Where's a good place to take my meds in an open office?

Question: I'm starting a prescription medicine that I'll have to take twice during the work day, at 10am and 3pm. I love my open office so I don't intend for this to devolve into a rant on them, but I don't know where I should go to take my meds. I've never seen anyone else do this here and I'm sure there must be people who have to. We have a shared kitchen/lounge but I'd feel uncomfortable since it's still out in the open. I've thought about taking them to the bathroom but that feels really weird and a little gross. Should I just try to do it discreetly at my desk?
Comment: There is no way this question is off-topic. In fact, this could be a model question for the site.
Comment: Is the medication delivered as a pill or injection, or some other more involved method?
Comment: Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been [moved to chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/86811/discussion-on-question-by-pasclerasc-wheres-a-good-place-to-take-my-meds-in-an).
Comment: For how long will you have to take these meds? Just a few weeks, or forever?
Answer: I work in an open office setting where all of my co-workers just do it at their desk.
It's a prescribed medication, you aren't doing anything wrong and there is no need to hide it. If someone asks what it is, you can either tell them (if you feel comfortable doing so) or just say "it's my medication" and leave it at that.
You may want to check with your supervisor. Keep in mind they have no right to know what medication you are taking. Just ask them if the desk is acceptable in your workplace, or if there is a designated medical area. If there is a designated medical area for taking prescriptions, you should adhere to that. If not, your desk is just fine.
Comment: Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been [moved to chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/86812/discussion-on-answer-by-saggingrufus-wheres-a-good-place-to-take-my-meds-in-an).
Answer: The meta question here would be "what's a good place to do something private at work". Could be meds, could be a personal phone call, could be attending to a bodily need, could be doing your yoga.
The answer depends on what you have available. Options are

Grab a conference or meeting room.
Some work places have "phone booths" which are specifically designed to make phone calls. Doesn't matter if the phone calls are for work, private or no phone call at all
Shower rooms, locker rooms or bathroom. In my place it's not uncommon for people to brush their teeth after lunch. I don't see why taking meds would be any different. We have decent bathrooms though.
Lab or a work space that you regular use but that's not used by other people a lot.

The key here is that you are NOT doing anything wrong, but you are doing something private, which is perfectly fine but not anyone else's business. That's a perfectly normal thing and happens daily in pretty much every workplace.
Comment: I would strongly disagree with "something private: Meds, bodily needs, yoga, private call"... I've ordered them! "Meds" is non-negotiable, gotta be taken at a certain time. "Private call" has no place in an office. "Bodily needs" depends what you mean (your horniness distracting you, or your intestines playing up?), but if we're talking sensibly then not negotiable either. Now, NOBODY in your open plan office should be subjected to someone grunting through their yoga poses; especially if they get sweaty and/or farty as many do. I need sports to keep relatively levelheaded but that's my time.
Comment: I disagree, as it depends on the company and culture. I don't do an entire sequence, but I'm at my desk 40-50 hours every week or more and i stretch at my desk. Sometimes I stand, too.
Comment: @JoeStrazzere I can think of some co-workers where it would be hard to tell if they were doing yoga or actually working. Yoga would be no more "intrusive" than the guy who often fell asleep (and snored) after lunch!
Answer:
@Borgh I work with a few really nosy people. Like they'll stand behind you without you knowing and read your email over your shoulder. – PascLeRasc 1 min ago

This complicates matters. I assume that they are also the people who will happily dive into the depths of your personal health problems?
i'd suggest getting one of those nondescript containers with the days of the week on them (also great for just  reminding you of when to take the medicine) so they can't read the label and then taking the medicine in the kitchen. If someone happens to be there you can always just grab a glass of water and return to your cubicle and take the medicine there.
Comment: One good disguise is an opaque vitamin container. You can even do two different types as a reason for why you are taking them 2x day. People will just assume you're trying to stay healthy.
Comment: And will comment when you "give up on your vitamins" after week or two :-)
Comment: Also, a compact mirror strategically placed will reduce opportunities for observers to remain unnoticed.
Answer: I work in a cubical work space and as far as people taking med's most just have them in their desk and take them when they need them. No one complains and its never been something people scoff over so I would say its fine to just take your med's at your desk.
That said I am also diabetic and I take insulin shots so I often take my syringe and bottles into the restroom (the best place if you are concerned about nosy people IMO) and give myself shots in there as I don't think people want to see me lift my shirt lol.
As long as its just pills you can take with water or food you should be fine to take them as you need them at your desk.
Answer: Shots/Inhaler and such
If you want privacy while using a medical device such as a syringe or inhaler, talk to your Human Resources department or personnel director.

They should be trained to respect your privacy both professionally and legally (to various degrees).
And they should be able to suggest a private location. You are not likely the first with this issue.
They can note in your records that you will be taking legal medication on-site. This is valuable in case of future rumors about you being a secret junkie.

Pills
As others suggested, keep pills in couple of innocuous vitamin bottles in your purse or bag. Take the pills quietly at your desk, without hiding it. If anyone asks, tell them Vitamin D (small tablet or gel pill) or Vitamin E or Magnesium (large tablet or gel pill) to quell their nosy curiosity.
You do not owe your co-workers any true explanation of your own medical condition, if it does not affect your job performance nor human safety.
And for pills too, it may be worthwhile in some situations to formally advise your Human Resources department that you will be taking medication on-site. I would not discuss it with my supervisor/manager if it does not interfere with duties.
Comment: @Rogem Which is why why I said to keep it within your own bag or purse.
Comment: Disguising the medication as nutritional supplements may be a *really* bad idea! Consider what happens if someone else takes your heart medication thinking it's just vitamins. Or you are subjected to a drug test that the medication causes to come back positive.
Answer: I, too, work in an open environment, "Agile Space" as we call it. After reading your comments and explanations as to why you don't want to take your meds because of "really nosy people" there is really only one solution:You must assert yourself in your office and take your pills with pride.
If, and apparently when, your coworkers ask questions simply respond that you are taking your meds, and if they ask more questions tell them politely but firmly that "They're for my health." If you keep having issues of them prying into your life you can simply tell them you would rather not discuss it.
Comment: Just give them a very sanctimonious speech about how everyone should be taking probiotics.
Comment: ^ The longer and more verbose the speech the more people will never want to ask again
Answer:
I'm starting a prescription medicine that I'll have to take twice during the work day, at 10am and 3pm. I love my open office so I don't intend for this to devolve into a rant on them, but I don't know where I should go to take my meds. I've never seen anyone else do this here and I'm sure there must be people who have to.

This part is important.
There are all sorts of reasons why people may need a few minutes of privacy in a workplace: prayer, first aid, sensitive conversations, pumping breast milk, etc. etc. This need should be identified and addressed when planning the workplace. If your workplace doesn't have a suitable private space, then it needs one. (If it does, then you just need to know where it is.)
Either way, the first step of the solution is to talk to somebody else - either your manager or a sensible co-worker.

"Hey, do we have a space that staff can use when we need privacy? [Optionally:] I need to take some medication and I'd rather not do it at my deck.

If answer is "no", then something along the lines of:

"Can we make one, then? I'm sure I'm not the only person here who needs that occasionally."

For your specific situation, there are ways to disguise what pills you're taking. But that's more of a work-around than a proper fix; it's better to address the underlying issue and solve the problem for everybody.
Answer: Depending on your country you're usually allowed to have short breaks during the day.
If you're truly uncomfortable taking medication in the office or don't want others to know, you could use those breaks to take them at another (private) location of your choosing.
As has been said though, it usually is no big deal.
Answer: If it is something completely innocuous like antibiotics or anti-allergy medicine, I would take them at your desk. You could even leave the pack of medicine sitting at your desk. That way you go full circle.
If it is something you may not wish to share with everyone (like antidepressants, for example - not to imply that that is something to be ashamed of, but you may still not want to share it), then just go to the bathroom if you do not want people to know about it.
Answer: If they are really nosey and you don't care about their opinion (i wouldn't), just say "it's garlic, good for your health and keeps vampires away! Unfortunatelly it doesn't affect nosey coworkers!".
I work with Mr. Supernosey for a whole year and have pills lying around and take them twice a day and he never asked or mentioned them. So if yours do, they are a special kind of nosey and need to be dealt with accordingly.


Can I log PIC instrument time in a sim without a current medical or flight review?

Question: Just wondering if one is on land and in a simulator, if you need a current medical and flight review to train and log PIC time?
Answer: You can log training time in a simulator but you can't log PIC time.
The rules on logging are in 14 CFR 61.51. There's no requirement anywhere that I can see to have a medical and/or flight review in order to log time.
Logging training time in a simulator is allowed by 61.51(h):

(h) Logging training time. (1) A person may log training time when
  that person receives training from an authorized instructor in an
  aircraft, full flight simulator, flight training device, or aviation
  training device.

But, you cannot log PIC time in a simulator. 61.51(e) says (emphasis mine):

(e) Logging pilot-in-command flight time. (1) A sport,
  recreational, private, commercial, or airline transport pilot may log
  pilot in command flight time for flights-

That means, the only way to log PIC time is in an aircraft.
Answer: You can fly a sim without a medical.  Nor do you need a BFR either.  61.58 only applies to operation of an aircraft.  Sims do not count.


Install ubuntu on macbook pro 11,2 with retina display

Question: How can I install ubuntu on macbook pro 11,2 (late 2013) with retina display. Have searched on other forums but did not get answers.
Preferred would be Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.
Comment: check this https://help.ubuntu.com/community/How%20to%20install%20Ubuntu%20on%20MacBook%20using%20USB%20Stick
Answer: i do have the exact same question, but i doubt that anyone has an answer to that yet. (at least for 12.04 LTS)
check out http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2184760
and https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBookPro11-1/Saucy
for 13.04
i tried installing 12.04 but i do get black screen after selecting "Try Ubuntu" or "Install Ubuntu" (i do have the 15 inch iris pro model)
maybe i'm gonna look into that a little bit more..
Answer: you need to add boot parameters if you are getting stuck with a black screen or purple screen .
Hit the corresponding function key for the boot options and set 'nomodeset' , 'nolapic' , 'noacpi'
And then boot .


Pro Tools to VCR to Pro Tools

Question: Hey guys,
I will be starting work on a film which is set in a 1930's in two weeks. The director wants the dialogue to have a 'film' like quality to it. I suggested passing the stems through a tape and back in pro tools just to get the warmth and the quality of the tape. But due to budget constrains, it was not possible. A few of my colleagues suggested that you can achieve that similar quality with the VCR. Although I have never tried such a process with either the tape or a VCR, I was wondering if any of you guys know how to go about or have done anything like this before. Are there any specific sites I might look up to find how to achieve this. I could just use a plugin which might help me achieve this effect, but since I have the time, resources and control over the sound department on this film, I thought its worth trying. Thank You in advance.
Answer: Great question!
It's encouraging to see that sound people are still thinking outside the "plug ins" box. The concept of using outboard gear in an attempt to alter your source material is certainly worth pursuing, and what you would capture might indeed be something quite special and unique. I wholeheartedly recommend that you undertake the effort!
Bear in mind that, using this type of process, you will be limiting your ability to "untreated" the dialog and go back to something cleaner or less processed. This, of course, is the wonderful thing about plug ins; that you can go back non-destructively to the original source and start fresh, if need be. But there's something to be said for committing to an approach, right?
Getting a 1930s sound from a videotape transfer may not be ideal. You're talking about two very different eras and technology - but both are analog, so that's a step in the right direction. Maybe VHS has too high headroom and too low noise floor? It may not give you the tape saturation you're looking for. As an alternative, try to gain access to some other analog machines (aka. a cassette deck) and maybe create for yourself a daisy chain, passing through one and then directly into another, and then back into Pro Tools. That will get your noise floor up and possibly increase any tape saturation. Also, don't forget about Craigslist - depending on where you live, you might find someone selling (or giving away) an old reel-to-reel deck complete with some old tapes that you can re-record over.
Sounds like fun - have a blast experimenting!
Answer: It seems to me that a good choice would be a Nagra tape recorder, which was a recorder very much used starting in the 1950's until digital recording took over in the 1980's and 1990's. While this technology would be significantly better than the optical soundtrack you'd find in the 1930's, I think it would be a pretty flexible option. Since Nagras are designed for professional recording, they have VU meters on them and an I/O that could be adapted to your Pro Tools interface. You would have to record into the Nagra and then play it back into Pro Tools to a record-armed track there.
While Nagras aren't used anymore, I'd imagine that you should be able to find one with a little digging, as they were a really dominant recording format for so long in the film industry.
Answer: If considering going to tape, one option might be to use a Tape Echo e.g. a Roland 201 Space Echo, but use it with no delay & no feedback, so the dialogue is effectively being printed to tape & replayed - there will be some delay, between record head & replay head, so you would have to print it & then resync it, but the delay should be consistent. Might be worth renting a 201 space echo for a week, each tape loop is meant to be good for 300 hours....
Answer: have you tried eq + izotope vynil?
Answer: AFAIK (well it's not even a guess, but almost a certainty), VCR does not do the kind of lo-fi that you're looking for. It's too hi-tech and you can see the specs to verify that. The "real" choice (without stretching to carving your own record) for old audio quality would be a reel to reel tape recorder or (but you may lose quality in this) a cassette recorder.
I would suggest trying tape emulation plug-ins and "vinylizer" plug-ins. Grungelizer that comes with Cubase works pretty well if you equalize the "wet" signal (because the plug-in on it's own can sound harsh). Reason has the Scream unit with a good tape emulation. iZotope Vinyl is useful. Also: http://www.toneboosters.com/tb-reelbus/ http://www.toneboosters.com/tb-ferox/
Also, bass and guitar pedals/amp simulations may work for what you need (when applied sparsely), depending on what you're looking for. Even a bit crusher can work for your favor (it can actually sound not that digital, depending on what's fed to it or if you equalize the wet signal).
Remiking (or miking) could also be an option, maybe even a good one. Given that the dialog sound of 1930s is most likely caused mostly by the microphones that were available, not that much the recording equipment, which although is important as well. Go read some history and see if you can find out what kind of recording gear was used in the time period and how the technology was limited.
Answer: All of these are excellent suggestions, but if I make one more relating to workflow... Whatever method you use (re-record, pass through old analog gear, amps, plug in chain, etc), try doing a pass where you push that to it's ultimate limit... make it the grungiest, nastiest, ugliest version of that particular chain. Now bring that back in WITH the original untreated dialog (either by re-recording it or via auxes depending on the method)... you can now bring in JUST the right amount of grunge for the particular project... kind of a play on the old "dual compression" trick. You'll want to be very aware of the delay of the grunge track... start with it lined up exactly, but you can also play with varying it slightly to get interesting effects when the phasing starts.
Answer: might also consider sourcing some old film sound that has what you are going for and using a match eq function with something like ozone5.
Answer: An Issue that may arise if going to consumer tape decks of any sort, Cassette or VCR is drift.  They don't run on the same quality clock and frame accurate sync isn't really needed.  I think when you import your files back in you would have some shots running slow and some fast.
A Nagra or other high quality deck should work fine since you can resolove them to clock sources.
Answer: Keep in mind that for a 1930s "film" sound what you want is optical film, not audio tape or VHS. Maybe see if someone has made a speakerphone impulse using optical (there is a VHS tape impulse available).

Pro Tools to VCR to Pro Tools


Messed up brisket

Question: First brisket ever and I don't know what went amiss.  Marinade?  Coke a Cola.  24 hours.  (I thought it sounded funny but FUN)  Followed epicurous recipe but i didn't have roaster sealed tightly. Dried up BAD.  On the bright side my dog will love it as I can't serve this to anybody with good conscience!
Was it marinade too long, or covering? Cooked at 325 F for 3.5 hours.
Comment: And it sounds to me like it was most likely covering -- you want a really tight seal on these sorts of things, so it's steaming and thus cooking in moist heat.
Comment: Related : http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/8905/67 ; also see http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/55464/67 and http://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/42714/67 on ways to try to rescue it
Answer: Almost certainly it was the inadequate covering (the roaster not being sealed tightly).
Marinating for too long is more likely to produce overly-tender - that is, mushy - end results (whether 24 hours is too long for a soda-based marinade is another question, I think, but I've had Coke-marinated meats that have been great).
Brisket needs moist heat - slow cooker, lidded roaster, or tightly covered with foil.  The temp you used seems reasonable.  The time isn't overly long, but the specific time needed depends on weight and frequently is stated along the lines of "for three and a half to four hours, until the brisket is fork tender."

Messed up brisket


Monte Carlo method vs PDE in option pricing

Question: Good evening everyone,
I would like to ask a question about Monte Carlo and PDE Pricing.
For an American option, which one should we use, Monte Carlo method or PDE method?
The same question for an Asian option such as an Asian call?
As far as I know, PDE method have a downside which is the curse of dimensionality. However, I wonder whether this should be the main reason why Monte Carlo method is the favorite one?
Thanks in advance!
Answer: To compliment some of the other answers and comments, I think it's useful to consider two other note worthy factors when deciding to do a PDE or MC approach. (Noting that if the dimensionality is high your hands are tied and MC methods are likely the only tracable means). If I were tasked with using MC or PDE methods these would be two considerations I would give serious consideration to.
Do you have to implement this from scratch?
In my experience it is very simple to write some basic MC implementations. In fairness writing high performance MC codes introduces extra difficulties, but a short vanilla MC application is very easy to set up from scratch.
However, on the other hand PDE methods (in my opinion) are typically harder to get up and running and working. These require linear algebra packages, specifying boundary conditions, and if you want to set up PDEs in some weak/strong form for things more complicated than finite differences, (e.g. finite element), then the hurdle to use these software packages can be quite high.
What hardware do you have to hand?
MC methods are trivially suited to parallelisation, and so if you have a huge cluster of cores, nodes, GPUs, etc, or a big company/department/lab super computer, then getting an implementation to take advantage of this using MC is relatively easy. Relative to extending PDE methods, which again require much more care.

And when things get nasty?
Of course each also has its own downfalls which are likely specific to the particular SDE and payoff under consideration. MC methods need to be stable, perhaps avoid non negative processes, etc. Similarly PDEs also suffer from similar problems. Overall though for a specific example there may be properties which are more favourable to one method or another.
Answer: For American (or any HJB problem), numerical methods are depending on the dimensionality.
Below dimension 3 (even 4), a PDE will do the job nicely, whereas above, MC methods are more appropriate.
Answer: There are many factors to consider. But mainly, in my opinion, you may choose the method depending on the complexity of the option and the resources you have.
PDE method is usually used to solve problem whose complexity level is similar to problems you may solve using trees, and that using other approaches is not suitable.
In the other hand, using Monte Carlo allows you to consider any property you may think when creating an option, as long as you can model it.
Comment: It's not so straightforward to value American options with Monte Carlo. You don't know the exercise boundary ex-ante -- it has to be determined at each point along the path by optimization (do you exercise or hold). The LSM method of Longstaff and Schwartz is a method for approximately solving that optimization problem, but it's not so simple to implement.
Comment: @FosterBoondoggle I agree. Monte Carlo can be used for anything. However, it requires LSM or something like that for early exercising. The vanilla implementation can't handle it.
Comment: I didn't say it is straightforward, you need to model it.But as long as you can create the model, you can value it. In my old company we created a system to valuate all kinds of options by designing their payoffs.


Why do concurrent FM signals not mix together?

Question: Generally when I hear two conflicting signals they do not mix together, but rather one dominates then the other. This phenomenon can be observed on FM broadcast station when driving out of range from one station into the range of another. During the 'in between phase' they generally do not mix but rather one dominates and they flip flop being the dominant signal. Why is this?
Answer: I understand why you think it should mix - that's what happens with SSB, for example. The difference with FM is that in FM, at any instant, each station's signal is only at one frequency. If you slowed the signals down and watched through a spectrum analyzer, you could watch the two signals, and you'd see two peaks at constant amplitude, moving independently. The frequency (of the carrier) is modulated based on the audio signal amplitude, so that peak will move within the channel, but it's always one peak. Your receiver latches on to the stronger peak, and that's what it decodes.
On the other hand, in single sideband, you wouldn't ever see a single peak no matter how much you slowed the signal down. In single sideband, the amplitude of the carrier is being modulated - it isn't that the peak is moving, the peak is actually being mixed with (multiplied by) the audio amplitude, so all the peaks from the audio signal would appear on your spectrum analyzer. In this case, there's no distinction between audio components coming from one source vs another - you could separate the signals if you wanted to using directional antennas, but with a single receiver all you're going to see is the two signals superimposed.
Comment: This answers what happens, but not really why. I've added another answer that tries to explain the capture effect and how demodulators cause that.
Answer: This is called the "FM capture effect" and is mostly a characteristic of the demodulator design. Demodulators with a strong capture effect detect the zero crossings of the signal. The zero crossings are only slightly affected by mixing two signals until they are nearly equal amplitude. The steepness of the waveform at zero crossing means that the stronger signal dominates. It takes a larger interfering signal to change the slope enough that the zero crossing moves.
FM demodulators usually include an amplitude limiter to increase this effect. Unless the noise happens near the zero crossing in the signal, it is ignored. Effectively, the limiter increases the steepness of the zero crossing.
When two FM signals of a similar strength mix, we get the distinctive "doubling" sound heard on repeaters. This distorted signal is caused by the non-linear mixing from the limiter.
In an AM envelope detector, the detector is very sensitive to the mixed signals. Also, the signals are linearly combined, so our ears can often distinguish the two signals.
Comment: This is true for the standard FM demodulator, not why it is true in the general case of even an ideal FM channel.
Comment: @DanKD2EE Thinking about the timing of the zero crossings *is* an ideal FM demodulator, described in the time domain. If you want the frequency-domain explanation: a weaker interfering signal at a slightly different frequency will add sidebands to the frequency of the desired signal, but the sidebands are weaker than the fundamental, and it is the fundamental that is relevant to the demodulator.
Comment: Dan: The capture effect is not a characteristic of the FM signal or channel, it is a characteristic of the FM demodulator. You probably could design an FM demodulator that did not have the capture effect, but it would also not have the noise rejection that comes with AM limiting.
Answer: That's a property of FM demodulation known as the Capture Effect: when multiple signals are present, only the strongest is demodulated.
This does not occur with AM or SSB demodulation, where multiple signals can be simultaneously demodulated.
Comment: This only gives a name to the phenomenon, but does not explain it.


Why do bacteria need messenger RNA?

Question: Why do bacteria need mRNA? Isn't the DNA free floating without nuclear membrane so why doesn't the tRNA read the code directly off of the split DNA strands? (ofcourse after helicase splits them). Wouldn't this be more efficient?
Comment: DNA in bacteria does *not* float freely in the cytoplasm.
Answer:
Ribosomes don't read DNA.
Transcription adds several layers of regulation tactics: you can control transcription itself, you can control mRNA.
mRNA amplifies genetic information that you need at the moment. Having many copies of a matrix really helps.
Some prokaryotes have splicing. It's not a good idea to splice your DNA.

EDIT per your request of some elaboration.

Why did they evolve to read RNA in the first place as they are primal
  to all other organisms, why did they develop this

The "RNA world" hypothesis (which is the most realistic early life model, considering the ever-growing body of evidence) postulates that RNA had been the main thing long before DNA was introduced into cells. The ribosome (being an RNA enzyme that doesn't require any proteins to bind amino acids together), along with many other RNA enzymes and regulators, is believed to be a relic of that world. Wiki has a good page with all the references you might want to read.

Also, the regulation tactics, isn't DNA free floating and so are all
  the replication enzymes like Helicase, primase and RNA primer etc. So
  how do they regulate the action of these enzymes as they are just free
  floating?

First of all, it's a common misconception that prokaryotic cells are mere bags stuffed with enzymes and whatever. Prokaryotes posses highly complicated compartmentalisation systems (some even possess nucleus-like compartments). Second of all, DNA is not "free floating": it's located at a specific site with a special molecular environment. If you want details, ask a separate question, or better a series of questions with narrow scope, because bacterial regulation is too diverse, bizarre and sophisticated to cover here (we had a 3 years-long course on this matter when I was a student).

Could you explain a bit of how the extra copy helps as is it not just
  more data to deal with?

When you have many copies of a matrix, many ribosomes can synthesise a protein at once. This comes in handy when you need to make tons of something as fast as possible. Remember, ribosomes are quite ubiquitous in all active cells for this very reason: to facilitate fast protein synthesis (at least as far as copiotrophic organisms are concerned).

What exactly do you mean by splicing?

I mean splicing: a group of processes by which introns are excised from primary transcription products.
Comment: @SarthakGarg you're welcome
Comment: Why did they evolve to read RNA in the first place as they are primal to all other organisms, why did they develop this? Wouldn't it have been more convenient to just have the the tRNA in ribosomes to just read the DNA? Also, the regulation tactics, isn't DNA free floating and so are all the replication enzymes like Helicase, primase and RNA primer etc. So how do they regulate the action of these enzymes as they are just free floating? Could you explain a bit of how the extra copy helps as is it not just more data to deal with? What exactly do you mean by splicing? @Eli
Comment: I find most of these arguments unconvincing and undermine the only reasonable argument, i.e. that the translation system developed in organisms with an RNA genome, with ribosomes and tRNAs already tuned to work with RNA messages. For reasons that we cannot know, a transcription system evolved rather than a DNA translation system.
Comment: @David I see your point, yet I believe you are approaching this question from a different perspective. From my perspective, the original question was about mRNA's utility in modern cells and not about the process that had resulted in this functional separation between RNA and DNA. Only later (in the comments above), this additional question had been raised and later addressed in the **Edit** section.

Why do bacteria need messenger RNA?


What are the most suitable 3D sound engines out there for a FPS?

Question: We are looking for a good 3D sound engine for a game written in C#.
We know of irrKlang, which looks great but isn't free for commercial uses, nor is it open source.
XNA has an alright one, but it binds us to DirectX and therefore, windows.
Are there any other good free ones out there?
Answer: FMOD and OpenAL are two very powerful alternatives to using DirectX directly. The Tao libraries include OpenAL .NET implementations (as well as OpenGL and other game libraries), but FMOD will need to be used via P/Invoke.
Additionally, OpenAL is free, and FMOD is only free as long as your application is free (see FMOD Non-Commercial License here).
Answer: If you want to sell your game but not pay for a 3d audio library, you're pretty much stuck with OpenAL.
It may cost money, but FMOD has an extremely well thought out API. Something else to consider is the added value of their EventSystem. It's not as robust as Wwise, but being able to define high-level sound events in an external authoring tool makes achieving high quality audio a lot easier. Stuff you would have to spend time coding is easily defined in terms of parameters and sound instances in FMOD.
If only they allowed you to add events as well as sound instances to event layers.
BASS from Un4Seen is another free-to-try, pay-to-sell library that supports Windows and OS X.


Leftover Kshatriyas after Lord Parashurama's genocide

Question: Lord Parashu Rama sanitized earth by killing kshatirya generations for 21 times. From what Dharma calls that the one who is humble and does not raise a weapon he should be granted sharanagati, & due to this Lord Parshuram would have been merciful to the Kshatriyas who surrendered to him. So according to this formulation of Dharma how many Kshatriyas were left alive after each wipe-off for kshatriyas?.(Lord Parashu Rama did 21 such wipe-offs). This is the reason for doing 21 wipe-off, killing 21 generations of Kshatriyas.
Comment: Well, the whole point is that it was the end of the Kali Yuga, and the kings of the world had become evil.
Comment: My answer here discusses the Kshatriyas who survived: http://hinduism.stackexchange.com/a/433/36 In any case Parashurama didn't spare kings who surrendered.
Comment: @KeshavSrinivasan So in that case he didn't spare any kshatriyas? even the kshatriyas who were leading a life of Dharma and without commiting any sin?
Comment: After Parshurama killed Khatris, how did again they came on Earth, i.e., the other generation killed thereafter? Tell me please?
Comment: @MohakSahu Read the note in Keshav Srinivasan's answer it explains how Rajputs were born, for populating earth with kshatriyas again.
Comment: Videha kings (Janaka etc) were spared. Dasaratha was also spared because he acknowledged his weakness and chose not to fight. Parasurama spared him in disgust.
Comment: @moonstar2001 Videha?
Comment: The kingdom of Videha - the land from which Vaidehi (Sita) hailed.
Answer: In this chapter of the Shanti Parva of the Mahabharata, Bhumidevi goddess of the Earth tells the sage Kashyapa about the Kshatriyas who have survived:

There are, O, regenerate one, some foremost of Kshatriyas concealed by me among women. They were born in the race of Haihayas. Let them, O sage, protect me. There is another person of Puru's race, viz., Viduratha's son, O puissant one, who has been brought up among bears in the Rikshavat mountains. Another, viz., the son of Saudasa, has been protected, through compassion, by Parasara of immeasurable energy and ever engaged in sacrifices. Though born in one of the regenerate orders, yet like a Sudra he does everything for that Rishi and has, therefore, been named Sarvakarman (servant of all work). Sivi's son of great energy, viz., Gopati by name, has been brought up in the forest among kine. Let him, O sage, protect me. Pratardana's son, named Vatsa of great might, has been brought up among calves in a cowpen. Let that one of the royal order protect me. Dadhivahana's grandson and Diviratha's son was concealed and protected on the banks of Ganga by the sage Gautama. His name is Vrihadratha. Possessed of great energy and adorned with numerous blessed qualities, that blessed prince has been protected by wolves and the mountains of Gridhrakuta. Many Kshatriyas belonging to the race of Maratta have been protected. Equal unto the lord of Maruts in energy, they have been brought up by Ocean. These children of the Kshatriya order have been heard of as existing in different places. They are living among artisans and goldsmiths.

As I discuss in this answer, following Bhumidevi's instructions Kashyapa, who had been given the Earth by Parashurama, gave the Earth to those Kshatriyas.
Comment: That prince Vrihadratha's story looks similar to the legend of romulus and remus.


Why is the current Ebola outbreak different from previous outbreaks?

Question: I don't know if this question has an answer at this time, but I would like to know if there is some biological reason why the current Ebola outbreak is so much more complicated and widespread than in the past. Traditionally it has been initially very virulent and has then has rapidly waned. I hope what I am saying is accurate, and if so why dont we see the same pattern now ?
Comment: Can you provide some references/proof for your statements (e.g. fatality rates over time of the current outbreak), and also explain more accurately what you mean (e.g. complicated in what way)?
Answer: This is too long for a comment, so I put this in here: The main reasons are sociological. From the data I have read so far, this outbreak (actually these are two independent outbreaks, one in West-Africa and another one -not connected- in the Democratic Republic of Congo) is not exceptionally deadly in terms of Ebola. The death rate is about 60% which is extremely high compared to other diseases, but Ebola had reached up to 90%...
I think the main differences are that this outbreak struck in a much more populated area which has a very poor health care system (if you can call it like this at all). Then it happened in a border region, I recall reports about a traditional funeral of a Ebola victim which infected visitors, some of them crossed the border afterwards.
Then it was completely underestimated in the beginning, because a lot of cases stayed unknown. This led to a wider spreading as people who got sick infected relatives and medical personnel subsequently. And although the reaction has been powered up a lot since then, it is still not adequate to contain the outbreak.
Former outbreaks happened in rural areas which where easier to contain with a smaller number of personal, which is not possible this time. If you want to read further about this, I recommend the blog of Tara C. Smith which has been doing research about Ebola for some time and also worked in crisis response teams.
Especially interesting are these two:

A historical perspective on Ebola response and prevention
Addressing more Ebola myths
Comment: You are correct that this seems to be two separate outbreaks, see http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/ebola/2-september-2014/en/
Answer: For some background, it is essential to know that Ebola is actually a group (genus) of ebolaviruses, each with different fatality rates. There are five known species of Ebola, and four are known to cause disease humans (WHO: Ebola virus disease; wikipedia).
The known species of Ebola includes:

Zaire ebolavirus (or just ebolavirus)
Sudan ebolavirus
Bundibugyo ebolavirus
Tai ebolavirus (only one known human case)
Reston ebolavirus (can infect but does not seem to cause disease in humans)

Zaire ebolavirus is the deadliest strain (with Sudan second), and also the one that is causing the current outbreak. A table of all known ebola outbreaks can be found in the WHO report (WHO: Ebola virus disease), which shows that the historical fatality of the Zaire strain has been between 44% and above 90%.
From my limited understanding, when dealing with ebola it is essential for infected individuals to be identified early so that they can get intensive care (most importantly intravenous fluids because of dehydration), but also to prevent further spread. This is probably what has failed during this outbreak, but another problem is also that the size of the outbreak has put tremendous strain on an already weak healthcare system. These outbreaks have also occurred in well populated areas in countries with very weak governments, that also lacked experience in dealing with ebola (both in the administration and among the population).
In many former outbreaks, the initial death rate is very high since early victims are found at late stages of the disease, but when the outbreak is more controlled the death rate drops due to supporting care of infected individuals. I don't know to what extent this has been the case during the current west african outbreak. However, the overall fatality rate of the current outbreak is 52% (tabulated Aug. 28 2014), with 44% in Sierra Leone and 66% in Guinnea (WHO: Ebola virus disease update - west Africa), and this lies well within the normal fatality rate of the Zaire ebolavirus.


What is the difference between shell, console, and terminal?

Question: I'm confused with the terminology. What is the difference between shell, console, and terminal?
Comment: and what about `prompt` and even `command line`?
Comment: My wife said "the black screen"
Comment: Have a look at this question from Unix & Linux: http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/4126/what-is-the-exact-difference-between-a-terminal-a-shell-a-tty-and-a-con
Comment: iTerm2, terminal, Hyper are terminals. Zsh (z-shell), bash (Bourne again shell) are shells. It all makes sense now, its in their names! Personally Im not going to bother with console.
Answer: In the linux world they can all look the same from the point of view of the user at the keyboard. The differences are in how they interact with each other.
The shell is the program which actually processes commands and returns output. Most shells also manage foreground and background processes, command history and command line editing. These features (and many more) are standard in bash, the most common shell in modern linux systems.
A terminal refers to a wrapper program which runs a shell. Decades ago, this was a physical device consisting of little more than a monitor and keyboard. As unix/linux systems added better multiprocessing and windowing systems, this terminal concept was abstracted into software. Now you have programs such as Gnome Terminal which launches a window in a Gnome windowing environment which will run a shell into which you can enter commands.
The console is a special sort of terminal. Historically, the console was a single keyboard and monitor plugged into a dedicated serial console port on a computer used for direct communication at a low level with the operating system. Modern linux systems provide virtual consoles. These are accessed through key combinations (e.g. Alt+F1 or Ctrl+Alt+F1; the function key numbers different consoles) which are handled at low levels of the linux operating system -- this means that there is no special service which needs to be installed and configured to run. Interacting with the console is also done using a shell program.
Comment: **Console** sometimes means "the keyboard and monitor physically attached to this computer."  E.g., "I logged on from the console because the server was not responding to the network."
Comment: So, if *terminals* and *consoles* are, in the modern day, each implemented in software - what is the difference between the two (now)?
Comment: Before terminals were monitors with keyboards, they were teletypes -- a sort of electric typewriter.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleprinter
Comment: @Doug Harris: Can you add some pictures of the hardware you are talking about?
Comment: @GavinHope I think the console is "low-level", implemented as part of the OS core. Graphic shells like Gnome run on top of that, then terminals like gnome-terminal run further on top of that. So the difference would be the level at which they run.
Comment: When I was in college in the late 1980s, I did a lot of work on DEC VT220 terminals -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VT220 -- That's a good example of the physical device I described.
Comment: I found the [Unix & Linux StackExchange answer](http://unix.stackexchange.com/a/4132/41771) to this question also provided a bit more detail and was worth reading as well.
Comment: I would rephrase what @Jorge Orpinel said as virtual consoles being a type of terminal, i.e. the form. You could also have a terminal like cortana/siri, but that would not be a console.
Comment: Ah, yes, that was my first interaction with a computer. Thanks for reminding me.
Comment: Windows also has "shells" (`cmd.exe` and PowerShell being the most common ones) and terminals (the "Windows Console").
Answer: A shell is a program that puts up a prompt and waits for you to type commands. It executes them and then prints another prompt. So, like CMD in Windows, or Bash in Unix. It can run in a terminal or on the console.
A console was originally a physical thing, a control panel. In computing terms it usually means the display that you see before the GUI starts up or after it finishes; you can sometimes switch to displaying it instead of the GUI. It's the place where the operating system prints error messages. On a multi-user computer, it's the display that's actually attached to the computer. Just to confuse you, on Windows it can also mean a window with a command shell in it, i.e. a terminal.
A terminal was also originally hardware, used to communicate with a computer. Nowadays it usually refers to a window with a command line (shell), which might appear in a GUI window or instead of a GUI.
Comment: So bash isn't a  shell if  bash_profile runs startx?
Comment: @RichieHH, I would say that the bash process is still a shell, but if it's only being used to run startx, it's a shell that isn't doing very much.
Answer: For beginner beginners
For a more detailed description: https://askubuntu.com/a/506628/130518

terminal = text input/output environment
console = physical terminal (something you can actually physically touch)
shell = command line interpreter

I will be describing the most normal use case for this in the following text.
A terminal uses a shell.
A shell can run without a terminal.
To relate to everyday items:

Terminal -> TV screen in your home
Shell -> Program that is running on the TV screen

Another way of looking at it: Your ears (input) and mouth (output) are the terminals for sound. Your brain is the interpreter of those sounds using a specific shell (processing).
The terminal is for us humans, so we can read and write to/from the shell. Shells can run in background processes that do not require human interaction e.g. cron job, and therefore do not require a terminal.
Few examples of terminals that exist:

Command prompt
guake
gnome-terminal
terminator

Few examples of shells that exist:

Bash
sh (Bourne shell)
PowerShell [windows]
zsh (Z shell)

I've only written how these two normally work, there are other ways they work, but that is for a more advanced user.
Comment: It strikes me that an instance of the bash interpreter running a script is still a shell.
Answer: A Terminal is a text-based interface (possibly to a shell)
The difference between console and shell is one I don't yet grasp, but I can tell you how a terminal is different from a shell.
The terminal is (according to Wikipedia) "a serial computer interface for text entry and display. Information is presented as an array of pre-selected formed characters".
You can use a terminal to interact with a shell, but you can also use it to interact with a text-based GUI, sometimes called a Terminal User Interface. For example:

Vim has GUI elements including line numbers and named tabs
Nano has GUI elements including a help menu of commands
Tmux has GUI elements including a status bar and dividing lines between panes
Minicom has GUI elements including menus and a status bar

In each case, the GUI elements are "drawn" with text rather than pixels.
Comment: I'm not sure about this definition of it being only text based. In a way some GUIs could be considered terminals imo.
Answer: Think to another context, that is development.
Even if you don't have a very deep knowledge of development, you probably know the basics, that is: you edit a program, you submit it to a compiler or to an interpreter that builds a compiled application.
The console is like the editor of your program; it helps you in writing but it doesn't really execute anything: when you have finished you send it to the compiler for that.
You can use your preferred editor, vim, gedit, emacs, notepad++, Netbeans, eclise etc.etc but at the end they are just different tools: if you write the same program the output will be the same.

In this metaphor, the shell is the compiler. The commands that are entered into the terminal, are sent to the shell that interprets them and executes them immediately.

So, while terminals are just front-ends for the shell, the shell contains the actual language, as happens for the compiler.
Obviously a terminal is not exactly a text editor, mainly because it doesn't produce a file but sends text to the underlying shell and retrieves output from it.
And the shell is not a compiler, in fact it interprets your command and executes it immediately instead of building an executable.
Even whit this big difference, i find this  metaphor to help a lot in understanding this idea.
Answer: There really isn't much difference. Way back when the "shell" was a program, the "terminal" was a frontend wrapper to this program, and the "console" was the physical connection to the computer (keyboard / screen).
There is a difference depending on what OS you're running. The "standard" shell is BASH, which is normally available on all flavors of Linux / Unix. Windows uses an entirely different shell.


Not flying the last segment of the first half of a return flight

Question: I have booked a A->B->C | C->B->A flight. What I want to do is to not fly the B->C segment. While skipping the final B->A would be totally fine (just walk out of the airport), I'm afraid that the airline might cancel my return flight if I skip the B->C. Should I worry about that or is this a non-issue? Also - is there any way to make it with checked luggage (for example letting them know when I check in at A that I will actually not fly all the way to C) or is that impossible?
Comment: Duplicate? http://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/4440/do-you-have-to-take-the-second-leg-of-a-flight
Comment: Is it more similar to http://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/6004/consequence-of-not-showing-up-for-one-leg-of-journey (which is treated as a dupe of 4440)?
Comment: Why is this flagged as duplicate? I'm talking about a return flight, totally not the same thing! As I explained, my worry is losing my return flight.
Answer: Nearly every airline will cancel the remainder of your itinerary if you are a no-show to any flight on the itinerary. In your example, if you don't show up to the B->C flight, it is almost certain that the airline will cancel C->B->A. However, you could try to call the airline to explain your situation and need for skipping the B->C flight, and they could make an arrangement for you.
Regarding your checked luggage, you can request that it only be checked A->B and not onward to C. This is called a short check in the airline industry. If the agent asks why, you could provide a reason for needing to access your luggage at B, such as meeting a friend to give a gift stored in your checked luggage. Your mileage may vary considerably.
Answer: You should be worried. While not necessarily doing so, airlines generally reserve the right to cancel the whole ticket if you're a "no-show" to a leg. You should call them and ask them re their policy, it varies between airlines.
Re the checked baggage, I believe that it couldn't be done, your baggage will be checked in to the full length of your flight (unless you need to actually take it out and re-check it in, like in an international flight connecting in the US for example). But again - you should ask the person checking you in, if they can do otherwise. I seriously doubt it.
Comment: I find it very odd that the airlines reserve the right to cancel the whole ticket if you're a "no-show" to a leg of the flight. Over here in Asia pacific region, you can be a no show to a leg and still board your flight. So I would not say nearly all airlines will do this.
Comment: @Chad, read the contract. They may not be enforcing it, but its very likely to be there hidden somewhere.
Comment: I had a look at American Airlines and their term and conditions states the following: American specifically prohibits the practices commonly known as: Hidden City/Point Beyond Ticketing: Purchase of a fare from a point before the passenger's actual origin or to a point beyond the passenger's actual destination.
Comment: Seems like this is a big deal from : http://continentalairline.blogspot.com/2011/04/continental-hidden-cities-policy.html
Answer: I recently had a flight JFK->ZUR->CPT return. On the return flight I checked in my bag at CPT and told them to check it to ZUR instead of JFK. The airline rep was happy to do that for me, but the first baggage claim ticket printed out was for JFK. It took him a little longer than usual but he managed to get a ZUR baggage claim printed out for me.
I didn't board the last leg of the return flight ZUR->JFK, but since there was nothing after that for the airline to cancel, I didn't have a problem.
Different airlines may have different policies on missing a leg, but from my experience, every airline that I've contacted required changing the ticket to two one-way fares (which is substantially more expensive).


Which is the difference between 詳しい and 細かい?

Question: I would like to know which is the difference between 詳しい and 細かい?
When do I use each one?
Thank you so much in advance!
Answer: The main difference I think is that 細かい can be to describe the delicateness/fineness/smallness, for example for physical objects, but 詳しい cannot. Here are some examples:

細かい砂 (fine grained sand)
肩が細かく震える (shoulders shook slightly)
細かい金 (small coins/money)
細かい違い (small difference)

Another main difference is that 細かい can be used for negative impressions, whereas 詳しい cannot.

細かい事まで口を出す (say things to the point of being too detailed)
金に細かい (stingy with money)

詳しい is most often used about knowledge

京都に詳しい人 (knowledgeable about kyoto)
詳しい調査を行う (perform a detailed investigation)
Comment: @yumetodo In that case I think there is almost no difference.
Comment: How do you explain the difference betwin "細かく見ていく" and "詳しく見ていく"?
Answer: In the first place, 細かい can be used for anything that you conceive to have fine texture or grain size (literally or figuratively). 詳しい is only for information.
When you use them on the quality of information, you may be confused because both can be translated as detailed. But the basic difference is that: 詳しい means rich in content and not necessarily minute in scale, while 細かい still describes how narrow the scope is, not necessarily how dense the content is.
Imagine a digital image, where 詳しい is its resolution (amount of pixels), and 細かい is zoom level. In some systems such as Google Earth, the more you zoom in (細かくする), the clearer the image becomes (詳しくなる). But however you zoom into a particular section of an ordinary image, you are not able to get extra information, just those bigger squares (which, in turn help designers make the image pixel-perfect).

マナーに詳しい人 who knows a lot about manners
  マナーに細かい人 who is particular about manners

When you say 詳しいこと, it means additional information that can fill up your incomplete understanding at this point. 細かいこと, on the other hand, some minor detail that don't change the bigger picture, which may be unimportant, or may be crucial while you thrash out a contract.

詳しい話が聞きたい I'd like to know more of it.
細かい話が聞きたい I'd like to know the specifics.

Which is the difference between 詳しい and 細かい？


Does making an animal more intelligent automatically make them a magical beast

Question: Inspired by this question
Most animals have an intelligence of 1-2 in PF. But should you cast Fox's Cunning on one and raise it's int to (say) 6, does it become a magical beast automatically (with better hit dice and attack progression)?
Comment: The reverse could be interesting too: does a Magical Beast with Int damage turn into an Animal at some point?
Answer: By RAW - It doesn't directly say.
It says animals can't have an intelligence over 2. A spell like Awaken changes the type and grants it more intelligence permanently. The restriction on animal intelligence isn't fleshed out beyond "intelligence score of 1 or 2." So there's really no good RAW answer that I'm aware of.
Given that spells (like Awaken) that change your type usually say so, I'd have to expect that it's not intended for a temporary buff to change your type, HD, and BAB, not to mention break any spells that require the target to be an animal to work (so no Animal Growth on your animal if I first give it more intelligence?).
As for how that restriction works, I see two ways of doing it:

Because the animal type has a cap on intelligence in its description, anything that pushes it over that simply fails.
Allow it to work without changing the type, but with the restrictions still in place. Practically this wouldn't have much effect since a temporary buff to the animal's intelligence isn't going to give it automatic new languages or more skill points.

Either way, actually having it change the type on the fly would be really odd.
Comment: I would argue that the 1-2 Int is descriptive, not prescriptive. It' not that you physically can't have intelligent animals, it's just that no animals are. I would also argue that the correct answer is the one that messes up the game least. Changing type or spells not working are bigger consequences than simply letting animals have temporary Int higher than 2.
Comment: I think the animal entry is unclear. Instead of a cap, it should instead be the base. But like all of the answers, this is just an educated guess.
Comment: Yeah really, if a person loses enough INT to go to 2 do they become an animal and have their HD change?  That's pretty silly. "No because it's completely unsupported by the rules that it would be the case."
Comment: @mxyzplk Your example is invalid, since nothing says a Humanoid *can't* have animal intelligence, as it does for the opposite direction. I still don't support changing types on the fly, since that is just unnecessary complication, but the rules *definitely do* indicate that, well, *something* weird is going on, or supposed to. Though it's probably just that the animal is capped at Int 2 no matter what you do, which is dumb and I don't recommend.
Answer: I doubt it.
If it did, it would have some additional wording stating the affect when applied to animals like is found on the awaken spell.

An awakened animal gets 3d6 Intelligence, +1d3 Charisma, and +2 HD.
  Its type becomes magical beast (augmented animal). An awakened animal
  can't serve as an animal companion, familiar, or special mount.
Answer: Usually there's no practical difference between providing a bonus to a score and actually raising that score, but your particular example hits upon one of the few points where it matters. The spell you mention provides a bonus to the creature's Intelligence, rather than actually raising the creature's score above 2, so the creature's type does not change.
In addition to Magical Beasts, 3.0 had the Beast creature type, which was used for creatures that didn't correspond to things we'd find in nature, but were not actually magical in nature. The Owlbear was probably the most famous example of a Beast, but other "smart animals" could have fit in here as well. 3.5 folded the whole creature type into Magical Beast, though, and PF seems to have followed suit.
Comment: +1 for pointing out the distinction between a bonus to a score and an increase to a score, which is important in 3.X.
Answer: No.  See the descriptive text for the following items, which raise or mention an animal's intelligence in a way which indicates or implies that increasing an animal's intelligence score doesn't automatically change its type:
Collar of the True Champion (Ultimate Equipment)
Circlet of Speaking (Animal Archive)
See also the text in the Advancing Companions section on Animal Companions towards the bottom of this page (Also in Ultimate Campaign), which also clearly implies this isn't the case, with sections like:
"If the companion's Intelligence score is 2 or lower..."
and
"Training an animal to be smarter, more intuitive, or more self-aware is less easy to justify—except in the context where people can cast spells and speak with animals"
and the section titled "Intelligent Animals" (also from Ultimate Campaign. Link goes to same page, scroll down) which just flat-out says this doesn't happen:
"Even if an animal's Intelligence increases to 3 or higher, you must still use the Handle Animal skill to direct the animal, as it is a smart animal rather than a low-intelligence person (using awaken is an exception—an awakened animal takes orders like a person)."
Comment: Nice clarification find!
Comment: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/wizard/familiar#TOC-Intelligent-Animals - that way you don't have to scroll
Comment: @Julix Thanks! Feel free to just edit in changes like that in the future, and leave the comment as an edit note.  I don't mind updating my questions but you're under 3K rep so if you do it that way you'll get +2 rep per approved edit (which lets us reward you for helping fix stuff like this).
Comment: Sure thing, will do next time.
Answer: No
Fox's cunning provides a temporary boost to an ability score.
d20pfsrd says the following about such increases:

Temporary increases to your Intelligence score give
  you a bonus on Intelligence-based skill checks. This bonus also
  applies to any spell DCs based on Intelligence.

So, RAW neither the Fox's Cunning spell nor the relevant general rule says that it changes type so no type change occurs.
Now, I assume the next question people are going to ask is what happens when someone casts permanency on Fox Cunning in order to trigger the following bolded text from d20pfsrd:

Permanent Bonuses: Ability bonuses with a duration greater than 1 day
  actually increase the relevant ability score after 24 hours. Modify
  all skills and statistics as appropriate. This might cause you to gain
  skill points, hit points, and other bonuses. These bonuses should be
  noted separately in case they are removed.

Whether or not those other bonuses and statistics include creature type is irrelevant. This is because RAW you can't use Permanency on Fox's Cunning. The Permanency spell linked lists all of the spells that can be made permanent. All other uses are only allowed via DM discretion.


Do PDFs have the ability to phone home?

Question: That is, can they send any personally identifiable information to an external host (for example, the PDF author's server)? If so, is there a way to disable this in common PDF viewers (Adobe Reader, Mac OS X Preview) without resorting to using a firewall rule?
Answer: They are certainly not supposed to be able to except perhaps to report result from a form submission, but there's a Javascript engine in recent Adobe PDF implementations that has been the source of security problems with Acrobat Reader and related software.
Adobe's docs on the Javascript API for Acrobat products may give you some ideas about hat it's supposed to do and are easily found (sorry for not linking, low rep here).
Here is one of the many posts to SANS ISC about Acrobat Reader vulnerabilites related to the Javascript feature. Please be aware that even when disabled as recommended the Javascript feature is often re-enabled by Adobe software updates. There's a lot more discussion on the various security sites about this if you'd care to look into it.
Comment: welcome to superuser.  i had the same problem my first few posts.  if you have extra links you can always add them in comments to your posts.
Answer: As others have pointed out, Acrobat Reader provides scripting capability within PDF documents.  You should check the configuration options in your default PDF viewer and disable any suspicious options.  (For me, I can't think of any reason for Reader to need Javascript, or open other programs, so I disable that in the options.)
I haven't tried any recent versions of Reader, but my latest version (Reader 6.0) installed with many many plugins that slowed down the program's startup.  Many of these plugins are how forms and scripting functionality are supplied.
You can control which plugins start by moving them out of Reader's plugin directory.  For me, that's
<code> C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\Reader\plug_ins
</code>
You should make a folder, say, at
<code> C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\Reader\plug_ins_old
</code>
and move any unwanted plugins to that directory.  I got a nice speedy program start by moving all the plugins into plug_ins_old except for these:
<code>EWH32.api
Search.api
Search5.api
eBook.api
printme.api
</code>
Most people will be using more recent versions of Reader, so I imagine the process may be a little different, but that may be a good place to start looking.  If Reader stops opening after you've moved a plugin, just move it back and re-try.
Answer: the documents don't, certain applications to open them (e.g. Adobe Reader) do have the capability to phone home (the software maker, not the author of the document, that is). they can be "silenced" with outbound firewall rules.
Adobe Reader is also plagued by a variety of security vulnerabilities, that can be triggered by documents and should not be taken lightly.
Answer: I don't know how it works, but somewhere in 2002 I used Adobe Reader to fill in an offline PDF tax-paper. Upon pressing a button within that PDF form, it prompted for my password, encrypted itself, connected to the internet, and sent itself (or its data) to the tax-collector's office. It then told me the password was actually wrong, and had me repeat the steps.
So, assuming pressing a button is not really required to do this, I guess any PDF document that is actually a form can phone home when opened in a capable reader.
Also, some read-only PDF forms actually always fetch the data they show from the internet. I have had some digital bills sent to me through email, which would open fine when I got them. However, some time later after the web shop had changed their web site, the bills showed up empty when I opened them again.
Answer: Depends on your definition of 'personally identifiable'. Scripts in PDF don't have any particular way to gather information on their own, but they can certainly connect to the network (through SOAP or scripted form submission) and upload any information you put into them (along with your IP address, of course).
If you have a DRM-protected PDF the authorisation process will also necessarily upload a unique ID for your installation and file.
I can't confirm whether any of these processes can happen without a prompt, because I only use PDF readers that don't support script and DRM. Back when I still used Acrobat I always used to disable JavaScript and delete the plugins as suggested by ~quack.
Answer: Try ditching Adobe Reader and using FoxIt Reader. May not remove this problem but is much less bloated piece of software and launches nice and quickly and it's FREE

Do PDFs have the ability to phone home?


Why do people in the Star Trek universe still use transporters?

Question: There seem to be many malfunctions, people getting duplicated, merged, and what not. Why do people still use the transporters? They don't exactly seem safe or reliable.
Comment: Why do people on earth still use aeroplanes? Because the likelihood of death or injury is low enough that we don't care. Oddly enough, the documentary-makers who filmed *Star Trek* decided not to produce 687 episodes featuring the billions of normal, uneventful transports that worked perfectly.
Comment: You know transporters are pathogen filters as well right? Also saved Scotty's life, and probably a number of other examples where they are necessary or infinitely more valuable than the threat of odd malfunction. Think of how completely dangerous a car is. We let the world's biggest imbeciles just drive around in a huge metal box containing explosive fluids and just hope they're not stupid enough to kill anyone while they do it. And yet, it happens every day several thousand times a day, and nobody cares. Maybe humans have grown to depend on transporters and therefore don't care of the danger
Comment: @coteyr But that is what Paul means. There was a single episode of TNG in which nothing happens at all. And we are assumed to conclude that most days are like that; most days go by without any accidents of any kind. It's only when something bad DOES happen that the situation is deemed interesting enough to warrant a TV episode.
Comment: You might as well ask why they continue to use hollo-decks despite a significantly greater accident/malfunction rate and lower practical purpose.
Comment: Also let's not forget that the spaceships we see on TV are, per definition, weirdness magnets, because so much strange stuff happens to them. So, of course, also the weird transporter accidents will mostly happen there. If we had a more realistic series, we would probably need to switch to a different ship for each episode, because 99% of the time on any star fleet vessel is probably just boring same-stuff-as-last-week. It's in the nature of a tv series that the strange stuff somehow centers on the protagonists.
Comment: "There seem to be many malfunctions, people getting duplicated, merged, and what not." Keep in mind your context: a TV show about a couple of spaceships that are on the bleeding-edge of scientific discovery through the cosmos. These ships, by their very mission, are going to be more prone to risk from known and unknown phenomena, including phenomena that affects transporters. If instead, you were to watch a live-stream of the transporter room at StarFleet Academy, I doubt you'd see an accident for several years, if not several decades.
Comment: Every ship that we have followed in a series has had some kind of transporter accident. Every single one. It's like every transporter that we see is destined to fail at least once at some point. True we don't know about the rest of Star Fleet, but still that's a lot of failures.
Comment: I guess you just never know when your chief medical officer is going to contract some weird super-aging virus.
Comment: I get that is the lens we are seeing the world through, but one of the things that always goes wrong is the Transporter. You can count on weapons fire, shields, a deflector dish, and at least one transporter accident.
Comment: Holodecks......
Comment: Why do we still use cars?
Comment: Transporters are like automobiles, trains and planes - in that order by dint of safety per mile travelled.

Interesting stories do not, as such, involve successful journeys.

Here in the UK there are fewer than 2,000 road deaths per year, from rather more than 305.4 billion vehicle miles… so fewer than two deaths per million miles… which is to say, about driving right round the world about 40 times.
Answer: They kind of made a big deal in TNG6x02 Realm of Fear that transporters are officially "the safest way to travel". Even if they are incredibly dangerous, I'm sure you have reason to believe so, the other ways must be worse.
Also remember, often when they use a shuttle, they get abducted (TNG4x24 The Mind's Eye), crash on a barely habitable planet (TNG4x09 Final Mission and others) or get thrown out of space-time (TNG6x25 Timescape)? There seem to be a lot of accidents with shuttles. I would prefer the transporter, too.
Comment: You've made a few assumptions, do you have any evidence to support them?
Comment: I don't see any tbo. I named the episode in which is stated that they are the safest way to travel. Do you want official made-up statistics or what?
Comment: "They kind of made a big deal", "Transporters are _officially_ the safest way to travel", "The other ways must be worse", "I do not remember that many transporter accidents", "but apparently...", "_every time_ they use a shuttle"... I count 6, which make up around 50% of your answer.
Comment: Is the current status satisfactory? I don't know what he would do with more sources, but there we go. I have indeed seen the high standards here and I believe you might be overestimating them slightly ;). But that's my opinion.
Comment: I like this answer. It points out that the tansporter need not be safe, just safer then everything else.
Answer: Transporters ARE safe and reliable
People use transporters because they are the fastest and most convenient way to travel. In the 24th century, they are also considered the safest way to travel. The average rate of transporter failure was about one or two out of several million problem-free transports. That's any kind of accident period, not necessarily ones involving injury or death. Across the entire Federation.1
According to Geordi in "Realm of Fear":

"Transporting really is the safest way to travel."

- Transcript from Chakoteya.net
We don't know how safe other methods like shuttlecraft are, but there isn't any indication that he was just giving his opinion. As an engineer he would have been basing that on actual stats. (unless you're on the Enterprise apparently; odds are all of the accidents that occur must be the few that happen on the Enterprise)
So although it's a good question when looking at things from our perspective, from the perspective of the average Federation man or woman, the premise is wrong: the transporter doesn't have many malfunctions. They likely almost never hear of any problems with transporters.
Some people DO avoid transporters
That said there are some people who agree with you and feel they'd better be safe than sorry. They sometimes even develop an irrational fear of the technology.

BARCLAY: Well, if I didn't know so much about these things, maybe they wouldn't scare me so much. I can still remember the day in Doctor Olafson's Transporter Theory class when he was talking about the body being converted into billions of kiloquads of data, zipping through subspace, and I realised there's no margin for error. One atom out of place and poof! You never come back. It's amazing people aren't lost all the time.1

Doctor's McCoy and Pulaski, actual medical doctors, were two more individuals who avoided scattering their molecules across space whenever possible. Their characterization is meant to be analogous to people afraid of flying on airplanes today. (I cannot agree on comparing it to automobiles as some comments have, since we're talking about the safety record of the technology itself, and most automobile accidents are due to operator error.)
The fear was strong enough in some people to be considered an illness. The EMH mentions "transporter phobia" in an episode of Voyager.
Going back further in time to right after the transporter's development, there was much debate about whether it caused health effects or other problems. So during that period many more people avoided the thing, but eventually the fear subsided as it proved safe (and became safer) over time. (Discussed in the Enterprise episode "Daedalus")
So there are certainly a small number of people who don't use them, but the convenience outweighs the infinitesimal safety risk for everyone else.
Comment: I use to think how great it would be till I read the story "Think Like a Dinosaur". I'll take a shuttle, thank you.
Comment: +1, As is sadly too often the case, the late answer is the best and deserves to become the accepted answer.
Answer: The same reason people fly despite the loss of life from plane crashes.  It's convenient and probably safer than the alternative.  Figure safe uses vs accidents.  Despite the cases you've mentioned, I can think of only two fatalities, the folks in TMP.  (The two redshirts in "A Child Shall Lead Them" don't count as they were beamed into space due to deceptive sensor readings, not a faulty transporter.)
Comment: Can you provide any sources for the fact they're "probably safer" than alternatives?
Comment: While we could look at total numbers of transporter malfunctions vs. shuttlecraft malfunctions as present to us in all the various series, it would not approach the unavailable data on the malfunctions of both travel modes across the Federation as a whole. The bottom line is that these folks aren't stupid.  If it were safer to use shuttlecraft, they'd use shuttlecraft and use the transporter only for cargo.  I'm not recalling a specific episode but I do seem to recall Chief O'Brien talking about the number of redundant systems in the transporter, implying a high degree of safety.
Answer: If we are only comparing the transport methods of shuttlecraft and transporters, which are both mainly used for going planetside for away missions. However, shuttle crafts can also be used on longer sustainable trips like when Geordi was going on vacation to Risa (The Mind's Eye (Star Trek: The Next Generation)). I'm sure there are some technical specifications that would make a long distance transport through the transporters or possible industrial transporters not possible or it would create a larger margin of error that is unacceptable, but if we put that one aspect of the shuttle aside for the moment, let's look at the mechanics between transporting and using the shuttlecraft.
Transporters: From all the episodes that I have seen it is a solid-state system with little or no moving parts. Everything is handled by the transporter chief, computer and all of the 23rd century technology which doesn't seem to have any movable parts. I recall hearing that the subject is placed in a stasis field just prior to transport so that all of their atoms are in a slowed or stopped state for transport. Then they energize and they appear on the planet.
Shuttlecraft: Before anything a pilot proficient on that model of shuttlecraft must be assigned if one is actually available from their other duties. The away team must gather the shuttle bay and await the prepping of the shuttlecraft.  Once everyone is aboard, the pilot performs all the necessary pre-flight checks and communicates with the hanger bay personnel to signal that they are preparing for departure. Hangar bay personnel activate the force field that keeps the atmosphere in the hangar bay, but allows the shuttle to pass through it and opens the hanger bay doors. Once given clearance, the pilot engages the engines to levitate and begin moving towards the hanger bay door opening. The shuttle then begins its course and heading toward an area on the surface.
Now...using a shuttle craft involves, a pilot, hanger personnel, back and forth communication with the hanger personnel during lift off (which during this maneuver human-error is in play. Unless of course the pilot is LtCmd Data). And if the  shuttle clears the hanger doors and proceeds on course there is still the fact that you are flying a shuttle from a 0 atmosphere to a possibly unknown atmosphere and possibly unknown meteorological phenomenon that could either damage the shuttle or catch the pilot unaware and unable to respond properly in time endangering the pilot and the entire away team.
So, in summary, I see the comparison between transporters and shuttlecraft the same difference between a hard disk drive and a Solid-state Drive (SSD). The first has moving parts, the second does not. (Also, the SSD is much, much faster than the spinning disks that will eventually wear their bearings out because of the basic force of friction, regardless of how little friction it will eventually fail.) HDD usually have on the box a characteristic called MTBF.  This stand for Mean Time Between Failure. Usually it is calculated in hours, but averages about 5 years.
I hope that I've made the simile clear. Please let me know if there is an error or you need fact checking or references added.
This is my first post & I'm not referencing any of the canon of Star-Trek, merely making a logical comparison between the two modes of transportation.
Answer: I have to challenge the whole premise of your question.

There seem to be many malfunctions, people getting duplicated, merged, and what not.

In TNG6x02 Realm of Fear, an experienced and respected Starfleet engineer flat out states that transporters are "the safest way to travel". There aren't that many malfunctions in the usual day-to-day happenings across the United Federation of Planets or any of the other transporter-using cultures. The incidents we see on film in the assorted shows, movies, and whatnot are outliers.
Because Star Trek is presented to the viewing audience as entertainment, we only see many outliers, because outliers are interesting and exciting. If it weren't an outlier, it probably wouldn't be worth showing on screen. I'm not inclined to rewatch every episode and count scenes, but I suspect if one were to count up all the instances of transportation (including those that are implied but not shown), the interesting incidents might still be outliers.
While it is presented tongue-in-cheek, because it's also meant as entertainment, consider Chief O'Brien at Work for a more "realistic" (used loosely) look at how dreadfully boring transporter operations probably are.


Using special addressing for gods and prophets implying one's beliefs, as in "our Lord Jesus", "prophet Mohammed PBUH"?

Question: Is it acceptable for members to imply their beliefs in their questions, for example saying, our lord Jesus, or prophet Mohammed PBUH, or similar addressing? Should not questions and answers be objective, unbiased, and general. What one considers holy or sacred might not be the case for the others, so I think this practice should be discouraged. I think it should all be kept with the spirit of world encyclopedias, like encyclopedia Britannica. This practice is even followed by wikipedia. What do you think?
Answer: I'm very glad you asked this question, as (after going over your requested edit on What was the original cause of the Camel War in Islamic history? ), I was going to post it myself.
I'm wondering if this has ever come up before on a SE site. Its a very interesting issue that I'd never had to think about before. I had to think fairly hard about it. Here is why, in the end, I put the PBUH back.
The issue here is how to handle ṣalawāt, which many devout Muslims are compelled by their religion to follow any reference to a revered Prophet or archangel.
We do differ from Wikipedia in one rather important respect. Our question and answer format gives each question and each answer a specific author. Unlike Wikipedia, we prominently (and permanently) display this author for as long as that question or answer exists.
As such, if a question or answer author on an SE site feels compelled to add a ṣalawāt, I believe it would be wrong for an editor remove it. It is their question, and we should not be rephrasing it in a way that would seem like disrespectful phrasing to them or their community, and then leave their name prominently attached to it.
Likewise, I believe it would also be wrong for a devout Muslim with edit privs to go through here and start adding PBUH to the entries of those who didn't want it.
The exception would be community wiki entries (which have the author's name removed). In that case, I think the Wikipedia policy is a good one.
"Our Lord Jesus", IMHO would be a bit different. Nobody really looks askance at a Christian who just says "Jesus", and the phrase makes an assertion of divinity, which in my mind would be a huge red flag that the question belongs on Christianity.SE. Merely wishing a deceased person peace (PBOH) is something I (as a Christian) have no religious issue with whatsoever.
I'm curious what others think about this.
Comment: Sorry, -1. I don't care what the justifications are, everyone should have the same policy. PBUH is a religiously commanded expression, not a secular expression of respect. So the same policy should apply to both. The DV is specifically about your last big paragraph - I agree with the proposed policy in the original. As a NON-Christian, I have a problem with PBUH being allowed while "Our Lord" not.
Comment: Thanks for answering. It was by chance that the post I edited was by a Muslim. It was never intended to be an insult or anything. That's why my question was general. However, I tend to disagree. I think we should enforce the encyclopedic handling of objectivity. In fact, I was about to answer that question but seeing that the author had put PBUH, it gave me the impression that he might be a devout religious person. As such, an answer with a different point of view might be considered insulting or even downvoted for being objective. I think this could influence what and how to answer.
Comment: Oh, I'm not trying to imply any insult was meant by you. Also, if you have an answer, please do answer the question as objectively as you know how to. He may downvote you for religious reasons (happens to me all the time here), but there are a lot more people here than just him. If its a good answer it will hardly matter. It takes 5 downvotes to cancel the rep from 1 upvote. :-)
Comment: OK. I will post the answer once I back it up with references. I will try to present the case from the two different view points. Thought the references I have are not in English. But I guess Google translate will help some.
Comment: @DVK - Thank you for your input. I posted this precisely looking for input like yours.
Answer: I think that T.E.D.'s answer is quite good; however, I would say that I think the site should strive for objectivity. With that said, would it be beyond the convictions of devout religious authors to add caveats to their statements (such as in my opinion, or according to...etc.) when they answer questions related to religious history, or is this beyond what is allowed? Even a clarification that stated "according to (insert religion)" would suffice.
Comment: This is not a case targeted at Muslims, it is a rule for all religious devouts in here. Though, in my observation, only our Muslim friends breach this objectivity issue. I strongly second your opinion for striving for objectivity. I too agree that statements as "According to" or "claims" make a lot of difference. Recently, I had the case where a Muslim devout answered one of my questions with extreme zeal that his only reference is the Quran and what it says. Needless to say, he had many downvotes, I flagged his answer as spam and his answer was deleted afterwards.
Comment: continued- Presenting "holy" books as undisputed valid references which must be accepted is a truly a concern. They are not but internal references which fail many tests. Beliefs and "truths" which are held sacred by few percent of world population does not make it global truth. Not even facts, or valid references. I truly can not understand the mentality of those people. They are so much carried away and swept with their beliefs that nothing else is beyond the truth of the "holy" book. The utmost form of brainwashing IMHO. What a shame. Lets keep this site a beacon for freedom of thought.
Comment: This has actually happened a couple of times (to my memory mostly by Hindu and Christian authors, not Muslims, but the principle is the same). Generally the user moderation seems to take care of it quite well. A little more troublesome is downvotes based on "fixed beliefs", but on the balance one has to live with that. What we really have little defense against is statements of religious/political belief couched as fact in comments. That seems to be on the rise lately too.
Answer: live and let live, the existence of such text or lack there of is irrelevant to the objective quality of the answer. If an answerer sees fit to add it I see no reason to remove it, similarly I see no reason for another to add them to other's answers. always removing or adding such things just angers one group for no good reason. We aren't Wikipedia, we a group of people with a common interest that each have our own style in answering questions, I see no reason to single out some user's preferences as bad.
Answer: I agree with T.E.D. in general, but I'd require some clarification of any behavior not trivial to understand. "PBUH" was quite confusing for me until reading of few questions on Islam.SE made me to find out what does it mean. "Our lord Jesus Christ" is quite comprehensible and Jewish "G_d" is something in between - I understood it after few seconds of thinking. I'd make a community wiki post with list of examples like "PBUH" and "G_d" with clarification of their meaning, and ask everyone with any similar case (such as "Lord" meaning "Jesus" or "God" for a Christian) to clarify what they mean.
We all want questions and answers to be clear, but we all should be tolerant, both in accepting that others might be confused by peculiarities of our religion and in accepting others' difference (including religious) and still give them good answers, i.e. don't assume someone is an ignorant moron not worthy of objective answer just because they wrote "PBUH" after some name.
Answer: PBUH is an Islamic honorific. In some societies, it is considered extremely disrespectful to refer to the Prophet without a PBUH. It is similar to how the Japanese use -san for equals, or how many societies use Mr or Sir with a superior. Similar applies to the Jewish G_d or Our Lord.
I can see how some people find such honorifics offensive because they may view the same figures as dishonorable. That's where tolerance comes in, in that we tolerate other people's opposing opinions.
The respectful, objective approach would be to not edit honorifics, whether it's adding or removing them. You wouldn't ask someone to remove a cross before entering a secular building, nor would you ask them to wear one.


What is with the list in the special episode of Sherlock?

Question: In the special episode of the TV series Sherlock titled The Abominable Bride, Sherlock Holmes and his brother keep talking about a list. What is this list and what is its reference?
Answer: Its a list of all the drugs Sherlock has taken so that if he's in trouble Mycroft can help him.
Comment: This sounds plausible, but do you have any information to support this? He seems to have no problem with talking about the percentage of cocaine he is using, so having a secret list that says that is odd.
Comment: Umm...i might be a lil dumb for asking this...but most of you said that the list contains the names of drugs?? So that means if he is high and in an unusual state of mind he still has the capability to write it down?? But not articulate it ?? We know that he didn't write it down before he got high cause he was high when he got on the plane but somehow in the plane he managed to write it down??
Comment: @Thunderforge The percentage of cocaine discussion is in his mind palace.... where he's not made an agreement with Mycroft about making a list. If Sherlock is completely incapacitated, he would be unable to discuss the drugs he's taken... which are available in a significantly wider variety than in the 1800s. The reaction that Watson has to reading the list implies that it's not a single drug but several different drugs, probably a mixture Holmes has tested over time to induce a "best state" for thinking.
Answer: I'm guessing it's so that, if Sherlock is overdosing (and he can't tell), Mycroft would be able to tell the doctors what he took so that they can help him.
Answer: Obviously none of you are users. If you have a serious habit, you need to keep track of what, when and how much you took. Not only for their agreement, but some drugs make you black out not realizing how much you took. Leading to an overdose. Sherlock mixes multi drug cocktails. In the case of an OD you have to know what they took to administer treatment.


For arbitrary theories T and S, is it meaningful to say "T proves the consistency of S"?

Question: For arbitrary (first-order) theories T and S (where T needn't be a theory of arithmetic), is it meaningful to say "T proves the consistency of S"?
Answer: No. The theory $T$ has to be able to express the consistency of $S$, otherwise we don't have a formula to talk about its provability.
However the theory doesn't need to be arithmetic, but the language should be strong enough to be able to express this. Also we usually require that some basic facts about the consistency statement can be proven inside the theory. The amount of machinery required for this is studied by people like Pavel Pudlak. You can Google for "sequential theory" if you are interested in learning more about this or check Petr Hajek and Pavel Pudlack, "Metamathematics of First-Order Arithmetic" (a free online version is available from Euclid here).
Answer: If the question is "is there a commonly accepted meaning" then the answer is no as Kaveh says.
However, one could also ask if it is possible to give it meaning in general.
This is a fuzzy question, so it's hard to say, but I can think of one case where the answer is arguably still "no".
To give meaning to the statement "$T$ proves the consistency of $S$"  we would have to formulate $\text{Con}(S)$ as a sentence in the language of $T$, in such a way that seeing a proof of $T \vdash \text{Con}(S)$ would convince us that $S$ really is a consistent theory.
In the simple case where $T$ has only finitely many models (which must themselves be finite) then all that a proof from $T$ can do is to convince us of something that can be established by "inspection" of the models.  Whatever $S$ happens to be, there is a priori no upper bound on the length of the shortest proof of contradiction from $S$, so there is no way that this "inspection" can convince us of the consistency of $S$.
I'm sure that there are some theories with infinitely many models that are still "too simple" to formulate consistency statements, but I don't know how to argue this.