What is the next dominant species?

Question: If humans didn't exist, what species would populate the earth? Would an animal gain human-like intelligence if humans weren't here? What animal would gain dominance?
Comment: If humans *never existed*, or if humans *no longer existed*?
Comment: Please define "dominant species" — is it majority of biomass (per wiki), lack of predators, or perhaps technological advance to the point of being interesting to extra-whatever life forms?
Comment: According to Red Dwarf, nuclear war wipes out all life on Earth except for fruit flies, beetles and PE teachers. Fruit flies are now the dominant species.
Comment: There are widely-supported although not proven theories about dolphins *already* having a level of intelligence comparable with that of humans...
Comment: For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much — the wheel, New York, wars and so on — whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man — *for precisely the same reasons*.
Answer: The Raccoons
Originally a North-American species, it has dexterious hands and thumbs, can stand upright not unlike a meerkat, is an omnivore, good at problem solving and has a complex social life. These are all traits that have been proposed as crucial for the development of Homo Sapiens.
Without human existence, present-day North America is full of large herbivores, with descendants of mammoths traversing the arctic from Scandinavia through Siberia and Canada. The Raccoons spread north and live on a mixture of scavenging on large prey and hunting down smaller or weaker prey in packs. Without human interference, the next glacial period arrives when it should and allow the Racoons to cross the Bering Strait. From there they spread rapidly throughout Asia and Europe.
In Europe they become a terrible invasive species, decimating birds, amphibians and other mammals just as they have done to a lesser extent in real-world Europe today. A line of Racoons radiate out on open grass-land, either in central Eurasia or Africa and develop a truly upright posture, to better survey the land for prey and predators. This frees up their already dexterious hands and sets off a feedback-cycle between tool-use, more dexterious hands, brain development and hunting techniques.
One sunny day, a million years from now, a young inquisitive racoon is left back in camp while her family hunts. Out of curiosity or boredom, she grabs a piece of flint and slams it against a rock laying in the dry grass...
Comment: This answer is just fantastic.  Welcome to the site Abulafia
Comment: Great answer. Dolphins/whales are intelligent and social, but not dextrous enough to use tools. Cephalopods are intelligent and dextrous, but not social. Both are aquatic, so tools may not even be helpful, and fire is out of the question. It's doubtful whether elephants or birds are dextrous enough. Raccoons have the full package.
Comment: While it's an excellent answer (we had a pet raccoon when I was a child) it's worth pointing out that raccoons need some evolving before they can take over the world ("What are we going to do tonight, Rocky?") They'll need to become bipedal, and their forelegs need to become something like arms, and they need to become much more social. As it stands, they are just too small to take on large predators with stone tools, and while they can manipulate objects they have no particular aptitude for the sort of actions (throwing, for instance) which would let them effectively use weapons.
Comment: Only if Bradley Cooper could see it :D
Comment: Why the upright posture is that important? Of course in a grass land it helps with prey and predator, but that's a location specific thing. Or it's the location that provides better condition to intelligence grow, therefore the most adapted specie will be the most "evolved"? For instance, in a rainforest i doubt  that the most efficient solution would be to have 2 hands and 2 feet, but to have 4 hands instead (bonobo)? I'm interestd in this concept.
Comment: @theGarz: The answer is referencing some of the more common theories about human evolution. One is that the upright posture allowed us to evolve a bigger brain. But bipedalism evolved long before the big brain and there's a lot of theories as to what caused us to walk on two feet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipedalism#Evolution_of_human_bipedalism
Comment: last paragraph: Act I of "2001: A Space Odyssey"
Answer: Simplified, social behavior in animals demands more brain power for memory, communication, and interactions. Who is the leader? Is Jack watching for enemies? Bob is mad at me for stealing his food.
As early hominids evolved to keep track of many members of their 'tribe,' they evolved ever-larger brains to cope with the demand.
However, social behavior alone isn't a guarantee to evolving a dominant position on the planet. There are many social animals which are quite intelligent, but obviously have not achieved the same status as humans.
Intelligence can be a naturally selected trait for solving problems, and ultimately survival. There are many theories on how human intelligence came to be.
If humans' ancestors had not existed, it's possible a different type of hominid would have risen up—literally—to take our place. Some theories of human intelligence link bipedalism, at least in part, to our success.
Perhaps one of the "most intelligent" animals on the planet would have found a niche without humans present, and evolved even greater intelligence, becoming dominant. The list frequently changes, but among them are:

Dolphins
Elephants
Parrots
Crows
Dogs

Perhaps it would take another few hundred million years for dolphins to become what you would consider dominant. (Perhaps that is happening anyway!)
If humans had not evolved, it's possible no other animal would ever evolve human-like intelligence. It's difficult to say if humans' presence has somehow had an effect that caused another species' intelligence to cease being a favored attribute in natural selection.
Perhaps instead, we are a catalyst for hastening the rise of a smarter species than ourselves. It may be only millennia, you see, before all the dog training we've taken part in, becomes our undoing.
Comment: Elephants are already too dominant in size, there's no reason to evolve other than to be smaller if food becomes scarce. Dolphins would need quite the evolutionary leap to get past the restrictions of being confined to water and having no limbs to create anything.  Birds can fly, nothing can hurt them except other birds and clear windows, so their need to evolve is minimal.  Dogs need more fingers.  I think it'd have to be a primate, or something similar like a lemur.  I'll go with lemurs, I like lemurs.  The answer is lemurs.
Comment: Dogs only came to be after humans had already been around for a very long time. If your aim is to list animals that might have taken humans' place if humans hadn't been around, dogs don't belong on the list, although it's possible that some other canine (wolves? dire wolves? foxes?) would have.
Comment: @glenatron You just reminded me of something: "Dogs have owners, cats have personnel". Need I say more ?
Comment: So what, no change cats could have ruled the Earth? :(
Comment: @Cthulhu: as an answer to that, I suggest the comic short story "A Dream of a Thousand Cats", which is part of Neil Gaiman's *Sandman*.
Comment: @Cthulhu cats are extremely lazy and well equipped for survival. If you gave Grok claws and made him 100x lazier he probably wouldn't get very smart.
Comment: @Cthulu what change would that be? I mean, yeah, the cats let humans _think_ we rule the earth, but the facts speak for themselves.
Answer: In terms of non-great ape animals (which I assume is not what you want, since they will basically just evolve into something that is, well, more or less like humans, probably… unless you're going for a Planet of the Apes-type vibe) I believe that African grey parrots are probably the closest in terms of having the "full package" towards intelligence, including a decent ability to manipulate their surroundings with their talons, with the added benefit that they can also fly! They're not quite there in terms of being able to use tools, but in terms of everything else, they're close to being "sapience-ready," I think.
The other contender, often overlooked in my opinion, is the cuttlefish. They have a surprising number of highly-advanced mental capacities, especially considering that invertebrates are often thought of as being universally far less sophisticated or "less evolved" than vertebrates, and they have their tentacles that they can use to pick things up and move them around… plus, if you go with the cuttlefish, you can have them evolve into a Cthulhu-like or Illithid-type race, which is a cool trope, I think!
There are lots of different theories about what aspects of a creature push it more towards overall "intelligence," as we would probably define it in a worldbuilding context. Social behaviors and ability to manipulate one's surroundings are two of the most important ones, I believe.
Comment: Yes! I was going to say cephalopods. Definitely the smartest invertabrates and on an evolutionary course that appears to favour intelligence.
Comment: That's very true…
Comment: @Glenatron And the sad thing is that they only live about two years… I feel like their culture, if and when it evolved, would be very fixated on this… a bit like Ancient Egypt, lots of R'lyeh-like undersea cyclopean mausolea, necropoli, monuments and attempts at immortality, or at least extending their lives beyond two years…
Comment: @JoshZmijewski: chances are that evolving intelligence, which would likely require social interaction and involve _teaching_ , would naturally lead to a longer lifespan. If not, I feel  very fast-paced lives and an obsession with having a legacy everyone will remember are also possibilities.
Answer: Insects are sometimes viewed as currently dominant taxonomic group. They may have social behavior, hierarchies, bees can communicate each other the location and build relatively complex structures like honeycomb. These families may be superior to human families as they consist of big number of adult, fully capable individuals, not just of two adults and children who cannot do much.
The only problem is the small size (so limited size of the brain), but say Hercules beetle may be 17 cm long so the brain need not be very small. Titan beetle is slightly shorter but has more massive body. The problem is probably that social insects are not as big as these beetles. Also, it may possible to have distributed brain built from brains of multiple individuals, using sound or electromagnetic waves to communicate. A bee brain contains about 950 000 neurons,  human has about 100 billion. 105 000 bees would be required to have the same number of neural cells. That much can easily live in just two hives standing nearby (60 000 per hive) - fully realistic.
It may be only a question of time before the nature hits that opportunity.
Comment: Arthropods have been around way longer than us, so probably if they had needed our level of intelligence they would have evolved it- I would think that the best chance for advanced insect intelligence would be related to a distributed colony-intelligence in social insects. Maybe also smart-shoals in aquatic animals.
Comment: Vertebrates where human belongs originated somewhat 500 million years ago, but only as recently as 2.5 million years ago, since Homo Habilis, they started to look seriously as the origin of civilization. Arthropods may make a similar sprint.
Answer: By the definition given here: http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary/Dominant_species, any species' "dominance" is only relative to a specified environment. A variety of animals could be considered dominant to us in their natural habitats - though if we instead define "dominance" by our ability to dominate/subdue/kill other species in their natural habitats (this seems to be the definition used by the OP and most replies here), and thus dominate those habitats that we are not native to - then I would argue that there would not be a dominant species other than us.
If we humans were out of the picture, I don't know if any other species would exhibit our "will to dominate all life". on such a scale that we could consider them to be the globally dominant species. Other species tend to stay in their own habitats, and are not likely to be able to adapt or survive outside of them. Such dominance as we have achieved would certainly not be gained by another species quickly (much evolution and learning would be required), so while an interesting question to consider, I doubt we'd ever come close to guessing the species that would evolve to our level first. Who knows, maybe a bacteria would begin wiping out enough of the life on the planet such that it would become the dominant life form by overall biomass, overall prevalence, and kill-count.
Comment: So evolution would not repeat itself and create another intelligent, sentient species that would dominate the planet?  Didn't our ancestors tend to stay in their own habitats until they didn't?
Comment: @TracyCramer Read my comment, specifically the second to last sentence. ;) I suggest that such evolution is certainly possible, but not something I think we should expect any time soon.
Answer: I'm surprised nobody has yet mentioned rats.  Just to piggyback on the reasoning of other answers, rats are social, intelligent w/problem solving skills, dextrous, and omniverous.  When working together, much like we think primitive humans did, they can overcome a predator, and bring down prey larger than themselves.
Answer: Lots of neat answers here, but I would propose..  Troodude!
OK, I got that from a kids show, I don't even remember which one.  It talks about a possible evolutionary progression from a particular Dinosaur called the Troodon.
The Troodon was a small therapod, possibly omnivorous.  It was often put forward as an unusually smart dinosaur
The smart dinosaur theory puts forward that if they had survived the KT event, they would by know have evolved human level intelligence.  The reasoning for this is that their brain in relation to body mass was unusually high.  They had binocular vision based on eye placement.  Their tooth shape suggests they may have been opportunistic omnivores.  Their forelimbs could have easily turned into "hands" with manipulative digits.
More fanciful interpretations depict something that looks kind of like a sleestak from "Land of the Lost"
Who knows, If that little guy could have survived the KT, he may have eaten our most distant ancestors and supplanted us that way.
Answer: To slightly change the question, could an earth-like planet with slightly altered geographical/geo-historical features, themselves based on slightly different chemistry and thus climate and land-altering features, have a different dominant species? Moreover, if this species also evolved abstract science faster than we on earth and they sent astronauts to observe earth, what would this species and its proxies and assistants be? (I.e., human/dog/horse complex on earth)
I changed the question because I think a species like the feline, which clearly dominates every predatory food chain it has co-evolved with, is given short shrift on your list. Especially since otherwise worthless cats - we certainly don't breed, protect, pamper and give medical attention to cats anymore because of their rat-killing ability, in fact, that aspect of feline behavior is looked at with disgust by most modern "western" humans - are now the fastest growing mammal population worldwide, even surpassing racoons, which several of your contributors rightly pegged as another possibility.
To get to the point: a species that can enlist a species superior in some respects (let's say on their planets apelike creatures also developed spoken language) to work for them can't be counted out entirely. The ability to coerce or trick another species into helping them in very a one-sided relationship may be a better indication of evolutionary success than mere "intelligence", whatever that generalized concept means pragmatically.
Also, many niche species on earth that are not well known have developed fingers and even thumbs much like ours - certain rain forest tree frogs, for example. And the tentacles of intelligent octopi or other cephalopods could easily be surrogates for hands.
And the whole question of language implying a need for writing is also erroneous. Animals IMO can have as sophisticated a nonverbal language, based as mammals and birds clearly must be on visual images - mandalas, icons, emogees, whatever in human terms - and they could transmit knowledge and information via that language in many ways besides with fingers and thumbs.
They could have, as I indicated, if they ever needed a written language, have adopted hominid pets to do it for them, the way we adopted wolves for hunting help and horses and oxen for hard work. ( My cat forced me to write this. Actually I think dolphins are the best choi ...
Comment: You make an interesting answer, but I find it largely avoiding actually answering the question. As you have written it, it looks like a six paragraph long comment to another answer where just the single last sentence answer the question asked. I know you changed the question slightly, but you don't really answer the changed question either. What makes you choose dolphins as the next life-form to achieve a human-like level? They sure are clever now, but would they ever go further?
Comment: I know this is years old and my comment is completely off-topic, but I love the fact that I'm reading a comment on cat answer by someone called Mrkvička with my own cat I call Mrkvička (proper name Mrkev) sitting besides me :D Sorry, I'll see myself out now.
Answer: I see several answers for this, so I'll list them off.
*If only humans are taken out of the picture, then I believe it would be another hominid species, like Neanderthals, who would not have had to deal with competition from Homo Sapiens.
*If by humans you mean homonids, I believe that cephalopods would dominate the sea and either avians or felines would have dominated the land. Then, depending on how fast their intelligence grew after naturally dominating their habitats, it would either be a world of squids, cats, or birds. Or maybe evolution pulls something out of left field and we get talking horses instead. Who knows?
Answer: I think that "dominance" should be defined better, especially because it seems to be direclty linked to intelligence. It's true, we are dominant because of our intelligence but it's worth to underline that we are NOW dominant because of intelligence AND ESPECIALLY TECHNOLOGY. (a physic professor won't be really dominant if left naked in the savannah) We are dominant all around the world because of the same reasons.
Dominance and intelligence are not welded together, we evolved a lot because intelligence (our main power) was/is the best tool at that/in this era. We didn't do anything "special", we didn't actually choose to be intelligent rather than strong or poisonous, it happened to be the best option and we came out on top of the food chain.
If the earth situation/climate is more or less the current one, and if by dominance we mean superior intelligence/technology, i'd go with primates or racoon as other people already explained. Otherwise, the question is not complete enough to be answered.
Answer: If "dominance" is defined by which kills off the other, then....
Whatever virus, bacterium, or fungus that (largely) kills off humanity.   A future  gen of a highly deadly virus like Ebola that's evolved to be airborne and thus highly contagious*; or a highly contagious antibiotic-resistant bacterium.   Predicted to happen in the next few centuries.
*we've been lucky that most past microbes have been either deadly or contagious but not both.  When one evolves that is both, watch out:
see http://www.businessinsider.com/how-contagious-is-ebola-2014-10
Comment: This does not answer the question. Please edit or rephrase the answer.
Answer: If by "dominance" you mean using your own intelligence, strength, mobility etc., then I don't know.  But if by "dominance" you mean usurping these abilities of other species if you don't have them yourself, and controlling these abilities of other species to further your own agenda, then the answer is GRASS.
What other organism has made itself so valuable to (an)other species that it uses the strength of others to clear forests to give it more living space (all the grain grasses), the intelligence of others to ward off predators/pests and to provide more nourishment (same grain grasses benefitting from pesticides and fertilizer), and even the visual/tactile tastes of others to rip up whatever else was there before and roll sod over it (your good old front lawn)?

What is the next dominant species?


Why are solar systems heliocentric

Question: So this may be an incorrect assumption, but from my knowledge solar systems are heliocentric and there are always suns. (I realize to be a solar system there must be a sun semantically.) But it seems to me that planets and stars are just bodies of mass, so are there cases of solar systems where the star is just one of the bodies of the system and orbits around a super massive planet? And similarly are there 'solar systems' without stars, where there are a group of planets orbiting a massive planet at the center of the system?
Comment: See: [barycenter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barycenter).
Answer: Generally, astronomical bodies rotate around their common center of mass, not the one or the other body.
If one of the bodies is much heavier, the center of mass is much nearer to its center, sometimes even inside the larger body. For example, Earth and Sun both rotate around a point that is much nearer to the Sun's center than to the Earth's center, as the sun is much heavier. Looking from the outside, it seems as Earth rotates around the Sun, while the Sun just wobbles a bit in sync. But the reason for that is exclusively the masses of the bodies, not their being-a-star or not-being-a-star.
Your theoretical example of a super-heavy planet and a lighter star would result in the star seemingly rotating around the planet; however, here you need to look at why a star is a star:
Stars are created by gravity that is compressing the mass to a level that starts fusion, and thereby a star. In your example, either the 'light star' wouldn't make it into a star (and be a light body/planet), or the 'super-heavy planet' becoming a much brighter star (or both of it). That reverses the roles effectively.
Looking at it this way, the bodies in a system rotate always around the center of the mass, which is near the largest mass, which will be the first star of the system (if any).
So your first constellation is not possible.
The second is well possible - if neither of the bodies has enough mass to become a star, they will be still rotating around each other the same way, with the heaviest body being nearest the center. Such a system would be dark and basically invisible from some distance. We wouldn't be able to find them.
Comment: Also see "binary star systems"
Comment: Generally, that "astronomical bodies rotate around their common center of mass" is not true. While the center of mass frame is the frame in which the equations of motion take on their simplest form, that does not mean that bodies rotate about the center of mass. There's nothing there. For example, see my answer to [How does 'centre of mass' concept work?](http://astronomy.stackexchange.com/a/11575/2618).
Answer:
From my knowledge solar systems are heliocentric and there are always suns. (I realize to be a solar system there must be a sun semantically.)

Just a semantic note, systems of stars and planets different from our own are referred to as stellar systems. The solar system refers specifically to our own stellar system since solar means "of or relating to our own Sun".
To remark on this point though, yes this is (somewhat) true. All stellar systems are heliocentric in that all bodies orbit the central star (or stars) of that system.
What is technically more true is that all systems are barycentric, in that all bodies (including the star) orbit the common center of mass, known as the barycenter. It just so happens that the star tends to have $>99\%$ of the mass of any stellar system and so the barycenter is very very close to the center of the star. Our own Sun does actually have a measurable orbit around this barycenter.
Where it gets really interesting is when you have a stellar system with more than one star. In this case, the barycenter is no longer near the center of any particular star and so you have noticeable orbits of the stars.

But it seems to me that planets and stars are just bodies of mass, so are there cases of solar systems where the star is just one of the bodies of the system and orbits around a super massive planet?

As stated above, all bodies orbit the barycenter. The location of the barycenter depends on the masses of all the bodies in the system and will be closest to the most massive body. Think of the barycenter as a weighted mean of the positions of all the bodies, where the weight is the respective body's mass (because that's exactly what it is). That's just how the math works out. It is impossible then for the objects in a stellar system to orbit a less massive body as the barycenter could never be closest to that body.

And similarly are there 'solar systems' without stars, where there are a group of planets orbiting a massive planet at the center of the system?

The only possible case would be a system which doesn't technically have a star. It is quite possible that a system might try to form but just not have enough matter to get very big. The central object would try to become a star, but might not actually be big enough to start shining. We call these objects brown dwarfs. There are almost assuredly systems which have no official stars and the central body is a brown dwarf that every other body in the system orbits around. Whether you want to consider this brown dwarf a "massive planet" is a bit hazy.

Why are solar systems heliocentric


How to properly create/find and use sounds realistically in a convincing way in Blender?

Question: I started a short film recently. Everything is going fine except for the sound fx. The biggest problem I am having is finding sounds. I don't really know of any resources out there that have good quality sound for free. I have used Freesound.org, but find them really hard to implement into events in my film, and very hard to find the correct sound. I know, I could just make my own sounds, but only have a headphone mic and have little experience in editing sounds and doing foley. I guess what I'm trying to ask is how do you do your sound effects for your short films/animations.Do you use online resources or do you record your own sounds, and if so what editing software do you use. Do you add the sounds before rendering or in post production? I'm trying the achieve something as intricate as this. Notice all the little sounds of key typing, the sounds of the atmosphere, computers, and movement of elements. I have no idea how to even approach something like that. I asked this in the blender section but some users said I would have better luck asking in the sound design section. Thanks for the help!
Comment: Why not just find someone passionate about sound and collaborate? Just as there is no magic bullet for creating visuals like those you link to in the video, neither is there a shortcut to creating intricate, effective sound design. Let me know if you want to go that route - I work with talented sound students who would love to work on that sort of material.
Answer: I think what you are realising is that creating sound for film is an intricate process that should be considered from the early stages of the film production. And it's great that you are!
You can use library sounds for a lot of things but when your getting into more detail with the little sounds like keyboard typing and movement of elements it's best to create these yourself. It's called Foley art. I find its much quicker to record yourself acting out the footsteps that are roughly synchronised with the on screen acting than to get library sound and spend ages cutting each step up and syncing them with the actors movements.
Your best bet is to find an aspiring sound designer who would take your film, once picture locked, and create all the fx, ambiences and mix. Just check out your local filmmakers/film crew/sound design Facebook page or other local crew/production forums and post an add for a sound designer/foley artist. Or you could just have fun doing it yourself :)
Answer: I use bit of every technique : sampling/resampling/recording/mangling records/synthesis/resynthesis...
Any result that seems right and accurate !


Why didn't Barty Crouch Jr just use Imperio on Moody?

Question: Kidnapping Moody and constantly depending on Polyjuice Potion for an entire year seems like a lot of unnecessary trouble just to get Harry to touch the cup. Why not simply use Imperio instead?
Comment: As an aside, Crouch *did* use the Imperius curse on Moody: *I kept him alive, under the Imperius curse. I wanted to be able to question him.* (_Goblet of Fire_, chapter _Veritaserum_) I assume your question is why he, instead of impersonating Moody, didn't just let an Imperiused Moody do the teaching.
Comment: That worked so perfectly with his father, didn't it? Oh wait...
Comment: Because he needed somewhere to hide out. Two bird, one stone and all that
Comment: constant.vigilance.
Comment: Would something like that be undetectable, long-term? Either in magic being exerted or controlled Moody behavior vs non-controlled.  And wouldn't Crouch have to be there, at all times, to control his exact behavior when teaching a class or interacting with other wizards?
Comment: @PoloHoleSet: No, control can be exerted remotely, and without micromanaging. There are lots of examples for that in the series; consider, e.g., Pius Thicknesse being controlled by Yaxley even while he is in a meeting with his fellow Death Eaters (see quote in my answer, below).
Comment: @chirlu - I wasn't challenging the concept as much asking because I didn't know, so thanks for filling me in.
Answer: Some of the reasons could be:

Moody was a very powerful auror and it would have been very difficult
to keep him in control for that long. Barty Crouch Jr. was able to overpower him by taking him by surprise, and having help from Wormtail. Even then, he only just managed to do it.

Wormtail and I did it. We had prepared the Polyjuice Potion
  beforehand. We journeyed to his house. Moody put up a struggle. There was a commotion. We managed to subdue him just in time.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Chapter 35

There would be a very high risk of Moody escaping control. Even Harry could do it. Barty Crouch Jr. himself had done it. Later, his father did it. Even a small slip-up, like acting the way his father did in front of Harry, could have raised suspicion and destroyed their plans.
In fact, though they used the curse on Barty Crouch Sr., they had to remove him from public view when it became too risky. Such an option would be difficult in this case, if needed, and again, someone would need to have impersonated Moody to continue the deception. Even then Barty Crouch Sr. escaped. It would be much safer to keep Moody unconscious.
Even if he had used the Imperius curse, he would have to ensure himself that he didn't make Moody do anything that would be uncharacteristic of him and would raise suspicion. It would be easier, and would give him more control, to handle any unforeseen situation if he became Moody himself.
Comment: additionally, iirc, Crouch also wanted to know how Potter survived V'mort's attempt to kill Potter as an infant. Much better to have direct access to Potter than second hand information relayed via another wizard, and a cursed one at that
Comment: you know what, you are right @GoodDeeds, I just re-read the veritaserum scene. I was conflating book Moody w/ film Moody
Comment: @NKCampbell Good point, but hadn't Voldemort known all along? Right after he becomes whole in Goblet of Fire, he explains the death eaters why he hadn't been able to kill Harry that night and how he was protected now - so wouldn't the entire grand plan involving Crouch assume that what Voldemort knew was correct, not mere speculation, for it to succeed?
Answer: The Imperius curse, like all magic in Harry Potter, isn't foolproof. As Crouch (impersonating Moody) himself explains it in class:

'The Imperius curse can be fought, and I'll be teaching you how, but it takes real strength of character, and not everyone's got it. (…)'
(Goblet of Fire, chapter The Unforgivable Curses)

It is difficult to place a powerful wizard under the Imperius curse, and possibly even more difficult to keep the curse up indefinitely. Harry quickly learns how to shake it off in class, and later even defies Voldemort's own Imperius curse in the graveyard of Little Hangleton (Goblet of Fire, chapter Priori Incantatem). That Yaxley is able to subdue Pius Thicknesse is considered a great accomplishment:

Yaxley squared his shoulders.
'My Lord, I have good news on that score. I have – with difficulty, and after great effort – succeeded in placing an Imperius Curse upon Pius Thicknesse.'
Many of those sitting around Yaxley looked impressed; his neighbour, Dolohov, a man with a long, twisted face, clapped him on the back.
(Deathly Hallows, chapter The Dark Lord ascending)

We see several cases where victims of the curse are able to escape it after some time. That includes both Barty Crouches; first the son:

'But Winky didn't know that I was growing stronger. I was starting to fight my father's Imperius curse. There were times when I was almost myself again. There were brief periods when I seemed outside his control. (…)'
(Goblet of Fire, chapter Veritaserum)

Later the father, too:

'But your father escaped,' said Dumbledore.
'Yes. After a while he began to fight the Imperius curse just as I had done. There were periods where he knew what was happening. My master decided it was no longer safe for my father to leave the house. He forced him to send letters to the Ministry instead. (…)'
(Goblet of Fire, chapter Veritaserum)

Alastor Moody is an extremely experienced and capable Auror. Crouch can keep him under control while he is weak, wandless, imprisoned in his own trunk; if Moody has short moments of consciousness in the trunk, that doesn't do much harm. If, however, Moody were allowed to walk around in the school with a wand (not carrying one would be highly suspicious) and to recover physically, he would very likely be able to fight off the curse and, e.g., alert one of the teachers. That would of course be disastrous to Crouch and Voldemort's plans. So it seems prudent of them not to rely on the Imperius curse too much.
Comment: I always thought Yaxley's *with difficulty, and after great effort* just meant that it was hard to get close enough to him to cast the spell.
Answer: Barty Crouch Jr. has more control being Moody than Imperiusing the real one.
First of all, and perhaps most importantly, Barty Crouch Jr. would be able to strategically plan his actions much better when doing them himself than having to puppet Moody through them. There's a definite benefit in being able to take over the role of Moody, and do everything himself. He'd be able to take quick, spur-of-the-moment action if the situation requires it, something that an Imperiused person following orders, who of his own will would certainly not be doing anything to help the Dark Lord, would be unable to do as well.
Imperiused people require a lot of micromanaging, and would need to be told what to do fairly frequently. When Harry uses Imperio on Bogrod to make him take them into the vault, for instance, Harry has to make Bogrod put his hand on the door to open it - something Bogrod in his right mind would surely know. Harry isn't good at casting Imperio, so a skilled Dark wizard could certainly do better, but in all the other situations the Imperius Curse is used, it turns people into pliable meat puppets, not cunning strategists.

"Make him press his hand to the door!' Griphook urged Harry, who turned his wand again upon Bogrod. The old goblin obeyed, pressing his palm to the wood, and the door of the vault melted away to reveal a cave-like opening crammed from floor to ceiling with golden coins and goblets, silver armour, the skins of strange creatures, some with long spines, others with drooping wings, potions in jewelled flasks, and a skull still wearing a crown." - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 26 (Gringotts)

As Moody, Barty Crouch Jr. had to do several things that required cunning and strategy. Only some of these are: Confund the Goblet of Fire and put Harry's name in it, pretend to console Neville so that he could give Neville a book with information that Harry needed, turn the Triwizard Cup into a Portkey, remove the obstacles in the maze so Harry could get to the Portkey cup easier - and all without raising anyone's suspicion. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to make an Imperiused person do that all flawlessly, without attracting suspicion or notice.
In addition, Moody would likely be able to resist the Imperius Curse after a while.
Relying on the Imperius Curse to keep Moody subdued would be foolish. Even if Barty Crouch Jr. was able to keep him mostly under control, which is doubtful (as another answer by chirlu explains well enough) even him gaining clarity for a small amount of time could be fatal to the Dark Lord's plan, as Moody could use his moment of clarity to do any number of things - write a note and leave it somewhere, tell Dumbledore, hide, and these are only a few possibilities out of many.
Comment: This should be the most upvoted answer here- because the paragraph after the quote IS the answer. Cunning requires information which will only be possible to get if Crouch Jr was in Hogwarts himself (info about Dobby's relationship to Harry, about Neville being good at Herbology,...)
Answer: The answers so far have missed out something. Credit. If it was Barty Crouch Jr. doing all the deeds in order to bring Voldemort's sinister plots to fruition, he could claim that Voldemort was indebted to him. There wouldn't be anybody else in the direct link between Crouch and Harry being given to Voldemort.
As you can see from this quote, credit was very significant for Barty Crouch Jr.:

"The Dark Lord didn't manage to kill you, Potter, and he so wanted to," whispered Moody. "Imagine how he will reward me when he finds I have done it for him. I gave you to him — the thing he needed above all to regenerate — and then I killed you for him. I will be honored beyond all other Death Eaters. I will be his dearest, his closest supporter . . . closer than a son . . . ."
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - Chapter 35
Comment: Wouldn't he get credit if he successfully imperiused (the great auror) Moody? The way Yaxley got praise for imperiusing Pius Thicknesse much later - but this would have been much bigger.
Comment: @GoodDeeds I agree - either way Barty Crouch Jr. would have had equal opportunity to get the credit he so desired from the Dark Lord.
Comment: @GoodDeeds Yes, but if it went wrong? I don't think Barry would have left anything to chance - and doesn't purporting as the great auror Moody for a year in front of Dumbledore have even more street cred?
Answer: Voldemort had motive to procrastinate.
The body restoration spell could have failed spectacularly.
Voldemort's greatest magic is experimental, and he knows from experience that it can have disastrous unforeseen consequences (emphasis added):

'I miscalculated, my friends, I admit it. My curse was deflected by the woman's foolish sacrifice, and it rebounded upon me.  Aaah ... pain beyond pain, my friends; nothing could have prepared me or it.  I was ripped from my body, I was less than spirit, less than the meanest ghost ... but still, I was alive.  What I was, even I do not know ... I, who have gone farther than anybody along the path that leads to immortality.  You know my goal -- to conquer death.  And now, I was tested, and it appeared that one or more of my experiments had worked ... for I had not been killed, though the curse should have done it.  Nevertheless, I was as powerless as the weakest creature alive, and without the means to help myself ...'

(Goblet of Fire, chapter 33: The Death Eaters)

Voldemort's horrific "baby" form is another product of his experimental magic:

'... Wormtail was able to follow the instructions that I gave him, which would return me to a rudimentary, weak body of my own, a body I would be able to inhabit while awaiting the essential ingredients of true rebirth ... a spell or two of my own invention ...'

(Goblet of Fire, chapter 33: The Death Eaters)

The spell to restore Voldemort's adult body is known magic:

'... it is an old piece of Dark Magic, the potion that revived me tonight ...'

(Goblet of Fire, chapter 33: The Death Eaters)

However, spells can interact in surprising ways:

'Interesting effect,' said George, looking down at Crabbe.  'Who used the Furnunculus curse?'
'Me,' said Harry.
'Odd,' said George lightly.  'I used Jelly-Legs.  Looks as though those two shouldn't be mixed.  He seems to have sprouted little tentacles all over his face.'

(Goblet of Fire, chapter 37: The Beginning)

Without knowing how two powerful dark spells would interact, and knowing how much suffering he had already brought on himself with his experiments, Voldemort may have been extremely hesitant to proceed.
"Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead."
(Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1735)
Through most of Goblet of Fire, Voldemort's location and vulnerable condition is known to only two other people, both of whom are, for all practical purposes, dead.  Voldemort's secret is safe because Peter Pettigrew and Barty Crouch, Jr, must themselves remain hidden from the authorities lest they forfeit their lives.  Although Voldemort remains physically weak during this time, he is much less vulnerable to discovery now than after he reveals himself to his Death Eaters.
Barty Crouch, Jr, was loyal to Voldemort.
Voldemort considers Barty Jr his most faithful servant (Goblet of Fire, chapter 37: The Beginning).  Barty Jr agrees.
Conclusion
Voldemort may have chosen his elaborate plan because of the delay it required, since it allowed him to remain hidden and to postpone a risky magical procedure -- and Barty Crouch, Jr, followed his master's orders.
Answer: Another reason not yet given is that the Imperius Curse seems to be detectable by the blank stare of the victim.

Now Snape was head to head with Mundungus in an unfamiliar tavern, Mundungus's face looking curiously blank, Snape frowning in concentration.
  "You will suggest to the Order of the Phoenix," Snape murmured, "that they use decoys. Polyjuice Potion. Identical Potters. It is the only thing that might work. You will forget that I have suggested this. You will present it as your own idea. You understand?"
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, chapter 33 (emphasis mine)

While the Ministry may have had some difficulty finding out who was actually Imperiused and who was merely lying that they were after the First Wizarding War, that was after the fact. As evidenced by the above quote and similar passages in the books about Imperiused people, it doesn't seem so hard to detect while the victim is under the Imperius curse.
Comment: Mundungus is subjected to a Confundus charm in that scene, not an Imperius curse. The Imperiused having a blank stare or similar is purely a movie thing that doesn't make sense. See also: [If the Imperius Curse gives you a blank look, why was there doubt over whether someone was under it?](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/160565/if-the-imperius-curse-gives-you-a-blank-look-why-was-there-doubt-over-whether-s)
Comment: @chirlu I think there are some other examples. Stan Shunpike comes to mind. I'll see if I can find them.
Comment: There is one mention of Stan Shunpike having a "curiously blank" expression, but there is no evidence what influence he actually is under. In the cases of Barty Crouch Sr. and Pius Thicknesse, who are known to be Imperiused, nobody notices for a long time.


Is there a VGA to Thunderbolt adapter that supports Lion?

Question: I have an old Toshiba desktop TV that I want to use as a second monitor for a very new MacMini.  All that the display has is VGA input. I already have an Apple display in my HDMI port, so I can't use a VGA to HDMI adapter.  Is there such a thing as a VGA to Thunderbolt adapter that supports Lion (Mac OS X 10.7)?
Answer: Monoprice has what you want.
Apple as well.
This is a hardware thing, it has nothing to do with whether or not Lion supports it.
Comment: I was just about to say "And Lion is irrelevant" but you edited it in already...:)
Comment: I aim to please :)
Answer: A quick google search confirms that there is an adapter from VGA to a mini display port. That means you can use a vga display in your thunderbolt port.  Thunderbolt is backward compatible so the VGA to mini display adapter should work for Thunderbolt
Answer: There are a lot of Thunderbolt/DisplayPort to VGA/DVI, but not the other way around. So you can use Apple products on non Apple displays, but you can't use non Apple laptops/notebooks on the latest Apple displays.
There's another thread here, but the solution they provide sounds quite expensive:
https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/37869/is-there-a-vga-to-thunderbolt-mini-displayport-adapter


What to do with a disinterested 12-year-old boy?

Question: My 12-year-old grandson does not have any interests other than video games. He can be a good student, but he does not turn in work and always complains about not having friends and nobody liking him. He does not want to participate in any activity and when he does it is not for long. He often comes up with "get rich quick" ideas and has an answer for everything. He does not seem to be affected by any type of punishment. Any help would be appreciated.
Comment: "He does not seem to be affected by any type of punishment." I hope you're not trying to punish him into some kind of passion ?
Comment: @LaurentS. Children who are generally lacking motivation don't have many interests, don't turn in schoolwork, don't actively pursue social relationships, _and_ they are unreponsive to punishment (losing privileges for not turning in schoolwork, for example, has little effect). It's possible the OP was suggesting punishment for not having interests, but as I read the question that was a separate (albeit related) concern.
Answer: Your grandson sounds to be intelligent albeit lacking focus or interest. Since he likes video games, you could try exposing him to programming where he could build his own games and share them with his peers. You're trying to find him a hobby that he enjoys and he could find friends wile doing it too. Exposure to a lot of different fields and activities is great for his age.
Some resources:

Scratch
MIT App Inventor
Raspberry PI Projects
MakerFaire
Minecraft
Hour of Code
Comment: It could be an attention and focus issue rather than "lazy"...
Comment: @Erica Yes I agree focus or even disinterest could be issues here too. I'll rephrase.
Comment: Scratch is a great resource. It was what let _me_ turn my love of video games into a passion for programming. MineCraft is also excellent, as it provides a smoother transition into programming since you're playing the game the whole time.
Comment: @Cyoce My daughter, who's used Scratch for increasingly complex projects over the last year, recently came to me with a well-prepared argument for why she should now start programming in MineCraft instead. It's a good progression of experience :)
Comment: Middle school is often difficult. Toys no longer hold interest, but more adult hobbies are often out of reach.the coding resources mentioned above are great (my son is doing minecraft mods with CodaKid).  Also check out community television and local gaming clubs (D&D, Pokemon, Magic the Gathering, etc).
Comment: Just showing that the resources exist will not work. Someone will have to work with him guiding him on getting started and making progress. It can be frustrating for the adult working with him too since the response can vary from "i do not care" to "let me do this near-impossible project"
Answer: I do like jcmack's answer for it's positive attitude, but I'd like to point out that there is a huge gap between liking video games and making  your own.
Games != Programming.
Programming is hard. It requires an incredible amount of attention to detail, a methodical mindset and the ability to accept to be told constantly that you're not as good as you think you are, because computers aren't very forgiving of mistakes - your program will just not work, or work in mysterious ways, if you make the tiniest of errors.
This doesn't sound like a very good match for your grandson (easy get-rich-quick schemes, has an answer for everything, doesn't participate in any activity for very long, ...)
(Also, it's a lonely hobby - you spend hours and hours alone, thinking about things you can't explain to anyone around you.)
I do agree with jcmack's thesis that since video games are the only thing your grandson seems to take an interest in, they will probably play a big part in approaching your grandson.
Why play?
Figuring out which games your grandson plays, and why, might give you some insights.
For example, if he plays games against the computer, with no other human players involved, these games are often designed to keep you engaged. Some do this by allowing you to succeed repeatedly in quests/goals which are just hard enough that success is fairly certain, and then reward you with virtual loot, levels, points etc which might be recorded on a global scoreboard. Persistence in such games will steadily move the player upwards.
So if that's the case, video games might give your grandson a feeling of succeeding in something when success isn't common in the rest of his life, and that might be what draws him to the games.
OTOH, your grandson might not play against an AI, but against (or with) human players. For example, there are several games where teams of about 5 players band together to fulfill missions or quests (mostly revolving around warfare, either in realistic or fantasy settings). In such a game, your grandson might be a valued team member; he might have a status to defend, a role to play and social obligations to fulfill which all require that he play. If he's having trouble making friends IRL, he might get his need for friendship and status fulfilled from his online teammates.
So what?
So, in short: I think the video games fulfill a need that isn't met in the rest of your grandson's life.
My suggestion would therefore be to ask your grandson if he can show you what he's playing, and see if you can figure out why it's important to him. This won't change anything about the current situation, but you might get more insights into why he isn't interested in anything besides the video games, why he doesn't think anybody likes him etc. Sometimes it's hard for us to refrain from judgement ("you're wasting all this time playing this stupid game while real life passes you by..." when dealing with video games, but try to keep an open mind about what he shows and tells you.
This might provide you with enough hints to find things besides video games that would also help fulfill your grandson's needs.
Comment: Yes, thank you! The programming idea really didn't seem good. I am a programmer by trade and it is not the solution to the problems caused by excessive gaming. It can exacerbate them and really take some people down a bad path.
Answer: How about some board games or tabletop games?
You could start with a family game night for Monopoly. Or you could learn about and break out some tabletop RPG.
This is a lot of work and a lot of effort, and the grandson likely won't appreciate it at first. But it has a lot of the same reward mechanisms as a video game while also being social.
Eventually you guys could even work together to develop a new board game or homebrew RPG. This can be really fun.
One day maybe you could even invite some of his classmates for a game night as well. Get some pizza, make it fun. Give him a chance to bond with them over something he already likes.


Is there anyway to leave a space station without your ship?

Question: Is it possible to get off of the space station other than by flying out in your ship?
Comment: Lol, funny question, you wanna try to float in space "Gravity"-style? :-)
Comment: I just like trying to go places the game doesn't want me to :P. Any time I get artificially boxed in somewhere I immediately try to find a way out haha.
Comment: If you find a way let me know, curious to try this as well to see what happens :-)
Comment: @Mr.Meeseeks I will do :p
Answer: The only 2 ways I've tried so far don't work.

Walking, you can walk all the way to the end of the runway (right word?), but there's a wall at the end
Surfing, if you stand on a ship once it's landed, it wont take off with you on top, and it appears when the ships are flying they don't have a hitbox.

Only other thing I can think of is to try and glitch out, but I've not come across anywhere to do that yet.
Comment: @DavidYell Tom is right, you can't melee or shoot inside a space station. Intergalactic law or something.
Comment: I don't think you can melee on the space station :(
Comment: With the new update, if you have a base, you can take the teleporter that's in the room on the right (after you ship lands and rotates).  However, your ship will spawn somewhere near your base.
Comment: Did you try a jetpack dash yet? Might be a thought? (Melee whilst sprinting and immediately hit your jetpack for a lateral boost in speed*)
* Might cause exosuit damage ;)
Answer: There is now.  I don't remember if it was part of Pathfinder or Next, but there's a teleporter that allows you to travel between other teleporters (Space Stations and ones you can build in your own bases).
I believe you need to reach a certain point in the storyline to unlock the teleportation network.
Answer: Not exactly what you were asking, but if you're looking for space walks in general, one way is to fall off of a frigate. Not sure if freighters and frigate fleets existed before NEXT, but at least as of NEXT, you can fall off of a frigate landing pad after you land on it (which will kill you via cold damage in just a few seconds).


Are the uncertified packaged pre cut vegetable and fruit platters in a non-Jewish store kosher

Question: In the produce cooler section of stores (such as Costco), one can often find packages of shrink-wrapped cut up veggie and fruit platters. Would the fact that these are precut in the store require kosher certification or can they be considered kosher since they are only fruits and vegetables? Please include consideration of the utensils used for cutting the fruits and vegetables.
Answer: Here is an answer from Rabbi Eli Gersten from a previous issue of Jewish Action (OU):

If your co-workers bought a fruit platter from a supermarket, you may
  partake of the fruit since you can assume the supermarket has a
  dedicated knife for fruit platters. Additionally, due to the sheer
  volume of fruit cut at one time in such a scenario, we regard the
  knives and surfaces as clean. The same applies to precut watermelon
  sold in supermarkets; there is no need to trim the edges.
However, if the fruit platter came from a nonkosher restaurant or
  caterer, it is questionable whether you may partake of the fruit,
  since a single order might be prepared with a nondedicated knife or on
  a dirty surface or with the chef's greasy hands. In this case, the
  fruit will require washing.
The halachot of cut salads (assuming there is no concern of insect
  infestation) would be similar to what we discussed above regarding
  fruit. Sliced onions, radishes, lemons or any other spicy fruit or
  vegetable should be avoided, unless it is clear that they were cut in
  great abundance, in which case all the problematic onions or lemons
  would be batel.

If the OU just doesn't cut it for you (pun intended), here's a tweet from the CRC:

One may purchase cut raw fruits/vegetables (with no bug problems) from
  a large supermarket with no hechsher

The original source of the case of non-Jew cutting multiple lemons is found in the Shulchan Arukh, Yoreh Deah 96:4:

מֵי לימוני''ש שֶׁמְּבִיאִים הָעוֹבְדֵי כּוֹכָבִים, וְכֵן חֲתִיכוֹת
  דָּג מָלִיחַ שֶׁמְּבִיאִים הָעוֹבְדֵי כּוֹכָבִים בְּחָבִיוֹת,
  מֻתָּרִים. הַגָּה: מִפְּנֵי שֶׁמְּבִיאִים הַרְבֵּה בְּיַחַד,
  וְאַף אִם נֶאֶסְרוּ מִקְּצָתָן שֶׁנֶּחְתְּכוּ בָּרִאשׁוֹנָה עִם
  סַכִּין שֶׁל גּוֹיִים, נִתְבַּטְּלוּ בָּאֲחֵרִים הַנֶּחְתָּכִים אַחַר
  כֵּן, שֶׁאֵינָן נֶאֱסָרִין, כִּי כְּבַר נִתְבַּטֵּל טַעַם הַסַּכִּין
  בָּרִאשׁוֹנִים וְלָכֵן כֻּלָּם מֻתָּרִים. וְכָל כַּיּוֹצֵא בְּזֶה
  (בַּיִת יוֹסֵף בְּשֵׁם שִׁבּוֹלֵי
  לֶקֶט). וְלָכֵן אוֹכְלִין בִּקְצָת מְקוֹמוֹת הַכְּרוּב
  שֶׁקּוֹרִין קומפש''ט, אַף עַל גַּב דְּפָרוּס וְחָתוּךְ. וְיֵשׁ
  מְקוֹמוֹת שֶׁמַּחְמִירִין בָּזֶה, וְאֵין לְשַׁנּוֹת הַמִּנְהָג
  (מהרי''ו סִימָן מ''ט), אֲבָל שְׁאָר
  דְּבָרִים שֶׁאֵין חֲרִיפִין, כְּגוֹן תַּפּוּחִים אוֹ לְפָתוֹת
  יְבֵשִׁים וְכַדּוֹמֶה, נוֹהֲגִין בָּהֶן הֶתֵּר כְּמוֹ בלימוני''ש
  וְאֵין לְהַחְמִיר כְּלָל (בְּאָרֹךְ).

Answer: Alright, this answer is to get DanF started, but it could be a general answer too. I am putting it here because pics can't be uploaded to comments.
This is the answer to almost the exact question asked in Rabbi Eli Mansour's book, Daily Halacha, which is published through Artscroll. It doesn't give any primary sources (which is a bummer), but it should get you started. I'm just way too swamped at the moment to write a proper answer myself, but plan to in the next week or so, beli nedher. Good luck on getting your heter for tomorrow's shopping trip, although this is fairly standard halakhic procedure and even those who are mahmir about just require a rinse prior to consumption.
Comment: This is good. I wasn't expecting this format, but it saves you a lot of typing! I've heard of the Daily Halacha, but what exactly is this - a book, newsletter? Who's the author / publisher?
Comment: @DanF Look in the description above the pics for answers to your questions. Kol tuv.
Answer: The Shulchan Aruch says one can, in theory, assume they were cut with a designated vegetable-only tool.
(If they were cut with a dirty, non-kosher knife, then the first ten or twenty cuts would still be not kosher, but at some point that peters out.)
As always it's better to get something with a kosher certification. But at least in theory, pre-cut fruits and veggies coming from a large produce facility were likely done on dedicated equipment -- or at least by the time they cut your produce, most likely the knife doesn't have any traces of non-kosher on it.
The melon cut in-house at a Korean market, on the other hand, is an example of something I would avoid. You know they're processing non-kosher stuff right there, and they don't have the same kind of produce volumes.
Comment: Citing _SA_ (chapter and verse, so to speak) would improve your answer.
Comment: You also have to make sure the salad contains nothing sharp -- no onion, radishes, etc...
Comment: Even the Korean market is fine. Cut vegetables that are not wilted, blanched on the edges, or otheriwse ruined are self-evident that they were cut with a cold knife. And being a cold knife - even if truly unkosher - would only obligate one to rinse them at most before consuming them. But if you buy a large quantity of such vegetables, then the residue on the first cut or two is *batel* anyway.
Comment: In addition to sharp vegetables, you also need to be careful about bugs (e.g., in strawberries) and shmitta status (in Israel)


Censoring comments

Question: I believe comments which help people to go against the Torah by providing links to websites which teach you how to do so should be censored. Such links are, form a Torah point of view, comparable to links to sites teaching you how to make bombs to blow up people.
Comment: @shulem, interesting point. I wonder if that's true halachically. Maybe I'll ask on-site.
Comment: Not [yet] making an argument either way, but looking for precedents. Here's one: The [AishDas](http://www.aishdas.org) Society, which openly promotes Torah-observance, maintains email discussion lists with [rules](http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/agree.shtml) and, apparently, a designated posek. These rules include one (#8) about censorship of links, and the categories of censorable links listed there does not include the one under consideration here.
Comment: Answers should address who decides and by what rules.  Is a link to a blog that, 17 entries back, mentions going to a movie on Shabbat censorable, for example?  If not, where's the line between that and a how-to manual for murder?
Comment: as far as lifnaai iver is concerned which is what I am talking about there is no different which avaira
Comment: Is this about censoring comments or about censoring links?
Comment: ^^ or is this about censoring the contents of answers and questions, too?
Answer: I think Mi Yodeya should not censor anything beyond off-topic, spam, and hate-baiting.
Why:

It's an implementation nightmare

It would be logistically difficult to enforce this - especially since change history is preserved.
ANY page that is linked to offsite is liable to be edited (or set up as a redirect to pornography).  Do we need to constantly monitor all links? And how would we put links back once the offending content is removed? That is a burden no one here wants.

It's a bureaucratic nightmare

Who makes these decisions? We don't have a posek, and I'm sure we can't all agree on who that would be.
Who decides who makes the decisions?  As a democratic community, we'd presumably have elections for this like everything else, but anyone with that power would be accused of abusing it.
What is the process for deciding to censor?  Is it committee? Are these open to the public?

It's unnecessary

There are already warnings throughout not to rely on anything here for halakhic advice.
We consider all people here to be adults capable of making their own decisions. This means they are responsible for their own actions.
Anything that is not worthwhile is already shut out in our current processes.  (Anything blatantly offensive or off-topic should be removed.)

It's a bad practice for this site

Ezeh hu chacham? - If we can learn some actual Torah from a site with instructions to build a bomb, or a site with an argument for not keeping the second day of Shavuot in galut, all the better.
This policy completely discourages newcomers from joining because they may be censored in a process they don't understand.
Having this policy creates more arguments and angry chat discussions than our current laissez-faire policy
It may be against StackExchange policy
Our site's target audience specifically includes "anyone interested in learning more".  This includes non-Jews.  A valid question may include links to sites that are specifically avodah zarah (e.g., "How does Judaism feel about neo-Baalism? Here are some differences between archaeo-Baalism and neo-Baalism...").  We should allow this sort of question and the website may be useful to flesh out the question.
Comment: Great. Now we all are going to go read about neo-Baalism. See, we don't even need links to have everyone reading about Avoda Zara!
Comment: We talked (briefly) about Achav in a class tonight, but we didn't actually read the details of archaeo-baalism.  Whew!

Censoring comments


I'm wondering if there is a word for drum rhythms that make you want to dance?

Question: I'd really like to find a word that means dancing to the sound of drums, percussion, or just the way you feel when music makes you want to dance!
Answer: Since this word (or words) would best be used to describe the audience-performer interactions, I would suspect that there isn't going to be an obscure word for this.  That is due to the fact that the interactions cannot be academicised as it is between trained musicians and untrained audience members.
One of these words might be groove.  Groove is commonly used between musicians but it is also a useful term for the audience-performer interaction, especially when it comes to who prefers the other to perform: i.e. dance or not.  The problem with this word is that it denotes the role and position more than it does describing the rhythm.
The word dance can be used but it seems to be self-referential.
An older word for dance in the English language (Anglo-Saxon, really) is the word leap.  While leaping is not particularly strongly associated with dancing nowadays, there are some words that to this day specify moves.  However, there are synonyms of leap that are strongly associated with dancing such as hop.  I refer you to such classic dances as the Lindy Hop, Bunny Hop.  A club where everyone is dancing is referred to as hopping.
In fact, I suspect that if you instructed a drummer to play a hopping rhythm, they would know exactly what you are referring to.
Comment: Totally agree with the **groove**. Groovy music makes me want to move :-)


Can the Queen of England fire the prime minister of Australia?

Question: My Australian friend says yes. I'm not so sure, considering the monarchy collects no taxes from England, much less a country in the commonwealth. What's the verdict? Can she say "you're fired" and Tony Abbot is out?
Comment: Yes, but if she does so without a VERY good reason that most people in Australia agrees with, she will no longer be the queen of Australia.
Comment: Elizabeth II is Queen of the United Kingdom, Queen of Australia, and many other countries. But she is not the Queen of England. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_of_England https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_II
Comment: what queen of england?
Answer: Theoretically, yes.
The prime minister is appointed by the governor-general, who is the representative of the Australian monarch (currently Queen Elizabeth II).  The queen could instruct her representative to appoint a new prime minister at any time.  (If the governor-general refused, the queen could appoint a new governor-general.)
In practice, however, the governor-general usually only appoints a new prime minister as advised by Parliament or a resigning prime minister.
(In a rare exception to this practice, in 1975 the governor-general dismissed a prime minister whose party held a majority in the House. (Wikipedia))
Also in practice, the monarch usually only appoints a governor-general that has been nominated by the prime minister.
It's important to remember that Elizabeth doesn't have these powers as queen of England, but as queen of Australia.  Legally, Australia is a monarchy, with its own royal family.  It happens to be that this royal family resides in England, and that the queen of Australia is also queen of several other countries, but only for historical reasons.
Comment: @Joe, you start your answer "Theoretically, yes." However, while most of your details are correct, a better summary is "Technically, no." Section 61 of the Constitution says "The executive power of the Commonwealth is vested in the Queen and **is exercisable by the Governor-General** as the Queen's representative". PM Robert Menzies had to pass a law specially for Queen Elizabeth to be able to open Parliament when she visited Australia in 1954, because that power was exercisable only by the G-G, not the Queen. Similarly, the Queen can't sack the Prime Minister - only the G-G can.
Comment: The Governor-General doesn't require advice from parliament or a resigning Prime Minister to fill a vacancy, as shown in the first decade after federation when the seats were split fairly evenly between 3 parties. There's also the famous case of Governor-General Sir John Kerr appointing Malcolm Fraser to replace Gough Whitlam despite the latter still commanding a majority in the House of Representatives.
Comment: @Voitcus, you'd think so, but the Commonwealth countries use the same nomenclature as each other today.
Comment: @lins314159, good point.  I'll make a note.
Comment: Is she then Elizabeth the First in Australia? Like there was "James VI and I" in Scotland and England.
Answer: Section 61 of the Constitution says "The executive power of the Commonwealth is vested in the Queen and is exercisable by the Governor-General as the Queen's representative [...]".
Prime Minister Robert Menzies had to pass a Parliamentary standing order specially for Queen Elizabeth to be able to open Parliament when she visited Australia in 1954 because he received legal advice that, based on the above wording of the Constitution, that power was exercisable only by the Governor-General, not the Queen. So, for the Queen to open Parliament while she visited, a standing order had to be passed through Parliament: "When Her Majesty the Queen is present in Australia and intends to indicate in person the cause of the calling together of Parliament, references in this chapter to the Governor-General shall be read as references to Her Majesty the Queen." Note that this standing order relates only to the opening of Parliament, and is only effective when the Queen is present in Australia.
Constitutionally, the Queen can't exercise the executive power required to dismiss the Prime Minister - only the Governor-General can do this. The Queen can instruct the Governor-General to dismiss a Prime Minister (and, it's worth noting that there's no constitutional or legal requirement for the Governor-General to follow the Queen's instructions), but she can't dismiss the Prime Minister herself.
Comment: It's a slow climb to surpass an accepted answer this old, even with a clearly better one, but I have seen it done. You have my vote.
Comment: Can the Queen dismiss and appoint the Governor-General?
Comment: @Lohoris: The Queen certainly can - and does - dismiss and appoint the Governor-General. By convention, she usually appoints the candidate recommended to her by the Prime Minister, but she's allowed to appoint any person she wishes as Governor-General and to dismiss the Governor-General at any time. It's one of the very few exercisable powers she does have in the Australian Constitution.
Comment: I'm not trying to "surpass an accepted answer this old"; I just wanted to provide extra information for this question. But thanks for the vote!
Comment: It would help if the asker @SamtheBrand would accept this answer (in case he considers it better, of course)
Answer: The Queen (or King) of England is a constitutional monarch, a ceremonial figure whose powers are strictly circumscribed by the constitutions of England (or other Commonwealth countries).
In THEORY, the "chain of command" goes from the queen, to the governor-general of the Commonwealth, to the Prime Minister of Australia. In actual fact, the queen and governor general will do what the Australian (or English) Parliaments tell them to do.
So the queen does "hire and fire." But not of her own volition, but as a result of the constitutional process.
The short answer is "she does," (what she is told to do) but "she can't" (on her own).
Comment: While it's true that _most_ of the Queen's powers (or these days, HM Government's powers) are limited by law, the power to appoint or dismiss a prime minister is one of a dwindling number which is not. It's a [prerogative power](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prerogative_powers), which is governed not by law, but by convention. Hence why, in theory, the Queen can do this; but in practise, she doesn't.
Comment: See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Prerogative_in_the_United_Kingdom
Comment: @SteveMelnikoff: My guess is that if the queen tried to exercise this "prerogative" against the will of the people, (except possibly in a crisis like that of Gough Whitlam) it would cause a constitutional crisis that could lead to the abolition of the monarchy. Especially in Australia.
Comment: Oh, absolutely.
Answer:
The Queen Cannot sack the Prime Minister of Australia.
In 1975, (I was there) the Governor General did NOT sack the Prime Minister, he has no power to sack the Prime Minister.
What can happen is this. If the Parliament cannot get legislature through parliament, due to blockage of the other side. Again and again. And 'supply is blocked'... i.e. money to be allocated, Parliament comes to a standstill. The Prime Minister can approach the Governor General and request a 'Double Dissolution' Both the Upper and Lower houses are disbanded, and a new election for both upper and lower houses are called for. This is what occurred in 1975. Whitlam couldn't get legislature through. There was an election, and Malcolm Fraser and Liberals were voted in.
Comment: Actually, as edited this could be a pretty good answer, if it had a good link for some of the claims at the end of #3.


Is edge state of topological insulator really robust?

Question: I am a little confused! Some people are arguing that  the gapless edge state of Topological insulator is robust as long as the time reversal symmetry is not broken,while other people say that it is not stable for lack of topological order。Please help me out!
Comment: The short answer: the fact you need time-reversal symmetry means it is not stable against *all* perturbations---that is what people mean by "lack of topological order". Instead, topological insulators are examples of *symmetry-protected* topological phases (with possibly the exception of the integer quantum Hall and Kitaev chain, which are protected by the 'unbreakable' fermion parity symmetry).
Answer: I see how that can be confusing. Unfortunately understanding how to reconcile these statements will require a lot of background. I will try to answer this as concisely as I can (hopefully) without relying on concepts that are too advanced.
Well, topological insulators do not possess a so-called intrinsic topological order. It means that the bulk states of a topological insulator are not entangled quantum mechanically over a long range. Topological insulators are, in fact, short-range entangled just like trivial insulators. However, topological insulators and trivial insulators are clearly not the same phases. Therefore short-range entangled phases are further broken down into subcategories. Two such subcategories are: symmetry protected topological phases (topological insulators) and symmetry-breaking phases (trivial insulators).
The reason the word "topological" appears in the distinction between of topological insulators and trivial insulators is that they can be assigned a distinct "topological invariant." The notion of a topological invariant comes from topology. For example a sphere and a torus have different topological invariants. Just as you cannot deform a torus into a sphere without cutting it, in the same way you cannot deform the band structure of a topological insulator into that of a trivial insulator without closing the bulk gap. As a consequence of this subtle difference in the two types of band structures the number of edge states will either be even (trivial insulators) or odd (topological insulators). Now this is where time reversal symmetry comes in. If any kind of perturbation, which itself obeys time reversal symmetry, acts on these edge states then it can destroy these edge states only in pairs. Therefore if you had odd number of edge states to begin with then you will end up with at least one edge state even if the perturbation destroys all the remaining edge states (in pairs). Hence time reversal symmetry is responsible for the protection of these edge states in topological insulators. You can find a more detailed explanation here:
What conductance is measured for the quantum spin Hall state when the Hall conductance vanishes?
Just scroll all the way down until you see the question in the block quote "Also: Why is there only a single helical edge state per edge? Why must we have at least one and why can't we have, let's say, two states per edge?" To give the above analogy with topology a firm footing I suggest you take a look at Berry curvature and the Chern number (if you haven't already). The topological invariants are closely connected to these.
So to summarize, gapped phases of matter can be divided into two categories: long-range entangled (with intrinsic topological order) and short-range entangled (without intrinsic topological order). Two subcategories of short-range entangled phases are: symmetry protected topological phases (topological insulators) and symmetry-breaking phases (trivial insulators).
In case you are wondering about long-range entangled phases and what it means to have (intrinsic) topological protection then I recommend a little more background reading on the principle of emergence, the fractional quantum Hall effect, string-net condensation (in that order). There are some excellent posts on physics stackexchange on the topic of string-net condensation. Some of them are even answered by Prof. Xiao-Gang Wen who, as a matter of fact, developed the theory of string-net condensation along with Michael Levin (I don't know if he's here).
Comment: Thanks a lot for your answer!You mentioned that systems with intrinsic topological order are  entangled quantum mechanically over a long range. But how can we know a system is long range entangled or not. Could you tell me some articles to follow?
Comment: The best place to start is wikipedia! LOL! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topological_order. According that article intrinsically topologically ordered phases will have: emergent gauge theory, emergent fractional charge and fractional statistics. Like I said, there's a lot of ground to be covered, starting from the principle of emergence to string-net condensation
Comment: Here's a nice and short review: http://rmp.aps.org/abstract/RMP/v77/i3/p871_1
Comment: Wen's work is terrific! But is too hard for me. So, is there something much easier to follow than wen's paper and more detail than the wikipedia?
Comment: @Zac.Dummy: Actually Wen's paper was the easiest I could find! Maybe I haven't looked everywhere (for something simpler than that). Anyways, here are some very elementary articles you might find interesting and manageable: http://arxiv.org/abs/1207.6433 and http://www.pnas.org/content/97/1/28.full. You also might want to take a look at the seminal article by P.W. Anderson: "More is different"
Comment: The above articles don't talk directly about topological order. But they build of the necessary background in understanding topological order better.
Comment: Thanks again!I think the question that confusing me is not the one that I ased ! Thanks for your great answer and patient!
Comment: @NanoPhys: Thank you for your nice answer and it also helps me! But I am a little confused why time reversal symmetric perturbation can only destroy edge states in pairs. Consider the case where there are 3 pairs of edge states in one edge and they all have the same energy, why cannot a time reversal perturbation couple one state of a pair to states of the other two pairs? In that case, it looks there can be elastic back scattering. Can you help me understand this point?
Comment: @Mr.Gentleman: Please refer to the image in the question: http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/88683/is-band-inversion-a-necessary-and-sufficient-condition-for-topological-insulat

Is edge state of topological insulator really robust？


Borrowing money to buy shares for cashflow?

Question: I currently have lots of equity in my house in Sydney. I am holding 2 investment properties that are negative and really draining my cash flow as we have young kids and wife only works part time. I have been looking at using some equity to invest in shares through a broker to help pay down primary mortgage ($400k). Likely mainly dividend shares, fully franked. I am not across shares so not sure what is possible and what amount of risks this will expose us to? Good or bad idea? What further questions should I be asking?
Comment: When did you buy the properties? What is your rental yield? What is your net loss on the properties? The more information you provide, usually the better answers you will get.
Comment: With upcoming changes to negative gearing (that also affect me) I would seriously consider losing an investment property. Hopefully your investments are in Sydney/Melbourne or somewhere else that has had rapid growth since you purchased them.
Comment: 2013 - Bris. Purchase $550k rents for $535 per week. 2016 - Cairns. $155k purchase rents $250 pw. Bris is the cashflow negative.
Answer: Buying individual/small basket of high dividend shares is exposing you to 50%+ and very fast potential downswings in capital/margin calls. There is no free lunch in returns in this respect: nothing that pays enough to help you pay your mortgage at a high rate won't expose you to a lot of potential volatility.
Main issue here looks like you have very poorly performing rental investments you should consider selling or switching up rental usage/how you rent them (moving to shorter term, higher yield lets, ditching any agents/handymen that are taking up capital/try and refinance to lower mortgage rates etc etc). Trying to use leveraged stock returns to pay for poorly performing housing investments is like spraying gasoline all over a fire. Fixing the actual issue in hand first is virtually always the best course of action in these scenarios.
Comment: If I understand correctly, the OP would be using a mortgage debt to buy the shares. As such it wouldn't be directly tied to the share performance and would not be subject to a margin call.
Comment: The broker would select and manage share purchases in line with goal. I'm pretty uneducated on share types but assume it would be mainly geared towards diversified funds.
Comment: If the broker is managing it all you also quickly enter the usual free riding moral hazard problem if they are taking a cut for managing it: they want you to ante up as much as possible as they just get paid on capital/transcations regardless of results. It's been said a lot in this thread already, but this looks a very bad plan. You are much better off exiting the loss making house than trying to fight fire with an even hotter fire that could leave you with virtually nothing but huge debts.
Answer: Don't do it.  I would sell one of my investment houses and use the equity to pay down your primary mortgage.  Then I would refinance my primary mortgage in order to lower the payments.
Comment: Will def seek a lower mortgage rate but selling investments at moment would be borderline loss given I have only had them short term. Might just have to get a better rate and ride it outside a bit longer.
Answer: This depends on:

what your mortgage interest rate is if it is fixed
what level of risk you can tolerate

Here in the US where I am, interest rates were around 3.9% when I fixed my mortgage. This underperforms the market, e.g., a total market ETF like $VTI or an SP500 ETF like $VOO have expected returns of ~7+%, the current market growth rate. So, in theory I am better off paying into the market, and making returns greater than my interest rate, rather than paying into the equity.
HOWEVER, past market returns do not guarantee future market returns. The market could reset. It could crash. Are you willing to accept this risk? You have to analyze what happens if the market suffers say a 30% correction and you lose a lot of money quickly.
I would certainly not invest in individual (non-ETF) stocks, or you are really exposing yourself to risk.
Comment: At $400k, AUD or USD alike in this case, you are looking at enough money that you could in principle gather an index together yourself. You are certainly dealing with enough money that you could get significant diversification. Now, dumping all of that $400k into a small number of companies... *that's* probably a bad idea.
Comment: Mortgage is currently 4.08 P/I on $400k and 4.58% I/O on investments
Answer: Maybe a bit off topic, but I suggest reading "Rich Dad Poor Dad" by Robert Kiyosaki.
An investment is something that puts money to your pocket. If your properties don't put money to your pocket (and this seems to be the case), then they're not an investment. Instead, they drain money from you pocket.
Therefore you should instead turn these "investments" into real investments. Make everything to earn some money using them, not to earn money somewhere else to cover the loses they create.
If that's not possible, get rid of them and find something that "puts money into your pocket".
Comment: I have read it but might revisit
Answer: It's generally a bad idea to use low-risk credit (low-risk in sense you're practically guaranteed to be forced to pay it off) to buy high-risk shares. In optimistic scenario, the profit from shares would be higher than your credit percentages. In less optimistic scenario you come with nothing. In worse scenario you have worthless shares and another credit to pay.
If your only problem is the non-profitable property, you can always sell it and get rid of negative cash flow. It won't affect your quality of life negatively. In your high-risk scenario you trade the opportunity for a bit better life with for a risk of turning it into disaster for you and your family.


How does Android calculate battery consumption by apps?

Question: How does Android measure energy used by individual hardware component?
How does Android measure energy used by each individual process?
Comment: @Algo: It will be totally misleading to assume a background application that uses a lot of CPU is more battery hungry than another application that uses little CPU but a lot of Wifi and GPS and display.
Comment: I guess how many instructions are performed in 1 sec.
Comment: If so then you can get hint from the number of permissions that an application acquired.. just an idea.
Comment: @LieRyan in the battery stats, isn't wifi, gps, bluetooth, etc, calculated as their own "consumer" of the battery?
Answer: Android tracks events that affect battery usage and stores this information in batterystats.bin file. Some examples:

length of time screen was on with a specific brithness setting
which application (or non Android app process) and how long held a wake lock (prevents device from sleeping)
CPU usage per process (Android app or other process)
phone signal strength
GPS usage
etc.

Android computes how much power each Application or component (e.g. screen) uses based on configuration information included on the device by the manufacturer.
Not everything is measured so the statistics can be sometimes misleading, but it gets better with every Android Platform release.
Battery statistics can be dumped from the device using:
<code>adb shell dumpsys batterystats
</code>
Here is interesting fragment of a post by Diane Hackborn with more details about wake locks power consumption:

There are two ways power from wake locks is computed.

On some chipsets, simply holding a wake lock needs to prevent the CPU from going to a full deep sleep. In the reported battery usage,
  this extra power use will be distributed across all apps holding wake
  locks.
Even if the wake lock itself doesn't cause power use, holding a wake lock in one app can allow other applications to run and CPU when
  they wouldn't otherwise. (For example, some app may have a { sleep(1);
  do something; } loop that wouldn't run if no wake locks are held.) To
  address this, half of the CPU usage of applications is distributed to
  be blamed on the ones holding wake locks.
Comment: The correct command for new devices (not sure from which API) should be : adb shell dumpsys batterystats , or (in case you want it inside a file) : adb shell dumpsys batterystats > batterystats.txt
Comment: can you provide sources/reference that proof your answer ?
Comment: All information is from the provided link to google+ thread by Google developer familiar with this area.


How do I find a set in a bunch of jumbled up pieces

Question: So my mum bought a LEGO set on eBay a while ago and it didn't come with instructions or a box so we didn't know how to build it but since then it has been jumbled up with a whole bunch of other pieces so I don't know what's in the set and what isn't.  Also, I think it's the from Belville range (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belville_(Lego)).
Comment: Welcome to LEGO Answers.  These questions are much more likely to get answered if you can upload a picture.  The more unusual pieces are more likely to help narrow it down.  http://brickset.com/sets/theme-belville
Answer: Start by looking for some rarer pieces. Not regular 4x2 bricks, but maybe a slide or a odd-shaped wall piece. Under each brick will be a four or 5 digit number. Go to BrickSet.com and search for that number, hopefully it will find the piece you are looking at and list colours that piece is available in and the sets it comes in (e.g. http://brickset.com/parts/design-6187). From there you just look up and down the list until you see a set that contains the other pieces you have, or search for another part and see if there are sets from the first list that appear on the second list. The trick is to find a part that is sufficiently rare.


Typing in 2 different applications at the same time

Question: I am typing code on Google Docs through Chrome. What I want is for an app to enter whatever I type in the Google Docs into an open XCode editor. This way while I am done typing code I can check for errors. The hard way is to finish coding and select everything and then copy and paste.
In short: I am looking for an app that helps you type in 2 different applications at the same time.
Answer: As far as I know no, mostly due to the way the OS X window manager is setup you need to have the text area to have focus to receive key input (but not all key events).
However, this is not to say it's not possible, but I can't think of a way to do it 'live', as in sending the text char by char. If I was looking at doing it basically what I'd be trying to to basically keylog myself (list of keyloggers), and hack a script to switch to Chrome, dump the text and switch back to Xcode, but that's about as gracefully as I can think of and even that's a pretty ugly way to do it.
There's probably a nicer way to do it, but I'd start with the keylogger and build from there.


Request to reopen question 461022

Question: I've made drastic changes to this closed question How does the CPU and GPU interact in displaying computer graphics?. Since it was a quite popular one with more than 300 views in just a couple of hours I'd really like to reopen it instead of posing a new question.
Comment: "*I'd really like to reopen it instead of posing a new question.*" You should **always** try to reopen before posting a new question. Well done! :)
Answer: Done; I've reopened the question
Answer: For reopening questions do the following

Flag the question
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Request to reopen question 461022


How to change a large section of bytes to words in IDA Pro

Question: I have a large section in IDA that is a data lookup table of word length data.  I want to change them all to word length rather than byte length.  I know you can make an array but when I do it becomes an array of bytes.
Answer: There may be a better way of doing it, but I've always accomplished this with a simple script that lets me just select the range of bytes that I want to convert to dwords. Something like:
<code>ea = SelStart()
end = SelEnd()

print "Making DWORDs from 0x%X - 0x%X" % (ea, end)

MakeUnknown(ea, (end-ea), DOUNK_SIMPLE)

while ea < end:
    MakeDword(ea)
    ea += 4
</code>
Comment: That's a good idea, I haven't started using scripts that much yet so I didn't even think about doing that.
Answer:
Create one word (or dword)
Use the "Make array" command to create an array of words. You can select the range of data you want to convert to automatically calculate the item count.

If you want to have each element as a separate item and not part of array, uncheck the "Create as array" option.
Answer: Here is how I did it.
I changed the first couple of bytes to data, made an array so I had an array of words and then edited the array to contain more elements.
Answer: According to devttys0's answer.
This script is for IDA version higher than 7.4.
<code>  def convert_data():
        align_size = ida_kernwin.ask_long(4, "align size")
        if align_size == None:
            return
        start = idc.read_selection_start()
        end = idc.read_selection_end()
        print("Align %d bytes from 0x%X - 0x%X" % (align_size, start, end))
        ida_bytes.del_items(start, (end-start), ida_bytes.DELIT_SIMPLE)
        flag = None
        if align_size == 1:
            flag = ida_bytes.FF_BYTE
        elif align_size == 2:
            flag = ida_bytes.FF_WORD
        elif align_size == 4:
            flag = ida_bytes.FF_DWORD
        elif align_size == 8:
            flag = ida_bytes.FF_QWORD
        elif align_size == 16:
            flag = ida_bytes.FF_OWORD

        if flag == None:
            ida_kernwin.warning("align size is invalid")
            return

        while start < end:
            ida_bytes.create_data(start, flag, align_size, ida_idaapi.BADADDR)
            start += align_size
</code>