How does the USS Franklin fit in the pre-Kelvin Timeline?

Question: In Star Trek Beyond, we are introduced to the USS Franklin (NX-326). Where does this NX registry, Starship class ship fall in the pre-Kelvin timeline, as compared to the pre-reboot continuity?

Comment: THE enterprise was the NX-01 http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/105220/how-does-first-contact-occur-in-the-alternate-timeline-from-star-trek-2009/105221#105221
All NX class vessels are expected to be warp 5, as we see in season 4, when the NX - 02 is introduced even faster and more powerful then the 01 http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Columbia
Comment: @himarm the issue is that there is the NX class, and the NX registry code. Various ships are NX (prototype) registries but different classes. The Franklin is a Starship class, not NX class. http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/NX
Comment: they actualy stated it was a warp 4 ship, from AFTER enterprise series so thats a big error
Comment: @himarm I actually don't think so. I can imagine a series of events that would make sense
Comment: The nx class was created for warp 5 capable vessels
Comment: Was it? The NX enterprise from Enterprise wasn't nx-1, the first in its registration numbering system.
Comment: Hmm. I thought it was nx some 3 digit number. Interesting.  Any canon explanation?
Comment: Over the next thirty-two years, warp engine development continued until Humanity's first warp 5 engine was created. This engine was capable of speeds that finally made interstellar travel in more survivable periods possible – that is, in days, weeks or months, instead of years. Consequently, Humanity was able to construct its first warp 5 capable starship, Enterprise, completed in 2151. Initially, Enterprise had a theoretical maximum speed of warp 4.5. ---- this is from memory alpha, but this is the story they told in enterprise over and over again, the NX class was the first warp 5 vessels
Comment: The Franklen according to beyond is from AFTER the romulan war, which started AFTER season 4 of Enterprise, So making warp 4 vessels 10 years or more after having at least 2 successful warp 5 vessels makes 0 sense.They state that after the romulan war, the Macco's were dissolved,.
Comment: Idk. Since you updated me on the nx-01 reg number,  my theory went out the door. I was thinking the Franklin was pre-Enterprise, given to Edison after the Fed creation and MACO disbanding, an old but still useful ship. But the registry number is the killer here. :(
Comment: ive watch the majority of TNG, Voyager, and DS9 episodes, but ive got 2 full through watches of enterprise so on that im certain. the whole warp 5 ship thing, and the first NX class thing were a really big plot point during the whole show
Comment: The enterprise is NX-01, which means no mater how you look at it, its the first NX labeled starship, unless they are numbering idiots, the Franklin is in the 200s, we know for a fact the 2nd warp 5 vessel the columbia is the NX-02. clearly the franklin is a far later constructed vessel. unless 20 years earlier, starfleet was like, heres this warp 4 vessel, lets call it NX 236, Also on top of that, that article says NX registry is only prototypes after the creation of the federation.
Comment: What is the difference between the "pre-Kelvin timeline" and the "pre-reboot continuity"? Shouldn't the continuity be the same for reboot and pre-reboot before the Kelvin incident?
Comment: @napoleon it should be, but some people like to watch the world burn. http://io9.gizmodo.com/simon-pegg-has-a-canonical-explanation-for-why-sulu-is-1783511576 the time travel created differences after AND before nero arrived...
Answer: Three options:

The Franklin (out of universe, named after the director's father, Frank Lin) is the first Warp 4 ship. Essentially a precursor to the NX-class. Aesthetics aside, it does at least share the same general design and looks purposefully retro. It makes sense that during the war, it was refitted with at least newer weapons (still only spatial torpedoes, but does have the newer pulsed phase cannons which were first equipped on the NX-02). Upon re-commission as a UFP Starfleet ship, it was likely decided that the NX prefix would be used to denote a prototype, and the Franklin was apparently the first of it's class and given that designation. For all we know it could have originally been Franklin NW-01. Then when the UFP comes around the ships from the UESPA, Earth Starfleet, UESN, and other member races get re-registered as Federation Starfleet ships, and by the time they get to the Franklin, it's NX-326. It gets re-launched as an explorer and gets stranded. Pretty easy to work it in there. And this makes more sense than the next theory because this wouldn't conflict with the fact that there was a model of the NX-01 in Admiral Marcus's office...
Beyond Writer Simon Pegg mentioned Nero's incursion could have rippled farther back on that alternate timeline. http://io9.gizmodo.com/simon-pegg-has-a-canonical-explanation-for-why-sulu-is-1783511576 Which makes some sense given that there was such a vast difference in time between the Narada going through and the Jellyfish. Problem with this is, if that were the case and there was some extreme time dilation, then given the size of the Narada, it would have existed for quite some time as it merely passed through the temporal rift. This would mean it would have appeared longer ago and would have appeared to move very slowly. It would have been known for a lot longer and wouldn't have been a sudden phenomenon. So if it's not that time dilation effect, then it would have to be some 'retroactive continuity ripple effect' backwards through time. There's no way to tell how that might affect things, but apparently it could cause enough of a change that the warp program was set back and instead of a warp 5 ship, Starfleet ended up with a warp 4 ship, which was smaller and aesthetically different but retained the same general configuration as the NX-class, like maybe a competing design won out. However I believe this is a much poorer excuse and doesn't really resolve things as well. It's very gimmicky and as bad a device as the infamous reset button that Voyager liked to abuse.
There is a third explanation... The Franklin could have been a successor to the NX-class, but the warp scale could have changed yet again. Scotty could have been saying 'warp 4' on their warp factor scale. I read this elsewhere and it does make some sense.
Comment: One minor problem with the 3rd option:  Scotty says that the Franklin's transporters were only supposed to be used for Cargo.  In the pilot of Enterprise, the NX-01's transporters are stated to be declared safe for human transport.  It doesn't seem to make sense that a later ship would have substandard transporters.
Comment: @Paul L Actually, Scotty says they're 'old' and 'only ever used for cargo'. There's some flexibility here. I heard an interview with the guy that designed the Franklin and it was meant to be a freighter. So it could just be that this is specifically a cargo transporter, just like in later Treks there are separate transporters for cargo and personnel. The fact that it can beam people too means it was probably just tuned for cargo transport (I think the difference here was the resolution of the imaging scanners, which is probably what Scotty had to make adjustments to).
Comment: @Himarm Actually, according to Simon Pegg, it would. You can choose to accept it or not, but his explanation is cited here: http://io9.gizmodo.com/simon-pegg-has-a-canonical-explanation-for-why-sulu-is-1783511576
Comment: @Himarm "The rift in space/time created an entirely new reality in all directions, top to bottom, from the Big Bang to the end of everything." It's non-canon so it's really up to you if you want to believe it or not. There are more fun and interesting ways to try to reconcile everything.
Comment: That third explanation makes the most sense. The first doesn't, as Enterprise stated that they went from Warp 2 directly to Warp 5 with the NX-01 and 3 prototypes before. No lower speeds at the time. Two they should have left to ***All Good Things...***, it did it better, AND it was explained on screen, no a hand wave.
Comment: But the third one is the only one that works in-universe. Hell, considering the Narada caused a burst of technology from reverse engineering sensor readings, leading to Slip-stream like warp and bigger ships, better transporters, and Kirk taking over the Enterprise 10 years earlier. Accepted.
Comment: Why can't it just be a normal warp 4 ship? Where is the conflict of continuity here? I think this answer (or maybe the question?) could deserve quite a bit more context as to what makes it so hard to believe that the Franklin is a simply warp 4 ship built at some point in the past.
Comment: the ripple would not have effected the NX program
Comment: @Napoleon see my first comment here. Continuity issue, as the tv show showed they went from warp 2 directly to warp 5.
Comment: @AshleyDarkstone so we can buy that sulu is gay in the new timeline, thats a few years of change, but can we buy the ripple going back 100+ years?
Answer: It's been officially confirmed that the Franklin predates Archer's Enterprise, see this article:

And if you think this is just our speculation, worry not: we got a note from Dylan Highsmith, one of the lead picture editors on STAR TREK BEYOND, about this very issue.
If you want the official explanation on the Franklin and it's warp factor: it was a M.A.C.O. ship (or a United Earth Starfleet ship that housed M.A.C.O. personnel at times) that predates the NX-01.
When the UFP Starfleet is formed, M.A.C.O. was disbanded and the ship was reclassified as a Starfleet ship [with the USS identifier]. The ship is then "lost" in the early 2160's.
It was important to everyone that the ship, like Edison, predate the Federation; that thematically, the ship mirrored an earlier time in history and served as a bridge in design between then and the NX-01.
Doug [Jung] and Simon [Pegg] may have worked up something [on an official launch date], but if they did it never made it to script or screen.
Either way it predates the NX-01, and was reclassified after the UFP is formed.

If it was built as a M.A.C.O. ship rather than a Starfleet ship that could explain the seeming inconsistency in registry order, though Dylan Highsmith also speculates it could have been a "United Earth Starfleet ship that housed M.A.C.O. personnel at times," which would still leave us with the same problem. But in that case, this reddit thread gives a good argument involving the German tank problem for why Starfleet might choose to assign registry numbers non-sequentially--basically, if vehicles (or components inside vehicles) are numbered sequentially, then a random sample can allow an enemy to estimate total numbers, and the "countermeasures" section of the article notes one solution is non-sequential registries:

serial numbers that resist cryptanalysis can be used, most effectively by randomly choosing numbers without replacement from a list that is much larger than the number of objects produced

The answer by @Ashley Darkstone also notes in option #2 that the timeline may have been retroactively changed, so maybe in this timeline Archer's Enterprise wasn't the NX-01. This is definitely a possibility, but one caution I would note about this idea is that Pegg seemingly only proposed this idea to defuse controversy about making Sulu gay, so my guess was this wasn't the operating conception of the writers when the movie was actually written. Furthermore, Pegg's proposal seems to be based on a misconception--he thought Sulu was born before 2233 when Nero arrived and the Kelvin incident occurred, but actually the best available info suggests Sulu was born after 2233 (probably in 2237), and Pegg probably got this idea from some badly-sourced info in an older edit of Sulu's wikipedia article, see my comment here for details.
Comment: It is still hard to fit when Enterprise explicitly states they went from warp 2 to warp 5. It was a jump in speed that made the NX program controversial among earth and Vulcan leadership. No steady progression of warp 2, then warp 3, 4, 5 ship generations.
Comment: @cde - What episode was that explicitly stated in? Looking at the [transcript of "First Flight"](http://www.chakoteya.net/Enterprise/50.htm), I don't see anything in that ep that clearly states that--Archer just says "The Vulcans had us run every simulation they could think of for over a year before they finally admitted the engine would probably work. Eight months after that, Duvall broke warp three in the NX Delta. Five years later we laid the keel for Enterprise." He doesn't explicitly say there were no other test vehicles in between the NX Delta and Enterprise.
Comment: The new timeline also has ripple effects backwards in the time line. The Khan tie-in comic better expalins this. This idea was also dropped on a seaon episode of Fringe (another Abrams work that references Trek and Leonard Nimoy was reoccuring guest star) titled, Forced Perspective. So there is room for ENT timeline divergences.
Answer: There is no way to reconcile the Franklin's timeline with the timeline given in Enterprise.
Based on

Inaccurate numbering.
Inaccurate speed.
Inaccurate transporter.

The design (physical aesthetics) of the Franklin fits with the original Enterprise timeline, the major issue I noticed was that they stated it was the First warp 4 class ship. In Enterprise the NX-01 aka the "Enterprise" was the first warp 5 vessel. Now the Franklin is the NX-326, so unless Starfleet re-tagged a ship that was built before the Enterprise and introduction of warp 5 this naming makes no sense. On top of that we see Scotty say in Beyond that the transporter wasn't used for people, just supplies, but in the first season of Enterprise over and over again, they discuss how the transporter was certified for people (for the first time).
So here's the description on the Enterprise NX-01:

Over the next thirty-two years, warp engine development continued until Humanity's first warp 5 engine was created. This engine was capable of speeds that finally made interstellar travel in more survivable periods possible – that is, in days, weeks or months, instead of years. Consequently, Humanity was able to construct its first warp 5 capable starship, Enterprise, completed in 2151. Initially, Enterprise had a theoretical maximum speed of warp 4.5.

The Enterprise was built in 2151 with a working transporter, Krall receives the Franklin some time after the creation of the Federation in 2161, yet his transporter still isn't classed for living organisms.
Further note, there was no warp 4 capable vessels before the Enterprise according to this except from Memory Alpha:

A final test flight, made by Duvall in the NX-Delta, would break the warp 3 barrier eight months after the Vulcan program of simulations concluded. Construction began five years thereafter on Enterprise NX-01, and it was launched in April of 2151.

The first warp 3 capable engine created by StarFleet was in 2145-6. 5 years later the NX-01 was created, as the first warp 5 capable vessel, with actual speeds starting out around warp 4.5.
The only way to reconcile some of this, is that the Franklin is a post NX-01 ship, like its serial number suggests, but Scotty is using updated warp speeds to discuss an older vessel. We see between Enterprise, TOS, and TNG that the warp factors do not line up, so warp factors "speeds" change over time. So the Franklin could have been the first warp 6 or 7 in Enterprise speeds, but in Scotty's time it could only be the speed equivalent to a warp 4 vessel. This however does not address why the Franklin is using at least 10 years out of date transporters.
Comment: Why is it inconsistent to suppose they built the *Franklin* as a test vehicle during the 5-6 year period between building a warp 3 engine and building the *Enterprise*?
Comment: @Himarm The Franklin is definitely not a comparable size to the NX-class. The designer of the Franklin, Sean Hargreaves, talks about the design in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEQDVrqmHS0 Diagrams are also shown with a length of 450 feet. This is a small ship. Approximately 88 meters shorter than the NX-class, and approximately 55 meters narrower, and only about 3 decks versus the NX's 7. Here is an additional view which shows how small the interior is. http://pop.h-cdn.co/assets/16/25/1466802281-pmx070116startrek-lo2.jpg I highly doubt it was meant for deep space like the NX.
Comment: The placard in the ship shows it is a Starship Class, not NX class. http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/5/55/Franklin-plaque.jpg/revision/latest/thumbnail-down/width/340/height/307?cb=20160724122341&path-prefix=en
Comment: It would seem the only thing that is really misplaced is the NX-326 designation in the first place. Without that it would just be a pre-Enterprise ship with lower warp and worse transporters.
Comment: @NapoleonWilson well my final quote shows that starfleet never had warp 4, Until the NX-01, so their would not have been any pre-enterprise ship with warp 4, pre enterprise ships were dealing with warp 1-2 according to enterprise(series). which were not capable of space exploration as it took them years to do intersteller travel.
Comment: @Hypnosifl enterprise(series) outlines all of the testing ships in the process to create the warp 5 engine in the enterprise(ship). so now were just slotting in a ship thats of comparable size and build to the enterprise, that could have done the same missions the enterprise itself at marginally lower speeds? that completely defeats the whole purpose of the show enterprise, in which the plot is Until the warp 5 (4.5 capable ) enterprise was built they had no real ability to go off into "deep space". could it possible exist? if you close yours eyes maybe, does it make sense to exist? no.
Comment: @Himarm - Are you talking about the episode "First Flight", or other Enterprise episodes as well? As I said in a comment to cde on my own answer, I don't think there are any lines in "First Flight" that really rule out the idea that there were other prototype vehicles built in the 5-year period between the warp 3 NX Delta and the Enterprise. As for why the Enterprise and not the Franklin would be touted as the first vehicle intended for "deep space", I speculated about possible reasons for this on my [scifi stack exchange post](http://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/135465/22250).
Answer: In my opinion, The Franklin is most likely post-Enterprise NX-01.  Say they were using a warp scale of warp^2 on "Enterprise" (and that the display on "First Flight" showing warp^3 was wishful thinking on the engineers' part).
So, "old warp" 8 = 64 x light speed = "new warp" 4. As far as the transporters only being rated for cargo; maybe the Enterprise was just using it for humans/lifeforms the same way Scotty was - by the seat of his britches.
It just doesn't make sense that they would go to NX-326, then to NX-01 (unless they were trying to confuse the Romulans!).
Comment: @cde: That is a more elegant explanation, but I still like the idea of transporter psychosis affecting the crew of NX-01. It explains so much!
Comment: Just had another thought: what if the Franklin's transporters were only rated for cargo because by then it had been found that use of these transporters caused "transporter psychosis" (mentioned in TNG I think) and Scotty either knew how to correct for this or it didn't matter for short-term use. This could explain a lot about the behavior/bone-headedness on "ST: Enterprise"! :)
Comment: I'm thinking it's more likely the people transporter was damaged and the cargo one wasnt. Would have been quicker to modify than to fix. Also, the transporter psychosis only happened after continuous usage.
Answer: Apparently, it is pre-Federation/pre-Enterprise NX-01. At least according to Memory Alpha (based on a quote from Dylan Highsmith).
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/USS_Franklin
Comment: Sorry. Missed that this was already gone over above by Hypnosifl. In my opinion though, this is just Simon Pegg trolling the Trek fans for putting "Into Darkness" dead last on that fan poll a few years ago. Why else throw in such a confusing comment about the ship being the "first to achieve warp 4"? The positive thing about it is how many good arguments have been made on this site and others to explain the movie's foul up.
Answer: Here's my opinion.  It was an older ship than the NX-01.  After the end of the Romulan war, and after the creation of the Federation, all of the remaining Earth Starfleet ships were recommissioned as Federation ships.  NX-365 is a Federation registry.  NX-01 was an Earth Starfleet registry.  NX-01 was also decomissioned at the same time due to battle damage, and turned into a museum ship.
Comment: Any evidence to backup the decommissioned after the UFP claim?
Answer: On the last Enterprise Episode , the Enterprise NX-01 is being   decommissioned after 10 years in space and it's the beginning of the Federation. The crew is talking about serving on one of the new warp 7 ships. The NX ship in the movie only goes warp 4, and the plate with the name of the ship & the old ship's uniforms have the Federation symbol on them. Meanwhile the warp 5 NX ships on the show Enterprise was from before the Federation and didn't have that symbol. So it just doesn't make sense. Plus the NX Captain at the end of Star Trek Beyond mentioned the Xindi. In the show Enterprise only the crew of the NX-01 Enterprise fought the Xindi, there was no war with the Xindi and humanity in general.


How to find the vertical midpoint of a Gimp image or canvas?

Question: How can I locate the vertical midpoint of a gimp image? I searched online and found this post, but it didn't give me the simple, step-by-step solution I was looking for.
Answer: After a few more minutes searching, I found the answer. So for anyone else who has this question I want to post a simple concise step-by-step explanation.

Script-fu window for setting vertical or horizontal guides by percent

Make sure you have Gimp open with an image of some sort on the
canvas.
Image > Guides > New Guide (By Percent).
If you don't see a Script-fu dialog box, switch between active windows until you
find it (in Windows use ALT-TAB).
In the "Direction" drop-down
choose "Vertical".
Ensure that "Positon" is set to 50% and click
"OK".

And that's it! If you followed the instructions you should now have a vertical line bisecting your image, in the exact middle of the canvas.
PROTIP: If you follow the procedure again, but this time choose "Horizontal", you will now be able to locate the exact midpoint of your image in all directions.
Comment: i was expecting a menu option that said something like 'Draw Grid on canvas' with a dialog asking for number of rows and columns, allowing 2x2, 3x3, 4x4 or even 2x3,4x5 etc. but i can do the percentage calculations and make each of those lines too. just a matter of patience. (i might call that hard work too) an easy way round? folks, gotta be there. it's mid 2018 already.
Comment: @computingfreak IKR ... They did just release Gimp 2.10 about a month ago... Maybe there is something useful in there https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st_mENbhGUk ... Otherwise, there is probably a plugin. Please report back if you find an easier solution
Answer: Solution without explicit guides: several "Transform" tools (Scale, Shear, Rotate...) have built-in guides, and one of the option for these is "Center lines", so just start the Tool and just set the option (unless you need to know where the center is when using these tools).
Of course using real guides is often a good idea. If you find yourself routinely adding guides at the same place (center lines, for instance), have a look at ofn-preset-guides that lets you define your favorite guides sets and makes them available with a keyboard shortcut.
Comment: +1 - Thanks! I was not aware of the tools you mentioned having built-in guides. I will check out the plugin/extension you mentioned. Could be just what I need.


Animal Crossing New Leaf Random Time?

Question: I play animal crossing new leaf all the time, but for some reason, my game changed from october 2018 to september 2018. i lost an animal for something I didn't change, has anyone else seen this issue?
Comment: Did you check if the time was also changed on your 3DS ?
Answer: Yeah, that happened to my friend, if you haven't played in a while your time may have jumped forward or back. Or you maybe messed with your time to time travel before and never fixed it.

Animal Crossing New Leaf Random Time?


Can't Add Pokemon to Friendly Gym

Question: I leveled a friendly gym to level 8, which in turn opened up a slot for my Pokemon. When I went to add one of my own, the "Defend" button was nowhere to be found. I looked into the gym and it did in fact have a slot open. However, every time I tried to add, there was no button. I walked away and after about 10 minutes later, someone else added their Pokemon. Why is this?
Comment: Did you have a Pokémon already in said Gym?
Comment: No, I had just trained it up to level 8. After opening up the Pokemon slot, I couldn't add one of my own. I've never had this issue before and it may or may not just be a temporary glitch. I'm just not sure if Niantic changed something.
Comment: Well, maybe they changed something, there was a patch just now...or just normal desync.
Answer: There may be someone that beat you to adding a pokemon to the gym (or started viewing it before you). It's basically like a waiting list. When that person finishes their action, then it opens up for the next person. This is to prevent people that came to a gym after someone else was already trying to add one from stealing that gym spot.

Can't Add Pokemon to Friendly Gym


What is the name of the interval Db - D#?

Question: I know that D♭ - E♭ is a major second. What is the interval D♭ - D♯ called (and why)?
Comment: If you get a diminshed 3rd wrong and only count half steps you end up with the sound of a major second. @Stephen Hazel: That is what I meant with the "/" in the question is wrong because major second is not diminished third, even-though under special circumstances they sound the same.

Also, to correct your comment, A dimished third is not the same as the minor one. It is one step further.
C-E is major
C-Eb is minor
C-Ebb is diminished and may sound like C-D.

Leave the tuning aside, this is only remotely connected to tuning. It is orthography.
Comment: He wrote "diminished third", not minor. What is wrong is the "/". Those are different kind of intervals. If you leave out any other parameter, like volume and 'timbre', on a piano or similar tuned instrument the resulting sound is indeed the same. But this is never the case. Even on a piano, with its equal tuning, interpreters and analyst react different to an Eb than to a D#. These two notes have two different functions and the interpreter knows the difference and plays them different, with whatever possibilities his/her instrument has.
Comment: 1. why is a diminished 3rd equal to an "absolute interval" of 2 halfsteps?  Isn't a "regular 3rd" a major 3rd?  And diminishing it makes it equivalent to a minor 3rd doesn't it??

2. On an equal tempered piano, I can see Eb and and D# from different key signatures sounding "different" due to the key signature's tonic.  But they ARE the exact same sound, aren't they?
Answer: D-D is unison (or "prime")
Db-D or D-D# is augmented prime and Db-D# is a double augmented unison or prime.
P.S.
This is really something different than the enharmonic variants Db-Eb, but that was not the question.
Comment: Double-augmented unison is correct.
Comment: Correct, and unison/prime are interchangeable.
Comment: @ChipJust It's enharmonic to a major one, but a 2nd would be some kind of D to some kind of E.
Comment: Why wouldn't you just call it a whole step or 2nd?
Answer: Consider also the questioning of naming the unison an interval by italian music theorist Zarlino which I personally find very relevant (rather think of it as a point in geometry).

Equality is never found in consonances or intervals, and the unison is to the  musician what the point is to the geometer. A point is the beginning of a line, although, it is not itself a line. But a line is not composed of points, since a point has no length, width, or depth that can be extended, or joined to another point. So a unison is only the beginning of consonance or interval; it is neither consonance nor interval, for like the point it is incapable of extension.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unison
Comment: This argument is completely flawed. An interval is a distance so saying a unison isn't an interval is saying zero isn't a distance which is just wrong.
Comment: So what do you call it then? If it's harmonically a D at both ends, it has to be some kind of unison or you're not accurately describing it. Admittedly, finding a valid case where you actually need to think about an interval that goes from Db to D# is pretty unlikely!


Poker and a card shark

Question:
I am playing poker with three friends and from a well-shuffled deck we have each been dealt five cards. I have a hand consisting of the four kings and the two of hearts. Being a poker wizard I know exactly the probability that I have a winning hand.
But then I suddenly discover that earlier in the day the family's children were playing with the cards and fed six of them to their pet shark (but I don't know which). How does this information change the probability with which I believe my hand will beat my opponents? Why?

From http://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~rrw1/prob/exprob1.pdf
Comment: The real Questions should be... "Why do Children play with Pet Sharks?" And "Why do Sharks eat Cards?"
Comment: I'm sunk. In the original exposition it was a goat. I changed it to make the pun.
Comment: @TimCouwelier since he said they have been dealt 5 cards each, and says nothing about cards on the table…
Comment: Isn't the real question why the children have so many pet sharks that you don't even know which one they fed the cards to?
Comment: Question: What variation of poker is played? Like Texas Hold'em with cards open on the table, or all cards held in hands?
Comment: Yea I've made my answer based on that assumption.
Answer: It changes...

nothing at all. Since you have no information on the cards lost, it's just like putting six random cards at the bottom of the deck, which could be 'absorbed' by the shuffle.
Comment: But don't you think there's a good chance that the children fed ones that looked like people to the shark (I.e jacks and queens) ;-) ?
Comment: This is a valid observation; I can verify that it's common knowledge amongst Magic: the Gathering players that "mill" strategies don't work; That is to say, removing cards from the top of the opponent's deck nets you no "gain" on the opponent. This answer is an extension of that tried and true, proven logic. (There are exceptions to the "rule", but we all know that storm is broken)
Comment: @Kingrames To clarify, by "mill strategies don't work," you mean "milling doesn't predictably affect the distribution of the remaining deck" and not "milling isn't a viable strategy," right?
Comment: @MarkPeters That's a discussion for another site.
Comment: I've attempted a more elaborate proof.. alot of big numbers, to end up at some conclusion.
Comment: @Tim: Well, the only question is whether it changes your probability of winning. Since it's equivalent to moving the six cards to the bottom, it doesn't.
Comment: @acbabis I stand by my own opinion that milling is not a viable strategy but that is an opinion. mill strategies don't work for the reason that they don't affect the odds of the opponent drawing what they need (and in the case of dredge only ramp it up!), but that's another way to put it.
Comment: @Kingrames: I thought the point of the milling strategy was to exhaust the opponent's deck entirely?  i.e. a loss by not being able to draw a required card?
Answer: If your "Statistics intuition" is broken (like mine), here's a simpler example that might make it more clear.
I have a deck of 5 cards, numbered 1-5.  My single opponent and I each draw a card, and the higher card wins.
I've draw a 4!  My odds of winning, with a normal deck, are 75%, since the only card my opponent can win with is the 5.
Buuuut one of the cards has gone missing, and it could have been any card (other than the 4 I'm holding).
If the 5 is missing (25% chance), then I win automatically!  This is a higher probability than a normal deck.
If any other card is missing (75% chance), I have a 66% chance of winning.  This is a lower probability than a normal deck.
All told, my overall odds of winning are 25%(1) + 75%(0.66), or 75%.  The same.
It turns out that by removing a card, any gains I would get by eliminating winning hands (the 5, or a Royal Flush in the real example) are countered by the fact that I also have a chance to eliminate losing hands (the 1, or a Flush).
Answer: What follows below assumes a variation of poker is played with no cards visible on the table
Hands to which you lose given a full deck:

4 aces + random kicker
any straight flush

Given you have 5 cards, there's 47 left.
To get 4 aces + any random, chances are: 4/47 * 3/46 * 2/45 * 1/44 * 43/43 or
1.032/184.072.680
To get one particular straight flush, chances are:
5/47 * 4/46 * 3/45 * 2/44 * 1/45 = 120 / 184.072.680
There's 8 possible straight ranges (A-5 up to 8-Q) in 4 suits , so 32 possible straight flushes. We also need to scratch A-5 of hearts and 2-6 of hearts, so 30 options left.
Odds are now 3.600 / 184.072.680 you lose to a straight flush.
Total odds of losing to one particular friend: 4632 / 184.072.680 (approx 1/37739), odds of losing to either of the three = 13.896 / 184.072.680 (approx 1/12580)
Now assume you have 5 cards, but there's only 42 left
Chances for each option remaining are calculated in a similar way, but with 42 cards rather then 47:
4 Aces + random kicker = 4/42 * 3/41 * 2/40 * 1/39 * 38/38 = 912 / 102.080.160
Any of the 30 straight flushes = 30 * 5/42 * 4/41 * 3/40 * 2/39 * 1/38 = 3.600 / 102.080.160
This however assumes that all the required cards are left remaining. For each of the above options, the occurence rate should be multiplied with the chances that set is actually possible with the remaining cards, or: the odds none of the required cards have been taken out.
For the aces, we need the odds that none of the 4 aces were in the 5 cards taken out of the set of 47.
For the straight flushes, we need the odds that none of the 5 cards for a given straight flush were taken out of the set of 47.
To select 5 cards from a deck of 47, there are 47*46*45*44*43 =  184.072.680 combinations.
The amount of combinations that does NOT hold at least one of the 5 cards is 42 * 41 * 40 * 39 * 38 =  102.080.160
To select 5 cards from a deck of 47, the amount of combinations without a single ace being in them  is 43*42*41*40*39 = 115.511.760
Now if we multiply odds of hand beating us and odds of the hand being possible, and sum that over all hands:
Aces:
912 / 102.080.160 * 115.511.760 / 184.072.680 = 1032 / 184.072.600 (same as normal)
Straight flushes
3.600 / 102.080.160 * 102.080.160 / 184.072.680 =3600 / 184.072.680 (same as normal)
Total odds of losing to one particular friend: 4632 / 184.072.680 (approx 1/37739), odds of losing to either of the three = 13.896 / 184.072.680 (approx 1/12580)
LONG ANSWER SHORT: It's the exact same
Comment: The math is a lot easier actually. if we assume that there is a 1 in 47 chance that you lose (just to establish an arbitrary number, very high, but whatever), the odds of that one card being drawn against you does not change, whether it was eaten or not, because the odds of it being left in the deck are not subject to any non-random treatment.
Comment: I just wanted it written out without any intuïtive assumptions. While I agree the logic is 'right', I find it rather abstract.
Answer: Instead of feeding the cards to the shark, imagine you deal it in to the game. This doesn't change whether your hand is best among the human players.
Alternatively play in a casino but when it comes to burn a card, feed it to a shark. Obviously this makes no difference to the outcome of the game.
Answer: I don't know for real the math behind it, but take in consideration a few things:

Not many hands in poker win from 'KKKK2': I don't play 5 Cards Poker, but i guess , if it goes by the same winning principle that Holdem have , the only hands that could win against that are: 'AAAAX'(let X be a random card) , 'AKQJT'(all of the same kind, or Royal Straight Flush ) and Straight Flushes . That said, if you have the four kings in hand, nobody can make the 'AKQJT' combination . With that in mind , only 'AAAAX' and Straight Flushes < K  can beat you. In Texas Hold'em ( or 2 cards poker ) , the chance of making 'Four of a kind' is '4,164 : 1' or 0.0240% , and for Straight Flushes there are 0.0014% or 72,192 : 1 odds , which is even worse.
With that in mind, we can go to the second point:

We need to know what is the probability of one of those 6 cards being an ACE , which would make the 'AAAAX' combination impossible .  If you have a 52 cards deck, and remove 5( 'KKKK2' ) , there is 47 cards left. On those 47, what's the chance on the removal of 6 that one will be an ACE? Pretty low chance, lower than 0.0240% .

Going by the same principle that you can't make a combination if you don't have that card on the deck , we don't even need to recalculate the probability for straight flushes , because they're going to be even harder to get , so less than 0.0014% of chance.

Well , I don't know the probability for any of those cases , but at least it would make me confortable enough to go 'all-in' on that hand.
Thanks Tim Couwelier for the remind, i completely forgot about straight flushes.
Comment: Straight flush trumps four of a kind, not only a 'royal' flush.
Comment: The only question is whether it changes your probability of winning. Since it's equivalent to moving the six cards to the bottom, it doesn't.
Answer: This is a complicated (almost unanswerable) question as there is no known implementation of optimal strategy in Poker.
By seeing the cards that you know are not eaten (your cards + cards opened on the table), you get a list of cards of which you know for sure the 6 cards will be in. You will have to account for the probability of each card being missing in your strategy. As you keep playing many hands, you will eventually get to know which cards are missing.
Until then, you will even have to account for information that will be revealed in the future, and how this benefits you and the opponent right now and later on. For example, you will have a probability distribution of all cards and the probability of them being missing. You will also have a probability distribution of how each card opened is going to affect your and your opponent's position currently. You will then need to compute your and your opponent's future possible states with probabilities. In each of these possible scenarios (which number in billions and trillions), you will have to compute how new information that is assumed to be  revealed and that which is yet to be revealed affect your position in the game.
What is most interesting is that you may even have to take into account future hands, when playing a given hand. An extremely rare circumstance is that you would voluntarily give up the current hand and fold, so that your cards remain secret, and this will benefit you in all future hands.
As of today, I think this is all beyond our computation. Most humans will probably assume the deck is complete (until they know the missing cards), and computers will fare only slightly better.
Comment: The only question is whether it changes your probability of winning. Since it's equivalent to moving the six cards to the bottom, it doesn't.
Comment: @Deusovi Yes, it will slightly change your probability if you continue to employ the same strategy because you are not taking into account future hands, and your opponent is.
Comment: @Deusovi It might even improve your probability of winning the current hand at the cost of the probability of winning later hands.
Comment: As long as you don't get to the last 6, it makes no difference whether the last six cards are eaten or sitting on the bottom. And since you don't know which six cards they are, then it doesn't matter - the distribution is even, so it's just like a normal shuffle. Once you reshuffle though, I agree that it changes the probability - you can use information from the previous hands to figure out what cards might be missing. The question only asks about the current hand, though,
Comment: @Deusovi 1. They have not mentioned whether this is the only hand to be played. Hence I assumed it is not. 2. The cards may sit at the bottom but we don't know that. We will also consider the possibility that they do get missed out. 3. **For one hand only, your answer is perfectly fine.** If there is more than one hand to be played, the opponent will be willing to sacrifice the current hand marginally, if this improves his position in later hands.
Comment: @ghosts_in_the_code, the question is about whether the hand that he currently has (4 kings and the deuce of hearts) is a winning hand.  There is no mention of playing a new hand.
Comment: @Hellion Does that mean we assume there is no other hand to be played? Do we assume that the sole objective of both players is to win the current hand?
Comment: We don't assume anything about other hands, we just don't care about them except inasmuch as considering them would be an interesting extension.
Comment: @Zandar Ofcourse, we are making an assumption. We are making an assumption that both us and the opponent only care about winning the current hand, and do not care how this affects anything in the future/
Comment: The question doesn't ask how the missing cards affect your strategy or even your play on the current hand, though, only how they affect "the probability with which I believe my hand will beat my opponents". There's no assumption about other hands necessary to calculate that.
Comment: @Zandar If your opponent is more concerned with future hands, he may fold in the current hand as part of his long-term strategy. This guarantees a win in the current hand. (Probability has changed.)
Comment: Ah, okay. I'm pretty sure the question is intended to be about the odds of your hand being better than the others, but I can see how you'd read it as about winning the hand.
Answer: If the children fed random cards to the shark, and neither you nor your opponents know which ones, then the probabilities haven't changed.
If either you or one of your opponents know which cards were fed to the shark, that player would have an advantage; they could calculate more precisely what is the probability of winning or losing with the hand they have.
Same if the cards are not picked randomly: Whoever knows how to eaten cards were picked has the same advantage as before.

Poker and a card shark


Puppet directory sync does not delete absent files

Question: Repeating my question from SO.SE here ...
I'm trying to have my configs directory (on Windows server 2016 node) to be synced from puppet master (puppet --version = 5.5.3) modules folder: I have my desired structure repeated under module/files. This:
file { "c:\\":
        ensure => directory,
        recurse => remote,
        source => "puppet:///modules/configs"
        }

works for files that exist in source dir, but does not delete files that are deleted from source (from docs I understood that it should) also I tried:
file { "c:\\":
        ensure => directory,
        recurse => true,
        purge => true,
        source => "puppet:///modules/configs"
        }

but then I get an error:

Error: /Stage[main]/Main/Node[nodename]/File[c:]: Failed to generate additional resources using 'eval_generate': CreateF
  ile(c:/Documents and Settings, 20000000000, 1, , 3, 210000000, 0):  Access is denied.

I was not able to find even descent source telling possible cause for the error; Access denied makes no sense as puppet agent runs with system privileges and should be able to access every path, also script should have nothing to do with c:/Documents and Settings path to my understanding.
Any help to solve this?
Comment: According to https://tickets.puppetlabs.com/browse/PUP-4759 the issue seems to be solved.
Comment: Thanks! Not actual anymore - I don't work on that project already for more than half a year - don't even have puppet installation to test this :)
Answer: According to https://tickets.puppetlabs.com/browse/PUP-4759 the issue seems to be solved.


MAC security using encryption

Question: If a message $M$ contains $n$ message blocks and I XOR the message blocks and encrypt the result using AES, can i use the resulting cipher-text as MAC? is it a good design or bad one?
Answer: TL;DR: It is a bad one.
Proof:
Consider a message $m$ such that $m = M_1 || M_2 || \ldots || M_n$ where $||$ is the concatenation and $M_{1..n}$ are of the same size (typically here 128 bits) and let your MAC be
$$
\begin{align}
MAC(M) &= AES( M_1 \oplus M_2 \oplus \ldots \oplus M_n)\\&=
AES(\bigoplus_{i=1}^n M_i)
\end{align}$$.
We have a forgery if we can find $M$ and $M'$ such that $MAC(M) = MAC(M')$.
Consider:
$$M \;= M_1 || M_2 || \ldots || M_n$$
and
$$M' = M'_1 || M'_2 || \ldots || M_n$$
where $M'_1 = M_1 \oplus 1$ and $M'_2 = M_2 \oplus 1$
Thus:
$$
\begin{align}
MAC(M') &= AES( M_1 \oplus 1  \oplus M_2  \oplus 1 \oplus \ldots \oplus M_n)\\
&= AES( M_1 \oplus M_2 \oplus \ldots \oplus M_n)\\
&= MAC(M)
\end{align}$$
With this I created a forgery $M'$ of $M$ which would still have the same MAC. $\square$
Remark:
You don't even need the key used for the AES encryption to create the forgery.
Answer: This is not a secure MAC. For example, when this is used to authenticate an unencrypted string (which is something a secure MAC should be capable of), it is trivial to craft a message of which the XOR of all the blocks is the same as for legitimate message (that XOR value by itself, for example). In that case, the legitimate 'MAC' can be attached to the crafted message and the validation will succeed.

MAC security using encryption


If I download Steam on Ubuntu, does that mean I can play any game I get on steam ON ubuntu?

Question: This question may or may not be very stupid, as I am kind of ignorant when it comes to computers.  My friend has convinced me to switch to Linux, and I'm trying to figure out how I can game on it.
Comment: You can play any game that is linux-compatible that you have bought or is free.
Comment: is that basically your question?
Answer: Any game? No.
From the native Linux client you can only play the games that have Linux releases. In my case this is 86/182 games. Those that are there work well but if you're curious about any one game, go to its Steam page and that should tell you if it has a Linux release or not.
For the others you can install the Windows version of Steam under Wine. This is a compatibility layer which will allow you to play most things. Sometimes with some kicking and screaming, sometimes not at all.
Edit: Linux games in my library has gone from 86/182 to 129/230 in the 6 months since I wrote this. There are many more out there that I don't yet own.
Answer: If you download Steam, and install it, and log into your Steam account, you can play any Linux-compatible games on Ubuntu.
There are games that are Linux-compatible, and you will be restrained to playing those.
You also only be able to play games that you buy or are free, but I am assuming you already know that.
There are many games on steam that won't work on Linux, but also there are many that will.
You can browse Linux-compatible steam games here: http://store.steampowered.com/browse/linux/


What are .deb and .rpm and how are they different from .msi?

Question: What are these file formats and how do they differ from the .msi format in Windows? Also what are the pros and cons of these package management schemes?
Comment: note: asking "what are the pros and cons of rpm vs deb/dpkg" elsewhere on the internet carries with it the possibility of inciting a flame war.
Comment: .deb and .rpm are more similar to .msi than to .exe.
Answer: Files such as .deb and .rpm are more akin to a .zip file. They're a directory tree of files and sub-directories that contain files related to a particular application and/or library of files.
Distros
The .deb files are meant for distributions of Linux that derive from Debian (Ubuntu, Linux Mint, etc.). The .rpm files are used primarily by distributions that derive from  Redhat based distros (Fedora, CentOS, RHEL) as well as by the openSuSE distro.
What's special about them?
These files have one other special trait that sets them apart from .zip files, in that they can include a specification that contains rules that tell the package manager software running on a system that's installing one of these files to do additional tasks. These tasks would include things such as:

creating user accounts on the system
creating/modifying configuration files that aren't actually contained in the .deb or .rpm file
set ownership/permissions on the files after installation
run commands as root on the system that's installing the package
dependencies, both formats can include names or packages and/or service names that they require to be present on a system, prior to installation.

What about .msi files?
.msi files are similar to .deb & .rpm files but likely even more sophisticated. The .msi files are utilized by the Windows Installer and offer additional features such as:

GUI Framework
generation of uninstall sequences
A framework within itself - for use by 3rd party installers
Rollbacks
Advertisement
User Interface
etc.

I'd suggest taking a look at the various Wikipedia pages on these subjects if you want a more in-depth explanation.
References

Windows Installer - .msi
RPM file format
DEB file format
Comment: Since the answer starts with "Files such as .deb and .rpm are more akin to a .zip file" it might be worth mentioning that deb packages are actually `ar` archives, and rpms are (possibly in part) cpio archives. In the case of debs it is easy to verify that a deb can be unpacked with `ar -x`. In the case of rpm I don't know if this is possible.
Comment: @FaheemMitha: `rpm2cpio package.rpm | cpio -idv`
Comment: @ninjalj - thanks I forgot to add that command. I've used it to unpack rpms when I only wanted a file or two out of them. Usually the .spec files.
Comment: @ninjalj Thanks, I didn't know that one.
Answer: The other answers touch upon qualities of .deb and .rpm that are similar to .msi.  They all contain software in a compressed format that can do some extra things.  Those extra things already mentioned included adding users, pre- and post-install tasks, registering the program with the system (e.g. windows registry, xdg-dirs, OpenRC/systemd init, etc).
What differentiates the formats (and is a huge pro) is dependencies.  Both .deb and .rpm files can and do list names and versions of other programs that must be installed as pre-requisite software.  By themselves, this is just informational, but...
You typically do not directly interact with .deb and .rpm files the way you do with .msi files. In fact, as alluded to earlier, a .deb is typically just an archive (ar or tar) compressed with xz with the contained files in a specific directory layout.  Instead you use tools like dpkg and rpm to manipulate these files.
dpkg and rpm will install the contents of .deb and .rpm files and verify all pre-requisite software is installed.  Running these programs is similar to clicking on a .msi file.  Users however, do not typically interact with dpkg or rpm but instead use apt-get and yum to install packages.  These tools do not have exact analogs on windows.
Both apt-get and yum are able to fetch files from remote (or local) repositories and use the dependency information stored in the .deb and .rpm files to fetch and install any pre-requisites not met. With these tools I do not need to know or worry about what other software I need, I can just specify apt-get install chromium and know that apt-get will make sure I have gtk+, alsa, certain X libraries, etc installed without me having to manually find and install those .deb and .rpm files.
apt-get and yum are the big two package managers, you'll also find emerge and pacman out there, which do the same jobs although with different underlying mechanisms.
Comment: +1 for talking about dependency management.  This should not be overlooked.
Comment: @strugee true, I've edited to reflect that. Also techically, portage is package management engine behind `emerge` and it is very similar to ports.  It is all source based and very configurable, but if a command will install/uninstall, handle dependencies and keep a database of installed packages, I'll call it a package manager.  Good comments.
Comment: note: I believe `.deb`s are packaged using the `ar` utility. no idea why.
Comment: also, if you're going to count `emerge` as a package manager, maybe you should also consider BSD ports (although I don't know much about them, so I'm not sure if they have the equivalent of a package manager on GNU/Linux).
Comment: @casey : Where can i get more information about the underlying mechanisms of dpkg and rpm?
Answer: It has quite the same functionalities as an MSI file under Windows :

it registers the software in a registry,
it registers which files have been installed with that package.

Under Linux, they also manage dependencies between other packages.
This package managment formats do many other things, but this is the main functionalities.
Answer: .rpm files are RPM packages, which refer to the package type used by Red Hat and Red Hat-derived distros (e.g. Fedora, RHEL, CentOS). .deb files are DEB packages, which are the package type used by Debian and Debian-derivatives (e.g. Debian, Ubuntu).
When downloaded, they are typically installed via the rpm and dpkg commands respectively on the relevant distros. In other words, they are files that are installed by rpm and dpkg rather than .msi or .exe setup files which are executables that install themselves.
RPM and DEB packages differ from MSI in multiple ways.

As above, they are files that require other tools (i.e. rpm and dpkg) to install.
When installed, they are added to a database, which is not the case in MSI files. MSI files list the program in the registry, but an uninstall by Control Panel is unlikely to completely remove all installed files from disk. Thus, when RPM and DEB packages are uninstalled, all files are removed cleanly.
They are typically not downloaded and installed directly, but through package managers like yum and aptitude respectively - there are so-called repositories that offer packages compiled for the relevant system, and the package manager will install all dependencies automatically from data in the repositories.
Installed packages typically run several configuration tools, for example if you install GDM on a system already installed with LightDM, the tools ask if you would prefer to use GDM of LightDM.
When installing packages, other than dependencies some packages are suggested, which show packages not required but may be useful to the user.
Answer: Both .deb and .rpm are Software packages for GNU/Linux Distributions, containing software (program(s), application(s), etc.) and  information for the "*installer *" software about the software itself and instructions  about how to install what and where correctly.

.deb → Debian Software Package, on Debian (based) Distributions. Installed through e.g. apt/aptitude (Command line), or graphically via e.g. "Synaptic" "Ubuntu Software Center", "Gdebi", …
.rpm → Red Hat Package Manager: in Fedora / Red Hat (based) Linux Distributions. Installed via e.g. yum (command line), or graphically via e.g. "yumex"
.msi is → Microsoft Installer: Quite the same as above, for Microsoft Windows OS

The installers themselves can also handle maintenance, updating and/or removal of packages. Also: here, "installer" means the software to accomplish this tasks correctly – it also provides the mentioned information for user itself, of course, to accomplish such tasks manually.
Comment: PackageKit isn't an application. it's an abstraction library for the different package managers across distributions.
Comment: @strugee dang, thought this was the name. I really hope `yumex` is the right name… thanks for the hint
Comment: I believe the default on Fedora is GNOME Software.
Comment: @strugee I tried Fedora for a while, used LXDE and remembered a graphical front-end for package management, but the name was… I guess, whatever works and suits one's desires best :)
Answer: .deb: Debian package used for Debian-based Linux distros such as Ubuntu, Linux Mint etc.
.rpm: rpm installer for Red Hat-based Linux distros such as RHEL, Fedora and CentOS
.msi: Binary installer for Windows platform
Comment: Update: edited to remove that implication
Comment: welcome to Stack Exchange! an explanation of why you've been downvoted: I'm not one of the two people who downvoted, but my guess is that they did so because you're implying that Debian and/or Ubuntu aren't GNU/Linuxes, and that's false. they are. (and there are a lot more distributions than just Debian, Ubuntu and Fedora.) also, you didn't really explain anything.
Comment: I guess the downvotes are really for just giving a one line description of what the file means, not the actual explanation of how these packages are different from each other. Have a look at the selected answer here, that is the kind of quality they expect from answers :)


New Playlists aren't transferring to iPhone

Question: Every time I make a new playlist on my computer, then sync my iPhone to my computer, the playlists never appear on my iPhone.
Answer: Check to make sure that your entire library is set to sync to your phone. In iTunes, connect to your phone, select the Music tab across the top, then verify that Sync Music is enabled and the Entire Music Library radio box is selected. This allow all playlists that you create on your computer to sync to your phone.
Note that you must sync in order for playlists to transfer - after they have been created.


Phising in Outlook for Windows Vista

Question: Somehow, some of the emails I send are marked as "phishing" by Outlook in Windows Vista. Can you point me to resources that describe how this works? I'm not phishing and I do not understand what triggers this behavior.
Answer: usually it happens if your links do not appear to be the same as the text they are made with. Such as a Bank One text being linked to an IP address. If there are a lot of links, and especially IP addresses, this can happen. Also, any hidden tags or any extra HTML that doesn't appear to be doing anything can do this. Another idea is if there are lots of images.
But, like Martynas said, posting the emails that are marked as phishing would help us better diagnose it.
Also note, some email newsletters and such sent my Microsoft from Microsoft.com are marked as phishing, too. So it's not just you.
Answer: it would help if you pasted your message here.. It is difficult to say, but maybe you have some hidden links for example that might trigger such behaviour.
m

Phising in Outlook for Windows Vista


Shorter version of The Merchant of Venice for school play

Question: İs there any short version of the The Merchant of Venice to play?
We are going to play it in our class but the problem is that the story is too long and we don't have enough time for all of it. I need a good short version of it. Thanks for helping!
Comment: Stack Exchange xoş gəlmisiniz! :-) This question is hovering on the edge of our site scope: [recommendation requests are off-topic](https://literature.meta.stackexchange.com/q/2/17), but your question is about versions of a specific story, so it might be OK. A good search term to use when hunting for short versions is "**abridged**" - e.g. maybe [this](https://www.amazon.com/Merchant-Venice-Abridged-Performance-Shakespeare/dp/1517582873) is what you're looking for?
Answer: There is a shorter version of The Merchant of Venice by K.J. O'Hara, who has been Artistic Director of the Antic Mind Theatre Company and an English and drama teacher. The Merchant of Venice: Abridged for Schools and Performance was published by CreateSpace (Amazon's publishing platform) in 2015.
The goal of the abridgement was to create a version that would be more accessible to a younger audience while still retaining the play's essential elements. In the resulting version,

the plot is coherent, characters are developed and all the text is original. (...) The abridgement required only one shorter scene to be removed in its entirety; the main revisions have been to cut extraneous dialogue from scenes. This was done partially to allow the play to be performed by a small cast and partially to make it more streamlined and, therefore, easier for a young audience to understand and follow.

(The scene that was cut is not specified, but it is one of the scenes in Act III, which normally has five scenes instead of four.)
The play is also available in the volume Abridged Shakespeare Collection: For Schools and Performance, which also contains Twelfth Night, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Romeo and Juliet.


How to determine the amount of fish that can live in a pond?

Question: How many fish can live in a pond? As ponds are normally not the natural habitat of the fish that live in them (ie: goldfish, kois and sturgeons in my case), how do I determine how much is too much or what can be considered a species-appropriate number?
Comment: I'm sure it all depends on the following factors: - Growth Span of Species;
- Amount of Water in pond, for Oxygen Levels. This is my opinion but I'm convinced these are major factors.
Answer: A few points to note before we get down to actual numbers:

With all types of fishkeeping, it is better to understock than overstock. Extra space is not a problem, so to ensure happy, healthy fish, err on the smaller size. Your fish may even reproduce, which could be a problem if you have stocked the pond to its maximum.
Do not add all your fish in the first stocking of your pond. It is recommended you add the stock in small batches, in case there are problems. In other words, add 3-4 fish (scale up if you have a larger pond), wait and see if they are okay, then add more a few at a time.
Different fish have different requirements. Koi are specialised fish and will need more space in a pond than goldfish.

When determining how many fish your pond can hold, both the surface area and volume of the pond are important. The surface is where oxygen transfer happens, so a deep pond with a small surface area will be able to hold less fish than a one with the same volume which has more balanced proportions. However, volume is also a factor: a pond that is too shallow can cramp the fish and not give them enough room to swim. Koi should not be kept in a pond that is less than 1 m deep.
This careguide suggests you allow 1 inch (2.5 cm) of fish per square foot of surface area. This other careguide from the same company suggests allowing 1 inch (2.5 cm) of fish for every 13 US gallons (50 litres) of water. Personally, I would compute the number of fish using my pond's surface area, then again using the volume, and use the smaller of the two numbers (or close to it).
Good filtration and water features could allow you to increase the fish capacity by up to double the (surface area) guideline above. Having more filtration will increase the number of fish you can keep because it will make the water cleaner as waste will be eliminated more promptly; water features will increase it because the water will get more oxygenated as the water bubbles and splashes around. However, these will only work up to a point - fish still need a certain amount of space no matter the cleanliness and oxygenation of the water.
As an alternative way of thinking about it, here is how the above careguide describes the different pond sizes. The measurements are US gallons.

1 to 5 gallon (3.8 to 19 liters) ponds – offer a carefree way to enjoy small water plants up close.
20 to 40 gallon (76 to 150 liters) ponds – get your feet wet. Provide a serene area for you to enjoy
small to medium sized pond plants. You can also have a small pump and maybe even
a goldfish. Even better – they're easy to maintain.
50 to 500 gallon (190 to 1900 liters) ponds – a great place to start, not a big commitment. However,
once you discover your enthusiasm for pond keeping, it won't be long before you're
making plans to expand.
500 to 3000 gallon (1900 to 11400 liters) ponds – This size will allow you to keep fish and a large variety
of pond plants. Consider location, filtration and the number of plants and fish that
you want to keep when planning your pond.
3,000 gallon (11400 liters) ponds and over - many people find water gardening and fish keeping
to be the hobby of their dreams and will invest the time and money to get the
maximum enjoyment out of their water garden. With water gardening, the only limit
is your imagination.

If you are interested in larger ponds or lakes, there is a guide here on how many fish to populate your lake with. It's probably outside the scope of pet keeping but might be interesting as further reading. (Bear in mind that bigger ponds can tolerate much more variance, so I wouldn't advise using those figures and "dividing down" for a smaller volume.)
Answer: As commented , it is all about the oxygen , mostly. The conditions and the fish will also determine the population. I have had 5 each 20" koi , when they spawn a few young often survive without help. Thousands of koi survive with help ( like a second pond). Live bearers will "fill" the pond ( mollies, platies, etc). My current 800 gal pond has a few hundred giant and zebra danios as my arrangement permits them to breed. Koi are very vegetarian and do not eat ( many ?) of the small fish. Never heard of sturgeon in a home size pond. So the number is very flexible .
Comment: Are you able to add some sources to help back up your answer?
Comment: Not much; A photo would show the Koi, but the danios and mollies are difficult to see from the top , and there is no way to look at mollies and danios that I have in aquariums and know they came from the pond.


Link to view all possible badges on the site

Question: It seems that with a user interface update, we no longer have a link to view all possible badges available on the site. The only way to view the possible badges seems to now be to click on a badge I have earned, then click on the badges link to the right of the page. It seems that this link should be more accessible.
Answer: If you go to the Help Center and search for "badges", you'll find the "What are badges?" page, which links to the complete list of badges. Hope that helps!


Using a Huawei 366 broadband stick with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 64bit and getting a faster connection than GSM

Question: I am using Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 64bit and a Huawei 366 broadband USB datastick. I can access the internet after manually turning it on from the menu, in 10.04 LTS I had it running automatically, but for some reason despite being in a 4G area, I get a connected to the gsm network message. Is there a way to get it to search for the faster network. I have already selected 3G preferred in connection settings.
thanks
Answer: Get this deb (but before you do browse the website to make sure it solves your problem and I'm not sure if it runs on 64 bit), http://mwconn.net/download_ixconn.html , then sudo dpkg -i ixconn.deb  then sudo apt-get install -f to satisfy the dependencies (if any) .
On the first run you'll be required to configure  , follow the instructions then go to network tab type in your APN, go to connection tab and check all in "Automaticlly" , go to monitoring then set "Display connection errors" to 0 and "Connection error tolerance" all to 0, on their website they say:
Please note: To allow a user to connect to the Internet, you may want to give him/her the necessary access rights. To do so, open System→System Administration→User and group accounts, then click on the key ring, select  the user, klick on settings and check the two list entries whose names include the word "modem". logout then back in.
For this you'll need gnome system tools, why canonical removed it in precise is beyond me so we do :
sudo apt-get install gnome-system-tools
Now run ixconn and right click on the window and make sure "UMTS only" and "Connect automaticly" are checked.
If it connects to the internet but you cant browse the net , then one last thing you'll need to do is edit your resolv.conf file , back it up before editing. sudo gedit /etc/resolv.conf , change the nameserver to 188.8.131.52 or if you prefer opendns or what ever dns you use.
# Generated by NetworkManager
nameserver 188.8.131.52


TV wall mount problem. (Studs too far apart)

Question: I bought a full motion wall mount to fix 49" tv to wall. Instructions for mount specify must be fixed to studs. Studs are too far apart where I want it to go. Is there a safe way to fix or should I start looking for another place to hang tv?
Answer: The best way to deal with this problem is to first mount a suitable piece of 3/4" plywood on the wall such that it spans to studs where it can be securely attached. The TV mount can then be mounted to the plywood using suitable screws that go into properly sized pilot holes. Note that face screwing into the plywood provides an excellent and strong mount point.
You may want to paint the plywood with primer and then a color to match the wall before affixing the TV mount.
Note that if the far distance of the stud spacing is due to trying to mount the TV over a fireplace then you should totally reconsider mounting the TV there. The main issue being that the best ergonomic placement of the TV is to locate it at eye level when you are sitting in front of it. Having to look up at the TV, even if it is tilted downwards, is a pain in the neck. (literally!). There is also consideration of what heat from a fireplace may do the sensitive electronics and plastics of the TV unit.
Comment: The whole point of the answer that I posted was about having the 3/4 inch plywood large enough to be 1) larger than the TV bracket and 2) extend across at least two if not three studs 3) the plywood securely screwed into those studs with multiple strong screws at each stud and finally 4) mount the TV bracket to said plywood noting that with proper screws the plywood will be very good at holding the bracket. The bracket has plenty of holes so use more screws as opposed to less and there should be no need to try to get one end of the bracket bolted into the stud too.
Comment: Thanks. Should I fix so that one side of mount is attached to stud for safety?
Comment: Thanks Michael. I'm just so paranoid about wrecking it now I've finally bought a tv and the instructions were very clear about fixing to studs. Bunnings here I come!
Comment: It's been awhile. How did the project go, Bee?
Answer: Simple fix...Go to your nearest Lowes and buy theses commercial toggles...
these are the only ones I use on Stone fireplace tv mounting but work great with sheetrock. They hold up to 280lbs per toggle. However they are expensive.
Comment: Hang it anywhere you want


Is Teemo better as an AP, AD, or Hybrid?

Question: Is Teemo better AP, AD, or Hybrid for a support teemo? I have wanted to try and play him as a support shroomer. As a support teemo would I want to get 40% CDR?
Comment: There's also a Debuffy build, isn't it? With madred, malady, etc.
Answer: I've tried AP build, AD build and also Hybrid for Teemo but unfortunately not a support role.
The AP build is just pure awesome to see your shrooms(/eggs or whatever skin you use) do over 1000 damage over (late game) and you're probably going to get a lot of QQ from other players about KS:ing when the enemies run across 1 of your shrooms. Through the entire game you're very squishy thou, so be sure to have some shrooms at your expected escape route.
The AD build with the % lifesteal you have is just sick, but early game you have to really play defensively.
The hybrid spec is as the above, pretty squishy early game if not played correctly, but the fast paste shots with the dot from Toxic Shot can't help to make you smile when you catch a squishy opponent.
Answer: Teemo with high focus on AP can and will be very dangerous if the player can predict some paths the enemy team will take. Some good placement of shrooms can be devestating for the enemy team since they will do massive damage. Although Teemo is very squishy and dosen't have that much "support" abilitys but it can work really good. Also 40% CDR isn't nessecary from my experience, 20% is enough ( Each to their own )
Answer: I play him this way:

Boots of Swiftness
Wriggles
Wit's End
Madres Bloodrazor
Guinsoo Ragablade

OR

Hextech Gunblade
Ranbandon's Deathcap
Rylai's Crystal Scepter
Nashor's tooth
Madred's bloodrazor/Frozen mallet

Or play with different items every time to see what suits you (your playstyle) the most. You may define his role according to the items I propose.
Answer: Teemo is most certainly a hybrid works best with Atk speed and Ad mostly Wit' end, Frozen mallet and some ap will not hurt the little fury bastard where items like malady hex tech gun blade will benefit him well....
Answer: As support Teemo, yeah, max CDR and AP are fantastic. Your enemies will be quickly frustrated and lose their edge. At least in my experience! :D Have fun!
Answer: As far as support champions go teemo is not the best choice, but if used in that role. I would get CDR and attack speed (Wits End). Other items depend on your team comp and enemy comp.
Answer: Hybrid teemo is more usefull, in my opinion because he can do sustained damage throughout the fight, and if you build mallet you can be really tanky and kite easily.
Answer: This is a matter of opinion but that is the intention of the question in the first place.  I like attack speed on-hit teemo.  Teemo is a far too hated champ that has global taunt.  The entire enemy team will begin running through the entire map to kill you or try to after running over a few of your mushrooms.  Sometimes, they'll do it even if they don't walk over the mushrooms due to personal trauma from previous encounters against teemo.  The most important thing is to not die, which means any of the builds that tries emphasizing damage is the wrong build.  Tanky teemo with frozen mallet works well.
Answer: attack speed, frozen mallet, and bloodrazor work out really well, also a build used by one of the best teemos in the world, TheRainMan. guide http://www.solomid.net/guides.php?g=658
Answer: 1 word. Scaling , He has so much damage as AP user. Plus teemo's late game as a AD , is cancer . you put someone with a range like vaynes in team fight and can't make a huge impact other than blind 1 person , he has 0 cc escapes which is why he's preferred to be used as an AP


How do I choose a furnace airfilter?

Question: I have a furnace/air-conditioner that can support filters of various thicknesses: 1", 2", or 4".  Filters are available in various MERV ratings.  How should I decide which filter to use?
Comment: There is also this related question: http://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/640/how-often-should-the-air-filter-in-the-furnace-be-changed
Answer: Depends a bit on your furnace.  If you have someone that services your furnace, ask them.
I used to use a pleated filter with a high MERV value.  The second time my furnace broke when it was well below 0 degrees, I spent some time talking with the service man.  Apparently the type of furnace I have does not draw air through these filters as well as it should.  This causes this part to burn out.
I now use the filters that are fiberglass screens and no longer have the problem.
Answer: if you refer to the "Microparticle Performance Rating", such as the difference between
red Filtrete and purple Filtrete (and there are cheaper or more expensive then these 2), then I would say that it depends on:
1. do you have pets?
2. does anyone in your family get allergies, especially when you turn the heat/ac on?
If yes to both, go with higher filter. If no, go with a lower one.
One thing I do is in the winter, I start with the cheapest (about $3, 1") filter. Since in the first month, most of the big junk will get into the filter (junk waiting all summer to get sucked into the vent). After the first month of heavy use, maybe 2, I switch to a slightly more expensive one (usually the Red). I have no pets.
Comment: This is an air-conditioner as well, so it gets used in the summer months too.  (And given the climate in my case, more during the summer than in the winter.)  Question updated to hopefully clarify.

How do I choose a furnace airfilter?


Why was Robb's sword across his knees?

Question: In Chapter 24 of AGOT, when Robb Stark greets Tyrion Lannister and some men of the Night's Watch:

His sword was across his knees, the steel bare of all the world to see.

Why did he do this?
Answer: Per http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/Concordance/Section/2.3./ (10th bullet)

"A lord with a bared sword across his knees is making a traditional sign that he is denying guest right".

So it goes beyond Tyrion being unwelcome, Robb is explicitly signaling that Tyrion will not be allowed to stay and even that Tyrion may not be safe at Winterfell.
After Tyrion presents his plans for Bran's saddle,

Robb Stark finally sheathed his sword. "I may have been hasty with you ... The hospitality of Winterfell is yours if you wish it, Lannister."

(Emphasis mine)
Comment: Interesting, but is denying guest right anywhere in the books?
Comment: Kind of like why some people open carry at the local Chili's - make a statement, with a bit of intimidation thrown in.
Answer: I think it is rather clear from the Wiki page you have cited:
"Even Bran knows what it means to greet a guest with an unsheathed sword and can feel the hostility in the room."  Robb is making it very clear to Tyrion, that he is not welcome.
On second thought, this could also be a foreshadowing of the events of

 the Red Wedding. The Starks are buried in the crypt below Winterfell, and each grave is covered by a statue of the person sitting with a real sword across his lap. This also evokes Bran and Rickon's escape from Winterfell with the swords from the crypt, after the castle is burned.
Comment: i think the paragraph of bran knowing what this means also stands in the book...
Comment: Interesting idea about the foreshadowing, though I'm not so sure about the second part there.
Answer: George R. R. Martin was asked this and explained that he was denying Tyrion guest right.

Another subject was guest rights. He mentioned the time the Tyrion came to Winterfell and Robb met him with bare steel across his lap. That meant that there was no guest rights for Tyrion.
So Spake Martin, ARCHON MEETING (OCTOBER 5-7)

Guest right in the Seven Kingdoms isn't really adhered to too much nowadays except in the North and the true North. It states that no harm shall come to the guest.

One notable custom that the Northmen hold dearer than any other is guest right, the tradition of hospitality by which a man may offer no harm to a guest beneath his roof, nor a guest to his host. The Andals held to something like it as well, but it looms less large in southron minds. In his text Justice and Injustice in the North: Judgments of Three Stark Lords, Maester Egbert notes that crimes in the North in which guest right was violated were rare but were invariably treated as harshly as the direst of treasons. Only kinslaying is deemed as sinful as the violations of these laws of hospitality.
The World of Ice and Fire, The North

So although he's not telling Tyrion he can't stay at Winterfell he his telling him he will not be protected during his stay there.

Why was Robb's sword across his knees?


Why does autoload/myplugin.vim get sourced?

Question: I noticed that when functions in plugin/myplugin.vim are named using the autoload convention, function! myplugin#myfunction(), the file autoload/myplugin.vim gets sourced on vim startup, even though no function of that file is ever called during the startup process. This happens for example with vim-peekaboo. Changing the functions peekaboo#{on,off} to e.g. Peekaboo_{on,off} fixes the issue, but I was wondering whether this was documented behavior? Also, is there a canonical way of naming functions in plugin/myplugin.vim?
Comment: Yes this is documented; this is how autoloaded functions work. Any function with that type of name causes autoload files to be searched and possibly sourced. I dont tend to put many functions in plugin.
Comment: Thanks, but wouldn't you expect vim to check first whether the function is already defined?
Comment: Read the section on autoloading-functions
Comment: It says the following (emphasis mine): When such a function is called, **and it is not defined yet**, Vim will search the "autoload" directories in
 runtimepath' for a script file called "filename.vim". Or am I missing something?
Comment: Perhaps the function definition causes vim to check if such a function is defined? Particularly if using `function!`
Comment: Ah, that might be the explanation, thank you.
Answer: Untested, but my theory is that during startup the definition of a function (particularly using function!) causes vim to check if a function by that name is defined, and this in turn causes the autoload search.
Feedback from contributors to vim would be welcome, in order to decide whether this is a bug or a feature.


What does the Flashback malware do?

Question: There was a question about removing the Flashback malware from your OS X machine, but I'm still not clear on what it does. What exactly does the Flashback malware do once it is installed on your Mac?
Comment: This is an excellent question. I was unfortunately hit with this one (surprising as I am "Mr. Security" in my circle of friends) and scoured the net to go hunting down how big a threat this was (and what kind of information it leaked back to the nefarious authors). I'll put in a pin in this one and provide my findings for you.
Comment: Makes every1 freak out and bog down their macs with anti virus that makes their mac run slower than if they just got the malware lol
Comment: You can get a very detailed and technical answer from Kaspersky: **[Part 1, The anatomy of Flashfake](https://www.securelist.com/en/analysis/204792227/The_anatomy_of_Flashfake_Part_1)**
Answer: From Wikipedia:

The Trojan [FlashBack] targets a Java vulnerability on Mac OS X. The system is
  infected after the user is redirected to a compromised bogus site,
  where JavaScript code causes an applet containing an exploit to load.
  An executable file is saved on the local machine, which is used to
  download and run malicious code from a remote location. The malware
  also switches between various servers for optimised load balancing.
  Each bot is given a unique ID that is sent to the control server.. The
  trojan, however, will only infect the user visiting the infected web
  page, meaning other users on the computer are not infected unless
  their user accounts have been infected separately, this is due to the
  UNIX security system.

For a lengthier, more technical description, read this F-Secure article.
Comment: Not sure why this was voted down, it does answer the question...
Answer: It means someone has bypassed the security on your Mac and can install new programs, steal data like passwords, banking web site locations and perhaps other sensitive personal emails and information.
It also means then can install other software on your Mac if it connects to the Internet to further do similar acts of I'll repute.
Lastly, it could crash your Mac if the program has logic errors or was not thoroughly tested.

If you are really interested in this subject, here are some links I have found to be helpful to understand the problem. The program itself is clearly quite sophisticated and will try to install itself as an admin process (total control) and if it cannot escalate itself to the equivalent of root access, will still install itself as a user level process and work with your files, but not the whole machine's data.
The company, Intego, that first reported this exploit has a established good record for providing balanced reports and assessments of the risks of Mac malware. It was specifically designed to grab passwords and although reports of mitigation efforts have surely lessened the brunt of the damage, I believe it's folly to assume all variants of the "flashback" trojan are completely neutralized or even detected perfectly.
What is always worrisome is when a trojan successfully has gotten control of a computer and can check in with other computers to download new instructions, the sky is the limit as to what can be done if the program is undetected and the people running it have a chance to make money from exploiting personal information, passwords or just driving traffic to sites that they receive compensation from legitimate and networks like Google and others.
Additional reading:

http://www.macworld.com/article/1166622/symantec_flashback_malware_netted_upwards_of_10000_a_day.html
http://www.macworld.com/article/1165534/intego_finds_new_insidious_strain_of_mac_flashback_trojan_horse.html

I don't mean to cause undue alarm, but this program not only was caught steering search results to pay click revenue on a massive scale but also did a good job of attempting to collect passwords from macs that were compromised before countermeasures were deployed.
Answer: the short answer is that it did nothing,  the long answer is The malicious servers were not "turned on" as of the date of the OP question.  they were not "turned on" to push anything towards the botnet, or towards the infected machines.
if they are turned on today.. or when ever someone reads this,  they will still not be able to do anything, because the number of machines infected was exaggerated in the first place by "estimates", (which is why it was not "turned on",  it didn't have enough)    and what ever the real number was,  it is now down to such a small number that the effectiveness of the botnet,  (which was set up to do a Denial of service type of attack)  is completely non effective as a DNS..  so it did and does, and will do nothing....
malware can also try and steal passwords or user logins...  what people fail to tell you is that the app that would have to be downloaded to do that is extremely complex, and also not actually done here. (none of the applets you hear about that it "installed" did this) (nor could it in reality)
there has been a lot of mis-information passed off about this...  including the "estimates" of infection..  done by a Russian security firm...  (the mis-information is mainly done to hype security products and brand names to try and get people to spend some money someday)
to prove how "off" the estimates were,  other teams of "security" firms, that were not russian,  weeks later showed far fewer infections,  which is not proof in itself,  what was proof, was that the original Russian security firm then came out with a new number that was close to the original number of infections...  showing their "estimates" to always be off...  (a second russian security firm "confirmed" their numbers,  but in reality they were working together)....
the second bit of misinformation was that it could "infect" your computer without you putting in your password,   this is not correct,  it could put an applet in a directory of safari(or other),  only if you gave it your password...  what it was doing if it did not get you to type in a password,  was other vectors of attack which in general were not effective...
as proof of this...  the steps to remove the applet from "security firms" included terminal sudo commands that require your password,  in otherwords to delete it,  you needed a password,  to add it also needed your password...  (there are exceptions to this,  like running as root,  and the number of users doing this in my immediate vicinity of 1000 mile radius I could count on one hand)  (i am exaggerating,  but only to show the point)...
in short you are only a victim of overhype...  WAY overhype...   nearly every variant of this until people were so aware of it that it no longer could infect,  was a version that pretended to be a flash update,  or similar...  (hence the name)
if you didn't get a prompt to "update" your flash with a big box like installer message...   and more importantly were smarter than an average computer user and recognized that every social engineered attack route starts out by...  "you need to install an update"  or you should install a anti-virus software app...
then you don't even need to check to see if you have the malware...
as a matter of fact a little bit of a fact goes a long ways in understanding this...
more people are infected by installing "anti-virus" software,  which infact was the trojan than other malware now adays...
and here is some more...   more computer users have lost data (or down time) to LEGITIMATE anti-virus software,  than Mac users have lost data (or down time) to malware...   because the software programs themselves had bugs in them that updates from the companies would go rogue  believing some files were not correct... which were actually important files...
here is another,  not a single AV software package detects or are able to get rid of the malware,  until the malware is in the wild... and you have to update that AV-software....  this is not preemptive software,  it is after the fact software...   which does a mac user little good...   especially if you are a user who does keep on top of things.. and you know about things about the same time an update is available...
Comment: Your claims that flashback couldn't have possibly done anything go against many mainstream press reports. Might you have some references that explain which russian firms even reported the things that you state are overblown?

What does the Flashback malware do?


What does a percentage sign with a number in brackets above mean?

Question: In a piece of music I'm learning, there is a percentage sign taking up a whole bar, which I know means repeat the previous bar. However there is another sign in the following bar, yet this one has a three in brackets above it. What does this mean?
Answer: The percent sign is actually known as a simile mark. Like you said it just means to repeat the previous measure. The 3 in brackets is slightly informal and is telling you this is the 3rd measure repeat so it is no different then the previous simile repeats, it's just telling you how many times you have repeated so far. Sibelius seems to put them in by default.
Comment: The numbers are very useful when you are playing from a part (e.g. in a band or orchestra) and can't see the full score. You may have to repeat the same bar 10 or more times, and losing count is not a good idea! But for only 2 or 3 repetitions they are just more "clutter" on the page, not useful information.
Answer: Simile markings will tell you how many measures (not how many times) to repeat in a block.  This image, from wikipedia, shows the number of slashes indicating the number of measures.
As Dom wrote, little numbers above the markings are there to  help musicians keep track of their position.


Keep dual monitor position settings

Question: I can change the position of my dual monitors using arandr.  However, I have to do this every time I log back in.  I'd like to keep the configuration settings without having to do this every time.
I didn't have a .config/monitors.xml initially.  I tried adding it with the correct settings, but it still doesn't work.
I've also tried looking at other answers like this one, but I don't have any of the files he's referring to including /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf which seems to be the functional one.
Is there anything I can do to keep these settings or have my machine respect .config/monitors.xml?
I've also tried updating .profile to include the xrandr calls, but these will only run when I open the terminal -- not that I could get them to work properly anyway.
I've also tried changing this via nvidia-settings and clicking "Save to X configuration settings," but the settings still do not persist after relog/reboot.
Answer: I resolved it! Just 'System Settings' => 'Displays' and set from there :)

Keep dual monitor position settings


Does the usage of symbols improve illustrator performance?

Question: I create quite big illustrations with a lot of small complex symbols/icons in it, for example different kinds of servers etc. Some icons/symbols are used multiple times in one illustration. Would it improve the performance of illustrator if I convert those icons to illustrator-symbols and use those ones? From my point of view illustrator would only have to save the location of a reference to a symbol instead of all the details of the icon...
Answer: I'd imagine so, but whether you'd notice the difference is another matter. Sounds like you should be using symbols anyway given your use case.
Answer: In your case, possibly a little bit.
I use symbols extensively when creating layouts for GUI and I will convert bitmap screenshots and Illustrator objects to symbols for ease of updating dozens of instances. I find it does improve redraw a little for me, but not to the point where I would automatically turn every unique object to a symbol.


Forced not to fast in Ramadan?

Question: I am a boy of 15 years of age. Now, my parents don't allow me to fast everyday during Ramadan because they say that it will be tough for me and hard for me to fast everyday. So, they allow me to only fast some days but not all in Ramadan. Now, my question is, Will I be punished for this? Is it my fault, and then what do I have to do to repent? Will I have fast extra in future once I am not forced not to? And if it still mandatory for me to fast but I am unable to go against them or their decision?
Comment: What will happen if you disobey them and refuse to break your fast?
Answer: Fasting Ramadan is mandatory in Islam. It is one of the five pillars of Islam.

If you are of age, you need to fast, refusal of the parents is not an excuse. The prophet PBUH said:

لا طاعة لمخلوق في معصية الخالق [دواوين السنة المشهورة]
Do not listen to the creation to sin the creator.

However, if this was an optional fasting (not in Ramadan) it would have been a different story (regardless of how old you are). Since obeying the parents is obligatory and sunnah salah/fasting is not, they can request that from you. [Fatwa Ben Baz #18637]
Comment: But what if I am unable to go against them and thus can't fast?
Answer: Your parents are saying not to fast because they love you, they think your body won't be able to stand the fasting and it can harm you. So you need to convince them that you are now grown up and can fast without any problem.  You can tell your parents that you will eat and drink well in suhoor (pre-dawn meal) so that you can stand the fasting.
I assume you don't have any health problems, if that is case, Quran itself says that those who are ill should fast later when they are well.
Answer: You must be aware that is one of mandatory act in Islam we are not allowed to obey our parents, orders in the mandatory's acts although Islam so emphasizes in respecting the parents. As a result you are not allowed to leave your fasting and it would be sin for you not to do it completely. Then I suggest you try to justify them about that in order to keeping the respect and doing the wajibs (mandatory acts).
Answer: Given that fasting in Ramadhan is mandatory for all able-bodied adults (and I'm assuming you are one, at age 15), it is compulsory to disobey them and make sure not to miss any fasts unless you are traveling or ill. However, if they force-feed you, then you are free of sin and can simply make up for the missed fasts after Ramadhan without any need for guilt. Please bear in mind that regardless of what they do or say, you are not allowed to abuse them or be disrespectful in any way. Disobeying parents in mandatory (fardh) issues can and must be done with utmost respect to them. It is also extremely important to state explicitly that by forcing you to skip a mandatory act of worship, they are accruing sin and hence the displeasure of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala and His beloved Nabi (peace be upon him and his progeny).
Answer: I think u must tell them the following incident.
"Once HOLY PROPHET (BPUH) asked his SAHABA what is your favourite ibadat in Islam they answered politely that WE like the FAST OF RAMZAN IN SO MUCH SUMMER"
I HOPE THAT WILL BE ENOUGH FOR YOUR PARENTS.
U KNOW YOUR PARENTS LOVE YOU THA'S WHY THEY SAID LIKE THIS. BUT REMEMBER ALLAH LOVES YOU 70 TIMES MUCH AS COMPARED TO YOUR PARENTS.
SO TELL THEM ALL THESE THINGS BY FOLLOWING THE AAPECT OF HONOUR AND THEIR DIGNITY.

Forced not to fast in Ramadan?


Useful services where I can create a photography website/blog?

Question: I am interested in publishing some of my photography on the internet. I have looked at creating blogs or websites using blogger or wordpress, however a lot of the photography themes cost +$70, as this is a non-profit/personal website, I am not looking to pay much for it. Also I am not great with HTML 5 and am not looking to hire a developer to create a website. I was wondering if anyone knew any programs/websites that offer customisable photography templates or where I can create my own website easily?
Comment: There are many services that allow you to do that. If you just want to showcase your work there are free services like Flickr and 500px. They lack the blog feature however. If you're interested to sell your services as a professional photographer services like the website builders Squarespace and SmugMug are popular. They are not free however and might be over your budget.
Answer: You pay people to do certain things (design / hosting etc) because you either can't do it yourself, or you don't have time.
The cheapest way would be to use a self-hosted (raspberry pi - anyone?) platform such as Koken and do it that way. However, paying for a service such as photoshelter means you can spend more time shooting and less time making a website.
Answer: If you are comfortable with WordPress, I'd recommend you take a look at the Keres theme.  It's not free, but it's pretty powerful and only $45.  It was the one I ended up settling on for my Photography site and it has some pretty nice gallery options available.
Comment: @user3731036 - the most recent version of that theme does support integration with a web-shop plugin.  I have not tried it though as I don't need to do sales on my site.
Comment: I like the look of your website! If I were to perhaps sell my prints on the site would wordpress be capable of handling it for that specific theme?