Is it common and acceptable for a postdoc to leave before contract ends?

Question: Is it common and acceptable for a postdoc to leave before his/her contract ends, for whatever reason? How early should a prior notice be submitted in this case?
Answer: Usually, a postdoc is a normal contract between an employer and an employee, and as such, terminating it earlier than its date depends on the contract and/or the country. It should be normally specified on the contract, otherwise the laws of the country should apply. For instance, in the UK, I have had a notice of 1 month, in Italy, it was 3 months.
It is normally acceptable for a postdoc to leave before the end of the contract, although it depends on the situation. If the employer does not provide any guarantee for further employment, and if the postdoc has found another offer, starting earlier than the end of the current contract, then that's the rule of the game. If the postdoc has found a much better offer (for instance, a permanent position), then that's also the rule of the game. If personal reasons are involved (going with a partner, going back to home country, etc), that's quite fair.
By acceptable, I mean that the employer should normally not make any problem (assuming the legal obligations are fulfilled), and might even be supportive in the end of the contract. A case that might not be acceptable is to leave in the middle of a contract, breaking some work commitment (e.g., an experiment to run) for a reason that might not appear very strong. But in the end, it depends a lot on the relationship between the postdoc and the employer. The point to remember is that Academia is a small world, and that in general, it is worth keeping good relationship with former employers. In doubt, talk with your current employer, or with a mentor at the place you're working at to know what the rule normally is.
Comment: This varies by country. I'm in the US and I don't think any of my academic employers have had me sign a formal contract.
Comment: Nate, good to know that. But, does it apply to only your university, or all the US universities in general(say research I universities?).
Comment: I had a postdoc at a large institution in the U.S.  Like all other academic jobs I have had in the U.S., I signed an offer letter, which is a sort of contract, although I have never had an offer letter that mentioned anything about how much notice to give before I leave.
Answer: To add to previous answers: if your postdoc includes teaching, you should finish out the academic year, or at the very least finish the current term, and give your department chair as much notice as possible, so that they can find a replacement or adjust teaching assignments.
Comment: Indeed. When I switched jobs, I made it a point to fly back to my old university to wrap up teaching. To me it is just common curtesy to wrap up your loose ends as good as possible.
Answer: In my experience (I'm a postdoc now, and hence also know a few other postdocs) leaving before the end of a contract is perfectly normal. The nature of postdoctoral work is that you have to be ready to take the next opportunity when it arises - other people certainly aren't going to make sure the timing lines up nicely for you! Of course if you leave very early in the contract, that might annoy people, but assuming you're reasonably sensible, everything should be fine. Remember that the people employing you have either been through the same process, or observed it over the years1.
As for how early the notice should be, that depends on the contract and the labour laws where you are. There may be certain legal minimums that have to be observed, but the figure seems to normally be 2-3 weeks. Of course your employer may let you out early by agreement, but as your employer is probably technically the University, don't expect a bureaucracy to be particularly flexible.

Little side note, I gather this might be a bit different in the US, though currently in the process of changing (perhaps someone who went through the US system can add to this). A postdoc in the US has lower status that it does in Europe/Australia/New Zealand/..., so it might be the case that your employers haven't been postdocs at all.
Answer: In math, it's reasonably common for people to leave a 3 year postdoc after 2 years to take a tenure track job (or rather, it was reasonably common before the job market crashed).  But fields which have postdocs attached to particular grants may be quite different.
Answer: I am currently a Computer Science postdoc in Europe. I have the understanding (and full support) with my professor that I will be gone if a faculty position presents itself. I guess, given that postdocs are really just researchers in queue for a faculty position, I am assuming other postdocs will have similar arrangements.
Other than that, I am assuming whether your professor is annoyed by you leaving depends on how much he depends on you, how much time you give him, and how valid your reasons are.
Before my current job I did postdoc at the university where I also received my PhD. I told my old advisor many months in advance that it would be good for me and my CV to leave my almer mater and home country, and he was fully supportive (== good reason, many months of changeover time). On the other hand, the same professor was pretty pissed when another postdoc quit his position to work in industry more or less without prior warning. Circumstances matter.
Answer: It should be indicating in the contract, and as long as you are following the written contract, the professor should not take it against you. It is like any other job.
Although, in my experience I have found professors who are not professional enough to respect that. It kind of questions the recruitment process for faculty positions, a mere PhD or some publications should not be the only factor when choosing a faculty member, it should also consider the moral ground, leadership skill and ability to motivate. The same way the professor is not your mom or dad, the student is not your maid.
Answer: I am a postdoc and I believe that it is right of the postdoc fellow where ever he wants to go though he/she should tell professor few months in advance so that professor can arrange some other postdoc. And if possible, it is better to finish your current project. Professors usually have funding and therefore it is not difficult to find the postdoc replacement for them. However, the postdocs are struggling for a permanent position that is quite competitive now a days specially in some high ranked universities.
There are normally two situations I have observed from the research point of view that a postdoc likes to leave. One is that the professor does not provide good feedback to his progress due to either he has no time since he is more interested in applying for funding or he is not capable answering postdoc questions (it does happens). In both cases, postdoc should leave and make his career better somewhere. The second reason of leaving the postdoc is when the promises that professor did at the time of hiring are not fulfilled. For example, if professor tells you that we are doing empirical as well as theoretical study of such such things and postdoc job will be to make such and such models and analysis, however when you start working, you come to know that they don't have any data and they will get it right in the middle of your postdoc when half of your time will be elapsed.
Sometimes you really feel that your research philosophy is not matching with the research objectives of your group. In such situations, it is beneficial for both to set apart as soon as possible so that professor's funding and postdoc's time can be better utilised.
Answer: In the USA, postdocs don't have a contract.   Instead, there is an informal agreement between the postdoc and the advisor, that
a project be completed.  If the project proves to be a dead end,
then another project is agreed upon.  Leaving a project is viewed
negatively, because in the USA, the advisor typically must invest
at least $300, 000 on salary and supplies for the project.  If the postdoc leaves - that investment is lost.    For the advisor, the
failure of completion of the project could jeopardize the success of future funding for their laboratory. In the USA, in addition
advisors must maintain a certain level of laboratory funding to
keep their laboratory space.  So, no leaving the lab without finishing the project is not viewed favorably.
Comment: Untrue! See [here](https://hr.berkeley.edu/labor/contracts/PX/summary) for example.
Comment: In the USA, **some** postdocs don't have a contract.
Answer: If either or both parties are miserable, then this is not indentured service and therefore the contract should be terminated. However, the termination shouldn't be to the detriment of the lab i.e. if the PI needs time to hire a replacement, then the postdoc terminating the contract should stay on until the new hire is made and trained.
Sometimes it's better to let a toxic person leave rather than remain for their technical skills. I hired a very unpleasant postdoc in 2012 and luckily she resigned while I was still trying to figure out how to work with her. Now she is probably making her new boss miserable. She never asked for a recommendation from me so perhaps her 5 month stint in my lab was overlooked when she was recruited.
Postdocs out there take note:

Your boss is not your mum or dad, so if you hate either or both of your parents, punishing your boss is just psycho behavior
Your boss is not your mum or dad, so if either or both dote on you and spoil you, consider that your boss is not obligated to treat you that way. A postdoc is a trainee position but it's also a JOB. There are expectations and you are being evaluated by your boss/mentor and colleagues in your field. You are not a student anymore, so time is precious and is not to be wasted with drama and procrastination.
If you regularly got 'A' grades as an undergrad and graduate student, beware that these top grades may have been due to grade inflation. You will now need to get used to the idea that there is grade deflation for academic professionals and faculty. Peer review (journals, grant applications) is harsh and often brutal and you have to deal with it. Your postdoc mentor is not your enemy and can help guide you through that process.
Comment: This seems less like advice for the OP and more like a bizarre rant about a postdoc that you didn't like.


Does iATS payment requires SEPA Direct debit for ACH to work?

Question: We are in the UK and would like to process direct debit from Civicrm. I found iATS payment processor can process ACH/DD.  Just wondering is processing UK DD a built in feature of iATS payment? Does it require any other plugins to work? Thanks
Answer: We did build UK Direct Debit [with the mandate - the entire workflow] into the iATS Payments Extension but it wasn't used much and we have not actively supported it recently. And SEPA works well and is widely adopted by lots of European CiviCRM Clients. One does not need to be exclusive -> you can processing CC with iATS Payments and use SEPA for DD for the time being.


Is a Pokémon energy card with no numbers normal?

Question: I have a Pocket Monster (Pokémon) card in Japanese. It is a fire energy with no numbers in the bottom right corner. Is this normal?
Comment: It may be some kind of a promo. Or old edition. Or counterfeit. How did you got this card?
Comment: Could you please provide a picture of it?
Answer: In Japan, most Basic Energies ever printed don't have any set number, because they were unnumbered. This is in contrast to English cards, where all Basic Energies were numbered up to Call of Legends expansion. Since Black & White expansion, most Basic Energy cards are also unnumbered, with the exception of cards found in booster packs as they have a different illustration.
Bulbapedia has nice collection of Fire Energy cards, including some Japanese cards without set number (click to enlarge):


Can I contribute to Health Savings Account mid year, outside of when I enrolled?

Question: I failed to contribute to my HSA account when my company asked to enrolled for it. Is it still possible for me to contribute to it and also get the tax deduction ? If yes, I should be able to specify the amount in line # 25, right?
Form 1040
Comment: Do you have a high deductible plan this year that meets the requirements?
Comment: @mhoran_psprep: Yes, I have a high deductible plan this year.
Answer: As long as your total doesn't exceed the per-year limit, you should be able to deposit after-tax money into your Health Savings Account. Contact the HSA administrator for details.
Note that unless your employer sets this up, you'd be sending them after-tax money, which goes in the same category as other non-reimbursed health expenses, so you may not get any immediate tax savings by doing this vs. just spending the money out of pocket.
However, once there us enough reserve money in your HSA for you to invest it in the same way a 401k can be invested, it will grow tax-free. So if you're putting in significantly more than you expect to withdraw any time soon, this may still be a worthwhile thing to do.
Definitely talk to HR about whether you can still get it set up pre-tax... though most employers don't allow midyear changes unless there has been a significant change in your family (new wife, new kids, that sort of thing).
Comment: So it sounds like it is indeed better to have your HSA setup to withhold up to the maximum pretax money throughout the year rather than say contributing nothing through the year and then make a maximal deposit into the HSA. The former comes out pretax, the latter after tax as an adjustment to gross income.
Answer: Yes, you can make a direct HSA contribution and deduct it on your 1040 to see an immediate tax benefit for the tax year. You can even make a contribution for the previous tax year all the way through tax day of the following year. If you opt to do this be sure to contact your financial institution before making the contribution to make sure they apply it to the appropriate tax year.
Just be careful not to exceed the yearly caps. So long as you have had coverage all year, this is easy to do. If you've only had coverage for part of the year and it's not your first year with an HSA plan, you may need to do some math to make sure you aren't breaking the contribution rules.


How to use ASP .NET dropdown with ajax

Question: Greeting,
I'm beginer of ajax technology and now i need to create two dropdown in
MVC project for example:
First dropdown has the list of classroom [601,602,603] when i choose one then next
dropdown will has the list of student belong to each class room.
Now, I already create the repository class that has method GetStudentByClassroomName()
and already connect to the database.
Can anyone give me a suggestion how to create it or any technology to create the dropdown like this?
Thank you very much ^_^
Answer: Look here - similar problem (cascading drop down)
Answer: check the CascadingDropDown from the ajaxcontroltoolkit.
http://www.asp.net/ajax/ajaxcontroltoolkit/Samples/CascadingDropDown/CascadingDropDown.aspx

How to use ASP .NET dropdown with ajax


Early Mincha Erev Shabbos Chanuka

Question: There are people that daven Mincha on Erev Shabbos Chanuka prior to lighting the Menorah and there are people that light first and then Daven Mincha. Those that Daven early do it in order to avoid conflict (Tarte DeSasri) as once they light the Menorah it should really be Maariv time. Why is this any different than a regular week with Neiros Shabbos?
Comment: do you have a source for "Those that Daven early do it in order to avoid conflict"?
Comment: @Menachem See the Peri Megadim Eshel Avraham OC 671 sk 10 http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=41247&st=&pgnum=352  also the Shaar Hatziyun 679 sk 7
Answer: In theory, the split would be:
The main time for lighting Chanuka candles is not the afternoon before, but at night.  In cases of necessity, we allow the latter part of the afternoon to "start" the next evening.
On Shabbos, since we pasken like the Ramban and not the Baal Halachos Gedolos or Ran, lighting candles is not the act of accepting shabbos, but a mitzva that we do on Friday afternoon so that we have light on shabbos.  Lighting candles on Friday afternoon does not preclude us from saying the afternoon prayers. (See Ran Shabbos 10a in the Ran)
The idea of tartei d'sasrei for chanukah is strange.  The timing for ner chanukah is merely an application of pirsumei nissa (dark with people around).  [This is certainly true for many who use the timing in the gemara (from shkia until the pedestrians cease) only for the length of time the candles must burn and light in the house later.]  Hypothetically, if G-d would have made the evening light and the day dark, we may still be required to daven mincha at 3:00 PM in the dark, but chanuka lighting would not be at 5:00 PM when it gets light out, but in the morning when it's dark. So the fact that someone lit Chanukah candles should not be an indicator of the time for maariv. (Does this make sense?  I would not be offended if anyone can edit this to make it clearer.)

Early Mincha Erev Shabbos Chanuka


Is there any real significant difference between Protestantism and Catholicism?

Question: I know a lot of people who have very strong views against Catholics and was really starting to wonder, just as the title suggests, other than Catholicism having priests, what differences are there?
Answer: The question makes the assumption that "Protestantism" is easily defined, and can easily be compared.
"Protestant" simply means "Not Catholic or Orthodox", and could refer to one of hundreds of different denominations, all with subtle and not-so-subtle differences in beliefs.  Some hold doctrine that is similar to Catholic doctrine, and some that is vastly different.
There's a comparison chart of Catholic to Protestant views here, but as I said in the above paragraph, on the Protestant side, there are a wide range of beliefs, and this chart only shows one particular protestant view.  (Glancing at it, it appears to be a Calvinistic point of view.)
An entire book could be written on this subject alone, but some differences include:

In general, Protestant Churches adhere to the concepts of Sola Fide and Sola Scriptura.  These are probably the biggest differentiating beliefs, but even they are not universall held by protestant denominations.
The Catholic Church includes Apocryphal writings as part of their accepted Scripture.  This includes a few extra books to the Bible, and two extra chapters to the Book of Daniel.
The Catholic Church accepts the concept of Purgatory, which is almost universally rejected in protestant denominations.  The same can be said for Transubstantiation, indulgences, prayer to saints, confession to a Priest rather than direct confession to God through prayer, and a host of other teachings.

In general, your question can be answered as "yes, there are some significant differences between Catholicism and Protestantism", but the difference varies based on which Protestant denomination you're referring to.
Comment: [Perpetual Virginity of Mary](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_Virginity#Protestant_Reformation) and [Intercession of the Saints](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercession_of_saints#Protestant_views) are two *major* differences.  Sure, there is the apocrypha, but doctrinally that is almost nothing in comparison with these two heavy hitters.  (You might want to add them to your list)
Comment: I think a better definition of protestant would be "split from the Catholic church during the protestant reformation." This excludes, naturally, the Catholic church from which it split, the Orthodox church, which already existed as a separate entity prior to the reformation, and it also excludes the Anglican church, which had a separate split. It would also exclude any other churches that existed outside of the Catholic church at the time of the reformation, but I'm not aware of any such churches that survive today.
Comment: @Richard - Those are good.  I tried to keep it short and not listed *every* difference, but I agree that those are both very high on the list and I should have included them.
Comment: The [Waldensians](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldensians) would be a non-Catholic denomination that existed prior to the Protestant reformation.  (But now I'm getting too chatty.)
Comment: I know this is old, but here I am anyway. I think you should mention that the "Protestant" name comes from the fact that the Reformers were protesting the authority of the Catholic church and the Pope too. That still holds true very much today. Protestants, today, generally don't like being told what to believe, instead encourage personal interpretation of the scriptures over official dogma of a church. This could be placed well under your bullet for sola scriptura.
Comment: There are several earlier churches that have continued independent of Catholicism (depending on your definition of catholic); for example, the Armenian Apostolic Church and other, similar churches from eastern Europe.
Answer: David Stratton pointed out a few of the differences. A very good answer, but missing a bullet point on Mary, but this answer isn't about her. The most significant difference ought to be pointed out specifically. It is the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist (What he's talking about as Transubstantiation).

To a Catholic, this is the source and summit of our faith.  "To a Protestant, the Bible represents God's most complete and perfect revelation of Himself to humanity" (Thanks Flimzy)
To a Protestant, it's a reenactment of the Last Supper. To a Catholic it is the entire Passion and Death of Jesus.
To a Catholic, we unworthily consume Our Lord as He instructed.  To a Protestant, they share bread and show love to one another as Our Lord instructed.
To a Protestant, the minister is a specially called person, but could be anyone and their ability to officiate the Lord's Supper is the same as anyone else's.  To a Catholic, only a validly ordained minister may consecrate the host and in so doing make present Jesus before the congregation in the form of bread and wine.

Because of the priesthood, these differences are shared between any Catholic/Orthodox congregation and any Protestant denomination.
Comment: "To a Protestant, the Bible represents the totality of faith." I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at here, but I suspect it's not accurate. While there are some protestants who may tend to "worship" the Bible (effectually holding it in authority over even the creator), I don't think this is an official doctrine of any protestant group. I think a more accurate statement regarding the Protestant view of scripture might be something along the lines of "To a Protestant, the Bible represents God's most complete and perfect revelation of Himself to humanity."
Comment: +1 for hitting some of the points that I missed, and explaining the differences with a bit more detail.
Comment: @Flimzy, that's a much better way of putting it.  That's what I meant, although the juxtaposition still isn't quite right, I'll admit.  Protestants don't worship the Bible, but Catholics do worship the Eucharist. Still, what I mean isn't that, I mean they are the highest visible signs of our faiths.
Answer: In answer to user3512 redirected here from Which are the exact differences between catholics and Christians?
I. "I think the whole bible is canon for all of them though, I've also hear that new testament can maybe be considered as a whole canon for Christians."
Not exactly : Catholics entrust particularly the Gospel, within the new testament, as the record of the most probably effectively-spoken words of Jesus (logia, logion). But at the same time, they consider that the Gospel is only understandable in the background of, and in the light of, the whole Word of God, meaning, the whole Bible, where the Old Testament is the context talking in allegory of God finding ways to save the human being, and the New Testament, as the accomplishment of the Salvation by the coming of Jesus. In addition, they also think that Jesus Christ reveals Himself in the traditions which developed in the historical religious uses of the Catholic church history (example the vows of chastity taken by religious) and in the wisdom of cultures all over the world and all over human history.
II. "Christians believe in Christ while Catholics also believe in Virgin Mary and also on saints and adore their figures."
Catholics distinguish between 'latrie' and 'veneration'. Latrie is reserved to the Holy Trinity, while veneration can be given to Holy Mary and the Saints. Meanwhile, the Virgin Mary is considered superior to all the other Saints by Catholics, because she pronounced the "Fiat" (the YES) which answered positively to the desire of God to make her carry His Word in her "flesh", and to "deliver" it to the whole world. Catholics see this "Fiat" as the model of christian life : saying yes to God allows Him to make that that Jesus Christ enter into our "flesh" (the word flesh meaning here all our humanity : spirit, soul, will, everything, like in Dt 6.5), grow inside our humanity, and be "delivered" to the whole creation, making us become cooperators of the Redemption.
III. "Catholics believe in 7 sacraments while Christians do not necessarily believe in them."
As far as I know, the theology of sacraments in Christianity is much marked by how theologians of respective christian denominations addressed historical circumstances. However, each Sacrament has Scriptural bases. The path I know is the catholic one, for five of the seven sacraments : Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Ordination and Reconciliation. For the other ones, you may wait for further answer from other contributors.
Baptism (Mt 28.19), Confirmation (see below), Eucharist ("Do this in memory of me" : Lk 22.19 and 1 Co 11.24) and Ordination (Jn 20.21:23) were historically the four first, based on the Scriptures, as quoted.
However, Baptism and Confirmation were two steps of the same spiritual action, the Gift of New Life : Baptism was concealed through immersion in water, and after that, the Head of the Community imposed hands on the new baptized to confer to him the Gift of the Holy Spirit. For organizational reasons, later, the moment for receiving the hands of the Episcope was delayed and reinforced by more doctrinal training. It became thus the Sacrament of Confirmation, which is the final seal of the Baptism.
Reconciliation (Jn 20.21:23 again), as a Sacrament, and historically, came upon the need for faithful Christians during persecution to welcome again those who  denied Christ by fear of being killed ; later, it became a sacrament, but the forms evolved a lot until the one actually in practice in the Catholic Church.
IV. "Catholics believe in Virgin Mary as a saint with no sins meanwhile Christians do not necessarily believe that."
Catholics believe that the only way for God to enter humanity after the sin of Adam and Eve was to enter through a sinless person. Such a person could not exist without God's special intervention. For the Catholic church, the anticipated benefits of Redemption were applied to the whole being of the Blessed Virgin Mary before Christ came to the world, making her immaculate from her conception (Catechism no 491-492). The christian faithfulness of Mary was therefore to keep being immaculate all her life, especially during the sufferings of her Son Jesus during Passion, meaning, keeping saying Yes to God whatever happens, which is heroic. This is why Catholics consider Mary as sinless. Other Christian denomination do not elaborate such a lot about the place of Mary in God project, and, therefore, do not include any statement about her being sinless or not.
V. "Catholics do believe in the Pope as leader while Christians do not necessarily believe in him."
The question of papacy is considered as Gospel- grounded by Catholics, because of a verse in the Scriptures : Mt 16.18, where Jesus congratulates his disciple Peter for recognizing Him, Jesus, as the Son of God, and decrees that He, Jesus, will build His church on him. Other denominations, especially because of scandals emerging in the guidance of the church by Catholics during medieval age (abuse of power, asking of money for remission of sins (cf. alleged 95 theses of Martin Luther)), re-examine this verse and see it as meaning that the Stone points to Jesus-Christ himself, the Word of God, not to Peter.
Comment: Welcome! Thanks for contributing.  If you'd like to strengthen your answer, I'd recommend adding sources to show that these are official positions of Catholicism.  I hope you'll take a minute to review [how this site is different from others](http://meta.christianity.stackexchange.com/a/1809/21576), and better understand how [your answer can be supported](http://meta.christianity.stackexchange.com/q/692/21576).


Cause for round holes in stones

Question: I picked up this stone form a beach on the south coast of England (lancing). How is it possible it has such round holes? Plenty of stones looked similar.
Comment: Please add characteristics of the type of stone. [This may help](http://meta.earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/124/a-guide-for-asking-identify-this-rock-questions)
Answer: Your image looks very similar to rocks we get here on the West Coast of Vancouver Island.  We have some rock boring bivalves that will effectively drill into the rock which breaks off and erodes into a shape similar to what you are showing.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pholadidae or https://the-hazel-tree.com/2013/08/21/piddocks-anything-but-boring/
There are also echinoderms that will bore into rocks, Strongylocentrotus purpuratus, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strongylocentrotus_purpuratus
https://bmscblog.wordpress.com/2013/01/09/holey-rocks/  but the holes from these creatures tend to be larger than the image you present.
I a confident that the holes are created by some form a boring bivalve.
Answer: What you have found there is a beautiful example of a rock which has been bored by a colony of piddocks.
Piddocks are little bivalve animals with oval shells edged with fine teeth.  They use their toothed shells to excavate burrows in rock.  The muscular part of their body, called a "foot", grips the stone surface and helps to rotate the shell, creating a circular scouring action.   Over time and as the piddock grows, its shallow excavation gets deeper. The piddock lives inside this safe tunnel and extends a siphon beyond the edge of the tunnel, which it uses to filter food such as phytoplankton from the sea water.
Individual piddocks live for around eight years, and so some of the rocks where their colonies settle can be riddled with quite deep hopes.  Their shells are very brittle and once the animal dies the shell is quickly broken by the action of the ocean – which means that you are unlikely to find a whole piddock shell unless it's still embedded in the stone.
But they leave examples of their handiwork on the rocks they lived on, and over time these rocks get washed up onto beaches. Below are some photographs of rocks with piddock bore holes in them. Some still have the piddocks hiding inside! And the third shows a piddock outside of its protective tunnel.
Answer: There are two processes involved. The first is the formation of any hole, such as erosion of a soft part of the rock, such as flint (silica) forming around something organic, or a softer rock. Also, macrofossils such as tubeworms, gastropods or echinoderms will have a natural cavity to start with. The second process is turbulent (wave driven?) scouring and enlarging of the hole by sand grains. This latter process involves circular eddy-currents which tend to erode an irregular cavity into a rounded cavity.
Comment: It is not clear to me how an eddy current at that scale would be considered circular? Are you talking about turbulent eddies?
Comment: Your explanation of a wave drilled rock is perfectly correct I have seen this in action in the Canaries whilst studying wave action.
Answer: This looks like petrified fruit. If you look between the two lobes you will see a lighter round patch that was the attachment area to the parent plant from which this fruit/seed had fallen.
It's probably fruit, as a seed would have had different shape, and it would seem to have fallen at a time of extremely hot weather  becoming quickly dehydrated after being invaded by some form of herbivore. I would discount bivalve activity but a terra based gastropod may have been the perpetrator before the fruit became petrified.
Answer: I used to find many of them in gray shale limestone rocks on the lakes hore in the North East USA.
As a kid we were told that they were called "lucky stones".  It was lucky if we found one.  We were told that the Native Americans used to find them and use them for weighting down the bottom of their fishing nets.
I always assumed that an ancient water plant had grown in the mud and over the millions of years, the plant deteriorated and left a fossil.  Over time, the plant fossil got destroyed and left a hole where the plant had been.
Some times we would find small pieces of underwater plant fossils on the shore also. Sometimes we would find plant fossils in a shale rock cliffs as the shale breaks away.
!
Answer: Leaning out of the window with:
I doubt the stone in the OP is the outcome of boring organisms. It rather is a cretaceous chert that fell out of the chalk cliffs (if present) or was washed out on the beach by the ocean. It is very abundant in the area (and elsewhere, e.g. the Baltic). I include the second example by @Orgong here, i think it is a chert, too (maybe not cretacous), just because they are so abundant. Both can be checked if they are cracked open. If they only show a white cortex (outer layer) and the inside is amorphous and any shade of gray to black, then it is clearly a chert.
Chert is a sedimentary rock made of amorphous silica from silica secreting organisms. If you crack open a large one you can even find a complete silicified skeleton of a sea urchin in it. They form as nodules in the sediment, sometimes in horizons of decimeters, combine with neighbours in the process, form plates, and anyway can have any shape including concave or with holes. Processes are described in detail for example here.
Sidenote: pretty good stuff for practicing stone knapping. Use a dense rounded sandstone as a pounder. And keep an easy wrist. It is all about the speed and angle, not the force. And do practice on a blanket to collect all the small flakes and chips or people will cut their feet when they wade through the remains of the workshop :-)

Cause for round holes in stones


Why is thalidomide a current drug on the market?

Question: Given the thalidomide birth defect disaster of the 1960s, why was it later approved by the U.S. FDA for treatment of leprosy (1996) and of multiple myeloma (2006)? Presumably, the teratogenic issues and problems with permanent nerve damage didn't go away, as the liver can convert the "good" enantiomer to the "bad." Thalidomide affects even non-pregnant women, so why approve a drug with known severe complications?
Comment: Under your reasoning, we clearly should not allow chemotherapy because if the bad side effects?
Comment: In medicine, all treatments are weighed: risks vs. benefits.
Comment: [Meta post](https://health.meta.stackexchange.com/q/764/8212)
Answer: Because leprosy and multiple myeloma are conditions for which other treatment options are limited.
All treatments have side effects, some more debilitating than others. The trick with pharmacology is to balance the benefit of treatment with the hazards of the side effects.
Take cancer chemotherapy. The drugs we use for cancer chemotherapy are horrible poisons. We literally use derivatives of chemical weapons to treat cancer. Why do we deliberately poison cancer patients with what amounts to a weapon of mass destruction? Because if we don't, the cancer will kill them.
In pharmacology there's a concept of a therapeutic window. That is, there's a particular amount of compound that will cause death or other severe disability. There's another (hopefully lower) level of the compound that will effectively treat the disease. In treating, we hope to hit that middle ground: enough to treat the disease, but not enough to kill the patient.
Different drugs have different therapeutic window. The window for over-the-counter drugs like asprin is rather large: the amount needed for severe side effects is many times higher than what people take to treat headaches. That's why we can allow untrained people to self-dose. (Though look at acetaminophen/paracetamol as an over-the-counter example where the window is not as large as it probably should be.)
In contrast, the threaputic window for many chemotherapy drugs is rather narrow. To make sure we hit that window, they're typically dosed by licensed professionals in a very controlled environment.
Back to thalidomide. The side effects of thalidomide are pretty severe. But to some extent they're controllable. If you scrupulously avoid exposing pregnant women or women who may become pregnant to thalidomide, you can avoid the teratogenic consequences. For the other consequences, you're back to the theraputic window: you want to hit a level of drug that is effective in treating the disease, but minimizes side effects.
That's why thalidomide has been approved. It's a cost/benefit analysis. The approving authorities took a look at the hazards of leaving leprosy and multiple myeloma untreated (or treated with other methods) versus the hazards from exposure to thalidomide. On the whole, they felt that the risks of thalidomide could be mitigated enough that it was the "lesser evil" than leaving the diseases untreated.
That said, if someone came out with a wonder drug that was as effective as thalidomide in treating these diseases but had fewer (or more benign) side effects, doctors would drop thalidomide like a hot potato, and the FDA might even revoke its approval. (Similar arguments hold for other potentially hazardous drugs like the nitrogen mustard chemotherapeutics.)
Comment: There are thalidomide derivatives, for what it's worth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_analogs_of_thalidomide
"This has led to the development of a number of analogs with fewer side effects and increased potency which include lenalidomide, pomalidomide and apremilast, all of which are currently marketed and manufactured by Celgene."
Answer: Thalidomide is used to treat, among other things, multiple myeloma. Since we know it has adverse effects for pregnant women, we simply don't give it to them.
Almost all drugs have side effects of some kind. We don't ban aspirin or NSAIDS, even though those are all known to have issues with stomach bleeding, for example.


What is the meaning of the proverb "И рыбку съесть, и в воду не лезть"?

Question: The English proverb "You can't have your cake and eat it" is apparently equivalent to the Russian one "И рыбку съесть, и в воду не лезть". What's the exact meaning of the proverb "И рыбку съесть, и в воду не лезть"? How do Russian people interpret and use it (and in which circumstances)? Is it often or rarely used?
Comment: Чтобы и волки были сыты и овцы целы. Another variant.
Comment: https://russian.stackexchange.com/questions/15356/have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too-equivalent-expression-in-russian
Answer: Literally "и рыбку съесть, и в воду не лезть" means "eat a fish without getting wet [without going into water]". There are lots of semantic equivalents, some of them vulgar.
One of those vulgar ones has the same first part of the phrase as your example: "и рыбку съесть" -- "to [both] eat a fish" and often is quoted only by the first part (completely appropriate by itself!). So, when you hear someone using that part of the phrase, chances are one's having a rude expression in mind (but often from "high" moral ground, too, i.e. "pointing out the smartarse").
Answer: Well, I think that this particular one has more accent on the fact that you get your fish and you haven't done anything to catch that, so sneaky lucky bastard you.
We have a bunch of other possibilities with the same beginning about a fish, which carry "you want too much at the same moment" sense. Note that these phrases below mention completely different activities, on contrast with both your examples with the fish and the cake, which might be essential difference. One of them is that vulgar one mentioned already:

И рыбку съесть и на хуй сесть (to eat a fish and to sit onto a [someones] dick).

The rhyme and the rude word multiply the comic effect of the phrase. Another one which is completely fine for children (well, because children are usually the ones who want too many) would be:

И рыбку съесть и на люстре покататься (to eat a fish and to ride a
  chandelier).

So in the sense "there would be too many pleasures for you" I'd use (and I do use) the 2 last ones.


Desktop plugged directly into cable outlet - no internet connection - have wireless router in another space

Question: Just bought a new Dell desktop for University and I need the internet.  I have a wireless router in another room that accesses all our laptops.  I plugged a coaxial cable from the wall jack to the desktop to access the internet but no connection.  Wondering if I have to bring the wireless router up from the other room and connect it directly to the desktop or is there something else I could do that would be easier  ??
Comment: 'I plugged a coaxial cable from the wall jack to the desktop' Where on the desktop did you plug it into? Desktop don't normally have ports for coaxial cables. Did you mean ethernet cable?
Answer: If you have a coaxial connector on your computer, it is probably for TV, not for internet.
To connect to the internet over cable (or any other medium), you must have a modem. You may connect a computer directly to this modem, but modems typically have connections for only one device; this is what a router is for. It acts as a switch to allow several computers, printers, or other 'host' devices connect to a single modem. Some modems have built in routers. I don't know what make or model yours is, so I couldn't tell you if yours does or not.
That being said, you need to connect your computer to your router. If you don't want to do this with a cable (cat5e or cat6), you can get a wireless network interface and plug it in to your computer. Follow the manufacturer's instructions to configure the wireless device for your network.
Answer: Cable Internet.
With cable internet broadband modems, once you have connected a device to it and have gotten an internet connection, the modem logs/remembers the MAC address of that device.  So, if you connected the Cable Modem to the Router, the modem got the MAC address of the router and it remembers it.  If you disconnect the router, and connect a different device, like... say... a computer, the modem sees that there is a different MAC address now attached to it, and doesn't allow an internet connection.  You would need to power the Cable Modem off for a few seconds, then power it on.  At that point, it would grab the MAC address of the first device connected to it and work again the way it is supposed to.
Now... the Coaxial cable that connects to all your televisions, is also connected to your cable modem.  You cannot connect that coaxial cable directly to a computer and get internet access.  It has to connect to a modem first.
If you were actually talking about how you unplugged the ethernet cable from the cable router and plugged it directly into your desktop, you would need to power cycle the modem to get it to work as I described... however, this would kill internet access to your wireless router, and every computer connected to it.
So.  How do you get internet access to this desktop, when your internet connection is handled by your wireless router that is in another room?  You either need to run an ethernet cable from that router to the desktop, or you need to get a wireless card for that desktop.  Well... you could also get a pair of Powerline Ethernet Adapters, but then you ALSO need a couple of ethernet cables.


What's the major difference between mind and brain?

Question: I am preparing a presentation on "Mind Reading Computer", and all articles that I came across were focused on reading interpretations from brain through sensors. Articles like  this clearly show a distinction between them, but from an engineering perspective, I need scientific facts. Does "mind reading computer" imply "brain reading computer", or does the term "mind" have totally a different meaning in the context? Any help and facts relating to the topic will be highly appreciated!
Comment: The Phil.SE Q [Human Thinking versus Computer Thinking](http://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/9866/human-thinking-versus-computer-thinking) may be/become helpful.
Comment: Jeffrey Schwartz's 'The Mind and the Brain' discusses this difference quite in-depth
Answer: Wikipedia is often a good place to start for basic questions like these. Wikipedia has separate pages devoted to the mind, the brain, and even the mind–body problem, which is one example of the many theoretical challenges implied by the distinctions between "mind" and "brain". Simply stated:

The brain is a physical organ. It's entirely possible that much of its structure has relatively little bearing on the nature of the mind. For instance, glial cells are more numerous than neuronal cells. Glial cells play a relatively more supportive function than neurons, the direct functions of which may be more closely related than glial cells' to the functions of what we consider to constitute the mind.
Wikipedia describes the mind as, "The set of cognitive faculties that enables consciousness, perception, thinking, judgement, and memory." Google offers this primary definition: "The element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought." Neither of these definitions directly necessitate a physical substrate such as the brain. However, The Free Dictionary's primary definition includes the phrase, "Originates in the brain." These differences belie the controversiality of the term itself, as does @KeeganKeplinger's helpful answer.
Wikipedia's mind page has a section dedicated to its relation to the brain. This section mentions the mind–brain problem, as well as three philosophical stances on the problem:

Materialism: briefly, that there is no valid distinction, and all mental activities have neural bases
Idealism: essentially that all physical objects and processes are truly mental in nature
Dualism: that the mind exists somewhat independently of the brain and body, possibly as an aspect or property of the spirit or soul

Thus a simple answer would be that "mind" does imply "brain" for many if not most audiences, but some may opine that these are different (though probably not totally different) entities. Arguably the best approach would be to tailor your word choice to suit whichever entity your computer concept proposes to read most directly.
Answer: Sure, to some extent mind reading implies brain reading.  For instance, if you were reading someone's mind by their behavior or their heart rate, it would be through their brain's effect on those organs.  We largely do this through inference.  Without a heart monitor or perspiration monitor, we have whole sections of brain dedicated to recognizing human faces and interpreting emotions and we tend to automatically assume things that look like us think and feel like us.  This can be helpful for mind reading, but it can also lead to misconceptions, because not everyone responds the same way to stimuli.  Some people laugh to cope with tragedy, some people cry.  Additionally, some people use deceitful facial expressions to hide their feelings.
But the brain is a physical object, whereas the concept of the mind is more obfuscated.  Some people emphasize the experiential aspects of the mind (phenomenology or subjective experience), while others emphasize the functional aspect of the mind (function, cognition).  There is still a lot of arguing left to do over what "mind" means, whereas we can pretty much all agree what a brain is.  So they're not the same thing.
Comment: "obfuscated" - I love that word. Sounds like cartoon-speak for throwing a smoke bomb and then rushing past your stunned parents to the playground with your toy gun. Perfect word to describe the effect of the word "mind" on the mind.
Answer: In many languages, there is no word similar in meaning to the English word mind. In my opinion that fact illustrates an inherent problem with the scientific use of that word: that mind does not even denote a unified concept at all.
The Oxford English Dictionary lists the following current meanings of mind, among others (http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/118732):
<code>I. Senses relating to memory.
    1. The state of being remembered; remembrance, recollection.
    3. That which is remembered, a memory.

II. Senses relating to thought.
    * The action of thinking or the occurrence of a thought, idea, or intuition.
    ** Intention or wish.
    *** Inclination.
    **** Opinion or judgement.

IV. Mental or psychic faculty.
    19.
        a.
            (a) The seat of awareness, thought, volition, feeling,
                and memory; cognitive and emotional phenomena and
                powers considered as constituting a presiding influence;
                the mental faculty of a human being (esp. as regarded
                as being separate from the physical); (occas.) this
                whole system as constituting a person's character or
                individuality.
        c. Freq. in theistic (esp. Christian) contexts: transcendent
           intelligence, rationality, or being, esp. that seen as
           initiating or controlling the universe.
    21.
        a. A person's cognitive, rational, or intellectual powers;
           the intellect; esp. as distinguished from the emotions,
           and freq. opposed to heart
</code>
As you can see, mind can take on almost any meaning relating to mental processes, from memory, to feeling, to thought, to attention.
Mind is not a useful scientific term and should be avoided in research literature.
Comment: "Chiefly in phrases," seems like an important part of the first definition. Only a few words of context seem to determine the meaning of *mind* and rule out many of these alternatives in each case, though maybe not all. Regardless, I agree that there are probably better alternatives in most cases. [Here's a high-profile offender](http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/images/application_uploads/KILLINGSWORTH-WanderingMind.pdf) BTW! At least the rare uses here other than *mind-wandering* – which they define – are for the sake of glib one-liners, and not to be taken overly seriously anyway.
Comment: Great answer. I find many 'problems' simply come down to definitions (and in this case, mind is useless scientifically), such as consciousness: if well defined it can be studied, but 99% of the time it so loose that even researchers in the same field can't agree on a definition. Perhaps if 'mind' was defined as 'that which 1) does not manifest from the physical brain and 2) has no physical substrate' then we can separate it from 'brain' and consequently ignore it as it therefore lies outside the purview of empirical science.
Answer: Modern neuroscience has left behind the notion of mind-brain separation. Neuroscientists typically accept that everything from our breathing to our emotions and the complex sense of "self" that we have is a product of our brains. We have yet to discover exactly how/when/why the "mind" emerged from the brain, but we do know that most of our mental processing happens unconsciously.
Comment: This is a good summary, but would be strengthened by citing sources and elaborating on your answer.
Answer: Short answer: Mind and brain are the same system, and reading the mind is just a matter of a) knowing which brain states represent the (more abstract) 'mind' information you are trying to read, and b) being able to monitor these states with appropirate technology.
Long answer: what is to some extent right when he/she says that "mind" is not a scientifically useful term - it adds no explanatory value to our conceptions of mental function. However, since the brain is a complex biological system that can be described on many levels, it can be useful to make a distinction between the higher ones and the lower ones - the brain sciences (neuroscience, neurology, biology, biological psychology, etc.) are different enough from the mind sciences (psychology, cognitive science, etc.). The main way in which they are different is that they describe cognition on a more abstract level - the properties that psychology describes emerge from the underlying biological structure. So, in a practical sense, it may be useful to keep the term "mind" to describe these higher-level sciences. Furthermore, one could argue the so-called "dual-aspect monism" position - mind and brain are (obviously) the exact same system, but one can view them from two different perspectives - objectively and subjectively. Scientists who study the brains of bats, for example, will never feel what it is like to be a bat. This is the reason some researchers say we should correlate objective data with subjective data for a complete pictures of how the brain works. For a theoretical overview of how such a position fits into brain science, see http://www.igpp.de/english/tda/pdf/dualaspect.pdf.
Answer: The brain is a physical object whereas the mind is an abstract entity consisting of thoughts. There is a mapping between the two which works bilaterally,each one can influence the other.
A mind reading computer would receive its inputs in physical form and would then map out the mind by using the corelations between the two.
These corelations would be complex sensory inputs to the brain can influence the mind but the mind also receives inputs of a non sensory kind which can influence the brain.
If it is hardware and software analogy then we are dealing with a software which changes the hardware.
Comment: Welcome to cogsci.SE!  We are a community based in science and fact, and encourage citing sources for this purpose as well as giving interested parties somewhere to start for further reading.
Answer: I would like to equate the brain with computer hardware while equating the mind with the software. Interestingly the brain executes the steps or the perceptional aspects of human thinking while the mind interacts with the world and changes, alters and re-configures ones perceptions and operational brain functions. For example when one is interacting with the outside world the same scene or stimuli may have different brain response under the depressed state of mind while it may be totally opposite when in an elated state. So the plasticity of the brain can change by the operations of the mind. So how do we define mind, simply said it is the collective contribution of ones memory of past experiences, current state of being and the relationship between the two, while resolving the current perception.
Comment: Do you have a reference to back this up?  Right now it's a mixture of inaccurate philosophy and conjecture.
Answer: I think hardware and software are both brain-the matter and function. Mind decides what you use it for, and is based on your learning based on experiences. The learning is not only over one life but continues and is updated. I think the gist of learning is in the soul and is updated based on new experiences. I think soul is software for learning with Data/information (learning) and has also a java like program that enables updating of the laerning. It also has rules - soul can only be in a living organism, hence leaves at death. the program also calculates the frequency ( to define how much you have learned and zero frequency means you have learnt the Truth). At death, the soul leaves the body and keeps wandering, until it finds a body being born that has a matching frequency in it's previous life and the other soul lodges in it. The soul when it leaves one body goes just like a wireless cell phone.  my hypothesis- not proven but scientifically plausible.
Kul razdan
Comment: Welcome to cogsci.SE!  We encourage answers based in science and fact--right now this answer is pretty lacking in both, and is more on the philosophy side than anything else.


What happens to things when things get crushed in a blackhole

Question: When a black hole destroys things until they are smaller than molecules, where does it go and what happens when it clogs up?
Comment: I think this is a duplicate of http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/26704/22494 and we just don't know.  What general relativity tells us doesn't jive with what Quantum Mechanics tells us.
Comment: I think this needs a simple explanation of black holes, Hawking radiation and possibly the information loss paradox.
Comment: What happens with the matter after it went into a black hole? Well, we never see it falling in. From the reference of the infalling matter, no one knows.
Answer:
where does it go and what happens when it clogs up?

In the context of an ideal, static black hole in general relativity, world lines end at the singularity.  Consider the diagram below:

This is the Schwarzschild geometry in Kruskal–Szekeres coordinates.  In these coordinates, it is clear that there is no place or time that the entities falling into the black hole go; the matter and energy that fall into the hole cannot avoid the singularity, i.e., the end of existence.
The regions of the diagram "above" the upper zigzag curve (the future singularity) and "below" the lower zigzag curve (the past singularity) are not part of the spacetime; there are no events in those regions of the diagram.
Answer: Your question touches on the quantum behaviour of black holes, a subject with fundamental, unsolved problems.
Classically, black holes cannot emit light, because light cannot escape their strong gravitational fields. The gravity is so strong that any matter that fell into a black hole would be torn into fundamental particles, and become part of the black hole. The black hole would become more massive and bigger.
Remarkably, Hawking showed that at the quantum level, black holes were like objects with a temperature that cooled by emitting light (electromagnetic radiation). Formally, he recognized an analogy between black holes and thermodynamics. Hawking showed that particle-antiparticle pairs would produced on the edge (event-horizon) of black holes. The particle would escape the black hole; the antiparticle would remain trapped. This escaping particle is Hawking radiation.
An important insight was that this Hawking radiation has no information content; if you throw an encyclopedia into a black hole, you cannot find any of its information from the Hawking radiation. In contrast, if you burn an encyclopedia, you can in principle find its contents from the distribution of the smoke etc. Black holes appear to destroy information.
This is considered to be a paradox, because information ought not to be destroyed. The ultimate fate of black hole is that it will radiate away via this Hawking radiation. Some believe that the information of, say, any encyclopedias thrown into the black hole would remain in the black hole until this moment but one problem is indeed that the black hole would be clogged up; it wouldn't have any room for more information.
Others say that information is irreversibly destroyed by the black hole. Others that there is a firewall at the edges of black holes. But no one knows for sure.


Unwanted quantize markers in logic pro

Question: When flexing a region in Logic 9, you are probably familiar with the grey transient markers that logic creates. Also, if you choose to quantize the region logic creates white quantize markers. The white markers are not supposed to show up unless you choose to quantize the region. My region's quantize setting is set to off(3840), but quantize markers show up anyway. Does anyone know how to remove the white markers in any other way than manually right-clicking and choosing 'Delete flex marker' on each and every one?
Answer: Never seen this happen, but you could try double clicking the audio region to bring it up in the sample editor. Then click the transient editor button to highlight, and try clicking the left arrow until it gets rid of the markers you don't want.
Will also say that if Logic is acting glitchy, you should click Preferences>Initialize All Except Key Commands. Works like a charm.
E
Comment: It looks like with the transient editor button highlighted, the minus button (which I suppose you are referring to), only removes transient markers. Not quantize markers. So unfortunately, this solution didn't work for me.

I also tried the _Preferences>Initialize All Except Key Commands_. Didn't work either. Didn't know about this command before, so thanks anyway.
Answer: Okay, so I solved this myself. I realized that as soon as I click a quantize marker (not transient marker) and move it slightly, it turns into a flex marker, and all quantize markers to the left of my brand new flex marker disappear. Transient markers are still there though. Perfect. They just shouldn't have been there in the first place.
Comment: Well, but it work only until another flex marker. So, if you manually flex all the track, then the quantize markers appear again (it happened to me), how to remove all those white markers quickly ?

Unwanted quantize markers in logic pro


What's that word that means "typical of / a small version of / illustrative of"?

Question: I want so say that the battle between video rental store franchise companies like Hollywood Entertainment Corporation and internet video streaming companies like Netflix is something of the shift that the .com era brought to the prevailing business management philosophy and practice in America. "Microcosmic" isn't quite it.. what's that word?
Comment: representative of?
Answer: The word you want is probably indicative. The smaller example is an indicator of the conflict going on in the larger context.
Answer: bib's answer is good, but if you are looking specifically for an adjective, emblematic is a good fit.
Answer: Instead of ... is [something] of ... You could say epitomizes

to serve as the typical or ideal example of
Comment: I think  "epitomizes" can be distracting if this video store war is not the perfect example of whatever phenomena I would avoid "epitomize."
Answer: I believe microcosm does encompass all of the meanings you were looking for.  I know you ruled it out above, but it does fit.
The Google definition:  a community, place, or situation regarded as encapsulating in miniature the characteristic qualities or features of something much larger.
You could easily say the battle between them is a microcosm of the greater shift.
Answer: Such relationships are very often described from the opposite perspective as "A is B writ large"

If one thing is another thing writ large, it is similar to it but larger or more obvious:
Hollywood is often said to be American society writ large.

Although the corresponding writ small is about 15 times less common, that's just a relative thing. There are over 20,000 written instances of it in Google Books - for example,...

"The self is simply society writ small."
Answer: You could also use the term "reflective".
reflective: reflecting something :  indicative (how fashion is reflective of society — Glenda Bailey)--Merriam-Webster
Answer: To add to other good suggestions, if you want to give a negative connotation, then "symptomatic" is a good one.

"This latest factory closure is symptomatic of the decline in US manufacturing"
Answer: There are several words that would work for you.
Start with words like representative, illustrative, symbolic, and emblematic. These words suggest that the example case that you gave encompasses many of the attributes or characteristics of the shift that the .com era brought.
Another word that works (but may not be what you are going for) is symptomatic. In this case, to be symptomatic would be to indicate some of the consequences that the shift to the .com era brought.


Can a thief unlock or otherwise access the data on my stolen Android device?

Question: If my Android device is stolen, will the person who ends up with it be able to get my data by plugging it into a PC and using some trick? Is there anything I can do to prevent this or make it harder?
Comment: I would assume that some rooting methods don't need the phone unlocked or interaction with the phone to do their work, I believe some purely do exploits over ADB and so on.  On a Samsung phone you could flash a kernel that will automatically root the device, and then the data is accessible.
Comment: Are you rooted?
Comment: @MatthewRead not, but can't anyone root it? Or the password is needed?
Comment: See also [Just how secure is a pattern lock?](http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/18763/) which has a lot of answers on how a malicious person with your phone could access its data.
Answer: If you used full-disk encryption, then your data will be accessible until the device unmounted the encrypted disk (e.g. by rebooting) and discarded the decryption key. If you store your sensitive data in encrypted container, then your data will be accessible until the application closes the container and discarded the decryption key.
If you don't use any encryption, then your data is naked in the wild. Many thiefs are simply interested to sell the phone to make a quick buck and so will simply reformat the phone; but if the thief has a specific intent to steal your data (e.g. corporate espionage, identity thief, etc), then you can assume that they can read all your unencrypted data.
If your phone uses SD card (instead of internal memory), then getting to your data in the SD card is trivial. Getting data in internal memory took a little bit more effort, but is still relatively easy. A turned off device with full-disk-encryption is -- for all practical purpose -- a useless brick for your adversary.
Answer: In general computing, physical access to a device means all bets are off when it comes to security of data. A determined and knowledgeable thief is likely to either crack the protection, or at the very least copy the contents off the device to try and subvert encryption.
There are several security packages on the Market that can make this job a lot more difficult for the potential thief. These apps can remotely lock the device, wipe its data, and even attempt to "dial home" if the thief was careless enough to let it go online. This will deter most, but the very savvy ones.
Your best bet to safeguard sensitive data is to never have it on the mobile device in the first place. Banking apps that store your login credentials, entering credit card info into web forms on browser, etc. are all points of vulnerability.
In terms of damage control after the phone/tablet is stolen, it's always a good idea to have a list of accounts for apps that are installed, so that you can change the passwords asap. Email, social network apps, etc.
Comment: If by "subvert encryption" you mean guess passwords or such, I agree.  But from what I've read Android's encryption seems strong.
Comment: I just mean that they copy off the data to do with as they please. Besides, encryption on Android is a recent thing, and most people don't make use of it.
Answer: As the other answers already state: physical access to a device means all bets are off when it comes to security of data (from Chahk's answer). As this is already made clear enough, I will focus on some counter-measures with my answer.
One thing to make it harder was already mentioned in Lie's answer: encrypting the device will make it harder to access the data. But there are several more things. If you e.g. leave USB Debugging on, you make it easier for the thief to access your device, so it's a good precaution to keep that turned off.
Already named in several answers are several anti-thief apps available on the playstore. There's e.g. Cerberus Anti-Theft (one week free trial, then ~EUR 3) which gives you a lot of possibilities, remotely controlling your device to locate and track it, set off a loud alarm, record audio from the microphone, and even remotely wipe the phone (to destroy all stored data). Similar functionality is offered by Android Lost (available for free -- also see the video on that app's playstore page). Both are even using a "stealth-mode", so a thief can not easily find and uninstall them. A good thing about Android Lost is you even can remotely install and activate it if your phone already is lost -- as long it is still online and connected to your Google account.
Summary
So in short and summed up: Yes, a thief can get access to your data -- but there are means of making this at least very hard, or even limit the time frame he has for his "bad deed". Several things to consider on this background:

Don't store sensitive data on your mobile device in the first place, if you can avoid it. What's not there cannot be taken.
Chose secure apps which are proven to encrypt sensitive data (and not store it plain-text). See e.g. viaForensic's appWatchdog (viaForensics is a forensic company which also keeps an eye on mobile security. Andrew Hoog's book Android Forensics and mobile security gives a good insight on this topic)
Don't leave USB Debugging always turned on in your device
Consider device encryption
Consider using an anti-theft app such as e.g. Cerberus or Android Lost (there are several more with good ratings) which also uses a stealth mode and thus is not easily found and uninstalled. In conjunction with this: Act fast and wise if your device is lost (e.g. first try to locate it before doing a wipe: it might very well be you simply forgot it on the kitchen table)
Also don't forget the "obvious stuff": Don't leave your Andy alone on the pub table while going to toilet, for example :) It's harder to steal it from clothes you're wearing then when lying around or being stored in a jacket hanging on the warderobe.


How can I ask a good question on Engineering.SE and receive quality responses?

Question:
What information should my question contain?
What should I include or not include?
Do I need to provide background to my question?
What can I assume the people reading my question will know?
Comment: Users contributing to this [proposed FAQ](http://meta.stackexchange.com/tags/faq-proposed/info) should keep in mind that some asking guidance is [given in the Help Center](http://engineering.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-ask) and [embedded in the "Ask Question" page](http://engineering.stackexchange.com/questions/ask). Try to expand, clarify and add to that guidance in this Q&A, rather than repeating it.
Comment: @Air (and other mods) When are we going to clean this post up so that it can be offered as guidance to new users?
Comment: @ChrisMueller Linking to this post is fine as long as it's not being misrepresented as anything other than a collaborative, preliminary draft. We have control over [the official faq tag](http://meta.engineering.stackexchange.com/tags/faq/info) but, apart from that, we're participating as normal users, and hoping to see more community involvement. So I'll turn the question back to you: When *are* we going to clean this post up so that we can honestly say it's useful, clear and represents a reasonable degree of community consensus?
Comment: @Air I think it is in reasonably good shape as far as the content goes. By 'clean up' I mostly meant the long comment discussion on the first post which isn't really helpful to new users.
Comment: @ChrisMueller, if there is agreement I would like to roll back first answer to rev 6, which I think covered most the intent. I am not in favor of the current form because the answers are fragmented. It is only my opinion.
Comment: @MahendraGunawardena Although I can understand why you want all of the information to be in one answer, I believe it is better to have it split up.  Many of the people who will be directed here will be the people who put very little effort into their question, and those people aren't likely to have the patience to read a long, thorough post.  The way it is now shows them the most important information in a single concise post with additional information available in the others.
Comment: I think for that particular question, all the informations you have gathered or searched so far to find the answer yourself should be the question's content.
Answer: The best way to get a high-quality answer is with a clear, interesting and well-researched question.
We recognize that our users come from a wide range of age groups, cultures, engineering disciplines, and experience levels. At a minimum, your question should:

Clearly describe the problem, using diagrams, equations, specifications, etc.
Share the work you have done so far, especially research, calculations, test results, previous designs, etc.
Ask an explicit question. Simply describing the problem or situation is not enough; readers should not have to guess or make assumptions to know exactly what you're asking.

If you cannot summarize your problem as an explicit question, you probably need to do more work before asking the question.
Important Note:
Copy-and-pasted homework questions are usually closed and/or down voted. It benefits no one to have us do your homework for you. When asking a question involving a homework problem, narrow the issue down to one specific aspect or concept of the problem. "I understand how to get X and Y, but how do I find Z?" goes over much better than "Solve this problem."
More Information

Sample Outline
Example Questions
"Writing the perfect question" by long-time Stack Exchange user Jon Skeet
Help Center: How do I ask a good question?
Comment: I know that example questions are helpful, but there will likely be a lot of conflicting ideas about what  are good examples. I'm not sure that just going by number of views is the best measure. Views seem to mostly be related to catchy titles.
Comment: @MahendraGunawardena My aim is to include both licensed and unlicensed professionals. The term "professional engineer" *excludes* unlicensed professionals in some countries. What group does the term "working engineer" exclude?
Comment: @MahendraGunawardena - it is disingenuous to imply that "professionals and students of engineering" can be rephrased as "Professional Engineers and students of engineering."  That shows a distinct lack of awareness of the legally regulated use of the title.  Furthermore, that particular phrasing is standard for almost all StackExchange sites and started with StackOverflow.
Comment: @mahendra I reverted your edit that changed "working" to "professional" in the first sentence because not all of us who volunteer our time here are PEs.
Comment: @Air You don't have to be a PE to be professional engineer. Any one who has attained a standard of education and training is considered a professional engineer. Therefore professional is an appropriate term. He is a link from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional
Comment: @MahendraGunawardena In some countries the title "professional engineer" is legally protected. Particularly Canada and the US. The relevant WP article is [this one](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_and_licensure_in_engineering).
Comment: @MahendraGunawardena - Your statement is incorrect regarding "Any one who has attained a standard of education and training is considered a professional engineer."  And that's especially so in North America.  Many state boards of technical professionals have been known to issue "cease and desist" type letters to unlicensed individuals and / or corporations that were illegally using the term Professional Engineer or stating the availability of Engineering Services.  The EU has similar restrictions.
Comment: @GlenH7, This is how engineering SE is defined "Engineering Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for professionals and students of engineering. It's 100% free, no registration required. "
Comment: @GlenH7, you can take a look at how I originally phrased, it has now been butchered around. "A large community of mostly professional and academic volunteers dedicated there personal time to answer question in the forum." The intent was it be simple. Now the whole thing is complex with disclaimers it is hard to understand the purpose.
Comment: As it is hardly anyone one going to read this, thus the purpose is completely lost. All I intent was to help new users. This wiki is just doing the opposite.
Comment: Obviously we have to balance detail with brevity but I tend to agree with @Mahendra that the disclaimer is unnecessary. Now that we have expanded the guidance, maybe we can better identify which parts to focus on? I'm going to try cutting some parts out and moving some parts to secondary answers. Thoughts?
Answer: Sample Outline
If you learn better from seeing an example, you may find this basic outline useful. It is not necessary to follow this format exactly; however, your question will benefit by having all of the information necessary to fill in the outline, or that information should be intuitive or obvious to the casual observer.

Question Title
Use a short, descriptive title that captures the theme of the question.
Summary of the Problem
Include about 2-3 sentences describing the background.
Body
What has been done to solve the problem? This can include pictures, equations, research, hyperlinks, etc.
Question
Explain the question in 2-3 sentences. Make sure the question is specific and to the point.
Answer: Examples
Well-Received Questions
Here are a few examples of questions that have been well-received on Engineering SE.

Why doesn't a lightning strike destroy the lightning rod?
What is the physical interpretation of the second term in the viscous stress tensor in the Navier-Stokes equations?
My customer wants to use my products to do something unsafe. What is my ethical obligation?

Popular Questions
Particularly good questions with effective titles tend to attract a lot of attention. Here are a few examples of questions that were read by many people and attracted a significant number of responses.

How to quantify martial arts strikes?
Why are earthfills fully covered in concrete where they join bridges?
What is a reason that handlebars fit to a motorcycle and steering wheel fit to a car?

For more current examples, browse this month's most active questions.
Answer: Specific to questions on pumps and pumping systems:
So you want to size a pump or pick a pump or have questions if a particular pump is suitable to your purpose. Here's what you should state in your question:
State the problem you want to solve, what you have tried so far and where you get stuck.
With most questions on pumps, this information will be needed so provide it upfront:

Medium
(desired) Flowrate
available head on the suction side, required head on the pressure side or the relevant elevation
if available: pump curve and system curve

Include a sketch of your system with heights and water levels, pressures. The best way to describe a system to others is a sketch, and the best way to make sure you yourself understood the system is to draw a sketch.


Calibration of Cox-Ingersoll-Ross process that hits zero (Feller condition violation)

Question: I'm considering a Cox-Ingersoll-Ross (CIR) process
$$
dx_{t} = \alpha\left(\theta - x_{t}\right)dt + \sigma \sqrt{x_{t}}\,dW_{t}\,,\qquad \alpha,\beta,\sigma > 0
$$
which by assumption has $2\alpha \theta < \sigma^{2}$ (violates the Feller condition) and can therefore reach $x_{t}=0$ for some $t$ . The conditional distribution is
$$
f(x_{t+T} \vert x_{t}) = c e^{-u-v}\left(\frac{v}{u}\right)^{q/2}I_{q}\left(2\sqrt{uv}\right)
$$
where $q = \tfrac{2\alpha\theta}{\sigma^{2}} - 1$ (note $q <0$ by assumption of violation of the Feller condition), $c = \frac{2\alpha}{\sigma^{2}\left(1-e^{-\alpha T}\right)}\,$,  $u=cx_{t}e^{-\alpha T}$, $v = c x_{t+T}$ and $I_{q}$ is a modified Bessel function of the first kind of order $q\,$.
I want to calibrate $\alpha,\theta,\sigma$ from certain historical observations $x_{i=1\ldots N}$. As explained in e.g. arXiv:0812.4210, in principle this can be done by minimizing minus the logarithm of the likelihood, i.e.
$$
-\log (\text{Likelihood}) = -\log \prod_{i=1}^{N-1}f(x_{i+1}\vert x_{i})\,.
$$
The tricky thing is that some of my historic observations $x_{i}$ are zero. Now, when $x_{t + T} \to 0$ ($v \to 0$ in the notation above), using the series expansion of the Bessel function one finds
$$
f(x_{t +T} \to 0 \vert x_{t}) \to c e^{-u-v}\frac{v^{q}}{\Gamma(q+1)}
$$
Since $q<0$ by assumption, the density blows up as $v\to 0\,$.
In particular, if (say) the 9th observation is zero in my dataset of historic observations (i.e. $v_{9} = cx_{9}=0$), the likelihood would be
$$
-\log (\text{Likelihood}) = -q\log v_{9} -\log\left(\frac{c e^{-u_{9}-v_{9}}}{\Gamma(q+1)}\right)-\log  \prod_{i\neq 8}f(x_{i+1}\vert x_{i})\,,\quad \text{with } v_{9} \to 0
$$
and the term  $-q\log v_{9} \to -\infty$ as $v_{9} \to 0$ and will spoil the minimization (a numeric solver ceases to converge, for example).
Any ideas on how to calibrate the CIR process in such situations, namely when the historic data contains points (one or many) where the process hits zero?. Is Maximum Likelihood just not suited to this situation or is there a work-around?.
Answer: It's common to just set all zeroes equal to the minimum nonzero observation in your dataset.


How precise are the observational measurements for the speed of gravity?

Question: General Relativity says that gravity moves at the speed of c.  How precise are the measurements?
Answer: The accuracy is extremely good thanks to LIGO and a binary neutron star merger.  It's accurate to about 3 parts in 1 quadrillion!
See the paper Gravitational Waves and Gamma-rays from a Binary Neutron Star Merger: GW170817 and GRB 170817A
The paper constrains "the difference between the speed of gravity and the speed of light to be between $−3×10^{-15}$ and $+7×10^{−16}$ times the speed of light."
Older response before the LIGO observation:
One of the more recent of gravity was first measured in 2003 using Jupiter and a quasar.  The measurements were for the purpose of proving a finite speed and weren't very precise.  See the paper for more.
More recently in 2013 a Chinese group built a model using Earth's tides that helped them narrow it down.

... [T]he speeds of gravity are from 0.93 to 1.05 times the speed of light with a relative error of about 5%. This provides first set of strong evidences to show that the speed of gravity is the same as the speed of light.

This is so far the most accurate measurement I've seen.  See the paper for more.
In the near future, LIGO may be able to provide more accurate measurements by comparing the distance among detectors and the delay of observation.
Also related, see the question "How is the most accurate value of  G  measured?"
Comment: fyi I've just asked [Have LIGO/VIRGO gravitational wave measurements narrowed down the speed of gravity?](https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/q/33009/7982)
Comment: fyi I've just asked [How error bars on recent speed of gravity determination from gravitational waves and coincident gamma ray burst? Was Hubble constant in there?](https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/q/38318/7982)
Answer:
How precise are the observational measurements for the speed of gravity?

Not very. See the Wikipedia article on the speed of gravity which refers to dissent surrounding the claims made by Sergei Kopeikin and Edward Fomalont. The dissenters include Clifford M Will and Steve Carlip who are fairly well respected. The 2016 paper about the LIGO detection said the measured speed was less than 1.7c. The more recent paper by Neil Cornish and others said it was between 0.55c and 1.4c. This is not at all precise.
Note that in seismology p waves and s waves travel at different speeds. So IMHO it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect different types of waves in space to travel at different speeds. As to whether one should expect light waves and gravitational waves to travel at exactly the same speed is a slightly different matter, complicated by the way a gravitational wave is thought to be a quadrupole wave.
Comment: I don't know if referring to p and s waves in seismology is an apt comparison.
Comment: @zephyr It's just an analogy that highlights the idea that there are many different kinds of waves. I like it.
Comment: Quite out of date.
Comment: @zephyr : IMHO when you read [Einstein's old material](http://einsteinpapers.press.princeton.edu/~searchResults?searchMode=quick&searchText=continuum&context=-2&sortField=Sort) there's a definite sense of continuum mechanics. Mind you, this is an interesting discussion [following a lecture](http://einsteinpapers.press.princeton.edu/vol3-trans/370?highlightText=%22faster%20than%20light%22).


Where can I find instruction booklets?

Question: Is there any place where scans or PDFs of instruction booklets can be downloaded?
Answer: Yes, from themselves, for sets from 2002 onwards.
D-N-D Bricks(archived) use to have a lot of older sets' instructions.
List of archived instructions.
Answer: These sites are absolutely marvellous:

Let's Build It Again - this has user submissions too
BrickFactory - if you can't find it on here, then it can't exist
WorldBricks - looks to be another cracking resource

(Having just spent some time looking through these, I just don't know why I hadn't tried looking for this stuff before.)
Answer: If you have an Android device, the app Lego Scans is also very convenient.

Ever lost a LEGO® scan or you maybe want to take a trip down memory lane?
  This app enables you to browse through 4000 LEGO® scans by box number or by theme.
  You can choose to save the scan image files to your SD card for offline viewing! This also enables you to view the scan in your favorite image app!
Comment: This app was removed from the Play Store some years ago.
Answer: The following sites all have instructions:

Lego (2002 onwards)
The Brick Factory
D-N-D Bricks
World Bricks
Peeron
Cubiculus - not scans, but recreations of instructions from many official sets
Answer: Peeron also has a bunch of instructions for sets over 5 years old.  In addition, it has a parts breakdown of most sets Lego has produced.
Answer: Lego.com. Just hope you have the box or some information. Lego.com Support- Set Instructions
Comment: Welcome to LEGO Answers.  This seems somewhat redundant to the other answers.  Can you add something to make this more helpful?
Answer: Besides being a great LEGO community website, Brickset has even different versions of almost every set imaginable.

Where can I find instruction booklets?


XUbuntu: Window manager stopped to work

Question: I installed XUbuntu on my netbook and it worked like a charm for about a week.
Then, today, the Software center application crashed and since then the window manager stopped to work.
Thera are following symptoms:

Small buttons for maximizing, restoring and minimizing a window are not visible.
I cannot switch between the applications using Alt-Tab.

I almost always selected the Save session checkbox in the logout screen.
I tried to deselect this checkbox and restart. It didn't help - the window manager is still not working.
When I login with a guest account, everything works (but I cannot access my data from the other account easily).
I think that there is some cached data, which was not cleaned up and causes the window manager to crash at every login.
How can I fix this problem (make the aforementioned symptoms disappear) ?
Answer: cd ~/.cache/sessions/; rm -r * with a subsequent relogin solved the problem.

XUbuntu: Window manager stopped to work


Mercedes C180 (W204) dash symbol

Question: Does anyone know what this symbol means? Could not find it anywhere in the instructions manual or online.
Answer: The symbol is for "Speed limit assist" and is based of a forward facing camera that allows detection of the speed limit and then possibly displays this on the multifunctional display.
Information can be found at this site, under the "Steering Wheel( 12 button multifunction...)" > "Assistance menu" and subsequent links from within page.
Answer: @Solar Mike's answer inspired my finding this:
According to this website
this symbol means speed limiter - which seems close to yours - at least the lollipop part of it.
Comment: The merc speed limiter is annoyingly easy to turn on by mistake. You push the cruise control stalk in to switch between cruise and limiter modes.
Answer: My best educated guess is an excess speed warning.
Whether the limit is user settable or not is a different question.

Mercedes C180 (W204) dash symbol


2011 Jeep Liberty ran without oil, did this cause my engine to blow?

Question: I have a 2011 Jeep Liberty and the oil pan rusted out and it was driven for a while without oil. The oil pan was fixed a couple days later. This happened in April 2014, in Oct 2014 the engine started to rap (knock). I brought it to the shop and it was fixed. In March 2015 it started to knock again, brought it back to the shop and I was told it was tappet wear, in July 2015 it started to knock again, so I brought it back to the shop and I was told it might be a lifter causing the noise because one might be bleeding down, in May 2016 the engine started to knock so bad I couldn't drive it. I had it towed to the shop and they told me I need a new engine, and now my warranty is over by 3000 miles and I will have to pay over $5000 for a new engine. My question, was this all caused by the oil pan rusting out and it running out of oil? It only has 78,000 miles.
Comment: I think @DucatiKiller has exactly the right answer. But before you drop $5k on this car, try junk yards to see if you can get a used engine from a totaled car that only had rear end damage. Or, see ifyou can get a rebuilt engine from one of the many online places that do this. Just make sure you find a well reviewed one, and know what your looking for, exactly. Do some research into this, and I would be willing to bet you can do this for a lot less than $5k. Sadly, driving it with no oil was a huge mistake. But, lesson learned. Ty for posting so that others can learn too.
Comment: I'd ask for a better explanation than "needs a new engine".  What is wrong?  Was the knocking fixed all those other times you took it in?
Comment: I would think any engine driven for more than one or two minutes without oil = an engine replacement. Period.  Anything else is a poor bandaid.  Was the oil leak covered under warranty or the result of an accident or debris on the road? (those last two are not covered by warranty...)
Answer: Your oil pan didn't rust
I would just like to point out that your oil pan can't just rust out.  It is made of material that doesn't rust.  So when you had a hole in your oil pan it more than likely hit a rock or curb or something that penetrated it.  Perhaps the other driver of the vehicle.
On the other hand, if your oil pan was replaced with something that does rust then it could have rusted but I doubt you replaced it with one made of iron or steel.
Your Question

My question, was this all caused by the oil pan rusting out and it running out of oil?

More than likely running your engine without oil has contributed to an early failure of your engine.  Bearings require lubrication and your crankshaft 'floats' on a thin layer of oil in your crank case.  Loss of oil pressure can quickly degrade these types of bearings and increase wear on them dramatically.
It would be a safe assumption to say that a loss of oil pressure to your engine has contributed to it's early demise.
Comment: I was wondering how a 3 year old oil pan could rust through. That didn't make sense. Now this makes sense. Great answer


Is it alright to put a UPS right next to a PC?

Question: Due to lack of space I'm considering placing a UPS right next to a PC. The UPS is a Niky 1100(VA), a somewhat powerful, yet low-quality machine. Should I be worried about any magnetic field this thing is producing that could effect the PC?
Answer: UPS systems are a essentially a battery charger when you get right down to it. EMI only really comes into play at higher voltages. The 230 Volts that this system operates at generates so little EMI that I don't even think it would mess with wireless signals, let alone the computer itself.
What you should be concerned about is cable management, easy access, and battery failures. When you place the UPS, make sure you can easily get to the device if you have to service it. Batteries are only good for a certain number of years before needing to be replaced. Plan for this eventuality so when (not if) it needs to be replaced, it is a painless process. One that you don't have to go digging past a rat nest of cables. Other then that, put it out of the way so it's not being tripped over and move onto the next issue.
Hope this helps.
Comment: +1 for the nice tip about planning for future battery replacements
Answer: Not really, especially if your PC's case is metallic and closed.
If it affects anything in that way it would be analog connections. You might hear a difference in your speakers (unlikely since 60 Hz isn't audible) and it might affect your display if you are using an analog connection to your monitor.
It will not erase your disks. The days when a (normal) stray magnet could erase disks are long past.
Comment: It affect my analog monitor.
Answer: I know it is always recommended to keep them at least 30 Centimetres away in most of the manuals I see and I typically keep them about a meter away when setting up for clients, however when I go back to the same sites, they usually have moved them next to the machines and I have never seen any problems arise from it.
Answer: I have kept UPSs near my mcahine before without any problems.  I think you'll be okay.  I would expect the UPS designers to anticipate UPSs being right next to the machine and have determined that the elctromagnetic interference is small enough.


Is it possible to decompile an executable into Visual Basic source code when you do not know what language the program was written in?

Question: I need to decompile an executable file into its source code and put the source code together again in such a way that it can be recompiled and work as it should. The only issue that I have with this is that I do not know in what language the program was written initially. Since Visual Basic is the programming language that I know best, I would prefer to decompile the executable to it. Is this possible? As far as I understand, executable files, regardless of what language they were written in, all compile to some form of ASM, meaning that it should be possible to decompile to any language that one wants to. Do I understand this correctly?
Comment: May be you are looking for something like *[retargetable decompiler](http://decompiler.fit.vutbr.cz/)* which aims to arch independent.
Answer: You are slightly correct. Languages like C and C++ do get compiled to native code(what you refer to as ASM), however decompiling them back to pseudo C/C++ is difficult and sometimes impossible. And even if successful, the code will not be 1:1 to the original.
It is also not possible(or rather, very very difficult) to decompile native code to something like Java or Python. These languages come with their own bytecode format and interpreters and hence do not compile to native code. However this does mean they can be decompiled to more or less their original format.
Comment: I understand that languages such as Java and Python are exceptions to this rule since Java uses the JRE and Python uses the Interpreter. Although it may be difficult and/or impossible to decompile to native code, could you suggest a possible way to do it? ASM stands for Assembly. I am not sure if this is technically the correct term for the native code that is created, but I believe it is.
Comment: To answer your question, it is not possible to decompile an arbitrary program to an arbitrary language, as far as I am aware. If the program is a Visual Basic program compiled to P-code then you might be able to decompile it to pure Visual Basic.