Why am I banned from posting?

Question: I answered the questions and suggestions, but I am apparently not allowed to post now. Please explain. I apologise if I overstepped somewhere. I'm new to this exchange.
Comment: Vakkoo, please know that the close votes that are showing up are actually voting to migrate your question to RPG Meta, since it's not about roleplaying games but rather how the RPG Stack Exchange site works, so the meta site is the appropriate place for it.
Comment: Even though this question belongs on [meta] the following 2 pages from the [help] should be helpful: [Why are questions no longer being accepted from my account?](https://rpg.stackexchange.com/help/question-bans) and [Why are answers no longer being accepted from my account?](https://rpg.stackexchange.com/help/answer-bans)
Comment: Your answer section is only showing two answers with a total score of -3. Have many of your answers been deleted?
Comment: FWIW, the [tour], [help], [ask] and [answer] provide decent guidance on how to best interact with the site.  I hope you can contribute again when the restriction is removed.  SE sites are not an internet forum; treating a Question and answer collection like a threaded forum discussion doesn't fit this format.  Looking at your two answers, they were ideas and suggestions that weren't supported by the game's rules of play, or by play experience relevant to the question. That is why I suspect they earned down votes.
Answer: You probably triggered an automatic block
See What can I do when getting "We are no longer accepting questions/answers from this account"?
Relevantly:

An automatic filter is in place to ban questions or answers from IP addresses or accounts with a history of extremely poor posts.
To avoid bypassing the filter, its internal rules are a secret, but it is partly based on downvotes cast by other members of the communities. If other members of the site consistently give your posts a low ranking, you should try to identify the reason(s) for this.
To help prevent you from encountering a ban, the system will give you a warning if you are on the road to a ban, and may temporarily prevent you from posting questions or answers for a few days. If, despite these warnings and rate limits, you continue to post too many poorly-received questions or answers, you will be altogether banned from posting more, and you will see the error message.
Answer: The RPG stack can be a tough crowd. Ideally, there should be a clearly correct answer, based on source materials. 'If it happened at my table, I'd rule it like this' style answers often get downvoted not because they are bad in themselves but because everyone has an opinion and generally we are looking for something more.
As Dale has explained, if your posts are poorly received, this will lead to suspensions, although the details of the algorithm are not public.
Comment: This seems to be addressing an ancillary issue, at best. OP's asking why they can't post, not why they are receiving downvotes.
Comment: @TylerH lots of down votes can lead to the triggers that the auto function Dale addresses uses to make a change to an account
Comment: @KorvinStarmast Hence why it's ancillary (versus 'totally unrelated').

Why am I banned from posting?


Is it possible to simultaneously use the dual band(2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz) of Raspberry pi 3 B+ to create an AP?

Question: Is it possible to simultaneously create a single AP on raspberry pi 3 b+ which uses both 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz bands so that users with low end devices can connect to the 2.4 Ghz band and users with latest or high end devices can connect to the 5 Ghz band? If so, what is the hostapd for that configuration?
Answer: It is exactly determined what the Raspberry Pi 3B+ is able to do with its WiFi on-board device. With the command iw you can show what interface combinations are possible. Just execute
$ sudo iw list | grep -A4 "valid interface combinations:"
        valid interface combinations:
             * #{ managed } <= 1, #{ P2P-device } <= 1, #{ P2P-client, P2P-GO } <= 1,
               total <= 3, #channels <= 2
             * #{ managed } <= 1, #{ AP } <= 1, #{ P2P-client } <= 1, #{ P2P-device } <= 1,
               total <= 4, #channels <= 1

This means that there are two combinations possible. With the first combination you can setup one (<=1) managed connection (station aka client connection) together with one P2P-device and with a P2P-client, P2P-GO (P2P group owner). This are in total 3 interfaces are usable at the same time. In this combination you can use two #channels (<=2), e.g. a client connection and a P2P-client. The third interface will have the same channel as one of the others.
With the second combination you can setup one (<=1) managed connection (station aka client connection) together with one AP (access point) and with one P2P-client and with one P2P-device. This are in total 4 interfaces are usable at the same time. In this combination you can use one #channels (<=1).
And this is the answer to the question: it is possible to use two channels on different interfaces (first combination) but as far as you use an access point you can only use one channel (second combination). For more details about this combination you can have a look at Can RPi4 run simultaneously on dual band (WiFi 2.4GHz / 5GHz)?.
It is not possible to have an access point on a Raspberry Pi 3B+ which uses both 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz bands.
Comment: very enlightening answer. upvoted indeed
Answer: I know the OP is almost one year old but I found the OP very interesting and did some research. The Raspberry PI 3B+ uses Cypress SoC CYW43455 for wifi and Bluetooth. The specs of the SoC are impressive but as XTL mentioned earlier this chipset does not support real simultaneous dual-band (RSDB). This is confirmed on this post in Cypress Developer Community.
You will be using Hostapd (Host access point daemon) to build an access point and the specific command used in Hostapd to configure the band is hw_mode and the values to use are "a, b or g" as explained in this other interesting Linux WIFI web page.
Comment: Thanks for the interesting research, in particular the link to the Cypress Developer Community. But the [last comment](https://community.cypress.com/message/168371#168371) there is not true for a Raspberry Pi 3B+. You may look at my answer I have just given.
Answer: I believe the chip is unable to hold two channels at once. It should be possible if you add another radio, such as a USB wifi dongle, that would support the other band and channel. You would end up with two network devices.
I would love to be proven wrong, of course, as it would be nice to support both bands.


Patent #US7032911 - does this block me from doing something very similiar?

Question: I had a very similiar idea with a few small production changes but would have had the same use.  Would this patent stop me from legally producing a similiar item and what are the legal consequences?  I dont want to dump a lot of money into anything I can lose if they take a patent back or for an item that is no longer patentable?
Comment: Might be helpful to link to the patent in question: https://www.google.com/patents/US7032911?dq=7032911&hl=xx-bork&sa=X&ei=2nZsU-bZOIWHogSl6IKoDQ&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAA
Answer: You have two questions: Will you get in trouble if you make and sell a particular handle extender, and can you patent an improvement on an already known handle extenter.
The questions are not as tied together as you might think. As you noticed, US7032911 has gone abandoned for lack of paying maintance fees. A patentee can petition to have a patent revived by claiming the missed payment was either unintentional or unavoidable. Unavoidable is very hard to prove and unintentional does not fly at all after two years. This one is close to two years right now. As a patent no longer in force, this patent can't be used against you. But the thing you plan to make might very well infringe some other patent that is still in force.
Improvements to known things can be granted a patent if the improvement is new and non-obvious. What that amounts to is very specific to the details.


Removing sand-blasting residue from window glass

Question: I had some surface paint removed from my patio floor and some of the sand ended up on the surface of the window near by. It almost looks like it stuck to the glass. Is there any nice way to remove these sand particles without damaging the glass surface?
Comment: If that sand does not wash off with a hose and brush then you will be replacing the glass.
Comment: You should contact who sand blasted and ask them to come out and address. If you try cleaning on your own, they might claim you did it , made it worse by not properly cleaning it, or it was already like that. Also, take lots of pictures of the issue as it stands now
Comment: Sandblasting is used to make "frosted" glass. I have a feeling that won't be so easy to "remove".
Answer: You wouldn't be asking if it just wiped off, which it would if it was just a little bit of low-energy dust caught by the wind.
This tells me the glass was hit by high-energy sand particles, i.e. caught overspray from the blasting proper.  Sandblasting damages glass, and your contractor should've known that.  He has etched the glass (by roughening its surface, removing the gloss, which sandblasting does quite sincerely). I don't believe it can be recovered, and will need to be replaced.


Color meanings in Judaism

Question: Do colors have  a specific symbolic meaning in the Torah?  (For ex. is it brought down anywhere that blue is holy?)
Comment: K.R., welcome to Mi Yodeya, and thanks very much for the interesting question! I hope you'll look around the site and find other material that catches your eye, perhaps including our 35 other questions about [tag:color]. Please consider [registering](http://judaism.stackexchange.com/users/login) your account, which will [give you access](http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/44557/why-should-i-register-my-account) to more of the site's features.
Comment: A good place to investigate might be drashes on the kohen gadol's garb.
Comment: In Kabala there might be a little discussion about this. For example red is Dinim (judgments).
Comment: The discussion on this question might interest you: http://judaism.stackexchange.com/q/15347/3 Please see the book linked in a comment on the question that claims there are no "color terms" in Tana"ch.
Answer: According to the Jewish Encyclopedia:

(a) It has been generally assumed that at times colors are used in the Bible symbolically, either in the ritual, as in the construction of the Tabernacle and in the priestly raiments; or apocalyptically, as in the visions of Zechariah and of Daniel; or, as a literary device, in poetical diction. Philo ("De Vita Mosis," iii. 6) and Josephus ("Ant." iii. 7, § 7) attempted to explain the ritual symbolism of colors, but without convincing force (see, also, Baehr, "Symbolik des Mosaischen Kultus," Heidelberg, 1874). The apocalyptic symbolism is admitted more generally; yet it fails when tested in detail. Literary symbolism, however, based on a psychological connection between the various color-sensations and moods of feeling, is found among most nations. Yet the relations between a given color and the symbolized objects or moods are not fixed; and they leave room for difference of explanation.
Black or dark color points to mourning or affliction (II Sam. xix. 24; Zech. vi. 6, 8); such was probably also the color of sackcloth used in mourning. On the other hand, white suggests purity (Isa. i. 18; Ps. li. 9) and joy (Mishnah Mid. v. 4). Scarlet or red is symbolical of bloodshed, of sin in general (Isa. i. 15, 18; lxiii. 1), and, in the opinion of some commentators, of vigorous life (Lev. xiv.; Num. xix.). Purple-red denotes royalty and royal splendor (Judges viii. 26; Esth. viii. 15; Dan. v. 7). Purple-blue, used for fringes in the garment of every Israelite (Num. xv. 38), is thought, on the one hand, to symbolize the high dignity of every member of the people of the covenant (compare Ex. xix. 6); and, on the other, to suggest the God of heaven (Gen. xxiv. 7; Ps. xi. 4), because of the same color as the sky.
(b) Color-symbolism plays a great part in the Cabala, where to each Sefirah are attributed one or more colors; and one who wishes to energize the influence of a certain Sefirah has to contemplate, or clothe himself in, the particular color attributed to that Sefirah. White signifies peace, mercy, and pity; black, latency of qualities; red, bloodshed, cruelty, and justice; azure, attributed to the Sefirah of wisdom, is said to denote the first step from black (latency) to the development of color—that is, active energy in general; saffron-color or yolk-yellow is considered a combination of red and white; green is said to be a combination of red, white, and azure; purple-red, a compound of all colors; golden yellow symbolizes cheering, justice, etc.
Answer: "Speak to the Children of Israel and bid them that they make fringes on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of each corner a thread of blue (tekhelet). And it shall be for you as a fringe, that you may look upon it and remember all the commandments of G-d, and do them..." (Numbers 15:38-39)
Suppose Blue (tekhelet) is therefore considered holy
Comment: Why does that mean that the color is holy?
Comment: Welcome to J.SE! Thanks for your answer and hope to see you around.
Comment: Well they put a red ribbon and it turned white to prove they were forgiven. So red symbolises sin and white 'cleanliness'.
Comment: I think its the white not the blue which is 'holier' or symbolises the holiness. Look at the last rashi in shlach that blue symbolises death or killing of the first borns.
Comment: Not in dreams..
Answer: Blue is the color of faith and intelligence/wisdom. Red is the color of sin, and white the color of purity
Comment: Adding sources to this would increase its value to the community dramatically. We don't know you that we should trust your assertions.
Comment: Not in dreams..

Color meanings in Judaism


What is the limit of CPU and real memory usage for android applications?

Question: What is the limit of CPU and real memory usage for android applications?
I would like to know it for iPhone, mac and windows as well. Can anybody help me on this regard?
Thanks in advance...
Answer: It's not that simple.
Some phones have more memory than others. Some have faster CPU's. This is true for all of the systems you cite.
As a vague rule, applicable as I write this in early 2012, a phone application should use some number of megabytes measured with 5 digits.  A Mac or Windows application can generally run into 6 digits, and on increasing numbers of systems: low single-digit gigabyte sizes.
The space used by libraries will need to be considered as well.
Now, most of the time, all of those devices will allow you to use roughly 100% of the CPU time, and it's a soft limit. If they need to run something else they just switch away from your task briefly but you still get 95-99% or so.
Of course, if two programs are running, you each get 50%.
Comment: Any other ideas? there are no theoretical values for cpu and real memory usage?


Setup squid3 proxy server on linux server with 2 ethernet ports

Question: I need to setup squid3 proxy server on my linux machine with 2 ethernet ports(eth0 and eth1). eth0 has an IP address of 192.168.1.2 assigned by a router which provides internet to the system. eth1 is connected to a switch. I need squid3 to serve the switch through eth1. How should I configure eth1? I don't need the configurations for squid3. What should I do?
Answer: If you don't need a transparent proxy, then you don't need to bother giving eth1 an address. All the traffic can be handled by eth0.
If you do need a transparent proxy, you have two options here.
Option 1: Bridge it
Configure both Ethernet faces into a bridge group, and then use iptables to handle the intercept. You assign the virtual bridge interface an IP address.
Option 2: Route it
Configure your Squid server as a router. Install dhcp on it to ensure the rest of your network can get addresses. Then use iptables to handle the intercept.
Comment: Thank you very much. Can you please elaborate the second option?
Comment: @nitish Option 1 is actually a lot easier to set up, but I don't know how big of a network you're working with.
Comment: Ok. Can you please tell me how to do it? Its a small network with less than 20 computers.


How do I determine the amount of a buy out between common law partners in a home owned together?

Question: I currently own a home with my common law partner. We have lived there for 2 years and are now splitting up. Both our names are on the house, and we have paid 50/50 for everything from down payment / renovations / and mortgage payments. He think's that he would like to buy me out, and I am just unsure about how much I am entitled to. How do you calculate this number? I have received a market analysis from a real estate agent to figure out how much our house in now worth, but where do I go from here?
Comment: You should get a lawyer to help with this.  A lawyer can ensure your interests are protected.  No other party in the transaction would be looking out for you.
Comment: I'm in the same boat. My boyfriend and I have split and fortunately we are on good terms. What WE decided together to do, and all he asks is for $10,000 because that was the down payment that HE made. We agreed on this and we both are happy. Is this possible? I sure hope so
Answer: I realize that hindsight isn't much help, but this is the sort of thing that is helpful to have agreed at the time of buying, not the time of splitting up. When I did this (with friends) the lawyer who handled the purchase was very emphatic that we should draw up an agreement as to how the house should be divided.
Moving on to an actual practical solution, the only real way to do this is to find a split that you are both happy with. From what you say a straight 50/50 division sounds appropriate, but it's going to depend on you and your partner. If you can't agree then lawyers will have to be involved, which you would be better off avoiding.
If he wants to buy you out, and its a 50/50 split, and you've been splitting the mortgage payments evenly, you should end up with cash to the tune of half of the difference between the house value and the mortgage (assuming the house value is greater than the mortgage). You are going to need a lawyer to do the ownership transfer, so get them to work out the details. As a final thought, if you no longer own any part of the house, make absolutely sure your name is taken off the mortgage, no matter who tells you it would be simpler to leave it on.
Comment: @DJClayworth - I know from my split up that there is no way I would have been happy with surrendering even my proverbial pot and She was definatly not happy to let me keep it.  But +1 for "make absolutely sure your name is taken off the mortgage".  No statement from the bank assuring you that even though your name is on the mortgage it is completely the responisbility of your partner now means anything.  If something happens and your name is on there they will come after you too.
Comment: Thank you for the replies, good advice. My name will be coming off the mortgage forsure as I have heard this a couple times now. We are still on fairly good terms and trying to be fair to each other, it is not a bad break up, so I guess I am lucky there. Im just trying to come up with a fair number without short changing myself. I appreciate the advice!
Answer: Are you in an area where there are standard lots and similar houses? If so, finding recent transactions on Zillow will help you get to the current price. I'm reading that this is the question, how to get to fair value. If nearby 'comps' are not readily available, you might seek an appraiser.
Comment: @Hailey In Canada there are no capital gains taxes on the sale of your principal residence.
Comment: Thank you, I am in Canada, Zillow doesn't seem to go this far but I will search on other simular sites. I had one appraisal done, but I think an average would be best.
Comment: I didn't realize Zillow stopped at the border. You can go to the local assessors office (or what it's called in Canada) and get some comparables on your own.
Comment: Do you know if I would have to pay any tax on profits I make from this?
Answer: My formula would be

How much would you pay to buy the house now if there was no baggage attached? = a
The Greater of the Market value or (a) above = b
How much is still owed on the house? = c
How badly does he want to keep it on a scale of 1-10? = d

((b - c) / 2)(1 + d/20) = The amount I would ask for.
(a - c) / 2 = The lowest I would accept.
Comment: Thanks alot these are helpful. The formula's give me a higher number then I was thinking. Do you think I need to consider the selling costs to be fair? I was thinking ((b-c) - selling costs) / 2 = #. Would I be short changing myself? Is that not usually considered in a buy out?
Comment: @Hailey - I guess it depends what you mean by selling costs.  Since he already owns the house(In part) I would think these would be negligible.  His loan costs are his loan costs.  You can be as generous with your money as you want.  I think it also depends on how much money is involved.  With just 2 years of payments I would normally expect the equity to be small.  But if you renovated the home then i would assume he will sell right after he buys you out for the full value and make your deal with that in mind.
Comment: By selling costs I mean realtor/lawyer fees that would have to be paid if we did sell. To be fair, didn't want to benefit to much from him buying me out rather then selling. He did say he would sign something stating if he did sell in the near future and made alot more then we thought when we make our deal, he would pay me some of the profit, but I would rather just work it out now. I am not talking huge money, but for me a little can go a long way. We paid off 20k, the market has gone up plus we did a kitchen reno. A real estate agent said we could get 45k more then we paid if we sold now.
Comment: Also, a side issue, he wants me to sign somthing at the bank to change over the pre-authorized payment plan from our joint account to his personal account. Would this have any negative affect on me seeing as we have not worked out our deal yet?
Comment: @Hailey - I assume you are talking about the account where the payments come from.  So long as the payments are made then there should be no problem.  Should he stop making payments and the mortgage never gets turned over to just him then you could get the credit hit too.  As for the fees you shouldnt have any since you are not actually selling the house.  It sounds like you are talking about 30-35k at least so no that is not small change. I would still make sure i got a pay out above my bottom figure though if you do give him some fees.
Answer: If the issue remains unresolved in respect to the house value you may go to the MPAC website where all of the home values in your neighborhood will be listed.


Add wood ash to compost heap

Question: I've seen discussions on this site about adding wood ash directly to the vegetable plot. But I was wondering if it would be better to add it to my compost bin instead?
Answer: Speaking from direct experience, having lived for 20 years in the Canadian woods and heated entirely with a woodstove, it really depends on how much ash there is and whether it has been aged/weathered.
On a number of occasions I have destroyed entire rows of crops in the garden by applying ash that is too fresh too thickly. I thought pieces of rhubarb might send out roots with a little ash in the soil but no go. Too much chemical activity.
My current policy is to put most of the ash directly on my grass plots, allowing the rain to flush the nutrients into the ground for the benefit of the grass and weeds, collect all grass clippings and put the clippings on the compost. Never a problem with this very cautious method which produces very healthy grass and lots of compost. A small portion of the ash goes directly under the fruit trees which have strong root systems and can benefit from the potash. In both cases the ash is spread somewhat thinly, avoiding big dollops (technical term) of ash.
Answer: You can add wood ashes to compost piles, but only in small quantities, because ashes are alkaline and will increase the ph of your heap. Either add  some and mix them in well, or add a thin layer every few inches as you build the heap - the ashes shouldn't be so thick you can actually see them  as a distinct layer once added. There's some guidance here regarding use of wood ashes generally, including in compost - you can certainly use it direct in the garden, but again, only in small quantities, and not around acid loving plants like rhododendron https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=621
Comment: Bamboo, would you please double-check the link? I only get a "page not found" response. Thanks!
Comment: @Stephie - weird, its working fine when I click on it, no idea why its not for you.Hope everyone else can see it....
Comment: I see it just fine.

Add wood ash to compost heap


SpaceX Landing Platform video: why is the rocket moving so fast?

Question:

This is the video of the Falcon 9 first stage attempting a landing on SpaceX's barge. Why is the rocket moving so fast at impact?
Comment: That video shows the same set of frames played back at differing rates. Do we know that the first playback is at 1:1 with the rate at which the frames were captured?
Comment: I assume it, it's looks like the first is the normal speed.
Comment: The first seems sped up from what I recall of the official Instagram video (this is some Russia Today edit)
Answer: It is actually moving quite slow vertically.  It's speed comes from the horizontal component -- which is a result of the vehicle trying (unsuccessfully) to correct its horizontal position.  The vehicle was unable to accomplish this with the aerodynamic control surfaces as intended.  The control surfaces that were responsible for this ran out of hydraulic fluid.
Answer: The Falcon 9 can't hover--even one engine at minimum is too much thrust.  Thus it must do what KSP calls a suicide burn.
Comment: SpaceX calls it a "hover slam".
Comment: @Antilogical Google isn't giving me any non-KSP uses other than stray hits from "...suicide, burn..."
Comment: The term 'suicide burn' has existed long before KSP was popular.
Comment: Hover Slam immediately followed by an RUD! :-)
Answer: The video from the first and second barge landing attempts make it pretty clear that the stage comes in pretty fast.
Because the Merlin 1D engine can only throttle down to 70% and they land on a single (center) engine, so 70% of 165,000 lbs of thrust is about 115.5 klbs. From SpaceFlight101, it lists the mass of an empty first stage at around 23-25,000kg (lets call that 55,000 lbs).
So they can only go down as low as 115,000 lbs of thrust, and they mass on the order of 55,000 lbs, so they have way to much thrust at landing time.
They need to reach 0 m/s speed at 0 meters of altitude, in what SpaceX has called a "Hover Slam". They practiced it on the Grasshopper test vehicle, which they apparently had ballasted to allow for hovering in initial tests of the control systems.
Thus it really is coming in pretty fast. It is also decelerating pretty darn quick. Which is by design.
This is why most speculative BFR projections assume 5-9 Raptor engines, as you want to be able to land close to T/W of 1 if possible. So you want a nice symmetric single engine to land on, and 5, 7, 9, and 13 seem to work geometrically for that.


Processing files with headers in Hadoop

Question: I want to process a lot of files in Hadoop -- each file has some header information, followed by a lot of records, each stored in a fixed number of bytes.  Any suggestions on that?
Answer: I think the best solution is to write a custom InputFormat.
Answer: There is one solution , you can check the offset of line of files that mapper reads .
It will be zero for the first line in the file . so you can add line in Map as follows:
public void map(LongWritable key,Text value,Context context) throws IOException, InterruptedException
        {
        if(key.get() > 0)
                       {
                         your mapper code
                       }
              }

So, it will skip the first line of the file.
However, its not a good way because in this way this condition will be checked for each line in  the file.
Best way is to use your Custom Input Format
Answer: In addition to write a custom FileInputFormat, you will also want to make sure that the file is not splitable so the reader knows how to process the records inside the file.

Processing files with headers in Hadoop


Can a dual citizen enter Brazil with an expired Brazilian passport?

Question: I have dual citizenship, American and Brazilian. Can I travel to Brazil with an expired Brazilian passport, and return to the US with my American passport?
Answer: To enter Brazil you must present a valid travel document (US passport) and a proof of Brazilian nationality (Brazilian passport even if expired, or any kind of document that proves Brazilian nationality)
As recommended in the comments, use your US passport as your main travel document for the airline and present your Brazilian passport for Polícia Federal as proof of nationality. No need to mention the expired Brazilian passport anywhere else.
Source
Comment: This is no longer true. According to the [Brazilian government site](https://www.gov.br/pf/pt-br/assuntos/passaporte/ajuda/duvidas/inicio/inicio-brasileiro-com-dupla-nacionalidade-pode), if you show your other nationality passport and not your Brazilian ID ("RG"), you will be treated as a foreigner. This applies to both when entering or leaving Brazil.
Answer: Depending on how close your trip to Brazil is, which other documents you have and for the sake of completeness, I see 2 additional options (besides the one on this answer) for you:

There's a document called ARB, Autorização de Retorno ao Brasil ("Authorization to Return to Brazil"). In short, ARB it is a document valid for a single trip back to Brazil. Once in the country, it will be seized by the authorities and you'll need to renew your Brazilian passport before leaving the country (or use your North-American one). I'm sure you can contact your nearest  brazilian consulate or embassy and they will provide you one.
If you do have your Brazilian ID with you (Carteira de Identidade) you could use your US passport to enter a neighbouring country (Uruguay, Paraguay or Argentina) and from there use your Brazilian ID to enter Brazil, since it's a valid travel document for trips within those countries


Why are "economics" and "economist" stressed on different syllables while both of them have the same number of syllables?

Question: According to rule No. 4 in this link, the suffix "-ist" does not affect the stress of a word. Hence the stress assignment rule σ → [+stress] / ___ ((˘) σ) ]word should apply to both words. What makes them different from each other?
Comment: "Economy" should be counted in as well.
Answer: Taking economy into account as well, I think the problem doesn't come from the economist, but from economics:
economy has stress on the second syllable.
economist has stress on the second syllable too - hence, adding the suffix -ist doesn't change stress, like the site suggests.
economics has stress on the third (second-to-last) syllable and is thus different. I assume this comes from the suffix -ics; this suffix is not listed on the site, but -ic is and my guess would be that -ics behaves just the same, changing stress from the the second syllable to syllable before the suffix (i.e. -no-).
Therefore, the difference in stress between economy, economist and economics arises regularly due to the suffix -ics in economics, while -ist in econonomist preservers stress and is thereby equally stressed as economy.
This reasoning obviously presupposes economy as the underlying form from which we judge changes in stress. If we took e.g. economics as underlying, then things would indeed look different. But it seems just more reasonable to me to assume the semantically more "basic" economy as underlying and the other forms as derived.
Actually, to be precise, we should anyway start from the root (as econom-y has already undergone derivation and we can not just add a suffix, but most remove -y and then replace it by -ist or ics), and in the root econom- (if this is pronouncable at all - I assume you would find it nowhere free, I think this morpheme has the morphological status of a confix - a lexical morpheme which does not occur free but does not serve as an affix but clearly as a root, also e.g. fanat- in fanat-ic, so one can probably only judge the "standard" pronounciation intuitively and not from an underived form as such an underived form doesn't occur freely for such confix morphemes), stress should be on the second syllable as well - so neither econom-y nor econom-ist differ in stress from the root, like we would expect, while econom-ics does, like we would expect as well.
Under this assumption the stress behaviour fits well with the site's claims.
Comment: Actually when you point out _-ics_ the first word  I thought of was _politics_. But then I searched for a few words with the suffix _-ics_, they are indeed stressed on the syllable before the suffix. Your reasoning seems otherwise persuasive, but is _politics_ an exception to the suffix _-ics_?
Comment: Good point - I don't have a good explanation for the moment why *politics* behaves differently. Maybe the total number of syllables play a role? (*politics* has only two syllables before the suffix while *economics* has three.) I would need to take a look at more examples. Damn, I really thought my explanation worked ;)
Comment: It almost works for me :P [This](https://www.morewords.com/ends-with/ics/) list should suffice.
Comment: Thanks, I was just about to start searching through a corpus for words with *-ics*, but this list seems perfect. (Except for really only looking for the ending *-ics* disregarding its morphological status and therfore also listing e.g. *chics* or *comics*, but most of the words on the list fit what we need.) By quickly skimming that list I found absolutly no word mathing this pattern that would NOT be stressed on the second-to-last syllable, so it seems to me that *pollitics* is really an exception. Maybe stress has changed since this word is so often used?
Comment: [Here](http://english.stackexchange.com/a/303734) is a post discussing exactly our problem. It seems like *politics* is not the only exception, but one out of just a few. If I understand the given expanation correclty, those words differ from the usual pattern due to very specific conditions, so I would think the behaviour described on the site and in my explanation can be regarded as a general rule, from which some words might differ under very special conditions. Not that satisfactory, I admit, but I hope that those are really just special cases.
Comment: I think this problem is basically solved. Sorry for not being able to upvote your answer due to my low reputation :(
Comment: Hooray! I have gained enough reputation now :D
Comment: Yes, the stress of *economist* and *economy* is regular, but *-ic-* forces stress onto the immediately preceding syllable (with some exceptions).  The *SPE* analysis attributes this to the influence of the *-al* which appears sometimes after the *-ic* (as in *economical*).
Comment: @GregLee Thanks, this explanation makes sense to me.
Answer: Peter Roach's fourth edition of English Phonetics and Phonology: A Practical course (2009) has a more detailed list of rules and explanations than your link, if you're interested (Chapter 11: Complex Word Stress).


What is a good strategy to play FreeCol?

Question: How many units of people should remain in the first settlement? Is it better to create more settlements very fast?
Answer: My personal strategy is quite specifically to remove the tools from the initial pioneer. Sell them to a nearby Indian village.
Then use this money in Europe to buy Trade Goods and repeat until you have enough money to satisfy getting of to a good start. As with towns I like to expand at the rate where I can leave at least one piece of artillery in every town from the get go.
That is I don't build a new town until I have artillery and at least one colonist in "surplus" in a nearby village. Secondly I usually don't try to build many more colonies than Indian villages close by as these are usually important resources in the early game.
Later on, this changes more to the number of towns I can reasonably defend and/or towns close enough that trade between them is reasonably quick (i.e. not traversing large strands of map).
Answer: It really depends on your circumstances, if you get more people than a master farmer or fisher can support it's my rule of thumb to expand, but if it's too dangerous to expand, or it would spread you too thin, then don't bother, play it safe. In early FreeCol games it's better to play cautious then to go all out, because early slip ups will cost you your game, I mean, unless you don't mind restarting of course!
Answer: Try getting lots of money at the start by trading with Indian villages and then, when you have lots of money buy people and spread out so you have artillery in each village and that it is making hammers and tools. Then check your docks often to see if villages joined and take them by ship to your cities. By this method you will soon have a big empire which is big enough to destroy the royal troops and make you win. Although before declaring independence, make sure you have about 5 artillery in each city because sometimes the royal troops can break into your towns if you only have one. Although, at the beginning of the game don't worry about this and only get at least one artillery in each city.


How can Digimon come into real world?

Question: As we know, Digimons are digital monsters made of Data in the Computer.
So in Digimon Adventure 01 and 02, all the Digimons come to the real world for a mission. But if they are just a piece of data, then how can they actually come out of the computer and take form?
Data needs a medium to compile and take form and the real world does not provide that medium, it only happens in devices that understand the data.
Comment: Data in the *Digimon* universe is not the same as data in the real world. It's revealed (for sure in DA02, I don't remember where else) that Digimon actually have souls, and this is a result of the Digital World and the real world actually be directly connected. I'll try to get a more solid and complete answer when I have time, if no one else has by then.
Comment: lol it is a premonition of what the future holds
Answer: I remember in Digimon Adventure 2 there being a gate between the Digital World and the Real World which has a "corridor" where anything is possible.
BlackWarGreymon sacrificed himself to protect the Gate which when Mytoismon tried to break though it from the Real World ended up getting trapped in this corridor because of the seal BlackWarGreymon made, this is were we see the Digidestined able to have their partners assume every evolution form at the same time, as the battle continued Mytoismon was pushed back into the Digital World and the multiple forms disappear when they enter the Digital World probably because of Data Limits in the Digital World.
I would assume all travel between the 2 worlds is done though this Gate and "corridor" where the "corridor" is used to make digimon real and turn people into data and some objects into digimon (as seen in Frontier with the trains), the Gate itself probably doesn't have a fixed point.
Comment: Hmm.. this isn't so solid. But i think it pretty much gives an idea of what actually is happening!
Thanks though :)
Answer: It is explained in Digimon Tamers:
When a digimon materializes in the real world, it creates protein and other components from the air and nearby matter (exactly how, if it involves nuclear fusion or not, is unclear) to create a body using energy and data from the digital world.
The same is true when humans travel to the digital world. Their bodies are converted to digital "energy" and this energy is recombined into real bodies. As seen in s2, the clothing can be changed by the mindset of the children.
There is some effort to cross to and from, so usually digimon and children only use gates, places where the boundaries are thinner. Only special digimon like Grani can freely move to and from the digial world.
Answer: Well there is no telling for sure how they can because in Digimon Adventures or Digital Monsters season 2, there is a gate to enter into the digital world and back. And in Digimon Tamers, the Digimon monster that you see Growlmon fight with comes through a vortex somehow, so they probably have many ways. But we will never know for sure if Digimon are real so we do not know if they can come or not.

How can Digimon come into real world?


Why is Vader suddenly a terrible fighter in Return of the Jedi?

Question: In Empire Strikes Back, Vader nearly kills Luke without hardly seeming to try. Then, in Return of the Jedi, Vader hardly fights at all and he's falling down and then Luke cuts his prosthetic hand off. What happened? How did Vader suddenly become so weak?
Comment: "without hardly seeming to try" — Do. Or do not. There is no try.
Comment: +1. related (and possible dupe?): [why-do-the-lightsaber-moves-of-luke-skywalker-look-so-uncoordinated-and-crude...](http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/45283/why-do-the-lightsaber-moves-of-luke-skywalker-look-so-uncoordinated-and-crude-co)
Answer: Early in the fight, Vader is going very soft on Luke, specifically trying to direct the fight as he wishes.
From the novelization:

Vader was impressed with Luke's speed. Pleased, even. It was a pity, almost, he couldn't let the boy kill the Emperor yet. Luke wasn't ready for that, emotionally. There was still a chance Luke would return to his friends if he destroyed the Emperor now. He needed more extensive tutelage, first --- training by both Vader and Palpatine --- before he'd be ready to assume his place at Vader's right hand, ruling the galaxy.
So Vader had to shepherd the boy through periods like this, stop him from doing damage in the wrong places --- or in the right places prematurely.

But Luke has been training since their last encounter, and the Emperor has been egging him on. Luke is flirting with the Dark Side.

Luke stood above him, at the top of the staircase, heady with his own power. It was in his hands, now, he knew it was: he could take Vader. Take his blade, take his life. Take his place at the Emperor's side. Yes, even that. Luke didn't bury the thought, this time; he gloried in it. He engorged himself with its juices, felt its power tingle his cheeks. It made him feverish, this thought, with lust so overpowering as to totally obliterate other considerations.

It's only then that Vader realizes that he has underestimated Luke.

For the first time, the thought entered Vader's consciousness that his son might best him. He was astounded by the strength --- not to mention the boy's timing, which was honed to a thought's breadth. This was an unexpected circumstance. Unexpected and unwelcome. Vader felt humiliation crawling in on the tail of his first reaction, which was surprise, and his second, which was fear. And then the edge of the humiliation curled up, to reveal bald anger. And now he wanted revenge.
[...]
His anger was layered, now --- he did not want to win if the boy was not battling to the fullest. But if winning meant he had to kill a boy who wouldn't fight... then he could do that too. Only he wanted Luke to be aware of those consequences. He wanted Luke to know this was no longer just a game. This was Darkness.

From here on, Vader fights with more skill and ferocity, as one would expect.
Comment: "Luke is flirting with the Dark Side" — *[Joker voice]* Ooooh, you're a big bad *Dark* Side aren't you? *[winks]*
Comment: Wow, the novelization is practically an entirely different story than the film, if these passages are any indication.
Comment: There are a number of major differences that were later retconned out (e.g. Owen is Obi-Wan's brother, Padme lived with Leia for years, one of the Rebel pilots at the Battle of Yavin knew Luke's father), but I don't really see this as one of the big differences.
Comment: This... I think i just missed half of what really happened in the universe. Looks like just watching the movies isn't enough.
Comment: Ugh, that is some of the worst writing I've ever seen.
Comment: And I see in a comment to this question, http://scifi.stackexchange.com/q/2951/47603, that Vader's suit may have malfunctioned, though in all my viewings I've never noticed that.
Comment: The novelizations were always subject to being overruled. The same book (IIRC) described Palpatine as a minor senator that simply took advantage of the chaos surrounding the otherwise undescribed fall of the Republic, rather than the Sith mastermind *behind* the fall of the Republic portrayed in the later prequel movies.
Answer: I think it has less to do with Vader being weaker and more about Luke being stronger, but I think circumstances play a big part as well. But first, consider this:

 Prior to his defeat against Obi Wan

Darth Vader was a formidable fighter. There were not many that would be able to hold their own against him, especially with the Dark Side at his disposal, had he not been forced to wear his clumsy life supporting armor.
Even if he didn't need his suit, he'd still have nobody to fight as the Jedi are thought to be extinct. My point being that lightsaber combat wasn't really a priority for him any more.
Nonetheless, he could easily defeat Luke when Luke was at the beginning of his training, no surprises there.
However, Luke must have been training a lot, and being strong in the Force and with a young healthy body, he would have made excellent progress.
Now, at the beginning of the fight, Luke still has no real chance against Vader, especially since he is more focused on getting Vader back to the light. Since Luke arrived, the Emperor was manipulating him, trying to get him to turn to the Dark Side. This must have been an extremely hard test for Luke, which he alomst, almost, failed.
When Vader mentions Leia, Luke surrenders to the rage. His anger does indeed make him stronger, and he is no longer concerned about turning Vader back to the light. His prior training would be amplified and his only goal is to defeat his opponent. Meanwhile, it is not impossible that Luke actually got through to Vader, which would have had Vader unfocused and confused.
Luke got a sudden huge boost in power, which Vader probably wasn't ready for. This would be especially true if Vader was indeed confused by Luke's earlier persuasion.
Also, note that Luke defeated Vader pretty fast, consider that Vader was able to defend himself for just a little longer. Luke's anger would fade and Vader would get focused. It is very possible that Luke wouldn't be able to defeat Vader if that happened.
Comment: I like the spoiler tag for stuff from the prequel as though it's new still.
Comment: I know people that have yet to watch any of the Star Wars movies, and I recall even surprising someone once by mentioning _____ is Luke's father.
Comment: As for Luke getting through to Vader, learning he has a daughter could have thrown Vader off balance.
Comment: Note that in the Legacy EU, Darth Vader actually continued exterminating the Jedi after the fall of the republic - there were at least dozens left, and he tracked them down, one by one (even falling into a trap when multiple Jedi fought him at once).
Comment: Good point. Though I feel, but I could be wrong, that that happened closer to EPIII than EPVI? Nonetheless, I don't think Vader spent all that much time practising lightsaber combat.
Answer: See, I've wondered that very thing and here's my conclusion.
Luke's attack came in fierce and violent and initially the attack seemed to catch him (Vader) off guard. If Vader were inexperienced in battle I can see him not recovering. Vader, though, is strong and well trained in the Force, reputed to be a great Lightsaber duelist, and a battle tested, battle hardened combat vet.
Though initially being thrown off guard, someone like Vader should be able to recover from the surprise attack. Especially since Luke's attacks were very wild and out of control and missing with the wide swings.
The theory that Vader needed Luke to be ready to kill the Emperor (and please don't think I'm saying you're wrong), seems a bit risky. What if Luke had killed him? My take on it (and I could be wrong) is Vader realized he couldn't bring himself to kill Luke so, facing that possibility, he sacrificed himself.
Answer: TLDR: I laid out a long trail of bread crumbs to show that Vader was actually a lot weaker than we thought throughout the series due to age/injuries sustained as others pointed out.  It was just never brought to light until Vader fought with the internal conflict of light vs dark and fighting his son who had been training hard with yoda.  There never was any REAL test until the last fight where he went against someone who was actually trained.
I seem to be a few years too late to reply to this but going to add in my 2 cents and hopefully add a different angle.  I see a lot of people commenting about how Vader was a great warrior, should have recovered faster or was holding himself back, or even the comment about sacrificing himself.
I think that most of the replies are missing the big key to this though.  As some of the other comments pointed out... it's been a LONG time since vader fought.  Mostly settling into the role of crazy-old-sorcerer who used force powers to make his men work and little usage of his lightsaber.  Due to this, he has had very little training in a more clumsy body.  He is use to a light agile body that reacts as he wants.
The duel between him and obi-wan was really hardly a fight, both old and tired, both just swung their light sabers with barely any body movement in terms of moving with the attacks.  They attacked some, talked some, attacked some and then obi-wan let vader kill him.
When Vader meets up with Luke for the first time in Empire Strikes Back, Luke had barely any training.  Most of it was yoda teaching him to have mental endurance and learn self control but little ability to actually wield a saber.  Even in this fight, vader still BARELY fights him with his saber but resorts to force powers and throwing objects at Luke to wear him down.  Even in the carbon chamber, there was hardly any actual fighting as Luke spent most of it evading a few attacks.  By time they actually started to do any light saber fighting, Luke was already worn down by all the objects thrown at him and lost his arm.
In return of the jedi, Vader already showed signs of weakness from the start.  Contemplating and focused on his son.  You can see that something was tearing him apart mostly likely due to the thoughts that his son was ACTUALLY alive and well after 20 years of believing that he killed his child before birth.  This is going to force a lot of mental strain after years of more than likely self inflicted mental abuse.  Luke lands the invisible poison dagger on Vader when they are Endor declaring to vader that his father is truly dead before being brought back to the death star.  Vader hangs back and sits on the railing showing signs that the words Luke just stated made him appear to reconsider his life purpose.
By time the actual duel with Luke happens on the death star, Vader is already under extreme mental strain from being rejected by his own child. During this fight, there was no force usage.  There was no stand and fight with wet noodles like he did with obi-wan.  He was now fighting a trained jedi and having to move, having to think. In his first taste of the dark side, the emperor goads luke into exploiting his anger as he attacks vader making him fall down the stairs but realizes he is attacking out of anger and calms himself down again giving vader the chance to recover as he turned off his light saber. When Vader resorted to black mail and bring up leia, he more than likely expected Luke to collapse in fear and grovel.  Luke has been previously reluctant to fight Vader almost avoiding any confrontation and hiding behind props.  As others pointed out, the mention of Leia actually snapped Luke into fighting to protect what he considered now to be his only family left.  Turning to the dark emotions of anger, Luke attacked Vader with such speed and power and this time, never gave vader a chance to catch his balance and thus the duel was finished quickly as Luke used his anger to cut off his fathers arm and at this point, the sheer power of the attacks from luke using the darkside just overwhelmed vader.
Comment: sometimes one year can feel like a few years  ;)
Answer: The Emperor also could have sensed Luke's greater potential as a flunky and was already planning to throw Vader under the bus.
So Luke, without knowing it, was getting a force boost from the guy watching all of this, giving Luke an extra edge he otherwise would not have had.
Answer: In EU legends, Luke was Vader's equal in ROTJ, but Vader was still a bit more powerful than Luke due to Vader being the more experienced fighter, having the more powerful Force abilities, and being the more powerful Force user in general.
Palpatine knew Luke's Jedi skills were no match for Vader, so that's why he taunted him: so he could try to get Luke to tap into the Dark Side. Palpatine even said, "Your feeble skills are no match for the power of the dark side". Palpatine knew the only way for Luke to win was for him to fully tap into the Dark Side of the force just to defeat Vader. That's how he kicked Vader down the stairs
In the ROTJ novel, it is implied Vader's leg broke when Luke kicked him down the stairs; the fact that he could stand, let alone fight, is a miracle.
In a way, it's just like Dooku. Palpatine knew Anakin was a close equal to Dooku, but that Dooku was still more powerful. That's why he had Anakin tap into the Dark Side, so over time Anakin surpassed Dooku after he killed him. It was the same problem for Luke: he is only stronger than Vader when he fully taps into the Dark Side of the Force.
At the end of ROTJ, Luke refused to kill Vader. If he had killed Vader, he would have done it using the Dark Side and would have become stronger than him, but he didn't and refused the Dark Side, making him in the end Vader's equal. but Vader threatened Leia, which is what gave Luke the power boost, but the only time Luke can defeat Vader is when he dips into the Dark Side of the Force, giving him the strength to defeat Vader.
Comment: In which EU legends was Luke Vader's equal?
Comment: what do you mean? the content george lucas created. If this was disney canon luke wouldnt stand a chance against vader he is to overpowered
Comment: And who disliked my explaintion?  Its the best EU has to offer. if this was disney canon luke would be womped by vader in 20 seconds. i tried to nerf vader as much as possible in my explaintion. Vader in canon was so powerful he could break sidious force wall with a push and choke and the only way sidious could get out of it was by using force lighting for a long time. btw this happened a few minutes after revenge of the sith in the comics.
Comment: The only people to break Sidous force wall was Vader and Yoda. Yoda used a push and Vader combined a force push and force choke and like i said palpatine had to use force lighting for a long time to get Vader off his ass
Comment: someone please comment back i want to know why people disliked my explaintion and 18 hours ago an early return of the jedi script written by george lucas was released to the public saying that luke was vaders equal. search the video up on star wars theory channel.
Comment: 2 dislikes?? really


Difference between ls -l and ll?

Question: I'm relatively new to programming as a whole and some tutorials have been telling me to use ls -l to look at files in a directory and others have been saying ll.  I know that ls is a short list, but is there a difference between the other two?
Comment: You may want to take a look at `which ll`. You will probably discover that `ll` is actually an alias for `ls -l`.
Comment: `cd` is a shell builtin keyword, not a program found in a filesystem. Use `type cd` and `type ls` to see what I mean. Some commands are simply overriden by shell builtins: `echo` exists in `/bin/echo`, but in `bash` and in fact most of modern shells, a builtin `echo` function is called instead (which usually has extended features). `type` actually tells you which one it is.
Comment: So then what is the difference between `ls` any other command I put into the shell?  If I type `which ls` I get `alias ls='ls --color=auto'
    /bin/ls`, but if I type (for example) `which cd` I get `/usr/bin/which: no cd in (........)`.  EDIT: I tried it again with `which mkdir` and I got `/bin/mkdir`.  What is the distinction between these commands that some of them are stored(?) in `/usr/bin` and some are apparently not?
Comment: this is an affect of your distro's default `$PATH`. `ls` is very often aliased, so your shell reports the alias (which takes precedence over the binary) and the binary's actual location (in your case, `/bin/ls`). If `which` could not find `cd`, then something appears terribly wrong.
Answer: On many systems, ll is an alias of ls -l:
$ type ll
ll is aliased to `ls -l'

They are the same.
Comment: Also `ls -alF` in Ubuntu 12.04, 16.04, and likely many more.
Comment: in Ubuntu 14.04 ll is aliased to 'ls -alF'
Comment: ll is aliased to `ls -ltr' - I am using red hat 6
Comment: For me on macOS Sierra ll is aliased to `ls -lh`
Comment: zsh: command not found: ll :(
Comment: @Harinder zsh has the shorter `l`
Comment: I usually alias `ll` to `ls -Ahog` on Bash.  It shows long listing but without the owner and group column; it additionally shows human-readable sizes (with suffixes like K, M, etc.), hidden files and directories except `.` and `..`.
Comment: @legends2k still the same
zsh: command not found: l
Comment: RHEL8 = ```alias ll='ls -l --color=auto'```
Answer: As noted, ll is often defined as an alias of ls -l. In fact, ls is often an alias itself:
$ which ls
alias ls='ls --color=auto'
/usr/bin/ls

The actual command is ls which above is found in /usr/bin. ll is intended as a convenience, but you cannot rely on it being defined on all *nix systems, so it is good to know what it is really doing.
Comment: Great answer.  I can't help by add that this is one of the reasons why relying on `ls` in automation (especially ad-hoc one-liners) is usually a bad idea.  It has several options that change its output, and many ways to specify them.  With different distributions choosing different defaults, it tends to lead to headaches.
Comment: I haven't seen any popular distribution to alias `ls` to anything else than `ls --color=auto`. It's either that or there is no alias.
Answer: Ubuntu 12.04, 14.04, 16.04, 18.04:
laike9m@laike9m1:~$ type ll
ll is aliased to `ls -alF'

Comment: Also 12.04 and 16.04, but that is all I have available to test right now.
Comment: I can confirm also 18.04
Answer: In most cases, ll does not work in shell scripts.
Comment: Some people have the alias in the .profile, and the alias is working in an interactive shell.
After debugging/testing a new script, the script suddenly fails in crontab. Cron does not read the .profile.
Comment: What happens is that typically commands like `ll` are really aliases, that aren't defined when running scripts.
Comment: This is not an answer to the question, but should be a comment instead. From my little understanding, aliases are deprecated in shell scripts.
Comment: I say "most" but it does not on mine, and i use `ls -l`
Answer: ll is an alias for ls -l.
The option -l tells the command to use a long list format. It gives back several columns, not shown when the simple ls command is used. These columns include:

Permissions
Number of hardlinks
File owner
File group
File size
Modification
time
Filename
Answer: ll is actually aliased to `ls -l'
If you run ll, then it will show you files in the shell then you to press Enter to see the next files (more.. option). If you run ls -l, then all files will be displayed at a time.

Difference between ls -l and ll?


It's right to say coding sequence is part of exon sequence?

Question: Some basic ambiguities making me confused. I downloaded 5'UTR, CDS, 3'UTR, and exon sequences, separately from Biomart for a gene P4HA2 (Homo sapiens) and found some simple sequence repeat (SSR) on them. While there is a repeat x on the exon sequence, it was not located on the 5'UTR, 3'UTR, and coding sequence (or CDS) of gene. As I remember, exon sequences is the same with coding sequence, except for the first and last exon, which are parts of 5'UTR and 3'UTR, respectively, am I right?. Could you please help me out to find how the mentioned event is possible?
Thanks
Comment: Are your comparing the same splice variant?
Comment: As @canadianer said, remember that almost all human genes are interrupted. There are long intronic sequences in the gene that can interrupt your coding sequence. Also alternative splicing can cut out exons that make up the mature mRNA. If you do an alignment you should be able to pick up where the exons are in the splice variant of your gene.
Comment: Yes Canadianer, I compare the same splice variant.
Answer:
As I remember, exon sequences is the same with coding sequence, except
  for the first and last exon, which are parts of 5'UTR and 3'UTR,
  respectively, am I right?

Not necessarily. The UTRs can be composed of multiple exons and there can be an exon that spans both sides of the start codon i.e it is both a part of the 5'UTR and CDS. Similarly, an exon can span both sides of the stop codon.
A reason for why you are not able to map your repeat to any of the regions of the mRNA could be that your repeat falls in an exon that spans the start/stop codon. The repeat itself might span these sites. You need to provide additional details such as the location of the repeat, size of the repeat and which exon it maps to. Also mention which reference genome file are you using.
Answer: The coding region is that region of the DNA coding strand that is translated into a product. This is synonomous with the exon region. The 5' untranslated region and the 3'untranslated region are just that and though they may serve some little understood function in replication, they are not translated into a protein. "coding region" is not a term that I have heard widely used although I am a neophyte as a molecular biologist.


javascript conflicts UpdatePanel

Question: I'm using a ReportViewer control which often runs into problems with the javascript associated with UpdatePanels in ASP.NET.  I've created a second page which is very simple, no Update Panels.  What's the best way to link the two pages?  An iframe sounds bad.  However, having to run a report, then be returned a link to the results also sounds bad.  Sending the user to the simple display won't work in this case.  Any suggestions, am I seeing things wrong here?
Answer: What I would do is rewrite the page that uses an update panel such that it uses straight javascript web method calls.  This would remove the need for the reportviewer control to be on a seperate page because you would no longer need an update panel.
Comment: That would certainly obviate the need to answer the question :)  However, its not an option.

javascript conflicts UpdatePanel


enumerative meaning of natural q-Catalan numbers

Question: Define $[n]=(1-q^n)/(1-q)$ and $[n]!=[1][2][3] \cdots [n]$, so that $[2n]!/[n]![n+1]!$ is a polynomial in $q$ (the most algebraically natural $q$-analogue of the Catalan numbers); what enumerative interpretation(s) does it have, vis-a-vis the standard members of the "Catalan zoo"?  I would be especially interested in answers pertaining directly to triangulations of polygons, without any intervening bijections.
Answer: These $q$-Catalan numbers have been studied mainly as the generating function of statistics on Dyck paths, such as the Major index. They are also a special case of the q,t-Catalan numbers of Garsia and Haiman, related by
$$\frac{1}{[n+1]_q}\left[{2n\atop n}\right]_q=q^{\binom{n}{2}}C_n(q,1/q),$$
so they can be related to the bounce and area statistics as well as some statistics on parking functions which have been investigated in the context of these general polynomials.
As far as statistics on triangulations, I believe there is some interest from the folks who work on cyclic sieving phenomena. In fact, the triple
$$(\mathcal T_{n+2},C_{n+2},\frac{1}{[n+1]_q}\left[{2n\atop n}\right]_q)$$
exhibits a cyclic sieving phenomenon, in the sense that plugging in primitive $d$-roots of unity in the $q$-Catalan numbers counts triangulations with $d$-fold symmetry. The main obstacle in finding a combinatorial proof of this fact (originally due to Reiner-Stanton-White) is precisely finding a weight on triangulations on $n+2$-gons so that
$$\sum _{T\in \mathcal T _{n+2}}w(T)=\frac{1}{[n+1]_q}\left[{2n\atop n}\right]_q$$
and $w$ is natural in the sense that it is well behaved with respect to rotations. See these slides of Sagan-Roichman for more information on this. In particular, I don't think there is a very satisfactory answer to your question known at the moment (but I hope I'm wrong).
Answer: Another less known interpretation of MacMahon's $q$-Catalan numbers is
$$\sum_{\pi \in \mathcal{S}_n(231)} q^{\operatorname{maj}(\pi) + \operatorname{imaj}(\pi)} = \frac{1}{[n+1]_q} \begin{bmatrix} 2n \newline n \end{bmatrix}_q,$$
where $\mathcal{S}_n(231)$ is the set of all permutations of length $n$ avoiding the pattern $231$, and where $\operatorname{maj}(\pi)$ is the major index, and where $\operatorname{imaj}(\pi) := \operatorname{maj}(\pi^{-1})$ is the inverse major index (see http://arxiv.org/abs/0803.3706).
I would actually be very surprised if there where a known direct statistic on triangulations giving MacMahon's $q$-Catalan numbers. I agree with Gjergji that the cyclic sieving interpretation seems to be the best known combinatorial interpretation directly in terms of triangulations.
Answer: You can find one answer in Enumerative Combinatorics II by R. Stanley; see Excercise 34 (b) in Chapter 6. This would need to be translated to triangulations of polygons.
Answer: NEWEST
Seem my random speculations below. It never hurts to look in the OEIS and it would appear that the coefficient of $q^k$ in $\frac{1}{[n+1]}\left[{2n\atop n}\right]_q$ is the number of Dyck words of length 2n having major index k . I have not had time to look into translating that into triangulations.
OLDER
We do know that the $q$-binomial coefficient $$\left[{m\atop k}\right]_q=\frac{[m]!}{[k]![m-k]!}$$ is a polynomial (with non-negative integer coefficients) equal to $\binom{m}{k}$ when $q=1$ and that the coeffcient of $q^d$ is the number of ordered lists of type $0^k1^{m-k}$ having $d$ inversions. Equivalently, the number of lattice paths from $(0,0)$ to $(k,m-k)$ which enclose an region of area $d$ (with the $x$-axis and $x=k$).
Each of the lattice paths counted by $\binom{2n}{n}$ has an excedence $0 \le e \le n$ which is the number of horizontal edges above the diagonal. Each value of $e$ occurs $\frac{1}{n+1}\binom{2n}{n}$ times and the Catalan numbers count the paths of excedence $0.$
These $q$-Catalan polynomials $\frac{1}{[n+1]}\left[{2n\atop n}\right]_q$ again have non-negative integer coefficients and for $q=1$ equal the Catalan numbers which the excedence $0$ lattice paths from $(0,0)$ to $(2n,n)$. One could dream that there is an interpretation of the coefficient of $q^d$ but I certainly can't find one. A recurrence relation might be helpful in back constructing an interpretation.
The obvious greedy guess fails. For that one would have a recurrence $C_q(n+1)=\sum q^{(k+1)(n-k)}C_q(k)C_q(n-k).$ Those polynomials do not have a strong claim on being a natural q-analogue.
Comment: The statistic on Dyck paths is is actually "well known", see for example the paper by Christian Stump already mentioned.  (I believe it also appears in papers of Christian Krattenthaler.)
Answer: To build on Bruce's answer, if we unwind the standard bijection between Dyck paths and triangulations, we get the following:
We'll write a chord as $(ij)$, meaning that it joins vertices $i$ and $j$. For every chord $(i,j)$, there are two triangles $(ijk)$ and $(ji \ell)$ containing $(ij)$. If $i < k < j < \ell$, we'll say that this chord is up-flippable; if $k < i < \ell < j$, we will say that the chord is down-flippable. As you probably know, the Tamari lattice is the poset structure on triangulations generated by up-flips.
The valleys of a Dyck path are in bijection with the down-flippable chords. If I have not made any errors, given a down-flippable chord $(ij)$, the index of that valley is
$$2 \# \{ (abc) \in T : a<b \leq i<j \leq c\} + \# \{ (abc) \in T : a\leq i  < j \leq b< c \}$$
where $T$ is the set of triangles in the triangulation.
So the final answer is to sum the above quantity over all down-flippable $(ij)$.
Comment: David, I don't think this works for n=2; your statistic is trivially 0 on both triangulations of the 4-gon, but the q-polynomial we're after is q^0+q^2, not 2q^0. Right?
Comment: Sorry, try it now.
Comment: For $n=2$, the triangulation with chord (13) is supposed to give 0, because the chord is upflippable; the triangulation with (24) is supposed to give 2 because of 124.


How can I get rid of garlic breath?

Question: I personally do not enjoy eating garlic, but some people in my family do. I really dislike the smell, and I care for them. I do not want to be rude, but if I can have some help on how to get rid of the smell, that would be great! Thanks!
Comment: Offer them after dinner mints?
Comment: Drink coca-cola. But the CO2 burp would stink.
Comment: I think given Daniele B's answer this question should be reopened since he shows that this question has answers that fall within the realm of food preparation.
Comment: In particular:
If you make the garlic boil before using it, the high temperature will inibite the production of the smelling agent, and you'll not have this killing smell.
Answer: Before answering directly to the quesiotn, a little forword is needed:
The garlic contains allicina (alliisina , glucoside solforato), an enzyme (alliinasi), vitamine A, B1, B2, C and niacina (another vitamin in B complex).
What happens is that there is a serie of chemical reactions when you chew the garlic, with the result of creating allile disolphour, which is what have the typical garlic smell.
The latter substance is very volatile and easily get in solution in liquid and gases.
So.... (this is the interesting part) when you ingest it, the propagate almost everywhere in your body. That's why you can smell it thorugh the organs which eliminate this substance, that is to say lungs, kidney, skin.
Hence, in conclusion, when you eat garlic, it is not only a problem of your breath, but your whole body smells of garlic (in fact if you make sport and you sweat, you'll see you smell of garlic).
This said, here are some remedies for the breath:

Chew sage leaves or prasley
Chew cofee grains
Drink a liquorice or mint decoction
Chew liquorice stick
Chew anice grains
Eat slowly a honey spoon
Eat slowly an apple
Drink slowly a grappa
Drink some milk or some yougurt spoon
Chew slowly some lemon slices
Drink some sodium bicarbonate.
last, use mouthwash prepared with cloramine solution at 1%; the clorite will get in contact with your body tissues, mitigating the garlic essential oil effect.

In any case, after a while (maybe hours) the smell will come up again.
So, apart from not eating it, another remedy is in the cooking:
If you make the garlic boil before using it, the high temperature will inibite the production of the smelling agent, and you'll not have this killing smell.
References:
http://www.placidasignora.com/2011/01/14/chi-laglio-mangia-daglio-sa-rimedi-contro-il-puteolare/
http://benessere.atuttonet.it/consigli/rimedi/alito-aglio-rimedi.php
Answer: Sometimes its not just a matter of brushing your teeth to get rid of the smell of garlic. Actually the smell of garlic in your breath even after you have brushed your teeth after eating, it comes from your stomach.
To get rid of the garlic smell, try one of the following methods 1, 2:

Try drinking some green tea.
Drink lemonade, or eat a lemon. This helps sometimes. Use home made lemonade because store-bought lemonades tend to have very few actual lemons in them.
Run a stainless steel teaspoon all around inside your mouth, touching all the skin surfaces, including the entire tongue and the sides! Turn the spoon upside down to get your tongue all the way back!
Exercise immediately after eating a meal that contains a lot of garlic. This will speed up the excretion of the garlic and make the body odor less prominent throughout the rest of the day. Be sure to shower and apply antiperspirant or deodorant after exercising.
Drink an 8 oz. glass of milk with your meal or eat 6 oz. of yogurt after the meal. The live cultures in yogurt will prevent the bacteria from remaining in your mouth. Milk inhibits the growth of bacteria.
Eat an apple, orange, lemon or slice of melon after eating a meal with garlic. The citric acid will keep the mouth moist with saliva, preventing the growth of bacteria that causes bad breath.
Comment: Wow! I had no idea! Thanks! I will make sure to politely tell one of my family members to do one of the following after eating a meal with garlic.
Comment: Though it's not just stuff left in your mouth, it's also not coming from your stomach, it's in your bloodstream, and so it ends up in the air you exhale from your lungs - this is even in the [Wikipedia article](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garlic_breath).
Answer: Not necessarily related, but assuming you're cooking with cloves of garlic, cutting them in half and removing the heart (the little green bit in the middle), and then adding them to whatever recipe significantly cuts down on the smell it gives your breath.
Comment: Thank you so much! I will make sure not to do that next time.

How can I get rid of garlic breath?


In regression analysis what does taking the log of a variable do?

Question: I keep seeing this in class and I don't understand why we add the log in there from time to time. For example we have regression model 1: $$1:\hat Y=-14.37+.321X_1+.043X_2-.0051X_3+.0035X_4$$ and then it says that we reestimate the model using the log form of $X_3$ and $X_4$ to get model 2: $$2:\hat Y=-36.30+.327X_1+.069X_2-4.74\log(X_3)+7.24\log(X_4)$$ what does the $\log$ do? In terms of affecting the regression and in terms of affecting the variables.
Comment: @PatrickLi there is no need for the x-variables to be normal
Comment: Here are 2 CV questions that you may want to read: [interpretation-of-log-transformed-predictor](http://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/18480/) & [In linear regression when is it appropriate to use the log of an independent variable instead of the actual values](http://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/298/).
Comment: Sometimes people use log to bring a skewed variable to be more normal. Some inferences depend on the assumption of normal distribution.
Comment: @Patrick so you're saying the log will "normalize" a variable?
Comment: It changes the dependence of $\hat Y$ on $X_3,X_4$.  That may be a better reflection of reality.  You can also try $X_3^2$, $\exp(X_4)$ or whatever makes a decent fit to your data.
Comment: @PatrickLi, Glen_b is exactly right: there is no assumption of normality except for the residuals in OLS regression. You may find it helpful to read this Q: [what-if-residuals-are-normally-distributed-but-y-is-not](http://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/12262/).
Answer: There are two sorts of reasons for taking the log of a variable in a regression, one statistical, one substantive.
Statistically, OLS regression assumes that the errors, as estimated by the residuals, are normally distributed. When they are positively skewed (long right tail) taking logs can sometimes help. Sometimes logs are taken of the dependent variable, sometimes of one or more independent variables.
Substantively, sometimes the meaning of a change in a variable is more multiplicative than additive. For example, income. If you make \$20,000 a year, a \$5,000 raise is huge. If you make \$200,000 a year, it is small.  Taking logs reflects this:
<code>log(20,000) = 9.90
log(25,000) = 10.12
log(200,000) = 12.20
log(205,000) = 12.23
</code>
The gaps are then 0.22 and 0.03.
In terms of interpretation, you are now saying that each change of 1 unit on the log scale has the same effect on the DV, rather than each change of 1 unit on the raw scale.
Comment: @Kyle Clarification: The effects of removing skew and turning multiplicative relationships to additive ones only apply when you take logs of the *dependent* variable - neither effect applies to the specific details of your question, which had logs only on independent variables. However, it's important to know about those effects.
Answer: Taking logs will make certain forms of relationship that look curved look linear or more nearly linear. Think of introducing new variables, $X_5 = \log(X_3)$ and $X_6 = \log(X_4)$ and then your model is linear in $X_1, X_2, X_5$ and $X_6$.
Sometimes these transformations are obvious from subject-matter considerations. Sometimes they're just chosen empirically.
Answer: This is an old question, but I often found myself looking for this specific interpretation in the past so I will add it here.
Another substantive example is in the field of econometrics, when regression analysis is used to calculate the elasticities (relative percentage change of one variable with respect to another). In this case, the log-log functional form, where both the dependent and independent variables are log-transformed, is very convenient because the coefficients obtained directly give the respective elasticities instead of having to take the partial derivatives. For the mathematical formulation, I refer to @Charlie's answer here Interpretation of log transformed predictor


spam attack...is there anything else that the community can do to help the moderators?

Question: I feel that recently we are fighting more with the spammers. But is flagging enough to help the moderators? any other measure we can do? I don't know something like when you flag and it is trusted user with certain number of accepted flags...can delete the user automatically? It might be a bad idea. But I wish I could do more about it
Answer: Just to reinforce one aspect, please just flag spam as spam.  Please

Don't use any flags, other than spam.
Don't edit to remove links.
Don't re-tag as spam.

These three actions can interfere with the spam gets handled.  Fore more information, read What are the "spam" and "rude or abusive" (offensive) flags, and how do they work? over on MSO.
Comment: @EliahKagan The spam flag carries an automatic downvote, and enough spam will remove the post from the front page and delete it.  I would reserve the custom flag for cases where the author is shamelessly self promoting and you want to give the mods some more info.
Comment: The SE people think it is a meatnet and not automated spambots.  That makes it harder to deal with.
Comment: Are there exceptions not using any other flags besides the spam flag? What about when a post is *definitely* spam, but *not obviously so*, ...or is obviously spam but there is an additional issue warranting moderator attention? Is it appropriate to flag as spam and *also* use a custom flag, in these instances? (I've found such action to be well received on several other SE sites, but I appreciate if the guidelines/rules are different here.) I'll post a separate meta question about this if you like, but I suspect this could be fully addressed by clarification (or "even if" affirmation) here.
Comment: this new spam attack is weird there are from new members and they have been members for 4 days or 2 days at least...
Answer: Yes that was weird, about 4 spam posts from newly registered accounts in the space of about half an hour, and I think some earlier today as well. I destroyed a few accounts and other mods have taken action too so it's all been cleared up.
Personally I think flagging's enough at the moment, while it's unsavoury to see spam it's not a massive problem on this site. We mods get an icon in the toolbar telling us how many mod flags there are outstanding, so it's rare that a post flagged as spam will be around for long.
There are already automatic bans in place for users who reach a certain level of deleted/downvoted content, but I don't think they kick in very often for spammers as their accounts just aren't around for long enough.
Comment: And in a wonderful irony, another one's been posted as I was writing this.
Comment: Yeah, flagging is probably sufficient.  The mods here have a decent spread of timezone differences, so the coverage is good.  Even when I am busy, I check flags periodically to take care of immediate needs, and handling spam is very easy (and required not thinking/judgement).
Comment: Seems to be getting worse!!
Comment: seems to be worse on weekends or when there is football or big game coming :S


OpenX Cluster Rsync vs Coud File System?

Question: I am working on putting together a cluster for openx and had a question with regard to clustered file systems vs rsync.
Here is my current setup:
-2 workhorse boxes load balanced to serve and count ads (using the "distributed statistics" methodology) These servers would have their own databases that are migrated to the master database every 10 minutes.
-An Admin/Gui box Connected directly to the "master" database (just for pulling reports, trafficking, etc)
-A Database box that will be housing the databases
Once I get the servers running on the cluster, if I decided to upload a banner to the "admin" box, it only exist on the admin box only. This could cause problems when the cluster tries to pull the image. To get around this, I have thought about rsyncing the "images" directories (every 10 minutes or just setup a cluster based file system to house all of the images.
Which would be better? And is there another option that I haven't thought about?
Thanks!
I am following the methodology written here: http://blog.openx.org/10/serving-billions-of-ads-using-openx/
Answer: If your data change often (I think so) and 2 servers is enough, you should combine a distributed file system (OCFS2, GFS) with DRBD. If not, you can use rsync + incron when most of your data is static. If you want to add more servers, build a shared storage is another option.


OpenID Delete account

Question: My OpenID is used through my email provider.
1) Why wasn't my URL recognized at OpenID Foundation.
2) I want to delete "alt openID" URL.
3) How do I delete the OpenID from being associated with my email provider such as Google or Yahoo.
Thanks
Comment: possible duplicate of [Remove alternative OpenID](http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/19808/remove-alternative-openid)
Answer: 1: if you mean "why can't I re-use my openid at other sites", you are currently using gmail openid; with gmail, each target web-site gets a different openid, so you can't copy/paste the open id between sites in that case. If you mean "why doesn't my OpenID Foundation openid work?" then "pass" (I'm not involved in that...), but we can perhaps try to find out...
2: A moderator can do that, but I strongly suggest keeping an alternative id; occasionally the odd provider is unavailable for a short (or extended) duration
3: I'm a bit lost what you mean there, but ultimately... if you don't want your e-mail provider involved, then don't use  gmail/yahoo as your openid provider
Comment: re 2: I have an SE account and an Area51 account I'd like to separate, but the Area51 account has my SE OpenID as its alt id
Answer: 1) Go to your profile page
2) Click the delete link beside alt openid :-)

OpenID Delete account


In Vipassana, what's the difference between 1st and 2nd "knowledge of dissolution" (paṭhama- & dutiya- bhanga-ñāṇa)

Question: One of the main station of insight before stream entry is bhanga-ñāṇa. In some explanations this seems to be subdivided further into 1st (paṭhama) and 2nd (dutiya) bhanga-ñāṇa ("knowledge of dissolution"). What is the difference between them?
Answer: Bhanga-ñāṇa or "knowledge of dissolution" is the first major direct (nonconceptual) experience of Emptiness. Although every practitioner's experience is unique, there are some common themes that can help one recognize the milestones as they are passed. Here is one description of bhanga-ñāṇa by Patrick Kearney of buddhanet.net, a dharma teacher in the lineage of Mahasi Sayadaw:

What happens next? The meditator's awareness and concentration continues to develop. As a result, he now sees only the passing away of phenomena. It is as if his awareness is so fast, it is faster than the experiences he is examining, As soon as he places his attention on some aspect of his experience, it disappears. This is the knowledge of dissolution (bhanga-nana). In a weak aspect, this can take the form of the meditator apparently losing his concentration. It seems like he can no longer focus on anything; his attention keeps sliding off whatever he tries to look at. It can be lie trying to grasp something that slips out of your hand the moment you touch it. In a stronger aspect, it can be like falling into the black hole of Calcutta. Wherever you look, there is nothing - only blackness. The meditator is shocked, because he used to be able to focus on anything. Now, it seems, he can focus on nothing at all. All his good work has dissolved into nothing.

In reality, this and the following several stages are a very painful experience. It feels like losing your mind, so frustrating it is. You can't even focus on your frustration -- the moment you look at frustration, it slips right through your fingers. This is truly the very bottom of "the dark night of the soul". All preconceptions collapse. You really see the BS-ness, the emptiness of all mental formations. Up until this moment you were holding onto the hope that something must be real, but now your ego is exhausted and can no longer maintain yourself.
As for the distinction between the first and the second "knowledge of dissolution", when the thought-form you are "looking" at collapses, falls apart, and dissolves right in front of your "eyes" -- that's the first bhanga-ñāṇa, and when, in utter frustration and disbelief, you look at this "looking", and it itself collapses, falls apart, and dissolves -- that's the second bhanga-ñāṇa.
In case you don't believe my first-hand experience ;) here is an explanation by Ven. Sayadaw U Jotika in his "A Map of The Journey" (a transcript of a series of preparatory talks given prior to a meditation retreat held in Australia):

At this stage, every time the meditator is meditating -- no matter what the object is, even the movement, (without paying attention to the shape anymore but to the sensation) - the meditator is aware of the sensation and the very fast passing away one after another very clearly. All the shapes and solidity disappears, which means that you don't pay attention to shape or solidity anymore. You pay attention only to sensations and their passing away very quickly.
Seeing the object passing away very quickly is the first bhanga-ñāṇa, paṭhama-bhanga-ñāṇa. Seeing the wisdom passing away is the second bhanga-ñāṇa, dutiya-bhanga-ñāṇa. The two together make the bhanga-ñāṇa complete.
In any insight there is the beginning and the maturity of insight. In the beginning you see the object passing away very quickly. When this becomes more mature, stronger, you see the passing away of consciousness, vipassana consciousness, and the wisdom also passing away together.

You notice one thing, that passes away and
that consciousness which is aware of
that passing away also passes away.

...
Because of seeing this passing away, passing away, continuously you feel
  that this process is dangerous; it is passing away so quickly you cannot rely on it. You cannot identify with it. You see that nobody can identify with
  this and hold on to it and rely on it. There is no reliance. There
  is nothing reliable in these mental and physical phenomena.

As interesting as it is to read about these things, my advice to all practitioners is to forget about these stages/levels and instead focus on your practice. In Buddhism, knowing stages does not help you get there. Buddhist experience cannot be contrived! Once every 5 years you might want to check yet another stages-of-the-path text, congratulate yourself on another achievement, confirm that your intuition was right again -- and then forget about stages for the next 5 years.
Comment: "All preconceptions collapse. You really see the BS-ness, the emptiness of all mental formations. Up until this moment you were holding onto the hope that __something must be real__, but now your ego is exhausted and can no longer maintain yourself." This is the best description I've read of Dissolution. I guess everyone's experience is different, but the shock that my ego/opinions weren't a rock solid foundation of me, and were actually changing and shifting, arising and passing away, threw me into a spin that took me years to recover from (aka a "spiritual emergency")... (cont)
Comment: ...If some of the descriptions had been clearer in describing the terror you might experience when you learn that nothing is truly __real__ (as you put it). Or rather, that you learn that nothing is completely solid and without change (even the things you cling to in order to feel safe), I probably wouldn't have suffered so. The "arising and passing" of everything is a very vague and mild term for what can be a truly terrifying experience for some.
Answer: my experience has been different - dissolution felt wonderful, my entire body dissolving into champagne-like bubbles. It didn't bother me to feel apparent solidity dissolve. It was more of a, 'wow isn't this a fascinating way of experiencing existence'. Just wanted to put that out there as another experience of the phenomenon.
Answer:

Seeing the object passing away very quickly is the first bhanga-ñāṇa, paṭhama-bhanga-ñāṇa. Seeing the wisdom passing away is the second bhanga-ñāṇa, dutiya-bhanga-ñāṇa...

...was told in an answer. Of what is thought to be the 1st, that is bhanga-ñāṇa, a worldly knowledge. General isn't further bhanga good done, if cutting different angeles, losing parts, leaving holes.
The secound, like here described, perceive-able, doesn't seems to grasp bhanga-ñāṇa but actually already knowledge in an overworldly sphere: Dubhato vuṭṭhāna-vivaṭṭane paññā magge ñāṇaṃ

The wisdom gained by emerging and turning away from both [the external and internal] is knowledge of the Path.

...If one wishes to follow this kind of Vibanga taken on here as concept.
Good, how ever, encouragement to letting go of accumulation of knowledge, accumulated perceptions, once sufficient faith has been gained, and actually walk the path, go forth.
[Note that this isn't given for stacks, exchange, other world-binding trades or entertainment but to gain Dubhato vuṭṭhāna-vivaṭṭane paññā magge ñāṇaṃ]


Express the propositional form ie. using only the NAND operator.

Question: Recall that the NAND operator(denoted by "|") is equivalent to AND followed by negation; that is, for any two propositions a and b, the propositional form (a|b) is logically equivalent to ¬(a∧b). Express the propositional form c∧(a→b) using only the NAND operator.
Comment: Did you try and figure out the equivalents of "^" or "->" or "¬" using only the NAND operator before posing this problem?
Answer: You can rewrite c∧(a→b) as c∧((¬a)∨b).  Use de Morgan's law to find that
(1) c∧((¬a)∨b) = c∧(¬(a∧(¬b))) = c∧(a|(¬b)).
Now, observe that since
(2) ¬d = d|d,
¬ can be expressed in terms of the NAND operator.  Therefore, ∧ can also be expressed in terms of the NAND operator since
(3) e∧f = ¬(e|f).
Substituting the identities (2) and (3) into (1) as required will give an expression for c∧(a→b) which uses only NAND.
Answer: Solution that involves  operators  NAND and NOT  :
$c \land (a \Rightarrow b) \Leftrightarrow c \land (\lnot a \lor b) \Leftrightarrow c \land (\lnot(a\land \lnot b))  \Leftrightarrow c \land (a | \lnot b) \Leftrightarrow \lnot(c | (a| \lnot b))$
EDIT:
Now , as David rightly observed use fact that : $\lnot p \Leftrightarrow p | p$
Answer: Note that if (a|b) comes as a propositional form, then c∧(a→b) isn't a propositional form, but (c∧(a→b)) does come as a propositional form.  In Polish notation the complete answer goes DDcDaDbbDcDaDbb, which becomes an even bigger mess in infix notation with 14 parenthetical symbols floating around.


How can I refer to specific hexes on a hex board?

Question: I have seen games using hex boards but none using systems to refer to specific hexes (like you can do in Chess with numbers and letters). Is there a standard way to refer to a specific hex without numbering each hex on the board? A bit like a system of coordinates but that would be fairly clear and user-friendly?
Comment: It is far from unheard of to number every hex on the board, The magazine [***Strategy & Tactics***](http://strategyandtacticsmagazine.com/site/), which includes (or at least once included) a board game in every issue, always did that in a light grey colour.
Comment: Honestly outline the system you want to use in the rules and have an easy reference for players to use
Answer: There is no standard way, but as it's a two-dimensional grid you can easily project a coordinate system on it.
You can either go in a 90° angle then every second row or column is offset for one half to the bottom or right.
Or you can go in a 60°/120° angle to have straight lines but that looks unusual (and depending on your starting point can easily go into the negatives).
Answer: This example is from the game Lyngk

Here a system is being used to name intersections of triangles where the top line is just A1, then then next line is B1-B4.   You can see on the side of the board how this is done.  I know the question is for hexagons but this method could easily be applied in the same way.
ie. if you use Settlers or Catan the top row of land would be A1-A3, the next row down B1-B5 etc.
Comment: Your link requires a login to access, which not all users may want to go through.  Can you provide a picture directly in the post here?
Comment: @SouthpawHare Done, and link changed to game page rather than the image.  I hadn't thought of that so thanks for suggestion.
Comment: I really like this as it could keep the hexes themselves clean. It's not super useful to have numbers on them if they eventually get populated with tokens and such...
Answer: This site has a pretty thorough discussion of hexagons, most importantly for your question the section on "Coordinate systems". There are a few ways you can set it all up, but certainly you can do some row and column numbering to identify the hexes but at least one of those will be a bit "wobbly". Or you can choose a different coordinate system that counts things on an angle, but then your numbers are what get wobbly.
Visually, you could mark the wobbly direction with bands of colour to make it clearer which hexes are in the same column (or row).
Answer: Building on ConMan's answer and link, I think a combo of axial coordinates and the offset system would have a lot of advantages. Here's how the system works:
1) Every row has a letter, A, B, C, etc, just as in Lyngk illustration above.
2) Starting with the leftmost, topmost hex, assign it "column" 1. So, for example, in the Lyngk illustration above,    the leftmost hex on row C would be C1.
3) A given row has only even or odd numbers on it, so the next hex to the right of C1 is C3, not C2.
4) The hex up and to the right of C3 is B4...so there's no B1, B2, or B3, and the single spot on row A is A7.
5) The hex to bottom right of C1 is D2... there is no D1, since D is an evens row.
6) The spot to right of B4 is B6, since there is no B5, because B row is also evens row.
Get it? The advantage is both that this is intuitive (once you get over the lack of evens or odds in a given row), but the math is always easy...up and to the right is minus one letter, plus one number, no matter the row you're in, and all the other moves between hexes are likewise stable (unlike the offset system cited in that link) but there are rows with letters, which is easier to follow intuitively (unlike the axial system cited in the link).
The advantage of having easy coordinate math isn't obvious for casual games, but I think for programming purposes it's a lot more attractive to have simple rules for hex relationships.
Answer: I think that, to make the coordinate system easy to understand, all the hexes which have the same value for a coordinate should be in a straight line. If coordinate lines wobble, the players, and people trying to understand each other's notation, would never remember which way the wobbling is to go.
My preferred system is something like the diagram below. If each player has an edge of the board nearest them, let the hexes with "1" coordinates be nearest the player who plays first. If each player has a corner of the board nearest them, let the hexes with "a" coordinates be on the left of the player who plays first. (Note that chess notation has already established the equivalent conventions for square boards.)
<code>    c5  d5  e5
  b4  c4  d4  e4
a3  b3  c3  d3  e3
  a2  b2  c2  d2
    a1  b1  c1
</code>
Answer: Take your board. Choose one side and label each line touching it A, B,C,D.... Take another side adjacent to the first and label the lines a,b,c,d...  Take the untouched set of lines, and label them 1,2,3,4...  Now, you have a coordinate system in the format Ab4, or Hg5, or Dc3
However, there are risks, such as it is case sensitive.
Please tell me if it is not clear, and I will clarify tomorrow morning
Comment: Three-dimensional coordinate systems for a two-dimensional surface add unnecessary complexity. Yours in particular could be turned into either of the suggestions by Mildly Perilous or Andreas Hüttig, being simpler and easier to work with, as they remove ambiguity in text case and require fewer references outside the hex-grid.