Amplified antenna & typical boombox radio

Question: Can an amplified antenna be connected to a typical boombox radio with a telescoping antenna without damaging the radio?
Comment: If you are hoping an amplified antenna will improve the radio's reception, it probably won't. An amplifier amplifies both the signal and the noise.
Comment: Boombox radio receives FM, which is VHF (not UHF as tagged). How are you planning to connect the external antenna if you have no antenna input on the boombox? What RF preamplifier are you using?
Answer: You're incredibly unlikely to damage a robust boombox receiver by upgrading the antenna. Yes it will be "out of spec" for the Boombox and with enough gain you'll over power the circuit in the boombox but you're very unlikely to damage the circuit.
Cheapest way to boost that signal? take an alligator clip with a lot of wire and clip that baby to the end of the boombox antenna. If you're trying to tune into FM radio (85Mhz - 99.5Mhz) you're looking at about 10 total feet of antenna length for the best signal. Many antenna's are 1/4 Wavelength or similar fraction (1/6th, 1/8th etc) because it makes the product cheaper while keep adequate performance. You can improve by increasing the length and if you aren't satisfied you can also add a passive LNA (Low Noise Amplifier) which will generally form a regenerative circuit and increase the gain while automatically limiting noise. If you're hearing too much static you can also implement a filter to narrow what your Boombox is receiving.
Note that your boombox likely already has a proprietary LNA and filter, best to look for a schematic online of your device to develop a better plan.
If you're feeling ambitious or bored you're welcome to learn and experience some circuit prototyping. This link provides schematics for a regenerative radio circuit and as my friend once told me: "it's a VERY worthwhile project". Thanks, hope I've helped!
Answer: Not likely that it could be damaged by an amplified antenna, no.
Keep in mind that the boombox is designed to use that built-in antenna, so an amplified antenna would likely overdrive the receiver and the result would be a distorted signal.
Unless they have  external antenna connectors your only option would be to clip it to the whip itself.  Again, the boombox isn't designed for that.
So if you do try an amplified antenna and the results aren't great, then you might want to fall back to just clipping on some extra length of wire to the whip.  But the antenna on the boombox is designed to be the "right" length, so even that may not help.


Please identify if these pieces are part of a set, medium grey and red Technic bricks with a window

Question: I have these pieces, constructed a shown, that were given to me in a pile. Is this part of a set or something someone just build?
Answer: At first glance it looks like something out of Model Team set, like one of the trailers.
There are two types of standard Technic pins, black friction pins and grey frictionless pins.
Black friction pins are used to build strong connections and grey frictionless pins have low friction and allow parts to spin easily.
It seems odd that the two pins connecting the Technic bricks as shown below use grey frictionless pins as I have never seen an official LEGO set that wouldn't use black friction pins for this case.

The window also stands out as an odd feature in this build.
Comment: I originally thought it might have come from the Whirl and Wheel Super Truck as well, but that uses the 1x2x3 windows rather than the 1x2x2.
Comment: Looks like something put together for fun rather than an actual set to me ;)
Answer: This is a real tough one..
I personally wasn't able to find a set that includes all the pieces in the pictures you included, but I found one that comes pretty close. My guess is that it is a late 80s or early 90s technic set.
What I found which has most of the parts, save for the window element in the middle of your pictures and maybe a couple of the red elements is set 8064-1.
I mainly based my search off the set having at least:
4x red tech brick 1 x 6
2x LG tech brick 1 x 16
2x LG tech brick 1 x 12
and some assorted technic elements like axles and bushings as well as some other red elements.
Hope this aids you in your search!
Answer: This is certainly a remainder of a "moc"
With the introduction of Technic in 1977 only the gray friction-less pins existed, so these where used in all Technic constructions by Lego.
Black friction pins are introduced is 1982 (look carefully at the set pictures in the following links: 1981 & 1982). This resulted that from 1982 on the gray pins where only used in parts that needs movement.
So the double gray pin usage in the photo, if original by Lego must be from 1981 or earlier.
The second clue found is the Light Gray 1x16 technic beam. This part is introduced in 8851-1: Excavator, which is a set from 1984.
Conclusion: No official set by Lego
Answer: I can't remember a Technic set with a small Lego Classic window, so to me it looks like a creative mind at work.
In early days there were no black friction pins. Studded beams in red and gray remind me of a caterpillar backhoe or bulldozer set from the 1st half of the 1980s. The toothed half width bush also places the parts halfway the 1980s.


Code formatting across Windows and Unix

Question: What Visual Studio settings and .emacs macros improve the likelihood that code written on Windows (in visual studio) will still look good in Emacs (and vice versa)? I've recently taken to turning off tabs in emacs (so tabs are rendered via spaces) and this at least makes the code look the same (tho people who like certain tab sizes are out of luck). Is there a better way?
Answer: Always use tabs for indenting only and nothing else, and there's no problem.
Anything involving aligning characters across lines (not indenting) should use spaces.
Just do that, then people can set their tab size to whatever they like, and everything will all be fine.
Answer: Tab sizes is a purely personal preference, but each piece of code or project should specify which tab size it wants to use as a standard. That way, even if someone doesn't like your tabs sizes, they'll know you meant it to be that way and do the same in any fixes, and hopefully they shouldn't have a problem with that.
Answer: Emacs's idea of tabs is that they're a compression scheme, that they're always size 8, and they're normally a different size from the indent size. This leads to things like it indenting 4 spaces at the first indent, then 1 tab at the next, then 1 tab and 4 spaces at the third indent level.
Your options for making it compatible with a variable-sized tab editor are to set emacs to spaces (like you did), or set its indent size to 8 (this is what they do in the linux kernel source), or to hunt down the emacs macro file which makes it have variable sized tabs ( I have seen it on the web, but I didn't make a bookmark).
Answer: In addition to using spaces instead of tabs and making sure that the tab width is the same in both editing environments, I usually change emacs's (because I'm more familure with it) c/c++ modes to "bsd" style.  This seems to more closely match visual studio's default style.
From my .emacs custom-set-variables list:
<code>'(c-default-style (quote ((c-mode . "bsd") (c++-mode . "bsd") (java-mode . "jav
a") (other . "gnu"))))
</code>

Code formatting across Windows and Unix


How to add padding to Illustrator document

Question: I have an 11x17 poster that

Will have 3/16 white border (because the printer can't print to the edge)
needs 3/16 padding from edge for all objects

I don't want to print it on 12x18 and cut it so right now I have it set up as a 10.625x16.625 with all-around 0.1875 bleed and I also want to have a line showing 0.1875 padding (or at least in the web world we call it padding).

What's the name designer's use for the space between the printed edge and the objects inside (css calls it padding)?
Should I just add that with four guides? Or is there something part of document setup (like bleed and slug) that will give me a preset border / guide?

I don't yet think like a designer so I'm probably thinking about the problem in a weird way, but I've got all of about 10 hours of illustrator use under my belt so be kind.
Answer: It'd be called 'margin' or 'white space'. You'd typically set it up by using crop/registration marks--which if you set your document up to the printed size, Illustrator should be able to accomodate when you print.


Align text content left and right within the same layer

Question: I am pulling a lot of data from a Word document into Sketch, and would like to know whether its possible to align parts of a text layer both left and right, without having to separate them on individual layers.
Answer: Unfortunately, no. Everything in the Alignment, Opacity, and Blending sections of the inspector apply to the entire text layer. The rest apply at a character level.
Answer:
Yes, you can. Just select the target paragraph, then change the alignment or other properties.
But this is not a proper way to maintain your document, since it's very easy to mistakenly apply the text style to the whole text layer.


Why do the cars my soldiers are hiding behind keep exploding?

Question: On most maps I've seen so far, cars are a pretty common form of cover. However, they seem to have a tendency to explode, killing my soldiers. Some of them it's pretty obvious why they exploded, as they were on fire at the time, but twice I've had cars explode for no discernible reason, both times losing me soldiers and once causing me to fail a mission. Why are they exploding, and is there any prior indication that they are going to do so?
Comment: @SevenSidedDie - There should be a warning on TVTropes links. Every time I go there I find myself hours later with twenty tabs open, realizing I've spent the entire day there.
Comment: Because [Every Car is a Pinto](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EveryCarIsAPinto).
Comment: [TvTropesWillRuinYourLife](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife)
Comment: @Shykin - Must... Not... Click!
Comment: …I'm still stuck there. Just as soon as I finish reading about how [a scientist in RealLife once lit a cigarette off a nuclear explosion](http://books.google.ca/books?id=adI-6jRDipgC&pg=PA154&lpg=PA154&dq=ted+taylor+cigarette&source=bl&ots=lGRps-Qw6z&sig=SkNAr0DyVBDN3qcsarzSkgW6JaI&hl=en&ei=rctvTcjALY7RtweuuL3qDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false)…
Answer: Cars indeed have a damage threshold, 2 of them, even!
First threshold prevents it from catching fire or exploding.
(Pistol hitting a car for example)
Then once that one is passed the car catches fire.
The second one is where it explodes straight away.
Things to remember when using cars for cover or shooting at them:

Cars caught fire during your turn explode on your next turn.
Cars caught fire during an enemy turn explode on their next turn.
Cover remains after a car blew up!
You can use grenades and rockets to target and blow up cars before using their cover.
Kills done by cars are like grenades and rockets they yield no materials only a corpse (fragments)

From what I read, others report that grenades kill cars instantly, where in my games they never do that. It seems higher difficulty is higher threshold. I play impossible so as such I will not note my damage expectations and experiences.
Answer: The first indication would be the cars taking fire from either you or the enemy.  You should see the car degrade from this, even if it's just windows shattering.  And yes, I believe I have seen a car catch fire after it's windows were shot out.  One assumes that in the future all materials will be flammable or explosive!  In any case, so far I've observed a one turn delay every time a car that was on fire exploded, so there is time for soldiers taking cover to get out of the way in these cases.
It's possible to blow a car up without having it catch on fire first.  The easiest way to see this would be to have someone throw a grenade at a car, or a heavy shoot a rocket at one.  There's no delay there, it just goes boom.
One is given reason to believe that there is simply a damage threshold at work.  At this much damage (call it X), the car starts to burn and will soon explode.  At that much damage (Y) it explodes straight away.  It's almost certainly true that enemy weapons (plasma) are more powerful than the initial x-com armaments, so they're more likely to explode a car as part of a volley than machine guns and assault rifles.
A few observations:

A frag grenade once did not insta-gib a car.  It lit on fire and blew next turn.
Once a car was lit I was trying to shoot an alien behind it (lest he escape before it exploded after the alien's turn).  First shooter hit the car 2 times in the 3-shot volley from a light plasma rifle.  No explosion.  Second shooter also hit the car with a 3-shot volley from a light plasma rifle, BOOM. My squad still had actions left at this point.
Mutons.  :(  (this is just a general observation).

Anecdotally, I think that backs up the damage threshold idea.
Comment: I'll try to keep a closer eye on the cars to see if they have broken windows. I hope plasma weapons can't detonate cars in a single volley. That would be a bit cheap.
Comment: @SaintWacko I would agree.  I hope to test this some after work and report back.
Comment: I typically assume all cars are bombs after being shot once. In fact I assume virtually all the other cover is a bomb or a trap.
Comment: On second thought, the lack of free-fire will make this difficult to test.  :(  I will have to rely on observation.
Comment: It hadn't registered yet that there was no free fire. That's too bad. But I guess it makes sense, since normal weapons don't damage walls anymore
Comment: Could the miss be causing a crit on the car? Might explain why sometimes the threshold for explosion is reached in one shot and not in others. Seeing as regular cover sometimes does and doesn't shatter under fire it looks to me like the game still rolls damage.
Comment: @thegrinner One would assume so.
Comment: Yeah, it's definitely possible for a vehicle to explode the same turn it gets hit, with no possibility of saving the soldier in cover behind it. That's disappointing.


How costly is opening and closing of a DB connection?

Question: How CPU intensive is opening and closing of a DB connection (for a web app) in MySQL

... when the DB software is on localhost?
... when the DB software is on another machine?
Answer: Think about the amount of memory being allocated per DB Connection. What things must be allocated? According to MySQL 5.0 Certification Study Guide, page 357:

The server maintains several buffers for each client connection. One
is used as a communications buffer for exchanging information with the
client. Other buffers are maintained per client for reading tables
and performing join and sort operations.

What settings govern the per-connection buffers?

join_buffer_size
sort_buffer_size
read_buffer_size
read_rnd_buffer_size
tmp_table_size / max_heap_table_size
net_buffer_length / max_allowed_packet
thread_stack

It takes time to allocate and deallocate these buffers when a connection comes into being. Don't forget to multiple the sum of those values by max_connections. As a side note, please refrain from using mysql_pconnect as PHP and MySQL's persistent connections do not get along well. Here are two informative links on this topic:

Open bug on PHP Not Cleanly Closing MySQL Connections on Apache Death.
Requesting a Persistent ssh Connection.

In heavy-read, heavy-write environment, such as OLTP, this would be expensive in terms of RAM usage and possible inhibition due to swapping in the OS. On a low-write, low_read website, I would not worry as much.
Answer: I'm not sure it matters "how much more costly" it is. It is certainly more costly than re-using the same connection. What you'll observe will depend on whether you are correctly using connection pooling, how saturated your pool is, the available resources on the box, etc.
In general, if you are performing a loop to do some interaction with the database, you are going to be far better off re-using the same active connection than opening and closing within the loop (an anti-pattern that I see quite often).
Comment: *"In general, if you are performing a loop to do some interaction with the database"* then you are doing something wrong in the first place...... obviously opening and closing connections is even slower as you say.
Answer: The dilemma between re-using an object and tearing it down and building it up again (both of which have advantages and disadvantages) can often be addressed with a compromise: cache the object, but for a limited time (i.e. with expiry).  If the object is frequently accessed then it keeps being reused. But if it is not used for some time, then an expiry mechanism disposes of it, forcing it to be recreated when it is needed once again.
A system can have a global hook for these kinds of caches which is invoked when memory is low, which triggers all of them to drop recently unused objects.
Answer: Mysql caches connections (or threads) using the Thread Cache ( thread_cache_size).
The max value for it is 100. When client closes connection, it is returned to the cache. When a new connection opens, it checks the thread cache. ON very busy system, opening closing connection can get expensive, especially if you have long running queries.
https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.6/en/connection-threads.html
If you can afford Mysql Enterprise, you can use the Thread Pool plug-in implemented in Mysql 5.6.


How does +xp per kill on a follower works

Question: When I equip a +xp per kill item on a follower, How is the extra xp gained? I've read already that I'll get only 20% of the bonus (so a +5xp will become +1xp) but, will I get it for every kill made by both of us (the player and the follower) or will it be given only for kills done by the follower?
Answer: All kills by the follower act exactly the same as monsters you've killed yourself.  What that means is that you take 20% of the follower's bonus, add it to your's, and then apply that to all kills done by either of you.
Answer: See: Do I ever get xp for my party member's kills?
As for the fixed number in experience items ("+5 xp") I believe that adds an extra 5 points of experience with each kill


Source for Maaser Money

Question: Several questions on this site Ask about 'maaser money', giving a tithe of one's income to charity. What is the source for this practice?
Comment: @BabySeal +1 good question!
Comment: http://www.torah.org/learning/livinglaw/5767/vayeitzei.html
Comment: footnote 1: http://www.torah.org/advanced/business-halacha/5757/vol3no11.html
Answer: See מעשר כספים on the Hebrew Wikipedia.
The earliest sources for giving away 1/10th of one's profits is from Avraham and Yaakov.
Avraham, as it says (Breishit 14:20):

וַיִּתֶּן־ל֥וֹ מַעֲשֵׂ֖ר מִכֹּֽל׃

Yaakov, as it says (28:22):

וְכֹל֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר תִּתֶּן־לִ֔י עַשֵּׂ֖ר אֲעַשְּׂרֶ֥נּוּ לָֽךְ׃

Another source is from Devarim 14:22 - עשר תעשר. Tosfot on Taanit 9a quotes Sifrei:

עשר תעשר את כל תבואת זרעך היוצא השדה שנה שנה אין לי אלא תבואת זרעך שחייב במעשר רבית ופרקמטיא וכל שאר רווחים מנין ת"ל את כל דהוה מצי למימר את תבואתך מאי כל לרבות רבית ופרקמטיא וכל דבר שמרויח בו

We learn from the extra word כל, all, that it applies to all income, not just fruits.
The Bach apparently says that while giving maaser is a "midat chasidut", a good thing, it is not halacha. (Source is given as Yoreh Deah 331. I don't have it with mefarshim, so i can't confirm.) The Taz states that it is actually a mitzvah d'oraita as part of maaser ani. Others (Tzitz Eliezer 9:1) say that it's only d'rabanan.
Rambam (Hilchot Matanot Aniyim 7:5) says that giving 1/10th is the middle ground as for how much money to give.
Answer: This site deals with this here:
Maaser Kesafim:

It is clear that the verse is referring to the mitzvah of tithing
  produce that grows in the ground. What about tithing other  forms of
  income and giving it to tzedaka? While there is a mitzvah to tithe
  this type of earning too, does the same guarantee .of reward, and
  permission to test Hashem, apply to maaser kesafim, as well.
The Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh De'ah, 247:4) implies that it does. He
  first says that it applies to any form of giving charity, and  then he
  quotes an opinion that it applies only to maaser, which seems to imply
  that the contemporary practice of maaser kesafim is also included in
  this.
There are those (see Pischei Teshuvah, Y. D., 247:2) who question
  this, and hold that it applies only to tithing produce, and  not to
  other forms of charity. According to this approach maaser kesafim is
  not really a tithe, but rather, simply a method for .calculating and
  distributing charity
This difference of opinion would seem to be rooted in the question of
  what the source for tithing income other than produce  really is. Some
  hold that it is an obligation from the Torah
  (Tosefos to Taanis 9a
  quoting Sifri; Shaar Ephraim, 84), while  others hold that it is an
  obligation miderabbanan (see Chavos Yair, 224; Teshuvah Me'ahavah,
  I:86). A third opinion (Bach, Y  D., 331; this seems to be the
  consensus of the later poskim – see She'elas Yaavetz, I:1,3,6) holds
  that maaser kesafim is actually  not an obligation but rather merely a
  custom. This dispute has a number of ramifications, and one of them
  would seem to be  the point that we mentioned previously. If the
  obligation of Maaser kesafim is min HaTorah then it might be included
  in the  permissibility to test Hashem, like other forms of maaser,
  whereas if is merely a method of separating funds to be distributed
  to charity, it might not be included in this special dispensation.
However, Ahavas Chessed (18) proves that even if Maaser kesafim is
  only miderabbanan, it would still be included in the  special
  dispensation to test Hashem. This is apparent from the fact that the
  navi Malachi, who declared that it is permitted  to test Hashem with
  the mitzvah of maaser, lived at the period of beginning of the second
  Beis Hamikdash. According to  the Gemora
  (Yevamos 82b) the mitzvah of
  tithing produce did not apply min haTorah at that time. As such, when
  Malachi  taught that the prohibition of testing Hashem does not apply
  to maaser, it must have been a reference to the mitzvah of  ",tithing
  all forms of income. In fact, implies the Ahavas Chessed, since the
  verse says, "and there will be food in My house  the main point seems
  to be providing for the poor in general, and Torah scholars in
  particular, as they are those who reside  in "Hashem's house." In that
  case, the verse in Malachi would even apply to  the general mitzvah of
  charity, and not only maaser kesafim. Indeed, the  consensus of the
  later authorities appears to be that one may indeed apply  ,this test
  to any type of tzedaka (Radvaz, Matnos Aniyim, 7:10; Maharsha
  Pesachim 8a; Chasam Sofer, ibid; Aruch Hashulchan), as per the first
  opinion.

Source for Maaser Money


How to configure FSTAB or SAMBA to allow all Windows users to share read/write access?

Question: I have setup a shared folder on my Ubuntu "file server" (actually just an Ubuntu desktop) called "files" in "/home/tech1/Public/files".  Also I have created a user group "PBW" that contains all the users and passwords. All the user's stations are Windows computers. Now from one user's Windows station I copied a few test Word documents into the Umbuntu folder. But now from a different user's Windows station I find the files are set to Read-only. Of course I can not change the file without saving it with a new name, and then the original user finds that to be a read-only file also. Only the maker can modify their own files. This appears to be normal, default linux behavior and I understand the logic of that.
However, our small office needs to allow all users to open and modify all other user's documents and save them back to the original folder for others to access and modify. It is not feasible for each user to set chmod on each file and anyway, I don't want the users to even know that their new file server is actually using Ubuntu. They only use Windows machines and have no interest in learning linux commands.
I think umask will help me do this by setting the shared folder to 000 but I don't know how to perform this simple operation. How exactly do I go about opening the permissions on this one folder on my Ubuntu file server so that anyone and everyone can access anyone or everyone's files and sub-folders?
I think I need to first modify FTAB and include the mount locations of my shared files. Also in FTAB I believe I will need to specify a list of user names and passwords that is stored in a master file .smbcredentials.  Then I need to configure smb.conf.
Answer: in smb.conf under section for your share, put:
<code>valid users = @PBW
force group = PBW
create mask = 0660
directory mask = 0771
writable = yes
</code>
and restart samba


Soft crumbling walls, electrical mounting box

Question: I wonder if anyone can help.
 I'm having my kitchen refurbished including the electrics but when my partner tried to insert and secure the mounting boxes into the wall the plaster around it has crumbled away. There is now not enough plaster remaining to secure the mounting boxes in place. All the trunking and wires are in place now but we just have this one mounting box that we can't secure.
Is there a way to fix this issue?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you
Comment: Is this true lathe and plaster, or drywall?
Answer: At this point, I don't think an old-work box can be used. As bib mentions, you need a sturdy surface to attach these. You also have a plaster repair in your future, so if you're going to patch that, you may as well go with a new-work box. You have two styles to chose from, one with a tab that attaches to the face of the stud and another that nails into the stud:

I'd recommend the version that nails into the side of the stud, but I'd also recommend swapping out the nails for screws. The process of nailing this box in will disturb a lot more of the plaster.
Go ahead and open the wall up enough to install the new-work box, get the cables inside, screw it to the stud, and secure the wiring with staples to the center of the stud. Then patch your plaster by installing some backing material, applying the plaster with a wide knife, and smoothing the joints so they can't be seen with a light shining at a sharp angle.
Answer: An electrical box is subject to strain as plugs are inserted and removed. It needs to be firmly mounted for safety.
In old-work (retrofitting), you need to either mount a box securely to a framing member, such as a stud, or mount it securely in a solid wall structure.
If the box is near a stud, and the wires can reach, it can be screwed directly into the stud.
If not, you need to be able to reach sound wall material.
Some old-work boxes have wings that grip the back of plaster or drywall as the flanges of the box grip the front.

Also, there are outlet brackets that slip into the wall cavity and then bend over the edges of the box, again using the flanges on the front to hold the box in place.

In both of these cases, you need a fairly solid wall surface, both near the flanges and where the brackets grip the inside surface of the wall cavity. if you do not have solid wall in both those places, you need to rebuild the wall surface to attach the box. This can be done with a drywall patch. If you need to do this, you will be cutting away the crumbled areas, and you may have room to insert a small framing piece for a more solid mounting.


Pressure Canner vs pressure cooker

Question: I am wondering what the difference is between a pressure canner and a pressure cooker? Will they do the same thing? Isn't the difference mainly in the size e.g.: width of the bottom?? Thanx...
Answer: A pressure cooker basically has two settings, high (about 12.5 psi for electric, and 15 psi for stovetop) and low (4 to 7 psi). There are no gauges to accurately specify the pressure in pressure cookers.
Pressure canners, on the other hand, are generally larger, and are equipped with accurate gauges so that the user can measure the exact pressure inside the pot.  It is this accurate measure of pressure (and time) that is necessary to safely can food.
Comment: I generally agree with the answer, but I'm wondering where the information about 12.5 psi "for electric" comes from, and what you mean by "for gas." As far as I know, standard pressure cookers tend to be designed with valves that target 15 psi, as that's the standard pressure (with temp ~250F) assumed by most recipes.

Pressure Canner vs pressure cooker


Game Design Schools

Question: Are there any  Colleges/Universities  (besides digipen i am aware of that one) that are centred around video game careers? Failing that any that have particularly good video game programs? preferably in Canada but not really necessary.
Comment: For the love of God do not go to Westwood College. Trust me.
Answer: A simple google search of "top game design schools" offered me a lot of top searches already.
This one seems to be from princetonreview is credible because it's known a lot for its rankings of top party schools and other quality-of-life ratings of college.
http://www.princetonreview.com/top-undergraduate-schools-for-video-game-design.aspx
I suggest checking the other links when doing a google search and you'd get more information out of it.
Answer: Take a look at the Game Career Guide Digital Counselor. It gives you a bunch of filtering options when it comes to searching for a school related to what your main focus of study would be. From there you could probably narrow it down to a few schools and specifically research them instead of doing this extremely broad research.
Answer: Reliable rule of thumb for most colleges: if it has a TV commercial somewhere, it's probably not worth your time. Local community colleges and trade schools that don't fulfill white collar jobs are the exceptions to this rule.
A college that would be worth looking into that's close to Digipen (and also in your country) is Vancouver Film School. Needless to say, this one is also of a high pedigree and you'll probably need ridiculous amounts of talent to be admitted to and keep up.
Answer: Since you said you don't need it to be in Canada,
There is a nice and very video game centric college here in melbourne (Australia) called QANTM. You can choose a bachelor degree in Games Animation, Games Design or Games Programming.
http://melbourne.qantm.com/en-gb/course/2488/
I have a couple of friends who are attending it and it is quite a full on course. I completed a double degree at Swinburne University which was computer sci/Multimedia(Games and Interactivity) but not enough of the subjects were focussed around video game creation for my liking.
Answer: I went to Champlain College in Burlington, VT which is only about 2 hours south of the Canadian border. They have a program for Design, Art, and Programming. I studied design, but learned a fair bit of programming and am currently employed in the game industry so I can't really complain about the education I received.

Game Design Schools


Is there a politically neutral Chinese term for Greater China that is acceptable to all Chinese speakers?

Question: By "China," I am referring to the Mainland, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan collectively, without regard to geopolitics. Is there a word that refers to this entire region that would not offend any Mainlanders, Taiwanese or citizens of the Special Administrative Units?
Comment: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_China or in Chinese 大中華
Comment: [Singapore's 8world](https://www.8world.com/news/greater-china) uses 中港台 for Greater China, but of course that implies Taiwan/HK is separate from China in some way.
Answer: maybe "大中華區". most multinational corporations used this term to describe the regions you mentioned.
such usage is correct, in context of nowadays, or recent decades. historically, taiwan was integrated into the chinese empire after ~1683. before that time, formosa was colonised by the dutch, spanish.
history of taiwan
last, and most importantly is: how do you define "chinese speakers".
there're many ethnicities in "greater china" can speak chinese, they've their own cultures, languages and ideas of state / nation. so, "politically neutral" is, imo, unattainable.
it's better to seek a term that's vague, fuzzy enough; that no-one want to waste time and effort to argue its precise definition.
Comment: I mean speakers of any of the Chinese family of languages such as 国语,粤语,客家话,闽南话 who use Standard Chinese for written communication. I'm not counting Tibetans, Mongols, Uyghurs or other minorities who speak unrelated languages and have different writing systems.
Comment: Though it is the only one available, it still sounds very strange to me.
Answer: 中國大陸和台灣 / mainland China and Taiwan
Obviously Taiwan is not located inside mainland, so restricting China to mainland China may meet your purpose
Comment: No, this won't include HK and Macau. Greater China is quite internationally recognized
Answer: I agree that "大中華區" is quite common for this issue. There are other expressions such as 兩岸三地(中、台、港) or 兩岸四地(中、台、港、澳)
"大中華區" is a bit vague to me, because it might include Chinese speakers in Singapore and Malaysia. The concept of this word varies from organization to organization.
Maybe the question is: Why do you want to describe Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan collectively? What's the topic? For instance, if you want to compare Chinese-speaking music or films in this region, you can use"華語圈"(Chinese-speaking area)
it's very common to say 華語流行音樂 or 華語電影.
Comment: No, 大中华区 won't include Chinese speakers from Singapore and Malaysia... because it's a term for region not for people. If you want to describe people, 华人 is probably the broadest term to include all Chinese who identify them with root of Chinese, for example, 印尼华人、马来西亚华人、新加坡华人 etc. any corporation include Malaysia and Singapore in greater China region is probably just being lazy...
Comment: You didn't read the question properly.
Answer: NO, there is no one single term that would satisfy everyone.
Just take another country we all know, which is called:-
England, Great Britain, British Isles, United Kingdom......


Is it illegal for my landlord to lie to me?

Question: My landlord has lied to me multiple times and I have proof that he has lied. Is that illegal? I live in Utah.
If so, could you please direct me to the law that says it is illegal?
Comment: Without knowing what the landlord lied about and it what context, it is impossible to tell. Your landlord can lie about the Mets box scores or her age until the cows come home and it isn't illegal. If the landlord lied to induce you to enter a lease, that might be grounds for breaking a lease. Also, a lot of people confuse lying and failing to keep a promise, which are legally, very different things.
Comment: If he lied about which TV programs he likes, I suspect there's nothing illegal in it. If he got money from you by lying to you, then I wouldn't be surprised if he could be convicted of fraud.
Answer: Lying in itself ("of course you will get a wifi signal here") is not a crime. However, if you have proof that the lies were intended to benefit your landlord at your expense ("You won't sign the lease unless there's wifi? No problem") and that they actually did so ("You've signed the lease, it's too late to back out"), he may be guilty of fraud, which is a civil wrong and may be a crime.
You would be well advised to consult a lawyer before going amy further, since there are probably ten people believing themselves to be victims of fraud for every one who actually is so in legal terms. The lawyer will also probably tell you that the best you can hope for is restoration to the state before the lies (in my example, the lease is cancelled and you get your deposit back), though the authorities will look at prosecuting the landlord.
Answer: Probably not
Your landlord must fulfill their obligations under the lease and local tenancy law. Those obligations would generally not include an obligation to tell the truth.
If they are lying to avoid their obligations then the lying is not unlawful, the avoidance of the obligation is.


What is the EV scale?

Question: I have seen an "EV" (exposure value) scale that's sometimes used to express a camera's exposure settings, or scene brightness. How exactly does this scale work?
Comment: Related: http://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/6769/what-is-ansel-adams-zone-system
Answer: We know that for any scene (really, any light meter measurement) of a particular brightness (and particular sensor sensitivity) there is usually more than one "correct" set of shutter speed and aperture settings. A scene that wants f5.6 and 1/125 will also be correctly exposed at f4.0 and 1/250 and so on.
EV numbers are a way to express the brightness of a scene in a scale that combines the shutter speed and aperture settings into one number -- letting the photographer choose what combination of shutter speed and aperture settings to use. Each EV number equals one stop of brightness, so a scene with an EV of 6 is one stop brighter than a scene with an EV of 5.
The EV values are used generally in the following ways:

To show the sensitivity of the light meter itself or of the autofocus system. Camera specs will often say that the metering system works from EV 0 to 20, or that the camera can autofocus down to an EV of 1.
Off camera light meters sometimes have a mode that reports in EV, often with a scale so that the photographer can quickly see what shutter speed/aperture combinations are available.
Especially with off camera spot meters -- to show the difference in the lightest and darkest part of the scene. The photographer would know if he needed fill light to balance the shadows. This is especially from the film days, where you couldn't judge from an LCD when shooting.

For all the technical details (including the formula), look at Wikipedia's "Exposure value" entry.
Comment: EV 0 is a level of light at the camera that gives correct exposure at f1 at 1 second at ISO 100.
See  also http://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/20168/what-is-ev-when-used-as-an-absoute-measurement/20170#20170
Comment: EV 0 is an exposure value, not a light level. It is agnostic of whether that exposure is correct for a given scene or not.
Comment: @MichaelClark Yet it is actually often used as a light level, both in colloquial conversation and in [specifications from camera makers](http://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/20168/what-is-ev-when-used-as-an-absolute-measurement).
Answer: The exposure value (EV) is usually defined as

where

N is the relative aperture (f-number)
t is the exposure time ("shutter speed") in seconds

This means that EV 0 equals an aperture of f/1.0 and a shutter speed of 1 second. If you increase the aperture by the square root of 2 or decrease the shutter speed by a factor 2 you increase the exposure value to 1.
More generally an increase or decrease of the exposure value by 1 corresponds to what's called a "stop".
The exposure value is calculated from the camera's settings and all shots (of a given scene) taken with different settings that correspond to a certain exposure value will yield the same level of exposure. This is useful since you can alter the shutter speed and the aperture, while maintaining the same exposure level to accomplish different effects such as shallow/deep depth of field or freezing of movement/motion blur.
If you've metered the light you can calculate the different sets of settings that will give you correct exposure prior to taking the shot. This is what all modern cameras do automatically, but by knowing how this is done you can do a better job yourself and you'll also get a deeper understanding of photography and means to be more successful as a photographer.
Answer: Exposure Value (or, EV) is a way of representing the brightness of a scene in a simple numeric scale. The scale is measured in "stops", a standard concept in photography where each stop is a doubling or halving of the amount of light.
This is convenient, because we also work with the fundamental parameters of exposure — aperture, shutter speed, and ISO sensitivity — in stops. That is, each step on the standard aperture scale (f/1.4, f/2, f/2.8, f/4, f5.6, etc.) represents an opening half the area of the previous step, which of course means half of the light reaches the sensor. And we typically work with corresponding doublings or halvings of shutter time and ISO.
That means that if you know the Exposure Value of a scene, either by metering or even by guessing, you can easily set your camera's controls to get the right exposure by using any combination that fits. And, if you know that you want the scene to be brighter or darker than the meter (and therefore automatic program-mode camera settings) say, you can use EV compensation to tell the camera you want something different. This is typical for snowy landscapes — the meter is dumb and doesn't know that that white snow isn't typical medium gray, so you can dial in EV compensation to compensate.
I'll get to how one might adjust aperture, shutter, and ISO in a bit, but first, a depiction of the EV scale itself. EV 0 corresponds to a scene which is correctly exposed with a 1 second shutter and a theoretical f/1.0 lens. Brighter scenes go up from that, requiring either a shorter shutter speed or a smaller aperture (that is, higher f numbers). Darker scenes require longer exposures and larger apertures — or, the right combination, since lenses as fast as f/1.0 or even faster are extremely rare beasts.
Technically, EV is just shutter speed and aperture without regard to sensitivity, but we typically assume it to mean EV₁₀₀ — that is, Exposure Value at ISO 100. That allows us to make a chart correlating EV to the real world. Here's a simplified version of a table from Wikipedia (which was taken in turn from the ANSI standard):
<code>-6   night lit by quarter moon
-3   night lit by full moon
 2   distant lighted buildings
 4   candlelight
 6   home interiors
10   around sunset or sunrise
12   overcast day, or full shade on a sunny day
13   bright cloudy day with no distinct shadows
14   partially cloudy but bright enough that there's shadows
15   full sun
</code>
That's a nice enough chart, but I find pictures even more helpful, so here is the above as a series of concentric circles. If I did every whole-number level, each ring would have the same area as all of the rings it contains, but to keep it relatively uncluttered I'm skipping some steps. It is, however, to proper scale — the relative sizes correspond to the increase in scene brightness.

(Note that these are overlaid — the area of the whole circle is what matters, not the separated rings. And, yes — sunlight is 500× brighter than a typical home interior.)
So, how can one use this practically? It's pretty simple: once you know the EV of the scene, start at EV 0 (ISO 100, 1 second shutter, f/1.0) and count stops until you get to the desired number. For example, to get to EV 13 — a cloudy day — you might count aperture first: "f/1.4 — one; f/2 — two; f/2.8 — three, f/4 — four, f/5.6 — five, f/8 — six", and then shutter: "½s — seven; ¼s — eight; ⅛ — nine; ¹⁄₁₅th — ten; ¹⁄₃₀th — eleven; ¹⁄₆₀th — twelve; ¹⁄₁₂₅th — thirteen!"
Or you can just let the camera's automatic metering handle it for you — but it helps to know what's going on under the hood.
Answer: Strictly speaking, Exposure Value (EV) is a standardized scale of combinations of apertures and exposure times that are equivalent without regard to any particular level of light or brightness in a scene. Each step on the EV scale doubles or halves the amount of light allowed to fall on a sensor or film if the amount of light striking the front of the lens is constant. Unless otherwise designated, an EV is also understood to be based on a film/sensor sensitivity of ISO 100.
EV 0 is defined as 1 second exposure time at f/1. If we reduce the aperture (Av - for aperture value)) by one stop and double the exposure time (Tv - for time value) we would let half as much light through the lens for twice as long, thus allowing the same amount of total light to strike the film or sensor. Thus 2 seconds at f/1.4 is also equal to EV 0. So is 1/2 second at f/0.7 (there are few if any lenses capable of f/0.7).
Remember that the f-number scale is based on a fraction with the focal length of the lens being divided by the diameter of a lens' entrance pupil (the effective aperture - which is measured from the front of the lens). To reduce the areal size of the entrance pupil by half the diameter is changed by 1/√2 or approximately 1/1.4. An aperture of f/1.4 is 1/1.4x as wide (which is the same thing as saying 0.7X as wide) as an f/1 aperture on the same lens and has half the area. An aperture of f/0.7 is 1/0.7x as wide (which is the same thing as saying 1.4X as wide) as the f/1 aperture and has twice the area.
The relationship between each value on the EV scale is similar: each increase or decrease of one EV halves or double the amount of total exposure.
Again, EV 0 is defined as 1 second at f/1.
If we halve the total amount of light we get a value of EV 1 - 1 second at f/1.4 or 1/2 second at f/1, 1/4 second at f/0.7, etc.
Halve the exposure from EV1 to get EV 2 - 1 second at f/2, 1/2 second at f/1.4, or 1/4 second at f/1, etc.
If we go the other direction we move to negative EVs. EV -1 is twice the exposure of EV 0. That is 2 seconds at f/1 (or 1 second at f/0.7, etc.)
EV -2 would be 4 seconds at f/1 (or 8 seconds at f/1.4, 16 seconds at f/2, 2 seconds at f/0.7, etc.), and so on.
Sometimes a specific brightness of light is said to equal an Exposure Value. This usage necessarily includes the assumed but seldom articulated condition that a proper exposure of an 18% gray value would result from using a specific EV under the level of light being referenced.
From deep within the Wikipedia article for EV:

Strictly, EV is not a measure of luminance or illuminance; rather, an EV corresponds to a luminance (or illuminance) for which a camera with a given ISO speed would use the indicated EV to obtain the nominally correct exposure. Nonetheless, it is common practice among photographic equipment manufacturers to express luminance in EV for ISO 100 speed, as when specifying metering range (Ray 2000, 318) or autofocus sensitivity. And the practice is long established; Ray (2002), 592) cites Ulffers (1968) as an early example. Properly, the meter calibration constant as well as the ISO speed should be stated, but this seldom is done.

Take the "sunny sixteen" rule for instance. The "Sunny Sixteen" rules says that in bright sunlight an aperture of f/16 requires a shutter time that is the reciprocal of the sensor or film's ISO sensitivity. Thus if we're using ISO 100 and shooting in bright daylight we would use a shutter time of 1/100 with an aperture of f/16. That combination of Tv and Av is within 1/3 stop of what is defined as EV 15 (1/125 @ f/16 or equivalent).
So while we may say, "Direct sunlight is EV 15" what we are really saying is that using a combination of Tv and Av that equals EV 15 will result in proper exposure of medium gray objects or objects with equivalent reflectance under direct sunlight with a film or sensor with sensitivity to light of ISO 100. We can just as easily use a combination equal to EV 15 to take a severely underexposed photo in a dark room.
If we used 1/125 @ f/16 with ISO 100 we've used EV 15 to take the totally black photo.

What is the EV scale?


Do admissions care how close a TOEFL score is to the minimum?

Question: I work with some students who will attend graduate school in the US. The schools they are applying for list minimum required TOEFL scores. Some have just reached the minimum scores required for admission to their schools of choice. Do admissions departments ever care about how close this number is to the minimum? In other words, will the students be at any greater advantage if they retake the test and get a higher score, or is the "score level met" simply a "met" or "not met" variable that goes into deciding whether or not the students are accepted?
Comment: ^ I don't agree. Some schools have a minimum TOEFL requirement of 100 or above (Yale and Stanford are about 100, Harvard is 109), which are excellent scores. Just because a student hits close to minimum does not automatically imply he/she has poor English.
Comment: Perhaps it should be more of a concern that their English skills are so poor they can only reach the minimum score. I've taken the TOEFL a long time ago; it was not a very demanding exam. Perhaps you could help your students improve their English skills. Having poor English skills in the US is really isolating. They could easily end up just talking only to people of their nationality.
Comment: @Penguin_Knight I misread. I assumed a miniumum TOEFL score for admission was low, which is (as you point out) not necessarily true.
Comment: I don't think they care. Because I know some students whose scores were below the minimum score and they're still admitted. Of course, that varies from universities to universities.
Comment: You did not say whether your students are applying to MS or PhD programs. In my experience, MS applications are evaluated more superficially (i.e., with more reliance on test scores) than PhD applications, so you might want to specify which you are asking about.
Answer: The answer is "sometimes."
Some schools will not care what the score is, as long as you have the minimum requirement that they advertise publicly.
Some schools won't care, even if you don't have the minimum requirement (they may "waive" this requirement routinely).
Some schools will care: they may have one public requirement, and a higher (unpublicized) threshold that they really use in most cases. (Or: the school has one minimum and the department has a higher, unpublicized one.)
Some schools will care: the minimum is required to get your application looked at, but even if it is met they still consider the score in admissions decisions.
Comment: How large is the portion of the schools won't care? And how likely do top schools care (or not care)?
Comment: @Ooker the grammar "error" you corrected in this post was not an error, but is in fact correct American-style punctuation. See [Punctuating around quotation marks](http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2011/08/punctuating-around-quotation-marks.html). And I don't have any specific numbers; all I can say is that none of the attitudes towards exam scores that I described in my post are especially unusual.
Comment: It's worth mentioning that one of the reasons for having strict cutoffs for English proficiency may be the need to have students act as TA's early during their graduate careers.
Answer: In addition to other useful remarks made: in my university, a minimum TOEFL score is considered a problem, to the extent that it drags down everything of the file. Partly this is based on our past experiences with such scores (statistically, over 30+ years) and the subsequent improvements-or-not. Specifically, minimal TOEFL score people seem not to usually improve much at all, even after a few years. Oof. Of course this says nothing about any individual, but we predict based on the statistical aggregate...
The minimum set by the umbrella "graduate school" body that imagines it oversees graduate education and degrees across the university has lower expectations than our math dept. I cannot speak for other depts.
And, indeed, both higher and lower TOEFL-score kids who associate almost entirely with their home-language population outside of teaching and classes simply do not improve, do not learn finer points of colloquial English, etc. On one hand, I'm somewhat sympathetic to cultural dislocation... but if the issue is job performance, then we can see the obvious issue: cultural extraterrestrials are rarely effective in teaching.
Answer: Almost 20 years ago, I was in charge of graduate admissions for my department, and TOEFL scores were among my biggest headaches. They just didn't provide the information I really needed: Can the applicant succeed not only as a student but also as a TA in first-year calculus or pre-calculus? (TA positions were essentially the only financial support we could offer foreign graduate students.)  I remember two students in particular. One had the highest TOEFL score I had ever seen, but I had great difficulty understanding her, and I'm confident that I can understand "foreign English" significantly better than our calculus students.  The other student had a TOEFL score barely above the university's minimum, and she was admitted only because one of our faculty vouched for the reliability of a professor who had worked with this student and vouched for her ability to speak English well.  This student was, despite her TOEFL score, indeed able to speak English well, and she even served as an intermediary between some of the department staff and some of her fellow students whose English was not so good (though their TOEFL scores were better than hers).
My department also requires applicants to provide a letter from a native speaker of English, attesting to the applicant's ability to teach.  (We sometimes stretch the meaning of "native" a bit, for example to include me.) These letters are often more useful than TOEFL scores, though sometimes the language of the letter sounds so foreign that I get suspicious.
Returning to the actual question, unfortunately what departments do with TOEFL scores depends not only on the particular university and the particular department, but even on the particular person or committee that happens to be handling graduate applications.  I can easily imagine that my successor as associate chair for graduate studies treated TOEFL scores differently than I did and thereby avoided some headaches).
Answer: What ff524 said, but I will add that if you are interviewed they will judge you by that. It's reasonable since if you have the TOEFL with good marks but have already forgotten half your English, you are deemed unreliable, if you failed it on the other hand, but are at ease with English, it is easy to understand that you probably failed the essay or had a bad day. What they see with their own eyes is more important than an exam taken some time ago under who knows what circumstances.
Comment: And that doesn't even get into the possibility that someone else took the exam in the student's name.  A technical interview is a much more reliable gauge of whether there will be a language barrier.
Comment: Indeed, there's also that possibility.
Comment: If I'm not mistaken the TOEFL certificate is only valid for two years, so someone who earned a B in a C1 English Exam (i.e. 8.5-9.0 in IELTS) but took the exam five years ago would probably have to sit either the IELTS or TEFL exam.
Answer: I would agree with "sometimes."  Usually departments will set these criteria, not schools, based on the success of students who have a given score.  But once that bottom is set you meet it or you don't.


How did Hercules kill the lion without being clawed to death?

Question: The myth says he killed the lion by putting the beast in a stranglehold and choking it to death, but how did he avoid being clawed and bitten by the lion while doing so?
Answer: Presumably, by "the lion", you are referring to the Nemean Lion.
The Wrestler
The poet Theocritus addresses this precise issue in the 25th of his Idylls. In it, Heracles (whom the Romans called Hercules) is narrating to his friend Phyleus an account of how he vanquished this creature.
After Heracles had, in vain, shot at the beast with arrows, the vexed animal furiously charged at the hero, who in turn took the raw olive-wood club he had brought from Mt Helicon and bashed the lion on the head as hard as he could, thus inadvertently smashing the club to pieces. The lion's head was dizzied by the darkness swimming in its eyes "at the stunning shock to the brain's core" and the monster drooped as its feet trembled. Heracles goes on to tell Phyleus:

Seeing him [the lion] witless with whelming pain, before he could
  turn and breathe again, I was quick to advance and seize him by the
  scruff of his iron neck, having thrown my bow to the ground with my
  embroidered quiver. Then I throttled him mightily with my stout hands,
  reaching round from behind lest he lacerate my flesh with his claws. I
  set solidly my heels on his hind feet and pressed them down to the
  ground—my knees took care of his sides—until I raised his body up
  breathless in my arms and stretched it out.

The lion then died instantly.
In other accounts Heracles cornered the beast in its own den, a cave with two openings, one of which cave-mouths Heracles blocked up, after which he somehow gained the advantage over his opponent to fight against it better in these close quarters rather than out in the open, such as in Theocritus. These accounts are nowhere near as detailed as that in Idyll 25, all saying simply that Heracles strangled the life out of this lion.
I think it safe to assume that at least two factors worked in the hero's favour, the foremost of which is that, since Heracles' strength was so prodigious, it was a significantly easier task for him to perform safely than it would have been for a more ordinary man.
Considering how Heracles fared against gods and giants, who may have been much larger and some of whom certainly were way more powerful than this lion, Heracles was probably several times stronger than this beast, and it may have been for him, by my guess, like handling a rag doll (aside from certain dangerous features of the like that you reference, i.e. its razor-sharp claws and teeth).
In his Thebaid, Statius seems to imply that Heracles' body itself was so strong that he "broke" the lion "against the strong pressure of his breast and... upon his own bones." (Meaning he broke the lion's bones or some other part[s] of its body, or rather speaking more figuratively?)
The other factor, to augment the first, is that Heracles is supposed to have been a highly skilled wrestler, this idea coming from the assertion that he had received expert training in this discipline from a certain son of Hermes, either Autolycus (according to Apollodorus) or Harpalycus (according to Theocritus), the latter of whom "no man could abide confidently in the ring even so much as to look upon him from aloof: so dread and horrible was the frown that sat on his grim visage."
Some Loss and Some Assistance
Notwithstanding the above, there is a later writer named Ptolemy Hephaestion who in his New History, takes up the Question's concern, telling us that Heracles lost one of his fingers in the fight against the Nemean Lion, so while he neither died nor, so far as we are informed, sustained further injury, he did not leave this battlefield fully unscathed. It is noteworthy that he seems to have learned from the experience, thereafter using the lion's own pelt to protect his body from further harm.
Ptolemy uses the episode of Heracles' maiming as an aetiology (origin story) of particular burial practices, one of which is carried down for centuries afterwards in parts of Western European culture.

Heracles, after the Nemean Lion had bitten off one of his fingers, had
  only nine... [T]here exists a tomb erected for this detached finger...
  [O]ne can see at Sparta a stone lion erected on the tomb of the finger
  and which is the symbol of the power of the hero. It is since then
  that stone lions have likewise been erected on the tombs of other
  important people. Other authors give different explications of the
  lion statues.

As a bonus miscellaneum, Ptolemy adds that, according to Alexander of Mindos, there was an Earth-born serpent which fought with Heracles against the Nemean Lion. As with many other offspring of Gaia, the Earth, this snake was probably huge, and should have made for a good wrestling tag-team member that Heracles could have used as a kind of rope without having to make any lethal contact with the monster lion.
Attire
Every piece of artwork that I have seen, that is at least 500 years old, portraying the contest with the Nemean Lion, depicts Heracles tussling with the beast while he is completely in the nude. (In virtually every ancient vase painting of the scene, his groin dangles precariously close to the lion's snout.) Considering the concern raised by you, as well as by Heracles himself in the Idylls, this seems simply absurd, but it is probably merely a form of stylisation.
Prior to this, Heracles had only ever fought one battle, against the Orchomenians, at which he was outfitted by Hephaestus, the metalworker of the gods, with a golden breastplate. The fight with the Nemean Lion is the only other battle in which he would have needed this piece of protection since he hereafter wears the lion-skin as armour. It would make sense that he wore the breastplate in the struggle against the lion, which of course would have guarded only part of his body.
Beyond these speculations, and the hero's own quite detailed report in Theocritus, we can only imagine that Heracles was altogether so lucky or simply that good an animal-wrangler.
Comment: interesting note, but that still doesn't address how he managed to not get bitten or scratched more severely
Comment: Answer expanded by a few additional bits of information, primarily the account from Theocritus' *Idylls* & another note from Ptolemy Hephaestion.
Answer: There was a RL case of an explorer attacked by a (provoked) leopard, and strangling the leopard with his bare hands.  Granted this was a leopard, not a lion; but neither was the explorer Heracles, so I suppose you could call it a "scaled down" equivalent.  Carl Akeley describes his fight in detail here.  He did not strangle the beast from behind, but ended up kneeling on its armpits, as he describes, staying out of the reach of the hind legs.  Then he actually throttled the leopard, unlike Hercules in the Theocritus account, who appears to have actually broken the lion's back or neck.  Seeing as the general consensus is that Heracles strangled the lion, perhaps the Akeley account is closer to the mark.


Mail on one server, hosting on another

Question: I'm new to this whole hosting thing, my situation is the following. If my domain is being hosted at a company and my email is with another company. What do I need to give to the hosting company so that the other company is able to host my mail? I was thinking I need to get the MX records so that the hosting company can add them at there site? Is this correct?
Answer: You indeed need to configure your DNS records in order to have MX records point at your other server. Typical DNS config in this instance, supposing 203.0.113.3 is the webserver and 203.0.113.4 is the mail server:
<code> example.com.     IN A 203.0.113.3
 www.example.com. IN A 203.0.113.3
 mx.example.com.  IN A 203.0.113.4

 example.com.     IN MX 10 mx.example.com.
</code>
I'm guessing your web server provider also provides DNS servers, so you must have some kind of web app to configure this. If not, you should look into DNS servers (Bind, PowerDNS).
Answer: Pretty much.
Ask your mail host what the addresses for their mail servers are, and give that to your hosting company so they can change the MX records on your domain to those servers.
This is assuming that they are hosting DNS, and it's not being done through someone else such as the registrar where you bought the domain

Mail on one server, hosting on another


Tefillin shel rosh first?

Question: So the RaMBaM put on his tefillin shel rosh on his head before his tefillin shel yad, and Josephus also says that he puts on his tefillin shel rosh first. Why did they do that? Is that even allowed today? Or is it because they are in a higher level than regular people, or did people in the olden days do that?
Comment: "the RaMBaM put on his tefillin shel rosh on his head before his tefillin shel yad" How do you know that?
Comment: The Rambam says to first put on the *shel yad*, then to put on the *shel rosh* ([*Hil. T'fillin* 4:5](http://hebrewbooks.org/rambam.aspx?rid=809), "וקושר של יד ואחר כך מניח של ראש"). The Rambam is pretty emphatic about it ([ibid. 4:8](http://hebrewbooks.org/rambam.aspx?rid=812), "שאין לובשין של ראש קודם של יד").
Comment: related http://judaism.stackexchange.com/q/31163/759 http://judaism.stackexchange.com/q/48368/759
Comment: Also, Josephus never said to put on the *shel rosh* first. He just mentioned it before he mentioned the *shel yad* ([*Antiquities* iv. 8:13](http://www.loebclassics.com/view/josephus-jewish_antiquities/1930/pb_LCL490.105.xml), "ἐπὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς καὶ τοῦ βραχίονος").
Comment: @Fred This is a valid answer
Comment: Discussed at http://meta.judaism.stackexchange.com/q/4089
Comment: 2 - 1 question about the question:
- Where Rambam wrote this?
- Who is Josephus? --> Flavius Josèphe --> יוסיפון
Comment: @Fred http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/925425/jewish/Tefillin-Mezuzah-and-Sefer-Torah-Chapter-Four.htm
Answer: The premises of your question appear to be incorrect.
The Rambam (Hil. T'fillin 4:5) says to first put on the shel yad (phylacteries of the arm) and to then put on the shel rosh (phylacteries of the head):

וקושר של יד ואחר כך מניח של ראש

Translation:

And he should bind the arm phylacteries [to his arm] and afterwards don the head phylacteries.

The Rambam emphasizes that a person should not reverse the order (ibid. 4:8):

שאין לובשין של ראש קודם של יד

Translation:

For one should not don the head phylacteries before the arm phylacteries.

Additionally, Josephus never said to put on the shel rosh first. He simply mentioned it before he mentioned the shel yad when talking about the significance of the commandment of t'fillin in general (Antiquities iv. 8:13, "ἐπὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς καὶ τοῦ βραχίονος"). Josephus was apparently not addressing the question of the proper order of placement. English translation:

Let every one commemorate before God the benefits which he bestowed upon them at their deliverance out of the land of Egypt, and this twice every day, both when the day begins and when the hour of sleep comes on, gratitude being in its own nature a just thing, and serving not only by way of return for past, but also by way of invitation of future favors. They are also to inscribe the principal blessings they have received from God upon their doors, and show the same remembrance of them upon their arms; as also they are to bear on their forehead and their arm those wonders which declare the power of God, and his good-will towards them, that God's readiness to bless them may appear everywhere conspicuous about them.
Comment: @Fred http://meta.stackexchange.com/a/43020/166155
Comment: @NoachMiFrankfurt (Not sure if you're actually pingable). "Every where" as two words is just an archaic spacing convention that Gutenberg.org retained when transcribing this 1737 translation from [William Whiston](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Whiston). It also used to be common to write other compound words like "every thing", "every one", and "any thing" as two words.
Comment: I was unaware. Regardless, the convention when maintaining an incorrect usage in a quote is to have [*sic.*]. Modernising spellings is also accepted protocol when quoting older works.

Tefillin shel rosh first?


How do I determine if I should install Drupal 5.x or 6.x?

Question: I'm planning to install Drupal. Is there any reason not to install the latest 6.x version as opposed to the 5.x branch? Are there any really good modules that are 5.x only?
Answer: Unless you have a 5.x module that you can't do without, and that you know is being worked on to upgrade to 6.x, just use 6.x. i.e. Only start with 5.x now if you know you have a upgrade path with your site to 6.x (and then 7.x). If the module isn't being actively worked on, it mean you'll be unsupported when 7.x rolls around, so you might as well solve the problem of doing without that module with 6.x now rather than wait till your site is developed and up and running.
Answer: I've found enough modules to happily run my site on Drupal 6.x  I think the only 5.x module I miss is one that did very easy Google ad integration, and that may have been updated I just haven't checked recently.  I don't get enough traffic to make the ads worth the time in setting them up, so I just use the search part of the ad campaign.
Drupal 7.x is under development now, so I would expect that anything that hasn't been moved from 5.x to 6.x is just not being developed anymore, and is probably not really that needed.
Ultimately, take a look at what modules you may need.  With an account on Drupal's site, you can filter by install type.  I found that 6.x is much easier to work with in some regards (managing and upgrading modules) and overall I've had a much easier time maintaining my site under Drupal 6.x than I did under 4.x or 5.x.
I also think that 6.x runs much faster.
Answer: My bosses were insistent on making Drupal 6 sites for clients as soon as it was released. This was a headache, because views and CCK were not done, as well as many other modules. Their rational was that we'd have to eventually upgrade to 6, and we wouldn't want to go back and redo these sites. It ended up that we had so many workarounds while using the development versions of modules that it was a pain every time we upgraded modules or core itself.
Thankfully, this is no longer the case. Views, CCK, and most other modules are now ready and stable for 6. The only module we use that hasn't been upgraded is eCommerce, and it doesn't look like it will be, since ubercart is pretty much the Drupal standard for commerce functionality.
Answer: We asked ourselves the same question several months ago (just before Drupal 6 was finalized & released)
Our office has limited development resources, and we had released a couple of D5 sites, and a D5 sales app.
We went with Drupal 6.
The decision came after considering the core of what we were interacting with. CCK & Views are the only die-hard critical components for anything besides a default Drupal install, and the level of participation and vitality of the projects was very encouraging.
The stuff that really, really matters, has been/is being ported over to D6, and the wow, this would be nice, p2 stuff is hit & miss.
If you're doing any module development, D6 is a winner.
If you're already very comfortable with D5, then stick with it.
I hope this helps.
Answer: The asset module is not available for D6 yet, not even in a development branch. I've heard a lot about its benefits as a single way to manage all kinds of media files, but most sites can probably happily do without it.
Answer: The one significant CCK-related module that's not D6 production ready is filefield. This may not be an issue if you're not doing anything substantial with images and media, but might be worth considering if you're going to do any serious DAM. Otherwise, I think we're (finally!) to the point where it's making more sense to go with D6 than D5. Either way, it's definitely worth the time to architect the site according to your specific needs, figure out what modules you'll need and find out if any of them have yet to be updated.
Answer: If you haven't been running Drupal before you could find that version 6 has the modules you need. Besides, modules gets ported and created every day so your missing modules could very well be on the way.
Answer: As a module developer, I feel that Drupal 6's API is more mature then version 5.
So even if you decide to choose 6, and then finds a module is missing, it will be easy to develop it to 6.
Answer: For me, the lack of a protx payment module was a deal breaker when choosing which version to use.
The best thing to do is get a full list of requirements before you start, and make sure it's all available in 6.
Answer: Now that I've used Views 2, I ain't ever going back (unless it's to revisit old projects).
I think now, all modules and themes that are of any worth have been migrated and now I'm seeing a trend of new (actually good themes) are drupal 6 only as are quite a few of the must have modules.


Facebook Sharer and Android App

Question: Basicly, i want to provide users to share my application's android market url. I do not want to use "facebook api for android" so my way is like that when the user press the button of "share on facebook", web browser opens "www.facebook.com/sharer.php" then user login it and application's market url string paste in "write something" (textbox of facebook sharer.) Is it possible to make like this or must i use facebook api for this work?
Answer: Please don't use sharer.php as it is deprecated, Facebook may completely pull it at any time. Try to see if http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/dialogs/feed/ will work for you instead.
Answer: No, not really, unless you really hack things up.
Look at the dialogs documentation: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/dialogs/, for each dialog they provide a url, but if you try them you'll see at the bottom of the dialog that it's "shared via Cool Social App".
You need to have an application if you want users to share, and if you already have a fb application, and you want to do the share from an android application, then yes you can just open a web browser with the dialog url, but using the android facebook sdk will be a much better choice since it has the Single Sign-On: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/mobile/android/sso/, that will check if the user is already signed in to facebook in the mobile device, and if so will skip the authentication process.

Facebook Sharer and Android App


Can I compute the free energy difference in (temporally) nearby micro-states using the Zwanzig equation for Free Energy Perturbation?

Question: I wanted to understand the Free Energy Perturbation in an NVT ensemble.
Wikipedia explains it as:
$$
\tag{1}
\Delta F = F_1 - F_0 = -\kappa T \ln \left<\exp\left( \frac{-(E_1-E_0)}{\kappa T}\right) \right>.
$$
Can I compute the above for micro-states separated by 50 timesteps? How do I deal with the average in that case: what is the strategy to actually compute it?
Answer: As I have previously discussed with you, there is no such thing as frame-wise free energies, so the premise of your question is flawed. With this in mind, I think it  would actually be useful to tell something about what FEP can do.
FEP is used to calculate the free energy difference between two macrostates with corresponding Hamiltonians $H_0(x)$ and $H_1(x)$ where $x$ denotes all phase space variables (you can also perturb the number of particles, the box volume and even work in other ensembles, but I am not going to deal with these cases here to keep it simple). Note that when we talk about different Hamiltonians, we mean different functional forms, not different values. This means that for the same phase space point $x$, the difference in these Hamiltonians $\Delta H(x)$ is in general not zero. Then, the Zwanzig equation tells you that you can calculate the free energies between the two macrostates using the identity:
$$e^{-\beta \Delta F} = \left<e^{-\beta \Delta H(x)}\right>_0\tag{1}$$
The expectation value can also be written as an integral, just to make it more clear:
$$\left<e^{-\beta \Delta H(x)}\right>_0 \equiv \int_{V} e^{-\beta \Delta H(x)} p_0(x) dx\tag{2}$$
where $p_0(x)$ is the normalised Boltzmann distribution for ensemble 0:
$$p_0(x) \equiv \frac{e^{-\beta H_0(x)}}{Z_0}\tag{3}$$
This basically means that you can in principle calculate the free energy between the two macrostates simply by sampling only one of them (which is what you do by running MD). After you obtain the  structures from ensemble 0, then you can evaluate $e^{-\beta \Delta H(x)}$ for each one of them, and the average of these will eventually converge to $e^{-\beta \Delta F}$. Note that at the end of that, you are still calculating an ensemble average between the macrostates, and the microstates you get are simply a tool to get more datapoints for your free energy estimator.
I guess this is the point where I have to note that the theory of this is sound and simple enough to understand but the primary problem with the Zwanzig equation is that you can have very quick decrease in sampling efficiency once your Hamiltonians become even slightly different. In these cases, it is advisable to introduce additional intermediate Hamiltonians, so that the variance in the exponential terms is manageable for each simulation.
I am not going to go into more detail about the practicalities, though, because I suspect that you don't actually need FEP for your application, judging by your previous questions. Since FEP is only relevant if you are trying to calculate free energy difference between two Hamiltonians, I will reiterate that if you want to calculate the effective free energy between different regions of phase space with the same Hamiltonian, then you need methods that calculate potentials of mean force (PMFs), such as umbrella sampling, metadynamics, etc, that need you to define a reaction coordinate.
Comment: A configuration is a particular set of coordinates, a microstate is all the information contained in a single frame (e.g. coordinates, velocities, instantaneous number of particles, instantaneous volume), and a macrostate only depends on macroscopic observables, such as temperature, entropy, volume, pressure, number of particles, chemical potential. The macrostate variables are **averaged over all possible microstates**, so for example each microstate has its own instantaneous temperature, but the macrostate has a single average temperature over all microstates.
Comment: A pre-requisite for all of this is Statistical Mechanics. And, a necessary pre-requisite for Statistical Mechanics is thermodynamcs. To jump right to Free Energy Perturbation is to risk never truly understanding what is going on, ever.
Comment: @Godzilla can you explain what is the difference between a macrostate, a microstate and a configuration at a timestep ? I am finding it hard to understand everything you say because of a lack of clarity on these
Comment: The free energy is a function only of the macroscopic variables, so it's a statistical concept that can't be applied to microstates, since it is independent of instantaneous quantities. You *could*, however, define a free energy over a region in phase space, so for example you can find the free energy profile over a reaction coordinate, or a set of reaction coordinates. There are many more things to say about that, so I think that you should do some reading on statistical mechanics, because it will definitely clear some things up for you. Otherwise, MD will make no sense to you.
Comment: @Godzilla123 in the absence of a CV to identify phase space, if I can cluster microstates to identify different phases spaces, what should be the method followed for calculating the free energy (since I still can't use the reciprocal of the bias) ?
Comment: @fireball.1 In the infinite sampling limit, the effective free energy difference between two clusters $\Delta F_{01}$ is $-\frac{1}{\beta} \ln \frac{n_1}{n_0}$ where $n_1$ and $n_0$ are the number of frames corresponding to cluster 1 and 0, respectively (this assumes you use the same Hamiltonian to sample both states). Note that this will only be reliable for relatively large samples per cluster, so make sure you either sample for long enough or you make your clusters sufficiently big.


What's the difference between frontcountry camping and backcountry camping?

Question: I know what camping is, but what are frontcountry and backcountry camping?
Comment: For me backcountry is a synonym for *remote*. I never actually heard frontcountry but from context this has to be the opposite.
Comment: Hipster web designers at work. Traditionally the distinction has been between regular campground with tent site ( implies car access ) and walk-in tent site.
Comment: I would be very interested to know where you found the original use of these two term wrt camping.
Comment: @FredtheMagicWonderDog, [here](https://reservation.pc.gc.ca/Home.aspx), under "reservation type".
Answer: Front country is a rarely used term; it would only be in contrast to backcountry. Backcountry camping means that you are not near the road or in a developed area. Typically sites can only be reached by foot or boat, often several hours of travel from any development. Facilities will range from absolutely nothing - camp where you like, try not to make a mess - to spartan - a sign on a tree, a ring of stones for a fire, a latrine pit with a wooden box on it. Your behaviour will typically be more restricted (eg no cans or bottles may be brought) than in a developed campground.
Front country camping is what I call car camping. There are sites with picnic tables, fireplaces, possibly grills, taps, central bathrooms with sinks, perhaps even flush toilets or showers, electricity, there might be a store or an office with a phone, and it's on a road so you can go out and get things if you need them.
Neither one of them matches festival camping, which is a farmers field full of tents with no real camping support (fireplaces, picnic tables) but plenty of event support (food stalls, entertainment.)
You can ask questions about the details of any kind of camping here on The Great Outdoors, btw.
Comment: At least hereabouts (Northern Nevada/Northeastern California), there's also a wide range of possible car camping, ranging from towing your 40-foot RV to a developed campsite, to tossing tent & sleeping bag in the back, and driving to an undeveloped spot at the end of a dirt road, or a minimally-developed Forest Service/BLM campground that might at most have piped water and pit toilets.  (And possibly a corral for your horses :-))
Answer: Where I live (Outside US), Front-country is used to refer to facilities and activities that are close to roads and easily accessible. Short walks, nature trails etc 10 minutes up to a couple of hours, camps and visitor centres you can drive to are "Front Country".  Front country is often wheel chair accessible, suitable for all fitness and age levels, although extends to some longer hikes in more remote areas that are heavily used and require high levels of signage and maintenance. Facilities are well maintained and cleaned regularly. Users are typically townies and tourists in street cloths and street shoes and young families.
Back-country are remote locations - typically more than 4 hours walk from a formed road, although 4x4 trails and farm access tracks might get you into back country, if you can get there in a 2wd car, its probably not back-country. Facilitates are basic. Huts and Shelters have limited facilitates - often no cookers and sometime not even heating (despite sub zero temperatures) -think one step up from a tent. Tracks are rough or just marked routes, bridges across rivers are basic swing bridges, 2/3 wire bridges. Unlike front-country users, back-country travellers are expected to be competent and self sufficient. Safety and comfort are the users responsibility.
"Wilderness Area" is defined at least eight hours walk from nearest road end.
Comment: That's not what "Wilderness Area" means in the USA. It's a specific land use designation that has nothing to do with distance from the trailhead.
Comment: I'm not sure there is any "Wilderness Area" by the 8 hr walk definition in the lower 48, at least in the summer months.
Comment: If "formed road" means a paved one, then yes, there are lots of places in the lower 48 that are more than an 8-hour walk.  For instance, most Nevada mountain ranges.  Some are legally designated as wilderness areas, but many aren't.  And of course you can usually get much closer on dirt roads.
Comment: @Fred the Magic Wonder Dog: Yes, I know more than one legally-designated wilderness when I can drive to trailheads, and sometimes campsites, within a few hundred yards of the boundary.  Admittedly the drive often may be several miles of dirt, but it's generally passable to 2WD vehicles in good weather.
Comment: Added clarification these definitions are a country outside US.
Answer: I have mostly commonly heard those two terms used together in skiing. Frontcountry is lift served skiing inside the resort boundaries verses backcountry skiing where you ski up the hill first before you ski down it.
(i.e. the front of the mountain is where the lifts and trails are, the back
is where they aren't. )
Frontcountry is a relatively new term compared to backcountry.
Backcountry in general implies a more remote setting and one that you reach only by self-propelled means. I would expect nothing in the way of facilities at
a backcountry camping site.
I have never heard the term frontcountry applied to camping. But I guess it makes sense as an antonym to backcountry. Backcountry camping would generally imply that you carry in everything you need on foot and there isn't anything
setup for you when you get there.
So in general frontcountry would imply some kind of facility or access that somehow make it "not backcountry".
Answer: I have generally used this term when thinking about definitive care. If you or someone you are with gets injured can you get them to an ambulance within 1 hour?
YES - You are in the front country
NO - You are in the backcountry (and should be prepared to be independent if any situation should arise)
Any other definition can get you into a grey area and are really not helpful in describing exactly what is happening. I've been to places that can actually change depending on the season (ie: the top of Mt. Washington, NH) The summit of Mt Washington is actually the front country in the warmer months because there is a road up there. When the road is closed...you're in the backcountry. You can find beautiful campsites with a lot of facilities but if you can't get to an ambulance within an hour...you're in the backcountry.
Also something to think about...if you are hiking for less then an hour, you still might be in the backcountry because if you or your friend gets injured it will take WAY MORE then an hour to carry them out. If you're hiking on a trail I would venture a guess that anything more then 15 minutes in could be considered backcountry.
Hope this helps!


Is there a term called Stair-Step Performance Testing?

Question: I have been hearing a term called 'Stair-Step Performance Testing' from students. Is there any official term as such. Please share your thoughts.
Comment: It might help for you to describe what you believe students mean when they use that term.
Answer: I think the name comes from the resulting graph over-time, which is called a stairstep graph. I don't think it is official, but more some terms added together which seemed logical.
The step load pattern increases the user load periodically during the load test.
Creating a stairstep graph where you show number of users vs time:

This instead of a continuous increase over time. Let say you increase the number of users by 60 each minute. This would generate a stairstep. You could also add a user each second increasing it linear.
Other reads:

How to: Change the Load Pattern: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms182586(v=vs.80).aspx
Answer: "Stair-Step" is also know as "Ramp up".
In this type of Performance Testing, load is increased in a schedule intervals to check the server performance.
Answer: Load is increased over time and by set increments.
Users observe whether the server load on memory, cpu, etc. and response time remain constant, increase proportionally or start to increase disproportionately.
It is done in steps or increments for efficiency. Instead of 5000 different tests with 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8... 5000 users you will get most of what you want to know from 'steps' such as 1,2,3,10,20,50,100,1000,5000 user loads i.e. 9 tests instead of 5000 tests.
Sometimes the process is repeated if a certain point is found where individual performance start to suffer with more small steps around that point to pin-point it, e.g. if 100 was ok but 1000 was not you might try again with 150,200,400,800
Use with caution.  Don't do premature optimization is a strong concept to repect.  In a few weeks the database or server may become more powerful.  Try to remain implementation independent as long as possible.
Answer: Here is an explanation for the term you are looking for. Though I believe that the adliteram term you are after does not exist, but it refers to the different approaches to load patterns.
The step load pattern is used to specify a user load that increases with time up to a defined maximum user load. For stepping loads, you specify the Initial User Count, Maximum User Count, Step Duration (seconds), and Step User Count.
For example a Step load with an Initial User count of one, Maximum User Count of 100, Step Duration (seconds) of 10, and a Step User Count of 1 creates a user load pattern that starts at 1, increases by 1 every 10 seconds until it reaches 100 Users.


What is the difference between VOIP and Internet Telephony?

Question: These terms are often used interchangeably. Is there any difference the two terms, or is one of the terms subset of another?
Answer: VOIP is a specific component of "internet telephony".
VOIP is typically considered internet telephony between two non-analog lines.
Internet telephony without VOIP aims to create a cross-over between analog (PSTN) phone lines and an IP based client.
Comment: I don't know why this is being downvoted when it's correct...
Comment: What are the "other" ways?
Comment: By itself, Google Voice is not VOIP.
Answer: No.  There is (practically) no difference between VOIP and Internet Telephony, they are pretty much synonymous.
VOIP stands for Voice over IP.   IP is, of-course, the protocol/underlying language of the Internet.  Voice in this context is the same as telephony.  Neither term implies a specific mechanism for transmitting or encoding the voice  (ignoring the IP in VOIP which is generic - I'm talking about protocols like SIP, H323, alaw,ulaw etc)
IMHO (and in my region of the word), VOIP is used by people who know what they are talking about, Internet Telephony would be an older term.
Comment: alaw and ulaw are not protocols. Besides that, I agree.
Answer: In olden days when telephones were there , there existed something called as PSTN (public switch telephone network) which was automated system to route the calls you made through your telephone. (IN DETAIL HERE . And the instruments we used to use that service were different , Few examples are codless , Landline , and few non-voice related - PAGER, FAX
Similarly in internet world the IP Telephony is the methodology to route all the IP messages. The softwares like SKYPE , GTALK use specific technology called voice over IP , because they transmit calls in packet(which have restrictions and relaxations). Other services are transmission  sms and faxes, system to PSTN dialing.For details:Read here.