I am a buddhist, and i have a harm OCD

Question: i need guidance for a problem that i have for 5 years. I have a harm ocd, i keep having this extremely bad imaginations about killing family/holy beings and destroying holy stuff. The thing is, i REALLY REALLY do not want to do any of this, i love my family, i feel blessed knowing about dharma and stuff. But somehow, this dark bad repetitive imagination keep playing on my head. There is even this 'inner voice' who keep voicing things like "I want to kill X" even if I REALLY dont want to. Is this counted as bad karma? And what should i do? Just let it pass or maybe i should keep hurting myself so it will stop? Sorry if this sounds weird. May all of you have a great day ahead. Thank you
Comment: Please seek professional help. Answers on Buddhism SE is not a substitute for professional help.
Answer: First, it seems like you're suffering, and I'm sorry to read that. I sincerely hope you find release from your troubles.
Having said that, I will attempt to put your worries to rest by pointing out that the Buddha repeatedly states that Kamma arises from performing action with intention. There are a variety of canonical sources exploring the relationship between Kamma and intention, and I would encourage you to search for those. If we look at those sources, we might conclude that since you do not intend to perform those harmful actions, those thoughts do not generate bad Kamma.
On a more personal note, I would encourage you to seek psychiatric help. I myself suffer from generalized anxiety disorder, and there is hope. If you find a psychiatrist, and you supplement your practice with medical help, your progress on the path might become easier.
All the best.
Answer: You need to do something which shows respect for the people you think you are killing. For example you can bow before them, you can touch their feet , you can ask for forgiveness. At the same time do not run away from such thoughts which generate bad feelings ... ultimately it is not your feeling... that which is not yours would like to give importance to it ?  Do you give importance to strangers ? No . Similarly you should not give importance to such feelings. As they arise so shall they will pass. If you feel guilty for killing someone (in imagination) then you can use volition to neutralise it by paying deep respect or showing deep love...
Answer: I think that you need to find people who can help you manage this condition.
With a case like this one might have to try different things to work it out because many things can be causing this. Therefore it is difficult to give any particular advice.
Sometimes things like this can be caused by evil spirits and sometimes these things can become an obsessive inclination due to a frequent giving of attention.
If it is either of those then one could resolve it with training but if these visions are caused by some physiological imbalance then i think it's tough because nobdy seems to know how to fix it.
That being said many people hear voices and most seem to be able to learn to manage.
You circumstance is particularly troublesome because the themes are so violent.
What i can advice to try is regarding those perceptions as one would a song that got stuck in the mind or as one would recurring imagery after watching a movie. Otherwise maybe  ry as if it was an itch, something unpleasant experienced due to past conditioning.
Also try working on the removal of distracting thoughts
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/ati/tipitaka/mn/mn.020.soma.html
As for evil spirits it wouldn't hurt to try complaining because if it works then good and if it doesn't then you can more so rule it out and it doesn't cost you anything. For this how to you should make a different question.
In general many yakkhas hate Buddhism and will mess with people who annoy them, fortunately they aren't very difficult to deal with.
What i don't recommend you do is some intensive meditation experiments and not cooperating with doctors. If you want to meditate then get off medication for a while and remain supervised throughout the course.
This way you will learn more because even if you struggle & fail you can go back on the medication as you prepare for next try.
Beware of meditation in general because if your ability to focus sharpens your visions can and probably will become much more intense & vivid on that account.
That being said if you meditate do basic anapanasati and calm thoughts. If you can get to jhana it would be a good refuge from voices.
You shouldn't be particularly ashamed of thinking thoughts you don't want to think but you should make an effort to become a master of thought-pathways so that you think the thoughts you want to think and don't think the thoughts that you don't want to think.
You are hurt with these terrors and you hurt yourself more with harm. Think of it as a disease you have to endure and that even taking your life will not remove it, only overcome with patience.
In general it is shameful & humiliating to not be a master of thought but on this account your condition isn't more shameful than that of other people. People should have compassion for you and you should have compassion for yourself. I don't think poorly of you because you have these nightmares, it sounds like what is dear to you is getting attacked and you are being abused by these terrors.
Nobody in their right mind would think you really want to do bad things but people will think you are a liability if you can't control it. I think in general you shouldn't feel like you have to prove that you are a good person to anybody because these thoughts are not you and you are dealing with a tough condition.
Even if you just make a little effort towards Arahantship it is immeasurably meritorious and victory is not necessarily in this life. Even if you don't master it in this life this condition will pass for you eventually and you will finish it under favorable conditions.
Be patient and endure it. Also see if not yakkha:)
Answer: I'm going second arturovm's suggestion that you seek clinical help. Persistent destructive thoughts (whether of the self or of others) should not be ignored, if only to preserve one's own mental balance. There's no harm in discussing your own suffering, particularly if it keeps that suffering from spreading to others...
That in mind, you might spend some time in contemplation, trying to discover what it is you think such destruction will accomplish. Often when we have fantasies of violence and destruction, it is more about establishing a sense of meaning and empowerment for ourselves. The urge to destroy a holy site might be in reality an urge to show that the holy site has no real power over us: that we are more than the holy site allows us to be; more than the restrictions that 'holiness' places on us. And there is an element of truth in this. True enlightenment is a state of liberation, one in which the typical 'rules of the road' do not necessarily apply. But we don't need to destroy anything to get there; that is part of our unenlightened delusions. If you examine carefully, you'll realize that holy sites are nothing meaningful; that family is nothing meaningful; that great sages and holy teachers are nothing meaningful. They are there to guide us, that's all, and we can turn your back on them with peace in our hearts whenever it feels right to do so.
If one has a fantasy of destruction — whether or not one intends to act on it — it means one is feeling oppressed and constrained. It's the urge of a seed to break through dirt and concrete to reach the light, so that the seed can grow and bloom. Everyone has a right to grow and bloom, but no one needs to break anything to get there. Switch from contemplation to meditation to sap the urge so that you can see the better, clearer, gentler path forward. A violent thought it just a mental arising: it comes, it lingers, it leaves. Watch it through the whole cycle, over and over, and sooner or later it will evaporate like the morning dew.
If you're in the US, you might try this hotline: (800) 273-8255, or text MHA to 741741.
Answer: There are some great answers here so I hope you read all of them and consider. Another thing that may help is to realize that those thoughts you are experiencing are not YOU. They don't define YOU. They are not an inherent part of who you are. They are merely thoughts that arise and cease. What you have is a habit. A very uncomfortable one that is unsatisfactory. Understanding that this habit itself is subject to change and does not inherently define you and is not an inherent part of who you are can be one of the first steps in watching it slowly go away.
Answer: Is this counted as bad karma?
I think "karma" in Buddhism is defined as "intentional action" or something like that.

Intention, I tell you, is kamma. Intending, one does kamma by way of body, speech, & intellect.

It seems to me from your description that the "imagination" and "voice" are just perceptions which arise and that you're aware of -- and that your intention (intentional action or karma) is described as, "i REALLY REALLY do not want to do any of this", i.e. you want to be non-harmful.
I suppose that most people at some time experience moments of imagination, and some people "a voice". And the wise thing is to correctly assess whether it's harmful before you act (or don't act) on it.
And what should i do? Just let it pass or maybe i should keep hurting myself so it will stop?
Ideally you'd hurt neither yourself nor others.
A lot of people have self-harming behaviours, addictions, rituals -- but I believe that "practice to benefit self and others" is the correct answer, canonically.
There's MN 19 for example which describes the kind of thinking which led the Buddha to enlightenment...

The Blessed One said, "Monks, before my self-awakening, when I was still just an unawakened Bodhisatta, the thought occurred to me: 'Why don't I keep dividing my thinking into two sorts?' So I made thinking imbued with sensuality, thinking imbued with ill will, & thinking imbued with harmfulness one sort, and thinking imbued with renunciation, thinking imbued with non-ill will, & thinking imbued with harmlessness another sort.
"And as I remained thus heedful, ardent, & resolute, thinking imbued with sensuality arose in me. I discerned that 'Thinking imbued with sensuality has arisen in me; and that leads to my own affliction or to the affliction of others or to the affliction of both. It obstructs discernment, promotes vexation, & does not lead to Unbinding.'
"As I noticed that it leads to my own affliction, it subsided. As I noticed that it leads to the affliction of others... to the affliction of both... it obstructs discernment, promotes vexation, & does not lead to Unbinding, it subsided. Whenever thinking imbued with sensuality had arisen, I simply abandoned it, dispelled it, wiped it out of existence.

... and so on.
This may be a process people go through to "renounce" any form of addiction -- which is of course perhaps not easy, but better for self and others -- that's the ideal.
That's also stated explicitly in AN 4.95.

The person who practices to benefit neither themselves nor others is like this, I say.
The person who practices to benefit others, but not themselves, is better than that. The person who practices to benefit themselves, but not others, is better than both of those. But the person who practices to benefit both themselves and others is the foremost, best, chief, highest, and finest of the four.

Incidentally, the "firebrand" simile in that sutta:

Suppose there was a firebrand for lighting a funeral pyre, burning at both ends, and smeared with dung in the middle. It couldn't be used as timber either in the village or the wilderness.

I suspect that "burning at both ends" represents the Buddhist "middle way between extremes" -- where "middle way" means "neither extreme". So for example if "hurting others" is one extreme, and "hurting self" is the other extreme, then the Buddhist doctrine might be counselling neither of these, avoid both. Sometimes that's difficult to see, as the mind manufactures "false dilemmas" (also referred to as "false dichotomy") -- like, "Which will it be: one or the other?"
And "smeared with dung in the middle" may represent that it isn't only the two extremes which shouldn't be grasped.
Sorry if this sounds weird.
This sounds familiar to me. I know some people do "hear a voice" sometimes -- and it's good, better, to be able to judge whether what's being voiced is harmful or harmless, and to be motivated to act harmlessly and not act harmfully.
Answer: It's good, good householder, to fear such terrible and being reminded that if not reaching the stream, one is still able to make all, even the most worse deeds. Most people think their intentions are for sure and might not have come in situation where confusion and wrong view can lead to such "crazy" acts.
Once listened to the good Dhamma, having left home, with proper attention,such thing is eternally solved, so one wise does good to take on what ever "hardship" possible in regard of the training, in regard of merits, to get as fast as possible ride of such total valid fear.
Much conviction and effort, seeing those imaginations as very friends and reminders, a blessing less have, having gotten certain access to the path out of dangers.

I am a buddhist, and i have a harm OCD


Difference between "vecchio" and "anziano"

Question: What is the difference between vecchio and anziano? They both mean "old". Which one would you use to say a place is old, vecchio or anziano?
Comment: At the cost of getting some criticism, I'd say that "anziano" does NOT generally mean "old", but rather "aged" or "elderly", and is only used when talking about senior people to show some respect. Using "vecchio" for a person can be (depending on the context) rude, especially when used as substantive ("un vecchio"). Of course there are exceptions.
Comment: If the current trend continues, sooner or later we will address elderly people as "diversamente giovani". Anyway, if you are talking about a place, you may use "vecchio" or, if it applies, "antico". If you are looking for a refined word, you may also use "vetusto".
Comment: Note that referring to your parents calling them "i miei vecchi" is generally considered an affectionate expression.
Comment: "Anziano" only applies to people, not objects or places. For places you can use "vecchio". As gd1 says.
Comment: Although it's not *that* simple ;)
Answer: Actually, it depends.
Anziano is always inappropriate for places, unless we are under an allegory or some sort of personification, or any other figure of speech, however sophisticated.
If you are referring to the old bus stop, and there is a new one 100 meters ahead, you should say "la vecchia fermata", as opposed to the new one. For a crumbling building, you may say "quell'edificio è molto vecchio", even if I would prefer to use a more precise term, such as cadente, fatiscente, or pericolante.
But if you are talking about an old church, you should use antico or opt for a high-register term such as vetusto. "Una chiesa vecchia" is a poor word choice: either you want to say "la vecchia chiesa" (because there is a new one) or "una chiesa antica". If you say "Quella chiesa è molto vecchia" people may think you are pointing out that the church was built in the Seventies, and some handymen have to be hired because it needs some refurbishment. Well, that's really not the case.
Answer:

Vecchio is a general term meaning old. When referring to an old man anziano is the term that is generally considered more respectful.

If you want to refer to a place vecchio is the term you should use. It has the same connotation as in English meaning both a place that is many years old and a place were you used to go, your old school!.
Comment: About your second point, I'd say... *not quite always*. I am not a native English speaker - so correct me if needed - but I do not find anything wrong with "That church is very old", whereas "Quella chiesa è molto vecchia" is quite inappropriate if you want to say that it is ... *ancient*. People may think you are pointing out that the church was built some decades ago and needs some refurbishment.
Answer: Same as with "old" and "elder/ly".  Elder/Elderly (anziano), old (vecchio).  The former applies to individuals the second with either. Some religious sects and orders have anziani, viz. "elders."
Answer: Vecchio - also means "Elder"; used to distinguish two important persons of the same family sharing the same name and surname. Example: Bruegel the Elder/Pliny the Elder/Cosimo dei Medici, il Vecchio - Cosimo dei Medici, the Elder - to distinguish this person from say another Cosimo of the Medici family who may be younger (in Italian Novello). Likewise could also mean an elder of a tribe or council elder (i.e an Alderman). Interestingly the Arab sheikh means old-man or elder. Plural of the Italian noun (and adjective) Vecchio is Vecchi (Elders, Old-men)


Skype's SILK Codec

Question: Let me start by clarifying the terminology that I will be using in the following.
A codec packet is the compressed data which an encoder returns when it is called once.
An RTP payload can consist of one codec packet or a sequence of codec packets.
My questions:
Does the RFC for SILK allow the RTP payload to consist of more than one codec packet?
If so, how do I split up the received RTP payload into the codec packets so each packet can be
decoded later in time (one codec packet at a time) ?
Example:
An application encodes 20ms 16bit LPCM audio blocks using SILK. Each codec packet is sent down to the network
stack for transmission via RTP. Let's say that the first 4 times the encoder is called, the encoder outputs:
1) A 20ms codec packet of size 39 bytes
2) A 20ms codec packet of size 35 bytes
3) A 20ms codec packet of size 41 bytes
4) A 20ms codec packet of size 32 bytes
The network stack in the application assembles an RTP payload consisting of the 4 codec packets. So in this
case the RTP payload size is 39 + 35 + 41 + 32 = 147 bytes.
On the receiving end, the 147 byte RTP payload is received. How is the receiving application supposed to split
up the RTP payload into the original 4 codec packets of 39, 35, 41 and 32 bytes, respectively????
I'm pretty sure that the RFC doesn't allow this kind of scenario, but I want to make sure. Can somebody confirm
whether or not the RFC allows for more than one codec packet per RTP payload???
As far as I understand, the RFC only allows ONE codec packet per RTP payload. If it's desired to send 80ms
per payload, the way it should be done is to configure the encoder to output 80ms codec packets (instead of 20ms).
Is this correct???
Answer: I believe you are correct.
The RFC for Silk allows up to 5, 20ms segments of data representing a single frame per RTP packet.
From the draft rfc...

4.2.  Payload Structure
The SILK encoder can be set to output encoded frames representing 20,
    40, 60, 80, or 100 ms of speech or audio data.  Only one frame output
    from the encoder MUST be used as the payload.  Figure 1 shows the
    structure combined with the RTP header.
+----------+--------------+
   |RTP Header| SILK Payload |
   +----------+--------------+

See http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-spittka-silk-payload-format-00.txt for more details.  Also search for the most recent draft of RFC to be sure you are current.

Skype's SILK Codec


Lifetime of a (reversible) hydrogen fuel cell system

Question: I am trying to determine how long a system that constantly converts water into H and O and then back will last, as in roughly how many cycles. Now this system can either be made of say a reversible fuel cell or a non-reversible fuel cell combined with a dedicated electrolysis machine (if there is a difference in lifetime). As far as I can tell, platinum is used (almost) everywhere as catalyst and as far I can determine it seems to corrode somewhat throughout use, especially in terms of splitting the oxygen in the fuel cell. I am no professional though and I can only find limited information so I would appreciate it if someone could please tell me roughly how long a system like this will last and how.
Answer: Fuel cell manufacturers quote a range of different lifetimes which depend on many factors. Backup cells tend to have lower lifetimes as the start-stop process degrades them compared to continuous operation. On the other hand, use as engines in vehicles requires a reasonably long life.
Impure fuel will damage the platinum (CO for example will poison the catalytic surface). But platinum is recyclable so either poisoning or other factors won't necessarily be a fundamental barrier to use (some companies take used cells back at the end of life and reuse the platinum). Membranes and electrodes also degrade mechanically depending on duty cycle and any mechanical stabilisation in the design.
Nedstack quotes lifetimes ranging from 2,000 hours for backup cells (which presumably means years of actual operation as they only get used when other power is cut which isn't a routine happening) and 8,000-16,000 hours for continuous operation (which is two years). Tests of fuel cells in vehicles have reported lifetimes of 7,500 hours (which presumably relates to several years of use in practice), though they seem to need more maintenance than diesel engines.
Answer: Poisoning of the catalyst, e.g. by $\ce{CO}$, is only one aspect that reduces the lifetime of PEM fuel cells.
The Nafion polymer membrane can suffer due to mechanical stress as a result of rapid temperature changes or dehydration.
Answer: Fuel cells don't convert water into H and O.  The generation of hydorgen gas is done at some point prior to being introduced into the cell (as in the case of hydrogen combustion engines).  The first stage of the fuel cell uses a catalyst, like platinum, to split hydrogen gas (H2) into atomic hydrogen.  Since the catalyst is a conductor and is sandwiched next to a proton-permeable membrane (proton exchange membrane), the electrons from the hydrogen are also separated and conducted to the final stage of the cell.
If the fuel cell itself was generating hydrogen from H2O, the system as a whole would generate no net energy--all of the energy obtained from the hydrogen reaction at the end would need to go back into separating the H2O in the first place.
Comment: Welcome to chemistry.se! While these are all interesting and informative (and true) facts, they unfortunately do not provide an answer to the question.
Answer: I have actually purchased and run three fuel cell stacks. One was dead on arrival and never converted any hydrogen to electricity. If you ever buy one, you will notice no warranty, no return policy and no expected useful life. This led us to actually invent a way to probe PEMFC health without putting hydrogen in, and we got a patent on that. The second fuel cell ran for about 40 hours, but the performance degraded quickly over that time. The third one also degraded and died within 200 hours. These were commercial stacks used with extreme care in a research lab facility by expert engineers. Given that demonstration cars and buses also don't last very long, I think we know why fuel cells are not going anywhere. The nature of the degradation is such that there isn't much that can be done to make the PEMFC more robust. See publication by S. Page in Journal of IEEE.


Why does the inside of fried chicken sometimes turn brown?

Question: Tonight I cooked fried chicken on the stove. However, I have seen chicken with brown ligaments or bones, after cooking before. Not just from frying the chicken either. Is it due to the age of the chicken, or an incorrect temperature or overcooking?
I hate seeing that when I eat chicken and if I knew what was causing it, I could avoid it, and enjoy my chicken more.
Answer: The darkening is harmless.  It is more likely to occur in younger birds, since their bones are immature, soft, and porous.  It is also exacerbated by deep chilling or freezing, since microscopic ice crystallization will allow various colored substances (e.g., marrow) to coalesce around the bones.  When the meat is cooked, these substances will usually turn brown.
Therefore, interior browning can be avoided by using older chickens and avoiding meat that has ever been frozen.  Given that most commercial chickens in large countries like the USA are slaughtered very young (less than seven weeks old), it may be difficult, but not impossible, to find an older chicken.
Answer: It's likely the brown you are noticing is the blood seeping from the bones during the cooking process, and then turning brown after being exposed to heat.
Comment: There is no blood in properly slaughtered chicken. It is drained off as part of the process.


What is the relationship between "macro" and "telephoto" lenses?

Question: Can anyone explain the difference between "macro" and "telephoto"?
I know that a macro lens will give you a magnification of 1:1 but how does it differ from a telephoto lens?
Comment: @MichaelClark This question is not asking about zoom.
Comment: The "zoom" question is primarily about the difference between Telephoto and Macro capability.
Answer: There is no direct relationship between Telephoto focal lengths and Macro capability.
Macro lenses allow closer focusing than most lenses. By allowing you to get the subject closer to the camera, it allows you to increase the size of the subject in your photo. Macro capability is measured in terms of Maximum Magnification (MM) that is only indirectly related to focal length. Magnification is expressed as the ratio between the actual size of the subject and the size of the subject's image that is projected onto the film/sensor. A 1:1 Macro lens, which has an MM of 1.0x or 100%, means if the subject is 15mm tall, the lens can get close enough to project a properly focused image of the subject on the focal plane that is 15mm tall. A 1:2 lens would have an MM of 0.5x or 50% and would project an image 7.5mm tall of the 15mm subject. This is because if both lenses are the same focal length the 1:2 lens would require twice the distance to properly focus on the 15mm subject.
Most Telephoto lenses are designed to focus on distant subjects, not to reproduce nearer subjects at high magnifications. A 600mm lens will do very well at taking a 6 foot tall human at very large distance (a little over 400 feet) and filling the 36mm tall sensor frame (full frame is 36mm x 24mm) in portrait orientation. I've never seen a 600mm lens that can get close enough to a 36mm subject to fill the same frame and properly focus on it. By the time you are close enough to the subject, you are inside the lens' Minimum Focus Distance (MFD) by several yards/meters. Most telephoto lenses have very large MFD and thus small MM numbers. That is what a Macro lens is designed to do: by reducing the MFD you can focus on a much closer object and get a higher MM.
There are some telephoto zoom lenses on the market, usually in the 70-300mm range, that claim to be Macro capable. But if you examine the specifications of such lenses, you see that at best they are 1:3 in terms of magnification. They can only focus close enough to project a 15mm image of a 45mm subject. That gives them an MM of .33x or 33%. While it is theoretically possible to design a telephoto zoom lens with 1:1 Macro capability, it is not practical. Most true Macro lenses have a fixed focal length designation that allows them to be simpler, cheaper than a comparable zoom lens would be, and produce better image quality at closer subject distances.
There are some fixed focal length prime lenses that fall into the Telephoto range in terms of focal length and also are capable of close enough focus to be Macro lenses. But a lens doesn't have to be a telephoto lens to have Macro capability and there are many Macro lenses that have shorter-than-telephoto focal lengths.
Answer: A macro lens can focus very close allowing you to photograph small objects. A telephoto lens [generally] has a narrow field of view and is good for photographing objects that are far away.
A lens can be both, for example the Canon 180mm f/3.5L macro.
Answer: A Macro lens are lenses specifically designed for close-up work.  Macro lenses allow you to take a photo of a subject very close up.  Calling a lens a macro lens doesn't have anything to do with whether it is wide-angle or telephoto. It just means you can get very close to small objects and photograph them.  Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia:

Macro lenses of different focal lengths find different uses:

45–65 mm – product photography, small objects that can be approached closely without causing undesirable influence, and scenes
  requiring natural background perspective
90–105 mm – insects, flowers, and small objects from a comfortable distance
150–200 mm – insects and other small animals where additional working distance is required
Continuously-variable focal length – suitable for virtually all macro subjects

Telephoto lens, on the other hand is a lens with longer focus length than standard used for long-distance subjects. It gives a narrow field of view and a magnified image.


Properly dispose QuickTime control

Question: I'm currently developing an application for Windows platform that will be able to play Quick Time videos.
The targeted OS versions are Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.
I successfully used the Apple ActiveX QuickTime Control 2.0 (in C#) and everything works well on Windows XP.
However, on Vista and Windows 7 I'm facing problems with properly disposing the control.
Here are the "steps to reproduce" :
- I create the Quick Time control dynamically at runtime and I place it on a panel;

I successfully play videos with it;
At some point I close the application main form; the application windows is destroyed and the application will continue to run in the background (doing operations like syncing videos); at this point the control is disposed using IDisposable pattern; I can't explicitly dispose the Movie object (from the ActiveX control) because I get an exception like: "COM object that has been separated from its underlying RCW cannot be used."; I just use (AxQTOControlLib.AxQTControl) player.Dispose(); On Windows XP this is fine but not on Vista and 7
I restore my application (from tool bar where it was running in background) and try to open the video again; At this point an AccessViolationException "Attempted to read/write protected memory" is thrown;

My questions are:

Why is this happening only on Vista and Windows 7 ?
On XP is a hidden leak ?
What is the recommended way to dispose the control (with its movie object) when it is created at runtime ?

I'm now using an explicit Movie.Disconnect() call (although I don't now what this disconnect means because I could not find proper documentation) fallowed by a QuickTimeTerminate() call before the form is closed.
While my method is working it is kind of design breaking so I would like to know a better way of doing this.
Thank you,
Mosu'
Update:
I just discovered that my method is not workink. I use to players: QuickTime control and Windows Media player control (both ActiveX) and when one fails to play a file the other one is used. I was seeing the output of WindowsMedia player and thinking the methos IS working.
So my fix is not working at all.
Comment: Yuck, quite a crummy control.  Try hiding your form instead of disposing it.
Comment: Thanks for reply. I can't do this because all the other controls (including the panel the control sits on) are being disposed.
The application is in a mature state. I have been asked to added this features. So this is not an option.
Comment: I've got the same issue unfortunately
Answer: Lots of people seem to be having this error.
This page offers an interesting approach: http://www.theusenetarchive.com/usenet-message-how-to-properly-destroy-quicktime-activex-object-10384503.htm

The crash occurs because of file handles still being open.  I was
  'unloading' movies from the Quicktime control by wiring a null string
  to the FileName or URL property.  Quicktime doesn't handle this
  correctly and leaves the original file open.  So instead I wired
  a path to an actual image file (Quicktime does images too) that was
  all black.  Eveything seems fine now.

Properly dispose QuickTime control


What size aluminum ser do I need for 100 amp sub panel 10 feet away from 200 amp main?

Question: What size aluminum ser do I need to feed 100 amp subpanel? Ten feet from main panel.
Comment: Are the existing and new panels flush mounted, surface mounted, or outdoors? Is there a wall or other divider between the two panel locations?  (I ask because SER might not be the right choice for this application to begin with)
Comment: What is a "ser"?
Comment: A 4 wire cable.
Comment: homeline surface mounted type
Answer: Why SER?
With surface mounted panels in what presumably is an unfinished space, there is 0 reason to run an exposed SER cable here.  Instead, I would run a conduit between the two panels (2" EMT will handle anything you want to do here), and then simply run 3 XHHW-2 conductors (hot, hot, neutral) in the conduit between the two panels, using the conduit as a grounding path.
As to inner conductor sizing...
I would use 1AWG Al wires here; spending the extra for copper is a waste, and you can't get away with 2AWG for this because you'd exceed the 75°C termination limit that is normal for breakers and loadcenters if you did.  This limitation is a consequence of NEC 110.14(C)(1), by the way.
TORQUE ALL LUGS TO SPEC
One essential thing with this job, no matter who does it, is that all lugs will need to be tightened to the torque specified on the corresponding labels using an inch-pound torque-wrench; this is required by 2017 NEC 110.14(D), and is a good idea anyway, lest your electrical system go the way of Greg Biffle's infamous lugnuts.
Comment: @RobertMoody Aluminum's still fine (as long as it's the AA-8000 series stuff), but I suspect you are looking at the wrong column in the NEC ampacity tables (either that, or they've changed since your Codebook was published)
Comment: @RobertMoody -- you're misinterpreting what is now 310.15(B)(7) -- the conductors in question have to be carrying the *entire dwelling unit load* in order for that part of the Code to apply; since you have part of your house on the main panel and another part on the subpanel from the sounds of things, then you can't use the 83% adjustment factor (or table 310-15(b)(6), for that matter)
Comment: Code states you can use  aluminum 310-14 it is allowed,may not be a fan of it Then i went to 310-15 ,6 It sent me to 310-15(b)(6) says #2 allowed.                              i dont have new code book. Have there been changes?
Comment: I have a  2008 code book 310-14 has seu and ser at  AA-8000, What about table 310-15(b)(6) that change is dwelling sub panel only. Plus can you fix my last comment stuff about fan in it .
Comment: Looked for .310-15(b}(7)  was not in 2008 See you state,entire load.So now table 310-15(b)(6) Allows #2 alum for main panel only seu . And when comes from main panel to a sub panel (b)(7) factors in, and you cant  use #2 ser.  So now to new code #2 seu can be service riser to a 1oo amp meter disconnect.                               t. Witch now make that main panel..(b){7)ser has to be changed to now feed sub panel? #2 not aloud you have to increase the wire size.Is (b)(7) a table?
Comment: @RobertMoody -- (B)(7) is where (B)(6) moved to in newer editions of the Code, and it's not a table any longer, either.
Comment: What is wire size needed now?Got many comments. Some saying#2
Comment: @RobertMoody -- #1 is needed, as per my answer.
Answer: Why aluminum?
4 copper or #2 aluminum per NEC Table 310-15(b)(6). Note that sub-panels must have the neutrals and grounds completely separated, with the neutral bus isolated from (not bonded to) the steel enclosure. If you have any questions about this please let us know.
Comment: Why aluminum? Because it is often cheaper. May not matter much for 10'.
Comment: I hate aluminum and it's tendency to corrode and cause problems with dissimilar metals, unless your budget is that tight I'd use copper everywhere. The cost difference here at this length is minimal and the peace of mind that comes with not having to slop antiox all over everything and knowing it will last forever.
Comment: @Bobthebuilder corrosion isn't the problem -- if your connections are corroding, then you've done something really bad technique-wise as a proper mechanical lug or crimp connection forms a gas-tight seal.  (Thing is, without a torque wrench, it's pretty trivial to get a mechanical setscrew lug connection wrong, and mere luck when you do get it right)
Comment: @Bobthebuilder -- furthermore, you are actually calling out an *undersized* wire in this answer! (you need to use the 75°C column when doing panel to panel runs as that's all the terminations can take!)
Comment: @Bobthebuilder -- and p.s., copper wire connections can fail from bad torquing too, it's not a problem limited to aluminum wire!
Comment: Is 310-15(b)(6) changed?
Comment: From what i have been told 310.15(b)(6) is not used  310-15(b)(7) must be used  #1 aluminum Is to be used ,                 would like more input only one person answered #1


Which coloring agents are responsible for the color in red tea and yellow tea?

Question: Have this question in a biochemistry course, can't seem to find it anywhere. Anyone happen to know an alkaloid or something else involved? Thanks a lot!
Comment: Take a look on flavonoids ;)
Answer: I believe that it is the different polyphenols (Flavonoids are a type of polyphenol) in tea that give it its colors. Black tea has thearubigins that give it a red-brown color. The yellow color in tea comes from theaflavins. The color of the tea also depends on the acidity of the water used, because thearubigins are very weak acids, and the anions they produce have strong colors. If the water you use is alkaline, the color will be stronger. If it is acidic, the color will be lighter.


Why did the US credit rating downgrade in 2011 decrease US government bond yields?

Question: I'm not sure how bond yields were decreased by the  US credit rating downgrade in 2011. Since the credit rating is down, shouldn't the yields increase since the US government wants to attract more bond buyers?
Comment: @1muflon1 - at the time the consensus opinion was that the downgrade indicated higher risk in the world economy, leading in the short-term to lower share prices, a movement of capital to the dollar and lower US bond yields
Comment: Can you provide any reference to a credible that would suggest the downgrade of credit rating was the **cause** behind decreasing yields?
Answer: My guess is this is a coincidence. That is, the effect of the credit rating agencies was either approximately zero, or if it was substantial and negative, that this was swamped out by other factors.
If bond ratings have a causal effect on yields, that effect is usually for smaller issues and smaller issuers where the market depends on the rating agencies for critical information. For the big issuers the banks are well informed on the issuer and need the rating agency less.
For example, consider the paper The relationship between credit default swap spreads, bond yields, and credit rating announcements (JBF 2004). When they look at CDS spreads, which are mostly for bigger issuers, they find:

By pooling all observations we find a significant (at the 1% level)
increase in the CDS spread well in advance of a downgrade event. In
the case of reviews for downgrade and negative outlooks there is a
significant (at the 1% level) increase in the CDS spread during the 30
days preceding the event. CDS spreads increase by approximately 38 bps
in the 90 days before a downgrade, by 24 bps before a review for
downgrade, and by 29 basis points before a negative outlook. When
observations are pooled there are no significant changes in CDS spread
during the 10 business days after any type of negative event.

I interpret this as saying that bond markets seem to react to the information on these larger issuers that the credit rating agencies are also using to change their ratings and at the same time they are considering those changes. However, the actual rating change, the information in that rating, and the reasoning behind it doesn't matter much. What holds for large corporate issuers is going to be even more true for a large issuer like the US government.
However, there is alternative evidence from the sovereign market in Europe. Credit rating agency downgrades and the Eurozone sovereign debt crises (JFS 2016):

This paper studies the reaction of the Euro's value against major
currencies to sovereign rating announcements from Moody's, S&P and
Fitch CRAs during the Eurozone debt crisis in 2010–2012 based on event
study methodology combined with GARCH models. We also analyze how the
yields of French, Italian, German and Spanish government long-term
bonds were affected by CRA announcements. Our results reveal that CRA
downgrades, watchlist and outlook announcements had no impact on the
value of the Euro currency but increased exchange rate volatility.
At the same time, downgrades as well as negative outlook
announcements increased the yields of French, Italian, and Spanish
bonds and even affected the German bond's yields. This shows that
the monetary union has led to a breakdown of the consequences of the
rating shocks between currency value and sovereign bond yields. The
reason is that part of the rating shock is absorbed by an internal
repricing of sovereign bonds.
Answer: It is very difficult to explain why financial market prices change. Theoretically, you would need to get honest answers from all market participants as to what their strategies are - and no sensible market participant will offer that information.

However, it should be noted that the rating on US Treasury securities is a formality, and would likely only cause technical problems for investment mandates if they fell below investment grade. Treasury securities have special status in risk measures, and that status is not dependent upon what some rating agency says.
I was working in finance, and remember that incident. The news hit after close, and was the subject on weekend news specials. When the markets re-opened Monday, equity markets fell. Bond prices at the typically had a negative correlation with equities, and so it was not surprising that bond prices went up/yields went down.

There's really no way of knowing whether bond yields fell because economic conditions were downgraded (e.g., investors expected spending cuts from Congress), or was a reaction to equities. Meanwhile, it is unclear what was happening in equity markets.
Comment: Hi @Brian Romanchuk what do you mean by "Bond prices at the typically had a negative correlation with equities"?
Comment: If equities rose that day, bond prices fell, and vice-versa.


Is it safe to upgrade an Ubuntu 8.10 Server to the latest release?

Question: The server is running Apache, Subversion, and Atlassian Confluence. Can this be upgraded safely, and if so, what is the command line? I'd like to stay on a more recent version of the platform but make as few problems for myself as possible.
Answer: According to Upgrading to Ubuntu 9.04:

Network Upgrade for Ubuntu Servers (Recommended)

Install update-manager-core if it is not already installed:
sudo apt-get install update-manager-core
Launch the upgrade tool:
sudo do-release-upgrade
Follow the on-screen instructions.

According to the Ubuntu release history, 8.10 will be officially supported for another year (almost). 9.04 is less than two weeks old so I'd perhaps be slightly hesitant to upgrade immediately unless you have a pressing need. If what you have now works just stick with it until the 9.04 issues are bedded down.
Comment: +1, if you pick a LTS distro, well, enjoy long term support. The idea is you should not have to mess with upgrading until its close to end of life.
Answer: I would stick with 8.10 like cletus said. There aren't to many major differences between the releases. If you stick with 8.10 then you know what your getting, if you upgrade to 9.04 there could be bugs that haven't been reported yet that might affect you.
The major thing you have to consider when upgrading is this: Who are you working for? If this is your server then do it and see what happens. If this is a business server that servers the needs of other users, then wait.
If there's one thing vista taught us, it's that the "latest and greatest" isn't always better then what you were using before.
Answer: There is an annoying bug with tracker in 9.04.
Otherwise I haven´t seen any problems after upgrade from 8.10 after using it for couple of hours. Nor I have seen any significant differences or improvements. Upgrade itself went smoohtly.
EDIT: these experiences refer only to desktop usage, they are probably not applicaple to the question.
Answer: As cletus said, just do:
<code>sudo apt-get install-update-manager-core
sudo do-release-upgrade
</code>
However, I have usually found that upgrading can cause lots of problems. On desktops I usually put the home folders on a separate partition so I can do a fresh install without losing any data. If you don't have a really important reason to upgrade, don't. Upgrading is good for desktops so you can get all the cool new stuff. On servers though, you don't want to mess with more than you have to.
Answer: There's a bug in 9.04 where degraded RAID arrays don't automatically start. Otherwise, I've been happy with it on my home server and my VPS, but I haven't finished my testing for my work cluster(s) yet.
Answer: The only way you can really be sure is to upgrade the preproduction server and see what breaks. If you don't have one, then you can always restore from backups if you encounter something major and unfixable. If you don't have backups, well, may God have mercy.
Answer: Technically you can, see the other answers for how.
The problem I had with ubuntu upgrades, is every time I upgraded in the first month or so after a release a lot of stuff were broken, and it took some time until they were fixed. Good it is only on my home stuff.
I'd like to upgrade my servers as well, but I'd wait at least until the end of June before doing so.


Suggestions on a Music Server

Question: We have been using gnump3d as the music server for some 3 years in our college. But as of now the development of it has stopped and it is not that much reliable anymore, as it crashes whenever the server is restarted. Is there any other open source Music servers that can be used?
Answer: Yes, Plex Media Server can be used to stream media. Windows OSX and Linux solutions are available.
Answer: I'm fond of Icecast, the open source version of Shoutcast which is popular for Internet streaming. It hasn't had a new official release in a few years, but one developer has his own branch that's added some extra features and bug fixes.
Answer: There is a list of some on Wikipedia. However, picking one depends on what kind of set-up you have, and of course there are more out there then those on the list!
For example, if you have Sonos system(s) set-up where you are streaming then perhaps you might want to use their own system. On the other hand, if you just want to have literally a server which contains all your music that can be accessed from PCs connected to the same network then you might want to use some Windows Media Player powered solution.

Suggestions on a Music Server


Can you get drunk with Vodka vapour using a humidifier?

Question: Can one get drunk with Vodka vapour using a humidifier? As it was shown in a Simpsons episode.
Comment: Is there anyone actually claiming that this is true? The FAQ says "Skeptics is about applying skepticism — it's for researching the evidence behind the claims you hear or read.". There is a lot on entertainment TV which is not claimed to be accurate.
Comment: Hi Martin, would seeing something depicted in a movie/series also be considered as a claim? I mean reading,hearing calims have nothing more or less than a claim that is been depicted in some other way. I could very well restate the question in folowing form "I heard from someone that it is possible to get ..., is it true", the main quest remains the same but only the form has changed.
Answer: Edit: Wow, I hate to do this after being accepted, but I need to change my answer! Vartec made the fantastic point that I was considering one had to get the entire amount of alcohol in a shot into one's blood stream. He is correct that I completely goofed on the amounnt and should have focused on Blood Alcohol Content (BAC), not how much one usually has to ingest to get drunk. If we keep the rest constant below, assuming all alcohol inhaled is absorbed, we just need the point at which there are ~5mL of alcohol in the blood (assuming an average total blood volume of 5L).
With this adjustment, this method becomes incredibly more possible. Again, my apologies for the whiplash.

TL;DR: If one perfectly vaporized 750 mL of 80 proof liquor (40% alcohol), one could achieve a BAC of 0.1 after ~900 respirations (45-75min) in a small room assuming that no alcohol escapes.

Here goes...

Assume a room of 3m x 3m x 3m (27m3)
Nebulize a 750 mL bottle of vodka (assume immediate/complete/uniform dispersion)
At 40% alcohol, this means there are 300 mL of alcohol vapor in the air
A standard shot is 1.5 fluid ounces, or ~44 mL, and let's say that if one can breath in 2 shots (88 mL), inebriation will be experienced
We'll also assume that all alcohol breathed will be absorbed by the lungs
The volume of an average human breath size is 500 mL (SOURCE)
1 mL = 0.001 L = 10-6 m3
"Drunk" is a blood alcohol content of 0.1 (0.1% of the blood is alcohol)
The average human blood volume is 5L; "drunk" is when the blood contains 5mL of alcohol

So, now we'll use the size of a breath, and concentration of alcohol in the air to determine the amount of vodka absorbed over time. We'll assume that the room is essentially sealed such that no alcohol vapor is removed.
I won't drag this out. I ran such breath iterations in an Excel formula like so:
<code>Alc (mL)    Air (m^3)   Alc in Air (%)   Alc in breath (mL)  Air in breath (mL)
300.00      27.000      0.00111%         0.00556             499.99
299.99      27.000      0.00111%         0.00556             499.99
299.99      27.000      0.00111%         0.00556             499.99
</code>
It pretty much just keeps going like that (the volume of alcohol is so small that it barely changes anything through time). For the formulas:

Alc (mL): Alcohol in the air. Each cell subtracts the alcohol breathed from the previous volume that was present. The second value, for example, is subtracting the breathed amount of 0.00556 mL from the initial contents of 300 mL
Air (m^3): Just subtracts the current alcohol content from 27 m^3 total room volume
Alc in Air (%): divides the alcohol by air in room to get a percent content value
Alc in breath (mL): 500mL breath volume * current alcohol percent
Air in breath (mL): 500mL breath volume * (1 - current alcohol percent)

Since the amount of alcohol is fairly small, the change over time is also extremely small. Thus, we can estimate that each breath will bring in 0.00556mL of alcohol into the system. To achieve drunkenness, one would need to respirate 5mL / (0.00556mL / respiration) = ~900 times. This would take 45-75min based on 12-20 respirations per minute.
To decrease time, one could reduce the size of the room, or atomize more alcohol. The content will scale linearly, so using two bottles of vodka will take only half the time.
Final caveat: This has all been theoretical, and I'm not sure how efficient the lungs would be at absorbing alcohol. I can find sources that give a rate of 25% for oxygen extraction from air, so this would have to be figured in as well. If the rate were only 25% for alcohol, it would take 4x as long as above, or 3-5 hours. Using more bottles would reduce that proportionally. Typical rooms also aren't sealed, and thus alcohol is going to diffuse to the outside air and reduce the concentration. This rate will vary by the room, but may have a huge effect on how this works. Reducing the room volume or creating a tent of sorts will help this.

My conclusion? I originally found this nearly impossible due to my faulty assumption that one needed to breath the same amount as one needed to drink. Complete credit goes to vartec for this correction which, very surprisingly, swung the answer completely in the other direction. It now appears quite possible.
Comment: your conclusions are way wrong. You're assuming that absorption rate through lungs is same as through stomach, which is totally wrong. Average human has 5L of blood, BAC>.1 is considered totally drunk. BAC>.1 for average human would mean just 5mL alcohol in bloodstream. You'd only need 1mL in blood stream to be legally intoxicated.
Comment: In addition to what vartec said, you can get seriously intoxicated by using alcohol-based paint or varnish in a closed room. So why not from high-percentage vodka?
Comment: @vartec: I updated my answer -- thanks! What a mistake I made! It now appears quite possible to achieve drunkenness (with some caveats inserted for the theoretical assumptions made). It wasn't a huge adjustment, as the amount in the air and amount per respiration values all stayed the same -- it was just determining how much one needed to take in to get drunk that was awry.
Comment: @Konrad: good point, though I really don't know about those scenarios. The alcohols are typically different, for one (ethyl vs. methyl/wood grain), I don't know what percentage of them is alcohol, etc. Thinners are *ridiculously* more flammable than 80 proof spirits, so that may indicate that they have a higher concentration to begin with. Using high concentration liquors would scale this linearly; using 160 proof would half the time until drunkenness.
Comment: Fair point, and thanks for the updated answer.
Comment: Does this consider alcohol metabolism?
Comment: While I really like this answer, isn't it original research?
Comment: This is a really old answer, but the "adjustment" makes a huge mistake: you don't get intoxicated from having alcohol in your blood, you get intoxicated from having alcohol in your *brain*. In general, alcohol gets stored in fattier tissues than blood, and while blood contents of alcohol are low, you still absorb basically all of the alcohol you ingest, eventually. So you would have to inhale just as much as you would have to drink to have roughly the same intoxicant effect.
Comment: Essentially, the bloodstream is a really really great way of delivering substances throughout the body (i.e., that's what it is designed to do...) so you can't just put 5 mL ethanol in blood and expect it to stay there: it will diffuse and reach equilibrium with all of the other tissues in the body. I think Biology.SE would give a much better answer to the original question :)
Comment: Anecdotal: as a child, I witnessed a neighbour watching and ladling out (but not drinking) hot spiced wine, outdoors in the winter, for some hours... often standing in a visible cloud of vapor. He appeared to be quite happy with this duty and refused relief. Finally he tumbled down. I was quite impressed :)
Answer: Alcohol vaporizer

So far, 17 states have banned them, including California, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Ohio, and several others are considering doing so, said Sherry Green, executive director of the National Alliance for Model State Drug Laws. Tennessee, the home of Jack Daniels, already prohibits the vaporizers.
  "When you inhale alcohol right into the lung tissue, that gets drawn right into the blood supply immediately, so it's a very rapid onset of the intoxicating effect, and so has obviously very high abuse potential," said Robert Walker, an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky Center on Drug and Alcohol Research.

See also: Alcohol without liquid at Wikipedia
Alcohol is a liquid solvent, like chloroform or ethyl ether. If you get it into the vapor phase, there's nothing to prevent it from going in through the lungs.
Rather than nebulizing a quart of Jack in a small small room, the commercial units (see link for picture) work more like one of those bongs people smoke tobacco in. I don't have figures, but that set up delivers far higher concentrations of ethanol than calculated above.


Why is a alkyne anion more stable than a benzene anion?

Question:
I would think the benzene anion (A) is more stable b/c the compound aromatic. Yes I understand that sp hybridized carbons are more stable than sp2 for negative charges, however I thought that aromaticity is a more important factor in determining stability.
Comment: Why do you think aromaticity has anything to do with an anion that's not delocalized into the ring?
Comment: S-orbitals are lower in energy than p-orbitals (Aufbau Principle). Hybrid orbitals follow similar behavior. An sp orbital is 50% s; an sp2 is 33% s; and sp3 is 25% s. The more s-character, the more stable the anion and the more acidic the conjugate acid
Answer: Aromaticity enters the reckoning only if the excess electron associated with the negative charge enters the conjugated pi electron system.
In your case that does not happen.  The negative charge is on a formally nonbinding pair on the carbon like other carbanions, but in a conjugated ring when you do not have a ligand on that carbon the electron pair takes the place of the ligand and isn't in the pi system.  So not stabilized by aromaticity.  Here you don't have the ligand, the top carbon in A where they put the negative charge has no hydrogen atom.  If a hydrogen atom were there the molecule would be neutral benzene.
You can have a negative charge stabilized by aromaticity in two ways represented by the benzyl anion and the cyclopentadienyl anion.
Benzyl anion:  This has the formula $\ce{C6H5CH2^-}$, a phenyl ring attached to a methylene group.  The methylene group acts as the necessary ligand that's missing in your $\ce{C6H5^-}$, so the excess electron pair enters the pi system and conjugates with the ring.  Note that the $4n+2$ rule for aromaticity does not work because with that extra pi-bonded carbon you don't have all the conjugated electrons in a ring anymore.  But you do have a highly de-localized structure that inherits the stability of the ring.
Cyclopentadienyl anion:  this ion, $\ce{C5H5^-}$, has the negative charge and all the ligands on the ring atoms, so the extra electron pair and negative charge are already in the pi system without having to conjugate with anything else like the case above.  You have a pure aromatic ring with the negative charge built in.  Pyrrole, furan, and thiophene are a variation on this theme where the ring is negative but neutralized by a positive formal charge on the nitrogen, oxygen or sulfur atom.


Why do the 600D/7D sensors have more noise at high ISO than 5Dmk2 or 1Dmk4?

Question: Hi I'm wondering why the high ISO performance in a 5Dmk2 or 1Dmk4 is so much better than a 600D or 7d? I've been trying to photograph the milky way galaxy and when I use an ISO of 6400 I have an incredible amount of noise on the 600D, but I've seen the same ISO used with the 1Dmk4 and 5dmk2 to achieve wonderful photos without any apparent noise. I'd have to say the same for ISO 3200 which I can't get picturea without bad noise, ISO 1600 works but that causes noticeable star trails as the exposure becomes longer than the calculations I make using the declinations. Is this because of more pixels in the sensor size? Or do different cameras just have different ISO performance? Thanks for any insight.
Answer: The bigger the pixels, the less noise there is. This is a matter of physics. More light gets accumulated in each pixel and so it take more noise to appear significant.
The 600D and 7D have APS-C sensors which are small and have a high megapixels count. This makes their pixels comparatively smaller than the 5D Mark II which has a larger sensor and hence larger pixels since the resolution is not much higher than that of the 7D.
You can see the same thing in the Nikon range by comparing the D3X and D3S which are both full-frame cameras but one has twice the number of megapixels. The one with fewer megapixels shows less noise because each pixel is larger.
The extreme example of this is the poor performance of compact cameras which have tiny sensors. The last factor is technology because newer sensors show improvement over previous generation but physics cannot be beaten.
Comment: Generally speaking, larger pixels mean less noise (as a matter of physics, yes), but thats not guaranteed. There are regular improvements in readout design, the order of readout steps, etc. that can improve noise characteristics for sensors of the same exact density. Without such improvements, the noise of the 600D/60D/7D would be considerably worse than it is, and the noise performance of the 1D X (*NATIVE* 51,200!) would likely not be possible.
Comment: @jrista - That is why I mentioned the *technology factor* next.
Comment: " More light gets accumulated in each pixel and so it take more noise to appear" - this means a higher signal to noise ratio correct?
Comment: @MikeW - Yes. That would be the technical term.
Comment: You can reduce the noise in post processing by combining pixels together, at the expense of resolution. Mathematically, it's the same effect as a lower resolution sensor.
Comment: @Skaperen: Not quite.  There's a certain amount of "dead space" in each sensor, and the amount of dead space in larger sensors is proportionally smaller.  So a larger sensor will generally beat a smaller sensor, other factors being equal.  I'd also expect a certain amount of noise from the longer bucket brigades, but maybe that's fairly minimal.
Answer: the two things two distinguish are overall noise and per pixel noise.
overall noise is the same - whether 4 pixels occupy a space or 1.
per pixel noise will be higher on 4 individual pixels instead of 1 larger pixel which will contain the same noise as the average of the four pixels.
the APS-C cameras have tiny pixels compared to the full frame models. and with current technology, 18MP is most likely the ceiling for acceptable noise performance and pixel size.
now over time technology improves, and smaller pixels can be less noisy per pixel, but the 7D, 600D, 550D and 60D share their sensor. the 7D sensor is also only slightly younger than the 5D MK II sensor, and hence just a tad worse, though the pixels are a lot smaller than the ones on the full frame sensor.


Toronto to Portland via Calgary - where to go through border security?

Question: I just booked an Air Canada flight from Toronto to Portland via Calgary.  My layover in Calgary is 2 hours.  I wonder if I'll be going through Customs and Border security in Toronto or in Calgary?  It can be a very time consuming process and I don't know if I'll have enough time if this will happen in Calgary.
Comment: You will be going Customs and Border security in the first place in the country or in the last when you are leaving.
Comment: If you're worried that pre-clearance in Calgary will be as time-consuming as it normally is in Toronto, don't be:  in my experience, every US pre-clearance facility in Canada takes less time than the one at Toronto Pearson.  I regularly fly out of Winnipeg (admittedly a smaller airport than Calgary) and it never takes more than about 15–20 minutes from the time that I get in line.
Answer: US preclearance always happens at the last airport before you enter the US.  So you'll do it in Calgary.


Where can you get Python 2.6 bindings for Subversion 1.5.6?

Question: I'm stuck at this point with ViewVC
ImportError: No module named svn
I can't find prebuilt Python 2.6 bindings for Subversion, and I can't seem to locate the source for them either!
Answer: The bindings ship as part of Subversion -- get the source to subversion and you have them (almost certainly SWIG bindings, but I haven't looked).  I've been using Python 2.6 for a while and although I'm now on Subversion 1.6.x, I would have had 1.5.x installed before.
Finding them is going to be dependent upon the OS, packaging system, etc; none of which are mentioned.
Did you install from source?  Did you install a package?  Does your OS's packaging system split off the interpreted-language bindings from the package itself?  Eg, on FreeBSD you would have a py26-subversion port/package in /usr/ports/devel/py-subversion.  On Debian/Ubuntu, you're looking for the "python-subversion" package.


Where is the limit between an attacker and a victim (zombie) in a DDoS attack

Question: Let's say that A is DDoSing B and I'm a member of his botnet. Who says that I'm not a real attacker but a victim? How you determine it?
Comment: Well if it's a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) then yours is not the only machine involved in the attack. While there are "unintentional DDoS" such as the "Slashdot effect", if I'm getting a SYN flood from thousands of different IPs I'm going to assume there's a puppeteer pulling the strings.
Answer: There is no absolute way of identifying the person behind a machine and his true intentions.
You can't find out if the person in front of the keyboard has the intention of performing a DoS attack. A forensic investigation of a computer can reduce this uncertainty. People with intention of doing DoS will leave certain traces behind while tools for turning computers into zombies that perform distributed DoS will leave different traces.
Tracking down a person and proving he is responsible for controlling a botnet is easier than the reverse - proving a person innocent because he is a victim of malware. The legal system uses the presumption of innocence so a person is considered innocent until proven guilty.
The attribution problem is particularly thorny in information security. Attributing intention becomes particularly difficult when the attacker is skilled.
Comment: +1, remotely, who can tell the difference between a script kiddie and a cat walking across the keyboard? Give the HDD to an analyst though, and they will have a pretty good idea of what the intentions were.
Answer: Difference between a zombie and an accomplice is not technical. If your machine is is hijacked and used for attacks, and you are not aware of it, then this is a zombie and you are a co-victim. BUT if you agree with the attack, at least conceptually (i.e. you would have voluntarily granted access to your machine to the attacker, if given the choice) then you are an accomplice. It is all about intent, and it is ultimately a law matter. The difference is even fuzzier than that: apparently, in Germany, you can be fined for failing to apply appropriate protections to your WiFi router -- in other words, you can be both a zombie and an accomplice at the same time.
Answer: Depending if you are talking legally or conceptually, the answer can be a bit different.  Conceptually, an attacker is any rogue system trying to do harm, so the bot is an attacker in the conceptual sense because defenses need to engage that system.  Thus, for the server being DDoSed, the bot would be an attacker, but for the person who's computer is a bot, the person controlling the bot (or doing the infecting) would be the attacker.
Legally, it would depend entirely on the jurisdiction and what the lawyers can argue and can't really be answered well here as there isn't a globally correct answer, but it can be rather tricky to establish what intent is.  Sure there are some indications that might help you guess, but then again, a smart attacker could simply rig up their command and control to look like it was just another victim and then try to deny the whole thing.


Weakness & Lack of Strength

Question: I want a great physique, instead of good, for this I need a lot of hard work, good food & Strength. But the problem is that my stamina is not so good, because of that i am unable to lift weight & work hard, because doing this causes weakness & BLACKOUT. Dark circles also occurs under eyes. I eat 10-12 chapati(s) in a meal or 400-500gm of rice with veggies or cereals. But the problem is same. Can you tell me something to gain strength, stamina & muscles..
Answer: If that's your whole diet, then that's the reason you are having problems.  The diet is very unbalanced, and does not support your desire to get strong and have a great physique.

Eat enough Protein: 1.8g/kg body weight.  If you are vegetarian, you'll have to get creative.  Oats and quinoa have a decent amount of protein in them.  If you can eat meat and eggs, I recommend it highly.
Eat fruits and vegetables: many of your micronutrients you kneed are contained in these.  Fruits and green vegetables are very nutrient rich.
Eat enough fat to support metabolism, but not much more than that: .16g / kg absolute minimum.  A little more than that would be good.
The rest of your food from carbohydrates.

The bottom line is that your food should be coming from a variety of different sources.  Just chapati and rice robs your body of what it needs to function properly.
Additionally, you'll have to be ramp up your activity a little slower so that your body has a chance to catch up.  Do not neglect conditioning work as well.  In fact, it might be a good idea to get a physical to see where you are starting from.  For your sake, I might suggest starting with conditioning work so that your heart and lungs can get used to working harder before you transition to weights.  The last thing you want to do is black out with a bar over your chest.
A question for you: did your heart race uncontrollably at any time during exercise?  If so, that is a sign something a bit more concerning is going on and might require you to get that checked out by a doctor.
Answer: You have to change your habits gradually and start from some reasonable level of strain.
You should never come even close to blackout.
You should eat each 2 - 3 hours, you should sleap enough and have enough rest.
You should add to your food also a lot of meat - you should eat balanced food full of proteins, sugars and fats and plenty of vitamins and minerals.
Comment: I disagree on the meal frequency. Eating a handful of food every 2-3 hours may work for some (me included) and won't for others. It is, however, not necessary. Neither is meat, although it makes things a hell of a lot more convenient.
Comment: Needs more effort

Weakness & Lack of Strength


SPDZ for the 2-party case

Question: There exist protocols for 2-party computation e.g., GMW that use Boolean circuits. I could also use Paillier and arithmetic circuits for a 2 party computation. However after reading about SPDZ is my understanding I could use it to do 2-party computation. Is my understanding correct? Besides the fact that I would have to generate tons of triples, is there any other drawback of using SPDZ for 2-PC? If this is the case why is not widely use for the 2-party case? Should I favor a 3 party setting instead of a 2 party one when using SPDZ?
Comment: I think the reason SPDZ is "not widely used for the 2-party case" is that no secure computation protocol is widely used in any case. The technology is still mainly used in theoretical constructions and prototypes.
Answer: Your understanding is correct. The SPDZ protocol can be used for any number of two or more parties. In fact, this is one of the strengths of the SPDZ protocol. Namely, many recent secure computation protocols such as the various versions of the Yao protocol or the TinyOT protocol are limited to two parties. So it may sometimes be overemphasized that SPDZ goes beyond two parties.
There is no drawback to using SPDZ with just two parties compared to three parties. Certain aspects such as the required broadcast actually becomes simpler in the two party case. So you should never try to add additional parties beyond what you need, it will only make you application less efficient.
However, there are many trade-offs to consider when choosing a secure computation protocol. Therefore, there could be good reasons to pick an other protocol than SPDZ in a two party setting. For example, SPDZ is based on arithmetic operations. If your application is heavy on Boolean operations, other protocols such as TinyOT which is based on Boolean operations may perform better. Also, SPDZ has round complexity proportional to the depth of the circuit you are evaluating. Yao has constant round complexity for any circuit. So if you are in a high latency setting or evaluating a very deep circuit, Yao may perform better than SPDZ.
Comment: That said, certainly SPDZ would be a bad choice for anything requiring many Boolean operations compared to Yao. @YehudaLindell do you know if Yao also beats SPDZ on arithmetic (or comes close at least)?
Comment: Note that Yao outperforms all other approaches for malicious adversaries and Boolean circuits even for fast networks.
Comment: As far as I know it has gone back and forth between various protocols. But certainly Yao seems to get a lot more attention than alternatives, so it would not surprise me if this is indeed the fastest currently. As I understand it also depends a lot on the strength of the implementation. I.e., software engineering rather than protocols.
Comment: For arithmetic, I don't know and I assume that it depends on the exact application. I was referring to Boolean circuits.
Answer:
my understanding I could use it to do 2-party computation

You are correct, SPDZ can give secure MPC for any number of parties. It is just a matter of generating enough multiplication triples.

Should I favor a 3 party setting instead of a 2 party one when using SPDZ?

Whichever makes sense in your application is fine.

why is not widely use for the 2-party case?

The only reason to prefer something else is round complexity. In the 2-party case specifically you have the extra option of using protocols based on garbled circuits (i.e., Yao's protocol). Yao's protocol is constant-round, while SPDZ & GMW require interaction for each multiplication gate (so the round complexity is proportional to the depth of the circuit).
Note: the BMR protocol is a constant-round variant of Yao for $n > 2$, but it is much less efficient than something like SPDZ.

SPDZ for the 2-party case


Best Way to Develop a Daily Writing Routine?

Question: I would like to go about making a habit of writing to a journal or blog on a daily basis. What techniques or patterns have been the most useful in accomplishing this task?
Comment: @neilfein How about now? @Ami Well I'd like to improve my writing and communication skills, and I want to commit to doing that on a daily basis. I currently publish technical articles on a personal site, but I would like to improve my writing over time.
Comment: What do you write about? *Why* do you want to "publish" to a journal/blog on a daily basis?
Comment: It would be better if the question were more answerable, and using "best" in any question is extremely subjective. Best for what? (The question narrows this down.)
Comment: Looking at this again several months later, I'm troubled by the fact that all the answers are opinions. There's no way to choose a "best" answer, just the one the OP likes the most or finds personally useful. Were this opened now, I would suggest the OP add more detail about what has and has not worked already.
Answer: Start a Seinfeld calendar. Basically, you have a calendar set up somewhere that you see everyday. Each day you write, fill the date with a big red X, or another distinguishing mark.
After a few days you'll have a chain. The chain just keeps getting longer and longer. Dont break that chain.
Thats the way to keep pushing yourself to write as frequently as you can. You won't want to break that chain no matter what.
Comment: "Don't break the chain" I like it!
Comment: Simple but effective. I just searched android market to see if there is such an app. There is one with same name.
Answer: Inspired by a news post about ohlife I set up a small script that sends me an e-mail message each day asking me about my day. I just reply to that message with my daily journal if I have something interesting to say. This trick (or mind hack) works great for me because:

I'm in a position to write my journal when I get the reminder to do it.
My journals are collected in one folder with a simple filter rule.
My e-mail is backed-up regularly so I don't have to worry about loosing my journal.
My journal is portable (I can write it on my laptop, phone or in my webmail interface).
Answer: I used to write a minimum of three pages of freewriting every morning (from The Artists Way) which allows the removal of cruft from our brains and eventually promotes more creativity and more writing.
Answer: Schedule it! Find a window of time that you can block out and that is convenient for you to use, and then schedule that time to write. For me it is usually the first hour in the morning after I wake, or the last hour of the day before going to bed. If I can't do it in the morning, then I use the evening as my backup plan. Either way, I know that I am going to have at least an hour a day to write, whether it's working on my blog, working on a story, or answering questions here!
Answer: I have been using OhLife previously for my daily piece of my writing. I followed it religiously for about 2 months. But my life journals were either too short or large and I had no way of tracking how much I write. That coupled with an absence of sense of accomplishment my writing graph went down steeply. Luckily for me I came across 750words.com which is everything I wished for. I have set it to send me reminder emails at 7.30 in the morning. My day begins after writing it. I found 3 pages or 750 words the right amount of words to get my creative juices running. Writing whatever comes in my mind helps to clear the clutter in my mind and gets me ready for the day ahead.
Answer: I started my daily writing routine at the beginning of NaNoWriMo to have a set goal and community pushing me to write every day. After, I was able to kept to that schedule, even if I was only writing small amounts, because I had formed the habit of sitting down to write each day in a positive and motivational environment.


SaaS practical basics and projects

Question: So i need some directions. I want to understand Cloud Software as a Service(SaaS) practical initialization. The thing is I want to create a simple cloud service which would let me run programs on this cloud from remote machine. As I understand, I need some kind of specific backbone project to start this system, similar like OpenStack or Apache Cloud for Infostructure as a Service.
Of course it may be that I understand it completely wrong and even if there is such project, it is not open source, free. I could also comprehend SaaS building on IaaS, but the thing is, I can't find any practical information at all. Could Somebody indulge me if there is any kind of free licence SaaS project or recommend a related articles or explain everything in a nut case with atleast vague direction.
Answer: You sound like all you really want to do is create a horizontally scalable infrastructure for use in a public cloud.
http://www.slideshare.net/Clogeny/scalable-architecture-on-amazon-aws-cloud
There are many presentations and discussions about how to approach this.  I have linked one off of google that appeared to be pretty accessible.

SaaS practical basics and projects


what is the statistical risk of head rotor failure?

Question: What are the chances of rotor failure? What percentage of crashes are related to a malfunction of the rotor head?
Comment: You are welcome to search the [NTSB Accident Database](http://www.ntsb.gov/_layouts/ntsb.aviation/index.aspx) for helicopter accidents with certain keywords. I'm not sure that this is answerable though as the data isn't typically compiled as percentages due to a certain component failure. I'm willing to say though that rotor head failure is insignificant given accident reports I've read.
Comment: I've only ever heard of 2, which doesn't of course mean that they are more, but I would say statistically insignificant.  In my experience, the great majority of rotor failures has been the result of something else, e.g. not entering autorotation quickly enough after an engine failure; mishandlng negative G in a helicopter with a semi-rigid head etc.
Answer: I worked medium and heavy transport helos in the Marines, and I never heard of an incident caused by a rotor head failure. Blades, transmissions, all kinds of other things, sure, but not main rotor heads.


Offline Use of Sparrow

Question: I have a ton of mail to catch up on and a flight coming up.  Does Sparrow (for Mac, not iOS) support an "offline" mode?  If I read, respond to, label, and archive GMail messages on Sparrow while unconnected to the internet, will Sparrow correctly "sync up" to GMail once an internet connection is re-established?
Answer: I use Sparrow daily, but haven't ever needed to use it offline. From a few different websites (after Googling), it appears as though people do use it offline, but that it is still slightly buggy. I found a blog post that talks a bit about how it works great offline. There was also this question over on webapps that suggests using Sparrow or Mail.app (if not the offline Gmail feature).
It should sync up fine since it's just another IMAP email client, but as usual, be prepared for the slight possibility of some issues arising.

Offline Use of Sparrow


Does the LEGO Group condone war toys?

Question: What is the LEGO Group's position on war toys? Other brands make tanks and army stuff. I noticed LEGO sets include more realistic guns in the Star Wars range than they used to. What's up with that?
Answer: Kind of.
From the LEGO Group's Corporate Responsibility report:

Guideline for weapons and conflict in LEGO experiences
A large number of LEGO minifigures use weapons, and are – assumedly – regularly being charged by each others' weapons as part of children's role play. In the LEGO Group, we acknowledge that conflict in play is especially prevalent among 4-9-year-old boys.
  An inner drive and a need to experiment with their own aggressive feelings in order to learn about other people's aggressions exist in most children. This in turn enables them to handle and recognize conflict in non-play scenarios. As such, the LEGO Group sees
  conflict play as perfectly acceptable, and an integral part of children's development.
We also acknowledge children's well-proven ability to tell play from reality. however, to make sure to maintain the right balance between play and conflict, we have adhered to a set of unwritten rules for several years. In 2010, we have formalized these rules in a guideline for the use of conflict and weapons in LEGO products. The basic aim is to avoid realistic weapons and military equipment that children may recognize from hot spots around the world and to refrain from showing violent or frightening situations when communicating about LEGO products. At the same time, the purpose is for the LEGO brand not to be associated with issues that glorify conflicts and unethical or harmful behavior.

Page 26 of the 2010 report.
Comment: @annonymously The Halo sets are made by MegaBloks, a "compatible" brick construction toy company. Have you got any links to LEGO branded ones? But either way they'd be covered by the "avoid realistic weapons" bit.
Comment: What about LEGO Halo? I don't see it on their website but the LEGO logo is written on some LEGO Halo models (Halo as in the MA video game)
Comment: The SMG is pretty realistic in my opinion, but maybe it really is just megablocks.
Comment: The stuff I could find is all AFOL made and generally uses weapons from BrickArms, a 3rd party creator of "realistic" weaponry. Indeed, TT Games stated (when the April Fools of the LEGO Halo game was doing the rounds): "'Halo' is not a game that is age-rated for young players, and it's not appropriate for us to sort of recruit people into that experience.".
Answer: Their position has shifted over the years, in response to changing attitudes as well as commercial pressures, and the rising age of LEGO enthusiasts!
Originally LEGO bricks were only available in bright primary colours e.g. red blue and yellow, with the conspicuous absence of green, aside from baseplates. It seems quite likely that this was a deliberate attempt to prevent people from building tanks and military vehicles which in Europe were generally painted green. The creator of LEGO was known to be a pacifist and have strong opinions on the issue.
I remember that when the Pirates series came out in 1989 they were the first sets to include pieces that were explicitly firearms: muskets, pistols and canon. The Pirates series was also the first to include non smiling faces, allowing figures to show more emotion, including anger. Although LEGO castle sets had featured weapons a decade earlier, the wide smiles on faces of the knights and guards suggested a lack of aggression.
Space sets have always had some ambiguity between what is a weapon and what is a scientific instrument, though the same trend is observed toward more conflict in later sets. Competition with other brick toys which feature military sets as well as movie tie-ins have caused conflict/aggression to be a major feature of many LEGO sets made more recently, which is probably what triggered LEGO's shift in official message on the subject, as detailed in the corporate responsibility report linked to above.
Comment: well, I can find a LEGO exec repeating this on camera in [this video](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8ibuo_james-mays-top-toys-1-3_fun) at 8:36 -- Jorian Murray "Lego Ad Exec" says "[the founder](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ole_Kirk_Christiansen) was a pacifist and he absolutely did not want LEGO to be used for wargames, and that's why when it was originally launched, they just worked with few primary colors." Not totally happy with this source though.
Comment: Some Space sets before 1989 included parts that could be interpreted as sci-fi weapons (blasters, phasers, etc.), but that could also be interpreted as flashlights, telescopes, cameras, or other devices that astronauts might carry in space. What these parts were *not*, however, was realistic - you had to *use your imagination* to figure out what they were or could be, rather than just look down and say "oh, that's an 18th century European pistol".
Comment: is there any citation for the claim "It seems quite likely that this was a deliberate attempt to prevent people from building tanks and military vehicles"?
Comment: "corporate responsibility report" is a dead link now :/
Answer: I believe that war sets have not been allowed from day one at lego, with the oft-quoted reason that Ole Kirk Christiansen did not was to reduce war to a 'state of child's play.' He was also reportedly a pacifist, and I have found a source stating that while lego may produce generic gun pieces, they will never directly model a contemporary gun, or likewise produce a set of one.
As stated (I think) in the 'Ultimate Lego Book,' Christiansen made sure that bricks in 'army colours' (i.e. green, brown, and olive green) were not produced. This changed later on however, when various sets required these colours, of course.
Hope this helps!
Answer: While the current plastic Lego "guns" are generally more tame (blasters, pirate pistols), that was not the case with wooden toys from the 1940's including this machine gun from 1945.  It's about 18" long and makes a rat-tat-tat sound when turning the crank.
Comment: Nice catch, where did you find that?
Comment: While I found this photo online, I actually own one of these.  Mine is a bit nicer, not nearly as worn.
Answer: LEGO has always been a bit iffy on it's stance towards war related sets, which might be part of the reason most custom part makers specialize in realistic guns.
Being primarily a children's toy, they had shied away from depicting tanks and battles in the beginning. It might be said that as popular culture in general had an easier stance with "playing war" (video games were probably a big part of this), LEGO also eased it's policy. I think the fist time LEGO sets included toy guns for mini-figures might be it's Western theme in the late '90s.
There might have been laser blaster type guns earlier than this with the Space and Star Wars themes. Now it seems that with Indiana Jones and other movie licenses they have obtained, Lego is again allowing their sets to be portrayed in a more violent manner.
Comment: No, already the pirates (and the blue-white or red-white anti-pirate forces) had cannons, pistols and rifles, and this was in the early 90's (or even late 80s).
Comment: @PaŭloEbermann: True, but they had historical weaponry of the kind that can be seen in any museum of history. More modern-looking pistols and rifles were introduced with the Wild West theme, and these were re-used in the Indiana Jones sets - however, then combined with vehicles that could pass as contemporary military for the first time, and also complemented with a [more modern-looking gun accessory](http://www.peeron.com/inv/parts/62885).
Answer: Even some of the classic sets had castles/knights with weapons, though most minifigs were decided in the non-violent category (astronauts, etc.).
As other posters have noted, many of the new licensed sets (Star Wars & Indiana Jones) are more violent, though often in a fantasy setting.

Does the LEGO Group condone war toys?


Fee for Subject Access Request to GCHQ, Data Protection Act 2018

Question: When making a Subject Access Request to GCHQ I was told that I would have to pay a fee for this Request. The GDPR does not allow for such a fee, while the UK Data Protection Act does(Part 4 – Chapter 3 - Section 94). My Subject Access Request concerns the website of the GCHQ, and not the GCHQ's surveillance activities. Does the GDPR supersede the UK Data Protection Act in this case?
Comment: How much is the fee?
Answer:
The GDPR does not allow for such a fee

Article 12(5) GDPR contains:

Information provided under Articles 13 and 14 and any communication and any actions taken under Articles 15 to 22 and 34 shall be provided free of charge.

But Article 23 GDPR contains:

Union or Member State law to which the data controller or processor is subject may restrict by way of a legislative measure the scope of the obligations and rights provided for in Articles 12 to 22 and Article 34, as well as Article 5 in so far as its provisions correspond to the rights and obligations provided for in Articles 12 to 22, when such a restriction respects the essence of the fundamental rights and freedoms and is a necessary and proportionate measure in a democratic society to safeguard:
(a)  national security;

So basically, the GDPR would allow a fee if there is specific legislation (the DPA2018) and it is considered necessary and proportionate for national security.

My Subject Access Request concerns the website of the GCHQ, and not the GCHQ's surveillance activities.

I would agree it is hard to believe that asking a fee to get information concerning the GCHQ website, would increase national security. But I am afraid you would have to go to court to change that.


Unity launcher doesn't hide automatically on start up

Question: When you start an application, say, Firefox, the Launcher continues to be placed over it. This is cleared up by moving the mouse to the left edge of the screen and then away, but it shouldn't happen in the first place.
Answer: As far as I have been able to determine, this behavior has been fixed since the release of 11.04 - I suggest that you keep your system up-to-date. (for more on that, take a look at this question)


Why is it called Shalosh Seudos?

Question: Why is the third Shabbos meal called Shalosh Seudos - literally three meals - would it not be more appropiate to call it Seuda Shlishis?
Comment: This discussion has come up somewhere else before, although if I remember correctly it was encompassed in the comments on another question. I'll see if I can find it.
Comment: @WAF, http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/8442
Answer: Often times in the winter when it is a short Shabbos afternoon it is difficult to eat Shalosh Seudos as people are still quiet full from the morning meal. However the Friday night meal and Shabbos morning meal people are hungry and have a appetite for them. Therefore when they eat Shalosh Seudos which is only being eaten in honor of Shabbos that shows that the first two Seudos were also in the honor of Shabbos. That is why it is called Shalosh Seudos. (Sefer Divrei Emes)
Comment: And here I thought it was like [Shalach Manos](https://judaism.stackexchange.com/q/100845/6592).
Answer: There is a mitzvah to have "Shalosh Seudot" on Shabbat.
Commonly, seudat shlishit is barely a meal in the modern meaning of the word. (you might be insulted if you were invited to one and didn't know what it was.)  For that reason, I think people give it the name of fulfilling the obligation of the mitzvah (i.e. a bare minimum).  As in,"We are going to fulfill the mitzvah of "Shalosh Seudot", or shortly "We are going to Shalosh seudot, or as its really pronounced now a days,  "We are going to shalushudos"
In many Modern Orthodox shuls, you will see it advertised as "Seuda Shlishit"
Comment: Also plenty of shuls that are not Modern and/or not Orthodox in Israel.

Why is it called Shalosh Seudos?


Need to clone a Red Hat Server to replace current drives with larger ones

Question: We need to completely replace a drive in a Red Hat 4 linux box with larger drives, as we have run out of space. We are looking for utilities or applications (Ghost?) - or a process that will allow us to do this. Essentailly, we need to clone the server and put i back down on a larger drive - and expand volumes.
Answer: You can use a live cd and simply dd the disks to image files. Switch the drives, boot on the live cd again and dd the images onto the new drives.
You can then grow the partitions and filesystems to utilize the additional capacity.
There's good information about using dd in this question: Using DD for disk cloning
Answer: it's very easy to do this with a clonezilla live cd or gparted.
If you're on lvm then you can also do this online.
Answer: Add the drive to the system or a system you can connect to and rsync the whole drive over. Using something like dd is a waste of time as it copies all sectors instead of just the files.
something as simple as rsync -av / root@remote_host:/mnt/new_drive (this works over ssh also so you don't need to setup an rsync server of any kind).
This also gets away from having to "clone" the server then do an expansion which could potentially fail. Setup the drives as you want them then just copy the smaller system to the larger drives.
Answer: You might want to look at Copywipe.  This is free software which I have used.  It has a feature for copying, wiping, but most importantly it has a feature for copying (cloning) hardrives with expanding thathard drive doing exactly what your question asked to do.
Be warned -- it takes some time though.


How can you measure the impact of a redesign on usage time before implementing it?

Question: What are some methods (other than task based usability testing) to identify the impact of an interface redesign on users? Specifically, if an interface used by the same user base is redesigned, how can you measure how much more or less time it will take for them to use it.
Answer: You should have a good baseline usability study of your existing product, which measures time-on-task, perceived performance, and satisfaction.  That gives you a solid understanding of where you stand today with your product.
You can't accurately measure time-on-task without real running code.  However, you can measure other things that will indicate time-on-task improvements (and might actually be more important than simple time-on-task).  For example, you can study early wireframes, mockups, or prototypes to understand whether users think that the new UX will improve their ability to complete a workflow successfully, complete a workflow more quickly, complete it with less cognitive load, or complete it with a higher level of satisfaction.
Another comparison that you could draw would be number of clicks.  How many clicks does it take to complete the workflows in the existing product, and how many clicks does it take to complete the workflows in the new product?  This doesn't necessarily translate to a faster time-on-task, increased ability to complete the workflow, or increased satisfaction.  However, it has the benefit of being an easy early heuristic evaluation that can be done on both the existing product and early designs of the new version, and fewer clicks is often one component of an improved design.
Answer: This will be difficult to measure.  My suggestion is to use Keynote or a similar tool to make an interactive mockup of the current interface and the new (proposed) interface and compare the two with user groups.
Comment: Yup, we are definitely doing that. But, I was curious to know if there is any way to identify whether or not usage time will go up or down while designing it. For example, if certain information is moved inches to the right, what could the impact on time be?
Thanks for the advice though! :)