Language switcher to non-source language not working

Question: I have a Branch content type, which also happens to be an Organic Group. I use the Pathauto module to set the URL to:
branch/[node:menu-link]

I have created a content, and a Menu with a menu item which linked to said content. Everything works well up until now.
Next I enabled Entity translation and translated it into two different languages (French and German). Since, with entity translation, the node ID will be the same, I don't need to change the link in the menu item.
When I go to the English (the default and source language) page, I see that in the 'Language Switcher (Content)' block, the other two languages are not linking. However, manually changing the language prefix in the URL worked. So, the page actually exists.
/en/branch/my-branch ----> /fr/branch/my-branch

When I am on the French page, the language switcher shows 'English' as clickable, but German is disabled. The same for the German page.
So it appears that the language switcher doesn't link to non-source languages. Is this a bug? Any pointer are appreciated!
Answer: This looks really similar to what is described in Language switcher (content) does not work, which is an issue on D.O that is not yet resolved (status = active).


What are the parts of the corn plant?

Question: Supermarkets sell cleaned, prepared cobs of corn. If I pick my corn from the plant, which parts are there, and how are they cleaned?
Answer: Corn has husk, silk and kernels. In the middle there is the cob, which only becomes visible after you have eaten the kernels.

The husk is, botanically speaking, formed of leaves, but it has a different texture from the standard leaves and encloses the cob with the kernels snugly. It can be left on the cob during boiling, or removed before boiling. For grilling and other preparations, remove the husk. It is not edible, historically it was used for crafting. In the kitchen, it can be used for wrapping a tamale, although wider leaflike matter is more convenient, if available (such as banana leaves).
The silk is called that because it looks and feels like silk while young. The silk in ripe corn tends to be sun dried and brittle, at least outside of the "package" of husk. It is not usually eaten. See also Tips for Removing Silk from Corn?.
The kernels are what you want to eat. Most methods call for preparing them while still on the cob. If you need them removed, you can "shave them off" the cob with a sharp knife.
The cob itself is the dry semihard thing in the center. It has no culinary uses.
The leaves are used to feed livestock, but not eaten by humans.
An ear is the name for the whole package you pick off the plant, so the kernels on the cob with their silk and husk.
The stalk is something not generally seen in a kitchen. It is thick and tall, supporting the leaves and the ears.
Comment: I'm glad I could help! Also, now that I checked, it seems that I made a mistake - I thought the husk was made from sepals, but it turns out it is a special kind of leaf after all. Anyway, when corn is used by humans, the husk and leaves are handled separately.
Comment: if you're going to mention the leaves, you might want to mention the stalk for completeness.
Comment: @Joe The leaves were in there to help people learn to distinguish them from the husk, so they can use proper terminology in the kitchen. But OK, added the stalk too.
Comment: I think you are mistaking by saying the cob has no use it is used to put fire that is it can replace wood in cooking

What are the parts of the corn plant?


How was this patent even granted?

Question: In reference to the patent: US20160332236
Several published articles of previous work into AM of cutting tools existed long before the application of this patent was even thought of. The "inventor" does not even have one article or publication related to AM. Does that not then constitute as plagiarism or copyright infringement? Then why did the US, Chinese, and German patent offices grant the patent?
Answer: What you linked to is not a US patent. It is a patent application. It may never get to be a patent. You can use the US Public Pair site to determine the status of this application. At this point, the application is still not granted. The latest communications from the examiner is: "Final Rejection Mailed" on 07-10-2017. Final rejections aren't necessarily completely final, so there is likely still some ability to appeal or amend the claims. The links to the German and Chinese versions are likewise only applications at this point.

Then why did the US, Chinese, and German patent offices grant the patent?

Again, you need to be aware that patent applications are published typically 18 months after filing. The fact that an application publishes does not indicate that it will ever be granted as a patent. Indeed, it is very likely even if the patent is granted, the claims will be narrowed. I will also say, that just because the inventor hasn't published does not mean he can't invent anything of value. Many inventors that work for commercial companies don't publish their work. Indeed publishing before filing for a patent can keep you from obtaining the patent. Also even if there is substantial prior art in a field, it doesn't mean new inventions are impossible. Even a subtle improvement on an existing technology can be granted a patent. I won't comment on the specific application you cited, but it helps to actually see the figures which your link doesn't provide. This link to the application does.

How was this patent even granted?


What are the characteristic scales, keys, intervals, progressions, etc. of pirate / sailing / nautical music?

Question: Title pretty much says it.  I am barely an armchair composer, but I would like to try my hand at some game music that requires some nautical theming.  It seems to me that penny whistles and a celtic feel are close - but I would like to know what sort of keys and progressions I should be using to write original nautical music.
Answer: I've had a go writing some nautical-sounding music for games before. Andrew's answer about using Dorian is helpful - here's a few other tips I have.

For a piratey sound, accordions work well. They're characterised by a stride bass pattern (bass note on beats 1 and 3, chord on 2 and 4)
the folk-style melodies are heavily swung, lots of dotted notes.
Sticking to really simple folky chord sequences works well for a shanty sound. Try

4/4: | ii - - -  | I - - - | ii - - - | ii I ii - | (like in "Drunken Sailor")
or . | I  - - -  | V - - - | I  - - - | IV V I - | (for a happier tune)

For more of a Royal Navy feel: penny whistles, snare drums, straighter rhythms. "Sailor's Hornpipe" is worth a listen.
If you want to put drums in your pirate tune, something like a bodhran would probably sound most authentic.
Comment: There are two things I noticed apart from Sea Shanties, for more "Adverture Pirate Music" like in Pirates of The Caribean, and others. They have something of a triplet fell, that is often not showed in 60% of the melody, but then in the end of a section you can see the melody "speeding up" to fit the lyrics (think of the "Merrily merrily" part of Row Your Boat, or the "fiddle-dee-dee" from the chorus of the You Are a Pirate meme). Seems like a common pattern having a melody rhythm like long-long short-short-short-short, long-long short-short-short-short (or the opposite)
Comment: Another thing to notice historically is "why" those songs were created. Most "Sea Shanties" are made to keep the boat crew synchronized in daily activities like rowing, carrying heavy weights, etc., so they have an "intention" to keep it simple, and always creating a feeling of going forward in little repetitions. Notice that the melody almost always starts on 1, evades 1 during the 4 bar progression, and resolves on 1 every 4 bar cycle
Answer: The first thing that comes to mind is the mode or scale.  A "generic" tune in those genres may often be in the Dorian mode (not the Greek version), either original or in transposition.  Notably, the mode has the feel of a minor scale but without the leading tone (and with a raised sixth scale degree, when that note should arise).  So, the typical dominant to tonic "circle of fifths" progression is a minor triad to minor triad, unlike in typical tonality.  The raised sixth scale degree compared to natural minor can give the melody a fleeting Major feel when used.
The use of Dorian is by no means absolute of course, nor is it the sole generator of the style you seek.  Meter and rhythmic patters depend on which style you are trying to emulate, for instance.  Instrumentation also contributes to the character of the music, but it is certainly possible to have an entirely vocal composition in the styles you seek.
Comment: I felt compelled to add the [perfect example](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6P-QcGJ7DJg) of a mainly Dorian pirate song and...look, a three-headed monkey!
Answer: Many folk songs are simple and based on pentatonic scales. These songs historically were passed aurally (by listening and repeating), so they needed to be simple enough to be remembered.
The most basic pentatonic scale follows scale degrees 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 (and 1 and octave higher).
Answer: I believe 12/8 time shows up quite a bit in "piratey" music! I've seen this counted as both 12/8 and as 4/4 with triplets.
Answer: People seem to associate the 3/4 time signature with water, especially when the 1st beat is accentuated and the rhythm is fairly slow, mimicking the movement of swimming.
Check out the music in the water levels in the Super Mario games, for example.
Both the Dorian scale (minor with a raised 6th) and the regular major (Ionian) scale sound kinda piratey.
For a semi-diegetic approach, basically play an Irish-sounding tune on accordion, with swung notes in either the dorian or ionic scale.
For a non-diegetic approach, add some strings and use a 3/4 time signature with a heavy accent on the first beat and a melody in the dorian scale. Snare drums or even toms could be used as well.


OpenLayers.Format.CQL Regex Problem

Question: I have a cql filter as SQL. Im trying to parse this cql to OpenLayers.Filter using OpenLayers.Format.CQL.read() method. It all works fine since my input is ascii. When I type Turkish characters as VALUE an error occurs. I modifed regex belong to VALUE property in CQL.js as /(^('.+'|\d+(.\d*)?|.\d+))/
Now it accepts non-ascii characters but generated Filter is wrong. The regex i modified might affect somewhere.
What i try and what message i get actually like follow
<code>var format_cql = new OpenLayers.Format.CQL;
format_cql.read("NAME = 'ŞAKİR'");
</code>
Error: ERROR: In parsing: ['ŞAKİR'], expected one of: VALUE: /^('\w+'|\d+(.\d*)?|.\d+)/
If i type SAKIR instead of ŞAKİR it returns a OpenLayers Comparison object well.
It also doesnt allow to type space character in value.
Could someone please help me ?
Regards
Answer: My friend helped me and changed regex of 'value' property in CQL.js as
/^('([^ \t-~]|\w|\s)'|\d+(.\d)?|.\d+)/i
It works well with unicode characters and spaces.
Fyi.

OpenLayers.Format.CQL Regex Problem


Identifying "tropical houseplant"

Question: I bought this plant about a year ago at Marsh when it went out of business & it was labeled "Tropical plant #3". I have spent hours on the internet to identify it & even contacted a local greenhouse but no luck. When I bought the plant it was about 8 inches tall and now it's about 24 inches. It grows rapidly year round. During the warm months I move it outside because it seems to do better with bright/humid atmosphere. Now it sits on our North facing balcony and gets 3 hours of direct light (thank god im moving to a house with East and West facing windows!!). About 2-3 weeks ago it started to develop what appears to be berries? But they are only growing on one "stalk" ... I recently redid the soil because it was very packed down and the root system is composed of many small roots and zero large anchoring ones. They were also very shallow in the pot considering the plants size. The new leaves start red and turn a very deep green. I just want to know the best environment.
Comment: When you say "berries", do you mean those bundles of little white pointy things? They look a little like buds to me, at least in the photo. In fact the whole plant looks a little like Star Jasmine, aka Trachelospermum jasminoides, although I didn't know that one as a "houseplant". Was this fellow sold as "tropical plant #3"? or "tropical *house*plant #3"? Sounds like it has been letting you know of its love for the great outdoors. Is it possible that it isn't a houseplant at all, and that is why you are having trouble identifying it? ...Have you looked into Star Jasmine at all?
Comment: @LorelC.  Its not Star Jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides), the leaves aren't right. The leaves look very like Ficus benjamina, but those flower buds rule that out... I'm wondering about Ardisia, maybe Ardisia guianensis https://toptropicals.com/catalog/uid/Ardisia_sp.htm
Comment: @Bamboo Are you sure those are flowers? Could these be some kind of olive tree?
Comment: Let those bloom (if they are in-fact flowers) and it will be easy to tell what plant this is. As it stands, I can narrow it down to about... 20 or so different plants lol
Comment: @Rob - yep, I'm sure - berries don't appear out of nowhere, and the OP describes these appearing when there was nothing before. I still think its Ardisia, maybe A. elliptica - its flowerbuds look exactly like these. But if the OP doesn't respond in regard to the flowers opening, well... gonna post an answer anyway though
Answer: I think this is an Ardisia, which is classed as a tropical plant, and these 'berries' are in fact flowerbuds, which turn to red/black berries later on.  Most likely Ardisia elliptica, images here https://keyserver.lucidcentral.org/weeds/data/media/Html/ardisia_elliptica.htm but could be a different variety.
This variety is unusual as a houseplant, Ardisia crenata is much more common, and I can't find any information in regard to keeping this particular one as an indoor plant, but probably it responds to similar conditions as advised in this link https://www.engledow.com/green-scene/2015/09/ardisia-plant-care-instructions-national-indoor-plant-week-2015/. Yours actually looks pretty healthy, so whatever you're doing already seems to work well.
Answer: My guess would be rubber tree plant but the leaves are similar to magnolia tree which is grown as a houseplant sometimes.
Answer: Leaves look like Ixora.  Perhaps I. odorata

Identifying “tropical houseplant”


Add multiple items a SharePoint list

Question: I am creating a suggestion list using SharePoint 2010 custom list. My issue is I want to give the login user the ability to add others users to the form. I am thinking of doing a parent Child relation, but OOB allows for it adding one item per one ID. I need to add multiple items for one ID, any help
Comment: did not get your requirement? You can not add multiple items for one system generated ID if that's what you want, can you please elaborate what you exactly want?
Answer: If you want to be able to add multiple persons to an item in a list, then the usual solution is to create a column of type Person and check Yes below "Allow multiple selections"
If the users aren't real users, then you might create on list with the candidates and in the other list add a lookup field and check "Allow multiple values"

Add multiple items a SharePoint list


GPU mining slows down my ubuntu

Question: I'm trying to mine using my CPU and GPU. When the CPU is set to use all its cores, I have no problems, but when I use my GPU, my desktop gets way too slow because unity uses it too I think, so I need to find a way to be able to use my GPU for mining while using Intel graphics for unity and the rest, can anyone help? I have a Nvidia GTX 850M and Ubuntu 16.04, and I don't know where to begin.
Comment: Quick clarification for newcomers thinking they can mine bitcoin on CPU or GPU: you can't. This question is not about Bitcoin.
Comment: actually, i'm not mining bitcoin, i'm just trying out mining monero
Answer: Mining on a cpu at all is a bad idea, it can and will wear the cpu down, and is ridiculously slow compared to a gpu. Also mining with an Nvidia card isn't the smartest thing either as they are much slower than AMD cards. Regardless you will make next to no money mining with this kind of hardware given that there are thousands of people with ASIC miners that pump out 2TH/s +. My advice would be save up some money and purchase a high-end ASIC miner and refrain from mining with your current computer.
Comment: i am not mining bitcoins, i am minning monero (XMR) and at the moment, there are no  cryptonote ASIC miners
Answer: Just purchase a second computer specifically for Monero mining, and don't even run the GUI (Unity).  If your mining efforts aren't profitable enough to warrant a dedicated computer, then you probably shouldn't be mining.
Comment: i'm just starting today, so no profits yet, just wanted to test the waters and see how things are
Answer: You could add a second video card and mine with one and use the second for productivity.
Comment: i use a laptop, and i can't really afford a second gpu right now, but i already have intel haswell, which run unity fine before i install nvidia driver, however, once i install nvidia drivers, either everything use nvidia, or everythin use intel, i can't find a way to separate them as planned(intel for unity, nvidia for the rest)
Answer: I won't answer your question How can I use one GPU for computing and the other for interactive use?, because I think this is a general question and is more in the focus of SU and/or ask ubuntu, but address your primary problem description in the title: GPU mining slows down my ubuntu:
So, to improve your interactive use when you mine with ccminer on your primary GPU (which also applies if you only have one installed) take a look at the --bfactor parameter. From the help:
  --bfactor=[0-12]  Run Cryptonight core kernel in smaller pieces,
                    From 0 (ui freeze) to 12 (smooth), win default is 11
                    This is a per-device setting like the launch config.

Just try out different settings, I usually use something between 6 and 11, depending if I work in a terminal or with GUI programs.
Answer: After a lot of research and tries and fails, i found the solution in here, and it works great
https://askubuntu.com/questions/758972/does-ubuntu-16-04-support-hybrid-grafics-cards-bumblebee
Comment: Whilst this may theoretically answer the question, [it would be preferable](//meta.stackoverflow.com/q/8259) to include the essential parts of the answer here, and provide the link for reference.

GPU mining slows down my ubuntu


Is GOCE a satellite or aircraft?

Question: This vessel (GOCE) is in orbit and maneuvers by using air similar to a plane to create lift and turn. The solar powered ion thrusters powers it continuously inside the atmosphere for years. Is this technically a plane, satellite, or a missile?

Source: https://space.stackexchange.com/a/33202/18879
Comment: By definition it's a spacecraft instead of an aircraft, because it relies on orbital velocity to stay up, not air in any form. It's a low drag satellite.
Comment: I took the liberty of editing out the off-topic side question (not only because it's off-topic but also because you should only have one question per post). Feel free to roll back if you disagree.
Answer: A satellite is an object in orbit. A satellite keeps a constant altitude if it is traveling at the correct orbital speed for their altitude. Otherwise it will be in an elliptical orbit where the altitude is constantly changing. In any case, satellites are (almost) in free-fall
An airplane travels at much, much lower speed than orbital speed. Airplanes keep their altitude because their wings produce lift.
Satellites in lower orbited are subject to atmospheric drag, albeit to much smaller extentd than planes. GOCE was orbiting Earth at an - for satellites - very low altitude (224 km). There is hardly any atmosphere at this altitude, but at an orbital velocity of 7.8 m/s (51337 kts), atmospheric drag is still a problem.
Therefore the structure of GOCE was particularly designed for low drag. The wings were flat without camber. They did not produce any lift. GOCE used ion thrusters to compensate the atmospheric drag and maintain orbital velocity.

Photo: ESA

Photo: ESA
Missiles are self-propelled guided weapons. I can assure you that GOCE was not a weapon.
[TL;DR]: GOCE was a satellite, because it orbited an astronomical body. It was not a plane, because its wings did not produce lift.
GOCE´s 20 month mission ended on November 11, 2013 with the planned destructive re-enty into the atmosphere. It measured Earth´s gravity field and acquired a precise model of the Earth geoid:

Image: ESA
Comment: "The wings were flat without camber. They did not produce any lift." - What were the wings *for*, then? I would have thought that if a surface doesn't produce lift, then that surface is not considered a wing.
Comment: @TannerSwett, They provide area for solar panels, and they stabilize the space craft. Indeed, it would be more correct to call them fins instead of wings

Is GOCE a satellite or aircraft?


Recognition of Previous Marriage by the Roman Catholic Church

Question: In a situation in which a non-Catholic, previously married to a non-Catholic, subsequently  marries a Catholic outside the Catholic Church, is it possible to have a Catholic marriage for the latest marriage - or recognition of that marriage - without obtaining an decree of nullity for the prior marriage?
Comment: We do not feel that we are qualified to give pastoral advice, that is something which requires some personal contact. Please consult your Pastor.
Comment: @MattGutting and Bye - Usually I'm quick to vote to close, but this ***could*** be interpreted as asking what the official Catholic doctrine is, which ***would*** be on-topic.  Although it would be far simpler to talk to a Priest in the Catholic Church, particularly the Priest of the Church you'd like to get married in.  There may be some flexibility that varies from Priest to priest...
Comment: This question appears to be be two separate questions: "Can the Church judge a marriage between two non-Catholics invalid?" and, if so, "Does the Church allow mixed (Catholic & non-Catholic) marriages?"
Answer: (Answering having read the original post prior to the edit)

The marriage of a Catholic who marries outside the Church is invalid [cf. Can.  1108 §1.]. Such a Catholic ought to contact their priest for the steps required for their reconciliation to the Church.
Another complication to address with the priest is that the Catholic is in a relationship with a person the Catholic Church considers married.
For a non-Catholic previously married and divorced and now wishing to marry a Catholic, they are to note from my answer linked below:

a. No marriage can occur until their prior marriage that ended in divorce is examined by the Church and a decree of nullity issued (i.e. in the eyes of the Church, that marriage never existed to begin with).
b. Once that decree has been issued, the requirements for a mixed
  marriage must be met
  for there to be a valid marriage in the Catholic Church.

Endnote
My answer to Do divorced non-Catholics need an annulment to marry in the Catholic Church? stated:

Thus the Church recognizes the marriages of non-Catholics as well and
  considers them valid until proven otherwise.


Why doesn't ethereum have a fast relay network like Bitcoin?

Question: I'm talking about nodes that miners connect to that help relay blocks fast, to reduce hash power wastage and forks:
http://bitcoinrelaynetwork.org/ and http://www.falcon-net.org/
Answer: To supplement this with Vitalik's answer on Gitter (quoted):

Rewarding ommer blocks means miners have lesser incentive to mine on the latest block:

basically means that miners' private incentive to make relaying
  super-fast is ~3-4x lower than it normally would be this is by design,
  to limit centralization concerns

Ethereum is computation-heavy. IO accesses and state Merkle root computation are more of a bottleneck than network latency. In Bitcoin, the transaction Merkle root can be precomputed (before getting the hash of the previous block).

ethereum in practice is a bit more computation-heavy than bitcoin is,
  though for reasons more subtle than "OMG it's turing complete!!1!", so
  bandwidth improvements won't help quite as much
  the actual reasons are (i) you can't pre-compute as much before
  receiving
  the block as it's more order-dependent, (ii) there's overhead from
  Merkle state root computations, (iii) you can't pre-compute IO
  accesses as those may be dynamic
Answer: Because in Ethereum you don't waste hashpower since stales are also rewarded.
A stale block is called uncle or ommer block in Ethereum and you might want to read about the reward scheme here: What is GHOST and what is its relationship to Frontier and Casper?
And here: What is an uncle/ommer block?
Comment: Adding a subtlety: you do waste *some* hash power as uncles are rewarded only 7/8 of the block reward and nephews only 1/32. This reduces the incentive for fast relay to 3-4x less (according to Vitalik Buterin).


If I am unsure about the existence of morality, Am I morally obligated to find out the answer?

Question: Since we do not know if morality has an independent existence, are we morally obligated to know if it exists?
Comment: Legal laws do not have "independent existence", but even if we are not aware of a law we are still obligated to follow it. Why should it be any different with morality?
Comment: @Conifold because unlike morality, legal dispositions are enforced by a justice system that really really needs to prevent people from using "sorry, I didn't know about this law" as a defence, because that would make its mission unenforceable. What you are speaking about is just one more legal disposition pragmatically adopted in order to plug a potential loop hole. It has nothing to do with the subject of morality.
Comment: @armand "Sorry, I didn't know about this law" can be played the same way when the law is moral rather than legal. Excuses and willful ignorance are undesirable either way, so the adopted disposition is not merely pragmatic.
Comment: Two risks: guilt/regret, & social consequences. A psychopath will still experience the latter. Someone violating morality & benefitting, may still suffer the latter. Is it possible for morality to exist?https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/78307/is-it-possible-for-morality-to-exist/78849#78849 Morality & instincts https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/64011/instinct-driven-decisions/64072#64072 Morality & privacy https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/a/77170/30474
Answer: The more general idea behind this question is: if I am unsure about proposition X, am I obligated to find whether X is true or false? The particular sort of obligation you have in mind is 'moral obligation'.
Obligation is defined by oxford as:
i. the condition of being morally or legally bound to do something.
ii. a debt of gratitude for a service or favour.
In this context, (i) seems to be the definition to consider, and disregarding the legal aspects of obligation, the idea of obligation is essentially moral. One could also conceive of epistemic obligation, which is arguably an essential characteristic of a rational agent.
When is a rational agent obligated to know a proposition X? I can think of the following scenarios:
i. The agent asserts or denies X.
ii. The agent cites X in the justification of some other proposition Y, where X >..>..> Y i.e. X is in the 'justificatory chain' supporting Y.
iii. The agent's intention is grounded in a belief that X, and the agent acts in accordance with this intention.
i., ii. are mostly concerned with the epistemic obligation of a rational agent (that he or she possess some sort of justification for their beliefs.) iii. is the sort of moral obligation a moral agent will cite when he/she performs an action.
Then, either:
i. Epistemic obligation entails moral obligation i.e. all rational agents are moral agents (though some moral agents may not be rational)
ii. Moral obligation entails epistemic obligation i.e. all moral agents are rational agents (though some rational agents may not be moral)
iii. Moral obligation does not bear any relation to epistemic obligation and needs to be independently formulated.
If you are a rational agent, then you are at least epistemically obligated to take a position with respect to i, ii, iii when you assert/deny knowledge that is grounded in some implicitly assumed truth value of these propositions, or act in a way such that your actions are grounded in some implicitly assumed truth value of these propositions.
Furthermore, the question:
Is a rational agent obligated to articulate a justification for his or her assertions/denials/actions?
The answer to this question is much more difficult: depending on what idea of "knowledge" you subscribe to, the answer to this question will vary. A K-reliabilist, for example, might be sympathetic to a rational agent who acts within an implicit moral framework but is not aware of it. On the other hand, someone who subscribes to JTB, will probably demand justification, citing that an "adult, reasonable, rational" individual ought to be able to articulate the reasons behind his or her actions.
Answer: If moral obligation is real, then you are morally obligated to act in certain ways, and you cannot do this without first finding out what actions are obligatory and what actions are not.
Therefore, you are morally obligated to find out the rules of morality, if moral obligation is a thing that is real.  If moral obligation is not real, then you are not morally obligated to do anything.
So, you may or may not be obligated to find out the rules of morality; you don't quite know.
Comment: The existence of moral obligation depends on the existence of morality. If morality exists, moral obligation must exist.
Comment: @Curious Probably you're right.  But what if morality is real but doesn't obligate us to do anything?  Maybe morality is real in that some things are morally good and some morally bad, but obligation is not real because our actions are predetermined.  I don't believe this but it's a possibility.
Answer: Obligation may exist independent of the so called "reality" of ethics. You are misusing terms.
Of course, if moral scepticism is correct, then you are not "obliged" to do anything. Perhaps the appearance of "obligation" is a confusion of language.
Any which way, very few moral septics would say that all discourse is in error, or the equivalent. So you may still be rationally compelled to various conclusions, including - but not limited to - ones about the reality, facticity, etc., of ethics.
In the same way that you may be under no "obligation" to answer in a maths quiz, but some answers are nevertheless wrong.
Answer: From ethics perspective, there's a modern school of thought called "non-cognitivism" which believes that ethical sentences do not express propositions and thus cannot be true or false. Under this view and further via correspondence of truth, it implies that moral knowledge is not mandatory or even possible, and ethical sentences are primarily emotional expressions of one's own attitudes and are intended to influence the actions of the listener.
Having said that, there's still some subtle difference between morality and ethics, namely a moral precept is an idea or opinion that's driven by a desire to be good, while ethics is a set of rules that defines allowable actions or correct behavior. For me, philosophy is essentially a moral study to help you find your own desire to be good facing a sea of different metaphysical or phenomenological views to choose from, thus you're still morally obligated to find an answer for your own problem, otherwise what good you're learning it?
Answer: Morality is not an object that can have "an independent existence" (a thing-in-itself, see Kant). Morality is a regulation system, that is, it is just a set of rules that regulate our behavior, like religion, formal law and justice, or gang rules.
Without some regulation system, I would be free to offend your child, and he would not be able to react because I can defend myself. But why does society (including you) react? Why do would they normally condemn my actions, and progressively isolate me? Because people follow rules in order to survive. Guess which regulation system are they following when they do so: morality.

Since we do not know if morality has an independent existence [...]

Morality does not exist except in people's heads, it is followed in order to increase the survival probabilities. Morality is relative to a human group. Groups with large probabilities of survival can be said to have the benefit of  better regulation systems --which includes morals-- in comparison with other groups. Of course, survival does not depend only on morals. But morals are part of our instinct of survival. Moreover, you are forced to follow the moral rules of the group you live within, so you don't commit risky actions that could isolate you, like as in the example, offending a child.

Am I morally obligated to find out the answer?

No, if you want to be isolated, you can go living in a mountain where no moral rules will be imposed to you, if you take another person with you, you can offend him/her all the time, with consequences that are obvious for most people (you seem to doubt such consequences).
But if you want to have a good life, adopting the moral rules of a society you consider ideal would surely increase your probabilities of survival by increasing your well-being (the calculation of such probability has a huge difficulty).
Answer: If you are not sure about the existence of immorality, you are not sure about the existence of immorality also, right?
In this mundane world one can find morality and immorality. If you feel that you are obliged to find the answer to one question (about morality), you are equally obliged to find the existence of the other (about immorality).
It may be an obligation if you have to find the truth about the existence of something (including morality) as part of your job.
Because your purpose is to find the existence of morality for your own satisfaction, we can say that it is not morally obligatory.
Again,though you can't, suppose you were able to discover the existence of morality, it would not end there. Others would try to discover the existence of immortality also. Since there is a great possibility for this also, your effort would do no particular good to morality, or especially to society or the world. So you needn't worry about its moral obligation.
Answer: One could also ask, "Am I permitted to learn what is permitted?" But it would be odd to say, "I am forbidden from knowing what is forbidden."
Now, let us suppose that we already know what is obligated, right, good, etc. so the issue is clarifying our knowledge to ourselves, of understanding what we know. One would not be obligated to do what was not something that is done. So we might thereby be obligated to understand what we know, instead.
But let us suppose we don't know the answers to various particular moral questions. If we knew a priori that we ought to act according to answers to those questions, then, "We only act on those answers if we know them," and there is a (however paradoxical) principle in standard deontic logic that would license us to infer, "We ought to know them," then.


Field-level encryption vs disk encryption for PCI compliance

Question: We are in the process of setting up a PCI compliant server (with Firehost's help). We are using MongoDB as our primary database. I am having some concerns about the encryption, though. Are there any advantages of Field-level data encryption over Disk encryption (maybe with something like truecrypt)? Which would be the preferred choice for a PCI compliant MongoDB database server?
Answer: Field level encryption is important in case of SQL injections or your database server getting hacked. Assuming application and database are on different servers, the data will still be encrypted by application server.
Full-disk encryption would help in case of hardware theft as otherwise encrypted server will not be protected in case it is broken into as your encrypted partitions will be mounted so you database (MongoDB) can access it.
From this I would say that Field-level data encryption should be your focus.


Using a DLink 615 router but can't make Samsung Bd C6500 recognize wireless network

Question: Using a DLink 615 router but can't make Samsung Bd C6500 recognize wireless network
Answer: Which version of the Firmware do you have installed on the DLink-615?  I have this same router, and a different Samsung wireless printer and could never get them to connect properly until the other day when I discovered that the DLink-615 "Check Now" button for updates was BROKEN in the version I had. (It always reported that I had the latest even though it was almost 3 years out of date!)
Depending on the revision of your hardware, the latest version of the firmware is up to 3.13NA as of today (March 13, 2011)
The fixes to the firmware include important updates like being able to recognize devices with a MAC address that does not start "00" which all but one of my wireless devices does not. (and many other fixes)
I'd recommend you go to the DLink site for the DIR-615 router and install the latest firmware for your model.


Am I understanding the UIActivityViewController wrong?

Question: from my opinion, I can pass text, images etc. to the UIActivityViewController and it will show exactly these apps, that can handle the file types I´m passing in. But it isn´t behaving like that! It´s just showing the standard apps Mail, Messages, Twitter, Facebook and Copy. These are not changing at all, regardless of what I´m passing to UIActivityViewController.
I read that you have to subclass UIActivity to be able to support other Apps, but this renders the whole concept useless to me, as I have to know, which apps could do what.
Am I the only one that´s frustrated with this? Or am I just doing something wrong?
And to have some code:
NSArray *items = @[@"sometext", @"some longer text", [NSURL urlWithString:@"http://www.apple.com/"]];

controller = [[UIActivityViewController alloc] initWithActivityItems:items applicationActivities:nil];

Expected: to have apps like Evernote, Instagram etc. in the ActivityViewController
Comment: Go to https://bugreport.apple.com and file a feature request.
Answer: I think your question is related to this one. It doesn't seem anyone has an answer for either of them. Seems like if you create a UIActivity, you can only use it in your app within your own UIActivityViewController.


Get the List of all Flikr PhotoSets using Flikr.net API

Question: I am trying to add the name of all photosets into a list box.I have the Token and a Valid Flickr Object.How can i do this in c#.In the standard Flikr API
<code>flickr.photosets.getList
</code>
is used but how can i achieve this in .net
Answer: Ripped from here
Flickr Library in C#
The last few days I've been working on a sample C# library to access Flickr pictures using Flickr's own API. This library is a light-weight C# class that provides two basic features: (1) retrieve the list of photosets in your account and (2) retrieve information about the photos in a photoset.
Using this class you can retrieve the photosets in your Flickr account and display them in a combobox with a few lines of code like these:
<code>        Flickr flickr = new Flickr("YourApiKey", "YourUserID");

        List<PhotoSetInfo > photosets = flickr.GetPhotoSets();

        cboPhotoSets.DataSource = photosets;

        cboPhotoSets.DataTextField = "Title";

        cboPhotoSets.DataValueField = "PhotoSetID";

        cboPhotoSets.DataBind();
</code>
Once you select a photoset you can retrieve information about the photos inside it (like title and URL) with the following code. In this example I am binding the list of photos to an ASP.NET datalist control to display them:
<code>        Flickr flickr = new Flickr("YourApiKey", "YourUserID");

        List<PhotoInfo> photos = flickr.GetPhotosInSet(cboPhotoSets.SelectedValue);

        listPhotos.DataSource = photos;

        listPhotos.DataBind();

        lblPhotosMsg.Text = (photos.Count == 0) ? "No photos in this photoset" : "";
</code>
The Flickr API supports multiple requests and response formats. I am using the REST format for requests and responses in my FlickrLib library. A typicall Flickr REST request looks like this:
http://api.flickr.com/services/rest/?method=methodName&parameter1=value1&parameter2=value2
where methodName is the name of the method to call, for example flickr.photosets.getList to return a list of photosets.
REST responses that Flickr provide are XML documents with the pertinent information for the request. For the flickr.photosets.getList method the reponse would be an XML document with a photosets node and several photoset children nodes. These XML responses are very easy to parse with LINQ to XML and turn them into C# strong-typed objects (like PhotoSetInfo and PhotoInfo) which then can be bound to .NET classes. That's exactly what the FlickrLib library does, it provides a wrapper to the Flickr API functionality so that you can easily consume it from your .NET applications.
References
You can download the C# source code for this class from http://hectorcorrea.com/downloads/FlickrLibDemo.zip
For information about the Flick API visit http://www.flickr.com/services/api/ there is a lot of information there on what the API provides and how to use it. There are tons of Flickr features that the API provide that you might find useful and that my little class does not expose.
You will need to obtain an API key from Flickr in order to use their API through this class or any other class. The API key is free but it is needed so that Flickr can prevent a single user from submitting too many requests to their site and take it down.
Posted on 11/30/2008 12:27:00 PM Perma Link
Comment: Thanks for the Great Answer.I will check out your library.So is there no way to do this with Flikr.Net Wrapper.


high traffic websocket/haproxy tuning

Question: i have a pubsub application (mostly chat but some other goodies being pub-ed and sub-ed too) running on node & socket.io.
i'm load testing this app by spinning up some other, real large, boxes and running a node app i wrote for this purpose that spawns a ton of processes that connect using the socket.io-client package.
i found that i can get about 1k concurrent connections to a single 1gig rackspace cloud box. we need to support between 10k and 100k concurrent connections (for specific events, not all the time) though so i put a load balancer in front and figured before a big event i'd spin up more machines. but i've put a haproxy box in front and found that with 2 servers and 2k users i'm golden but with 4 servers even 3k users is a struggle!
i noticed that when my load tests start causing lots of disconnects the node servers are experiencing very high cpu usage (in the 90%) which i find odd because when 2 servers and 2k users i end up with a max of 70% which quickly diminishes.
here are some relevant lines from my haproxy config:
mode http
timeout client 86400000
timeout server 86400000
timeout connect 5000
maxconn 100000

i've also put some kernel net tuning into /etc/sysctl.conf on my haproxy and node boxes:
net.ipv4.tcp_tw_reuse = 1
net.ipv4.ip_local_port_range = 1024 65023
net.ipv4.tcp_max_syn_backlog = 10240
net.ipv4.tcp_max_tw_buckets = 400000
net.ipv4.tcp_max_orphans = 60000
net.ipv4.tcp_synack_retries = 3
net.core.somaxconn = 50000
net.core.netdev_max_backlog = 50000
net.ipv4.tcp_rmem = 8192 87380 8388608
net.ipv4.tcp_wmem = 8192  87380 8388608

and both the haproxy and node boxes have
ulimit -n 99999
in their relevant init scripts (before starting haproxy or node)
the haproxy box is consistently at single digit (or less) cpu usage.
what should my next steps be? does anything here stick out as an issue?
Answer: Turn on HAProxy HTTP logging if you haven't already and see if you can find the cause of the disconnects in either that or syslog of the server. The HAProxy HTTP log format includes the termination_state for requests which should help point you in the right direction.

high traffic websocket/haproxy tuning


Three Wise Monkeys and a Crime

Question: Is there any crime the three wise monkeys (who see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil) could collectively "witness" and not be able to indict the suspect?
Comment: This could be interesting, but it's *very* vague as written.
Answer: Well, there's an obvious solution:
The act of shooting all three of them in the head with a big enough caliber gun.
Answer: Clearly it depends on your definition of "evil" - the third monkey, whose sight and hearing are not restricted in any way, is a perfectly good witness who could identify the culprit easily enough. Were you to declare that saying "It was John who robbed the bank / shot that guy / lit the fuse" was somehow speaking evil, then I could declare that one of the other monkeys who had only partial information could (suggest to a cop/prosecutor to) ask questions like "who was that running away afterwards?" while testifying what they saw or heard the running away guy do while somehow not being sure who it was.
So I say no, I can't think of any witnessable crime that the three of them can't testify succesfully about.
Comment: if you are going to arbitrarily restrict that, will you also say the third monkey can't nod/shake, draw, point, or communicate in any way? Unless you do, that monkey (who has seen and heard everything) can answer yes/no questions inspired by the partial information the hearing and seeing monkeys have and can talk about.
Comment: The "See/Hear/Speak no evil" is not about "evil", just about their ability to see/hear/speak.  One monkey is effectively deaf, one mute, and one blind.
Comment: I agree - one has to make assumptions about their abilities to make the question more than trivial.
Answer: It depends on how much freedom the monkey who can "speak no evil" has.  Does this mean that he can write?  Sign language?  If so, then he effectively has no limitations since he can communicate fully.  Thus, there is no crime (apart from the monkeys being killed like in a previous answer) that he cannot indict.
If he cannot do these things, then he cannot communicate at all and goes from the most useful to the least useful of the three monkeys; in fact he is completely useless since no matter what he witnesses, he has no ability to communicate it.
Thus, you have the other two monkeys, one blind and the other deaf.
If the crime involves both senses to decode, then it would not be fully understood by either.  However, if the monkeys could communicate some how and share their experiences, then they could potentially figure out anything.  So lets assume they are unable to communicate.
A simple example of something neither would be able to understand on their own, but together they would, would be a visible code and an audible key.  The deaf monkey would see the code, but not be able to decipher it, while the blind monkey would hear the key, but not have nothing to decode.
Answer: Two men walk into a bank, wearing masks that disguise their identities.  One of them speaks, his voice clearly identifying him as John Wayne.  One of them shoots the teller and takes the money.  Both leave.  There are no cameras or witnesses other than the monkeys.
Blind monkey knows that one of the two men was John Wayne, but doesn't know whether he was the shooter or not.
Deaf monkey knows which man shot the teller, but didn't hear them speak, so he doesn't know which was John Wayne.
Mute monkey saw and heard and knows whether it was John Wayne that shot the teller, but cannot communicate what he witnessed.
Comment: Many places have laws that allow both men to be charged with murder, so it doesn't actually matter which one did the shooting. (In Wisconsin, if someone dies during the commissioning of a felony, anyone guilty of the felony may be charged with murder)
Comment: Ah, I should have specified that there's no evidence both men were involved.  They both entered, they both left.  The second man could have been an innocent bystander.
Comment: Yeah, thought about that after I wrote the comment. Just wearing masks may not be enough to assume both were intending on committing a felony.
Answer: The 3 wise monkeys are having dinner.
On the next table sit 3 very attactive monkeys so every move is attentively watched.  We will assume they have different wigs on that stay in place and are not particularly wise so we can distinguish the 6 monkeys.
The brunette monkey complains that her banana daquari is not sweet enough and that she has to go to the bathroom.  She stands up, the blonde follows, and the redhead says "I'll catch up I need to check my email". (Ok they are smarter than normal monkeys.)  After finishing with her phone, the redhead takes a container labelled "agave nectar" from her purse and puts some in the brunette's drink.  She then goes to the bathroom.  After a couple of minutes, the blonde comes back.  She takes a contain labelled "monk fruit extract" from her purse and puts some in the same drink.  The other monkeys come back sit down and the brunette takes another sip. "Hm," she says, "That is much better.  But why does it smell like almonds now?"  She then collapses on the ground dead.
No observer could have figured out who did it unless they, after the fact, search the friends.
Answer: There are a couple of loopholes in the question.
If you were to kidnap the 3 wise monkeys, they would all witness it, but none would be able to indict you.
Similarly, anything which adds disabilities to the monkeys, ie. making them all blind. Again, they can all witness it, but assuming you take care to protect your identity (wear a mask, talk in a chipmunk voice), none can ID you.
Last one I've got is that if the suspect is actually not the criminal, then (assuming the monkeys are lawful) they wouldn't be able to indict the suspect - the question doesn't say indict the criminal.

Three Wise Monkeys and a Crime


Why is my electric water heater making an intermittent groaning noise?

Question: My 8 year old electric water heater started to make a strange rattling noise a couple of weeks ago. The noise happens at random and lasts for only a few minutes. Short bursts of noise about a minute apart and stops after about 6 rattling bursts. The noise sounds like a loud groan. I heard this sound about 2 weeks ago for the first time and I've only heard it about 4 times since.We have plenty of hot, clean and soft water. My tank is a RHEEM 40 Gallon.
Is my tank failing?
Answer: Groaning, rumbling, or other low-pitched noises from a hot water heater are typical symptoms of excessive sediment buildup in the heater; normally, flushing it via the bottom drain valve is recommended to clean out the sediment buildup.  If not cleaned out, eventually the heater's lower element will burn out due to being buried in insulating sediment (calcium carbonate).
Answer: Electrical components generally don't make noise and if they do it's a high pitched whine. Considering the main parts of a water heater are probably: tank, solenoid valves, heating element and some control unit; I would suggest checking out the solenoids or pipes.
Solenoids are electro-magnets that open and close the line to fill the tank with water. If you have them.
Otherwise, maybe most likely, the pipes are shaking from water flow. You could try wrapping them to stop the vibration...
Let me know what you've tried or if you can tell where on the machine it's coming from.


Are there any good websites which have story hooks and plots points for campaigns?

Question: Are there any good websites which have story hooks and plots points for campaigns?
Answer:
Big List of RPG Plots
Seventh Sanctum - Generators for lots of things
Adventure Generator - Generates a very detailed dungeon

Hope these help :)
Answer: Here are some:

TV Tropes Wiki
Evil Overlord Plot Generator by Teresa Nielsen Hayden
Random Anime Plot Generator
The Almost Totally Random Writing Exercise Generator
Medieval City Generator with NPC plot hooks
Simple Plot and a Random Story Generator
Faction Generator with faction motivations
Answer: The Big List of RPG Plots has probably all you'll ever need.
http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/plots.htm
Answer: Strolen's Citadel is a StackExchange-like site (in that things are voted up and down) where members submit plots, NPCs, quests, dungeons, societies, races, items, locations, nations, devices, and any other element that can be used in a roleplaying game.
The site is highly structured, so you can browse the entire list of plots or you can narrow it down by Plot Type (campaign, side-quest, encounter, etc.) and by Hook Type (coincidence, discovery, hired, etc.) by clicking on the categories in the side bar, to just see the kinds of plots that suit your immediate needs. It also allows you to sort the plots by Rating (among other ways) so that you can sift the highest-quality submissions to the top. You can also sort by author if you stumble upon someone whose submissions you really enjoy.
For more plot hooks you can go farther afield and look in the NPC, Location, Items, and Societies categories (and perhaps others). Obviously those will be more hit-and-miss, but some of the more detailed submissions (especially among the NPCs) will have built-in story hooks that you can adapt or use outright. Those are similarly structured so that you can filter them by different types and ratings.
There are plot hooks hiding everywhere on that site. Even a submission as seemingly simple as one about dungeon doors, like the Pegoran Doors submission, can contain enough plot ideas to build an entire campaign around.
Have fun! It's a great site just for browsing for inspiration, too.
Answer: This one has a fair amount of material: http://www.rpgarchive.com/


What is the difference between "murder", "manslaughter" and "homicide"?

Question: Do "murder", "manslaughter" and "homicide" have different legal definitions? Or are they just terms referring to the same act used in different jurisdictions?
Comment: This question very much depends on which jurisdiction you're talking about. Though as a rule there is some difference between some of these, it really matters where you mean.
Answer: The answer is going to depend on what jurisdiction you're talking about. But I can give you some general principles that apply, in most cases, in the U.S. at least.
"Homicide" is a general term for the killing of one person by another. If someone died, and another person caused it, it's homicide.
"Murder" and "manslaughter" are specific crimes, usually now defined by state criminal statutes. The specifics are going to differ from state to state, but in general, murder is the more serious crime and carries a more serious punishment.
So if a person dies at another person's hand, it is a homicide, and it may also be murder or manslaughter.
The way the law distinguishes between murder and manslaughter usually has to do with the killer's mental state. For example, a state with three homicide offenses might break them down like this:

Murder: "I killed him because I wanted to steal his wallet."
Voluntary manslaughter: "I killed him because I just found out he was sleeping with my wife."
Involuntary manslaughter/negligent homicide: "I didn't mean to kill him, but I was drunk and didn't see the stop sign."

These homicide offenses will then be further subdivided into degrees based on aggravating or mitigating factors. For instance, in some states there is a very limited definition for first degree murder, which may be the only offense that allows the death penalty (example: murder of a police officer, murder while serving a life sentence).
Comment: Yes, depending on how broad a definition you use for "homicide." Some people use the term only to refer to an act that fits under one of the "homicide" crimes, meaning if you have a defense (such as self-defense), it's not "homicide." Others use "homicide" as a general term for any killing, in which case it would be a homicide, but not a crime.
Comment: So, it is possible for a homicide to be non-criminal? E.g. A police officer shoots at a man who is holding a knife and trying to attack. The man died. The police committed a legal homicide?
Comment: **IANAL**, but are you sure that the "I was drunk" is a good example? I was under the impression that some (many?) jurisdictions would consider it to be voluntary, since you did drink and drive willingly. If that's so, it would be better to replace with a less ambiguous example.
Comment: Are you sure about spur-of-the-moment killing not being murder? If you catch someone in bed with your wife and shoot him, how is that not murder? It is intentional. Since you have to pick up the gun, it's not a reflex action, it's pre-meditated - at least by a few seconds. Or is there a time-limit on pre-meditation?
Answer: Murder is intentional and premeditated killing. Manslaughter is also criminal killing but is not murder, because it is not premeditated e.g. someone comes home and discovers the spouse in bed with someone else, and "kills." That's voluntary manslaughter. Homicide is killing, criminal or not, so "self defense" or accidental killing is homicide. All murder and manslaughter is homicide, but not all homicide is manslaughter or murder.
There's another category of involuntary manslaughter.
Example: You are driving in a residential neighborhood at a "safe" speed of 10 mph. A small child rushes under your car, you can't swerve, and kill the child. That's accidental killing, not "manslaughter."
Example: You are driving in the same neighborhood at 30 mph. That's well above the 15 mph considered "safe." If you hit a child, you will now be charged with criminal involuntary manslaughter, or homicide, because of your "reckless disregard" for safety.
Example: You are driving at 10 mph, but are DUI, which slows your reflexes. If you now hit a child while under the influence of alcohol, that's criminal involuntary manslaughter.
Comment: This is not true in any jurisdiction I'm aware of; manslaughter is generally defined as the *unlawful* killing of another (to quote federal law, "Manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being without malice"), and homicide is generally *any* time person A is responsible for the death of person B whether or not it's criminal (a killing in self-defense is homicide, even though it is not illegal).
Comment: @cpast: I was editing my answer when you commented and presumably downvoted. Is it ok now?
Comment: Pretty much (you might want to clarify that manslaughter is specifically criminal killing). Downvote removed.
Comment: The distinction between voluntary and involuntary manslaughter is specific to some jurisdictions.  England and Wales has no such distinction (I don't know about Scotland).
Comment: You can't be right about shooting-the-guy-in-bed-with-wife example... That's intentional killing, therefore murder. Manslaughter is violence that ends, unintentionally, in death. If you punch a guy (so intending to hurt him non-lethally) but he falls, hits his head and dies, that might be manslaughter. I don't see how using a deadly weapon can be anything other than murder.
Comment: @OscarBravo In many US states, if you commit a felony, and someone dies as a result of the felony, but not intented by you, it's 2nd degree murder. I think there have even be cases where A and B robbed a bank (felony), police arrived and killed A, and B was charged with murder.


Simplicity vs. Flexibility

Question: You can create a great UI, but it will always piss some users off. The more flexible your UI, the more complex it will seem. So what's the best thing to do? Create a simple UI that's easy to use for most people, or create a flexible UI that's hard to learn but always does exactly what the user wants?
Comment: As somebody said long ago: people don't want your UIs, a big red button with "do it" notice would be their beloved application interface if it was possible.
Comment: Well, a "do it" button would probably just result in people pressing it and being mad when your "it" turned out to be different than theirs.  I guess that's a call for good documentation.
Answer: I don't know if there is an easy answer to this question.  But there are some great quotes that reflect my opinion on the subject.
You can often find this quote inside books and articles concerning usability and design:

"Perfection is achieved, not when
  there is nothing more to add, but when
  there is nothing left to take away."
  - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Taken out of context this may seem to advocate simplicity above all else.  It's a great quote and it is indeed a great exercise to remove useless bits from your design to make it more intuitive. But I think the idea behind it is incomplete when it comes to user interfaces.
I think this sums it up best:

"It can scarcely be denied that the
  supreme goal of all theory is to make
  the irreducible basic elements as
  simple and as few as possible without
  having to surrender the adequate
  representation of a single datum of
  experience." - Albert Einstein

Or, to put Einstein's words in plain terms:
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler than is necessary.
I constantly try to think from this perspective.  Do we really need this thing in our application?  Most importantly, will anyone really miss it if it's gone?  Conversely, what's missing from the application that we know everyone wants?  Those decisions are all made based off of what the majority of users really need to use your software effectively, and nothing more.
Personally, I suppose I would make the UI just as clean, simple, and easy to use as possible for your given functionality.  Then, if lots of people complain about this feature not being collapsible, or that toolbar not being movable, then you can address that when it comes.
Comment: Another one, attributed to Blaise Pascal: **"I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time."**
Comment: That's one of my favorite design philosophies and Antoine de Saint-Exupery quotes.
Answer: Eric Burke on Simplicity:
Comment: And what results will you get in a case of google search and in a case "your company's app"?  ;) (many unusable information and concrete action) :)
Comment: 'Your Company's App' looks  a lot like Googles 'Advanced Search'
Answer: To an extent, you can do both. Keep it as simple as possible for most users and use progressive disclosure to reveal the more advanced options for users that need them. Keep in mind, however, that more does not always equal better. Option overload occurs when there are so many choices that the user feels overwhelmed and frustrated.
Comment: Progressive disclosure would work *brilliantly* for an application like Terragen.
Answer: I'll reproduce here a small rant about the evils of advanced UI flexibility in the last 4 or 5 paragraphs of this entry on my blog about an aspect of Outlook's UI.

Now, there are those who might see this as a triumph of Microsoft
  usability. After all, I had a problem,
  and thanks to the flexibility they
  built in, I was able to fix it. Yay
  Microsoft! right?
Well, not quite. See, the trouble with
  customisable interfaces is that they
  occasionally get customised.
See, now that I have made this
  alteration, if any of the rest of the
  99.99% of highly habitualised Microsoft Outlook users who not only
  haven't modified their toolbar, but
  don't even know it can be done,
  attempt to use the one I have now
  changed, they will have a much harder
  time finding Reply to All.
Also, if I was to actually get really,
  really used to it, and perhaps even
  began to rely on it, I would also have
  a moment of confusion when I went to
  use an uncustomised version - which
  will inevitably happen, if only when
  something gets reinstalled sometime
  and the setting is lost. So although I
  have indeed been able to try a
  solution, it is not likely that I'll
  make using it this modified way a
  truly instinctive habit. Doing that
  would just be inviting problems for
  myself further down the track.
A better approach from a usability
  purist's standpoint would have been
  just to get it right in the first
  place :-)

Of course, 'getting it right' is easier said than done.
Comment: I disagree with the conclusion here, that all interfaces can be made simple. Having worked on a software project where the program is only used by a small number of experts, I have seen many cases where a complicated and customizable interface is better. Before this work though, I would have agreed with you...
Comment: That's not my conclusion. In fact, I would argue that we need to break complexity into 'intrinsic' and 'unnessary' complexity, and eliminate the unnessary and *not* the intrinsic. Making the UI itself changeable, however, is almost always unnessary complexity.
Comment: Not a massive problem though. *Do* a lot of other people use yout Outlook toolbar?
Comment: No, but I wind up reverting to the standard one surprisingly often. It's just not worth it.
Answer: I don't think they are mutually exclusive but in the cases they are you have to look at what your customers want / need.
Any interface can be made simpler by moving complex functionality out of the way to some other place. I think that is the main trade off. To make it easier to use for the average user you have to make it more complicated for the power user. They have to do a few more clicks to get their stuff.
But of course quite often the software can be made easier for both power users and casual users without sacrificing usability for any of them. A key thing is to create orthogonal features than can be combined easily. Often software is complicated because there are a lot of overlapping features. Instead by making a few distinct features that can be easily combined the software can be made a lot more flexible and simpler.
Figure it out by making an object / action matrix. List the number of different objects in your app along one axis and the actions you can perform on them on another axis. The matrix should not be too sparse.
Answer: They're not necessarily mutually exclusive. For instance, GMail is a complicated UI that is easy to learn. Excel is a rich, deep UI that has many hidden complexities - but the learnability is high due to its immediate shallowness (all you need to do to use it is click in a cell and start typing).
I think the question touches more on issues with discoverability. If you create a simple UI but hide all the interactions behind menus, you can still mess it up, even if the menus aren't very deep. Similarly, you can create a really easy to use UI by focusing on the right things and using graphic design elements well (such as weight, typography and colour) to focus the user's attention on the right things.
There's a lot to draw on from videogames. One thing they do well is have players learn the "interface" in self-reinforcing loops that grant high satisfaction. A great example is in Super Mario, where jumping is a basic gameplay verb, but the user can easily discover a more advanced form of jumping by doing so several times in succession. Each time a successive jump connects, the player is given a small reward in the form of Mario whooping more loudly with each jump. There's definitely a shortage of short feedback loops like that in modern UI design.
Answer: What do you choose? :)

My answer: simplicity UI. But it is difficult to implement. But it is nice.
Comment: I'd choose the first one because it's much easier to use. Not the simplest though.
Comment: Ok, in your new example I would agree that the last choice would be simplest. But it still isn't the only correct answer. Seeing an empty text box in which to type, I have no idea what sort of things I can put in it. I have to see someone else put in dates before I think to do so myself. In the first choice, it is obvious that I can put in dates. Thus, in it's own way, it is more usable. (You have changed the example, right? I remember something different.)
Comment: -1 I don't know. Depending on the situation I might use either one...
This isn't an obvious answer.
Comment: @sgnewson My answer is simplicity UI. I don't need in so type of comments, thank you.
Comment: @Jouke van der Maas "It's much easier" for whom? for developer or for user? I think you understand that owner of application should investigate user's experience. Simplicity is very subjective. I spent much time and got -2 for my answer. So I am stopping this senseless discussion.
Comment: The user. That's all we care about on this site as far as i'm concerned. Now don't be whining just because you get a downvote, it doesn't mean we hate you. It just means we don't think your answer was useful. We all left comments stating why, so you can learn from it. I don't see why you'd be so mad about this.
Comment: @sgnewson yes, you are right. i have changed my example.
Answer: Im all for simple UIs.
Most users prefer a simple, clean and simple to understand UI.
Think Google. Think IPod.
How many people do you know that take advantage of UI settings?
Answer: Go for simplicity and forget flexibility, Microsoft has done research about this when they developed Office 2007, I'll give you two quotes from this post
What users say: ...talking to some of our expert users within large companies, who in several cases assured us that "everyone" customizes their UI...
What actually happens: In fewer than 2% of sessions, the program was running with customized command bars.
Forget UI customization, you'll get better result from focusing on making the "default UI" better.
Edit: Let me clarify, what I'm saying is that given you have finite development resources, if you spend those resources on optimizing the default UI the application will be better than if you spend the time building UI customization.
The application will be better for the 98% that never use customization and the application will be better for most of the 2% who do customize (to work around a UI problem you can solve for everyone).
As a result of having an application that is nicer to use you will get more sales (including from the 2% who would have used customization).
When was the last time you said "Application A is a pleasure to use and application B has a crappy UI, but I prefer B because I can rearrange the toolbars"?
Comment: But those two percent are the geeks who tell the other ninty-eight what software they should use.
See Firefox. Most of it's users don't use extensions but the geek crowd loves it because of it's extensibility and they are vocal about it.
Comment: @Christian - maybe, it all depends on what app you are writing, if it's an accounting package those geeks wouldn't use it anyway, on the other side if it's an open source alternative to a Microsoft product those geeks would use it with or without the flexibility.
Comment: -1: As others have said, flexibility and simplicity are rarely mutually exclusive. You just have to think a bit harder. And those 2% of people will probably be responsible for a much higher share of usage, due to their influence over non-tech people.
Comment: +1 I agree with the philosophy that the UI designer is responsible for choosing the right default and not downstreaming those decisions to the end user.
Answer: IMHO, flexibility is too often an excuse for not implementing a UI well in the first place.
However, you can have both. Write a simple UI in a fairly easy to understand language, like Lua. Give parts of the interface a tiny button which a user can press to bring up the Lua code for that bit. Then they can freely edit the UI.
Comment: Yes, or load parts of the WPF xaml at runtime. I was thinking about that too.
Answer: This is an interesting related article by Mike Rundle:  http://flyosity.com/iphone/kill-the-settings-build-opinionated-software.php
Even if it's not of help, it's still a good read.
Answer: The key to providing good simplicity is to have good modularity.
http://www.ted.com/talks/george_whitesides_toward_a_science_of_simplicity.html is a good talk on the topic.
Answer: Every user request is simple in their mind and if you just did what they wanted, you'd have all the flexibility in the world.
Which is why you should start simple and only offer flexiblity in the simplest form they will accept once you've been able to get at the root of what they really need.
Many answers have used the Google interface as an example of simplicity, but what about the 'Advanced Search' functionality. Seems like they've managed to make it simple for most, but offer a more complicated solution for others. Obviously they have the resources to do both and have baked their code over many years.
Comment: And a piece of unmanageable software.
Answer: The answer is always "Don't Make Me Think."
I read this book over 10 years ago.
It is still one of the best books on the web design.
I don't think the author's ideas apply to everything, but they are helpful.
Read it. "Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability"

Simplicity vs. Flexibility


Does a lady have to remove a prosthetic arm or leg prior to going to the Mikva?

Question: When a lady goes to the Mikva she has to ensure that there is no Chatziza. Is a prosthetic arm or leg a Chatziza? Is there a difference if the prosthetic is permanent or removable? (source)
Comment: this comment points to discussion http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/16669/prosthetic-limbs-in-halacha#comment36286_16669
Answer: The חכמת אדם in סימן קיט:יח says that fake teeth or fillings are חוצץ. R' Moshe Feinstien in אגרות משה יורה דעה א׳ צז:ו argues, and says that certainly permanent fillings are not חוצץ and suggests that even removable fillings aren'y חוצץ if they are in בית סתרים.
If so, we may extrapolate to other prosthetics. Certainly if they are permanent they should not be חוצץ. If they are removable, being that they are not in a בית סתרים, it would seem that they are חוצץ.


Place to purchase decent used servers?

Question: We're in the market for 10 or so servers and everything we're finding on ebay is either too slow or scsi and we want sata. Are there some goods sites to find deals on used servers?
Comment: Anywhere in the world?
Answer: I have a Customer who has purchased several off-lease Dell servers from Stollard Technologies (http://www.stikc.com/) to great success. Stollard offers warranty and accessories. The last batch of machines we got, five (5) PowerEdge 2850's, were all in excellent shape (clean, slight scratches but no dents or dings), and had no operational defects whatsoever. I was very pleased.
If you want to get a group of like-hardware machines, companies like Stollard are the way to go. I just happen to like them because I have personal experience.
Answer: You may want to try Dell Outlet for newish servers or search the Google for "used servers" and "off lease" to find ~ 3 yr old servers.
Comment: We buy everything exclusively from the Dell Outlet.  They often have tremendous deals and offer the same (or better) warranties on all Outlet products.  If you're searching for a good deal, I'd recommend looking at the "Scratch and Dent" listings.
Answer: I've had good luck finding Servers, Racks, and other equipment on CraigsList.
Some really good deals to be had.  Especially if you are looking for Server Racks.
Answer: This isn't a very well-known site, but my company auctions items here and, because of the limited exposure of the site, the buyer always gets great deals on everything from servers to cell phones to vehicles to tools.
http://www.publicsurplus.com/
Select a (region)state and (agency)city or organization close to you and be sure to check back frequently.  We only auction once per month, but some organizations auction more/less frequently.
We just had 5 24-port stackmaster managed switches go for $30...for all 5.  Also, I have seen fairly decent servers go for $75 bucks.
Comment: Seriously fun site.
Answer: Most cities will have outfits that buy and sell secondhand computer equipment.  Search around your locale to see if you can find one.
Most servers will use SCSI or SAS; servers with SATA disks are something of a niche item, so there may or may not be equipment of this sort available at a given point in time.  If you just want system disks then stick with the SCSI ones that come with the server.  If you need large volumes of SATA data storage you could possibly buy an external array.  Alternatively, you can get secondhand SCSI disk arrays such as a HP MSA30 quite cheaply.
Also, many of the larger outfits that maintain shops on ebay also deal direct.  You could try contacting some of them directly.
Answer: I've had really good luck with purchasing Dell servers on Ebay.  Just look for resellers with high ratings and sales, read the listing very carefully, and review their return policy.  I've bought 15-20 servers, all in almost new condition, for 25-60% of Dell retail price.

Place to purchase decent used servers?


Do I really need climbing shoes for indoor boulder climbing?

Question: Indoor boulder climbing is pretty safe and climbing shoes are quite expansive. Are they really a necessity? Wouldn't my running shoes do the job just as well? Or even socks? Or ballet shoes..?
Answer: Yes. You definitely need climbing specific shoes (either your own or borrowed/ rented). They won't slide around on your feet like other shoes and they provide edging stability that doesn't rely exclusively in the rigidity of your foot. While you may be able to climb very easy routes with regular shoes, if you were to try routes with smaller footholds you'll find out instantaneously why climbing shoes matter.
Comment: but is it really important for beginners?
Comment: Yes, I believe so. It's actually going to protect you from injury. Again, you don't have to buy shoes, usually you can rent them. That'll be best if you aren't sure you're going to commit. But I would categorically require anyone climbing with me to wear proper shoes. It's not about being purist or high performance, it's about safety and having the bare minimum equipment.
Comment: Climbing shoes are better on all types of holds, even larger ones, but there are often micro-holds even on beginner problems. Running shoes will be completely hopeless to use on these. I would recommend trying out climbing before buying climbing shoes though.
Comment: I have seen a guy doing some of the harder problems barefoot, though. I think that's scary, but if you have sufficient strength (in your feet), callus and skill, it's apparently possible.
Comment: @Märten - I agree, to a point. While I've climbed barefoot in the past, I don't think it would be very safe for a beginner to go barefoot. Your feet really get a lot of support and protection from a proper climbing shoe and if you haven't been climbing very long then edging would be difficult if not dangerous without the benefit of shoes.


Ridge along the backside of the neck of my bass guitar

Question: Three months ago I purchased a Warwick Pro Series Thumb BO 4 string from my local music store and recently I've discovered a ridge that runs along the grain on the back of the neck. It appears the wood split slightly, the ridge is fairly long and is wide enough to feel in some parts. I've not noticed this before and I'm not sure if it may have skipped my eye at the time of purchase. Is this a structural issue for my bass? Will it develop further if not dealt with? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Comment: Looks more like a split or crack. On a quality guitar (or any), it's worrying. Take it back as soon as possible. If it was there originally, it shouldn't have been sold, unless it was a give-away.
Comment: Very worrying - note that the neck probably has a centrally placed truss rid which is under quite a lot of tension. It is buried in a channel in the neck, so that crack may be close to the depth of the remaining timber. It is very likely to be a structural problem and should be looked at to see if a repair is possible...
Answer: Yes - this is definitely an issue!
The neck of a bass guitar is under very high tension. Having a crack appear like that makes me think that either the truss rod has been massively overtightened, or this bass has been dropped badly.
My first thought would be to take it back to the shop and discuss it with them - if it was there when they sold it to you it should not have been sold. I don't think it's going to be repairable either - usually for this sort of thing you need to be able to use pressure to get glue deep into the crack, but I'd suspect that crack will be just about down to the truss rod, as Andy commented.
Comment: well, the neck is replaceable...


Derivative indicator function

Question: I am wondering what is the derivative of the following function with respect to $x(t)$ in sense of distributions.
$$
I\left(\int_0^t x(\tau)d\tau \leq c\right)
$$
where $I$ is the indicator function and $c$ is a constant.
Answer: I don't think one can interpret such a derivative in the sense of distributions. Distributions generalize locally integrable functions; they require an underlying measure. The space of functions $x(t)$ is infinite-dimensional and does not carry a natural measure. A functional on this space is not a distribution, and neither is its derivative.
Formally, replacing $x(\tau)$ with $x(\tau)+\epsilon \phi(\tau)$ and taking the derivative with respect to $\epsilon$ at $\epsilon=0$ taking the difference of indicator functions, and passing to the limit we arrive at something that can be written as
$$  \delta\left(\int_0^t x(\tau)\,d\tau = c\right)\,\operatorname{sign} \phi \tag1$$
The meaning of (1) is that integrating
$$  \delta\left(\int_0^t (x(\tau)+\epsilon\phi(\tau))\,d\tau = c\right)\,\operatorname{sign} \phi  $$ over $\epsilon \in (a,b)$ gives
$$  I\left(\int_0^t (x(\tau)+b\phi(\tau))\,d\tau \ge c\right)- I\left(\int_0^t (x(\tau)+a\phi(\tau))\,d\tau \ge c\right)$$

Derivative indicator function


How can I overcome that paralyzing fear that my writing isn't good enough

Question: I've written a large section of my book. The questions that keep haunting me are: Is this story unique? Will people like it? I think it's becoming repetitive. Will the characters be loved? And a lot of questions.
Comment: One thing to keep in mind is that (I assume) this is your first draft. You will do multiple rounds of revision where you will catch and fix problems. (Look up Anne Lemott's essay on "the shitty first draft.")
Comment: Hey Ken! Thanks for your reply. Currently, I'm working on my third draft. One thing I'm glad to say is that the current version is far better than the first & second. The first one looks like a lame joke in front of the third.
Answer: Author critique groups are valuable. I have hosted one for years. Hearing what other writers have to say about your writing is useful because writers, in my experience, tend to be able to give a little more explanation of the reasons for their opinions than readers at large can. And certainly don't limit yourself to feedback from other writers. Consider anyone you think can be thoughtful.
Feedback from others is helpful, but don't be a slave to it. When someone objects to something you wrote, do your best to figure out the "real" objection. If someone disagrees about a character you killed, for example, it may be a sign that you didn't communicate what you meant to through the death but that the death itself was still the right choice. And always remember that criticisms of your writing are not criticisms of you personally.
Answer: By showing it to someone and getting feedback on it. Then you will know answers to at least some of your questions. You can't answer them yourself, someone else has to answer them for you.
Regardless of what the outcome is, it will be liberating, because then you can move on to acting on their feedback. Continuing forward, or fixing things that aren't working.
Answer: Happens A LOT.  To many writers.  A writer's opinion of a work when it's being written is very unreliable.
Just write on.  In the immortal words of James Thurber, "Don't get it right, get it written."
At the very least, you need practice writing.  If it turns out that your book is as bad as you think it is now, nevertheless you will have learned something in the process that will enable you to write better books in the future.
After you finish it and put it aside for a month or two, you may find it's better than you thought.  You may also need to show it to beta readers to get a clearer view on it.
Answer: This video of Ira Glass (from This American Life) gets me through that problem every time.
By the time you first begin writing, you've already developed good taste, being able to tell good work from bad. So in your early work you can see clearly how far it falls from the best stuff you've seen. You have to recognize that gap, but also recognize that everybody has one of their own. And know that you'll improve and narrow that gap with practice.
Answer: As with anything in life, you just do. If you're not good at it, you'll get where you want to be, with time. Write, write, write. It doesn't matter if what you write is terrifically bad, short, if it has lots of errors in it; because that's the only way you'll learn.
The fastest way to learn is to fail.
I started out writing very, very short stories -300 words were a lot for me- that then turned into 10-pagers, and some day stories that I actually enjoyed.
The important thing here is the mindset. It's not going to be perfect, nor are you going to write a phenomenal book in your first year of writing. Be realistic, but also do what you like to do, don't force yourself to be perfect with the first try.
You have to enjoy the process, not necessarily the result.
Write ahead, don't spend your time on going back and revising, rearranging and correcting your text, nobody needs it to be perfect if you don't expect it to be.
Everybody writes a lot of nonsense, poorly written characters, stories that lack depth. But that's how they get to write amazingly interesting characters, witty jokes and mind-blowing plot twists later on.
I'm no man to say my writing is perfect, but again, I don't care. I enjoy writing a lot and that's what matters to me. I love it and am never going to stop. Sometimes I show something to my friends that I'm particularly proud of - but I don't get too discouraged if they say they don't like it.

How can I overcome that paralyzing fear that my writing isn’t good enough


PureFTPd - is it possible to limit file access for virtual users?

Question: I have a website for a little group of people, where each of them can login using their username and password. Since we'd like to share some files, I am looking for a FTP server, which would allow logins and access limitations for single users and groups of users loaded from the database of the website.
PureFTPd supports loading user IDs and group IDs using SQL (MySQL in this case). But I don't understand how am I supposed to connect "physical" files (stored directly on the filesystem) with their owners in the database.
There should be a folder for all the user files somewhere in the filesystem (e. g.: /ftp), where they should be stored. No matter if they will be in further directories or all together, people should be able to access only files that are owned by them or by a group they are in. Everything should happen on a linux, but a platform-independent solution would be greatly appreciated.
How would you approach this situation? Is it possible with PureFTPd? If not, what else FTP server would you suggest?
Thanks for any advice.
Answer: Yes PureFTPD will limit acces of each user to it's own folder by chrooting everyone. See this tutorial http://www.debiantutorials.com/pure-ftpd-with-mysql-backend/


diff marked files in Dired+

Question: If I have marked a couple files in different directories using Dired+ is there a way to see the diff?  I was looking at dired-diff and diredp-diff, but they both take the file at point.  Granted that isn't a whole lot harder, but I was wondering if there is a way to mark the files first and diff them?
Answer: Not that I know of. But be clear about what you are trying to diff. Do you want to compare each marked file in one dir with some marked file in the other dir? Or do you want to compare the directory listings and not the file contents? Not clear.
If you just want to compare directory listings, and you want to compare only the listings of the marked files, then you can do that by using command diredp-marked to show only the marked files in a Dired buffer.  Do that for both Dired buffers, and then use command ediff-buffers to compare those listings.
(Command diredp-marked-other-window is bound to C-M-*.)
Comment: I don't have an answer for diffing the contents of two sets of files. Hopefully someone else will. If you indicate the files to diff using Dired then presumably the files to be compared would have the same names in each directory. Otherwise, you will need some way to pair them off, for diffing.
Comment: yes, that is exactly right, I am trying to get a handle on dired -- I imagine I could easily extend it do this when I understand it better

diff marked files in Dired+


What does "Enable Strict URLs" really mean?

Question: What does "Enable Strict URLs" really mean and are there any security/other implications if I choose to not use strict URLs?
Comment: +1. I still have no idea what this actually does, but I always enable it because it sounds like a good thing :)
Comment: I end up doing the same though it does have one annoying side effect: http://expressionengine.com/user_guide/cp/design/templates/global_template_preferences.html#strict-urls
Answer: My URL schematic points out the difference it makes to the regular flow - might be helpful:
http://www.jamessmith.co.uk/articles/expressionengine_url_schematic
As you can see from the diagram, it prevents EE from determining a template via methods #2 and #4 method #2 as numbered there (and as alluded to in the other answers).
For me the benefit of more reliable 404's doesn't outweigh the advantage of being able to determine a template in these ways this way, so I never enable it.
[answer corrected May 2013 - You CAN have Strict URLs turned on and still use method #4.]
Comment: Awesome! totally forgot about that schematic. We should add that to the wiki here.
Comment: That schematic is going to be added to my debug toolbox. Thanks James pure gold.
Comment: My pleasure. @CreateSean what and where is there a wiki here? Can't see that anywhere? It's a strange old game this Stack Exchange malarkey.
Comment: James, there's supposed to be a wiki, but I haven't figured it out yet. might be something that happens when we have users with higher rep.
Answer: With Strict URLs off, if your first segment doesn't correspond to an existing template group, EE will then look for a template with the same name in your default template group, and render that template if found.
Enabling Strict URLs prevents the behaviour - if <code>{segment_1}</code> is not a template group (and your URL is not a Pages URL), you'll get a 404.
Answer: My understanding of strict urls is as follows:
Lets say you have a news template/channel.
if you go to site.com/news/ this (assuming you've coded it so) will show you a list of all news items on the page.
You now have a site.com/news/view/url_title_here which is a single list page based on the last segment being the URL_TITLE of the news item.
My understanding with strict URL's is that if you were to go to site.com/news/view/ without strict url's being enabled, it would simply show the 'latest' news item - however with it enabled, it will error/404.
At least thats always been my understanding.
Comment: There's an additional effect of enabling strict URLs that has caught me out before: with it **on**, you can view templates in your default template group directly by template name, without specifying the group in the URL, eg: `example.com/template_name`, whereas with it off you cannot, and must access them as `example.com/template_group/template_name`.
Comment: Tom - I think you mean that in reverse? Strict URLs *on* means that you *always* need to specify the template group.
Comment: @madebyhippo - this is actually not true. This behaviour only occurs if you specify `require_entry="yes"` in your Channel Entries tag, and then you add `{if no_results}{redirect="404"}{/if}`. Strict URLs has no effect on the scenario you describe.
Comment: That's basically how I understand it too.
Comment: @DerekHogue, you're quite right - will amend my comment
Answer: Backing up a little: My understanding is that Strict URL's were implemented because of duplicate content* issues - duplicate content is rarely an issue at all anyway. Google will just decide to index 1 page. It would be possible to run into a canonical issues but again that's rare.

Different duplicate content than copying other sites and trying to out rank for that content.

Personally i don't run strict urls as it makes url's ugly although- by reading above i need to revisit and test a few things for clarification in my mind how exactly it works.