyielding success seems like it would be even worse.  How do you have a meaningful central conflict if the protagonist never faces any difficulty?
Comment: I'm saying the protagonist face ONLY difficult and the only light side to the whole story is that the two main characters go through it together
Comment: It depends on the genre. If you are writing a romantic comedy, no one would expect a world-endangering supervillain, or people dying all around.
Comment: It does not depend on genre.  All fiction needs a central conflict.  Sure, a romantic comedy would likely have a much lighter tone than an epic fantasy, but there must be problems to overcome.  The lovers can't meet and then immediately live happily ever after.


Move a notebook from Phone to OneDrive

Question: Problem
I have a Windows Phone 8. Its OneNote app has two notebooks. One of the notebooks has "Phone" as its location, the other has "SkyDrive" (now OneDrive) as its location.

Shaun's Notebook - Phone
BigFont Notebook - SkyDrive

I would like to move "Shaun's Notebook" from its current location to SkyDrive (now OneDrive.) How do I do this?
What I Have Tried

I have looked for settings on the phone that allow me to move "Shaun's Notebook" to a different location.
I have logged in to http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/my and looked for settings there.
I have plugged my phone into my Windows 8.1 computer via USB. Then, I have looked for ways to move "Shaun's Notebook" both with the File Explorer and the Windows Phone App.

In all cases, I haven't found a way to move the notebook from "Phone" to "SkyDrive."
In Windows 8.1 there is a process for moving a notebook. We open OneNote, then choose File > Settings > Properties > Change Location. How do we do this with Windows Phone 8?
The Big Deal
The big deal here is that I have dozens of notes in "Shaun's Notebook" on my phone. These are not backed up. These are not accessible from anywhere except my phone. If I were to lose my phone or if it were to die, it seems that I would lose all these notes. That's a very bad thing.
A workaround, of course, is to start taking notes only in "BigFont Notebook", because it is stored also in SkyDrive (now OneDrive). I'm afraid this doesn't solve the problem of backing up my existing notes.
Some Research

Unless you save your notes in the OneNote notebook that is automatically created on your Windows Phone device, all of your notes, complete with images and sound clips, will be synchronised to the cloud, most probably your SkyDrive account.
  - All About Windows Phone

This might be the source of the problem. "Shaun's Notebook" might be the one that OneNote "automaticaly created" and thereby does not sync with SkyDrive.
Answer: I encountered the same problem on my iOS Notes app on my iPad. I had to just cut the entry, then paste it to a new note at the preferred destination. In your case, this is the OneDrive notebook. Even with a few dozen entries, you will be finished with the manual process before you get another answer.

Move a notebook from Phone to OneDrive


What is the cheapest way to get from Thailand to Australia with a car?

Question: Imagine I have a car in Thailand and I want to get Australia, is there any ferry that cross from Asia to Australia? How much is it? No problem if have to drive to another country or if there is no direct ferry and must take a combination of transports.
Comment: cheapest = "least expensive", but you are right: $3000 is too expensive for me, I'll explore new options (the idea is to stay a couple of month in Australia and then return)
Comment: More details please! Are you importing the car to stay in Australia, or will you drive across another sea and leave again? By "cheapest" do you mean "cheap" or "least expensive"? By that I mean $3000 is "cheaper" than $5000 but whether you consider $3000 "cheap" is subjective. More in [my answer below](http://travel.stackexchange.com/a/7210/140).
Comment: I believe the duty on cars to Thailand and to Australia from Thailand are nil after the signing of the free trade agreement between the countries. I hear though that Thailand is not living up to its obligations.
Comment: This should be in expats forum, not travel forum.  Moving a car between countries that do not border each other via land and all the work required implies a long term commitment to stay in that country.
Answer: I can't help with the logistics of actually getting the vehicle between Thailand and Australia, however despite what is and isn't possible there, there's no cheap way to do what you're asking.
Australia has a relatively strict process for approving imported vehicles, which would normally only be worthwhile if the car was in some way special.  If the vehicle is left-hand drive (ie, the steering wheel is on the left) then there are even stricter rules regarding importing.
You can most of the details in the Importing Vehicles to Australia Brochure.
If you are only planning to import the vehicle temporarily you can get by with having a Carnet de Passage en Douane (CPD), but even this will not be cheap — especially as you'll have to pay for transportation in both directions.  There have been a few other questions here regarding CPD that you'll be able to find by searching.
Unless there are (very!) special circumstances, selling your car in Thailand and buying a new one in Australia will work out much cheaper than trying to transport it.
Comment: Thailand we drive on the left like the UK, Japan and Australia, so steering wheel is on the right (right hand drive). Cars in Thailand are chartged up to 400% import tax (coming in) - so a newish car will have cost a lot of money compared to Australia, so it may be worth while to export it. However, I would think he is best to sell it (prices hold very well here - almost no secondary depreciation even after a decade or more) and buy again, he will probably make money out of it.
Comment: There is high import tax in Thailand, you are better off selling it -- since you sell the value of the import tax along with the car.
Answer: I can't tell you the absolute cheapest, but I can tell you it's not commonly done. It is however uncommonly done - by people on "adventure" trips, challenges, etc.
One current such adventure I could think of is "It's on the Meter - World Taxi Challenge". I had heard that they had travelled with their London Taxi from England to Australia so did some searching for how they got to Australia.
In a Wall Street Journal article linked from the Wikipedia page I found this line which may be of interest to you:

When they ran out of land between Singapore and Darwin, Australia, the cab was loaded onto a cargo ship at a cost of $3,000.

So I don't know whether you regard $3,000 as "cheap" or not. If you're on a weekend jaunt to Australia in some old banger then perhaps not, if you're fulfilling a childhood dream or drunken bet to drive to Australia in some bizarre or interesting jalopy and would be doing it anyway for the adventure, then perhaps this is a good ballpark figure.
Answer: If you want to bring it back here (to Thailand) you will almost certainly have to pay import tax on it (even if it was Thai to begin with). Prices hold very well here with secondary depreciation almost nil (primary depreciation is when it is first bought and goes from new to second hand - this is still low in Thailand) and prices hold for more than a decade easily on well maintained cars. Also, if it was a foreign model (i.e. not assembled in Thailand) then it would have had up to 400% import tax applied to its price when purchased.
All this means it will be cost effective to sell it here (Thailand) and buy again in Australia - you will probably be able to sell a reasonably new car (say 5 year old) and still make money after buying new in Australia (like for like models of course).
There is no ferry - it is half the globe away! Like a ferry to South Africa! Only way is to ship it.
Comment: Think you missed my point there Ivan - I was implying that it is too far (as it is from Thailand to SUD) - not trying to sell tickets on a new venture. Anyway, can I interest you in a second hand bridge?
Comment: A ferry from Thailand to South Africa? Really? That's very interesting :)
Comment: Ah! Ok, fast reading problem :) No, the idea is to drive with my own car from India, then leave the car in Australia (very old car)


Installation testing is part of functional or non-functional testing?

Question: In your test strategy/testing where would the installation testing (set-up/deployment with or without installer) belong? Is it a part of functional testing or non-functional testing?
Comment: I am not sure what functional vs. non-functional means in your context, but installer testing is its own beast.
Comment: @user246: I derive the functional/non-functional distinction from Brian Marick's [testing quadrants](http://www.exampler.com/old-blog/2003/08/21/) which has been eloborated in the book [Agile Testing](http://www.agiletester.ca/downloads/Chapter__9x_Quadrant_Summary_v3.pdf) by Lisa Crispin and Janet Gregory as well..for me business facing tests are mostly functional and technology facing tests make up for the non-functional requirements...although none of these talks specifically about installation testing and hence I largely agree with you that it is its own beast (depending on the context)
Answer: For me it's a non-functional requirement, even if the key users have some requests regarding the instalation folder location (for better integration with other software packages).
UPDATE:
The tests for the available features detection are still placed in the functional requirements area, given that:

the software can be bin-deployed in some cases, and some optimized libraries can be made available after the manual installation
some libraries are available only for some platforms (like .NET 4.0 only, or Python 2.x only)

A small example: the deployed software should detect and use a CUDA-enabled GPU. There will be 3 sets of tests:

for the normal code path
for the CUDA code path
for the correct CUDA detection (the GPU can be upgraded/downgraded after the installation)
Comment: I like the way that you flushed this out to make your answer more specific.  I'd give another +1 if I could.
Answer: I would agree with alexandrul's answer, with a few small caveats.
First of all, it depends on what the installer does.  If it's just a plain normal install, it would fall under non-functional.  If there are options in the installer that greatly affect the functionality of the application (ie: add/don't add specific features), I would normally put it in my functional testing (back when I still considered the seperation of the two important).
Answer: Lyndon makes some good points, it does depend on what your installer does.  When I have worked with them in the past, mostly I deal with SaaS and not so much with client apps anymore, but there were a few in my past jobs and we mostly had functional tests for them.  The rationale was we were not just dealing with installs, although that was there, but we needed to deal with uninstalls - which is something most people forget.  The expectation I have is when I uninstall a piece of software I expect my environment to reflect that software being completely gone, because if I reinstall it should be as if the software had never been there.  If that is your requirements, some applications do want to leave something in place because of trial/buy versions and want to be sure that you are not reinstalling the trial version over and over again to avoid buying it.  So in addition to what alexandrul notes I would also check:

Uninstall, all expected items removed (code, directories and/or registry entries)
Reinstall
Maintenance (Repair install), usually the one that fixes an install of the software in case of issues
Comment: Yes.  Moreover, the installer may need to behave differently depending on which previous version of the software was installed.  Upgrades are particularly treacherous.
Comment: +1 I have a tendency to trust the installer and focus on feature-detection parts, but that's a risk that might not be acceptable for most applications.
Comment: Yes, and upgrades with different versions also just adds to the test matrix.  +1 for treacherous, I've seen that in play just for stuff I had bought.
Answer: As I indicated in this reply Accessibility Testing - Should it be considered functional testing or non functional testing? I like the following definitions from http://www.lessons-from-history.com/node/83 "a functional requirement specifies what the system should do" "a non-functional requirement specifies how the system should behave"
We have always treated setup/upgrade testing as functional testing because we are essentially testing what the the installer engine should do. Of course, with complex installer packages with multiple configuration dialogs you also have a behavior element as well.
You might also want to check out http://www.testingmentor.com/imtesty/2011/02/21/state-transition-testing-thinking-in-models/ for an example of testing flow, and also combinatioral testing for testing complex configuration matrices for setup/upgrade.
Answer: I don't agree with the idea that "if there is a refined specification of installation it's functional otherwise not".
Thinking in that way is like "do not describe in detail your non-functional requirements or they become functional".
I think that non-functional requirements need to be well specified. And they continue to be non-functional.
Apologies for my bad english. I'm improving it
Answer: Functional testing deals with checking the functionality of a system or application works as expected. You give certain inputs and check whether you get the expected output. You will usually use some sort of heuristic to tell whether result is expected or not.
Non Functional testing deals with checking the non-functional aspects of systems such as performance, reliability, scalability, usability etc.
Keeping the above definitions in mind, I think installation testing could be function/non-functional testing based on the context. I am saying this because when I do installation testing I-

Delete the app and install the new app
Delete cache, uninstall app and install new app
Install app over existing app
Install app over Wi-Fi/4G/Bluetooth/USB

and do more scenarios
All the above scenarios are trying to see how the app reacts/functions based on different actions. Some of these could be mentioned as part of the acceptance criteria then it becomes functional testing but we could also try the above scenarios to see how the app performs and reacts to different types of common user actions, then it could be non-functional testing. So, it is hard to categorize them into one single bucket of functional or non-functional testing. This is especially true when testing mobile applications. These are just my point of view.
-Raj
Answer: I found it interesting the timing of your question with this well written blog on Installation Testing:
http://lauralistar.wordpress.com/2011/07/18/software-installation-uninstallation-testing/
Answer: Seems like if there are requirements around the installation, then it's a functional test.  If there's a user story which includes the installation, then it's a functional test.  Lacking those, it's a non-functional test which needs to be covered when considering all of those other non-functional aspects of the application under test.
Also, Squirrel makes a good point in that it really doesn't matter as long as it's done.
Comment: What do you mean by "there are requirements"? That there is a requirements specification document? Also, note requirements can both describe what the system should do (functional part, according to Bj Rollison's answer) and how it should behave, e.g., is it fast enough (non-functional parameter). Though, the latter is less commonly documented.


Stack Exchange API - Get Watched Tags for a User

Question: Is there a way to get a list of tags that the user has set up as "Watched Tags"? If not, is it on the roadmap?
Answer: No, this information is not exposed via the API (and it's not available in SEDE either). At the moment, your best bet is probably to scrape the tag notifications page, though this only works for your own account.
A similar question (asking for the number of users watching a certain tag, instead of the other way around) was posted here on Meta Stack Exchange. User @rene found a way to scrape it from the website; see here for his solution. It could be that the rename / new functionality (tag favorites -> tag watching) broke it, I haven't tested it.
Comment: @acron huh, I guess you're right. Not sure what I was thinking back then. I've updated the answer with an alternative.
Comment: This answer does not relate to the question. OP is asking for "Watched Tags for a User" whereas the referenced links are for "Number of Users watching a tag"


Do I Need To Change the Tire If the Sidewall Is Damaged Like This?

Question: The front left tire of my car got a sidewall cut as shown in the picture (I am not sure when and how long ago it happened).
I have already read this article (Can this tire sidewall damage be repaired or should I replace the tire?).
But I am still not sure in my situation, should I replace the tire? If yes, should I replace all four tire or only the damaged tire? The car is a Honda CR-V 2014 AWD model, the millage is about 33,000. If yes and I do not replace the tire, what would happen? Just got a flat tire or tire will blast on the road? Thanks.
Comment: Short answer: yes.
Comment: Yes to the first question.
Comment: How old are the tyres?
Comment: @anonymous2, All of them are about 3 years and 33000 miles. They are original tires from new car.
Answer: Long answer:
As @David said, absolutely, change the tire immediately.  In view of the age of the tires, unless they were spectacular tires to begin with, they are probably all due for replacement.  If you do not feel this is necessary, at least replace the other tire on the same axle.
The risk with a tire that is this damaged is that it will burst a huge hole while you are driving, unlike a normal car puncture which is small enough and slow enough that you have time to deal with it.  Am I saying this will kill you?  Possibly.  A blown tire can send your car out of control and... fill in the blanks.  Furthermore, even you succeed in bringing the car to a controlled stop, who knows where you will be stranded for how long.
Better replace it now, since you know the damage is there.  Save lives; drive responsibly.
Comment: As someone who's personally experienced driving along at 70mph before hearing the most enormous bang, feeling the car veer sharply out to one side and watching smoke and fragments of tire fly off back down the motorway from a sudden sidewall blowout, I can confirm you don't want to experience it. We were lucky in that we managed to regain control of the car and stopped safely on the hard shoulder but the outcome could have been very different.
Comment: Also, I don't see the big picture of all the tires, but just from what I see on that one, it looks pretty worn...
Comment: decided to change four tires, buy
`Michelin DEFENDER LTX M/S`, looks like a reasonable choice for snowing drive
Comment: Great choice!  Should do well.
Answer: Yes, replace the tire immediately. I'd recommend replacing both tires on that axle, but not all four unless they are as bald as that one appears to be.
Despite what tire shops will tell you, it isn't necessary to replace all four tires at a time. However, if you have one old / low tread tire and one new tire paired up (both fronts or both rears) you can get slippage between the sides which will wear at the older tire even faster, and can cause traction and ride quality problems.
On a front-wheel drive car, I could see it accelerating transaxle wear, but that's just my instinct and not something I've researched.
While you're at it, make sure there aren't any similar cracks or tears in the other tires.
Comment: Two tires only on AWD is terrible advice. Most AWD vehicles have a spec on how closely tire diameters must match front to rear. Try changing only two tires on a Subaru or an Audi (with 33k on the other pair) and you're gonna have a very expensive repair. My BMW was okay with it, but they also don't have a published limit, and even some BMW owners on forums reported issues in driveability that were remedied by replacing the other two tires to match.
Comment: I don't know how sensitive the Toyota AWD systems are, but by putting new tires on only one axle, you're saving that diff (say rear) from excessive wear, and the old tires on the front axle will do the same, but then the front and rear axles are spinning at different speeds, so you'll be putting excessive wear on the center differential. I'd recommend replacing all 4 tires.
Comment: @MooseLucifer Aside from the most extreme cases, tire pressure is a bigger factor in tire diameter than tread wear. I can't see a little wear being a significant cause of differential stress, especially compared to the stresses induced by driving over differing surfaces.
Comment: At 33k miles, those are likely factory tires that probably don't even have a mileage rating because most factory tires are cheap. It may be worth replacing all four for that reason alone.
Comment: @Lathejockey81 Thanks for the great information. I hadn't considered that AWD was a special case.
Answer: While I agree this is a deep cut, and I do not like seeing the structure of a tire from the outside, keep in mind this is on the sidewall. Ask a tire shop for their advice, I wouldn't be surprised if they tell you to use rubber glue and press the cut back together. The cut has smooth edges.
A cut like this on the rolling surface is an other story altogether. Cuts on sidewalls are usually more forgiving, although this one does look very deep. Go to a tire shop and have them look at it. If you need to replace the tire, then like everybody else, change the 2 on that axle if your other 2 tires are still in good shape.
Comment: I have seen cuts like this before, and never seen one cause a blowout. It may be possible to drive on this for a while, or maybe not another mile. My gut feeling is it just takes one more borderline curb check or other stress to the sidewall to blow it out, and that depends on who is driving and how meticulous they are. Either way, I seriously doubt rubber glue will do much to defend that gash against several thousand pounds of inertia: the air pressure in the tire wants to get out, and will use any excuse it can. I upvoted you, but would still recommend replacing the tire.


Can I mix LL and LR parsing?

Question: I want to go RD parsing with Shunting Yard for expression (for the sake of  easier operator precedences and less left-recusion), is that considered no-good because nobody did that before?
Answer: Using recursive descent in combination with an operator precedence variant for expressions is a very common approach. You might also want to search for Pratt parsing.
An older, now uncommon technique which combines LL and LR parsing is "left-corner" (LC) parsing, which should also be easy to search for.
In practice, the existence of easy-to-use and efficient LR parser generators makes all of these less powerful techniques much less useful. LC parsing was pretty well obsoleted as a technique with the discovery of the LALR algirithm.

Can I mix LL and LR parsing?


How can I add a picture as folder background in Ubuntu?

Question: How could I add a picture as folder background?
For example if I have a movie folder, how I could add its poster as background in this folder?
I am using Ubuntu 12.04
Answer: This function has been removed in the latest Nautilus that is part of Gnome3. This means that this is not at all possible with now, at least not by default, and I could not find any plugins that would make it possible otherwise.
The other, similar file managers like Marlin and Thunar do not have this function either. The KDE file manager, Dolphin, does not, to my knowledge, have this, or at least not by default.
Sorry, but it appears that none allow this right now.


Can I create a Photoshop droplet to resize a batch of images, both portrait and landscape, to the same size?

Question: I want a Photoshop droplet that can resize several images to the same target size.
Of course I can put landscape and portrait images into separate folders and apply a different action on each, but that is so lame.
So I made a script like this:
<code>if (app.activeDocument.width.value > app.activeDocument.height.value) {
    app.activeDocument.resizeImage("920 px", undefined, undefined,
                                   ResampleMethod.BICUBIC);
} else {
    app.activeDocument.resizeImage("455 px", undefined, undefined,
                                   ResampleMethod.BICUBIC);
}
</code>
Which works fine. But the problem is that I need a different script for each different resolution. This could also be solved using the Save for Web command, but I believe that behaves the same way as resizing.
I can ask the user to specify a width inside the script (using a dialog box) but I imagine if I do this inside a droplet, and I drop several files over the droplet, it will show the dialog box for every file. I want to show it only once.
So my question is: is there a better way to create a universal resizing droplet that can ask the desired width/height once for every batch? Or is the only way to create several scripts and droplets, one for each resolution?
Answer: I have an action for resizing my images, where I specify the size in percent instead of pixels. That way the action works for both vertical and horizontal images.
Comment: i could do that changing the dpi. but since i crop some photos the original size is not uniform, so i can't do it this way :(


What visualization method would you recommend for event driven programs?

Question: What visualization method would you recommend for event driven programs? Are there industry standard diagrams, such as flowcharts?
Comment: flowcharts "represent an algorithm"
Answer: UML Sequence diagrams are probably the most universial tool to use. Flow charts are only suitable for the flow through event processing, not for the event triggers themselves.
Answer: The flow of an event driven program cannot easily be represented by a flow chart as it is very much dependent on outside things happening and flow charts just are not geared to that.
One way to visualize the flow of an event driven program is to use the good ol' conversation design diagrams (which I learned when programming mainframes). In these diagrams, you have a symbols representing screens. In the center is the screen under analysis or design. At the top will be the screens from which application logic can lead to the central screen. At the bottom will be screens that you can go to from the central screen.
Of course back in my mainframe days, we didn't have to deal with on-screen interactions like dropping down a menu (though for the top menu we had different diagrams) or opening up/filling out a details section on the same screen depending on the current selection in a list.
To address interactions like those, you could define a "screen" per screen state, but that would mean that the number of screen would grow to unmanageable proportions pretty quickly. Mock ups are probably a better solution here. They are perfectly suited to communicate the design of a screen without getting lost in all kinds of itty-bitty details. They also allow for annotations and other ways to indicate on-screen interactions. And using arrows and labels with the name of a following or preceding screen, transitions to other screens can be indicated thus giving a feel for the major navigation within the app.
Balsamiq ( http://www.balsamiq.com ) is a mock up tool that you can try out online and also use on your desktop. Check it out to see whether it would help in what you are trying to do.
Comment: Reading your answer gave me an idea: how about I include screen shots of my interfaces and then add arrows to the buttons and continue my flowcharts from there?
Comment: @SamanthaCatania: if what you are trying to do is add/link business logic flow charts to your documentation that sounds okay. Otherwise, I am unsure about what you are trying to achieve.
Comment: It's just for documentation purposes
Answer: If you want to visualize a chain of events, an UML sequence diagram might be something you can start with. If you are looking, however, for a general approach to model event based programs, where the order of events is intentionally left out, then Flow Design may be the right thing for you.
Comment: Why sequence over [state machine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UML_state_machine)?


iPhone 3.0 sdk install into device issue

Question: I cannot install my application into device using iphone3.0sdk, xcode give me this message:

no launchable executable present at path

In my group window, the product folder contain the name1.app file, but is outlined with red color, and always remain there. Even thought I have changed my product name to name2 the message always said that the name1.app cannot be found in path, but my current product name is supposed to be name2.app already.
Build on the simulator is fine, the product app file will change based on the product name but not working when install into device.
Answer: You have to go in the settings of the builder, change to "Realese", and type the same name as the one of your application.
Get back in debug mode, then clic "build and debug".
It work perfectly ;)


Cannot locate corev4.css file

Question: I would like to change the theme corev4.css of my sharepoint site. Unfortunately, I can´t locate it neither on the server nor in sharepoint designer. I read that it should be located in a style library folder, which I cannot find inspite of selecting "view all site content" on the server.
Answer: You must first look into the best practices for branding SharePoint 2010. As PlanetWilson added earlier you should not consider changing system level css files as it will effect your entire farm.
Rather create overrides for styles through a custom css file and include the link to the stylesheet in the masterpage of the site where you want your styles to be applied. SharePoint 2010 additionally gives you the option of loading any css file after corev4.css through a masterpage directive
After=corev4.css.
corev4 and other system level css files are located in the 14 hive(C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\1033\STYLES) since you wanted to know whey they are physically located.
This should help you get started : http://sharepointbrandingauthority.wordpress.com/2010/03/17/overriding-core-css-files/
Answer: You should be overriding the styles with a custom CSS rather than changing the core one. Why not do that instead?

Cannot locate corev4.css file


Use Stack Overflow answer in GPL software/how to ask for permission?

Question: I found two nice functions on Stack Overflow that I would like to use (slightly modified) in my software. The software will be GPL-licensed (I link against GPL-libraries, so there is no choice). Unfortunately the code here is released as cc by-sa, which is not GPL-compatible. An answer on Meta Stack Exchange said I would need to contact the authors and ask if I´m allowed to use their software under the terms of the GPL, that´s why I registered here. Unfortunately there is no way to contact a Stack Overflow-user, so I tried to ask in a comment, but for that I need 50 reputation. I don´t like reinventing the wheel, so what should I do?
Comment: Users with 50 rep or more can leave comments below the post, so if you don't have a contact email or some other way to contact the user, then earn 50 reputation and leave a comment.
Comment: This is why I have a comment on my profile that all my code in the Stack Exchange websites is public domain.
Comment: As stated in my answer to the question 'stdout/stderr redirector', the code listed in my answer is absolutely free to use by whomever wants to. I can attach a BSD or GPL liscense if necessary although I probably will not be able to until tomorrow.
Comment: Neither CC nor PD are good licenses for releasing code (the disadvantages of which have already been analyzed elsewhere on the *intertubes*). I believe something like the X11 license would have been a much much better default. Personally, ever since I started caring about licensing, I simply consider any fragments from SO to be unusable. Of course, I can partially understand why the choice was made and what other difficulties would arise from making another choice.
Comment: In the mean time those 2 answers have received a comment, asking the posters to look over here. Just wait a bit.
Comment: @asmeurer. For various legal reasons, [WTFPL](http://www.wtfpl.net/) may be a better choice for you. Another option, closer to what you have now, might be [PD-Self](http://meta.stackexchange.com/a/165090).
Comment: That are the functions I use: A [CSV Parser](http://stackoverflow.com/a/2481126/3962803) and a [stdout/stderr redirector](http://stackoverflow.com/a/24796475/3962803)
Comment: Read it, learn from it, and write your own.  Chances are, you'll find that your own code needs to do something slightly different, anyway.
Comment: You can link against LGPL libraries in non-(L)GPL code. But if you copy-paste code from StackOverflow, that's not linking, that's reusing, and so by the LGPL terms your code has to be (L)GPL.
Comment: Line 192 of https://github.com/DrPaulBrewer/html5csv/blob/master/html5csv.js has a RF4180 CSV Parser in Javascript.  GPLv3, untested, but no complaints so far.  It also has to scan one char at a time, and looks like it could be rewritten in C without too much trouble.
Comment: Spoiler alert: it's offtopic.
I entered phrase in my favourite search engine:
last line of code richard stallman
and found it interesting:
https://github.com/github/hubot-scripts/blob/master/src/scripts/stallman.coffee
Comment: Would it help if you added a link to this particular code snippet? That way, its poster could contact you (that is, if you had some contact information in your profile), or possibly you could discuss it in a chat room.
Comment: @Sir Digby Chicken Caesar - if you attach GPL license to it, it can only be used in GPL. I suggest you'd better attach LGPL license.
Comment: I think [CC0](http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) should be mentioned in a discussion like this. Thank you for reminding me of adding a disclaimer to that effect to my SE profile.
Comment: @r.pankevicius LGPL can still only be used from (L)GPL. If you want anyone to be able to use it, make it MIT or CC0.
Comment: @asmeurer Now I use chrome, type chrome://credits/ into address bar and find license for talloc they use. It's LGPL 3. Chrome browser isn't GPL.
Comment: A summary of most common licensing options: https://gabrielmoraru.com/software-licenses-are-complicated/
Answer: I'll write an answer for you if nobody else can't do it.
1st I must admit that I don't have any experience in writing GPL software so it shouldn't be the best answer. Remember it, upvotes and downvotes simply do not matter in place like this. RMS won't be here to defend or blame me simply because stackoverflow doesn't run a software that gives 4 essential freedoms to use it. Simplified: stackoverflow  isn't compatible with GPL.
So (and what I learned from this discussion with the help of people who commented your good question) : if some nice guy pastes some good code here... it's put under cc by-sa 3.0 license automatically. (cc by-sa 3.0 isn't compatible with GPL; that's what GPL religion leader(s?) say) So watch out what you paste!
It seems that it's better to paste code in more safe place (pastebin (needs to be verified)), github, etc. and just give a link to your code in stackoverflow.
Aftermath: I think this is the best and safest answer in your situation now:

Read it, learn from it, and write your own. Chances are, you'll find
  that your own code needs to do something slightly different, anyway. –
  Paul 2 days ago

(And upvote Paul's comment, of course.)
LEGAL NOTICE: You shouldn't trust my advice without consulting with a lawyer. Today lawyers know about software much more than programmers do.
Comment: Oh, come now.  If you put SO code in a GPL project and have a link to the question, that should be all right.  Don't link to the full long URL; it's too big, just cut it down to the minimum.  e.g. `http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/271293/` and not `http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/271293/use-stack-overflow-answer-in-gpl-software-how-to-ask-for-permission`.  That is about as compatible as I can think you can get: attribution, sharealike.
Comment: "Today lawyers know about software much more than programmers do."  wat?
Answer: Creative Commons created a special exception for CC-BY-SA-4.0 to reuse CC-BY-SA-4.0 code in [L|A|]GPL-3 licensed code. Hence, when/if StackOverflow change to using CC-BY-SA-4.0 it would be possible. CC-BY-SA-3.0 doesn't include the special exception for GPL3 in its (currently empty) list of exceptions and may not be compatible with any(?) other license except CC-BY-SA-3.0.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html#ccbysa
Update: Actually, as @Deduplicator says in a comment below, CC-BY-SA-3.0 licenses are forwards compatible and can be updated to CC-BY-SA-4.0 by users so it already works
Comment: cc licenses can generally be ported to a newer version of the same license. That way the specific edorsement of [L|A|]GPL-3 already works with one extra-hop.


Why am I always sticking to minor keys?

Question: When I'm improvising on my keyboard, or trying to compose a melody, I always find myself playing in a minor key -- and never a major one. (For keyboard it's usually G minor or D minor, but that I guess is more a question of fingering -- I've never had any musical formal training so I might have developed some fingering that is more suitable for that particular keys.) I certainly tried it but somehow it feels very hard to do. The same also happens when I'm listening to music -- I often skip tracks which sound obviously major (sometimes it's hard to tell because of difficult harmonic progressions involved though). It's not that pronounced when I'm listening, I just tend to stick to minor keys, but when I'm composing or improvising, it happens all the time. And the same thing -- it is hard to "push through" such a piece of music, that's why I often skip them. Is there any "scientific" (psychological?..) explanation for this? Is it something I should accept (well, I really do like sad/dark/tragic/horror/etc music!) or is it something I should (at least) try to overcome -- particularly, when composing?
Comment: Is your name Leonard Cohen? :) Do you consider yourself an introvert?
Comment: I prefer minor sounds too. :) I suggest playing with mixolydian scales instead of major ones - I personally like the sound of the lowered seventh and think you might as well.
Comment: I actually think you're pretty normal!  Major keys are for nursery rhymes and Christmas carols (obviously joking, but you get what I'm trying to say).
Comment: Perhaps you simply have a subconscious preference for more sad melodies? :)
Comment: @LeeKowalkowski, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVKYg2gY7EQ (Although, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen is my favourite Christmas carol anyway…)
Comment: Good to know I'm not alone ;)
@creator as for the latter question -- yes, definitely :)
Comment: Because you're a minor musician. Baba boom. Yacka yacka.
Answer: First off, I'm going to say that many people have key preferences and there's nothing wrong with that. If you want to adapt to major keys for listening or writing, it's all a matter of preference. And not all songs in minor keys have to sound sad; there are several examples of this. Panic! at the Disco, for example.
Each key has different components and progressions. Different sounds cause different psychological reactions, including release of chemicals in the brain. It's what causes emotional responses to music.
Other factors are associations and experiences. Someone who grew up listening to minor keys tends to prefer them later on. There's also a tendency to like familiarity. If you hear something that sounds like something you already like, you're more likely to like it (wow there's a lot of likes in that sentence). Liking certain genres of music or artists, for example.
Cultural associations also play a role in the music one prefers, which you can read more about here http://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/the-science-of-music-why-do-songs-in-a-minor-key-sound-sad.
Comment: Very good point about familiarity! It becomes very noticeable when I play keyboard after a long break. I can instantly hear then that I tend to choose more familiar sounds (by sounds I mean melodic moves, harmonic progressions etc.). That is I understand is partly because of the lack of technique but also because I like that it sounds familiar. What can I do about it? (It's I guess becoming a different question, but still.) Logically thinking, both lack of technique and limited sonic (melodic, harmonic etc.) variety can be treated by playing various pieces -- or maybe even playing them by ear.
Answer: This one is very speculative, but it does make some sense.
I say, one reason why many musical people aren't attracted to major keys as much, in particular on piano, is that the 12-edo tuning isn't able to render a properly in-tune (i.e. just intonation 4:5:6) major tonic. Thus it won't ever sound quite satisfying to a fine ear. If major keys sound allegedly "happy", then they do somehow falsely, unnaturally so when played on a 12-edo instrument alone.
Now, in principle this is no different for minor keys – indeed the 12-edo minor third is even less "accurate" than the major one when compared to just 5:6.
But minor chords, it appears, aren't heard quite analogously to major chords byt our ears; we don't so much hear a single batch of ratios 10:12:15 as two independent notes fundamental and third, which both happen to have a harmonic relation to the third note. That indirectness, plus a weird but plausible nearby alternative just interpretation 16:19:24, seems to make the minor chord more "malleable" than the major, whose ratios are just to obvious to be mistaken for anything else. In that sense, minor keys are rendered better by 12-edo tuning than major keys.
Though 12-edo is nowadays pretty much universal on keyboard and fretted-string instruments, what I call good music almost always has some "correction" of intonation in it – singers and string instrument players certainly do this to some degree. Listen to some Barbershop singing, classical string quartet playing etc. – quite possibly you'll find the major keys much more pleasing in these styles than in 12-edo dominated e.g. modern pop.
Comment: +1 That's what I was thinking myself though I mistakenly considered minor keys being less affected by moving from just intonation to 12-edo. But I think I don't fully understand your explanation about minor keys being more "malleable". Can you please clarify here a bit?
Comment: @ethc: in a major key, you'll typically have a fat bass note whose 5th harmonic matches directly with the third you're trying to play... but can't. In a minor key, the detuning is more subtle; the third doesn't have a very clear relation to the fundamental at all here (the 15th harmonic isn't usually audible very clearly), and the fifth to which it might have a stronger relation normally isn't played as loudly as the fundamental. So the discrepancy from just intonation is better "hidden" in a minor chord than it is in a major chord.
Answer: This is very interesting, since I once found myself in this situation.
In addition to AxxieD I'd like to add:
10 years ago, I only played minor scales. Mostly because it felt "more natural" and I had a more easy access to playing minor scales and progressions. I asked the exact same question during a lesson. My teacher asked me why I think I only play minor keys and I told him that I like the sound more. He said something that I'll probably never forget: "Well, you're the musician. If you don't like the sound of a major key, play it the way you like it."
It took me some weeks to figure it out, but at least it made me experiment with major keys until I was comfortable with them.
Hope this helps!
Comment: I guess I should also take some time figuring this out but I'll definitely try it.
Answer: Just some minor additions to an almost perfect answer by @AxxieD
Minor scales are believed to be more depressing/sad than the major scales which is probably why you like them. Also it depends on your mood.
But that is not always the case! A specific combination of notes of the minor scale can also make it sound happy/like a major scale. Similarly a combination of notes in a major scale can sound like a sad/minor scale.
Also one has to keep in mind the beat that is being used. Sometimes a funky beat can make a minor scale sound happy too!
Another reason may be that you have probably heard a lot of pieces of piano that had a sad backdrop and hence that's what you end up improvising.
Comment: +1 for "minor additions", nice pun :) Also very good points about minor keys sounding "happy" and about beat.
Answer: I find minor keys attractive. I noticed that about 90% of my stuff is based in minor keys. I do have secondary themes or choruses or the like in major keys. I'm not sure why. In one sense (and this is only an opinion) is that modulation to another key seems harder but more obvious to a listener than modulation between minor keys.
Another reason I may like minor (other than I just like minors better than majors, I prefer Ginger Rogers to Ray Milland) keys better is that there are more "diatonic" chords in a minor key. The dominant chord may appear as either major or minor and the subdominant may do the same. On the other hand, Augmented Sixth chords, Neapolitan Sixths, and the like sound more "dramatic"[?] in a major key. These chromatic chords seem to me to usually be "farther" from the home key (or at least more alien.) Note that Mozart and Beethoven really preferred major keys to minor for big works.
I try to combat this tendency by forcing myself to write something in a major key every so often.

Why am I always sticking to minor keys?


I have no GUI after signing in

Question: Changed my power settings so that it would do nothing when I shut the lid on my laptop. Then I had to restart to get the settings to work. After that, when I get to the sign-in screen where I can write my password, after I log on I can only see my wallpaper, no dock or activites bar or anything. I can't even access terminal with superkey + T. I'm running Loki.
Comment: You can use ALT+CTRL+F2 to open terminal (also works with F3, F4...). ALT+CTRL+F7 Returns to GUI.
Answer: This happens to me sometimes as well. I have yet to find the root cause of it or a real fix.
What helps in my case is to press ctrl+alt+F1 to go to a terminal. Log in with your user credentials and type
startx

to (re)start X.
Then, press ctrl+alt+F7 to go back to your desktop.
As a security precaution, I would recommend (if this works) to go back to ctrl+alt+F1 and type
exit

to make sure your user is logged out of this terminal environment.

I have no GUI after signing in


Do swarms show intelligence?

Question: Can you think of collective and swarm behaviors as "intelligence"? Would such a concept apply to a) ant colonies and b) fish swarms?
Answer: Intelligence is something which has to have a definition, and there are many, but I would cautiously say no.
The reason that I say this is because swarming behavior can be largely reproduced by a simple set of rules - matching distance to your neighbors and direction and speed as well.  To me this really removes any intention or even conscious element to swarm behavior although its clear individuals do make decisions, they don't have to be more intelligent than a mouse looking for food or other kinds of animal behavior.
That being said, others have literally built definitions of intelligence inspired by swarming - a decentralized sort of mind which makes decisions based on the interactions of component individuals.  You could argue that our own brains are a similar sort of ensemble, and therefore no more different than our own intelligence if we look closely enough.
So take your pick really.
Answer: When we talk about "artificial intelligence" we are talking about the ability to solve problems not directly specified in the code. It doesn't need to have "intention" or "conscience", as @shigeta suggests. So, I'd say swarms are intelligent, it's just another "hardware" where intelligence appears. Like shigeta said, our own mind is not different in essence from a swarm (just many times more developed).

Do swarms show intelligence?