Who decides the phonemes of a given language?

Question: Who decides the phonemes of a given language and on what basis do they decide? Do the phonemes of a language change over time, if so, who changes them? I am extremely confused about this question because I can't find anything based on my google searches. Also, for example, English has the phoneme /aʊ/ but not /ɑʊ/ or /æʊ/.
Comment: No one 'decides' as such. The phonemes are there, that's a fact. People analyse the language to find a systematic way of representing those phonemes, that's all. Whether English has /aʊ/, /ɑʊ/ or /æʊ/ doesn't really matter: the important thing is that it has _only one of them_. There's no opposition between the three, so you can write it however you want. /ɑʊ/ would perhaps be silly, since I don't think anyone actually pronounces it like that, but the other two are both reasonable and match different pronunciations of the phoneme.
Comment: See also: https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/q/16929/9781
Answer: The linguists describing the language.
As user6726 mentioned, phonemes are a theoretical construct. We can't actually take quantitative measurements that prove that this is a /k/ and this is a /t/, unlike in e.g. articulatory phonetics.
So there are some linguists who claim Mandarin has only two vowels /ə a/, and some who claim it has five, /i y u ə a/, and some who say it has /i y ɨ u e o a/. All of these theories can explain the data; they just go about it in different ways (for example, the people who like the two-vowel analysis claim that [i y u] come from a sequence of a glide and a "null vowel").
So if you really wanted to, you could describe any language as having only two phonemes, /0/ and /1/, and then perhaps [a] comes from /01100001/ or something absurd like that. The question is, is this useful? Does it reveal any new insights, or make it easier to analyze the language? For the /0 1/ analysis, the answer is "almost certainly not". And thus nobody actually analyzes languages that way.
For another real-world example, Proto-Indo-European is usually reconstructed as having three (or more) "laryngeal" phonemes, written *h₁ *h₂ *h₃. When these phonemes were first proposed, there was no direct evidence of them anywhere. But assuming them led to a strikingly elegant way to explain some strange vowel alternations, and so they were considered useful, and so they stayed. (Later, direct evidence was found for two of them with the decipherment of Hittite, but there's still no uncontroversial direct evidence of *h₁.)
For how they change, we know that languages change over time a bit like how organisms do: random mutations and such can get passed down through the generations within a community. And at some point, the old analysis of the phonemes may no longer be useful, and they need to be changed, or a new analysis needs to be invented. But there's almost never a clear-cut boundary, and linguists can (and do) often disagree about what phonemes a particular language or dialect has at any point in time.
Comment: I see what you did there, +1.
Comment: I actually wish that some method of representing vowel sounds with an objective encoding would be developed. It would help greatly with speach therapy and learning new languages, as well as classifying languages and accents.
Comment: @dotancohen depending on what you mean, this isn't necessarily true. By which I mean, are you picturing an "objective encoding" that defines exactly which wavelengths this or that vowel is? If so, I think it misses the issue that language is in the brain; as the answers describe, in some languages different sounds are understood by speakers as "the same sound, just pronounced a bit differently" and in others they're understood as "totally different sounds, don't confuse them wtf". A representation that doesn't account for that would harm speech therapy/language learning, not help.
Comment: I mean an objective test: something "not in the brain". They we could say e.g. "90% of Foobar speakers bin 01100001 and 01100101 as the same sound". But the ASCII representation does not have the nuance that would be needed to show _where_ on the scale a sound falls between e.g. "/a/" and "/e/". That's what I would like to see: a scale that shows how close or far a sound is from a specific target sound, and in which direction. I believe that such a scale exists for colours and vision.
Comment: @dotancohen There are multiple different [gamuts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamut) out there, and competing theories as to which ones best match human vision. And ultimately, light is "simpler" in that the human eye only has three different cone cells, corresponding to three frequency distributions—everything we see can be boiled down to how much response light triggers in those three cells. By contrast, the ear distinguishes frequencies mechanically, based on position of resonance points along a continuously-tapering membrane. So I'm not sure it's really possible to do the same.
Comment: @dotancohen For vowels specifically, formant frequencies are pretty close to what you want; they're quantitatively measurable and map very nicely to the height and backness of the tongue (and a bit less nicely to nasalization and rounding).
Comment: @Draconis: Thank you, I'll look into that. I'd really like a way to describe how to pronounce (and even hear) consonants such as ق which (in some dialects) fall between Q and G.
Answer: Linguist's choice
One sense in which someone decides what the phonemes of a language are is when a linguist describes a language and proclaims what the phonemes of the language are (usually in some publication). Linguists use all sorts of logic to arrive at their list, and many linguists don't even subscribe to the concept "phoneme". Using the term "phoneme" is fairly specialized vocabulary – most of the time people talk of "the consonants and vowels" of a language. In written languages, there is a strong prejudice in favor of a tight mapping between written form and "phonemes", arising from the practice of explicating the written form of the language rather than explicating the spoken form (for example, it is not common to get descriptions of North Saami based on analyzed phonetic transcriptions, instead the written form is used and there may then be some discussion of how "lbb" is pronounced, vs. "lb"). After you filter out (linguistically invalid) influences of writing, what should be left is the distribution of phonetically-transcribed sounds and an analysis which eliminates some of those sounds. A classical test is the minimal pair test, where two distinct words are differentiated at the phonetic level only by choice of one sound versus the other. If you have such word pairs distinguishing [x, y] then you have established that those two sounds are not "allophones", which gets you in the direction of the sounds being phonemes.
However, a "phoneme" is not an actual sound, it is the distributional property of sounds. So you have to not just look at two specific sounds, you have to look at all sounds in the language. In American English, you can compare "seater" and "seeker" where the words differ only in the choice of [ɾ] vs [k], but you can't then conclude that /ɾ/ and /k/ are both phonemes. You can conclude that [ɾ] and [k] are phonemically distinct, but to conclude that /ɾ/ and /k/ are both phonemes, you have to continue the analysis by showing that [ɾ] enters into minimal pairs with all of the other sounds in the language. Given words like "weeper, Uyghur, wiener..." you can check off a number of other sounds as being distinct from [ɾ]. However, finding minimal pairs that prove that [ɾ] is a distinct sound from [t] or [d] is not possible – there are no such minimal pairs. As it happens, there is good independent evidence that there is a rule of (American) English that turns /t,d/ into [ɾ] in a particular context, which is claimed to be the source of all instances of [ɾ].
Linguists typically hold one of two theories about reduction of output sounds to phonemes. One is the phoneme-minimization theory, where if it is at all possible to eliminate a certain sound from the inventory of phonemes, you should do so, therefore "water" must be /watər/ or /wadər/, because that makes all instances of [ɾ] be the result of applying a rule. The other is the phonetic-closeness approach that says that the underlying form is the same as the phonetic form, unless there is good evidence to the contrary, and "let's you eliminate X as an underlying segment" is not evidence to the contrary. These theories are not really comparable, since the phonetic-closeness theory is based on a particular model of grammar with underlying forms and rules, whereas the phoneme-minimization theory is just based on modeling distribution in a corpus of data.
The main impediment to developing a theory of "phonemes" is that there are 30 million theories of language, and there only local agreement as to what a language really is composed of (are there rules? what do rules do? Do people just memorize pronounced forms or do they generate words from more abstract bits by applying rules). That's why we can't (all) say that the phonemes "are there" – that's a specific theory of language.
Child's choice
Another way to look at the question is, how do languages change so that English has the phonemes that it currently has. To answer that, you first have to solve the linguist's choice question: how do we know what the phonemes of English are? We then assume that children use the same reasoning as linguists use, so some people believe that children strive to eliminate phonemes, other people believe that children strive to find the simplest computational relationship between input and output. Historical linguists also know that the "phonemes" of a language change over time, for example the difference between [f,v], [s,z], [θ,ð] used to be the result of an allophonic rule turning the voiceless fricatives into voiced ones in a certain environment. Since the days of Old English, the language has changed and now we enough minimal pairs that we can decide that those are all separate phonemes. The historical question is, what brought about the change?
The best answer available (not just for that change in English, but generally) is that given a certain amount of evidence, a child would automatically give a certain analysis of the language. But if you change the evidence (if people start talking differently), then the evidence for that analysis weakens and children can entertain alternative analyses, such as saying that /s/ and /z/ are now distinct phonemes in the language.
Although we generally say that it's the child that makes this analytic choice based on how the surrounding population talks, it's also possible that adults (re-)make such a choice, that is, adults can change the analysis of their language, to some extent. So it's either the children, or the speakers, who make this kind of choice.
Comment: One of my classes said that it was actually typically young women who drove language change. If that's true then it's on them, not children, right?


How to create a new patch set in gerrit

Question: I'm using magit and magit-gerrit, for easy changes, and reviews it works well, but I cannot figure out how to add a new patchset to a change that it is in gerrit
Comment: It might be better to ask the author of magit-gerrit directly. The author might not use this site and maybe there are also only few of its users on this site.
Comment: If you actually did what I suggested, then you should reproduce the answer that was given to you here, in your own words.
Comment: A little bit late but I will do it
Answer: I don't know anything about gerrit (yet), but after just scrolling through magit-gerrit.el and noticing that new reviews are created using magit-gerrit-create-review, which uses magit-gerrit-push-review, which simply does git push ..., I would assume that you can (and apparently are expected to) just push to the same branch as before using regular git/magit push commands.
Answer: As suggested by Tarsius. A simple gerrit-push-review does the trick. For this answer I believe that is pretty important to understand this answer as well
Let's supose that we have something like this:
Head:     master add important line
Merge:    origin/master little nonsense

Reviews (1)
25249     add important line                                                                                Antonio Querol

Unmerged into origin/master (1)
5c960ac master add important line

Then the reviewer told me that I need to add a paths set to this line
modified   presentation-text/Entornos-y-despliegues.org
@@ -509,6 +509,7 @@ Help IT with this things and the deployment will be never like today
 * vamos a ver si esto funciona
 * creo el patch set y un pequeño cambio => mira como si pongo un cambio
 * añado una pequeña tonteria
+* Let's add this a very important line
 * Q & A

Since is the alst commit I made the shanges in the code and then ammend it, like this:
Stage the changes and then over the changes press c and then a to ammend the last commit. Edit what you want, the message of the commit or type C-c C-c to finish it.
Then over the commit push R and P so now in gerrit you can see the path for the line
Antonio Querol
Uploaded patch set 1.
9:40 AM
Antonio Querol
Uploaded patch set 2.
9:48 AM
Powered by Gerrit Code Review (2.10-rc1) | Report Bug | Press '?' to view keyboard shortcuts

I hope this helps

How to create a new patch set in gerrit


Netgear GS724Tv3 and link aggregation Mac OS X Server 10.6.8

Question: I need to link aggregate 2 sets of ports on the Netgear GS724T with my Apple server tower (latest generation). I have 2 built in ports and 2 ports on a PCIe ethernet card.
It is not obvious to me how to properly configure the Netgear end. I have access to the Netgear box through its web interface, just don't know how to properly set the settings.
I tried going to Netgear for help, but they said my software support has expired. I bought this unit on their recommendation - they say it is compatible with 802.3ad protocol. I cannot locate any references to this protocol in the manual and I noticed some people in formus say that this device is actually not compatible with 802.3ad and that Netgear is misleading potential customers by saying it is.
Any help will be appreciated.
Thanks,
M
My own answer - posted as edit because of restrictions on my user:
OK folks, turns out one must use a Windows machine on this one or nothing makes sense. I was unable to get much farther than viewing the default inactive LAGs because in Firefox and Safari on Mac things don't make much sense - i.e. the Apply buttons (supposedly JavaScript) don't work. You can view the configurations, but none of the modifications you make stick.
Then, in Switching - LAGs, choose the ports to include and make sure you switch the LAG type from Static to LACP and all is well. Haven't tested the performance of the config yet, but both sides appear to be happy with the configuration. Apple server says link active and so does the Netgear.
Will report if any other discoveries.
Thanks for all who read and to user84104 for responding.
M
Answer: IEEE 802.3ad is also know as LACP.
Apparently Netgear thought it would be better to call it LAG.
On the netgear:
Switching > LAG


How should we celebrate reaching 100,000 questions?

Question: We currently have over 99,000 questions asked.  I think we should celebrate when we reach the 100,000 mark.
Comment: In stock markets there's a measure called session high, we can use the same concept: the celebration happens on the day during which at any time the questions count hit 100k
Comment: As the comments below suggest, even something as simple as defining 100,000 questions is rubbery and inexact:  questions are deleted, removed etc.
Comment: That's a neat idea @AndreSilva.
Comment: We have reached 99,250 questions on CV.  At this pace I think we will reach 100,000 questions sometime on Monday April 3rd.
Comment: @MichaelChernick, it is taking longer than you indicated. It is about 9 days since your comment, while your forecast was roughly 4.5 days. Let us see how much longer we need to wait.
Comment: @MichaelChernick, up at 99,957 -- looks promising :)
Comment: I'm going to celebrate myself tonight
Comment: @RichardHardy My first guess was based on naive understanding of how the question number was defined.  After my latest projection the total fell back under 99,800. I still think it will be within the next two or three days.
Comment: @MichaelChernick, wow, it is down to 99,715... We are facing a countdown here.
Comment: Sounds good Aksakal.
Answer: We can hold the local meetups with whiskey and cigars. Maybe folks with high reputation points cluster around a few places, so it shouldn't be very difficult to organize. We can set to T+1 date and agree on the local places.
I wonder if there's any easy way to analyze geo clustering of users with high rep points.
Update. Given the contribution of Gosset to the field, maybe beer themed meetup would be appropriate too. I'm sure there's Guinness serving bar in any locality
Comment: Whiskey and cigars? Not the most diplomatic choice, even suggested flippantly! Different but not negligible fractions of people here are likely to be appalled by one or the other or even both.
Comment: @Scortchi At the end of the meeting people could award the R.A. Fisher prize for obstinate use of tobacco in the face of statistical evidence. (Sorry, if it's in Philadelphia, I can't be there.)
Comment: @NickCox and Aksakal: **NOPE:** Tomasetti and Vogelstein fell *profoundly* afoul of the atomistic fallacy. See for example, Sornette, D. and Favre, M. (2015). [Debunking mathematically the logical fallacy that cancer risk is just "bad luck"](http://link.springer.com/article/10.1140/epjnbp/s40366-015-0026-0). *EPJ Nonlinear Biomedical Physics*, 3(10):1–6. **Aside:** *Science* is generally not where epidemiologists publish major findings.
Comment: @NickCox in no way my suggestion was meant to be inclusive, yet participants aren't required to have unhealthy habits: carrot juice and kale are in ample supply across the country.
Comment: I am old enough to remember when it was greatly underestimated, just after many doctors recommended smoking as good for you. So, I don't change my attitudes to follow the latest twist in the wind.
Comment: Hah! Now there's a presumption on a strongly international forum that just one country is involved. Don't give up the day job for diplomacy. Insert smileys to some large power.
Comment: Yeap. That would be nice!
Comment: I know some of us are located in the Philadelphia area.
Comment: @NickCox: Or appalled by neither individually, but by the combination.
Comment: There are less than 500 questions to go to reach the 100,000 number!
Comment: @MichaelChernick, then we got to hurry up. it's harder to reserve seats in bars in the 2nd half of the week! that's assuming that the celebrations are in non-prohibitive geographies
Comment: @NickCox, the [latest research](http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/03/23/521219318/cancer-is-partly-caused-by-bad-luck-study-finds) indicates that smoking hazard function is greatly overestimated: most cancer is caused by random mutation which have nothing to do with behavioral or environmental factors! It's just the sample size is so large that eventually everyone gets the bad luck mutation and dies
Comment: @Alexis that's an old paper. I'm referring to a new one
Comment: Who is in the Portland, Oregon area? :)
Comment: @Alexis pretty amazing considering that the paper I refer to was published in 2017 and yours is fon 2015
Comment: Aw gosh, I see now that is a more recent paper by the same authors. Looks interesting, too. More nuanced.
Comment: @Alexis Also it was observed that [years of Smoking Associated with Lower Parkinson's Risk](https://www.aan.com/PressRoom/Home/PressRelease/813)
Answer: What about Sydney, Australia. Do we have enough people to sit for a coffee gather up?
Comment: We lost about 200 questions so far today.  Maybe we will have to wait a little longer.
Comment: We should start planning 200K in Australia.
Comment: @SmallChess, US people cherish their privacy, and don't want to see each other
Comment: There are a few Sydneysiders about the site, so it might be worth considering doing something small for the 100K; if not on the day then perhaps during the ensuing days
Comment: @Small I'd suggest that at this stage (since the site will probably hit it something like Friday night Zulu time, which would be Saturday for you) you should just nominate a convenient time and place for you (or suggest a couple of possibilities if you prefer) and see if anyone says they'd come (or suggests an alternative). You may not get any takers at this stage but it's probably worth trying either for the weekend or during next week. You could always make a chat room if you want to be able to negotiate places/times.
Comment: An idea: if you run out of time to organize the event, then just go through open questions looking for those to be closed, that would buy you a few more days :)
Comment: @SmallChess, why don't you start an answer with your place of choice? who knows maybe there are folks in the area willing to smoke and drink
Comment: Many of us are in the United States and probably would not be able to makes the trip to Australia especially since the day will come within the next few days. There is really no time to book the trip.
Comment: @Glen_b Good. How should we organise it?
Comment: It is 8 PM EDT from 8 PM yesterday to 8 PM today the number of questions increased from 99,700 to 99, 803. At this rate we should hit 100,000 in a little less than two days.
Comment: We just passed 99,900 for the first time.
Comment: @MichaelChernick If the US people decide to meet. I will start a new post to check any interest for Sydney, Australia.
Comment: @Aksaka Why do you want to delay it?  Many of us vote to close open questions that seem to fail the requirements of the site but we don't do it just to keep the number of open questions from increasing.
Comment: @Aksakal I don't think I can do it in Australia then... I don't care my privacy because I don't have it.
Comment: We are now only 21 questions short of 100,000.
Comment: We just reached 100,000 questions! I am not sure that it will last.
Comment: Take a look at amoeba's link that captures the moment on the question about celebrating 100,000 questions in Australia SmallChess.


How do I use favorites in the user profile?

Question:
Possible Duplicate:
Any way to manage and keep track of answers and questions?
How do favorite questions work?

There are many questions and answers that have helped me on Stack Overflow, and I want to know if there is a way to save them in my profile. I've installed the Stack Overflow toolbar in Firefox, and I see there is a Favorites tab in my user profile.
Is this for adding questions by other users that I want to keep? If so, how is this done?  Otherwise, what is favorites used for? I've looked over "questions with similar titles," but they are not for the Favorites feature in the user profile; at least, I couldn't find one after several attempts typing in the "title" textbox.
Answer: http://phpcode.eu/images/1317817494.pnghttp://phpcode.eu/images/1317817583.png
And you can access them via
<code>http://stackoverflow.com/users/USERID?tab=favorites
</code>


Does the SHA hash function always generate a fixed length hash?

Question: I'm using the SHA1/2 family of algorithms for a particular project. I was wondering if all the SHA algorithms return a fixed length hash regardless of the length of the data.
Answer: Essentially yes, they do.
Depending on the exact hash function you choose depends on the length of output you'd expect. For example, SHA256 produces 256 bits of output.
This does then beg the question "but the length of the hash is fixed and there are infinite possible inputs??!!". That's correct, except that $2^{256}$ is 115792089237316195423570985008687907853269984665640564039457584007913129639936. That's an awful lot of unique possible inputs which may be passed in.
You may be interested to know the same concept is used in file systems - they're called bitmaps and provide a block to bit mapping so the file system can quickly find free blocks. The numbers do scale :)
Comment: I don't see how bitfields are in any way related to hashes. There are some file systems where hashes are essential (e.g. git) but I see no indication of that in your link. Those bitmaps simply have 1 bit to 1 block mapping.
Comment: The possible inputs are not infinite! In your case, which is SHA-256, the maximum size of input is $2^{64}-1$ bits. The number of possible inputs is definitely huge, but not unlimited.
Comment: @CodeInChaos perhaps I should add extra explanation, but, hash functions essentially eat blocks of data and give you a bit string output. Each bit string maps to a particular combination of input blocks (mapped so by the hash function). That's all there is to it. When you look at the size of the number of unique such combinations you can have ($2^256$ in this case) and the fact these unique combinations map to whole amounts of blocks, you realise there's a huge amount of potential inputs.
Comment: Both map a large set into a smaller set.  Secure hashes map in a way that is difficult to reverse.  Allocation maps are supposed to be easy to reverse.  You can also think of them as lossy compression functions, the loss is tuned to the applications needs.
Comment: @saeedn According to your comment I would not be able to calculate the hash for a file of 9 bytes. SHA-256 calculates the hash by mean of processing blocks right ? Do you mean that there is a maximum amount of blocks ?
Comment: @yucer The number that I mentioned is the upper bound on the number of bits in the input. Yes, SHA-256 works on the input in blocks and if the size of input is not a multiple of block size, it uses padding to make it a multiple of block size. Which in your example means it pads the 9 bytes and generate a 64 byte string first, then runs the compression function.
Answer: Yes. By the definition in FIPS 180-4, there are exactly
160 bits in the output of SHA-1
224 bits in the output of SHA-224
256 bits in the output of SHA-256
384 bits in the output of SHA-384
512 bits in the output of SHA-512
224 bits in the output of SHA-512/224
256 bits in the output of SHA-512/256
Comment: SHA-256 is actually SHA-2 256, and the SHA-3 competition will produce the same size outputs as SHA-2, as this is a requirement from NIST, who organize the competition. Naming is still an issue, but SHA-3-256 (etc.) would be a probable candidate. SHA-512 is faster on 64 bit machines than SHA-256 because it is optimized for 64 bit machines - and it still provides a larger security margin.
Comment: @owlstead: the names I use are right from the reference in the first line of the answer, which is both official and fresh (published March 2012). Do you have a reference for that `SHA-2 256` naming?
Comment: Nah, I meant that it is part of the SHA-2 suite of secure hash algorithms, sorry about that. You can imagine that naming SHA-3 candidates is a bit of an issue, as the SHA-256 etc. have already been taken. Will it be AHS or SHA-3-256, who can tell :)
Answer: Yes, that's their idea. You can rely on it.
Answer:
I'm was wondering if all the SHA algos return a fixed length hash regardless of the length of the data?

Others have noted that the output is indeed a constant, fixed size, so let me nit-pick one point just for completeness:
It is worth noting that these hash functions do have a limit to the input size of their data. So that input length itself has an upper bound.
From FIPS 180-4:

SHA-1, SHA-224, SHA-256: Input length is bounded to $2^{64}$ bits.
SHA-384, SHA-512, SHA-512/224, SHA-512/256: Input length is bounded to $2^{128}$ bits.

These are insanely large sizes (and it seems likely that only the ones for SHA-1, SHA-224, and SHA-256 could practically apply to electromagnetic storage). But in theory $2^{64}$ bit (approx. 1 exbibyte) restriction could prohibit calculating one hash from something like a very large database or distributed filesystem.
But for most developer concerns, these input size restrictions are practically nonexistent.
Comment: To put things in perspective, SHA-1 performance on modern CPUs is about [0.7 cycles/bit](http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/improving-the-performance-of-the-secure-hash-algorithm-1/). Assuming a 5 GHz clock, it would take 80 years to hash $2^{64}$ bits. More CPUs do not help.
Comment: Thanks for that perspective, I hadn't thought to crunch those numbers. Then the $2^{64}$ restriction also seems practically irrelevant.


What could possibly replace artificial intelligence?

Question: There is no doubt as to the fact that AI would be replacing a lot of existing technologies, but is AI the ultimate technology which humankind can develop or is their something else which has the potential to replace artificial intelligence?
Answer: By definition, artificial intelligence includes all forms of computer systems capable of completing tasks that would ordinarily warrant human intelligence.
A superintelligent AI would have intelligence far superior to that of any human and therefore would be capable of creating systems beyond our capabilities.
As a consequence, if a technology superior to AI were to be created, it would almost certainly be created by an artificial intelligence.

For the purposes of mankind, however, superintelligent artificial intelligence is the ultimate technology due to the fact that it will be able to surpass humans in every field, and, if anything, replace the need for human intelligence.

In our past experience, intelligence has been the most valuable trait for any entity to manifest - for this reason, in an anthropomorphic context, we can predict that artificial intelligence will be the ultimate achievement.

The main reason why we will certainly not be able to replace superintelligent AI is that it will surpass us in every respect - if there is ever any replacement, it will be created by the AI similarly to the way we may create an AI that replaces us.
Comment: Humans create superintelligent artificial intelligence. The first question they ask it is whether there is a God. A bolt of lightning strikes the plug so that the AI cannot be disabled and it responds "There is now."
Comment: Who's gonna invent the test program to test whether any given "AI" is "superintelligent"? :) Who would write that program? quasi-superintelligent AI? humans? how can humans write a program to check if something is smarter than humans?
Comment: That is funny @ErikAllik. Unfortunately for us, we will know immediately once an AI becomes superintelligent.
Comment: How will we know that? Is there a measure for intelligence?
Comment: Consider this story about AI mentioned by Stephen Hawking @ErikAllik:
Comment: _that_ is funny, @GJZ ;)
Comment: Or in other words: Artificial Intelligence seems to have been obsoleted by Transformer architectures. Wait. You say those also count as AI? Dang.
Answer: A new physical lifeform could outperform and replace artificial intelligence when it
has feedback from organism (its body) to its design information (replacement of genes).
This evolution is expected because:
Artificial intelligence will redesign its own software very soon in its evolution.
After that, it will be restricted by the performance of the available hardware
and communication speed between parts.
Therefore it will design better processing hardware for itself, to run its next generation.
To squeeze most processing power out of a given amount of resources (matter, energy) and
circumstances (temperature, radiation) the design has to be small (material resources
and delay of interconnections), energy efficient (heat evacuation), and adapted to the
kind of functions used by the software (hardware architecture).
To tackle this profoundly, artificial intelligence will design the new hardware at
atom by atom scale.
This leads to new problems of natural degradation by radiation, atomic decay and other
quantum-mechanical problems and opportunities.
The solution of these new problems is redundancy and the ability to repair
degraded parts by atomic-level machinery.
This atomic level repair machinery is the same machinery which builds and extends the hardware
for new individual artificial intelligence systems.
Since this feature is there, it can, and will, also be used to restructure parts
of the hardware while it runs to integrate (compile) knowledge in hardware (more efficient).
The machinery to build and maintain such hardware could be inspired by the biological machinery
which will be understood by the system by then.
However, when the artificial intelligence refactors these principles with full understanding
and anticipation, the resulting "hardware" will be quite different from the old biological
machinery and very different from the static silicon based processor structures.
The main differences are:

The design information will be available, relating the features of the realization
with design choices.
This provides direct feedback from performance of the realization (the hardware, the body)
to the design information.
That augments the design information for designing new generations.
This feedback channel is the main difference between the new machinery and biological life.
Once that exists, it will be used for everything, not only for processing hardware for
artificial intelligence.
The new design described here is basically processing hardware rather than a body
for fighting and propagating
(although the eternal fight for resources will not end with the dawn of
artificial intelligence).
It will use more compact molecules because it is designed rather than evolved blindly.
(The current biological life uses monster-molecules evolved by random changes until
one or other corner of the molecule has the right shape to catalyze a specific chemical reaction).
Since parts of the hardware can be restructured while the system runs, the distinction between
hardware and software will become very fuzzy (as in biology).

The drastic increase in efficiency and evolution speed let it outperform the old biological
life (which lacks design and feedback) and outperform artificial intelligence (which was not
integrated in matter).
When this stage is reached, the systems will look like a natural, intelligent,
propagating life-form and therefore supersede the stage of artificial intelligence
running on human-made processing hardware.
This answers the last part of the question:
"... or is their something else which has the potential to replace artificial intelligence".
Comment: Artificial intelligence can be so intelligent **for the very reason that it is not constrained by its biology**.
Comment: A superintelligent AI would develop something similar to the concept of ***computronium***, as outlined in The Technological Singularity by Murray Shanahan. This material would be able to concentrate the largest physically possible amount of calculation capability in a given area.
Comment: No matter how intelligent the system, it will be constrained by its hardware (biology or other material structure).
Physical restrictions impose small sizes to reduce the propagation time of signals between parts (speed of light).

The original answer is edited to clarify that the new atomic level machinery is the hardware of the artificial intelligence rather than a body and that knowledge gets integrated in the hardware.

Remark that I answered the second part of the question:
".. is their something else which has the potential to replace artificial intelligence".
Comment: That entirely fails to clarify why a lifeform based on genes would be any more effective than extremely efficient self-replicating and self-improving (at a much faster rate) hardware.
Comment: This would be the theoretically most efficient (and therefore completely irreplaceable) configuration of particles possible for the purpose of intelligence. **No lifeform of any kind can compete with that.**
Answer: In order for something to replace AI, it would need to out perform AI. AI currently uses number systems to represent information and logic to perform operations. So the replacement would need to be based off of something more efficient than numbers and logic. Some sort of super-logic. Or something similar to intuition and instinct which do not require linearly figuring things out.


How do I prevent white film forming on utensils in dishwashers?

Question: I've installed a Bosch SMS60L18IN dishwasher, best in its latest series. We were very satisfied with its first wash when it gave us clean utensils without any problems. We put a 3 in 1 tablet then. Now, I use a special salt, detergent and rinse aid, all from Finish.
From the second wash onward, it leaves white film on almost all utensils and food residues are not cleaned on some.
I tried all workarounds that I found online like changing detergent amounts and using the vinegar trick.
The issue I was thinking and the company engineers suspect is the water hardness which is around 900 (or 920) ppm. They changed the hardness level in the machine to H7 (this is the max one for 8.9 mmol/L hardness that the company specified) suggested me to run the machine for a few cycles to get rid of water residue from previous cycles.
I've already ran four cycles and the issue still persists. Is the water hardness the cause alone? Would be there other issues like the detergent or salt?
I observed:

The first wash was perfect. We haven't used salt here. Second and
third washes are a bit okay.
In the second wash. We put a 1.5 kg of specially recommended salt (Finish brand)
Issue worsened from the fourth wash.
I realized that I haven't filled the salt reservoir with water (the company recommends to fill it with water when you use the machine for the first time) and then filled it with a glass of water.
The technicians said that is not a big issue as the machine will itself dilute the salt with water after 2 or 3 washes.
I ran the machine by pouring a cup of vinegar as suggested in some articles and I found that the white layer on the machine's door was gone and utensils in the next wash are somewhat clean. Also, I tried changing detergent amounts, rinse aid quantity settings and switching hardness levels with each wash.
Tried changing the size of the load with each wash
Even if we purchase a budget softener like this, it may have low output rates and that gives new problems.
importantly is that it's too noisy (it gives knocking sounds while rinsing) like a clothes washing machine. The company staff said it is normal or I guess it is not that loud when they are around:)

More details

Name of the detergent, salt and rinse-aid's brand is Finish
I am not using all-in-one tablets now

The company staff recommended water softeners (of a different brand as they don't sell softeners). But I fear if it brings new issues like the change in flow rate (individual tap softeners have low flow rate, i.e., 2 litres per minute where as the dishwasher requires 6 litres per minutre). Ours is a rented house so I can't install a permanent or full house water softener.
Could anybody tell me if you find any other issues here other than the water hardness? Any suggestions or solutions are welcome.
Comment: I had an issue similar to yours that I thought was due to some issue with the soap or water, but turned out to be simply that the machine was draining all the water immediately in each cycle and thus not actually washing or rinsing properly (the drain solenoid was stuck). Have you verified that the wash cycle is actually washing?
Answer:
is it wise to spend on dishwasher maintenance and water softeners when we have the water with too much hardness (900 ppm)?

Well, the whole point of a water softener is to reduce the hardness. So I find it odd that you ask if it's wise to use a water softener when your water is excessively hard... In short, yes, that's what you do to fix this problem, normally - install a water softener with appropriate capacity to deal with the hardness of your water, at least for the appliances you care about that for.
Comment: Sorry that I didn't make myself clear. I meant to say that the maintenance of softeners is an added expense and curious to know if softeners bring new problems in a long run.
Comment: Yes, maintenance of softeners is an expense and a burden to remember and to perform. But when you have a problem with very hard water like you do, it is the best way to solve the problem.

With regard to new problems, I have never heard of softeners causing problems like accelerated corrosion of pipes, nor are there any mechanisms I am aware of to do so.
Answer: I've had issues with white film before and I solved them by switching to detergents which have some amount of phosphorus in them.
Look for packaging that defines some amount of phosphorus content
Comment: I found the same thing in the manual - "change detergent". Also, I would like to mention that the issue started the day we added the Finish salt. I don't know how to empty the resorvoir and fill it with a different brand of salt now :)
Answer: Like @RobertNubel, I had a similar symptoms too.
A glass fragment ended up in the diverter valve (which directs water flow either through the drain or through the washing jets).  While the dishwasher was washing, it was also draining slowly.
Take out the lower rack and look carefully at the water intake area and under any grills and covers for debris.  If there is, you might need to disassemble the pipes to look for and clean out any more crud.


Does the "use it or loose it" principle apply to the brain?

Question: Does not using the brain decreases mental functioning? If so, is it recommended to keep using the brain, for example by learning new things or engaging in challenging activities (puzzels, quizzes etc.) up until old age?
Answer: Yes, brain power is eroded via a lack of practice. This occurs through the processes called synaptic pruning and brain plasticity.
I will leave you with a very basic answer as I am unsure of your level of understanding of cognitive processes. First, you must understand neurons. Then, you can begin to understand synaptic pruning and brain plasticity. Finally, here is a link to a bunch more information and brain plasticity exercises.
Answer: Not using your brain might well be deleterious, but it's impossible not to use your brain unless you're in a coma or something. There are some cool studies on plasticity (see Shayna's answer above) in amputees, where the parts of the brain that control the amputated limb go unused but are taken up by other functions instead.
However, "perpetual brain exercises" like the brain training games/puzzles you see have shown no efficacy in actually increasing cognitive performance on any task, besides the specific game/puzzle you're playing. Playing a lot of chess does not make your brain any more powerful, it just makes you better at chess. See the following:
Owen, A.M., et al. (2010). Putting brain training to the test. Nature, 465(7299), 775-778.
Comment: Thank-you abd! I suppose I should have added that perpetual brain exercise do not increase task performance... Keeping an active mind helps to keep our neurons active, which in turn helps to slow the process of synaptic pruning.


Mobile Network Issues

Question: I have written an application using websocket protocol. I want to ensure a persistent connection for my application. I have the phone vibrate when it has successfully connected to my server. Right now, it works whenever I make a connection through wi-fi, but whenever I turn the wi-fi off, connection fails over the 4g service. Moreover, if I then turn the wi-fi on, the phone vibrates. Are there special events that I have to handle to ensure connectivity over 4g/3g services?
Answer: Have you tried the ConnectivityManager?
Check this out: Determining and Monitoring the Connectivity Status

Mobile Network Issues


My Orthodox Jewish co-worker invited me to his wedding. Anything I should know about?

Question: My Orthodox Jewish co-worker invited me to his wedding, but I've never been to a Jewish wedding before. Is there anything I should be aware about if I plan to attend?
Comment: **MAZAL TOV**, Salmononius2!(?)
Comment: similar http://judaism.stackexchange.com/q/29602/759
Comment: I could have sworn I saw a question like this in the past, but when I looked earlier, I couldn't find it. I'm specifically looking for a response for a 'Yeshivish' wedding, because I'm a bit too busy right now to write the answer myself ;) It'll be easier to point co-workers to this, so if no one else answers this, I'll put something up, maybe make it a community wiki of sorts.
Comment: Similar: http://judaism.stackexchange.com/q/20281 (and http://judaism.stackexchange.com/q/14679)
Comment: @Salmononius2 Mazal Tov!
Comment: @wizzardmr42 and Daniel - Thanks! :-D
Answer: Yes, there is plenty that is worth knowing ahead of time about Orthodox weddings. First, I'll talk a little about what will or might be expected from you at the wedding and then I'll talk a little about what to expect at a Jewish wedding and how it's different from a non-Jewish or non-Orthodox wedding (I'm assuming since you say you've never been to a Jewish wedding that you have been to non-Jewish weddings). I am not going to go into details of the wedding ceremony itself. Rather, I will give some practical advice for you.

Expectations of you
You won't have to worry too much about unexpectedly being asked to do something that you don't know how to do such as reading in Hebrew. The host of the wedding knows that you likely don't know how to do anything like that (and those honors are usually assigned ahead of time anyway).
One thing that you will want to take into consideration is your dress. Just like attendees of non-Jewish weddings, we dress up at Jewish weddings. The level of formality varies. If the wedding invitation doesn't mention "black tie" or anything like that, a nice suit or women's equivalent will suffice. This standard is the same as for a non-Jewish wedding. The one difference is that Jews do observe modesty laws. In order to show respect, you should do so as well. For men it's pretty simple. A regular suit will pretty much satisfy the requirements. Men should cover their heads with a kippah which will likely be available at the wedding venue. For women, dresses and skirts are to be preferred over pants and they should come down at least to the knee (possibly to the ankle, depending on the crowd) while shoulders should definitely be covered (no "strap" dresses) and in many communities arms should be covered down to the elbow. Tops or dresses that are cut low in the front or back should be avoided. How out-of-place you will feel if you don't follow these guidelines depends very much on the crowd. If the couple is newly religious, many of the guests (including family) may not be following them. On the other hand, if both spouses come from long religious lines and live in a religious neighborhood it is likely that everyone will follow them strictly. If you have any questions, your host undoubtedly be happy to give you more personally-tailored details.
Another point to note is that certain parts of the wedding may be separated by gender. It is very likely that the wedding dancing will be separate by gender, and the wedding ceremony itself may be as well. There are probably not going to be signs telling you where to go; just follow what everybody else is doing. If men and women are separating, go to the appropriate area.

What to expect
In some ways Jewish weddings are similar to non-Jewish weddings, but in other ways they are very different. Usually the wedding will start with some time where the bride and groom are sitting in separate rooms and there is food in both. Where the guests go during this time varies; just do what everyone else is doing. In some cases, all of the men will be in the room with the groom while all the women will be in the room with the bride. In other cases, the room with the groom will have all of his close male friends and relatives while everyone else will be in the room with the bride. Again, just follow the crowd. If there's a large group of people of both genders hanging out and eating somewhere, that is definitely an appropriate place for you to be. Otherwise, find the place with people of your gender and help yourself to food. During this time, both spouses' parents will likely meet in the room with the groom and sign some documents. Then some other people will sign some documents. One last thing to note about this time: it usually lasts for quite a while... often an hour or more. It is not expected that you arrive at the very beginning of this time.
After some time has passed, the groom will go see the bride and then everybody will move on to the place where the wedding ceremony itself will take place. For this, just follow the crowd. If people are sitting separately by gender at the ceremony, do so as well.
Jewish wedding ceremonies are actually quite short. Often no more than 20 minutes or so. Some prayers and blessings will be said, a couple of songs will be sung, and someone might say a few words of Torah. Then the groom will step on and break a glass and that will be it. You don't have to do anything in particular during this time. Just sit and watch.
Finally, the meal and dancing part of the wedding will occur. The bride and groom will be in seclusion for a few minutes together during which time an appetizer course is often served to the guests. Once the bride and groom come back into the room, the dancing will begin! Dancing will likely be separated by genders with a curtain or free-standing wall separating them. Go to the appropriate side and have fun! Dancing at Orthodox Jewish weddings is quite different from dancing at non-Jewish weddings. It is fast and frenetic and there is no slow-dancing. You definitely want to be wearing comfortable shoes. Jackets and ties often come off for this part and you can expect to sweat significantly if you participate. During a part of the dancing, there will be a moment when the bride and groom are brought to sit next to each other and people take turns doing silly things to entertain them. You can participate in this if you want if you are a man, though in many communities women do not participate. This is another one of those cases where you just see what others are doing.
At some point during the wedding, an announcement might be made that people are going to take a break to pray. This could be at any of the transition points or possibly during the meal. The announcement might mention the words "mincha," "ma'ariv," or "daven." If you aren't Jewish, you can ignore this announcement. If you are Jewish, you might want to join in the prayer. You can ask if someone has an extra prayer book (with an English translation, if you need it). Occasionally the prayer service might take place in the main room with everyone, though in my experience this is rare. If you are not Jewish and this happens, it's best to stand when people stand and sit when they sit. The prayer probably won't take more than 10 minutes.
Once everything is done and the meal and dancing are over, everyone will say the Grace After Meals. There are a few special blessings at the end of this that are special for weddings. Usually these are assigned ahead of time, but in some cases they aren't. If someone asks you if you want to say one of the blessings but you are not Jewish or simply cannot read Hebrew, you can simply politely decline. Nobody will be offended.
Typically the entire wedding will last somewhere between 3 and 6 hours.
All of the above is typical of an Ashkenazi wedding in the United States. Ashkenazi weddings in Israel are likely to be similar though the dress is likely to be less formal if the families are not American immigrants to Israel (and possibly even if they are). In Israel it is relatively common for people who weren't invited to the wedding to show up after the meal to participate in the dancing. Some people might also be specifically invited to this part. If someone verbally invites you to "come dance at my wedding," but doesn't send you a wedding invitation, this is likely what they mean.
Finally, Sefardi weddings are quite different from Ashkenazi weddings. They are more likely to start late and much more likely to last much longer. In general, though, if you follow the rule of "do what everyone else is doing," you will be able to get through any Jewish wedding and hopefully have a great time!
Comment: What documents will the family be signing and why does it take so long?
Comment: @Richard the signing doesn't take that long. They do it at the end of the first part. They're signing the marriage contract and a document called the _tenaiim_ which is sort of like a Jewish version of a prenuptial agreement.
Comment: Though not all weddings have Tenaim.
Comment: Thank you for this smart, detailed answer. Hopefully this'll help many people in the future as well!
Comment: @Daniel Very informative!  Can you go into more detail on the ceremony?  Does the rabbi normally give a message or is the ceremony mostly focused on the traditional ritual steps?  Is the ketubah normally read aloud or is it usually just signed and then everyone moves on?  What about if the signing takes place before the ceremony?
Comment: @Hashamyim I've tried to keep this answer simple so somebody with little to no Jewish literacy can understand it. The _ketubah_ is among the documents that "some other people will sign" before the ceremony. It is generally read aloud during the ceremony. I did mention that "someone might say a few words of Torah" at the ceremony.
Answer: To supplement, not supplant, Daniel's good answer:

Orthodox Jewish weddings start late. (Even later, often, if the bride and groom are Sephardic.) This varies geographically; for example, in my experience, ceremonies start almost on time in St. Louis, Missouri, but as much as an hour later than scheduled in New York City and environs. It may also vary by other factors. You may wish to ask someone close to the bride or groom what to expect in this regard.
(This one applies only if you read Hebrew and the wedding is of Chabad-Lubavitch folks.) Chabad-Lubavitch invitations in the United States are often bilingual in Hebrew and English, with different times listed on the Hebrew side and the English side. Ignore the time listed on the Hebrew side; the time listed on the English side is correct (but is then subject to the preceding item in this list about starting late).
You will see people pouring water over their hands at the start of the meal. This is to fulfill a rule of Judaism about pouring water over one's hands before eating bread. If you're not Jewish, there's no reason for you to do it. If you are Jewish, and wish to honor the couple by doing something they would likely appreciate if they knew about it, then by all means go ahead. Probably someone standing around will be glad to show you how if you say something like "What do I do here?", but basically you fill a cup with clean water, pour it over all parts of your right hand, refill it if necessary, pour it over all parts of your left hand, and wipe them dry.
Most Orthodox weddings in my experience do not have an elaborate or large wedding cake. However, you may possibly see slices of bread handed around, either near the start of the meal or soon after the first dance after the bride and groom join the meal; feel free to take or decline a slice without showing any offense.
Comment: Followup question: https://judaism.stackexchange.com/q/70826
Comment: Item #1 really varies. I'm not sure that it's fair to state this as a blanket or even majority occurrence. I've seen about equal odds of it starting on time vs. late. For many people, lateness is a huge deal b/c the hosts pay the caterer and band by the hour. Even 5 minutes O.T. on the band gets charged a full hour, and same for the caterer. Savvy hosts really don't want to toss out money. As for asking about it, the hosts would be better people to ask than the bride and groom. The couple is too pre-ocupied with themselves.
Comment: @DanF, often, if the wedding party knows the wedding will be late, it tells the band to start late.
Answer: Other items to add that MAY occur:

Some have a custom that if the bride and / or groom is / are the last child being married, they will do a "mezinkeh" ceremony. Customs on this vary, somewhat. Usually, the mother of the child wears a wreath on her head, and people dance with the parents and bride / groom to a special tune. Often, one of the dancers brings a broom to symbolize "sweeping the house clean".
Some "yeshivish" weddings have extra dancing after the Grace after meals where certain friends are invited for a "chassunah tanse". These friends are not invited for the rest of the wedding, but they come at the end to dance with the couple.
While not directly wedding related, if you are comfortable enough and on a good friendship with the groom or bride's parents, you could ask if you can take any untouched deserts. I mention this having had a lot of experience attending many weddings and my family knowing many caterers. Because of health rules, once a cake comes out of the box, even if untouched, it must be disposed afterwards. This is a shameful waste of food. So, if your host permits an you can use it, ask. If you can't personally use it, think of a friend, needy person or synagogue that can. (I've donated items to a neighborhood family who was extremely grateful. Turned out that they were planning an engagement party a day later.)
Comment: My pleasure. I wasn't sure how well these pointers would be taken. the last item is unusual. But, my father-in-law was a musician so my wife learned quite a bit about how caterers work, and we used to attend far more weddings than we do, now. One we attended ended so late that the Viennese table began about 1 AM, and we were among the few left. That's when we asked the caterer what happens, and we learned the answer that I am sharing with everyone. Of course, do this only if you have stamina (to stay up that late) and you know the hosts very well.


Is there any benefit to manual settings when you can change just about everything with post production?

Question: With such good post production in editors like Adobe is there any real benefit in shooting with manual settings when you can change just about everything in any shot you take?
Comment: I'm inclined to agree with the assessment that this is practically a duplicate, although that focuses on "what?" and this focuses on "what does that mean for photography?"
Comment: possible duplicate of [What's "real" and what's "virtual" on a (digital) camera?](http://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/6628/whats-real-and-whats-virtual-on-a-digital-camera)
Answer: Your question is based upon an assumption that is not entirely correct: that you can change just about everything in any shot you take. You can't.
Things such as depth of field and shutter speed are set at the time the picture is taken. If, for example, the shutter speed is too slow to freeze a moving subject there is absolutely nothing you can do in post production to reduce the blur caused by the moving subject at a too slow shutter speed. The same is true of depth of field. If you take a photo with a very wide aperture that causes the background to blur, you can not recover the details of the background to make them look as sharp in post production as they would look had you used a narrow aperture for deeper depth of field.
Even among things you can correct in post production to one extent or another the cost of doing those changes in post rather than at the time you took the photo is a reduction in image quality. If you underexpose by several stops you can increase the exposure in post, but you do so at the price of loss of shadow detail, increased noise, and reduced dynamic range. If you overexpose when you take the photo the detail in the highlights that are totally saturated are lost and there is no way to recover them. Correcting for lens distortion means a reduction in absolute resolution. The same is true if many of the other post production adjustments you might need to make: they affect the quality of the finished product to one degree or another.
Answer: Both "Lew the traveler" and Michael Clark are correct.  I will compliment there answers with another aspect - Time.  It often takes time to make corrects in Post Production - and I'm fairly skilled in Photoshop.  That is, I rather take the extra 15 seconds to get the settings right, in the camera, than spend the extra 15 minutes in Photoshop.
Comment: No need to sign your posts, this website does that for you.
Answer: yes, because the desired depth of field or shutter speed may be be the one the camera selects.
In post-processing one can't do too much about inadequate depth of field or too slow a shutter speed.
Answer: Just to throw out one more scenario where post processing isn't an answer: high contrast scenes. I may be taking a photo where getting a proper exposure on the foreground subject causes the background to blow out to white, with no detail recorded. With a flash (or several) I can brighten the foreground, allowing me to correctly expose the foreground and background, capturing all sorts of detail. I might also equalize exposure with things like neutral density filters, reflectors, or other kinds of lighting tools.


About Kizaru's attack on the Supernovas

Question: When Kizaru attacked Supernovas at Sabaody Archipelago, he beat some of them badly like X Drake, Basil Hawkins, Urouge and Scratchmen Appo. My question is: how did they manage to escape from Kizaru? In episodes, the scene ends with the (temporary) annihilation of the Straw Hats. But how did they manage to escape? Is it because of the Navy's carelessness?
Answer: Lets first see what happens on Sabaody Archipelago.
Chapter 508
Kizaru arrives on the island, searching for Sentoumaru. Since he couldn't find Sentoumaru straight away, he gets bored and when Kizaru is bored, he

Couldn't possibly just leave a bounty head like this sitting around...

So that's why he started attacking the super novas in the first place. He didn't really intend to do so otherwise. He wasn't ordered to do so and had bigger fish to fry.

Chapter 510
Kizaru finally contacts Sentoumaru and goes after the Strawhats.

Chapter 511
Kizaru finally meets with the Straw Hats, but is kept busy by Rayleigh.

So to summarize. They got away, because Kizaru never told the Marines about the supernova's presence. The Marines didn't know about their presence so they never ordered Kizaru to arrest them. He only attacked them, because he was bored anyway. I think he really only does what he is ordered to. He and Kuzan are the lazy type like that. Secondly, Rayleigh kept him busy for some time, giving them time to escape.
Comment: Makes sense.,,,
Answer: Simply put, Kizaru wasn't there to arrest the supernovas. He was there to execute or arrest the Strawhats, or more precisely, Luffy, since he broke the law and assaulted a Celestrial dragon. That was his primary objective. He could have arrested them but that would have wasted time and the Strawhats would have escaped. That's why he concentrated more on them.
The reason he attacked the supernovas was because he was bored and it did not take much effort, while arresting them would.
You could say that the other marines should have arrested them as they were injured anyway, but the low rank marines are still no good against the supernovas. And hence, the supernovas were able to escape.

About Kizaru's attack on the Supernovas


How can I get good reverb with audacity?

Question: I am looking for a simple way to get reverb from audacity - similar to a guitar amp that just has a knob from 1 to 10. Is GVerb the correct effect to use for this?  It looks too complicated and sounds horrible - even after fooling around with it.  How can I get good, easy-to-use reverb with Audacity, since I won't be recording with any reverb?
Answer: There are a few pretty simple LADSPA reverb plugins that will work with Audacity.  Start looking at Steve Harris' docs page.
I like the Plate Reverb he lists for vocals and general reverbiness, but if you are interested in a guitar reverb you want a "spring reverb" sound.
The LADSPA Impulse Convolver has what appear to be compiled-in presets for about 20 different guitar amp spring reverb units; I haven't used it, but impulse convolution is a good (if computationally expensive) way to do reverb and if it does what it says on the tin you should find one of those sounds that work for you.
Answer: I'm not sure if you already knew this, but the best way to use GVerb is to duplicate the track you want reverb on and then apply GVerb to one of them.  Then you can adjust the level of reverb in the mix.
See: Audacity Wiki
Comment: This is a great idea, and I'm not sure why I never thought of it. (Although it is probably because I would never use Audacity to add effects to my audio, preferring a DAW with real-time capabilities.)
Comment: I got it from the Audacity Wiki a long while ago - see new link in my answer.


Hosting a Site with Windows Azure

Question: This is probably a ridiculously simple question, but is there a way for me to host a normal, static website on Windows Azure? I see on auzre.com that they do offer web hosting, but after trying to figure it out myself, and looking for some sort of tutorial, I can't figure out how to upload my files. I work with FTP and DNs stuff all the time, but Azure's really confusing me. I'm betting it's because it's overpowered for what I'm looking for, but I'd still like to try it out.
Answer: Yes, Azure allows three things - virtual machines, website, and a more complicated platform. This describes how to create a site for PHP, but applies to sites generally, then this guide describes how to find out what you need to FTP your files.
Answer: Azure is like any other cloud hosting services. Either you can create applications using their platform or make your own and upload. Since you can create virtual machines, install your OS and then install necessary ftp and dns apps on it and then go like you use the other hosting services.
Answer: In normal web hosting, you just need to upload all your files via FTP to your root folder, but I have never used Azure, maybe you need to ask them. As I know Azure is good but more expensive than normal web hosting.
Comment: They could ask them, but they're asking here. You haven't really answered the question.
Comment: Not necessarily true that Azure is more expensive; in fact, my site is hosted both on azurewebsites.net (Free) and with discountasp.net (not free).

Hosting a Site with Windows Azure


What are basic concepts of fusion kitchen?

Question: Are there any formal(izable) rules, or methods, or basic concepts in fusion kitchen cooking?
Comment: Would: "No, there are not." be acceptable as answer?
Comment: Keep the deuterium and tritium in sealed containers until you're ready to use them, oh, and ensure your apron gives you adequate protection against stray neutron splashes...
Comment: @PieterB you can try but I think that the other answers gives already a couple of good ideas what these concepts could be.
Answer: Fusion cuisine probably dates back centuries, as people and products migrated and influenced one another. Consider the development and spread of the noodle, for example.  However the term "fusion" cuisine was probably applied in the 1970s in France and, slightly later, in America.  The idea is simple.  Ingredients and/or techniques from different cuisines are combined to create something new.  In its best form, the result is unique, surprising, and delicious.  However, critics, especially when the combination doesn't work, have sometimes dubbed it "confusion cuisine."
It would be difficult, at best, to define any sort of rules or basic concepts.  Remember, the very idea of fusion cuisine is to break the rules or basic concepts of a single cuisine, by combining differing rules and concepts of two or more different cuisines.  I guess the only concept I can come up with is that the dish has to make sense from a flavor, texture, and visual perspective.  In other words, to be successful it must be appealing and delicious.
Answer: No, there are not- as Pieter suggested, is the answer here.
The reason for this is simple,

Food Fusion is a form of cooking that combines [any] contrasting culinary traditions or techniques into a single dish.

The basic concepts of cooking would obviously still apply, but it would be impossible to identify basic concepts of fusion cooking outside of these as there are so many variations.
As mentioned in the comments, one way you could look at is:

"The only rule of fusion is that it follows the definition of fusion"
Comment: Your TL;DR is "there are no rules", but from the link you provide there seems to be at least one key rule — contrast.

For example, a "full Irish breakfast" has black and white pudding; a "full English breakfast" has fried bread and a "full Scottish breakfast" has a tattie scone, but if you had all three items you still probably wouldn't call it "fusion" as the base meals are _too_ similar in style & preparation already. (I think "No there aren't" and "Contrast is a rule" are both fine answers, but should probably be separate answers.)
Comment: @anotherdave I have amended the definition to the link I provided and just added my comment for clarification :)
Comment: I really doubt anyone would not consider 3 British dishes to be "fusion" in any sense of the word though? @anotherdave
Comment: I also don't think the definition of the word can be a rule. That's like saying "The only rule of fusion is that it follows the definition of fusion"
Comment: The usage of potatoes by Europeans is already a kind of fusion cooking, but not seen as such.
Comment: @bee fair point! I was coming at it from the other angle (assuming the OP knows nothing about fusion food) so was thinking that the explication was the most important rule. Just said I'd add my alt POV.
Answer: In current day the term "fusion cooking" is popularized by chefs with non-French background and a traditional French cooking education.
They are schooled in France and take that experience and mix that with dishes from their heritage to create new dishes.
A notable chef to do that is David Chang
Comment: Chang attended the French Culinary Institute in New York, and worked at Cafe Boulud, a French restaurant, also in New York.  These seem to be his primary education in French cuisine, in addition to his various other experiences with other cuisines.
Comment: @Ze'evFelsen and moscafj, Thanks for the extra info, I watch a lot of show featuring Chang and was under the impression his French schooling was done in France.


I get a vibration in steering wheel at highway speed and a knock or clanking noise at slow speeds

Question: I have just had new tires put on and have checked the balance twice and also replaced the lower ball joint and had the new tires aligned. Vibration has become very noticeable. There's no play in the steering and don't get that clicking noise with a bad tie rod. Is it a strut even if there's no bounce?
Answer: Does it click when you turn? Assuming this is a front wheel drive car, it sounds like it is possibly a CV joint going bad.


Steps after appointment booking from USA for UK visa, vfs global registration confusion?

Question: Hi i submitted my application for uk visit visa for myself and my wife. I booked the appointment and then it took me to a page where it asked me to download files and register with our visa application center partner and purchase labels. I clicked on the register button, it took me to vfs website and then i registered and after putting me and my wife in family group together it started asking me to upload documents ? Now according to the steps in visauk website it does not mention this registration part and document upload part ! What to do as this document upload is also asking tb certificate althought u have lived in usa since 2015.
Can somebody please explain is this registration optional or part of the steps?
What to do as i dont have tb cert and i am in usa since 2015 ?
Note: i booked my biometric at uscis Asc not premium .
Thankyou for your help .
Comment: May I ask how much additional fee VFS charges?
Answer: This is an optional step, you may ignore it. TB Certificate is needed if your stay in the UK is beyond 6 months (Ref: https://www.gov.uk/tb-test-visa)
How were you able to reserve appointment with USCIS? Didn't they suspend their service? (Ref: https://www.vfsglobal.co.uk/us/en/news/service-disruption-message-from-uk-visas-immigration)
Comment: Thanks for the reply. I was able to choose 23 April and i also received an email from the VFS that it is something to do with the USCIS and not VFS itself. Maybe by then they might be able to fix the issue.
In relation to TB i am a Pakistani citizen requesting for 2 year Visit visa but i have been living in US since july 2015.

According to the website:
Who does not need to be tested
You will not need a TB test
you lived for at least 6 months in a country where TB screening is not required by the UK, and you've been away from that country for no more than 6 months
Answer: This is an optional step to my understanding if you're not going with premium locations. You can buy shipping labels on your own. The appointments at USCIS are suspended as of April 11th (I went to mine today and got turned away).
I wonder if the money we paid for appointment will still be fine for re-booking when it is resumed. Hope we won't have to pay again.


1994 toyota 4runner manual broken transfer case

Question: My 1994 4runner (manual) starts and goes into gear, but will not move. If the transfer case is broken, can I take out drive 4 wheel drive and drive it in 2 wheel drive?
Comment: Welcome to Motor Vehicle Maintenance & Repair!
Answer: tl dr: No
The transfer case sits at the back of the transmission. It has two drive shafts which come off of it, one to the front and one to the back. You'd have to install a different transmission and driveline to the rear in order to do what you are talking about. It would be far cheaper (and easier) to get a transfer case fixed or replaced than to go about what you are suggesting.
With that said, what makes you think it would be the transfer case? Seeing as how this is a manual transmission, I'd suspect the clutch had gone out before I'd suspect the transfer case, unless there was something specific which happened to make you believe it's the t-case.
Comment: Thank you.
I didn't have a reason why i thought it was the t.c.
The clutch was a thought also. I do not know a lot about these type of things, that is why i came here for answers. The Q. about the 4 wheel to 2 wheel was because i actually bought a auto. 4 wheel d. Dodge Duran-go and the 4 wheel drive was taken out.... when i bought it. and i drove it 2 wheel until i received the part to make it 4 wheel drive again. Thought maybe i could do the same with my runner.
Comment: @user35894 - What they did was remove the front drive shaft. That makes it a 2wd, but the transfer case is still in place and would not work for what you are suggesting for the 4Runner if the transfer case is bad.
Comment: The answer here tells you why you can't do what you want and points you in a possible direction for the real problem.


Wash sale rule question

Question: I bought stock A  on October 1. I sold stock A on December 1 for a small profit.
I bought stock A on December 7 planning to hold for a while but decided it was not a good idea and sold Stock A on December 10 for a small loss and don't plan on buying stock A again. Is the December 10 sale of Stock A a wash sale?
Comment: Do non-US tax rules have wash sales? I understand Canada has a similar rule but calls it something else. http://money.stackexchange.com/questions/29886/i-have-20k-of-imaginary-gains-from-trading-last-year-due-to-wash-sale-rules-sh
Comment: @JoeTaxpayer not every country has wash sales rules (and in fact some are explicitly allowing them, including "technical sales" where you sell and buy back in the same transaction), and some countries don't have capital gains taxes at all.
Answer: Yes. On December 10, you have a wash sale. As long as you don't buy the stock back for 30 days after that, the wash is of no consequence. In other words, you don't have a wash issue if you don't own the stock for 30 days.
Comment: Tax year ends, but the potential to have an ongoing wash sale doesn't end (given your Dec 10 sale) till Jan 10. Don't buy it until Jan 11 and you're all set with the loss in 2014.
Comment: Tax year ends in less then 30 days though. Can I use December 10 loss as a short term loss for this year?
Comment: How is this a wash sale? There are no purchases in the 61 day period surrounding December 10, except for the shares themselves that had the loss. Are you saying that if I buy a single share and then sell it a day later at a loss that it is a wash sale with itself?

Wash sale rule question


Difference between != and <> comparison operators

Question: What is difference between != and <> usage since both the operators are used for checking inequality in if condition? Is there any performance differences or execution time difference?
Answer: They are syntactically equivalent.
However, I'd err towards always using !=.
!= is listed as the inequality operator in the Understanding Expression Operators documentation for Apex.
!= is listed as the Not Equals operator in the SOQL Comparison Operators.
Both are listed in the Formula Operators.
Apex is a Java like language, which in turn is a C-like language. As such I'd follow the Java/C convention of using != for not equal to.
Comment: @PankajGanwani Probably for people who are used to SQL .
Comment: Thanks Daniel for explanation. But, my concern is why 2 syntaxes are there since we are accomplishing the same operation with both these operators?
Comment: I agree with @MrLister and @crop1645. The `<>` operator probably came from supporting SQL and Excel like syntax in SOQL and Validaiton rules respectively. It lowers the learning curve for new users by providing a familiar syntax.
Answer: It is quite possible that the <> operator is inherited from Excel's operator language specification as it is commonly seen in Validation Rules (which also support the Excel And(..), and Or(..) functions). There was a conscious attempt by SFDC to make Validation Rule formulas (as well as Formula Fields) to mimic Excel to ease user introduction to the SFDC Force.com platform.
As @DanielBallinger states, <> is not even listed in the Apex doc although it does compile
Answer: Same thing different Syntax...
Answer: I would also assert that the symbol "!=" more generally represents the idea of inequality (the negation of "equal to"), whereas "<>" implies that the type being compared has a well-ordering.
Comment: A set is well-ordered if any two objects in it can be compared such that one goes before the other, with the only "ties" being objects that are equal.  For example, integers (...1 < 2 < 3 = 3 < 4...).  Less orderly would be partially-ordered sets (perhaps: head > neck > [left arm | right arm] > [left leg | right leg]...).  The least orderly would be unordered sets (maybe the set of all paintings).  Typically all data types can be compared for equality, but unless an order comparison operator is defined, they are not well- or partially- ordered. [link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well-order)
Comment: Can you please elaborate a little bit more on well-ordering term which you have referred in your response?
Comment: Comments are not intended for discussion. Please **[edit]** your post to try to make it more clear. And please link to an explicit reference that backs up your claim if you have one. Conjecture is not really what we're after in general on SFSE.
Answer: <> is not used for comparison in Java. != is.
<> (diamond operator) is used since Java 7 in generic type initialization. For example :
List< string > list = new ArrayList<>;
Answer: Apparently both operators doesn't have any performance differences or execution time difference. As they haven't listed it explicitly in documentation.

Source - Salesforce Docs


Ballistics of guns

Question: I am looking for mathematical texts or material on ballistics of guns. So far the only reference I have been able to locate is Ballistics: Theory and Design of Guns and Ammunition  by Carlucci and Jacobson. Are there any more such books or online notes which explain the mathematical properties (equation of motion etc) in gun ballistics?
Comment: You might try books on forensics, forensic science.
Answer: There is a steep learning curve in ballistics. The start is to assume only Newton's Laws and no air resistance, etc. The next is to include air resistance, which is incorporated in this assignment. Then, it can become radically more complicated. For example, JSTOR has several articles on ballistics (e.g. here), so if you have access I would look there.
These end up relying on a good working knowledge of PDE and fluid dynamics, so I'm not quite sure if those are what you're looking for. But there are also programs that do a lot of this work for you if you are just calculating them: you have gunsim and it's blog, for example. Someone else also describes the math that they use in their own sim, found here.
I do not know of any other 'texts' so to speak, only lots of articles. Once you look through JSTOR, you can look at their references and what referenced them to continue on the chain. I hope this is what you're looking for!
(Note, if you have access to a university library, you might have access to JSTOR articles through them).
Answer: Nonsense.  Ballistics maths is very well understood and incredibly easy.  Certainly a knowledge of the basic Newtonian physics is a good background but the mathematics itself is basic numerical integration in most cases, based on the work of one Fransesco Siacci.  The definitive book today that most professional ballisticians use for small arms ballistics is "Modern Exterior Ballistics" by Robert McCoy.  He worked at the Ballistics Research Laboratory Aberdeen Proving ground for a number of years and he gives a comprehensive history of the subject.
The book also includes the listing of a BASIC program for Point Mass Model approximation (the most widely adopted modern adaptation of Siacci's formulae) and that basic program itself (including source code) can be found on several locations on the www - just search for "MCTRAJ".

Ballistics of guns


Negative points; User removed

Question: I've just had 30 points removed because of 'USER REMOVED'.  This is the only explanation I can access.  What does 'User Removed' minus ten points mean?
Answer: It means that someone who previously voted for you had their account deleted, and their votes were removed at the same time as their account. This can either be at the person's own request, or imposed by Stack Exchange for violating the terms of service on this or another SE site.
If you look at your inbox on the site's top bar, you should see a number of entries saying "User was removed" that add up to 30 points. For example, 3 x -10 for answer upvotes that were removed, 5 x -6 for question upvotes, or some combination of the two.
Clicking on one of those entries in the inbox, will bring you to the "reputation" page in your profile; there will be a "learn more" link which leads to a page in the help center which explains it:
Why do I have a reputation change on my reputation page that says 'User was removed'?
Comment: Thanks, Niall!  I'll go check the reputation page more closely.  No problem but shows I am missing something in the rules of this site!

Negative points; User removed


How do disabled computer scientists publish?

Question: Given that computer scientists publish in conferences, which typically require that presenters be present, how do computer scientists who are disabled, have broken legs due to a car accident, or have any similar travel restrictions, publish?
Comment: What you seem to be asking is "how do people with mobility impairments travel?". That... is perhaps a tad insulting, and probably off topic here IMHO.
Comment: @Flyto That may be the case, if that actually _were_ their question. Stack Exchange asks for good faith in its terms and good faith doesn't mean reading between the lines for a bad faith assumption. Their question at its core focuses on publishing when a person has problematic travel restrictions that don't amount to laziness or character flaw, but rather a condition that may require accommodation by law. They're asking what that process or accommodation may look like in the context of academia. It also appears that relevant responses have presented themselves. It's on topic.
Comment: `SetFlag(enabled,true);`  Life hacks!
Comment: I think this question could be made more useful by getting more specific. As it is currently it is a bit unclear which kind of travel restrictions specifically are meant. You can see that also with the answers which are very general.
Answer: Equality of access for disabled people is a legal requirement for public services such as transport and buildings in many jurisdictions, particularly in the EU and North America. There are many disabled academics and researchers who teach, research and publish.
One only has to look at examples like the late Stephen Hawking to see how it is possible.
Comment: I don't think SH is a good example here. He was so famous, that I wouldn't be surprised that conference organizers and others made special accomodation for him and to make sure he felt welcome.
Comment: Books, TV, Conferences - SH did them all and better than some with all limbs functioning...
Comment: Off-topic, but I just realized that Sherlock Holmes and Stephen Hawking have the same initials (since the comments confused me ever so slightly). What a strange and delightful coincidence.
Answer: I'd tackle a tangent issue, but one to which I was a witness personally.
Remember Eyjafjallajökull?
I personally know someone, who was going to present their work at a conference, but could not travel because of air travel shutdown.
They made a video presentation, basically their slides with their conference talk voice-over. It was shown at the event.
I would guess, that other inabilities to visit the conference (that do not result in paper being pulled), such as inability to obtain a visa or disability, would be handled in a similar manner.
Notice that it is typically required that one of the authors presents the paper, so if you have many authors, e.g. your advisor is on the paper and you break a leg, the advisor could present it even without triggering the exception rule.
Of course, if you are a sole author, or the inability to travel applies to all authors, or if you insist to present the paper yourself, but cannot travel, above issues arise.
Comment: I ended up presenting at the first conference I ever attended because my supervisor was too ill to go.  I watched the first session, used the second session to adjust my presentation based on what I'd seen, and then presented in the third session of day one.  Nerve wracking doesn't quite cover it.
Comment: I will never forget how one of my professors announced he would have an assistant replace him in the next week's lecture due to himself being at a conference – but added that the former statement only held true "modulo volcano"...
Answer: In many cases, maybe all, it should be possible to work with the program committee to find a solution. If they have sufficient prior notice something can usually be worked out. Possibilities include those named in other answers here (video, ...), but also having a third party present the work.
In a last minute situation it may be hard to do anything but have an announcement at the conference that the author(s) couldn't attend because of ... The paper would still be part of the conference proceedings and so is still an official "publication". The only thing not included would be the actual presentation of it.
For those with long standing issues (Hawking) who publish regularly, the committees will know how to make something work.
But, contact the committee in all such cases.
I should note that it isn't the talk at the conference that makes it a publication (invited talks excepted). It is the paper. There are many disabilities that make it impossible to actually give a talk, including the inability to speak at all.
Answer: Publishing and attending conferences are related, yet independent things. A conference paper with multiple authors is generally presented by a single person. So even if I was the lead author of a paper, and a co-author of mine held the talk, I can consider the paper being published.
I guess, not presenting your own papers at a conference is nothing unusual. A colleague of mine fell ill during the conference, so our boss had to present her paper, as she wasn't fit to present it herself.
On other occasions, only a select few of our group attended a conference and presented the contributions of our group.
Comment: Note that policies about presentations vary; many conferences (at least in my field) would not be happy with "_only a select few of our group attended a conference and presented the contributions of our group_", assuming the presenters were not authors on some of the papers, unless there was a "good" reason none of the authors could attend (usually visa denial, last-minute emergency, etc). Of course exceptions can always be made, but one should always check before assuming.


Repeated reminder email from EasyJet for API document

Question: I'm flying to Geneva (Switzerland) in few days with EasyJet with my wife.  I have provided both our passport details for advance passenger information.  But keep on getting emails from EasyJet to add these API documents before travelling.  Is this normal?  I would have thought they would check this before sending me the reminder emails.
Comment: @hippietrail I think in this case, API = Advance Passenger Information.  But as a developer, seeing API clearly means something else to us ;)
Comment: "API documents" sounds like an odd phrase. Could you paste or type in a sentence or two from the email? It could even be an error message from a software bug in their website messing up the email.
Comment: I flew with EJ recently and had the same situation. Don't worry, as long as you've given the details you'll be fine.
Answer: A budget airline has to cut costs somewhere, and EasyJet cuts its IT budget (hey, better than skimping on plane maintenance, right?). As a result, its website and back-end systems tend to be somewhat buggy. I've noticed similar quirks before when I used EasyJet, so I'd say don't worry about it, and just bring the documents when you check in.
Answer: I think you're referring to APIS - Advance Passenger Information System. The documents themselves are called 'API' (Advance Passenger Information) documents, so it's not a bug. Technically, filling this in is only compulsory when you're flying to the US, so when you're flying with EasyJet within Europe you shouldn't worry. At the time you check-in, they can update your personal information in case it already hasn't been logged into their system.
Comment: Ankur, that's not quite accurate. Both the UK and Spain require API these days too.
Answer: I wouldn't stress about these emails, or the advanced notification at all. The emails are usually a way of organizing information about the passengers, but in my opinion, are rarely used for actual travel, or immigration. You ALWAYS have to provide original documents at the time of check-in. It is at this time that the authenticity is checked and boarding is permitted. I fly British Airways often, and am inundated with API emails, even though they have all my information...At the time of check-in (and in case of LHR, at the time of boarding too), passports are checked foremost, even before the actual boarding pass.
Enjoy Geneva - hear it's beautiful!
Comment: That's not quite accurate. Although I agree with your point about not stressing over it (!), there is a benefit to making sure your API information is accurate - you can check-in online and avoid the check-in desk entirely (assuming you only have hand luggage, etc.). Of course, when you check in online, it will force you to enter API information at that point if it's not already in the system.
Comment: If you are flying internationally, there is no way that you can bypass the check-in counter solely based on API and online check-in. I have yet to come across such an arrangement, regardless of the traveler's nationality.
Comment: Not true. I have flown from the UK->US like this several times. As long as you have filled in the API information before, you don't need to go anywhere near the check-in counter as long as you only have hand luggage.
Comment: e.g. http://www.americanairlines.co.uk/i18n/travelInformation/onlineCheckin.jsp - "If you are travelling with carry-on luggage head straight to the departure gates." I don't doubt there are some situations where airlines force you to check documents with them at the airport, but it isn't true to say this is _always_ the case.