Does adding a click count next to a hyperlink enhance the user experience?

Question: What is the main purpose behind Discourse's link click count?
Comment: It's hard to be objective in UX.. Never disappointing me in learning something new, this website.
Comment: Oh, it's a click counter?! I've visited quite some discourse pages lately and constantly wondered what this silly number was. If you are going to do this, make sure you tell your users.
Comment: Most things in UX seem to be a double-edged sword. If the social proof is valid then users build on this experience and learn to trust it. If the social proof turns out to be a 'hype' then users learn from this experience and learn not to trust it.
Answer: The short answer to the high level UX question here is -- it depends -- so here are a few cases why a company like discourse might choose to put click counters next to their hyperlinks along with things to watch out for...
I'm new here what does everyone else click?
Sometimes when I visit a new restaurant I'll ask the waiter what most people order.  This is usually a good indication that something is delicious otherwise tons of people wouldn't be ordering it.
Click counts here could serve a similar purpose, however, it may also backfire because it is easier to click a bad link solely because it has been clicked a lot and not because it's relevant.
Do I want to be the first one to click this spyware link?
Another reason to show a collective counter next to a hyperlink is that it could indicate risk.
If a link doesn't have very many clicks then it could navigate to something terrible or it could take you to the most amazing undiscovered content online.
Are you a risk taker?
Choose wisely.
Counting hyperlink clicks is passive
The final reason for doing this is that it doesn't require users to do anything extra.  The act of visiting a link is a vote whether you like where it goes or not.  If the link is beneficial and relevant then you are more likely to tell others to click on it and/or click on it again yourself from another device.
Google realized early on that a hyperlink is simply the internet's way of marking a page as worth visiting.  If there are many different companies linking to the same page then it must be more relevant than a page with similar content that nobody links to.  That certainly isn't always the case but it's true enough to make google a verb in the dictionary.
Comment: I can't find any official quotes as to why discourse does this but you know what?  I also can't find any links with counters next to them on their website.
Comment: Good answer, many news sites use "hot topics" / "most read topics" section on their site, and sometimes when I navigate to any of the links I wonder "why the h*ll is this a hot or most read topic?"... if people click on an "interesting" link, it might still not have that interesting content behind it. Not always a good thing as you pointed out.
Comment: Good point. Yet, I see discourse as Jeff's UX masterpiece, so I was hoping for a convincing answer, preferably by the discourse team, or a quote thereof.
Comment: I like your 'real world' example at lot. While I also tend to ask the waiter ""hat can you recommend?" and often I get the answer "XY is quite popular" I would probably be still a bit irritated if I found a counter on the menu.
Comment: Ah well, maybe I can finally get that badge for getting way more votes than the accepted answer -- :)
Answer: According to, literally, the first result when you google discourse click count, Jeff Atwood defends the click counter as a valuable signal for users to determine if a link is worth clicking:

The purpose of links is to be clicked, their entire existence is predicated on being clicked at some point, and showing the click data gives you, THE READER, valuable signal about what others found worth clicking, as described in Don't Click Here: The Art of Hyperlinking. It also bubbles up to the topic level so for a long topic you can see the top (n) links for the entire topic based on clicks, to get just the "best of" links that others found most valuable, rather than reading and parsing the entire topic to get there.
There is nothing sadder than the unclicked link.
Comment: I don't buy it; no one can tell if it was worth clicking until after the count has already been incremented.  This is almost like arguing _for_ [clickbait](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clickbait), something I think we all want to see less of...
Comment: Don't judge a link by it's anchor text. Trust me, I do SEO.
Comment: @Izkata I agree. But, that's not the point of my answer. The point is that Jeff Atwood thinks there's value in it. There's plenty of discussion on the topic in the linked thread.
Comment: Darrick has way better Google foo than I do.  Thanks for finding and posting this quote which certainly answers the question in the case of why Discourse chooses to use link counters.  There is still plenty of room for discussion if this choice "enhances the user experience" in general.
Comment: If it showed the number of people to visit the page, that's a different story. Often linked-to pages are a good sign of what's worth clicking.
Answer: It's very simple: social proof.
People are more persuaded when they know many others have traveled the same way.
This click counter is very prominent in Like buttons, to serve the same purpose:
Comment: TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both,
A sign post harks of Facebook likes,
"33,192 travelers doth passed."
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one most traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Comment: @Mazyod this answer is of poor quality. It just says "Well Facebook does it, so should you." with no additional insights nor explanations. Facebook has been wrong before (FBX anyone?). What about when the click counter says only 2 people have clicked? Does it carry the same effect? This answer addresses none of your question.
Comment: There's a pretty big difference here, when you click a link you can't take it back and there is no way to verify you wanted what was on the other end of the link whereas with a "like" you already know the content and have determined its significance.
Comment: I would understand "social proof" – but either the question is misleading, or the answer is: IMHO "facebook likes" are not the same as "click counts".
Comment: i see your point – but how does "following the herd" really "enhance the user experience" ?
Comment: click counts shows you what others have done. Like's counter shows you what people voted for. The psychological mechanism of following the herd is the same.
Comment: @DaveAlger I didn't refuse your answer because you didn't have a quote.. I said "I was hoping for a **convincing answer**, **preferably** from ...". His answer is from goodui.com, which I can see Jeff referencing for his website.
Comment: @SnakeDoc, the answer is sound as it gets. The explanation is very simple ("Social proof"), even if it's short. Note my answer does not rely on FB, rather just reinforces and clarifies the argument with a common sensible example.
Answer:
Does adding a click count next to a hyperlink enhance the user
experience?

The fact that the use of click counter makes use of social proof as clearly suggested by many answers here is true and rightly so. That being said, does it improve the user experience?
Yes it does, here is why:

Social proof is a psychological phenomenon where people reference the
behavior of others to guide their own behavior.
Source: Social Proof in the User Experience

This helps us deal with uncertainty and comfort/aid our decision making process. As such, a click count next to a hyperlink as well as numerous other examples of social proof such as user reviews, likes and dislikes, sharing etc all fall under the banner of facilitating, informing and guiding user decision process and as such improves overall user experience.
On the other hand:

Occasionally, in usability studies, users tell us that they don't care
about user reviews, they don't trust other people's opinions, and they
make all of their decisions based totally on their own independent
perspective. Unfortunately, thousands of psychology studies prove this
"lone wolf" theory to be quite false — another example of why we
should base design decisions on what users do rather than what they
say.
Source: Social Proof in the User Experience

How will users know it is worth clicking ?
In most cases they will not know (entirely) ! but will have to make and educated guess and weigh their options based on clues embedded in the context in which the link is used; text used for the link, how its used, by whom etc and gradually buildup a picture of how credible the link is. The more clues they find the more likely they are to make a decision to explore further.
The click counter only indicates how "credible" the link is based on other users perception.

Win-Win situation:
Using social proof is a win-win situation for all involved:

Business get to increase their credibility (Quality of social proof assumed)
users are guided and informed by relying on the wisdom of the crowds.
Designers and devloppers get to work on innovating and discovering new ways of doing things.

Testing Social Proof:

The most significant risk with using social proof is the perception
that too few people approve of the piece of content, service, or
product.
Source: Social Proof in the User Experience

So for any social proof solution to be viable it needs to be tested and validated. below are some testing considerations to take into account:
Answer: I can't see how a click counter next to the actual link would enhance the ux – if the links were not part of some time of "hot list". And even then the probability of 'backfiring' as @DaveAlger points out would be a reason not to display click counts nest to the actual links.
Instead IMHO I would suppose a click counter would actually distract many users and make them click on different link – or at leat make them think they would have clicked on a different link – which would then again make it bad ux.
If click-counting is what the client wants, I would try to pursuade him to either hide the results and make them only visible on demand ("show link poularity" or smth similar) or to leave the display of clicks counted to the follow up page.. which would then probably look like the good old page view counter.
An alternative approach could be to have some seperate section displaying "popular links" or "popupal articles". That's actually a feature I quite like on news websites and the like.
Answer: Several answers have talked about 'social proof' and how the fact that many people have done something makes us more likely to want to do it.
I believe, in a forum context there is a further purpose to the click count. The fact that 1,000 people have clicked on something, most or all of them not knowing the contents at the time of clicking, might not make it any more worthwhile. However, knowing that 1,000 people have clicked on something helps us evaluate it alongside the other comments that have been posted in the forum.
Basically, if the contents of a link are misleading, offensive or useless, we expect that some other person will leave a comment warning us of this. This of course can not always be true, someone has to be the first person to click on a dodgy link. However, as the number of clicks rises, it becomes much more unlikely that the link is undesirable content, but that no-one has yet posted a warning response.
TL;DR: If a lot of people have already clicked on a link, but no one has posting some comment warning us of spam/a broken link/goatse.cx, we can be confident the link is kosher.


"Fade out" with Blender internal engine?

Question: I'm doing a small project for someone, it's just text and a plane object. A total of 17 objects including the lamps. I want to achieve the same effect as the transparency node in cycles to fade out, but rendering at 350 samples for over 24 hours only rendered 250 frames. I am stuck with CPU rendering, and using a laptop, but that's what I have for now. If I can do this with the internal engine then that would be ideal. The finished project will be around 1440 to 2160 frames at minimum. If it makes a difference for guidance in the most efficient way to do this, the vertices count is around 2,000,000 on the .blend file, and I will be adding a glossy to the materials, and the world setting will be a texture. Just have to remember how to set that up, I haven't done that for quite some time in BI. Thanks in advance everyone!
Comment: So you would like to know how to animate the transparency of a material in Blender Render?
Comment: Correct. I know in cycles I can add a keyframe to the transparency node and the selected objects will go from fully visible to transparent over the course of the set amount of frames. If it's possible to do the same in the internal engine, I would prefer to do that for the sake of time.
Answer: Certenly is possible, but you have to consider that Blender Render and Cycles handle transparecy in a different way, so you'll probably have to make a few adjustment to your scene to get similar results.
You can animate the alpha factor directly from the Material's menu

Or the alpha output factor in the node editor (if you are going for node based material).

Don't froget to enable Z Transparecy or Raytrace option for transparency calculation method (for node based material you can find it under Render Pipeline Options).


In Halo 4, how does one level up their specialization that they've chosen after reaching level 50?

Question: The question is really in the title. (oops.) Is there some kind of special assignment I have to do to rank up my specialization, or do I continue to rank up normally? (I picked Stalker, and I don't know if I should continue leveling up like normal, or if there's a specific task I have to complete in order to get the next Stalker "rank"... help?
Comment: You should keep gaining XP and ranking up through the Stalker sub-ranks until you get to SR60, where you can pick a new specalization...is this not happening? Or do you want to "go back" and pick a new one? Because you have to "complete" that one before picking a new one.
Answer: Leveling up follows the same process after level 50, with the small exception that you have to choose a Specialization.  If you do not, you will stop gaining XP (as I found out the hard way).  Once you have chosen the Specialization (as in your case), you just keep doing what you did to get to level 50.  The only way to gain XP is by playing - and primarily you gain XP by playing War Games and Spartan Ops missions (with the latter being significantly advantaged in the XP department).
One other slight nuance is that Specializations unlock a Support Upgrade or Tactical Package once you get to the 10th level of the Specialization.  Other than the cosmetic benefits of the armor, weapon skins, emblems, etc - the level 10 unlock is the main reason for each Specialization.  Just because you unlock it at the 10th level does not mean it is automatically activated - you need to go to the Loadout Customization interface and choose the Support Upgrade or Tactical Package at that point.
More information than you were probably after, but I thought I'd share.


A straight cut line into a shape in Inkscape

Question: I have a shape, which I designed in Inkscape. I uploaded back into Inkscape as PNG or SVG (tried both), and I want to add a line into the shape, which my cutting machine will cut. I want a cut in the paper to hold an end of a thread. I have tried combining then path/cut, just path/cut, then adding a rectangle on top then combine/path/cut, etc.... Do I need to make the shape over? Then how do I add the cut into the shape? Thanks for any help!
Comment: There is no predefined way to do this. Refer to the manufacturers documentation.
Answer: We do not know how your cutting software works and what it demands. If it cuts along SVG paths you can make one which starts inside your shape.

A closed path. Node A is selected and the curve is splitted to open path by breaking it with the node tool at node A. After the splitting both the start and end node of the path are at the same place.
One of the nodes is selected with the node tool and moved temporarily downwards 5 ticks (set in preferences how much a tick means) with an arrow key
The other node is selected with the node tool and then the curve is continued upwards with the pen tool (=2 left clicks and one right click to stop at B)
The temporarily moved node is moved back 5 ticks

I guess it's useful to try to program the cutting to start from B.
ADD after the questioner revealed he uses Cricut cutting machine:
Without any special settings Cricut's control software obviously thinks the inserted piece AB is unwanted garbage and removed it automatically. Are such settings possible? That stays hidden for non-customers.
All shown design examples seemed to have closed outlines. In Inkscape you can subtract another closed shape from your actual design shape to make a notch:

The red shape is drawn on the blue one, both are selected and Path > Subtract is applied.
It's unknown how narrow the red piece can be before the result is considered to be garbage.
A tutorial video had a hint: Use scissors or a blade for easy cuts.
Comment: Thank you! I bet that will work!!!
Comment: @JuliaRN It would make this case more useful if you inserted the type of your cutter and the results of the performed attempts to your question.
Comment: Cricut is my cutting machine. I get the shape cut but not the line going into the shape. Thx


Are there no Buddhas from other universes that are equal to our Buddha?

Question: Buddha said "nowhere between the lowest of hells below and the highest heaven above, nowhere in all the infinite worlds that stretch right and left, is there the equal, much less the superior, of a Buddha. Incalculable is the excellence which springs from obeying the Precepts and from other virtuous conduct." - Apannaka Jataka
Answer: All this passage really says is that attaining buddhahood is the highest ideal one can reach for, in this universe or any other. This isn't about 'our' buddha, or this buddha or that buddha. This is about the state of being awakened.
Answer:
Are there no Buddhas from other universes that are equal to our Buddha?

There can only ever be one fully enlightened Buddha (Sammasambuddha), like our Buddha Gautama, at a time.
The next fully enlightened Buddha is called Metteyya.
Comment: So only our universe got the one fully enlightened Buddha?
Comment: Our Buddha was born into the human realm so he lived here but he also visited other realms and taught the beings that lived there. If you are interested in this, I can recommend a really good book on Buddhist Cosmology by Ajahn Punnadhammo. It's called [*"The Buddhist Cosmos"*](https://www.arrowriver.ca/book/cosmoBook.php) and is a free of charge.
Comment: @Orionixe, - there is an excellent series of talks on Buddhist Cosmology by Ajahn Sona and Ajahn Punnadhammo. I highly recommend this along with the book suggestion by Rain.

[Series on Buddhist Cosmology](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCXN1GlAupG3yowPq9fiy35EUC_uoEUrZ)
Answer: When the Buddha speaks of worlds he is talking about that in the world by which the world is perceived & conceived because that is what is called a world in that training.
There are many subjective frames of percepience  by which the world is conceived and no two frames of perception are the same.
It is proven that there is no simultaneity of perceived events between observers (physics) and it helps to grasp this to appreciate the semantics of the dhamma and how each world is different from another.


How do international users use Ctrl-] efficiently? Remapping?

Question: Ctrl-] is how one is supposed to move around interactively in Vim on "linkable" text, for instance in the help files. On US layouts, this is simply a two finger combo. Unfortunately the "]" character is a bit awkward to type on Norwegian keyboard layouts (AltGr+9), so I was simply wondering what other fellow Vim-users with non-English layouts do to efficiently move about?
Comment: I think that the question could be edited to be more general: On [french keyboard](http://www.keyboardco.com/keyboard_images/filco_tenkeyless_french_keyboard_large.jpg) the key is accessed by the same type of mapping (`<°>`) and I think this is also the case of other layouts... I don't really know how to rephrase it but I think the question would be useful to more people if it wasn't only 'norvegian' in the title. Now about the actual question I agree with @KarlYngveLervåg: `<°>` became natural and it isn't a problem anymore.
Comment: Tried editing the title a bit.
Comment: I actually use `9` myself, and find it ok. I guess it's much because I'm so used with it, though.
Comment: After finding I was fighting too much with the usual shortcuts with a Norwegian layout, I gave up and started using a US layout by default, switching back and forth when I need special characters. But I might come back :)
Comment: I also switched to the US keyboard. I have a ``toggleProseDE`` function in my vimrc which does a couple of things (ex: enable spell checking for German). Inside the func, I define stuff like ``inoremap aa a:`` which inserts ``ä`` when pressing ``a`` twice. I used it not so often so the additional waiting time is not a problem. See the table at the end of  [:digraphs](http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/digraph.html) for a list of chars.
Answer: In the place where ANSI US has [ and ] Nordic keyboards have å and ¨, of which the latter is really not bindable, since it sends "half a character" and waits for the character to be accented. For example, pressing ¨a outputs ä.
One solution would be to "left-shift" the binding to CTRL-å (the key to the right of P).
I personally switch between US and Finnish/Nordic layouts quite often and write code almost exclusively in US layout.
Comment: Yeah, that's what I do too. But then using other people's computers is a mess, especially on OS X where you also need to enable Opt (Alt) as a Meta key to get readline support in the terminal, but then you cannot type any of the characters needing Alt ... That reminds me, that is my next question on some macOS forum :p
Answer: I use a customized us layout and access ligatures by vim mappings and
OS option key mappings instead of spending a whole key on them.
For instance, I use aeo, which are adjacent on qgmlwb (jkl), to get æ.
noremap! aeo æ

By default you can also use <c-k>ae.
Comment: hmm ... that is doable, but doesn't really help outside of vim. good tip, though.
Comment: @oligofren, yes, but outside vim you can use OS wide option/alt bindings, e.g. alt-a --> æ.  (Surely you don't plan on writing anything long outside vim anyway.)
Comment: Nonono, of course I do all my Slacking in vim through some plugin.
Comment: OMG, I just had to google that. "Of course" there is a vim-slack plugin (smacks forehead).


Are there shortcuts for numerically approximating systems of ordinary differential equations when autonomous?

Question: Existing algorithms for solving ODEs handle functions $\frac{dy}{dt} = f(y, t)$, where $y \in \mathbb R^n$. But in many physical systems, the differential equation is autonomous, so $\frac{dy}{dt} = f(y)$, $y \in \mathbb R^n$, with the $t$ left out. With this simplifying assumption, what improvements can be seen in existing numerical methods? For example, if $n=1$, the problem turns into $t = \int \frac{dy}{f(y)}$ and we turn to a wholly different class of algorithms for integrating one-dimensional integrals. For $n>1$, the maximum possible improvement is reducing the dimension of $y$ by 1, because the time-dependent case can be simulated by appending $t$ to $y$, changing the domain of $y$ from $\mathbb R^n$ to $\mathbb R^{n+1}$.
Answer: I would say one significant improvement is that in the scope of time-stepping approaches, where you propagate $y_n \rightarrow y_{n+1}=\mathcal{U}(y_n)$ using a solution map $\mathcal{U}$, you can determine the propagator (or at least parts of it) once and then re-use it at every time step.
For example, in the linear case you would have $\partial_t y = A y$, where $A$ is a matrix. The solution operator $\mathcal{U}(y) = \exp(A \Delta t)y$ consists mainly of a matrix exponential. For autonomous systems, this costly matrix exponential evaluation is required only once for the complete propagation -- in contrast to a time-dependent system, where you have to perform this evaluation at every time step.
For nonlinear systems it is not that easy, but depending on the algorithm certain costly evaluations can be re-used.


Any way to visualize how will game objects look on different screens?

Question: After completing my game and sending it to a bunch of friends with different devices, they complained about how some game buttons were too small. (I have developped a touchscreen game but after finishing and having issues with the touch detection I just decided I'd place buttons for controls on the screen. ) I obviously put all the button in a canvas, so it should normally scale with the screen and keep its anchor point, but the problem apparently is that it DID keep the anchor point, but it didn't scale, so even though the buttons looked pretty huge on my small sized game screen, and looked decent in an 480 x 800 emulator, it looked very mini sized in a 720x1280 phone. Any help on how I can make a button scale to the screen? Thanks!
Answer: You can preview how your game looks with different sizes of screen and aspect ratios in the Game tab. (The one that shows when you hit "Play" to play your game in the Unity editor.) There is a dropdown under that tab to switch resolutions. I'll attach a screenshot.
Note that what options are in the dropdown will change based on your selected platform under build settings.
Answer: You can manually scale it by setting the size to be a percentage of the screen width/height. Make a variable(if you want) that is a value from 0.0 to 1.0 and multiply it by Screen.height(or .width). That is your new width/height. You should make the position relative also. Nevermind that part, you said the anchor works.
Comment: If the OP is using Unity's UI components, there is absolutely no need to do this with code.


How do airlines (or the government) retrieve information from the black box of an aircraft?

Question: When black-boxes are found, how is the information retrieved from within the data storage?  Is there a special kind of device used for this?
Answer: They send it to the manufacturer (or other lab) who knows how to get the data out.
Old black boxes stored the data on tape which they take out put in a reader and print out the data. Partially damaged tape can still be read, the result will be a data stream with holes in it.
Newer black boxes use solid state storage (like one of those 8gig memory cards). It will be put in a reader to read it out. The exact format of the data will be specific per manufacturer.
Then the analysts will make nice graphs of it for the investigators.
Comment: I don't think I've ever heard they would send it to manufacturer. Usually it's either the local air-accident investigation board or they ask one of the major ones (NTSB (USA), BEA (France), MAK (Russia), AAIB (UK)) to do it (usually depending on which country the _aircraft_ was manufactured in as that investigation board is involved anyway).
Comment: "other lab" usually includes the relevant local air-accident investigation organisations (e.g. AAIB, BEA) - the recorder manufacturer may only be involved if the normal means of reading the data fail.
Comment: During the investigation of the [Garuda Indonesia Flight 200 crash](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garuda_Indonesia_Flight_200), the FDR had to be sent back to Boeing for data retrieval.
Comment: I didn't realize Boeing made FDRs...
Answer: If the blackbox is intact, procedures described in other answers would apply. If, however, the data storage device (ssd, tape, etc.) itself is damaged, it will be given to forensic experts such as police criminal unit or other expert group or company that specializes in data recovery. For them it doesn't make much difference that the storage device is in fact an aircraft flight data recorder storage, they handle it in pretty much the same manner as any other device.
Blackbox itself is unimportant, only the data on storage devices is.
Comment: Actually, the NTSB often recovers data from the blackbox. When have they ever used outside experts other than the manufacturer?
Comment: World's bigger than the U.S. and NTSB isn't  the only investigation authority.


How to disable battery full notification sound?

Question: When battery has been charged full, my Galaxy S phone gives the same notification sound that is used when I receive SMS. Is there a way to disable the sound without also disabling sound from SMS? It usually charge the phone during night and wake up easily to the "Battery fully charged. Unplug charger" notification sound :(
Comment: Anyone know if this just for the galaxy s?  I don't think I've ever seen this in stock Android or cyanogenmod?
Comment: My Galaxy Tablet turns the screen on after fully charging while I'm trying to sleep at night: pretty stupid!
Comment: I have a Galaxy Gio running FroYo, and I think this may be a Samsung 'feature.'
Comment: Must be. My Droid doesn't do that.
Comment: @PPO1: My Galaxy S phone used to to that too, but that went away after upgrading to Froyo 2.2 ( or 2.2.1 - don't now exactly but it did went away after an upgrade ).
Comment: my galaxy-fit has the same issue
Comment: For the record -- LG L5 with Android 4.0 has also fixed audio notification :-(
Comment: I have the same problem. My battery seems to run out so quickly these days that my phone is constantly bouncing from full to low. So strange that it thinks the battery-state-change is as 'important' as a message. My phone is more demanding than a toddler!
Answer: From what I can find, there is no way to turn it off:
no solution in the samsung galaxy s forum
no solution in the vodafone forum
Tasker can't suppress it
However, one commenter notes
Some custom ROMs rebuild the framework and rip the notification out entirely.
Check out the XDA forums if you'd like to try that stuff.
Typically requires root and a good working knowledge of how to use
Clockwork Recovery, Odin, etc... not for the faint of heart.

Comment: Oh bummer. Well, I used Tasker to suppress notification sounds during night. That is not a perfect solution as I cannot then hear SMS sounds, but at least I can now sleep :D
Comment: My Serendipity ROM (http://serendipityrom.weebly.com/) removes the battery full sound.  A lot of work for one simple thing, but if one is considering a custom ROM anyway it's something to consider.
Comment: Too bad - I have the same issue with my Samsung Galaxy Gio and I would love to get rid of the notification sound. Will the Gingerbread update help fix this?
Answer:
Set the global notifications to silent.
Set the notification on messaging to any ringtone (not default).
Repeat (2) for any other app you want notifications for.

You'll still have a tone when you 1st plug the phone in to the charger, but no tone when it's fully charged.  Of course, this isn't a perfect solution since you need to manually set every other app, and presumably some won't have individual notification settings.
Answer: I stumbled upon this question because I want to recharge my phone at night next to my bed. Therefore, I do not want it to wake me, but setting the phone to silent does not solve it, as I want to be reachable for emergency calls.
My solution (which isn't strictly a correct answer to the question, but might solve the problem for most people) was using the app "Night Ringer Free", which enables me to enter a whitelist for calls/sms, however, all other sounds are silenced.
Answer: From the XDA Developers Forum, I have implemented this solution successfully on my Samsung Galaxy S Epic 4G (with GingerBread.EI22 and also GingerBread.EL30), which has eliminated the "Battery fully charged. Unplug charger" notifications from my phone.  The solution offers the following three features:

Stops the vibration.
Silences the sound.
Prevents the screen from turning on in the middle of the night.

Best of all, you may choose to implement any (or ALL) of the three features above.  Good Luck!
Answer: Try Sound Manager. Schedule volumes of types of sounds with it (6 categories). Switch off notification (Battery full, e-mail notification etc.) volume from 12 to 7 while leaving untouched ring and media volumes and you're all set. Works on my brandnew Samsung Galaxy s2.
Slept well  last night without a disturbance! I used to swich to buzz only before going to sleep and to remember to switch it back to ring in the morning.
Sleep well!
Answer: Since updating my SGS from 2.2 to 2.3, I no longer get the charged notification sound, so I'm assuming they fixed the issue.
Answer: You could use:

'GravityBox' Xposed module (available separately for Lollipop, Kitkat and Jelly Bean) that has an option for exactly that
(Under Power tweaks -> Battery Charge sound tick).
Or an even more dedicated module Disable Battery Full Alert module.

For information on how to install 'xposed' modules, view a similar stack exchange post.
Comment: This is the most precise solution, that doesn't involve silencing your phone or whatnot. It disables specifically that notification, because [Samsung doesn't care](http://developer.samsung.com/forum/board/thread/view.do?boardName=General&messageId=278749&messageNumber=10752#post10).
Answer: I have a Samsung Charge, and was able to disable the annoying "Battery Full" notification by using Tasker.  As others have stated, the Tasker solution I used is not specific to disabling only the BatteryFull notification when reached, but it does limit the amount of time notifications are disabled and when.  What I did with Tasker:

Contexts-Power, Time between 11p-6a, Battery between 99-100% ...Task - disable notification
Contexts - Power, Time between 11p-6a, Battery Full ... Task - enable notification.

This should limit the amount of time notifications are disabled to only a few minutes, since it only takes that long to charge the battery from 99 to 100%.
Answer: I found something in these forums that involves rooting your phone to accomplish this task.  Keep in mind this is specifically for the Droid Charge.  However, you may be able to apply it your phone.  The basic principle involves rooting your phone and changing some system sound files with Root Explorer.  There was another answer that involved rooting your phone and installing a custom ROM, but I would wager that this is possible without the custom ROM.  Installing the custom ROM is the much more difficult step in my opinion (although I've personally done it).
Comment: It is not clear from your answer what kind of steps are you suggesting to take. Can you be more specific, please?
Comment: What is that "some system sound files"?


open omf or template first

Question: When using OMFs and AAFs with a protools template is there any advantage in opening the OMF first and then importing the template or opening the template first and then importing the OMF?
Answer: The way i work usually is that i open the OMF in a new session based on the template in pro tools. I separate and clean the OMF like sending all you sfx to your template sfx tracks or taking two mono tracks of the same thing and putting them on a stereo track etc... Afterwards i delete all unused tracks and i do a "save copy in" and rename the project OMF_Name_DDMMYY. Then if i have to send it to a Engineer in another studio he can just to import session data of the OMF.ptx and import in his own workflow.
Answer: So you open a pre built template first and then import the omf.
That's the way I would do it but I have seen a few on line tutorials open the omf first and then import the template. I was just wondering is there any advantage in doing it that way.
Answer: There is no difference between both, it's just a way of working. I do both.
Answer: I don't think it really matters what you do first... I have done it both ways and it worked fine.

open omf or template first


Is there a git remote service designed for non-code repos?

Question: My girlfriend wants to use git to track progress on her artpieces, and doesn't want that to go into a public repo. Are there any remotes that explicitly support this, or should I just point her to BitBucket?
Comment: Manually migrated from [SuperUser](https://superuser.com/q/1204025/360958)
Comment: I would suggest not to use Git because it's bad at handling binary files. PlasticSCM for example has better support for artistic files (it's one of their main features)
Comment: @AdriánArroyoCalle interesting! She uses SVGs, though, which is how I got the idea in the first place
Answer: It's not always necessary that you store only source code in your git repositories; you can store anything, like PDFs, docs, images, etc.
As far as her artwork is concerned, I know it is important to keep them private. There are many other git providers out there offering free private repositories. Some of them are:

Gitlab
Gitorious
ChiliProject
Coding.net
Kiln
Codeplane
Bitbucket

All of them provide free repositories. I would recommend (if not going for Bitbucket) Gitlab is also worth a try.


Are there permalinks to specific messages within a Gmail thread?

Question: I know you can copy/paste the URL bar to save a permalink for a message thread. Is there a way to permalink a specific message within a thread?
Answer: If Gmail is in "conversation view on", which you can change on the settings page, it will always thread the conversation. It appears to take the message ID, and weave it back into the proper conversation.
So even if you turn off conversation mode, then copy the url, then turn it back on, you will see the entire conversation. It doesn't appear to even expand the message of interest.


In baseball, can a player be replaced during an at-bat?

Question: In baseball, a player can replaced by any other player who hasn't yet appeared in the game. Can this replacement be made after a player has started batting and is still at the plate?
Comment: Would the same rule apply if the batter was ejected by the umpire during the AB?
Comment: Yes, that would be treated the same as any other replacement.
Answer: Absolutely.  From the 2018 MLB 0fficial Rules:
Rule 5.10(b):

A player, or players, may be substituted during a game at any time the ball is dead.

Rule 9.15(b):

When a batter leaves the game with two strikes against him, and the substitute batter
  completes a strikeout, the official scorer shall charge the strikeout and the time at
  bat to the first batter.  If the substitute batter completes the turn at bat in any other
  manner, including a base on balls, the official scorer shall score the action as having
  been that of the substitute batter.
Comment: Even if the pitcher is tossed for cheating (e.g. putting a substance on the ball)?  I would have guessed that it would be a balk because non of the pitches were fair.  I'm not arguing your answer I'm just surprised because it seems like a very unjust rule if defense gets to keep its ill gotten gains.
Comment: @shrewmouse Are you referring to a deleted comment?
Answer: Basically, any player, offense or defense, can be substituted for another, when the ball is not "in play."
The basic reason is injury. Suppose (and this would be a freak accident), a batter was hurt while hitting a foul ball. The manager might want to use a pinch hitter, rather than having the hurt batter continue to bat and run.
The new batter would inherit the ball-strike count of the old batter. As mentioned in another post, the new batter would be credited with the ultimate result EXCEPT when the original batter had accrued two of the three strikes in what ultimately becomes a strikeout.
Comment: "Suppose (and this would be a freak accident), a batter was hurt while hitting a foul ball." Freak accident? Rare admittedly, but I've seen it happen.


Do I need to cook homemade brown beer mustard?

Question: I want to try making a spicy brown beer mustard, and was wondering if I need to simmer the mustard to cook off the alcohol, or if I don't need to, how "alcoholic" the mustard can be (aka safe for kids)?
Thank you!
Answer: It is probably fine without extra cooking.
The recipes for beer mustard suggest that beer would likely be a third or less of the volume of the finished mustard (the major ingredients I saw being mustard seeds, vinegar, and any other flavorings).  Beer tends to be quite low in alcohol, as a rule, averaging about 5% (I've seen 3%-8%, and a few outliers with higher %s, but 5% is fairly common).  So your mustard is going to be, roughly 1.66% alcohol by volume - for comparison's sake, yeast brewed sodas are usually under 1% alcohol.  That is probably kid-safe, especially since mustard is usually used by the spoonful, not cupful, the alcohol intake will be likely be drops.  Now, if you pick a beer that's, say, 15% (among the highest I recall seeing), then your mustard might be as high as 5%, and if your kids take a cupful or more in a sitting, they will likely get buzzed - so some common sense should still apply.
On the other hand, it tends to take more time for alcohol to cook out than people think - like an hour or two.  Alcohol does evaporate faster than water, but not enough faster that they aren't being lost at the same time, so the going is pretty slow.  So a couple hours simmering will be needed to be pretty sure you got most of the alcohol out (and you will have to replace the water, or use more beer and deal with stronger flavor, something like that).  And if you're absolutely militant about not having any alcohol in your recipe, if for example you're dealing with allergies, you still won't be sure of getting every drop of alcohol out of the mustard.
If you want no alcohol at all, with no wiggle-room, you could probably find a non-alcoholic mustard recipe, or possibly experiment with non-alcoholic beer in your mustard.  But, if you're only worried about excess consumption - your beer mustard is likely safe even for kids, since the amount of alcohol consumed per serving is very low.
Answer: Checking out recipes for brown beer mustard online, it looks like there's a pretty even split between cooked and uncooked. Be advised that cooking will not remove all the alcohol - this question Cooking away alcohol and answers may help you should you decide to cook the mustard.
I can not answer as to how much beer would be safe for a child to consume (that would fall under health, which this site does not discuss). But you can look at how much beer is in the final product and go from there.
Example:
If beer makes up half the volume of the finished product and you have a 1 Tbsp serving, you would be consuming 1/2 Tbsp of beer (1/4 ounce), a 1/4 cup serving would have 2 Tbsp of beer (1 ounce).
The formula to determine how much in any given serving is:
Serving size X % beer in finished product = how much beer per serving.


What's a landing page?

Question: The marketing team says I need a landing page.  What is that and why should I bother?
Comment: If the marketing team can't answer this question for you, they're not qualified to tell you that you need one.
Comment: This question was one posted as part of the initial seeding of the site meant for search bait, not a serious question from an actual marketing team.
Answer: LANDING PAGES
Landing pages are highly optimized web pages that produce better results than the average web page.
There are two type of landing pages:
1) Content landing page, optimized to cover a specific question or task with loads of great content. These are made for search engines and users. (Great for indexing and organic search)
2) Task Landing pages, optimized for a very specific task. These pages are tested over time with A/B testing and Heat Mapping (And changed based on test results). Built around users and search.(Normally used with PPC Ads)
As far as marketing goes. The thing to be understand here is that landing pages are built for someone other than you. They are build around what makes action happen. The action they produce is what you are optimizing for.
MOST IMPORTANT: Landing pages have a very focused "call to action". If a Landing page doesn't ask you to do something, read more or contact us for example,  it is not a landing page.
Answer: A landing page is the page that appears when a user clicks on an ad.  It can be a bit more targeted than just your home page.
Comment: They generally contain details related to the advertisement you've clicked on so that the user can connect between the ad they clicked on and your product. If you just dumped them on the home page they might have a "wtf" moment and leave

What's a landing page?


Stage presence for a keyboard player

Question: There's a similar topic for guitar players here that has a lot of good general suggestions for everyone. However, being a keyboard player, I'm pretty limited on movement vs. guitar players or singers since my instrument is stationary. What is the way for a keyboard player to be able to build up a stage presence to a show?
Comment: One word: KEYTAR!
Answer: Keyboard player's stage presence is much like the drummer's situation. Better than that, keyboard player can be standing and vision of audience is not covered by metal sticks and discs spread all around, worse than that usually audience cannot see what or how a keyboard player plays the instrument. So body language should compensate for that.
For better communication, I prefer single keyboard setup rather than crowded setups to have some more freedom and space. I also have myself facing towards the crowd but with a slight angle to the stage to be able to face some of the stage and other players. I think 90 degree setups breaks the communication with the audience but may suit some music styles better.
Some tips:
(not for doing all the time but to spice up your stage presence when music allows):

Let your shoulders and elbows express what you play right now.
When the music allows, play the keyboard like a percussion.
When playing one hand passages use your free hand for showing expressions.
Change where you look at, you can face the audience, bend over the keys or face the sky.
For confident parts, open your legs symmetrically far wider than your shoulders. Sometimes tap the tempo with your knee, sometimes never ever move your legs.
Putting your feet on the middle intersection of the X-stand looks incredibly good especially in one-hand passages.
When not playing anything and waiting for your part, walk a few steps away from the keyboard, turn your back and when you need to get close to start playing, do not haste so that you will look like so relaxed and keeping everything under your control.
Never miss a chance to communicate using eye contact or body language with other players, especially guitar players and lead singer.
Pointing out guitar players when they play their solos creates a complete scene, but do not over use or it will become funny.
Sing important parts of the songs, even if you are not backing vocals and you don't have a mic in front of you, so that the audience feels you are inside the atmosphere, not apart from the stage.
Consider yourself as an orchestra conductor but conducting the crowd this time, directing them what to feel now. Communicating emotions is the key.
Sometimes doing nothing is also a performance. Use your creativity and develop your own style.
Comment: Best warn your bandmates that you're going to do some of this stuff. I remember one gig where the keyboard player waved his arms to direct the last resounding chord of a piece - and the band just ignored him and he ended up looking a bit foolish because his signals and what they actually played didn't sync at all.
Comment: Excellent points, must make sure I remember all of them next gig! Would add the 'Stevie Wonder' moves, shoulders and head from side to side.
Comment: Just remembered the keyboard player from Sparks who, despite behaving the complete opposite of all the suggestions above, had massive stage presence. Stage presence isn't a tick list - there's more to it than that.
Comment: Sure you are right! Doing nothing is also a performance. I'll add it to the answer. Stage performance can also differ greatly even in different parts of the same song. This is not a check list but some performances that I've used and benefited. I thought these can help players feeling frustration with their stage presence and performance and encourage them to try different things. Always remembering that you are on stage and doing a stage performance not with music only but your look and body as well is the key. Everyone should reach their own style in the end.
Answer: I tried some of the above when I started gigging, but soon found out that it was best simply to be myself. My biggest issue was looking tense when concentrating, so I made myself smile all the time (except when playing really serious songs!) and I connect with the audience quite a bit, particularly women , as I am a female keyboard player.
Comment: My wife once took video of my accompanying my father-in-law on piano as he sang. I was sight reading the piece and I kept doing a lot of Rowlf the Dog double takes at the sheet music.
Answer: If you are playing some challenging pieces you could angle your keyboard towards the audience so they can see what you are doing. This opens a new way of "flashines" for keyboard vs guitar duels. http://i.ytimg.com/vi/AvTtZFNY5dQ/hqdefault.jpg
As someone commented being calm and mysterious is also a way to build a presence. Be it Sparks keyboardist or Infected Mushroom, both just play and let the music to speak for themselves.

Stage presence for a keyboard player


In tasleem, should we pause between salam to the right and left?

Question: When ending the salah with the tasleem are you meant to pause in between, some people seem to give one salam to the right and look straight ahead for a moment then give the second salam to the left, others just give each salam one after the other.
Answer: First, this is a branch of al-ikhtilāf as-sā'igh, i.e., the scholarly opinions are deduced but are not based on a direct verse in the Qur'an or a hadith that can be quoted. This also means that whichever school you follow will be accepted, Allah willing.
Hanafi
I do not know if there is any view specific to the Hanafi school on how to perform taslīm at the end of the prayers.
Maliki and Shafi'i
Both Maliki and Shaf'i' schools have a slight pause in between the two taslīms as one starts the taslīm facing al-Qiblah and ends the taslīm as one completes turning around. Then one pauses slightly until one returns to facing al-Qiblah, then one starts the taslīm to the left. In At-Tahthīb (Shafi'i) by Al-Baghawi:

والسُّنَّة أن يبتدئ السلام مستقبل القِبلة، ويتمه ملتفتاً، فحيث يكون انقضاء سلامه مع تمام الالتفات، ففي التسليمة الأولى يلتفت عن يمينه حتى يرى من على يمينه خدَّه الأيمن، وفي التسليمة الثانية يلتفت عن يساره حتى يرى من على يساره خدَّه الأيسر.
— NOTE: My own translation, so treat with care:
The sunnah is to start as-Salām facing al-Qiblah and to finish it while turned around so that it [taslīm] ends as one ends turning around. In the first taslīm, one turns around until those on one's right can see one's right cheek. In the second taslīm, one turns around until those on one's left can see one's left cheek.
— At-Tahthīb, Vol. 2, pp. 133

The Maliki school has the same view as per Hāshiyat Al-'Adawi, Vol. 1, pp. 280 by 'Alia as-Sa'īdi al-'Adawi.
Hanbali
In the Hanbali school, there is also a slight pause in between both taslīms as the view is to start saying as-salāmu 'alaikum while facing al-Qiblah and to continue without pausing to turn one's head while saying wa rahmatu Allah. There will be then a slight pause until one returns one head to face al-Qiblah before starting the second taslīm. In Al-Insāf by 'Alā' ad-Dīn al-Mardāwi:

يستقبل القبلة بالسلام عليكم ويلتفت بالرحمة
— NOTE: My own translation, so treat with care:
Starts by facing al-Qiblah with as-salāmu 'alaikum then turns with ar-rahmah
— Al-Insāf, Vol. 4, pp. 562
Comment: @Medi1Saif, understood, but this is a different topic as to which taslīm is a corner (Hanafi: none, Malika: one, Shafi'i: two, Hanbali: either one a what Ibn Qudama said or two as what others said). However, there is no prohibition (see this [fatwa](https://islamqa.info/en/105297)) and even some Maliki scholars consider the second taslīm mandatory. The number of taslīms is matter of _khilāf mu'tabar_, but the methodology is _khilāf sā'igh_. There is also how many taslīms are there as an _imām_ vs. as a _ma'mūm_.
Comment: The mainline in the Maliki school is a single tasleem for Imam and a person praying alone! [Tasleem at the end of salat - Maliki school](https://islam.stackexchange.com/questions/2621/tasleem-at-the-end-of-salat-maliki-school)


Changing admin user id for database

Question: Is it correct or ok to change default admin user id from 1 to any other number as done by better-wp-security plugin for wordpress for better security? what is best way for admin security.
 Thanks
Answer: You can change the original user to a non-admin, but I would not modify the admin users ID in the database to another ID, as this ID is referenced in numerous places, such as in the posts table to indicate the author, custom meta, user meta, etc
Instead, consider marking the admin as a subscriber, and reassigning the posts to a brand new user.
TLDR yes it will improve security, but mainly because you cant hack a site if it's completely broken

Changing admin user id for database


How do you mathematically add and subtract hash power?

Question: My question was how do you mathematically add and subtract hash power. I recently purchased four Antminer D3s.They all run at the average rate of 19-20 MH/s but when I go to my stats in the pool that I joined I see 32.2 GH/s. Please Help!!!
Comment: 19-20 MH/s doesn't seem right; marketing quotes seem to be on the order of 15 GH/s per unit.
Answer: You sum (add) their individual ratings. For example, if I had two miners, one rated at 20MH/s and another rated at 15MH/s, my total rate would be 20MH/s + 15MH/s = 35MH/s.


Derivative work BSD license when not known original work

Question: I want to put a BSD license in some code. I use part of code that doesn't have license information but it belongs to other people who I don't know. It was given to my from other privates but the code it self doesn't have a copyrigth claim. I want to put BSD license to my part of the work. How can I put my BSD license? Is the 2 terms bsd.
Comment: Please edit your question to add some clarification to what exact situation you are in. Where does the code you want to put under BSD license come from? How did you get it? The only answer to your question with the current level of details you gave is: you can't do that.
Comment: Just edited. The thing is that there isn't a copyrigth claim in the original code. I did a lot of editions to the code I only want to put BSD license to my editions.
Answer: I'm sorry that this is the answer but you can't just put your code under BSD license (or whatever license for that matter, be it open source or proprietary).
The problem here is that you got this code from a third party who wasn't the author and the original author licensed no rights to you on this code.
It is usually considered OK to run the code for private use as long as you got the code lawfully (which could be false if the third party did not get it lawfully, or did not have permission to distribute it). Private modification should also be OK as long as you do not distribute the resulting work.
However, for distributing further a work that is clearly a derivative of an original work, you really need permission from the original copyright owner (even if it's only your modifications that you want to license under BSD-2). Your only solution at that point would be to reach out to the third party you got the code from and ask them who the original copyright owner was, or if they have a license to redistribute it further from them. If you can talk to the copyright owner, then you can ask them permission to release your derivative under BSD-2 license.
Note that the copyright owner is not necessarily an individual, nor the original developer. E.g. if the third party was the employer of the person who developed the code, then it maybe that the third party (or its company) is the copyright owner and you could ask them permission directly.
Answer: You do not know the license of the original code. And no license means .... no license. There is no such thing as an implied license as far as I know. Therefore you cannot relicense something since you are not licensed in the first place.


W9 for French-US Freelancer Working in France but Contracting with US Companies

Question: I am originally from France but have been living in the US for 13 years and now have dual citizenship. I am considering relocating back to France. I am a freelancer and I am looking at creating a "micro-entreprise" in France so I can continue my activities as an independent contractor. I would like to continue freelancing with some of my US-based clients. One of them said they would need an updated W9 with my new address so we can continue working together.
Can/Should I put my French address and my US Social Security number on a W9 form? To clarify, my client would wire payments to my French bank account, and I would pay my taxes in France (although I am aware that I would still need to file in the US every year).
Thank you for your help!
Answer: Yes. As a US citizen, you are a US person, and should fill out W-9 instead of W-8BEN to provide your Social Security Number. You can put a foreign address on the W-9, as per the answer to this question.


surround plugin and TeX quotes `'

Question: Is it possible to make the surround plugin work on `TeX-style quotes' and ``TeX-style double quotes''? (Normally, if `this is quoted'</code>| and <code>`this', va' will select from the first closing mark to the second (if the cursor is at |).)
Comment: See also the related question https://vi.stackexchange.com/questions/747/how-can-i-treat-latex-quotes-as-a-text-object
Answer: You can create a customize surround by defining a variable g:surround_{key code}
So for example you could do
let g:surround_96 = "`\r'"

Where 96 is the key code for `. You can make this more readable by putting by letting vim determine the key code by using
let g:surround_{char2nr("`")} = "`\r'"

\r will be replaced by the relevant text. If you only want this to work in tex files you can put it in an autocmd
autocmd FileType tex let b:surround_{char2nr("`")} = "`\r'"

Usage would be ysiw`. Read :help surround-customizing
Comment: thanks! Two follow up quæstions: (1) I suppose to delete with `ds'` one has to replace of of the marks to match the other first? (2) What is the difference between using `autocmd FileType …` (in .vimrc?) and putting the command in `.vim/after/tex.vim` ?
Comment: @Lawrence (1) Most likely. (2) autocmd FileType is closer to placing the commands in `.vim/ftplugin/tex.vim` I don't think tex.vim would even get sourced in that location. The after director is normally for overriding command in the standard runtime (or plugins you don't want to edit)
Answer:
An alternative choice of characters are q and Q which do not overwrite a builtin surrounding (`):
autocmd FileType tex let b:surround_{char2nr("q")} = "`\r'"
autocmd FileType tex let b:surround_{char2nr('Q')} = "``\r''"

(IMPORTANT) However, you cannot delete or change custom surroundings of vim-surround. Intuitively one would try dsq or csQq which do not work. Also dot-repeat is not as convenient since you have to enter again q.
If you want to have this, consider switching to the plugin vim-sandwich. The default mappings are little bit different: saiwl' would add `text', srbl" would change it to ``text'', and sdb would remove them again. sa, sr, sd for add, replace and delete surrounding. l' for latex single quotation marks, l" for latex double quotation marks. It also defines a text-object (default ib), to allow for convenient selection with vib what the OP has asked. It can be repeated to extend the selection with vibib....
A convenience feature of vim-surround which is not well known is following shortcut: use the change command to actually add a surrounding to a word, WORD, sentence or paragraph with one of the special target specifiers [wWsp]. To surround the current paragraph with a quotation the command is cspQ.
:h surround-targets

The letters w, W, and s correspond to a |word|, a |WORD|, and a |sentence|,
  respectively.  These are special in that they have nothing to delete, and
  used with |ds| they are a no-op.  With |cs|, one could consider them a
  slight shortcut for ysi (cswb == ysiwb, more or less).
A p represents a |paragraph|.  This behaves similarly to w, W, and s above;
  however, newlines are sometimes added and/or removed.

surround plugin and TeX quotes `'


Cron not running even after re-configuring

Question: I have an extension that I use for feeding information to an ftp. this extension uses cron to send the feed to the ftp. but now the problem is that there is no heartbeat detected and the crons are not running in magento. I performed the tasks below trying to solve the issue of crons not running.
1) I noticed crontab e was not set (linux:ubuntu). i tried to set it to run in every minute
# For more information see the manual pages of crontab(5) and cron(8)
#
# m h  dom mon dow   command

* * * * * /bin/sh /var/www/magento/cron.sh
* * * * * /bin/sh /var/www/magento/cron.php

2) I did a sudo service cron restart
3) I went to magento admin under System > Configuration > ADVANCED > System > Cron (Scheduled Tasks) - all the times are in minutes and Changed this to generate a schedule every minute and I schedule ahead for 5 minutes.
4) The I decided to check the cron_schedule table (select job_code, executed_at, scheduled_at from cron_schedule;). But still there was not new schedule created.
5) I then went to check the syslog and I did a grep CRON then below are the results
Sep  8 17:00:01 mthe-InventSupport02 CRON[18107]: (mthe) CMD (/bin/sh /var/www/magento/cron.php)
Sep  8 17:00:01 mthe-InventSupport02 CRON[18110]: (mthe) CMD (/bin/sh /var/www/magento/cron.sh)

After performing the tasks above. The cron were not seem to be running. Is there maybe something I am missing in the setup?
Kind Regards
Mthe
Answer: you can not run php file with sh command like above try as below in your crontab
* * * * * php -f /var/www/magento/cron.php
try and let me know its working or not


Can I install to a raw logical volume, or must I partition the space first?

Question: I would like to install a KVM-based Ubuntu guest to an LVM-based logical volume, without creating a partition table on the space first. There doesn't seem to be a way within the installer to mount my chosen logical volume as root. I can do this (of course) with Gentoo. Is there anyway to bypass this assumption with Ubuntu?
Answer: It's a best practice to use partitions, even if it's one and it spans the entire disk. There are tools out there that use that detail as part of their interrogation heuristics. I've also seen udev behave funny sometimes with partitionless drives. There's really no drawback to using partitions, no speed hit, nothing negative. It doesn't affect LVM at all as it's reading the disk and searching for metadata.
So you can swim upstream... or you can create a single partition. If you're that determined to make this work then I suggest that you get acquainted with the installer sources.
Answer: Or you can use Alternate (maybe) or Server (definitely) to get LVM support and have the logical volume treated properly. (You can also manually install lvm2 before you get to the partition tool to get this, but then it builds an initrd without lvm, or did when 11.04 was current.) (*I haven't done this in a long time)
Swim upstream: You can format the virtual disk before partitioning, and it will install, but GRUB will fail. This is not fixable because there is no MBR space for an LV but GRUB doesn't actually need to be installed because KVM provides it. The install script assumes GRUB is not installed and skips update-grub (which creates grub.cfg and maybe also device.map.) Get update-grub completed manually:
(From LiveCD iso)
<code>ubuntu$ sudo su -
ubuntu# mount /dev/vda /mnt ; mount --bind /proc /mnt/proc \
; mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev ; mount --bind /sys /mnt/sys ; chroot /mnt
# update-grub
# exit
ubuntu# init 6
</code>
You may be able to update-grub from a an xterm or another VTY rather than doing the liveCD hoopla. I had rerun the install four times already so I didn't attempt that.
Comment: "sudo -i" not "sudo su -" :)


Does SolidWorks CAD-to-URDF (ROS robot definition XML) exporter works from open source alternatives (e.g. FreeCAD, Blender) as well?

Question: It is quite hard (or almost impossible for large robots) to hand code ROS robot definitions in URDF XML files, so that is why SolidWorks has model exporter http://wiki.ros.org/sw_urdf_exporter. SolidWorks has open source alternatives like FreeCAD and Blender. My question is - does SolidWorks CAD-to-URDF exporters works from FreeCAD or maybe other open source CAD programs?
Comment: Hi TomR, ROS has its own community (which developed the plugin you mentioned) you might ask them directly
Answer: As it is the answer to your question is no.
It is developed, by the community, as a plugin specifically for SolidWorks.
If you are a student the fastest workaround would be to get a free student license from SolidWorks. You can then try to export your project to SolidWorks and convert it or directly do it in Solidworks.
Otherwise, for Blender there is the possibility to use Phobos, another dedicated plugin.
I am not aware of a method to generate URDF automatically from FreeCAD. And I have no clue for BRL-CAD and OpenSCAD


Why do Manga & Anime defuse tragic situations so often?

Question: Why do Manga and Anime defuse so often tragic situations? Moments that can be tragic/serious are often immediately defused by some hilarious moment and some stupid face of the characters. I personally find that disturbing that a plot cannot focus on something serious for a little while. Is that a stylistic choice or just a way to target a particular audience (i.e. children).
Comment: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Anticlimax Do you mean these sort of situations?
Comment: Do you have any example of this situation ?
Comment: yes thanks! as far as I know I readed once a couple of mangas and they were full of anticlimax
Comment: you need to read/watch more anime. For example: anohana or shigatsu wa kimi no uso, or uh... madoka..
Comment: @ton.yeung To be fair, Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso is actually _really_ bad about this - far worse than you'd expect from an otherwise good drama. The one that always comes to mind is the bit in the last episode (where, you know, important things happen) when Kashiwagi makes some off-color joke about BL at a wholly narratively-inappropriate time.
Comment: Those are the best shows, the ones that make you both  laugh and cry
Answer: From your comments, I gather you don't like the use of Anti-Climax in M&A as a medium. Though it can be jarring, Anti Climax can be great if used correctly.

Anticlimaxes can work well if it's clear that the subversion of audience expectations is the point, either for humorous purposes (such as the Anticlimax Cut) or as a more serious commentary on the genre of the work. If the Anticlimax is unintentional, however, or if the author's purpose just isn't sufficiently clear to the audience, the result is serious audience frustration. Use caution.

I think the root cause of this problem is discussed quite well on TV Tropes.

Not all anticlimaxes are intentional, though. Oftentimes, they are caused when the story writes itself into a corner. Other times, it's caused when the writer realizes that their planned solution just wouldn't make sense compared with the logical one. Sometimes, it's caused when there are teams of writers that don't communicate very well. The planned resolution of a Story Arc is nullified by another writer, who might have written out the plot device intended. Sometimes, in the case of film and television, it's caused by budget constraints or unexpected cancellation. It's rather rare for unintentional anticlimaxes to show up in single works, usually popping up in long serials where there isn't a chance to unobtrusively go back and rewrite some pivotal moments to set up the proper climax.

The problems stated above are quite common in the Manga and Anime industry and thus as you seem to have found out can lead to disappointing endings to a great story.
Source: You've been warned TV Tropes link. Anti Climax
Comment: Maybe this is not exactly anticlimax what I was searching for. In example someone just get refused by his love, and in the immediatly following scene some character do a stupid face, nothing to do with "endings", but more about scenes.
Comment: @DarioOO Anit Climax is not just for "endings" either. Each scene has a pattern, there is the reason, buildup and climax. However sometimes the author may diffuse/complete the scene using anti climatic ending. One of the most famous example is the rise of Madara Uchiha who was destoyed at his peak in just 4 Black and White Panels in Naruto. The "stupid face" may be the writers way to try and complete the situation. The second spoilers lists down several causes for "unintentional" anti-climax.
Answer: I would believe this is something of psychology where it makes the situation funnier; it's like after tasting some salt, the sugar will taste much sweeter. If I try to explain this using a more understandable way, think of the number line: the funny side is to the right and the serious side is to the left and you are at the 0 point right in the middle feeling no emotions. When things start to get serious, you move to the left and feel serious at for example -3, but then they drop a joke which makes you laugh and you move to the right. Because 0 is the neutral point where you feel no emotions, you have to move past 0 to feel happy so you have to be at least 1 or above. The funnier the joke, the higher the number. Now, because you are starting from -3 rather than 0, it gives you 3 more than if they just throw the joke at you in the start. This can work the other way around as well. This is mostly why they use this technique.
If they do it wrong, or when they see people like you who don't enjoy these sorts of things, it doesn't work. From what I have seen, these are mostly used in slice of life and shounen manga/anime. In shounen, they will get serious, then someone makes a joke, then they get deep and serious again. If you look at genres such as horror, this "trope" practically doesn't exist. An example would be EVA (I believe): there is no funny bits in there, it's serious throughout the show, but this might differ from person to person.
Comment: Yes, you explained well what I'm talking about, so maybe someone now can cite some source about that
Comment: Eva actually does use comedy in the early episodes but there's almost none starting from Episode 14 or so. Don't know about Rebuild.
Comment: @Torisuda sorry about that, haven't watched it in so long that i don't remember
Comment: @DarioOO i can't remember the name but i'm pretty sure its a psychology thing, i might ask my teachers and get back to you
Comment: @Dragon No worries, the later episodes do tend to blot out the early ones that had comedy. I watched the series again about four years ago and the comedy parts really stuck out. They were so jarring compared to the dark tone of Episodes 1-4 and Episodes 14-26. Plus, when I first saw Eva I was young and very new to anime, and I thought the comedy parts were hilarious, but when I watch them now they seem kinda dated.


What nullified the Missouri Compromise?

Question: I always thought it was the Dred Scott decision in 1857, when Chief Justice Roger Taney declared the compromise unconstitutional. But I've also heard it was nullified by the Kansas Nebraska act in 1854. Was one of these events, or some other, more influential in the repeal of the Missouri Compromise?
Comment: This a multiple choice question that could get opinion-based answers. Nevertheless, I opted to answer it, instead of voting to close, because I also  feel that it  addresses an issue that was highly important in American history.
Answer: Well, I can't really put it better than the current wording on the Missouri Compromise Wikipedia page:

Although already superseded by the Kansas–Nebraska Act, the Supreme
  Court indicated that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional in
  the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford ruling.

Now to get a bit more technical, K-N wasn't a 100% straight repeal. The Missouri Compromise covered the entire Missouri territory minus Missouri itself (dark green in this map).

However, the Kansas-Nebraska act only covered the Kansas and Nebraska Territories. Iowa and Missouri were already states by this time, but that still left some territory in the former and not the latter.

So K-N left most of the territory of Minnesota covered under the compromise. Technically the Missouri Compromise was still the law there, and Dred Scott struck it down1. However at that time Minnesota was in the process of becoming a state, so it probably didn't much affect them, except the leftover territory that is now part of the Dakotas.
Even today that leftover bit of territory isn't very heavily populated, and at the time couldn't have been a large consideration in anybody's thinking. So while technically, when dialed down to enough level of detail, your understanding was correct and Wikipedia's simple statement wrong, effectively the terse sentence from Wikipedia is what happened.
Or I suppose we could say that you're both right.
1 - In fact, this is precisely why that part of the Dred Scott ruling could be made. Dred Scott had been taken by his owner to Ft. Snelling in the part of the Minnesota Territory that was still covered by the Missouri Compromise.
Answer: The Missouri Compromise was nullified by the Compromise(s) of 1850 which in turn sprang from the American success in the Mexican War.
The South had earlier agreed to the Missouri Compromise, because the Louisiana Purchase contained a lot more territory in northern, rather than southern latitudes. Under these circumstances, the North would eventually end up with more states, so the South bargained instead, for the "fast-tracking" of Missouri, and later of Arkansas, as slave states.
The South later regretted their bargain, because the "compromise line" of 36 30' (the southern border of Missouri) was well south of other slave states, including Kentucky, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware.
The Mexican war changed all that, by giving America access first to "Texas," (a natural slave territory that the South hoped would be subdivided into several slave states). Other territories won in the Mexican War included the New Mexico Territory, the Utah territory and California. Of these, only California (admitted as a Free State in 1850) was definitely made free by the Compromise of 1850. If not for this, and the fact that America split the Oregon Territory with Britain, the South might have had more territory to expand into than the North.
This changing balance of power emboldened the South to try to "roll back" the slave line north of 36 30' to include Kansas, which is on the same latitude as Virginia, increasing the possibility that Colorado, Utah and Nevada would also become slave states.

What nullified the Missouri Compromise?


So, what is the elevator pitch for the site?

Question: Starting in the middle of 7 Essential Meta Questions of Every Beta: What's the brief pitch for what this site is all about? How can we describe the site in a way that will both describe its function and get the right people excited about joining and contributing?
Answer:
"Computational Science" is a question and answer site where experts who use computational methods in their scientific or technical discipline may share knowledge of algorithms, techniques, and tools.

Like @Brian Diggs' proposal, this tacitly omits questions of programming details. Those should go to SO.
"Scientific or technical discipline" is intentionally slightly broader than "natural and social sciences" to be more inclusive of those who do not call themselves scientists. Loads of engineers do serious computation, and we want those people to feel welcomed.
Emphasized the fact that the site is for people who work in disparate fields to benefit from each others knowledge and experience. This goes to reinforce the point I made in this meta question -- that people should realize they are communicating with other experts, but not necessarily specialists in their own field.
Added the word "tools" because I personally feel that questions about the software we use are appropriate, but this word can be removed if the community decides otherwise.
Also like Brian Diggs' proposal, mine omits the word "numerical." In my case, this is intentional. Many computational problems are not numerical except in the trivial sense that a computer is ultimately doing numerical operations in order to implement your particular algorithm. In addition, "numerical" has the connotation of being an alternative to "analytical" -- numerical versus analytical solutions to a differential equation, for instance -- while many potential contributors would more readily describe their work as an instance of "statistics" or "statistical modeling"1, "simulation", "analysis," etc.

1:  We will have a connection to stats.SE for this reason, but that is a different meta post!
Comment: I like the addition of tools to algorithms and techniques.  It is (appropriately) broader than just "software".
Answer:
"Computational Science" is a question and answer site devoted to
  understanding techniques and algorithms related to solving problems in
  the natural and social sciences using computers.

Techniques and algorithms are mentioned with the exclusions of code and implementation; specific programming questions are (?) more appropriate to Stack Overflow.
Natural and social sciences is a pretty broad scope, which is appropriate.
Using computers is the clincher; we are using computational resources and techniques
I wanted to get "numerical" in there somewhere, but couldn't figure out where.
Comment: But not all relevant algorithms or techniques will be numerical in nature. My group helps with an epidemiology simulation project whose  numerical portions are minuscule.
Comment: Let's get some proposals (as separate answers) both with and without "numerical", so they can be voted up or down.
Comment: I agree that specific programming questions should be migrated to SO.
Comment: +1. Regarding getting "numerical" in there: how about "... to understanding *numerical* techniques and algorithms related to solving..."? My intent would be that 'numerical' refer both to techniques and to algorithms, but I don't think we'd need to include it twice.
Comment: I think that "nuemircal" should be left out.


The Trinity before the birth of Jesus

Question: If Jesus was born at a certain date in history, do trinitarian Christians believe that the Trinity did not exist before that date? Alternatively, is some sort of incorporeal Jesus believed to have been in existence despite not yet having been born?
Comment: This question should have been directed to those Chrisians who do believe in the trinity. That would include Catholics, Orthodox, all other believers in the Nicene creed (which covers the majority of Protestants) and some others who have minor differences with the Nicene creed. But there are a variety of others.
Answer: Christians believe that the Trinity consists of three distinct persons with one divine nature.
This Trinitarian Godhead exists infinitely and eternally, and therefore existed before time.
Christians also adhere to the very distinct doctrine of the Hypostatic Union, which is the belief that Jesus Christ has two natures.
One nature is truly divine. One nature is truly human.
These two doctrines are clearly stated in the first chapter of the Gospel of St. John:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
  was God. He was in the beginning with God.

The "Son" (2nd Person of the Trinity) existed "before all ages."  The Son was born into the world of a virgin roughly 2000 years ago. His name is Jesus Christ.
The Nicene Creed puts it best:

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally
  begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from
  true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father. Through
  him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down
  from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from
  the Virgin Mary, and was made man. For our sake he was crucified under
  Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he
  rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven
  and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in
  glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no
  end.

Was the Son eternally begotten?
Answer: There are, of course, exceptions, but most of mainstream Christianity believes that Jesus was eternal, that He always existed, coequal with God.  The Trinity is God, and is Eternal.
Addressing Jesus' pre-existence:
Scripturally, the strongest support for this belief is John 1.

John 1 King James Version (KJV)
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
  Word was God.
2 The same was in the beginning with God.
3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made
  that was made.

For some documentation showing that various mainstream denominations believe this...
Grace communion International, a Protestant denomination says this:

The pre-existence of Christ is clearly stated in John 1:1-4: "In the
  beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
  God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were
  made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was
  life…" It is this Word or Logos in Greek who became incarnate in
  Jesus. "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us," John
  tells us (verse 14).
The eternal, uncreated Word who was God, and yet was with God as one
  of the Persons of the Godhead, became a human being. Note that the
  Word "was" God but "became" a human being. The Word never came into
  being, that is, he didn't "become" the Word. He always was the Word,
  or God. The Word's existence is open-ended. He has always existed.

Caltholictruth.com says this:

Bethlehem and Nazareth were not the first homes of Jesus; His home
  was from all eternity in the bosom of the Father. "In the beginning,"
  says St. John (John 1:1), "was the Word, and the Word was with God,
  and the Word was God." The Word Whom Scripture also calls Son of God
  proceeds from the Father by intellectual generation; He is the
  Father's understanding of Himself. He is the first Word ever spoken,
  and is in all things equal to Him by Whom He was spoken. The Father
  Who uttered Him is not prior to the Word, but both are equally
  eternal.
Yes, the Incarnate Christ is older than the oldest creatures since He
  is at once their Creator and the Pattern after which they were
  created: "All things were made by Him: and without Him was made
  nothing that was made" (John 1:3); "In Him were all things created in
  heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or
  dominations, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by
  Him and in Him. And He is before all, and by Him all things consist"
  (Colossians 1:16, 17). In the beatific light of the heavenly palace,
  says St.Paul, the Word before His Incarnation dwelt in the "form of
  God," that is in a nature which - because it is Divine - cannot be
  acquired but is eternal (Philippians 2:6-8). Verily Christ could say
  of Himself, "Before Abraham was made, I am" (John 8:58).

A Google Search of "Jesus before incarnation" will turn up thousands of similar statements from myriad Churches and denominations.  Of course, it would be inaccurate to say that all Christians believe this, it is a demonstrably widely held belief.
The details of what His pre-existence is like is unknown.  However, most also believe that He made appearances in the Old Testament long before His physical birth.  (This is known as a Christophany)
The LDS Church gives an entirely different view, still holding that He existed, but in the "Premortal life" that they believe.

Premortal existence of Christ

The Lord appeared unto Abram:Gen. 12:7; ( Gen. 17:1; Gen. 18:1; Abr. 2:6–8; )
The Lord spoke unto Moses face to face:Ex. 33:11; ( Deut. 34:10; Moses 1:1–2; )
I saw the Lord standing upon the altar:Amos 9:1;
In the beginning, the Word was with God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us:John 1:1, 14; ( 1 Jn. 1:1–3; )
Before Abraham was, I am:John 8:58;
Glorify thou me with the glory which I had with thee before the world was:John 17:5;
Isaiah verily saw my Redeemer as I and my brother Jacob have seen him:2 Ne. 11:2–3;
On the morrow come I into the world:3 Ne. 1:12–14;
Christ was before the world began:3 Ne. 26:5; ( John 6:62; )
As I appear unto thee will I appear unto my people in the flesh:Ether 3:14–17;
Enoch saw the Lord and walked with him:D&C 107:48–49;
My Beloved Son, which was my Beloved and Chosen from the beginning:Moses 4:2;
The Lord said: Whom shall I send? And one answered like unto the Son of Man: Here am I, send me:Abr. 3:27;
Answer: Just to add to the great answers by both David Stratton and Charles Alsobrook, That Jesus was both fully man and fully God is central to Christianity. Unless Jesus was a sinless man He would not be an acceptable sacrifice for our sins. That could only be possible if he were also deity, which by definition would be an eternal being.

The Trinity before the birth of Jesus


How to turn off an ad hoc wireless network in OS X

Question: So I create an ad hoc network every now and then on my Mac for various reasons, and I have found lately that when I click on the Wi-Fi icon in the Mac menu bar, even when the network is not on, it still shows up under "devices" as a valid network. How do I actually shut off my network?
Answer: What many Wi-Fi products refer to as an "ad hoc" network is what the 802.11 spec refers to as an IBSS.  It's important to note that the originator of an IBSS does not control it at all. Once one or more additional devices join the IBSS, all devices in the IBSS are completely equal peers, and they all participate in maintaining the network, even after other members leave.  Because the originator is not special, the originator can leave the IBSS it created and all the other peers in the network will continue to maintain the network until you turn them all off or tell them all to join other networks or whatnot. If you've ever seen the "Free Public WiFi" IBSS while waiting in an airport terminal, you already know about this. :-)
So if you created an IBSS on your Mac, joined it from, say, your iPad, and then left the IBSS from your Mac, your iPad could still be maintaining the network.  Turn off Wi-Fi on the iPad or have the iPad join another network if you want the IBSS to go away.
Answer: You can always look at disabling the aircard by turning it off and cleaning out existing ad hoc profiles.
System preferences -> network -> aircard (or what you have labled your wireless connection). NOTE: Do not delete your aircard profile.
Profiles: aircard -> advanced and then delete by using the '-' sign at the bottom of the list.


What's the relation between speed of an aircraft and takeoff distance?

Question: I'm making a tool that when given : weight of aircraft , takeoff speed , runway length and some other parameters , it analysis the takeoff performance and states whether using the brakes now is safe or not . So I'm looking for a mathematical relation between the takeoff speed and the takeoff distance to use it in my code . Based on the given speed I want to determine whether the runway length will be enough or there will be a hazard . Is there any mathematical formula for calculating the takeoff distance using takeoff speed and weight ?? or how do people calculate that ? I need any method .
Any help is appreciated . Thanks
Comment: Takeoff distance can be obtained analytically by integrating the speed of the aircraft between $v_0$ and $v_{TO}$, with the snag being that the acceleration is dependent on $v$ through the thrust and drag terms. You cannot obtain the distance using only the weight and takeoff speed, you need to know the acceleration. In practice the values are tabulated.
Comment: Also depends if this is a one-engine airplane or multiengine.
Answer: I think your question is regarding new aircraft under design and not for existing planes?
The dynamics of ground roll/stopping is governed by one equation:
$$m\ddot{x}=T-D-\mu(L-mg)$$
where $T$ is thrust, $D$ is drag, $\mu$ is friction coefficient, $L$ is lift, $m$ is mass and $g$ is gravitational accel. Since thrust, drag and lift are a function of airspeed (and spoilers + brakes + thrust reverser should abort occur), the most naive way is just to numerically integrate the equation twice to get the distance at time.
That being said, don't forget that takeoff distance and accelerate-stop distance must be considered with all engines operating and with the critical engine failed. $V_1$, assuming not limited by controllability, should be selected such that the two distances balance. Also keep in mind that a good portion of takeoff distance is rotating and accelerating to $V_2$ before 35ft with the critical engine failed. The previous equation does not account for that portion.
Comment: @Jeffrey It depends on the fidelity to which you want to model the system. Generally, with a good anti-skid, there's a relatively constant braking coefficient (mu) for the given runway condition. This is usually sufficient for performance calculations, especially at the early stages.
Comment: Friction linear on perpendicular force (weight minus lift) I could understand for the wheels sliding against the ground. But given the wheels are turning with the ground and the brakes are generating the friction, how does the weight come into play?
Comment: @Jeffrey Not sure I understand your question. There is still non-zero rolling friction and braking generates sliding/static friction depending on the application of the brakes/anti-skid. Mu is just a phenomenological agglomerate of the effect.
Comment: Yeah, but then the weigh-lift is not the correct force to use. The correct force is hydraulic pressure on the brake pad. The friction part you state works as a upper-bound, though
Answer: Generally, the performance charts in the POH are used. You'd have to turn those into account. Runway length, weight, temperature, wind. When I flew a 100HP C150, there were days I couldn't take off with full tanks and my instructor on warm days out of the 1686 foot strip with obstructions where I was based. Even when I moved up to a 180HP C177, there were some trips where I met the family at a longer strip when we had full tanks and were taking a lot of baggage for a family vacation.
For bigger passenger planes, there where days last summer in AZ I think that some planes coudl only depart first thing in the morning because temps got too hot for safe takeoffs, engines couldn't make enough power in the high heat that was occurring.
So you'll need to go plane by plane to create a performance data equation.
Answer: You may start by building your model based on a plane with tricycle gear (not a tail dragger) accelerating from standing start Vo to rotation speed Vr. This will make it much easier, as the pitch of the plane will not change.
Acceleration is based on thrust acting on a given mass (a=f/m).  In a vacuum you would be done.  Not here.  Drag begins acting on the aircraft as soon as it moves.  Engine rpm may increase as airflow unloads the prop.  Pounds of drag must be subtracted from pounds of thrust to yield acceleration at a given speed.
Full scale wind tunnel thrust and drag data from Vo up to Vr speed would generate an acceleration curve for various speeds (in the old days we would reach for log graph paper to try and make it a straight line).
So, even with standard pressure and temperature it is complicated, so one must go and do it the old fashioned way, one data point at a time. As stated in comments, this gives a tabulated chart.
From this chart mathematical extrapolations can be derived, graphs can be drawn,
and formulas developed.  These formulas can be refined with still more testing.
Once these are reasonably accurate, a computer program can be written that will happily crunch combinations of thrust, weight, and drag to generate a take off distance and speed based on the acceleration curve.
Calculations for various flap settings, atmospheric conditions, precipitation, headwinds/tailwinds, and runway surface conditions could be programmed in as well.
But because of the critical nature of take-off distance, thorough validation of published values is a must.


Is it possible to add story points and velocity tracking to Trello?

Question: I really like what Trello can do if only it could also have story points and trajectory for projects. Is there any way of doing that?
Answer: We couldn't wait for the api to be released. So we developed a Chrome Extension that adds story points to Trello.
The functionality is very lightweight. Just add the storypoints for a card within parentheses, like:

(4) As a user I want to click a button.

The extension will automatically pick up the story points and nicely show them in the upper right corner of the card. All the story points within a list are counted and the total is shown in the list title.
You can find the extension in the Chrome Webstore or get the code over at http://github.com/Q42/TrelloScrum.
As for velocity tracking, I prefer to do that in a separate spreadsheet and do my analysis there.
Comment: Would it be possible to see a copy of your spreadsheet? We're thinking of taking the same approach and it'd be enlightening to review what you've done already.
Comment: If you want velocity tracking in a way which integrates with the data from Scrum for Trello check out http://getcorrello.com (disclosure: I built it) which can pull those points in to help track velocity, show a burndown chart and a number of other things I'll not get into here.
Comment: one more: [www.plusfortrello.com](http://www.plusfortrello.com) does what you want and much more for free.
Comment: You can now also add points with the Agile Tools Power-Up (no chrome plugin required, works across all browsers) https://getcorrello.com/AgileTools/points
Comment: @Robin That should probably be its own answer rather than incorporated into this one.  Thanks for updating the info!
Answer: You can add custom titles to the labels representing different points, like this:
.
You can then use filters to count 1 point cards, 5 point cards etc. It's far from ideal kanban though, which is a shame as this looks like a really good, free system for it.
Comment: This method worked ok, but I eventually switched to using @Jasper's solution.
Answer: According to their FAQ, no:

Is there a way to generate story points to use with my Agile team?
  Kind of.  I guess story points are an estimate of how long something will take to do.  This falls into the idea of a custom property for a card that you'd like to have meaning.  For example, if your Trello board was a Sales Leads board, you might want all your cards to have potential deal size $$$ on them.  Right now we don't want to cram Trello into any specific use, so something like this would have to be provided by a custom plugin (see the API question).

http://blog.trello.com/trello-common-questions/
Answer: The API has been released, and there are certainly ways to do this yourself with custom programming now.
You might also want to check out other Trello add-ons, like ChartBreeze: http://www.chartbreeze.com
Comment: How is it possible to add custom fields using the API?
Comment: I'm sorry -- I wasn't suggesting using the API to create custom fields.  I was suggesting using the API to integrate with your own custom built system... essentially using Trello for part of the data and combining it with your own data.
Answer: I've just started using Scrum for Trello Chrome extension, and I like that it marks up the points (which are saved as a number in parentheses) as badges. It tallies the points at the top of each List.
Scrum for Trello in Chrome Webstore
Answer: See also Plus for Trello Chrome Extension to track Spent and Estimate with a lot of reporting features incl. velocity burndown chart.
Answer: I cheated my way into this, I created a new user for each of my story point levels (.5, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13) and I just assign them to the card. Its a hack, but its nice because they show correctly on all trello clients and not just with an extension.
Answer: This Trello report generator has velocity tracking included.  I've not managed to get it to work but then not used it much!
http://klodio.github.com/treport/#
Answer: It's not explicitly possible in Trello; but there is an implicit way for that:
Use Custom Fields power-up. This power-up lets you add a custom field of a custom type (Number, in your case) to a card.
Answer: You can now add Story Points to your Trello cards with the Agile Tools Power-Up (Free, no chrome plugin required, works across all browsers)
If you want to get reports and charts such as burndown charts then you may want to checkout the paid Scrum/Kanban charts at https://getcorrello.com
Answer: You can use the free Card Size Power-Up: Card Size for Trello