How did the Death Eaters physically escape from Azkaban?

Question: Below we can see Bellatrix Lestrange stood on the edge of Azkaban prison. Now, in the book, if I can remember, it's explicitly said that it was the Dementors that broke the Death Eaters out of Azkaban. However, in the film, its implied that it was the Dementors, but how is this possible? Did the Dementors blow the large hole in the side of Azkaban? How did they prisoners actually escape?
Comment: See also a similar question on Science Fiction SE: http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/26970/ How Were the Death Eaters Broken Out of Azkaban?
Comment: Maybe the Prisoners pulled a Shawshanks Redemption on the Azkaban prison
Answer: How was Azkaban guarded? It was guarded by the Dementors, who would catch and punish anyone trying to escape. They might lose their soul to the Dementors too. Hence, the prison was actually dependent way too much on the Dementors. As we know, when Voldemort had been reborn, the Dementors sided with him. It is impossible for anyone to "break" out of Azkaban without the Dementors knowing about it. Even Sirius could manage to escape only because of being an Animagus. The Dark Lord and his supporters could simply have had a deal with the Dementors for letting the Death Eaters escape. The Dementors would have ignored the escape. Once they had the Dementors on their side, freeing the death eaters was only a matter of "breaking them out" from the wall. Hence the hole in the wall - which was done by the Dark Lord or his supporters. Even though it is not mentioned explicitly that Dementors had sided with Voldemort, it was because of the Ministry cover-up. They had already started drifting towards Voldemort.
Please also note that the Dementors themselves cannot do any magic such as blasting holes, etc. They are beings who feed on emotions, and can affect only emotions of people. That is the reason they cannot be defeated by mere magic - you require a Patronus, which is the physical form of an emotion - happiness, that can fight a Dementor. Hence, the belief that the break out was orchestrated by the Dark Lord and his supporters with help from the Dementors.
Answer: Note:  My answers are based primarily on the books themselves and do not use many details (or lack thereof) from the movie.
Azkaban is/was the most feared prison in the London side of the wizarding world.  This is because of the cold dark cells combined with the Dementor guards.  During the time that Voldemort was left powerless, the Dementors had nowhere to go.  So the Ministry employed them into Azkaban in order to keep them under control in a sense and to further discourage wizarding crimes.
The main reason no-one escaped from Azkaban ever was because the power of the dementors left the prisoners in such a state of apathy that they felt escape was pointless and even that wouldn't bring happiness back into their minds.
The ultimate punishment for an offending wizard was not to be sent to Azkaban as a prisoner, but to have performed upon them what became to be known as the Dementor's Kiss.  This act would allow the Dementors to unveil their hood and suck out the soul of the offending wizard, leaving them as an emotionless husk for the rest of their days.  A fate considered much worse than death or anything Voldemort could accomplish during his reign of terror.
In the 3rd book, the dementors didn't escape.  They were merely allowed to hunt down the only escapee to ever come out of Azkaban: Sirius Black.  This act was only performed by Siris because he was an unregistered Animagus  someone who could turn into an animal at will, but did not register this ability of his with the Ministry of Magic.  Without that information, the Ministry had no clue how he could escape and unleashed the Dementors on the world due to essentially panic on their part.
Sirius figured out this trick due to noting the Dementors had no actual eyes to see with, they merely felt their way around using people's emotions.  For whatever reason, they are unable to do this with animals so by turning into a dog, Siris was able to literally walk right out of Azkaban.
Now, jump ahead to the 6th with people being broken out of Azkaban.  The Dementors themselves are only magical creatures but they themselves are not capable of magic as humans are.  Therefore, it must have been Death Eaters themselves that either blew a hole into the prison using basic spells or even the Dementors decided to stop feeding on the imprisoned Death Eaters and allow them to simply leave the prison due to Voldemort's return and guarantee of fresh food.
Comment: problem: to 'blow' a hole, the imprisoned death eaters would require a wand. Also the imprisoned people would require news of the outside world. Sirius Black clearly mentioned not knowing much about the world. He found Peter Pettigrew on the paper the Minister gave him.
Comment: @kicker86 There were plenty of Death Eaters that were not imprisoned at all.
Comment: yes, and they would constitute "outside" help. My argument was about how the death eaters *inside* azkaban could break out on their own. And I assumed the question to mean the same.
Comment: @kicker86 My understanding is how the prisoners *acutally* escaped if the Dementors did not free them
Answer: I do not think that the Dementors did it, as they were not on Voldemort's side at the time. Another theory is that the storm was created by his followers who were still at large and the storm blew a hole in the wall.
Source: Harry Potter enthusiast, Pottermore.
Answer: I believe we can agree that with most wizards if their wand is taken the fight is over. Prisoners aren't allowed wands, but what prevents wandless magic. Operating under the assumption that there is nothing blocking wandless magic (as Sirius was able to use his animagus form), what's to say they only use a simple locking charm and maybe a key on the cells? Dementors don't have wieldable-wizard magic, but they do have hands. It's possible that they simply handed the keys to someone and a prisoner managed to undo the magic locking charm. I'm also quite sure that, even though the prisoners would have had no contact with the outside world, they would be ready at a moments notice to escape Azkaban.
In another scenario, how hard would it be for a death eater or sympathizer on the outside to cast an Imperio on one of the aurors/ministry personnel? Then they could just instruct that person to hand their own wand over to the prisoners in question. Of course, if that were the case, the Ministry would never make themselves look bad in front of the press, so would omit the specifics and chalk it up to escapee-extraordinaire Sirius Black.
Assuming there are not 101 other ways to break out of Azkaban prison.
Answer: Kreacher had by this point, returned to Bellatrix. We already know that house elves can apparate and disapparate into places where witches and wizards can't (e.g. Malfoy Manor & Dobby). So I'd say Kreacher apparated in/out with the death eaters, and the dementors weren't able to see what was happening due to being blind. They would have sensed prisoners leaving but perhaps didn't have time to stop it from happening.
Comment: Any basis or backing for this theory ?


Why does "Garfield" have so much product placement?

Question: Why does the 2004 film Garfield with Bill Murray have so much product placement? And why did Jon put "Pepsi" and "Wendy" Stickers on his Train Set?
Comment: Because they *can*....producers like having money thrown at them.
Answer: Well, maybe because Davis (the author of Garfield) wrote Garfield specifically to be "a good, marketable character." Before creating Garfield, Davis worked in advertising, and knew that if he could create a character he could sell, then it wouldn't really matter the content of the cartoon. Slate has an excellent article about the marketing of Garfield.
So, knowing that Davis isn't against marketing, he'd probably not be against it. Knowing that movies cost money, putting advertising in movies is a good way to fund the movie (especially if you don't expect it to recoup production costs). Hollywood Branded puts product placement for TV shows from $25k ~ $1m, but don't actually put a price on product placement in movies- but you can be guaranteed it's a significant amount.
As to why John would put those stickers on his train set, the out-of-universe answer is definitely because Pepsi and Wendy's spent money for product placement. For the in-universe answer, I have no idea. I think you'll have to find one of the 5 other people that watched the movie and ask them about it.
Comment: For the in-universe answer .... I had a train set as a kid, and it had fake 1930's advertising on it.  The world has advertising, so obsessive model makers will put advertising in their models.


Why do Muslim women need to cover more than men?

Question: I was talking to a non Muslim and she thought it was objectifying women that they have to cover up and how come the coverage is not equal between the genders? How do we answer this?
Comment: In most European countries a man could go berbreasted in the city in summer while a woman mostly cannot.
Comment: @Kilise Do you have a source for that? I would say that it is very unusual with barbreasted men in European cities unless unusual conditions, e.g., the town is situated on a beach or we are talking about asphalt workers, or some such.
Comment: @d-b of course its unusual, but *it's not very unusual* in the summer, when its hot outside.  What I was trying to convey is that the cultural norms still aren't equal between the genders, even in Europe. The culture sets the rules. And no I have no source, it's common knowledge. I guess most people who live in Europe can confirm it. Or just google it :)
Answer: The reasons given in the Qur'an for hijab:

O Prophet, tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers to bring down over themselves [part] of their outer garments. That is more suitable that they will be known and not be abused. And ever is Allah Forgiving and Merciful.  -- Qur'an 33:59
And tell the believing women to reduce [some] of their vision and guard their private parts and not expose their adornment except that which [necessarily] appears thereof and to wrap [a portion of] their headcovers over their chests and not expose their adornment except to [...]. And let them not stamp their feet to make known what they conceal of their adornment. ... -- Quran 24:31

So we have three interrelated reasons:

To be known.  I.e., to be recognized as a free and honorable Muslim woman (see Is being recognized as Muslim one of the reasons for hijab?).

To not be abused.

To not expose their adornment, presumably in order to not attract inappropriate attention.

So, which of these apply to Muslim men?
I think it's safe to say that men experience far less sexual harassment than women.  It's also probably safe to say that a woman's body is sexualized in a way that a man's body isn't.  So the latter two reasons don't apply to the same extent to men.  However, it is certainly acceptable in Islam for men to choose to conceal their body also.
This makes "being known" less critical for men; e.g., a Muslim woman in hijab is implicitly declaring that she believes zina (fornication) to be a major sin, which may be off-putting to men with improper intentions.  Nevertheless, Muslim men can be recognized in other ways, e.g., beards, caps, more frequently going to mosque.
Moreover, women are typically regarded as more social than men; we rely on our sisters for a lot of things (e.g., safety, compassion) and it is generally helpful to be able to recognize a sister.
Answer: It's not necessarily an Islamic law, there are about 17 states that don't allow women to be topless in their states. It's more common sense. Orthodox Jews observe hijab, even some Christians do.

In addition, something I found from here
"For all the people out there who cry it's sexist that women can't go around topless, I am going to give you an irrefutable argument to why it isn't sexist. A woman is topless, a man "accidentally" gropes her chest, he's going to be spending the next few years in prison and registering as a sexual offender. Next scenario. A man is topless, a woman "accidentally" gropes his chest, even if he does freak out, which he probably wouldn't, but if he did, the entire police station will laugh him out of the station for reporting it. The reason it is illegal for women to walk around topless isn't for the children's sake. It is because there are completely different rules and regulations when it comes to men and women and their bodies. (sure you can say double standards are sexist, but I don't hear any women complaining about my above double standard). If the day comes when grabbing a woman's chest isn't grounds for being arrested, sure then you can say it's sexist that women aren't allowed to go topless. Furthermore, breast are the MOST sexualized object in the world, more than the phallic symbol. And yes, women are responsible for this, not men. Women explicitly attempt to make their chests more predominant to make themselves appear more attractive to men. Breasts are not just a sign of femininity in terms of children and breast feeding, they are sign of sexual maturity, as in, a sign that this woman is ready to mate, have sex, so yes breast are just as much a lusting symbol, as they are a symbol for "the cradle of life"
Basically the breast of a women is deemed as something that is sexually appealing, so is her face—more than men. Men and women are stimulated differently.

The above mentioned are reasons that undermine her premises.

But as for why we do it?
I'll give you some hints/admonitions, ask your friend about covering in general: "as why do have to cover ourselves?" If she says humans are to be free to do as they wish, then end the discussion right there without a doubt with calmness and kindness. But if she says there should be, then ask her what parts? Why? From there you can build a foundation, of shame (حیا)
Having that I recommend you to be proud of your religion and avoid such debates, debates are not welcomed in Islam, unless you have an audience who's listening to the conclusion of the debate. IF your friend is humbly asking then answer. The moment you see her denying stop right there.
لکم دینکم و لی دین
To me my religion; To you yours.Al-Kafirun :6
Some have misunderstood me and said this is intellectual dishonesty:
Clarification:
 this is to address the comments below
A person can't believe in heaven and hell unless he believes in Justice, he can't believe in Justice unless he believes in God.
So if I'm talking about heaven and hell to a person which doesn't believe in God, I should first discuss God. Then if you gave your reason and the person denies then hear them out. If you didn't agree then stop (or they didn't then stop). Don't repeat your words 49 times. Yet if the person was confused by 90 questions then be humble and answer each and every one of them.
Have you not ever had a discussion with a person (sometimes loved ones) who don't want to accept what you are saying? (Or sometimes have you turned into a person who doesn't accept the truth. I've made such mistakes before and will do more again unfortunately.) If you arrive at such a situation then continue the discussion has no value.
On a very very different level of not accepting things: Quran says:
And We have certainly created for Hell many of the jinn and mankind. They have hearts with which they do not understand, they have eyes with which they do not see, and they have ears with which they do not hear. Those are like livestock; rather, they are more astray. It is they who are the heedless.al-A'raf :179
(Please don't blame me)
Comment: **** Comments are not intended for argument and debate; please keep them on-topic for this post and respectful.
Comment: "sure you can say double standards are sexist, but I don't hear any women complaining about my above double standard" Have you heard about slutwalks? There are nontrivial movements that want going topless decriminalized for women. "IF your friend is humbly asking then answer. The moment you see her denying stop right there." This is intellectual dishonesty. Only someone not interested in facts argues like this.
Comment: Let us [continue this discussion in chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/54759/discussion-between-honey-and-g-bach).


How to root droid running 4.4.4 KitKat

Question: I have a Motorola XT1080 (also known as droid maxx) from verizon, and it is running android version 4.4.4. Is it possible to root this device, and if so, how do I do this?
Comment: I've just re-tagged your question, so while waiting for answers you might wish to follow up to our [rooting tag-wiki](http://android.stackexchange.com/tags/rooting/info) – and from there to the "rooting index", which also includes some generic methods.
Answer: Try to unlock the bootloader with Sunshine S-Off then use kingo rooting tool. Or try Kingo first as it's free but Sunshine will test your device to make sure it can unlock the boot loader. If so, it will cost 25$ but you have better odds of getting root with the boot loader unlocked.
I have the same phone, I lost root and could not get it back with traditional maxx rooting methods so I unlocked my bootloader with Sunshine then rooted with Kingo but I did all this on android 4.2.2 so it may or may not work on 4.4.4 (please comment on this answer with your results if you try this).
Another program like Kingo is Root Genius.
Answer: I have a XT1080 running 4.4.4 KitKat and did have some luck using king root ( not a typo Kingo root is a separate app ) then root checker to verify it was actually rooted and to also install busy box. Either because of my lack of knowledge or actual conflicts caused by the programs I kept getting error messages and finally did a factory reset out of frustration. It's something to try if you're familiar with rooting and tweaking the settings for performance.
P.S. Almost forgot I used device controller from the play store to do my phone tweaking
Answer: Well, that's weird I would say you would have got the device rooted using Framaroot, double cross check if you are using the latest version of the Framaroot to root your device?? I somewhere doubt that you are trying to do the same with older version of the Farmaroot, anyway I think it would be better for you to try doing that again using the latest version of Framaroot 1.9.3 over here.

How to root droid running 4.4.4 KitKat


What makes chess engines so good at chess?

Question: Computers are thought to calculate every possible move. However, for eg. there are about 20 possible first moves and 20 possible responses to that and so by this logic the no. of positions after for eg.'n' moves is 20 ^(2n). This can become a huge number very fast. So I suspect that the computer may actually be using a huge precomputed opening database which may include all possible moves and responses to a huge depth - maybe around 30 moves or so. Their programming may also include a mechanism to look up transpositions so that it can transition from an unfamiliar opening to a familiar one. If it is indeed using a huge precomputed opening database, can this not be considered as cheating? Its like a bringing a chess book to a tournament.
Comment: Interesting topic! Yet, I think you should edit your text so that it is clear what you are actually asking. Cheers.
Comment: I will bet win for the computer if you play with a book against it.
Answer: Engines do use opening and endgame databases to help their play but that is only a small part of their strength. The strength of the engines come from what they do while they don't have a database move. The strength of engines come basically from two factors: evaluator and search.
The evaluator assigns a value to a position so that the search will know which positions to favor. Most engines nowadays evaluate on the order of 1 million positions in a second, so the evaluator needs to be fast. The evaluator may take into account for example material, pawn structure, king safety, mobility, just to name a few features. In state of the art engines, the parameters of evaluator function (i.e. how much a feature affects the total evaluation of the position) are tuned using thousands and thousands of CPU hours of testing.
As you mention, the number of possible variations grows very rapidly. The average number of moves in a position is around 35, so the number of positions already after 6 half-moves is more than one billion, which is clearly infeasible.
A simple improvement is using the alpha-beta search, which is based on the observation that, for example, if you have calculated that move 34.A wins a pawn, and you know that after move 34.B Black can reply 34...C after which White does not win a pawn, you don't have to check other responses to 34.B because clearly you already know that 34.A is better than 34.B. If you have a good heuristic such that best moves are always searched first, this reduces the number of positions required to search depth d to sqrt(35^d) instead of 35^d which is a huge improvement. Transition tables reduce the search tree even more.
But this is not even close to what top chess engines really can achieve! Using some smart and smarter tricks to decide which nodes (=positions encountered during the search) are important and which are not, they search some parts of the search tree deeper and cut some parts early, which allows them to reach depth d for important variations often in even less than 2^d nodes. A quite technical list of possible ideas for selectivity is given in the Chess programming wiki.
Comment: Very nice post, especially the links! Being a programmer myself  find them very useful. Maybe if I get some spare time I will try to implement some of them. If only I could upvote this twice :( Best regards.
Answer:
Why are computers so successful in chess?

First, they have opening database which means that you can not outplay them unless you invent a stunning opening novelty. High quality programs have databases that are immune to transpositions. So yes, it is like putting the opening encyclopaedia in front of you.
Second, they use endgame tablebases which means that their endgame technique is godlike, but this only works if they enter up to 6-men position. If they can not find the endgame on the board in their tablebase you have a chance to win by outplaying it.
Third, they calculate better. Why? Well look at the following simple example:
[fen "8/8/8/8/8/1P6/8/k1K5 w - - 0 1"]

This is a rough demonstration of how computer looks for the move:
He examines all the possible continuations, by "setting up" N boards-the N corresponds the number of available moves. Let us examine all lines for White here:
First candidate move:
[fen "8/8/8/8/8/1P6/8/k2K4 w - - 0 1"]

Second candidate move:
[fen "8/8/8/8/8/1P6/2K5/k7 w - - 0 1"]

Third candidate:
[fen "8/8/8/8/8/1P6/3K4/k7 w - - 0 1"]

Fourth candidate:
[fen "8/8/8/8/8/8/1P6/k1K5 w - - 0 1"]

Then, after "setting up" these positions in the memory he uses evaluation function to find the best move-in this case g7+.
After Black plays, the same process is repeated.
This method is very powerful because it allows them to find very effective zwishenzugs and they always find the winning tactics.
Quality of play depends on the quality of the evaluation function. Depth of variations also plays an important role here ( the number of moves computer can "foresee" ) but setting it high ensures again a godlike play. Although there is a theoretical chance to outperform it in calculation, in real life there is no chance to do it-not even grandmasters could have done it.
The only weak spot it has is for positional play since this part of chess is intuitive and can not be mechanized, so you would think you might have a chance there, but thanks to the progress of the opening theory you can always introduce dynamic play so there is no longer a chance to completely close the position and outmaneuver him like grandmasters did in the past.

If it is indeed using a huge precomputed opening database, can this not be considered as cheating? Its like a bringing a chess book to a tournament.

They do not cheat, they just have better "memory" and stronger processing power.
You have your brain to store opening moves, they have a hard drive.
You have your brain to visualize the board and analyze the moves, they have RAM and CPU to do that.
The problem with human brain is its failure to multitask. You just can not use your brain efficiently to remember opening moves, endgame or middle-game principles, visualize the board and calculate all the possibilities ( this is the hardest part! ) and so on.
The way I see it, they are better designed/organized for using processing and memorizing resources.
Best regards.
Comment: I don't think the demonstration is very helpful, since it demonstrates searching depth of only one ply (which isn't a strength of engines), and leaves open the question why the evaluation function thinks g7+ is the best move.
Comment: The demonstration shows the strength engine has over a human-they can "visualize" **all possible positions** while many humans can not. Also, I have mentioned that engine uses evaluation function for every move, eventually evaluating `g7+` as the strongest. There really is not enough space to explain **exactly** how evaluation function works-it is too complex. At this moment OP needs to know that computer is able to analyze all the possible positions with the help of the evaluation function. If you know the way for improving my post I will edit it and give you credit. Best regards.
Comment: well actually an engine is really a program in execution. the database is not a part of the engine but rather it is stored as a file on the hard disk. so when the engine accesses the database it is actually accessing an external resource. so my argument is that a human opponent should also have access to the same resource for a human - computer game to be considered fair. a similar argument can be made for the use of endgame tables which is also stored as a database.
Comment: @AlwaysLearningNewStuff Oh, I missed the point. However, I think it would not take too much space to briefly explain what the search three is.
Comment: @guru: From your point of view, it could be treated as a cheat. However, giving a book to a human will change nothing, I fear. The **main strength** of the engine is its ability to "visualize" **all the relevant positions** and to calculate them **with great speed and precision**. The above diagrams just served to show the method. Imagine having to visualize **every viable line** in a complex tactically charged position, like in [this game](http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1139713). How many humans can calculate **all the relevant lines**? We both know **any computer** can do it.
Answer: Chess engines aren't necessarily superior in strategy.  In fact, the strategy is programmed in.  But they can SEE MORE of the possibilities on a chess board (board vision).  They can see all the forks and all the pins after this move, the next move, and so on.  The human mind isn't that thorough and organized, and will miss opportunities and threats.  So it isn't necessarily superior in strategic play, the chess software is superior in board vision.


Fox Hunting w/o yagi to find a lost High altitude balloon payload

Question: First off, very new to ham radio.  I wanted to track my High altitude balloon using APRS, and after loosing that payload in a mature cornfield for 2 months, decided to add a micro-fox from Byonics to find it if it couldn't easily be seen.  So, I need some pointers for finding this kind of fox.  Can I actually do it without a yagi antenna, and hope to find it?  It will not be "hidden" by clever humans, but fall randomly and be covered by super bright duct tape.  I have already gone over budget and would like to avoid purchasing an $80 antenna, but just don't have the skills or equipment at this time to make one. Using my Baofeng UVR-5a can I use body fade, aluminum can tube, make a trashcan lid shield? etc?  While testing yesterday I was having a lot of difficulty getting body fade or a tube wrapped in foil to work.  It sounds simple, but I am missing something, and the only video tutorial I could find on body fade was just some adorable baby boy scouts doing an easter bunny hunt, and not a tutorial at all. Sorry if any of this sounds silly, I just need a little advice on this strange fox hunt activity.  Thank you so much.
Answer: Would this help?  A cheap and simple yagi that's been used for fox-hunting before.
http://www.arrl.org/files/file/ETP/The%20tape%20measure%20antenna.pdf
Here's a youtube vid from AmateurLogic.tv
https://youtu.be/PqTH42NRMck?t=30m8s
As far as the payload you lost - does it currently have the micro-fox installed?  If so, have you tried taking a 2m HT out to the field to see if it's still transmitting and the battery hasn't run out?
Comment: We did not have the micro-fox at that time.  Luckily we got to the right field (but these fields are enormous) and the farmer found it at harvest time. Also, Thanks! There are many great instructions on the intertubes for making the tape measure yagi's.  I really want one, but it would honestly take me quite a bit of time to gather the parts and figure out how.  I have Zero experience and do not own an swr meter or soldering gun at this time.  Looks really fun to learn in the future and has made the list of things to learn more about.
Answer: If the reason you're having trouble with body fade is that you can hear the signal no matter what, then you need to make the signal weaker, so that you can hear the difference in how well your receiver is picking it up. To do this properly, you use an attenuator between the radio and antenna.
But of course, that's also equipment you need to buy or make (a basic attenuator is just a resistor network between two connectors). You might be better served by getting a Yagi or loop antenna first.
Serious foxhunters have both directional antennas and attenuators; the attenuator is needed when you are very close to the fox such that the signal is loud and clear even when your antenna has its null pointed at the transmitter.
If you really want to try with improvised equipment and the signal is strong, try using a terrible antenna:

Remove the antenna entirely. The antenna socket, and leakage through the case, will still pick up some signal.
Use an antenna of the wrong length. You can use a piece of wire, provided that you have a way to attach it to the antenna socket without damaging the contacts (such as a coaxial to binding post adapter, which is generally handy for experimentation).
Comment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_Xj0FVdVrE
Comment: Above is the launch video.  A yagi antenna does seem to be the best, though, I may have still had difficulty - not being able to aim it between the narrow rows of corn.  I love that hams make EVERYTHING.  You are ultimate DIY'ers.  It is just hard to believe that no one but arrow seems to sell a hand held yagi.  Please tell me I am wrong.
Comment: @TomServo Since that video is information about what you're asking about, please edit your question to include it instead of commenting on answers.


Why my LG G4 cannot boot or use TWRP custom recovery but cyanogenrecovery without problems?

Question: For several days I am trying to get TWRP custom recovery on my LG G4 h815 International. Currently the phone is unlocked and has Cyanogenmod 13 and cyanogenrecovery but without google gapps. I really want to have google gapps on the ROM but I am unable to flash with cyanogenrecovery Unable to flash gapps via cyanogenrecovery on a LG G4 (LG h815 Int). Therefore I want to replace cyanogenrecovery by TWRP recovery.
When I do fastboot boot twrp-3.0.0-0-h815.img, the phone boots normally.
When I do fastboot flash recovery twrp-3.0.0-0-h815.img a get no error and successfully flash but I cannot boot into recovery.
When I do fastboot boot cm-13.0-20160209-NIGHTLY-h815-recovery.img, the phone boots correctly into cyanogenrecovery but this recovery gives an error 70 when flashing gapps.
Flashing cm-13.0-20160209-NIGHTLY-h815-recovery.img is also successful and I can successfully boot into cyanogenrecovery.
For all nightlies of cyanogenrecovery I am able to boot in recovery and/or flash but all of them gives error 70.
For all of the 4 versions of TWRP https://dl.twrp.me/h815/ I cannot boot into them by using fastboot. Flashing al of them results to that I am completely unable to boot into recovery (also no cyanogenrecovery anomore).
Also I unchecked update cyanogenrecovery in developer options.
When flashing TWRP with flashify there is no error but also no boot into TWRP. Flasing cyanogenrecovery in flashify gives also no error and booting properly in that recovery.
Does anybody knows why I can boot into cyanogenrecovery without problems but booting into any version of TWRP seems to be impossible. I have the idea that my phone doesn't accept a TWRP recovery because of cyanogenrecovery boots without any problems after flashing.
Answer: Finally I got TWRP on my LG G4 h815. The problem was that I had to use the TWRP version of the LG h811 instead of h815. The developers of TWRP put recoveries for the h815 under h811 downloads and recoveries for h811 under downloads for h815.


Has there been a NBA Father-Son Duos that have won an NBA Title and Olympic Gold Medal?

Question: I am curious, with 2nd generation players that have come through the NBA, Has there been a NBA player who is a father to another NBA player and both have won a NBA Title and a gold medal in the Olympics?
Comment: [List of second-generation National Basketball Association players](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_second-generation_National_Basketball_Association_players) on Wikipedia might help when searching. (Of course, I cannot vouch for the completeness. The references provided in that Wikipedia article might be useful too.)
Answer: Disclaimer: Wikipedia lists cannot be considered the ultimate reference, although my limited research has shown no discrepancy in case of this record.
This Wikipedia list covers the second generation basketball players in the NBA, and mentions four father-son duos to have won the NBA Championship (in that order).

Matt Guokas Sr. and Matt Guokas Jr.
Rick Barry and Brent Barry
Bill Walton and Luke Walton
Mychal Thompson and Klay Thompson

Comparing that with the list of Olympic medalists in basketball shows only one of those eight players has won an Olympic medal (any Olympic medal), i.e Klay Thompson who won Olympic gold in Rio in 2016. So to answer your question, there are no father-son duos who are both NBA champions and Olympic gold medalists. Interestingly, had you posed this question four months earlier, there would have been no one from a father-son NBA champion duo to have claimed an Olympic medal.
Comment: That's interesting to know that not one of those players actually won a gold medal, let alone, any medal in the Olympics other than Klay Thompson.
Answer: With the Golden State Warriors' latest championship triumph, add the father-son combo of Bob McAdoo (L.A. Lakers) and James Michael McAdoo.
Comment: I have originally added the Wikipedia links mainly for benefit of other users who want to know more about the two players. But when I read them I also noticed this claim: "(Bob) McAdoo's second cousin, Ronnie McAdoo, is the father of James Michael McAdoo, who also played for the Tar Heels and became an NBA player." So if the information in the WP articles is correct, they are not father and son.


Is primer required for fresh knockdown texture?

Question: I have freshly sprayed knockdown textured ceilings. I can not figure out if priming is necessary before coating it with flat white ceiling paint. Some people say it is okay to just paint it, some say it needs to be primed. Could someone clarify it for me?
Answer: You should prime it first. Primer is essential to get good adhesion and coverage.
If you're really trying to avoid applying two coats, the next best thing would be a paint + primer combo.
Answer: Priming is almost always the correct answer under any top coat.  The rare exception is freshening a recent (< 5yrs) top coat with a like formulation (oil to oil, latex to latex).
That said, my recommendation is to leave popcorn/texture UNcoated, if possible.  Removing it AFTER painting is much more difficult.


Why are my new spark plugs doing this?

Question: I have a 2006 Ford Mustang V6 4.0L. I just purchased these Bosch 6715 platinum spark plugs and installed them. I took them out because I noticed air was coming out of the spark plug socket. When I inspected them when they were out these plugs were bent. What could be the issue? I'm going to buy standard Motorcraft copper plugs to replace these $3.00 plugs.
Comment: Welcome to the site. What car and engine are you having trouble with? If you give us the details, we may be able to give you a specific answer. It is very possible you were given the wrong plugs.
Comment: *UPDATE*

During my lunch break I purchased 6 Motorcraft spark plugs and gaped them to .054 and replaced the Bosch. The issue has now been solved in Bank 1. But now I am having an issue with weak acceleration and I can hear air leaving from Bank 2. Maybe I did it too rushed and didn't tighten them in Bank 2, maybe I left a cable slightly unplugged, I don't know. I have to fix this after work or else I won't be able to get home.
Comment: @CharlieRB I have a 2006 Ford Mustang V6 4.0L. The plugs Bosch are "compatible" with my vehicle but no way will I ever use them or recommend them to anyone else with the same vehicle.

I am currently resetting my ECU (disconnecting the negative terminal from the battery) so that it can read the new plugs. And before I connect the battery cable I will inspect Bank 2 spark plugs and ensure they are fitted properly.
Comment: Did you get to compare the plugs that worked with the Bosh ones? It would be interesting to see the side-by-side of the thread end of the plugs. Wonder if the Bosh plugs were mislabeled.
Comment: Just from visually inspecting the Bosch and Motorcraft plugs I noticed that the Bosch electrodes "looked" and seemed like a "softer" metal. I didn't compare them side by side so I can only say by what I saw when I was installing the new ones.
Comment: *UPDATE*

So I installed the Motorcraft plugs and then purchased a new ignition coil. Still didn't solve my problems. I had a check engine light and got the codes checked at Autozone. I had misfires in all three cylinders in Bank 1. I looked at the spark plugs and they were all bent again. I can now attest this was due to over tightening. Now she's a BEAST!!
Answer: I think the only reason that would happen is that the plugs are just a little too long for your head and they have been impacted by the piston.  Compare these to other models for your car and check the length.  Since it's only bent a little, I doubt any serious damage was done, but certainly double check that you get the right parts before installing new plugs.
I also just noticed that there is no washer on the top of that plug.  I'm use to seeing a washer there, and a missing washer could make the plug sit too low.  So, that's another possibility.
Comment: Yeah none of the 6 plugs came with washers. But I'm only having issues on the bank 1 (passenger side). I sealed the air by using Teflon tape around the threads and that stopped the air from coming out.

The engine runs fine (I ran it to 100 mph) last night. The only issue I'm dealing with is that it shakes at low speeds such as driving through a fast-food drive thru.
Comment: Well, teflon tape isn't really rated against the heat and pressure of 1000's of explosions per minute, so that's not the right thing to use.  It could just be that the rotation of those plugs is enough to cause contact, and the ones that don't have an issue are rotated just right.  I'd go to a different parts store and get an OEM style plug and compare it to the new ones.  Compare the length, the seat, and the threads.  All of those can vary and cause the issues you see.
Comment: I know Teflon isn't the best to create a seal on engines but it did stop the P0171 code (running lean). So Teflon did help.
Comment: Plugs should make a tight seal - if there is air coming out, they've got the wrong thread. As @JPhi1618 says, Teflon tape isn't the right thing to use!
Comment: Whether they have the wrong thread or not doesn't resolve my situation. The plugs are labeled as "compatible" for an 06 Mustang V6 4.0L.

And as the quote goes. "If it's stupid and it works, it's not stupid". Teflon tape has proved to me that it sealed the air escaping the plugs in Bank 1.
Answer: The plugs have a tapered seat so don't need a sealing washer, but the length overall from the seat to the electrode is critical. You need to check against the ones you removed - if, of course, you still have them.
The other concern is the apparent damage to the threads or have you applied some sort of sealant / lubricant...

Why are my new spark plugs doing this?


Would PPP adjustments between countries be irrelevant if all countries had the same relative prices?

Question: I'm trying to understand the relationship, if any, between the fact that countries have different relative prices (e.g. different 'food price-to-general consumer prices' ratios) impacts the need for purchasing power parity adjustments between countries.
Answer: That's correct, the PPP adjustments are made to account for the fact that living in some places is more expensive than in others. So if you are comparing two places with equal relative prices, their PPP index should be the same, and so it is irrelevant if you use the adjustment or not.
Note that saying that prices are the same in different countries can be quite tricky, since typically goods that can be found in some countries are not even sold in other countries. But in principle, the PPP is trying to adjust for the fact that the same 100 American dollars have a larger purchasing power in some countries than in others.
Comment: So relative prices matter, but so do consumption patterns, no? Even if Australia and the Canada have similar relative prices, their consumption patterns may differ and thus their PPPs would also move further apart - no?
Comment: In principle, consumption patterns should not matter. Ideally, the PPP would be constructed by taking a basket of goods that the average person will buy, and compare its cost across countries. Therefore, it implicitly assumes that such a basket of goods exists, that it is comparable across countries (for example with equal quality) and that the average person in all countries consumes it. The Big Mac Index, for example, receives some attention, as one can argue that has all these properties. I'm sure at the end consumption patterns matter, but in principle, they should not.


What information should be on a QSL card?

Question: Like it says in the title. When you design a QSL card (intended for use for both local VHF-and-up contacts as well as international HF contacts), what information needs to be present, and what information might be considered "nice to have" but not strictly needed?
Answer: QSL cards vary greatly in design and is one of those areas of creativity.  Some hams end up with fancy double sided full color cards, spending a lot of $$.  But they could be simple as well; just text with the pertinent information on it.
Need to have info:

Your call sign (on both sides)
Your mailing address (so you can receive a reciprocal card)
Details of the contact:

Call sign of the remote station (thanks Michael)
band or frequency of contact
mode of contact (SSB/FM/CW/etc)
date of contact (in UTC)
time of contact (in UTC)
signal report
whether or not you want a reciprocal card

Nice to have info:

Your Maidenhead Grid Square location
Your county (in the US)
Your Lat / Long
A cool picture of your area to make them wish they lived in the same paradise you do :)
Comment: This is a good answer, but I'm almost ashamed to point out that it doesn't include the remote station's call sign under information that is needed. :)
Comment: Doh! That's what I get for answering before caffeine!
Comment: I just designed my first QSL card and forgot the same thing: the remote station.


Predicting DNA nucleotide bases sequence from fully formed protein

Question: I know there are many algorithms (and a lot of different implementations) that allow predicting the outcome of protein synthesis given a set of nucleotide bases present in the DNA. In other words, given a sequence of such bases, produce a final protein (going through a simulation of the various processes that end up in a protein). However, are there any algorithms that allow to predict the opposite, i.e. the sequence of nucleotide bases that were the basis for the synthesis into a given protein?
Answer: It's trivial in principle, but remember that there are multiple codons that can produce a single amino acid, so reverse-translating a protein will either give you the most commonly-used codons for the protein, or will give you a large number of possible sequences.
Here and here are online programs that will give a single consensus, and here is one that considers ambiguities.
Answer: This is a standard method used in bioinformatics.
First step is to convert the amino acid sequence to a degenerate nucleotide sequence using the relevant codon table.
Once you have the degenerate nucleotide sequence, you can blast it against all known nucleotide sequences, including whole genomes.
Since the degenerate nucleotide sequence essentially is a degenerate cDNA sequence, you can then simply identify any genes with exons capable of producing the necesary cDNA through splicing events.
This method is called tblastn and is available here: https://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi


I'm cold-crashing in a corny keg, in a fridge. I want to take some away in bottles in about 48 hours. Can I carbonate it at the same time?

Question: So, i've done a few brews before (brew in a bag) but this is my first since getting a fridge and a corny keg. My beer has finished fermenting, and I've transferred it (minus the bottom gallon or so with all the crap) into a corny keg and put the keg in the fridge (at about 2.2C/36F) to cold crash it. (the main reason I did this is because the corny keg is the only thing that will fit in the fridge).
I'm going camping in about 48 hours and want to take some of the beer away with me in bottles, so ideally I would carbonate it first, in between now and then. What i'm wondering though, is if the carbonation will interfere with the cold-crashing. Would it be best to give it 24 hours without the CO2 and then turn it up to high (eg 35 psi) for the second 24 hours? Or can I just start carbonating now? (I already put a bit of CO2 in to flush the air out, then closed the CO2 regulator again, so no more will come in).
I do have a carbonation cap, so if I would get better results by not adding any CO2 at all in the next 48 hours, and then try to carbonate it in the bottles before leaving, then that's an option, but it's more hassle and will probably not be as carbonated as I'd like.
Regarding speeding up the clearing, I do have some gelatine (which has worked well before but i'd prefer to avoid, since I think it affects the flavour, and i'm trying to go as minimal as possible with this brew) and also some Bentonite (which I've not tried before), so there are some extra options there.
Grateful for any advice, thanks.
Answer: I would carbonate straight away, not wait 24H. Personally would not go above 2bar ~ 30 psi.
I don't use finings in home brew, cold crashing for 48H should be fine in such a small vessel.
Comment: thanks!  off i go to the beer shed.
Comment: BTW I will wait and see what happens in 48 hrs before any further comment but if the beer is carbonated and reasonably clear i'll mark it correct :)


Merging with UI. What do you think?

Question: I started a discussion on Area51 about the UI merging. Please participate with the open mind.
Answer: I don't think it would work for the reasons I outline in my answer
Answer: The reason I like this site is because of all of the thought provoking questions related to the field of programming.
Many questions have involved design, but only when specifically related to programming issues.  Answers to those questions on this site have involved things like "programming != graphics design".  Additionally, many people have gone to great lengths to point out that the skills involved in design are a completely different set of skills used in programming.
Merging programming with UI would be like merging with Computer Hardware design, which also involves a completely different set of skills.  Let's draw the line in the sand right here and keep this site limited to just programming.
Answer: At face value it sounds like a bad idea, but since most of UI is as subjective as is allowed on $this. It might add a little color to the site and I wouldn't have to go somewhere else to ask why my program looks like the Bruce Wayne's car stereo.

Merging with UI. What do you think?


Jam and Marmalade setting

Question: I recently made a batch of marmalade and Ginger Marmalade and although I used the same recipe as I have before, this batch did not set very well at all. I didn't use any extra setting agent. My question is, can I reheat the marmalade and add in some pectin to hopefully set it ?
Answer: Yes you can. You do want to make sure you have given your marmalade a couple of weeks to set completely before deciding to remake with additional pectin.
In the US, pectin found on grocery store shelves generally contain a sheet with basic recipes, as well as instructions on how to remake your cooked jam/jelly/marmalade if it doesn't set properly.
Here are additional options from The National Center for Home Food Preservation:

Making Jams and Jellies
Remaking Soft Jellies
Measure jelly to be recooked. Work with no more than 4 to 6 cups at a
  time.
Please read Using Boiling Water Canners before beginning. If this is
  your first time canning, it is recommended that you read Principles of
  Home Canning.
To Remake With Powdered Pectin
For each quart of jelly, mix ¼ cup sugar, ½ cup water, 2 tablespoons
  bottled lemon juice, and 4 teaspoons powdered pectin. Bring to a boil
  while stirring. Add jelly and bring to a rolling boil over high heat,
  stirring constantly. Boil hard ½ minute. Remove from heat, quickly
  skim foam off jelly, and fill sterile jars, leaving ¼-inch headspace.
  Adjust new lids and process as recommended in Table 1. For more
  information on how to sterilize jars see "Sterilization of Empty
  Jars".
To Remake With Liquid Pectin
For each quart of jelly, measure ¾ cup sugar, 2 tablespoons bottled
  lemon juice, and 2 tablespoons liquid pectin. Bring jelly only to boil
  over high heat, while stirring. Remove from heat and quickly add the
  sugar, lemon juice, and pectin. Bring to a full rolling boil, stirring
  constantly. Boil hard for 1 minute. Quickly skim off foam and fill
  sterile jars, leaving ¼-inch headspace. Adjust new lids and process as
  recommended in Table 1.
To Remake Without Added Pectin
For each quart of jelly, add 2 tablespoons bottled lemon juice. Heat
  to boiling and boil for 3 to 4 minutes. Use one of the tests described
  in Testing Jelly without Added Pectin to determine jelly doneness.
  Remove from heat, quickly skim off foam, and fill sterile jars,
  leaving ¼-inch headspace. Adjust new lids and process as recommended in Table 1..

Jam and Marmalade setting


How many centimorgans should I share if second cousins marry?

Question: My first cousin's daughter had a child with my sister's son. The child was given up for adoption. I'm matching someone on Ancestry.com with 1124 centimorgans. Not sure if this is the child and cannot ask too many questions as it is sensitive. Is 1124 centimorgans consistent with the family relationship?
Answer: Theoretically, because you're related to this person twice, you can add the expected ranges for each relationship. I'm going to use the ranges from the Shared cM Project.

Grand-niece/nephew: 251 to 2108 cM (average: 910)
1C2R: 43 to 531 cM (average: 229)
Result: 294 to 2639 cM (average: 1139)

If the person is related to you in only one way (Shared cM Project for 1124cM), you've already got a number of potential relationships, with the most likely being:

Great-Grandparent
Great-Aunt/Uncle
Half Aunt/Uncle
1C
Half Niece/Nephew
Great-Niece/Nephew
Great-Grandchild

You can probably reasonably rule out the first and last, based on what you know of your family's history and relative ages. But keep in mind that the others require more research before they can be ruled out.
Answer: The child of your sister's son is your great niece or nephew.  The cM range from the Shared cM Project for this relationship is quite large: 251-2108 cM.  Your match, at 1124 cM, is well within this.
If the child is who you think, your secondary relationship is as your first cousin twice removed (your first cousin's grandchild).  That range is 43-531 cM.  It's not an issue that your match is far above that range, because this is not your primary relationship.
Because of the additional relationship, you would expect your total cM to be higher than it would be with just the great niece/nephew relationship.  But you can't predict what that extra cM would be.  It's not additive because these are not completely separate lines.  The child given up for adoption had birth parents who share a set of great grandparents.  This means that it's likely that some of the segments the birth parents passed on to the child were duplicates (and only get counted once).
But yes, your match is still strongly within the range for a great niece/nephew who is the product of second cousins.


Is sugar absorbed into the bloodstream through the walls of the mouth?

Question: If you let a piece of candy melt in your mouth, but did not swallow it, would the sugar be absorbed through the walls of your mouth?
Comment: @Chemist Answering questions that are not well-researched rather encourages people to post such questions anyways.
Comment: Possible duplicate of [What nutrients can humans absorb in the mouth?](https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/7019/what-nutrients-can-humans-absorb-in-the-mouth)
Comment: Welcome to SE kindly read tour page about how to ask question and modify yours accordingly. Your question would be downvoted or closEd  as it shows no effort to answer  and any kind of research.
Comment: @BryanKrause Answering poorly researched questions isn't to me inherently wrong. The issue is that you cannot tell what the question is. Is this person asking about how digestion works? How sugar is tasted? If sugar can be absorbed directly as well as or instead of absorption in the gut? Is it asking about dissolving sugars? Is it asking about the composition of saliva? There is too much to unpack here to make an answer useful.
Comment: @James, the title of the question says: "Is sugar absorbed _into the bloodstream_ through the walls of the mouth?" so this is clearly about absorption and the topic is very interesting in the context of treatment of hypoglycemia, as I answered.
Comment: @Jan That is a very nice answer! But it doesn't address the question in the context of candy ;). I suggest you edit the question; I think you see the value in this question and how it could be made into a good clear question.
Comment: @James, well, the "candy" in the question was just used as an example. OK, I'll edit it.
Answer: Simple sugars such as glucose, fructose and galactose will be absorbed.

They are most probably transported by a common carrier, which is why if you present both glucose and galactose, the presence of one will inhibit the absorption rate of the other.
Uptake rate also seems to partly depend on the concentration of sodium ions in the buccal cavity. This was identified and explored subsequently.
It seems that at the cellular level, absorption is not the quickest but there is a lot of vascularization which allows it to enter the bloodstream quickly, regardless.

Here's a back-of-the-envelope calculation: about 10mg is absorbed in 5 minutes when you hold a solution of 3.6g/l in your mouth. A normal gulp volume is around 10ml. That's 36mg of sugar in a mouthful. Result: you can absorb 10mg of sugar from a theoretical maximum of 36mg. In other words, within 5 minutes, you absorb ~30% of all available sugar. That's pretty good, given that a sugar solution is not a more concentrated, solid sugary food!
Worthy to note that most complex sugars will not be absorbed. Note that many complex sugars actually won't be uptaken even in rest of the GI tract, like cellulose.
See other posts already here on the topic.
Comment: @Jan [Of interest.](https://biology.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3982/are-users-allowed-to-edit-questions-to-better-suit-the-answer-they-can-provide?cb=1)
Comment: Yes, there is sucrase in the mouth, but not human in origin! Bacteria that live in the mouth produce glucansucrase that can break down sucrose.
Answer: The absorption of sugar from the mouth is possible and it was successfully tested for treatment of hypoglycemia. In all mentioned studies, they used D-glucose (dextrose), which is a common natural or added sugar in foods and beverages.
1) Sublingual sugar administration as an alternative to intravenous dextrose administration to correct hypoglycemia among children in the tropics (Pediatrics, 2005):

Sixty-nine children with glucose concentrations of < 0.8 g/L were
  assigned randomly to 1 of 4 methods of administration, 1 with 3
  different doses of sugar, as follows: oral group (OG) (n = 15): 2.5 g
  of sugar; sublingual group (SG) (n = 27): 2.5 g of sugar under the
  tongue, with 3 treatment subgroups, ie, 0.1 g/kg, 0.15 g/kg, and 0.2
  g/kg; intravenous group (IG) (n = 8): 8 mL of 30% dextrose in a single
  bolus; water group (n = 11)...Bioavailabilities were 84% and 38% in
  the SG [sublingual group] and OG [oral group], respectively. The
  sublingual administration of sugar proved to be effective among
  moderately hypoglycemic children.

2) Impact of buccal glucose spray, liquid sugars and dextrose tablets on the evolution of plasma glucose concentration in healthy persons (ResearchGate, 2009):

Analysis of regression coefficients after 30 min compared to the
  control session, demonstrated an increase in PG [plasma glucose] with the sachet of
  liquid sugars (0.068 mmol/l/min, p = 0.001) which was greater than a
  single dextrose tablet (0.052 mmol/l/min, p = 0.002), but no
  significant PG increase was found after buccal glucose spray. Liquid
  sugars or dextrose tablets, but not the buccal glucose spray, are
  effective means to increase PG within 10 minutes after ingestion.

3) Dextrose gel for neonatal hypoglycaemia (the Sugar Babies Study): a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial (The Lancet, 2013):

Our findings show that treatment with 40% dextrose gel is more
  effective than feeding alone for reversal of neonatal hypoglycaemia in
  at-risk late preterm and term babies in the first 48 h after
  birth....Our study is the first report in babies showing that buccal
  dextrose gel is a safe effective treatment for management of
  hypoglycaemia.

4) Sublingual sugar for infant hypoglycaemia (The Lancet, 2014)

We showed that sublingual absorption was faster than the oral route.
  An increase of 2 mmol/L in blood glucose concentration was achieved in
  10 min, and 64% of children had a blood glucose concentration of more
  than 3·3 mmol/L after 20 min.

5) First aid glucose administration routes for symptomatic hypoglycaemia (Cochrane, 2019):

Providing sugar under the tongue (sublingual) resulted in a greater rise in blood glucose after 20 minutes than giving the sugar orally,
  but this was in a specific setting including children with
  hypoglycaemia and symptoms of concomitant malaria or respiratory tract
  infection. On the other hand, giving glucose by the buccal mucosa
  route resulted in a lower plasma glucose concentration than with the
  oral route. For dextrose gel (where uptake of the glucose occurs
  through a combination of oral swallowing and via the buccal mucosa),
  no clear benefit was shown compared to oral glucose administration
  (glucose tablets or glucose solutions).

Important: Currently, buccal glucose is not recommended to treat hypoglycemia, except in uncooperative children who refuse to swallow glucose (International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation, 2019) .


Why is "the" dropped in "I go to school by bus"?

Question: Why is the dropped in "I go to school by bus"? Why isn't it "I go to the school by the bus" if both school and bus are countable? Does the rule that a countable noun must have an article have an exception here?
Comment: It's also worth noting that there are many simple grammatical and factual errors in the question, even as short as it is. For one thing, there is no such rule as the one cited. Most of English is idioms, I'm afraid, and rules in schoolbooks are put there for children to memorize, rather than to explain how things really work. How they really work is very complex.
Comment: Related: ["By the bus" or "on the bus"](http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/92597/by-the-bus-or-on-the-bus), ["By foot" vs. "on foot"](http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/17943/by-foot-vs-on-foot).
Comment: It's worth noting that the articles don't *have* to be dropped, depending on how this is worded, and how it is used within the larger context of a particular conversation. "I take the bus to school" is a perfectly normal way to say this, as is "I ride a bus to the school."
Comment: Why? Why aren't all the rules of language consistent? Unfortunately for adult second language learners, language rules often have exceptions. The reason for those exceptions aren't particular to English.
Comment: sorry Mitch. I understand the fact you tell. I edited it, so that no misunderstandings will occur.thanks
Comment: "Go to school" or "Go to the school" ... this has regional differences.  "Go to hospital" or "Go to the hospital" ... also has regional differences, but not the same as the first one...
Comment: @GEdgar: I'd say rather that 'go to school' & 'go to the school', and often 'go to hospital' & 'go to the hospital' have different **meanings**: _In Old Zealand, children go to school until they are at least 16._ _Derek needs to pick up his exam results today - we will go to the school on our way to the airport._
Comment: @Edwin: and my point is that those different meanings vary depending on location.
Comment: @ John Lawler: Could you kindly tell me the grammatical errors in my question please?
Answer: There are a number of cases where nouns are not preceded by any article ('the zero article'). They include meals and places as institutions, times of the day, days, months and seasons and, as here, means of transport and communication. We speak of going by air, car, horse or rail and sending by mail, post or e-mail.
Answer: School without an article means the school as an educational system. It's sort of like an abstract noun, I think.
A/the school places more importance on the physical aspect of school. (Not necessarily the case for "the".)

He is in school.

= He is a student.

He is in the school.

= He is in a school building.
Comment: Presumably that is the usage where Sindry lives...
Answer: I'll try to answer only the part about by bus. Adjunct prepositional phrases beginning with by, when they have the function of indicating manner/means, seem to require mass nouns, or derived nouns which behave like mass nouns in not needing an article.
I can think of three major categories of nouns appearing in the manner/means by-prepositional phrase. The first is gerundive verb phrases. Gerundive verb phrases can have two variants, one with no article, and an unmarked object, and another with an article, and the object "demoted" to an of-prepositional phrase. Note that only the article-less version is grammatical.

Columbo solved the crime by tricking the suspect.
  *Columbo solved the crime by the tricking of the suspect.
  Dawn hurt her knee by tripping over a rock.
  Barney ruined his chances for college by drinking heavily.

The second category is deverbal nouns formed with the sundry latinate nominalizing suffixes:

Mason got money by litigation.
  The iron rusts by oxidation.
  Johnson gained agreement for his plans by deceit.
  The home's value was determined by appraisal.

The third category is underived mass nouns:

Thomas can tell by smell whether the cookies are done.
  Thomas made cookies by hand.
  Thomas can recite the Koran by heart.
  Thomas obtained signatures by force.

I think phrases like by bus and by foot would fall into this latter category. Though these nouns might not seem like mass nouns when you reflect on their referents, they are acting as mass nouns grammatically, because this particular construction only works with article-less noun phrases. To see that by bus contains a mass noun, compare it with the following odd-sounding sentence.

??Thomas goes to work by MARTA.

(MARTA: = metropolitan atlanta rapid transit authority)
The noun MARTA is just too specific to fit into the "grinder", but more general-sounding nouns like bus, horse, foot, car, etc., can do it.
Answer: The first answer is ok but let me add something. When we talk about the primary purpose of the institute or building where we go for our job or work, we do not use the article a or the. If one visits the place or institute other than the primary purpose, and article is used.
For example: A doctor goes to clinic. However, if his friend comes to see him there, the sentence would be: The doctor's friend visited him in the clinic, or, My father goes to the school to see my teachers, etc.
Comment: This is not so in British English. I don't recognise "goes to clinic" at all. I do recognise "to surgery" meaning "to the premises of a General Practitioner" (it can be used to mean "to the theatre for an operation", but I don't mean that sense.) I also recognise "to school" and "to university" but not, for example "to office" or "to factory".
Answer:
Why the is dropped in I go to school by bus instead of I go to the
  school by the bus.wherein school and bus are countable?

Why, is because it is not necessary to use the word the, when talking in a general sense. It is the same reason why people don't normally use it when talking about other situations, like going to university, going to hospital (although Americans make an exception for going to hospitals, so it is worth also seeing my answer here Is there a reason the British omit the article when they "go to hospital"?) or going to work. Use of the word 'the', means that the sentence is in a particular sense. A reference to one, particular example. "I go to the school by the bus" will mean going to one, particular school and travelling on one, particular bus.
If what you mean is attending a school in the general sense, without a particular need to say which one; then saying "I go to school", will be sufficient. If you also mean that you travel there on a bus or buses, but do not have a particular need to say which bus or buses; then saying "by bus", will be sufficient.
Saying "I go to the school" will mean going to one, particular school. Saying "I go to the school by the bus" will mean going on one, particular bus.
Saying "I go to the school by the bus" would only make sense if you have already said which, particular school and bus, you are talking about.
Basically, the word the is not used when talking in the general sense, because it gives the wrong impression, which is that you are talking in the particular sense. Using it would therefore be unnecessary and make your exact meaning, unclear.
It is not a case of the word 'the' being dropped. It is a case of it being unnecessary and giving a different meaning from what you intended.


for a persistent perceptual experience, why is video able to have a lower frame rate than audio?

Question: In film, images are typically shown to us at around 24 frames per second, but modern sound files will often have 44100 or 48000 samples per second.
There's a threshold above ~12 fps where we will perceive successive frames as unified motion instead of individual pictures (c.f. phi phenomenon, persistence of vision, beta movement). But to get this unified experience in the auditory domain, we need a much higher "framerate". Why is this?
Answer: Sound is pressure waves; young humans can hear (aka, detect pressure waves) up to about 20 kHz. To produce these high frequency waves with a speaker with a time-domain signal, it is necessary to have a sampling rate at least 2x the highest frequency that will be represented. In practice, those very high frequencies aren't included in music, and definitely aren't included in speech, so ~44kHz is sufficient. There is a membrane inside the cochlea that is structured to vibrate at different frequencies along its length. At the higher frequencies, neurons don't actually respond to every sound wave, they respond to the envelope, so it is possible to respond to frequencies much higher than the frequencies that neurons can even fire at.
Vision depends on detection of photons. A photon hits a photosensitive molecule in a photoreceptor in the retina, which causes a chemical change. That changed chemical binds to a protein, which causes a cascade of events that ultimately causes a change in the release of a neurotransmitter. Vision is slow: the cascade in response to a single photon takes on the order of 100s of milliseconds. We can detect things a bit faster than that because the visual system responds to changes so the slope of that response is a relevant feature, but overall this slow process means that light information is low-pass filtered. As long as a signal is sufficiently faster than this low-pass filter, differences between a frame-by-frame versus a smooth signal are mostly not noticed. However, it isn't true that 24 frames per second is a limit. Modern monitors often operate much faster, such as 60-144Hz, because these faster frame rates are important for perception of smooth motion at high speeds. Slower frame rates are sufficient when changes are small, however.
In nature, a lot of things vibrate a high frequencies into the 1000s of Hz, so there are good evolutionary reasons to detect high frequency sounds. However, very few things move at those speeds, and those that do are typically not behaviorally relevant (e.g., you don't need to see every sweep of an insect's wings to detect it as an insect).
Comment: @ChrisRogers I think that policy makes sense where it makes sense and not where it doesn't. If you have a link to Meta explaining that, I'll have a look, but I'm not aware of such a policy that applies to knowledge like "sound is pressure waves" or "vision is the detection of photons." I don't see value in adding links to Wikipedia or adding an arbitrary textbook source that most people aren't likely to have access to anyways.
Comment: @ChrisRogers I could provide references to those, but those examples are exactly why I feel referencing everything is a bit silly, because neither of those numbers is in any way relevant to this answer. 2x the highest frequency is the Nyquist rate, a basic concept in physics. The human hearing range is also not important, as long as it's well above the 24 Hz rate for movie video.
Comment: @ChrisRogers I don't generally provide references for intro textbook-level knowledge. Everything here is available on Wikipedia for people who like to use Wikipedia, or any introductory neuroscience textbook.
Comment: Do you have any references for your claims?
Comment: @ChrisRogers I agree with Bryan, there is nothing in this answer that is not covered in a general reference like Wikipedia (not that I think Wikipedia is an authoritative source, but if it is in wikipedia, it should be considered common knowledge). As the question can be answered with common knowledge, maybe it is not a good fit for the site as it is not an *advanced questions in psychology & neuroscience ...*
Comment: As you know, we have a strict policy that all answers should be backed up with reliable references so that the answer can be independently verified, regardless of the reader's/answerer's background. General knowledge such as "you shiver when you are cold" is different, but non-general knowledge should have references
Comment: you are right that your examples shouldn't need references but examples from your answer I would give are *"young humans can hear (aka, detect pressure waves) up to about 20 kHz"* and *"To produce these high frequency waves with a speaker with a time-domain signal, it is necessary to have a sampling rate at least 2x the highest frequency that will be represented."*.
Comment: For a meta link, and lack of a better one found so far, there is https://psychology.meta.stackexchange.com/q/201
Comment: Thanks; I don't feel that this answer falls into the categories of "does not stand on it's own" or "makes claims that might be incorrect" - there's nothing subjective or opinion-based in this answer nor anything that is in any sort of scientific dispute for the purposes of the question asked.
Answer: I don't have a full answer, but it might get things started...
You are mixing up two concepts frame rate and sampling rate. In a video presented at 24 fps each frame, potentially, has a wide range of spatial frequencies. Typically the spatial frequencies are limited by the number of pixels, but you can low pass filter each frame to reduce the spatial frequencies (you will end up with a blurry picture). This spatial filtering has nothing to do with frame rate.
The 44.1 kHz sampling rate in audio signals is more akin to the spatial frequencies of a picture/frame than the frame rate of a video. An example of audio frames would be something like decomposing the audio signal into a bunch of slices with the short time Fourier transform (STFT), setting each slice to have a constant spectrum (and phase???), and reconstructing. Reconstructing the signal from a modified STFT is non-trivial (cf., Griffin and Lim 1984). Given the difficulties in the process and the lack of an application, I am not sure anyone has really investigated how the duration of the slices affects things.
Comment: Lack of an application? Audio compression (mp3, etc) typically uses a Fourier transform (or some sort of wavelet). Pretty much all of the dimensions of compression have been investigated to find the most efficient encoding that limits perceived decay, since compression is lossy.
Comment: @BryanKrause yes, but I don't see the link between those types of frames and the idea of a constant segment of signal frame. Maybe there is and maybe I am missing the relevant literature and if so would love to see an answer with more reference ... as I said, I don't have a full answer.


Can Firefox Bookmarks sync with Google Bookmarks?

Question: Is it possible to sync my Firefox and Google Bookmarks?
Answer: There are various plug-ins that add this feature, I like gmarks which doesn't actually synchronise them but adds an extra gmarks menu next to the bookmarks.
Comment: You should add this link to your answer: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2888/
Answer: gmarks does not work anymore..One other solution you can try is though this is not for sync but for managing bookmarks directly through google bookmarks
First you need to import your bookmarks into Diigo (make sure bookmarks are public)
Then go to ifttt and run recipe - "Back up Diigo bookmarks to Delicious"  https://ifttt.com/recipes/10818-back-up-diigo-bookmarks-to-delicious
Then go to https://www.google.com/bookmarks/deliciousimport to import the bokmarks to google bookmarks


Can a standalone WPF application create an interface that looks like a Flash interface?

Question: It seems like WPF was created as the application answer to Adobe's Flash.  Silverlight is used for creating web pages.  But, can that same functionality be pulled into a standalone WPF application.  Scaleform allows Flash to be used within unmanaged C++ games.  Can WPF be used to create the same type of interfaces?  What I've read seems to make me believe it can.  But, I haven't seen any sheetshots of applications that show this kind of interface.
Comment: Is definitely game related, but you still might get a better answer on stackoverflow.com
Answer: WPF was created to provide a better way for Windows developers to build GUIs for desktop applications. Silverlight was created as an answer to Flash and re-uses much the WPF API but has a different implementation.
In theory you could use WPF to create the GUI for a game, but in practice you probably wouldn't:-

Your game would depend on the .NET framework being installed. This isn't such a big deal any more, but still, it's one more thing to worry about not working.
WPF uses Direct3D 9 to render. There is an extension to it which on Vista/Win7 and XP SP3 or later allows you to allocate a surface and share it between WPF and your unmanaged C++ game engine. You might have problems with DX10.1 or 11.
The .NET runtime suspends all threads that are involved in any way with managed memory during a garbage collection. To avoid having your game loop suspended you need to come up with a way of exchanging data between your unmanaged code and the .NET runtime that avoids calling into the .NET runtime via interop. Probably you'd have a shared area of unmanaged memory that you both have access to and synchronise using umanaged threading primatives.
Here's the real problem though: If you went down this route you'd be handing over control of your window to WPF. You just get to supply WPF with a D3D surface containing your final 3d render and then it composites that with whatever it has generated before presenting it. You'd be locked to WPF's refresh schedule and there's also no chance of going full-screen in the way that 3d games normally do.

There is a possibility that this situation could be rescued though. There is an open-source re-implementation of .NET called Mono. They have a sub-project called Moonlight which is a re-implementation of Silverlight. With source code available there's a possibility it could be integrated in a similar way to Scaleform and allow you to build GUIs using Microsoft's excellent Expression Blend authoring tool. I don't think anyone has done this yet so there are probably issues to be uncovered, but I'm just throwing it out there as an idea.
EDIT: It occured to me after adding this that maybe your interest isn't so much in leveraging authoring tools like Flash Studio or Expression Blend and maybe you just want to be able to draw high-quality 2d graphics fast. In which case there is the Direct2D API that Microsoft added in Windows 7 and then back-ported to Vista.
Comment: FYI, the garbage collector has been substantially improved in .NET 4.  It now supports background collection of all three generations of objects, but I don't know if/how the changes might affect issue #3 on your list.  If anyone knows, please share :).
Comment: Mono and Moonlight are MIT-licensed, so embedding one or both of them in a game is certainly doable (and is being done, for instance in Second Life). There has been at least one planned attempt at doing such an embedding of Moonlight itself for a game: http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2009/Nov-12-2.html#comment-22844845 (No idea if it happened/was successful or not, though.)
Answer: You can definitely create similar kinds of interfaces in WPF, but integrating them into a Direct3D game is problematic.  You can host Direct3D content within WPF (via D3DImage), but your 3D content would be composed into the WPF application, so rendering becomes dependent on WPF.  Consequently, you might see relatively poor performance, as you are limited by WPF's frame rate.  Also, as U62 noted in his comment, WPF can only host Direct3D 9 content (as opposed to Direct3D 10/11).  However, you might be able to get around this, as IDirect3DDevice9Ex is capable of sharing resources between devices.  Therefore, you could potentially create a shared render target in Direct3D 10 or 11 and bring it into WPF via an intermediate IDirect3DDevice9Ex device.  Jeremiah Morrill discusses this technique here.
An alternative, though far from elegant, would be to render your WPF UI in a separate layered window above the Direct3D content, as described here.
There are also ways to access WPF's internal Direct3D surface, which would give you a way to host WPF content in an external Direct3D scene (instead of the other way around).  However, this is a rather nasty hack and could easily be broken by future WPF releases.
Of course, none of this is relevant if you don't actually need to interoperate with Direct3D.  Games that don't require complex 3D graphics can certainly be developed completely in WPF.  WPF does have some simple 3D facilities at its disposal, though they are generally insufficient for anything beyond primitive shapes with simple textures.  It also supports custom pixel shaders, though there are many restrictions (e.g. they must be single-pass effects).


User permission on views

Question: In my document library there are some documents. Along with the default "All Documents" view I created one more view called as "Personalized View", which is filtered on user login's, so whenever a user logs in, he get to see only the documents which he created i.e., "personalized view". At the same time when a user like manager logs in he get to see the "All Documents" view. How could I achieve this..
Comment: What version of SharePoint are you using? You could do audience targeting on webparts to achieve this in MOSS or SharePoint Server.
Answer: You can control permissions on views and/or columns with this addon from codeplex.  I have put it to use in my production portal, and it works like a charm!
If you want to remove a view completely (such as the "Merge Documents" view in a document library), create a user for "nobody" and put that in the "include" boxes in the view-permissions.

User permission on views


Email Widget: Capture Email Address Upon Leaving

Question: Can anyone recommend a widget (or service) that I can integrate into my PHP site to prompt a user for their email address upon leaving my site?  I'm also open to suggestions as to whether its best once a user first comes to the site to ask for their email or upon leaving the site.  Thanks for your time and assistance.
Answer: If I'm leaving your site, I want to leave. Bugging me then to give you information there's a good chance I don't want to give you anyway is only going to irritate me. Just put something in the sidebar; if I want to give you contact info I'll see it. If you really have to prompt, do it on initial visit(though I'm not too fond of those, either).


Batch update: triggered confirmation email

Question: After an event at the weekend, I batch updated all 'pending due to pay later' participants to 'attended'. It appears that this triggered the re-sending of the confirmation email to all those people. Does anyone know why this might have occurred and how to avoid it in the future? We're using CiviCRM 4.6.3.
Answer: In my CiviCRM experience, this does indeed happen. CiviCRM seems to expect participants to be Registered before they are Attended. If you try to skip this step in the bulk update, it will move them to registered and trigger the email. Have a look at those participants and see if their status is now Registered.
We ensure that the are moved from the pending status to registered prior to the event as this also ensures that they get the registered email confirmation which they won't have received if they were still pending.
Answer: This (unfortunately) is expected behaviour when you have enabled Online Registration => Confirmation Email in the Event Configuration page.
This Issue Tracker thread is relevant though: https://issues.civicrm.org/jira/browse/CRM-12277
My interpretation of that is that some notification was supposed to be added back in 4.3 letting the user know that emails would be sent when you attempt to batch update status via profiles.
Answer: it is indeed intended behaviour and happens, when the class of a participant status (e.g. from pending to positive) changes. You can check your participant status here: yoururl.org/civicrm/admin/participant_status?reset=1
Good news is: There is an extension that prevents sending out the emails. As with all new functions, please test properly (if possible on a test environmet) before using it with live data :)
Answer: Actually what I wrote below is not correct. It was based on the linked Question, but my experience since indicates that emails do in fact still go out with batch changes.

It is also possible to change multiple participant statuses using the Update Multiple Participants action with a profile that includes the Status. In this case, only statuses changed from Not-Counted to Counted (or vice versa) have confirmation emails triggered (assuming Send Confirmation Email is enabled for the event).
See also:
Why do some of my participants get sent a receipt when I update event details via a profile form


Does WordPress's HTTP API use any caching?

Question: I'm working on a plugin to will retrieve data from a remote server and display it on the Dashboard. To do this, I'll be using the WordPress HTTP API but I'm not seeing any information on the HTTP API using any form of caching. As I don't want my plugin to cause problems for the admins of the remote server, I was wondering if I missed some documentation about the HTTP API doing caching or if I'll also need to use the Transients API to implement caching for my plugin?
Answer: It does not. Some functionality actively uses HTTP API and is cached - feed fetching, updates checking. But caching is always implemented at wrapper's level.
Making HTTP request without context is too unspecific to make educated guess about caching needs (one minute or one hour).
Answer: For what i Know, the transient API should do the trick.
Answer: Since I want to easily review the http returns together with the logfiles I log them in a request database. during development handy since i have a second database that stores the metadata of the physical cache. so when i delete that one (over and over again). I can keep on doing requests from the request database and will not bother external servers time and time again. It also lets me do some specific queries on it.
http://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-favicons/trunk/plugins/cache/request_cache.php
called from http://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-favicons/trunk/includes/class-http.php
It has a couple of thousands requests in it which I find easier scrolling through in its own database. But in my case my data (favicons) are pretty static versus e.g. rss feeds where this would be a nogo.