How to splice RG-174 coax?

Question: I'm pretty good at repairing broken regular coax, but I recently had an RG-174 cut and it's too small for me to solder the center wire and keep the braid away from it.  What's a good way to do this? Edits for clarity: this is for a feedline to an antenna, using for HF signals, so the repair method is important in keeping a clean signal.
Comment: By the way, the quality of repair you need to achieve depends on the power and the frequency of signals you want to transport – I'm just saying that because RG-174 is often commercially used over short distances to transport 2.4 and 5 GHz WiFi, and "a little thicker center conductor due to solder" matters more if your wavelength is centimeters than if it is meters. You say "regular coax", and that seems to be thicker, so I'm unfairly inferring that you're mostly working with more sturdy lower-frequency cabling,and the performance of repaired coax cable at GHz frequencies might disapppoint you.
Comment: it's actually the feedline for my SOTA beams portable antenna, so I'm using 7, 14, and 28 MHz
Comment: I ordered the connectors so I should be able to repair it next weekend.  I have an antenna analyzer so I'll check it out and post the results.
Comment: oha! how long is that cabling? How much power do you push through? If I remember correctly, typical RG-174 has some 4 dB/m to 15 dB/m attenuation in the 5 MHz to 30 MHz range.
Comment: It's a 10m cable, cut in about the middle, and I push 100W through it. I did successfully splice it, but I'm concerned about it long term.  You got me thinking, though, so I went and found the Amphenol 112132, which is exactly what I need.  Thanks!
Comment: If you get the chance, find a way to test the attenuation of section of your cable (if you fix it by adding BNC connectors, you have a detachable length of cable, right?). I could really imagine that 10m of RG-174 operated at 28 MHz attenuat a lot, but I don't know your cable.
Answer: At HF there are almost no limits on how bad your splice can be, as long as:

there's no short circuit
braid is connected to braid and inner to inner

You could even use a "chocolate block" connector :)

* photo from Tudor Barker, cropped
But to do a neat job:

At each cut end, strip about 25 mm (1") of the outer sheath, and then about 7 mm (1/4") of the inner.
open the braid out and lay it back on the jacket
lay the inners overlapping and solder quickly and carefully. RG174 inner melts quickly, the trick is not to bend or force it until it sets again.
insulate them with a 25 mm piece of electrical tape. (or more if you're < 200 MHz, less chance of a short circuit)
fold the braids back, they will also overlap
wind a bit of thin wire gently around the braid to keep it snug against the inner (but not so tight that it'll sink through the insulation
solder the braids together carefully. Use a cool iron. Don't fully wet the joint - the RG174 insulation will melt and run out the ends! Just gently wet the bits of the braid where they meet, and tack the wrapping wire to the braid in a few places. The idea is to get just enough mechanical strength, not a solid tube of solder.
insulate the whole thing with tape, or heatshrink if you remembered to put it on first...

I'm comfortable splicing coax like this up to 1.5 GHz for GPS without unreasonable loss. Of course it won't be a first class measurement cable, but for radio transmission a tiny, short impedance mismatch won't hurt. At HF the whole joint is 1/1000 of a wavelength, it will be fine no matter how ugly it is.
Comment: Great answer, Tom! However, IMHO your point #7 might lead to a cold solder joint. The the very **ends** of the braid should be quickly soldered with a hot iron before too much heat can transfer to the dielectric and melt it. On top of that, [hemostats](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemostat) or tools meant for the the job can be temporarily clamped on the braid as heat sinks. And I don't use tape anymore, only irradiated polyolefin heat shrink tubing (like Alpha FIT-221). Much neater, less hassle, and it won't melt. :-)
Answer: Hmm. I've done this many times.  Would a magnifying headband and extra light help you? That's certainly helped me to do that. The same way as we would splice larger coax.
Comment: actually found an [RG-174 BNC](https://www.arrow.com/en/products/r141075161/radiall) connector. You still need a crimp tool for that smaller size!
Comment: my problems are keeping the center wire from the braid, and soldering the braid itself. On regular coax, I just terminate it with a bnc but in this case the bnc connector is too large for the cable.  Maybe there's a different size bnc?
Comment: there are other connectors that you'd typically use with RG-174: SMA, for example
Comment: For those of us who are not in the loop what's the best way to splice larger coax?
Answer: Connectors.
Splicing without connectors will introduce an impedance "bump" which may or may not bother you.  The magnitude of the bump may be considerable.  The bump will cause reflections which may cause the spliced coax to act like a comb filter.  It gets pretty messy unless you are able to splice the coax perfectly, and you can't do that.
Connectors aren't perfect either, but they have a lot of design work behind them to minimize the bump and the problems caused by the bump.
At DC, none of this matters, but I have to assume you aren't using coax for DC.
Comment: Since you answered this, the original question has been clarified; it's now clear that he's using this at HF. What you said is certainly true at UHF+, but you might want to edit your question so it can be upvoted if someone chooses to.

How to splice RG-174 coax?


Syntactic and semantic ambiguity

Question: Does syntactic (structural) ambiguity always come with semantic ambiguity, or is semantic ambiguity always due to syntactic ambiguity? Or are both statements correct?
Comment: The second statement is definitely untrue. "He's mad" can mean "He's angry" or "He's crazy", but the syntax is the same.
Comment: Though the two senses have different syntactic affordances. _Mad_ in the 'crazy' sense is polar and therefore can be modified by _absolutely_, whereas in the 'angry' sense it's non-polar and therefore can't, so that _He's absolutely mad_ is unambiguous. It's not that easy to separate syntax and semantics; words of a feather flock together.
Answer: Syntactic ambiguity can imply semantic ambiguity:

— He caught the bird in his pyjamas.
  — What was the bird doing in his pyjamas?
(Where does the preposition phrase attach?)

But whether you can have syntactic ambiguity without entailing semantic ambiguity may depend on how you'd represent the sentence semantically. Here's one intuitive example:

— I was rafting down a fast flowing river...
  — Wait. A fast-flowing river, i.e. a river that flows fast?
  — No, a fast, flowing river, i.e. a flowing river that is fast.

The logical representation of those two options would show the difference, but could they ever pick out ("mean") different set of entities?
To give a more extreme example, here the scope of the adjective is ambiguous:

Richard brought edible candles and food.

Supposing that we define food as what is edible, here even the logical representation might show no difference: if food is all X such that X is edible, then the ambiguity about whether to add the predicate "X is edible" to food may be defined as redundant in the language...
Meanwhile, however, it's very easy to have semantic ambiguity without syntactic ambiguity thanks to polysemy. Similar to TKR's suggestion in a comment:

You're finished!

This sentence clearly has only one tree (per theoretical framework ), but the meaning is also a function of the identity of the constituents, so whether this is finished "done your work" or finished "done for" is ambiguous.
Answer: If you want, there could be scenarios where a syntactic ambiguity makes no difference in meaning, if you think of the syntactically ambiguous expression

1+1+2

which could mean both

(1+1)+2

and

1+(1+2)

and thus is syntactically ambiguous - but both readings evaluate to the same result (4), and thus are semantically not ambiguous, in a sense (in the sense where one identifies "meaning" with "extension"). This is because addition, although a binary operation, is associtative: <code>(a+b)+c = a+(b+c)</code>.
(One could make up a more linguistic examples with e.g. "and", but then it's less clear that 1) associativity really holds and that 2) the conjunction is strictly binary and could not be viewed as ternary which would not yield this ambiguity.)
However, the statement that semantic ambiguity must always be due to syntactic ambiguity is certainly untrue: The two different readings of "He's mad" that TKR provides in their comment are due to the semantic ambiguity of the lexical item "mad" - this is called lexical ambiguity - while the syntactic structure is completely identical.
Sometimes yet another kind of ambiguity called scope ambiguity is distinguished: The sentence

Every child sang a song

could be read as

For every child it holds that it sang some song (but possibly different ones among the children)

or

There is a particular song that was sung by every child (all children sing the same song)

which differ w.r.t. the scopal relations of the quantifiers "every" and "a" (scope = the part of the sentence that is under the influence of the operator) and thus differ in meaning, while the underlying sentence is (in terms of linguistic surface syntax with IP, VP etc.) structurally unambiguous and doesn't contain any lexcially ambiguous items either.

Syntactic and semantic ambiguity


Can a double spend attack be obfuscated by mimicking the transactions seen before the fork?

Question: An attacker controls the majority of the hashing power and wants to double spend without arousing suspicion. If they mirror the public chain's activity while generating the private fork and the fork is short (say 10 blocks), can you only detect the double spend by verifying the block hashes haven't changed or noticing the double spend transaction directly?
Comment: I'm not sure I understand what you are asking. Blocks are compared by comparing their hashes, not just by looking at their transactions. If the blocks contain the same transactions but are not identical (different nonce, or reward paid to different addresses), the network will see that they are on two different forks. If they are identical, then there is no fork at all.
Comment: I edited it a bit. I'm wondering if there's any other ways to detect the double spend attack if you don't keep a record of the primary chain block hashes prior to the longer private fork replacing it and miss the original double spend.
Comment: As this is a general question applicable to most decentralised currencies, is there any particular reason why it has been tagged [dogecoin]? It does not appear to help people looking for specific dogecoin information, and hinders people looking for general information.
Comment: How do you mimic a transaction?
Answer: The short answer is that there is no way to double spend "without arousing suspicion". Presumably, you would be double-spending against someone and that person would notice as soon as you diverted the main chain.
longer answer:
As long as you're building your private chain you can double spend everything you have by normally broadcasting to the public chain, knowing that it will be reversed later. There is no way to detect/defend against a 51% attack until it happens, and once it happens the security of the blockchain of Xcoin is obviously compromised and the whole coin/your stash of coins is now worthless, so there was not much point in the double spend anyway.


Weight-lifting with unbalanced loads

Question: What will happen if i weightlift using a bar with has 8kgs on one side and nothing on the other side of the bar? Will it affect my body? If it affects, what will be the impacts?
Comment: You could throw your back out, if you are not careful. If you are careful, it's the same as working 1 arm at a time (think of using dumbells).
Answer: Ordinarily you would want the bar to be balanced, but "unbalanced loading" is a recognized type of "specialty" or "exotic" training that you can mix into a routine at times. The NSCA believe that the technique can be useful for training athletes who "place varying
loads on their bodies in multiple planes of movement."
Comment: Makes me think of the suitcase deadlift. https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-do-the-suitcase-deadlift
Comment: Nice article, good find!
Answer: It depends on the exercise but I wouldn't recommend it.
First of all you can develop muscular imbalances. Second thing, you could actually injury yourself due to uneven load on passive structures ( ligaments and joints ).
The only case in which you can use different loads is in isolated circumstances due to a recover from an injury. For exemple you are using a leg extensor machine first with one leg and then with the other leg that is actually recovering from an injury or vice versa.
Loading the barbell with highly uneven load in some cases will cause you majour balance issues and make impossibile to perform the exercise.
Comment: Even slightly uneven load will cause some balancing issues. The amount of times I thought I was on my working weight to pick up the bar and tilt one way because I forgot to put 5-10lbs on one side is ridiculous.
Answer: An asymmetrical load on a rigid barbell will move the center of mass to the end with the greatest load. Such asymmetrical loading is generally considered unsafe and inefficient, especially involving the spine.
You always want an even distribution of the load. If you have muscle imbalances, you should in most cases continue to do regular exercises with an appropriate load and perfect execution.
Answer: The idea of weightlifting is to have balanced range of motion, and have equal distribution of the load. When you alter the balance, your body has to do extra work on any particular side to work through the imbalance. It's unsafe and could lead to injury.
If you feel like any side of your body is weak, you need to work on both sides to get stronger. If left arm is weaker, do isolation exercises and you may add more reps, but curling with a barbel with more load on the left is not going to help.
Answer: Ignore the negative comments here. This is a great tool for pushing past plateaus! But I think you might be going far too extreme. Unbalanced loads should only be slightly unbalanced.
EG: 20kg on one side, 19kg on the other.
Obviously, be sure to switch sides to ensure both are worked evenly.
The great thing here is mentally focusing on the lighter side of the lift trying to ignore the fact that the other is slightly heavier.
(Mind over matter).
As for 8kg on one side and none on the other? Sounds like an injury waiting to happen.

Weight-lifting with unbalanced loads


USA apartment rent application: is it legal to require employment?

Question: When applying to rent an apartment in any state of the USA, is there any federal regulation that prevents the landlord from requiring the applicant to provide a proof of past/present employment, while rejecting any other proof of income, e.g. proving sufficient savings by providing recent bank statements?
Comment: If you narrowed the question down to a particular state, you can expect a better answer.
Comment: Income from sources other than regular employment are likely considered more volatile by the landlord. Without touching the legal aspects, perhaps they would accept some form of trust set up for the purposes of rent payment, proof of sufficiently high savings (20-30x monthly rent), or you could look into getting a guarantor.
Answer: Prevents? No. Even the poorest of Families need to provide proof of income. For reasons below.
When dealing with Residential Screening:
If the Property Requires it you would need to Provide your Social.
Most of the process is checking background. Which includes your Credit and Criminal Background.
Low Credit would require a proof of income. As well as Stabilized and Affordable Housing. In order to obtain Credit from the State, the Property Management Company needs to prove the Resident cannot afford their Unit.
If you have good Credit then, most likely you will not be required to prove income. If you get flagged for Employment issues like gaps in Employment i.e.: Not having a job because you have wealthy Family, Inheritance or even too many unemployment Claims, etc. etc. You would need official Bank Statements to prove you indeed have suitable income.
Otherwise Companies like Jetty and Rhino can insure/bond the Tenant by holding them liable for Rent and Deposit while the Landlord can accept an application and allow Move-in. Since, either way the Property Management Company will get their Money.
Comment: The OP is not asking about "proof of income", but "proof of employment".  If I have a trust fund that reliably gives me $10,000/month, I have plenty of income - but (probably) no employment.
Comment: I think the OP is asking "can I, as a landlord, insist that the tenant be employed?".  Also your answer refers to "the poorest of families" - they are the least likely to be able to afford the rent without employment. (Not the down-voter by the way.)
Comment: I went over Employment in paragraph 2 a little. It's a lower tier subject when applying. I work as Software Analyst for Property Management software. Just laying out how screening works and they really don't go over the Tenants Employer when Screening. It's rare you get a Property that needs to know you have a job. Mostly, "if you DONT have one; can you afford to live here?". If you default on the Apartment and they need to garnish wages in the Lawsuit they'll deal with it then.


Will Lilac do well in soil with a high concentration of clay?

Question: I would like to plant some Lilac but may be cursed with Missouri clay. Will Lilac generally do OK if planted in clay-rich soil? What is a good way to start a new planting?
Answer: Depends on the variety of lilac to an extent - the smaller, dwarf bush types are more finicky about soil conditions, but any variety from Syringa vulgaris (Purple Sensation or Madame Lemoine for instance, many others) will be less so.
Lilacs do not like wet feet, particularly in winter, so if you have heavy soil, its best to find a spot which slopes a little and plant the lilacs above the bottom of the slope, so that water can drain down away from the lilac roots. The soil should be well cultivated and improved before planting by adding plenty of humus rich material, such as composted manures and the like. Ph of the soil might be an issue, as you have clay, and its probably worth testing that - they're happiest in a neutral ph, or slightly alkaline, slightly acid, so a ph between 6.5 to 7.5 is ideal. They prefer full sun, but will grow well with less than half a day's shade.
Answer: I have grown Syringa vulgaris in Dallas, TX in amended clay soil with good success. The previous response was right, it does best grown on a large mound or higher on a slope so that the water drains away from the roots. If you do elevate it sufficiently, then the amended clay will be of a benefit to you in the hotter part of the summer because it stays moist longer and is full of nutrients. Dig the hole at least 2 feet deep and wide and amend the soil that you dig from the hole with whatever you need to get the pH right. My soil is 7.2 and I add gypsum, sulphur, manure and 2 parts soil to one part planting mix and peat moss to help break up the clay. You can use pine needles and shredded pine bark. You'll have a little more mass to put back in the hole, so mound the dirt when putting back in the hole and plant the lilac so it's planting depth is raised to meet the mound. I would suggest to get a soil testing kit online to test your soil. While they will survive in a wider pH range, they will flourish between 6.5-7.0. The lower pH also helps unlock nutrients that are bound in the soil and not available to the plant at higher pH above 7.0. You may have better luck with the Bloomerang reblooming lilacs, as they do much better in clay and actually thrive in it here if you keep it watered regularly. I am not sure how hot it can get in Missouri, but in Texas, I have to provide shade because it can get over 100 here for 2 months. I plant mine on the east side of the house so the roof provides evening shade and saves it from burning in July. I even have Peonies around the base. Good luck with it!


Is there any way to dispose of liquid fuel?

Question: So that's the case - I have a camp stove and a bottle of liquid fuel for it (gas? benzine? petrol? ah, whatever). Hike is over and I have to get on a plane - thus I have to get rid of this fuel. How do I do it? Or maybe there's no way to do it right and I've got myself a problem?
Comment: Especially, do not call it "benzine" in an english speaking country when trying to get rid of it - "benzene" is not petrol in english, but what you would know as "benzol" (бензол). You might be facing strange questions about how the heck you even got hold of it, and why you are carrying it around.
Comment: The nicest option would be to try to give it to someone heading out whose first night is at the same place as your last.
Comment: Yeah, there's a nice discussion about it at http://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/8299/what-is-the-difference-between-gas-petrol-benzine-gasoline
Comment: A while ago I have created a community article here on TGO which tries to list all the different camping fuels with their respective names in various languages and geographies: https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/19151/how-are-camping-fuels-named-in-different-languages-and-geographies
Answer: While writing the question, I've figured out an answer. I just burn the fuel in the stove.
Maybe this little knowledge would be helpful.
Comment: You can do this, but it's wasteful.
Comment: It's wasteful, but so is nearly everything. Burning a small quantity of leftover fuel pales in comparison to flying - a 1500km flight will burn around [30 liters of fuel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft), so burning half a liter of leftover fuel is only about 1.6% of the fuel he'll burn on his way home. Or is roughly equivalent to what a car will burn while driving 6km - so when he gets home, if he does a 6km walk or bike ride to run an errand  instead of driving there, he'll have "repaid" the waste.
Comment: Nobody to give it away to? Shame to just burn it for the sake of getting rid of it..
Comment: @insane sorry, I wasn't clear in my comment, the fuel burm number I gave was per passenger, not for the entire plane. It would be an efficient plane indeed that could fly 1500km on just 30 liters of fuel!
Comment: it's be easier to just use it to start a campfire. We usually just burnt off our unused fuel in the fire. Fun stuff. Just don't burn down the forrest.
Comment: @Johnny A flight's fuel consumption : burning fuel in a stove is a bad analogy, regardless of the amount burned. One is a literal waste, the other is holding upwards of 300 passengers..
Comment: Burning the fuel produces carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, but if you can't get it disposed of properly then that's better than letting it evaporate to the atmosphere - hydrocarbons are a more potent pollutant than carbon dioxide - or worse, the liquid fuel getting into a watercourse or the sea where it would be highly toxic to aquatic life. Burn it!
Answer: I was recently in Mexico and bought some unleaded gas at a gas station as stove fuel. I gave the unused fuel away to a taxi driver to put in his car.
I suspect the same thing would work fine with the fuels sold as "white gas" or "camp fuel." I've heard conflicting information about exactly how this stuff is formulated, and for all I know it depends on the manufacturer. But what everyone seems to agree on is that it's extremely similar  to unleaded gas. Given the similarity, if a car owner has 20 or 30 liters of gasoline in their tank, I don't think it will hurt anything to add a half liter of white gas.
Comment: I'd be interested in seeing an opinion on that over at mechanics.stackexchange.com. I'm not a car guy, so I can't weigh in on it.
Comment: White gas is simply unleaded gasoline without the usual automotive additives. So yes, just put it in your gas tank.
Comment: Here's an article from Climbing.com about using white fuel when you run out of gas in your car. http://www.climbing.com/news/running-out-of-gas/
Comment: White gas has an octane rating of 50 to 55, according to [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coleman_fuel).  It's probably fine to add to the gasoline for most cars as long as the proportion is low.  I wouldn't want to do what those guys in the climbing.com article did, which was to put white gas in the tank after the car ran out of fuel, except in an emergency.
Answer: Here are a few methods

If you have a lawnmower or weed eater you can dilute your gas by about 5% to 10% with it and burn it off that way, even if the fuel is 'bad'.
Additionally, many fire departments will accept all manner of fuel, good or bad, and use it for backburning areas preparing for the summer fire season.
Some auto parts stores will accept fuel for disposal.  Almost all will accept old engine oil.  I suggest you call an auto parts store in your area as the acceptance of fuel is regional depending on what government services there are to pick up the fuel.  Oil is recycled and all auto stores accept to the best of my knowledge.
Comment: A lot of this answer is written as if the person was trying to dispose of the fuel back at home, but the question states that they need to dispose of it because they can't take it on a plane when they go home (a very common situation). If you were back at home with your fuel, you could just pour it back into the can you bought it in.
Comment: You can't stop by an auto parts store or a fire house on the way to the airport?  I'm not sure I agree with that.
Answer: What's the problem? The guy at the airport will take it from you. Proper legal disposal is now his business.
There might be a kiosk for dropping items you forgot to leave at home,  before dealing with people.
Comment: it maybe against the law to take flammable liquids in to the local airport, you may find "his job" is now to place you into jail.
Comment: @JDlugosz the contaminated bottle may be part of the stove (e.g. my MSR; the bottle could be filled from a car fuel can).
Comment: I would be worried that you have to give away the bottle too. When I informed myself about transporting stoves with planes (internationally) the information I got was that theoretically nothing can smell of gasoline, otherwise it may be confiscated. That may not be enforced everywhere, but you need to be aware of that risk.
Comment: Why would you want to keep the bottle it came in?  And if I understand the comment correctly then even if you dumped it or used it up then you could still not take it onnthe plane anyway.
Comment: @JDługosz the can could be emptied and aired ahead of time.  You would be at risk of losing the bottle because of a lingering smell if they opened it, but wouldn't be carrying a bottle of petrol.
Comment: Right, so he couldn't take it on the plane even if emptied ahead of time.


What is the recommended type of tire for riding on wet pavement?

Question: I am commuting in rainy Seattle, and the rain has started.  Right now I have Continental Gatorskin tires on my commuter, but yesterday I noticed I was braking to stop the wheels and skidding quite a bit on wet roads.   I know I can gradually adjust braking on front and back to come out of the skid, but I was wondering if i should replace my tires to get a little more grip.  My LBS seems to think thin slicks are fine however.  Is there a study or data on tire types on wet pavement?
Comment: Gators aren't exactly the grippiest of tyres, especially in the wet. Reduce your tyre pressure a little to gain a bit more grip, at the expense of efficiency (rolling resistance) and puncture resistance.
Comment: Are you skidding the front or only the back?
Comment: I have various tires on my various bikes, and I can say that the bike with Schwalbe Kojaks gets great traction in the rain. (The dual pull caliper brakes may also have something to do with that.)
Comment: Looking online, Kojaks seem very slick with no tread also. And they get great traction.
Comment: I am from Seattle too and have the same problem now. Skidding only in the back though.
Comment: I am skidding on the back (and I carry a pannier there) but go light on front brakes, else I'd flip.
Comment: Learn to modulate the front brakes and you can stop faster, without flipping, and with less chance of skidding. Of course, if you _do_ skid the front wheel, it's less recoverable.
Comment: A slick with soft rubber.  It does not hydroplane but wet pavement still has less friction.  At the microscopic level it is still wet pavement.  I ran an analysis and I think a bike would hydroplane at about  130 mph.   Not going to post as my tech analysis just gets down votes here.
Answer: If you are riding on the road, slicks are fine in the wet. If you need to go over any mud, etc. then you'll need something else.
From Sheldon Brown:

Bicycle tires for on-road use have no need of any sort of tread
  features; in fact, the best road tires are perfectly smooth, with no
  tread at all!
Unfortunately, most people assume that a smooth tire will be slippery,
  so this type of tire is difficult to sell to unsophisticated cyclists.
  Most tire makers cater to this by putting a very fine pattern on their
  tires, mainly for cosmetic and marketing reasons. If you examine a
  section of asphalt or concrete, you'll see that the texture of the
  road itself is much "knobbier" than the tread features of a
  good-quality road tire. Since the tire is flexible, even a slick tire
  deforms as it comes into contact with the pavement, acquiring the
  shape of the pavement texture, only while in contact with the road.
People ask, "But don't slick tires get slippery on wet roads, or worse
  yet, wet metal features such as expansion joints, paint stripes, or
  railroad tracks?" The answer is, yes, they do. So do tires with tread.
  All tires are slippery in these conditions. Tread features make no
  improvement in this.

Also worthy of note is:

Car and truck tires need tread, because these vehicles are prone to a
  very dangerous condition called "hydroplaning." This happens when
  driving fast in very wet conditions, which can lead to the tire riding
  up onto a cushion of liquid water. When this happens, there is a
  sudden and total lack of traction.

Bicycles can NOT hydroplane because:

A bicycle tire has a curved road contact. Since a bicycle leans in
corners, it needs a tire with a rounded contact area, which tends to
push the water away to either side.
A bicycle tire is narrower, so not as much water is in contact with
the leading edge at once.
The high pressure of bicycle tires is more efficient at squeezing the
water out from under.
At high speeds, hydroplaning is just possible for car tires, but is
absolutely impossible for bicycle tires.
Comment: I'm tempted to post this on skeptics.stackexchange.com just to see if anyone can dig up some research to back this up :)
Comment: Good idea. For those that want to follow that question, it's at http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/6572
Answer: First you need to analyze the pavement a bit -- smooth pavement or rough, is it generally pretty clean or is there a light coating of sand or dust, or perhaps a heavy coating?
Narrow, high-pressure bike tires do not "hydroplane" at non-supersonic speeds, so you don't need to worry about that.  But there is still a thin layer of water between tire and road surface, sufficient to impact the coefficient of friction, and some sort of "tread" or "siping" helps significantly.  Any dust or sand exacerbates the problem, and a smooth surface (especially worn-smooth asphalt) can get treacherous.  I don't know of any hard numbers (though I would suspect they're out there somewhere), but Wikipedia has this to say (about auto tires):

Treadless racing "slicks" on dry roads give maximum traction. These
  have no sipes, no grooves, and no tread blocks. They also have very
  poor traction however on even slightly wet surfaces.
Comment: In this case, the concrete road is very wet, rough texture (so cars brake better), free of debris and mud, probably a little greasy.
Comment: That's a good condition, so long as things are not terribly greasy.  You do need, when riding in wet, to observe the road more closely and steer clear of oily spots, etc.
Answer: The conti's really are just fine.
There's just less friction on wet roads and so your rear wheel is going to skid at a lower deceleration. A wider tire will be a little more helpful because your contact patch is larger.
I know that some material compositions are better than others. In particular, Michelin carbons and the avocet carbon 15's are claimed to have more grip in wet conditions.
But then you have to balance that with puncture resistance. In addition to reduced traction, you also have a greater probability of getting a flat in the rain. Which one is worse? It's up to you. The michelin's and avocet's are nowhere near as durable as the conti-gatorskins (there's a reason they're highly popular as high mileage urban tires). But if you're doing office-park crits in the rain you're better off with the michelin/avocet's.
Comment: @ChrisW, Well yes, if you're riding a wider tire, you're _usually_ also riding a lower pressure. Generally speaking, wider tires are better for adverse road conditions. If the OP is having problems with wet urban roads, he'll be a little better off with wider tires.
Comment: The size of the contact patch doesn't vary with width: it varies with tire pressure, rider weight, and braking (which moves the weight forward onto the front wheel). Theoretically at least, tire width affects the shape of the contact patch but not its area.
Comment: There is a slight effect on the area of contact due to the stiffness of the tire, but probably not much.  More significant, probably, is the unevenness in contact pressure due to tire stiffness -- a stiffer tire will have a less even contact pressure (which is probably good on slick surfaces).
Answer: Just to add on to what Wilka said about hydroplaning, people involved with the physics of planes landing are particularly interested in hydroplaning. Sheldon Brown of course talks about this.

Even with automobiles, actual hydroplaning is very rare. It is a much more real problem for aircraft landing on wet runways. The aviation industry has studied this problem very carefully, and has come up with a general guideline as to when hydroplaning is a risk. The formula used in the aviation industry is:
  Speed (in knots) = 9 X the square root of the tire pressure (in psi.)

I've found a chart here which on page 9 includes this plot:

You can see that at the pressures we operate at ones risk of hydroplaning is negligible.
Regarding your concerns about flipping, Sheldon Brown has a very informative page, "Won't I Go Over The Bars?", which details why you should not be concerned with flipping over the handlebars if you are using your front brake appropriately, and shows that when traction is not an issue using just your front brake is the fastest way you can stop. He also speaks about braking in the conditions your asking about (traction impaired).
As long as I am not braking on a manhole cover I have never had issues stopping in the rain on 23C slick tires using just my front brake.


Whats analysis of both sides is called in psychology?

Question: What is the scientific term or psychological term for visualizing a phenomenon, news or event in history or in daily life from both perspective. For example some event that happened in your country or a war your country fought, the basic sentiment of most people will be in support of their country or military but if you want to put forward a case both in favor and against of that war without following the general emotional consensus in your country what that would be called?
Comment: Relevant: https://psychology.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2374/not-all-observations-necessarily-need-a-term-in-psychology
Answer: As highlighted in the comments, not all observations necessarily need a term in psychology, but there is a term for this.
Therapy plans will often involve getting the client to try to look at their situation (past or present) in a different context. Some people would call this "wearing other peoples shoes", or in other words they might say "if I were in their shoes...", and some will call it looking at it from another person's viewpoint or perspective.
The more accepted term you are after is Emotional Intelligence (Bertram, et al.  2016), also known as Emotional quotient (EQ) and Emotional Intelligence Quotient (EIQ), yet I dislike the terms involving intelligence because it insinuates that those who find difficulty with looking at certain people's points of view are not as intelligent as others who can.  Yet this is not necessarily the case.
Emotional Intelligence involves the capability of individuals to recognize their own emotions and those of others, discern between different feelings and label them appropriately, use emotional information to guide thinking and behaviour, and manage and/or adjust emotions to adapt to environments or achieve one's goal(s) (Coleman, 2008),
 and Jeremy E. Sherman, PhD. calls it Empathic Intelligence (Sherman, 2009).
References
Bertram K., Randazzo J., Alabi N., Levenson J., Doucette J. T., & Barbosa, P. (2016). Strong correlations between empathy, emotional intelligence, and personality traits among podiatric medical students: A cross-sectional study. Education for Health, (29)3, 186. DOI: 10.4103/1357-6283.204224, PMID 28406102
Colman, Andrew (2008). A Dictionary of Psychology (3 ed.). Oxford University Press.DOI: 10.1093/acref/9780199534067.001.0001
Sherman, J. (2009). Empathic Intelligence: To put yourself in their shoes, unlace yours. PsychologyToday [Online]Retrieved from: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/ambigamy/200905/empathic-intelligence-put-yourself-in-their-shoes-unlace-yours
Comment: Definitely related, but whether it is an _exact_ (substitutable) term for it I do not know. Either way should help the OP.


Ubuntu One Control Panel constantly says "File Sync Starting"

Question: The file syncing process appears to have stalled. When I upgraded from 11.04 to 11.10 my system stopped working, and so I reinstalled 11.04. I then copied some of my files into the same folders that they are in in Ubuntu One (so, I copied the same music that is in music/coldplay stored in ubuntu one into the same folder on my desktop, to save bandwidth and time). At first, files started syncing normally. However, now, all I see in my Ubuntu One Control Panel is the above message. Furthermore, when I try to check the tickbox next to a cloud folder that is not yet ticked, everything grays out. Please help!
Answer: Hello, Ryan.
Do you know for sure it's stalled? I read in this forums that Ubuntu One is too slow for syncing (e.g., compared to dropbox) and even tried to sync my files yesterday but couldn't made it in several hours (approx 150 MB), so I had to cancel.
In my attempt to use Ubuntu One I also erased a folder I had online with a few files, but the changed didn't apply in my desktop app until a couple of hours later. What you are experiencing may be due to this speed issue.
Comment: Ok - thanks. I will try and be patient. My internet connection in any event is relatively slow (400-700kbps typically) - bandwidth is a problem where I live, in South Africa. I am also battling to add folders to cloud sync? When I try to add one, the list grays out, and the control panel says 'loading'. Could all be linked to speed of sync, as you say.


Bishul Akum: State Dinners

Question: How do we know precisely what foods fall under the "King's Table" exemption to the rule against Bishul Akum?  It is obvious that foods like potato chips probably won't be served at a state dinner, and foods like steak would, but what about foods in between?  I'm curious because considering how fancy the menu is for state dinners, it would seem like most foods would fall outside the prohibition.  Is there any list of what is allowed to be cooked by a non-Jew under the state dinner exemption, or should I call the White House (or Israeli president's residence or Buckingham palace) each time I have a question?
Comment: Wow, that looks like a good dinner...how do you get an invite? :P
Answer: I wouldn't look at the menu so much as any given food ingredient. And yes, the OU and Star-K have called the White House kitchen, the Royal Danish kitchen, and others. Generally speaking -- "would you use canned X?" "No, we'd only cook it fresh ourselves?" (The Star-K had asked about canned cranberry sauce; the OU had asked about baked beans.)
Comment: So then lentils from scratch are considered fit for a "King's Table"?  That seems ludicrous.  Surely these rules were written long before mass produced and/or preserved foods...
Comment: @CharlesKoppelman not sure I understand your point. If I walk into a vegan restaurant where a non-Jew has cooked lentils from scratch, then as far as I can see that would be a serious Bishul Akum issue. (We focus on the main ingredient, lentils; regardless of how/if they're seasoned.) Whereas my grocery store may carry OU pre-cooked, vacuum-sealed lentils; not a Bishul Akum issue. The rule was set as "whatever is good enough for a state function", and has some local subjectivity to it. (The Star-K talks about foods that would be good enough to stand alone in some countries, but not in others.)
Comment: I thought that plain lentils (chickpeas?) were specifically allowed.  I've heard people cite that regarding Ester.

Bishul Akum: State Dinners


Am I allowed to travel to Russia without a visa?

Question: I have dual German/Brazilian citizenship. Brazilian citizens are allowed to travel to Russia without visas, Germans are not. If, at the border, I presented both my passports without a visa, would I be refused entry to the country? Is it forbidden or immoral to present only one of my two passports?
Comment: Presenting only one passport is the normal state of affairs for dual citizens as far as I am aware.  Do you make a habit of presenting them both?  Do border officials typically look at both?  The few times I have indicated that I have two passports, the officer has ignored one of them.
Comment: I have presented both my passports once entering the UK from an international flight (from outside the EU). The border agent seemed puzzled for a few seconds, asked me some typical border control questions and let me through.
Answer: As a rule, on entering a country you need to produce a valid travel document. There's no requirement to present more than one travel document, or every travel document you possess. You present your Brazilian passport at a border control, and that is probably all.
Same as you don't need a long-term Shengen visa in your Brazilian passport to live in Germany.
Answer: I would encourage you to only show one passport to Russian immigration authorities. If you have several passports, it could raise suspicion that you have fake travel documents. I would avoid any confusion for them, especially if you don't speak any Russian.
I would only reveal what is required of you, the Brazilian passport. If you don't need your German passport, leave it at home, as you wont want to lose it in Russia.
Also, your statement...

"Brazilian citizens are allowed to travel to Russia without visas,
  Germans are not."

is only partially true. According to the Saint Petersburg travel info website:

"Brazil (for visits of up to 90 days in any 180-day period) - for
  tourists, private visits or transit purposes only. In all other cases,
  a visa is required. "

If your purpose is tourism, you are fine. If you plan to work or study, you will still need the proper visa, regardless of your citizenship. You didn't really specify your purpose of travel.
Comment: It is interesting that the visa exemption does not apply to business visitors; the similar visa exemptions I'm aware of in other countries do include business visitors.  Or does "private visits" include business visits?
Comment: @phoog the "visa free" regime in Russia is only for travel or personal visits. For business you should obtain a business visa.


How to motion capture animations?

Question: I'm not an animation artist and so I want to create some animations for testing.
I want to use a camcorder to record me while I'm running and so
I want to know if exists a software that grab the video and translate it
in animation frames.
Comment: search Motion Capture
Answer: First of all, you need to learn about MOCAP - Motion Capture, unless you know how to work with animation rigs etc. you wont have any good from those models.
Proffesional MOCAP studio is money consuming, it requires a green screens, special suits, actors, camera operators and huge ammounts of Gigabytes for storing all the date collected, which must be later processed by large workstations.

http://www.xsens.com/en/general

For my studio, I bought a Xbox Kinect sensor which can be used to create 3d point clouds in real time, which can be later converted into animations or 3d meshes (cheap 3d scanner). It works the way that it sends thousands of small points, not visable to the eyes that are later tracked by the sensor. From these points the camera projects a 3d point cloud which can be later transformed into meshes.

My animator is using this software, to create fast animations.

http://ipisoft.com/

Before you actually get a Kinect, for these $150, you should try to borrow it from someone, and see how the software works on your pc. It literally eats 30mb of disk space per second + something must process this, a dual core pc wont handle this.
As for the cam recorder, I wouldn't even search for such stuff as it will generate more work than it can save.
Keep in mind, that even if you get a kinect or any other mocap device you still need to know how to process it, and the process is just the same as creating raw animations... Or get premade animations for free http://www.mixamo.com/motions

How to motion capture animations?


What is the legal status of this patent?

Question: In reference to the patent: US 2012/0319859 A1
Would you please tell me why there is a difference in time between the assignment date and publication date? Is it abandoned?
Answer: I don't want to conflate the legal status of the application(s) with the time gap between publication and assignment. An assignment can happen during examination of the application or after the patent is granted, so there is not necessarily a link between the assignment of this application and the date of publication.
As is the case for many patents, it is difficult to completely answer the question about the US application without digging in to the related international applications. This US application is based on a PCT application from Israel (PCT/IL2011/000071), which you can find by clicking on the WIPO application number (WO 2011/089606 A1).
Office                  Entry Date  National Number  National Status
European Patent Office  17.07.2012  2011706029       Published: 28.11.2012
                                                     Withdrawn: 20.02.2013
Israel                  18.07.2012  221000

In the USPTO Public Pair system, the status of the US application is listed as:
Status:     Abandoned -- Failure to Respond to an Office Action

10-21-2014  Mail Abandonment for Failure to Respond to Office Action
10-16-2014  Aband. for Failure to Respond to O. A.
03-24-2014  CTNF  Non-Final Rejection

So, to answer part of your question, yes, the European patent (EP) has been withdrawn, and the US application is currently listed as abandoned (although it could potentially be revived).
Now, looking at the PCT application in PatentScope, we can find the information that answers the question:
Applicants: CREATIVE TEAM INSTRUMENTS LTD. [IL/IL] (For All Designated States Except US).
TAUB, Ilan [IL/IL]; (IL) (For US Only)
REIFMAN, Mark [IL/IL]; (IL) (For US Only)

Priority Data:
61/296,643      20.01.2010      US

The PCT application is actually based on a US Provisional Application filed January 20, 2010 by the inventors. The PCT application named the company in Israel as the applicant in all states except the US, so ultimately an assignment would have been necessary for the US application. Indeed, an assignment occurred on December 20, 2012.


Add line item quantity in block-commerce-cart-cart "title"

Question: I'm making the cart-content div hidden as the default (in the sidebar shopping cart block), only the title will be visible, when the user hovers on the block-commerce-cart-cart the cart-contents div will be visible to them. How do I show the user how many items the got it their cart when only the block-commerce-cart-cart is visible, which means adding the line item quantity into the header. Can anyone please help?
Answer: Here's a quick way using hook_block_view_alter():
function MYMODULE_block_view_alter(&$data, $block) {
  if ($block->module == 'commerce_cart' && $block->delta == 'cart') {
    global $user;
    if ($order = commerce_cart_order_load($user->uid)) {
      // Count the number of product line items on the order.
      $wrapper = entity_metadata_wrapper('commerce_order', $order);
      $quantity = commerce_line_items_quantity($wrapper->commerce_line_items, commerce_product_line_item_types());

      // If there are more than 0 product line items on the order...
      if ($quantity > 0) {
        // Use the dynamic menu item title.
        $data['subject'] = format_plural($quantity, 'Shopping cart (1 item)', 'Shopping cart (@count items)');
      }
    }

  }
}

The above borrows code from commerce_cart_menu_item_title() to get the cart quantity, so if that's the string you want to output you can just call that function directly and not bother with re-implementing the code, in which case it would be as simple as:
function MYMODULE_block_view_alter(&$data, $block) {
  if ($block->module == 'commerce_cart' && $block->delta == 'cart') {
    $data['subject'] = commerce_cart_menu_item_title();
  }
}

The default return from commerce_cart_menu_item_title() will be at least 'Shopping Cart' (if the cart is empty) so this method should be pretty bulletproof.
Make sure you set the title of the block as an empty string on the block admin page (so the altered subject is used instead of a custom title) and that should work fine, e.g.:
Comment: Ah, you can simply override `theme_commerce_cart_empty_block` function.
Comment: Is it possible to show "0 Items" if the cart is empty? At the moment it shows "Your shopping cart is empty" and doesn't show the title that this hook is setting.
Comment: can you see any pitfalls in using the method (Answer) I posted below? If you can please comment on it. Also I will award you the bounty once the cooldown is over (18hours left). +201 for nice answer, cheers.
Comment: @Baysaa Nothing wrong with that method at all, they'll both produce the same results and I can't see any reason why your code wouldn't work. I'd advise putting it in a template preprocess function rather than directly in the template file though, just to ensure a good separation of logic and display
Answer: I just tried this after I posted a bounty, and this works, but it's a very quick and easy (and dirty) way to do this. The trick would be to create a custom template for your view: views-view--commerce-cart-block--default.tpl.php
And on top of that template put this PHP code:
$num = 0;
if (count($view->result)) {
  foreach ($view->result as $view_result) {
    if ($view_result->commerce_line_item_field_data_commerce_line_items_quantity) {
        $num += $view_result->commerce_line_item_field_data_commerce_line_items_quantity;
    }
  }
}

$num should now contain the total of all quantities of all products in the cart.