qid int64 1 74.7M | question stringlengths 12 33.8k | date stringlengths 10 10 | metadata list | response_j stringlengths 0 115k | response_k stringlengths 2 98.3k |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
6,006,689 | I have taken a look at GTK+3 and I like it. But unfortunately compiling from source has never worked for me. Is there any okace with decent binaries or even better, a windows installer? | 2011/05/15 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/6006689",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/753341/"
] | I'm sharing the latest GTK+ and gtkmm binaries for Windows 32-bit through DropBox.
[Take a look.](https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8d1qbh5dsp044on/UgkALzhlqH)
3.22.0 for GTK+ and 3.22.0 for gtkmm as of today. | This one is even fatter and wholesome, but targeted for pygi. GTK is version 3.6.4 <http://opensourcepack.blogspot.com/p/pygobject-pygi-aio.html>. BTW i'm former windows build mypaint maintainer which migrate to pygobject 3. Also for MinGW i'm providing the most badass MinGW distro <http://opensourcepack.blogspot.com/p/tuma-mingw.html> |
8,525,128 | I have an android app that has to be restricted to portrait mode, and now I have to output it to a screen via HDMI cable. The problem is that the signal matches the screen's height but the width is letterboxed. The screen I'm using can't flip to vertical, so I have to do it by code. I basically need to display the HDMI output flipped.
[I know this can be done on the iPad](http://createdigitalmotion.com/2011/05/ipad-2-goes-native-1920x1200-output-with-thicket-devs-how-to-add-this-to-your-apps/), but I don't know how to do it on android, or whether it can even be done.
So any ideas? | 2011/12/15 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/8525128",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/778328/"
] | You may want to look at [this link](http://developer.motorola.com/docstools/library/motorola-hdmi-dual-screen-api/)
More specifically: EXTDISP\_STATUS\_CONNECTION
If that doesn't work, you could always just put a menu option to switch resolutions. | Short anwer, no it can't be done, indeed on a Motorola device I would have had more of a choice. But anyway, if anyone's interested to know, what I did was create a landscape app and compose the UI so it appeared portrait, user input was a drag, but overall it worked. |
8,525,128 | I have an android app that has to be restricted to portrait mode, and now I have to output it to a screen via HDMI cable. The problem is that the signal matches the screen's height but the width is letterboxed. The screen I'm using can't flip to vertical, so I have to do it by code. I basically need to display the HDMI output flipped.
[I know this can be done on the iPad](http://createdigitalmotion.com/2011/05/ipad-2-goes-native-1920x1200-output-with-thicket-devs-how-to-add-this-to-your-apps/), but I don't know how to do it on android, or whether it can even be done.
So any ideas? | 2011/12/15 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/8525128",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/778328/"
] | You may want to look at [this link](http://developer.motorola.com/docstools/library/motorola-hdmi-dual-screen-api/)
More specifically: EXTDISP\_STATUS\_CONNECTION
If that doesn't work, you could always just put a menu option to switch resolutions. | You can create a folder named tvdpi and put your layouts on it |
8,525,128 | I have an android app that has to be restricted to portrait mode, and now I have to output it to a screen via HDMI cable. The problem is that the signal matches the screen's height but the width is letterboxed. The screen I'm using can't flip to vertical, so I have to do it by code. I basically need to display the HDMI output flipped.
[I know this can be done on the iPad](http://createdigitalmotion.com/2011/05/ipad-2-goes-native-1920x1200-output-with-thicket-devs-how-to-add-this-to-your-apps/), but I don't know how to do it on android, or whether it can even be done.
So any ideas? | 2011/12/15 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/8525128",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/778328/"
] | Short anwer, no it can't be done, indeed on a Motorola device I would have had more of a choice. But anyway, if anyone's interested to know, what I did was create a landscape app and compose the UI so it appeared portrait, user input was a drag, but overall it worked. | You can create a folder named tvdpi and put your layouts on it |
1,241,717 | When i do F1, the help window appear and a message alert also :
*Object not accessible. The Object cannot be accessed due to insufficient user rights.*
[libreoffice help do not open](https://i.stack.imgur.com/CLpyR.png)
I understand what it means, but how could i figure out WHICH object does have insufficient permissions ?
* Where could be the full logs ? how make them be written somewhere to be read ?
* How could i know WHICH object or folder to fix ?
* Full purge and reinstall of libreoffice package didn't help.
* Default language use didn't help.
* reintializing of user libreoffice profile didn't help.
* help didn't help help ;-)
An hint someone please ? | 2020/05/20 | [
"https://askubuntu.com/questions/1241717",
"https://askubuntu.com",
"https://askubuntu.com/users/65116/"
] | A known bug. See <https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libreoffice/+bug/1869561>
According to that report a fix is in the pipeline. Meanwhile, to see help, open a browser and go to file:///usr/share/libreoffice/help/index.html | I had the same problem. Had 3 installations of Libreoffice:
1. Snap
2. Old Ubuntu Software Center.
3. Deb download from libreoffice.org.
I removed all of them and killed soffice.bin in processes. Then in Software Center (Snaps) Installed fresh Libreoffice Version: 6.4.4.2
Rebooted. Now Help works with the indexed entries and no access error. |
242,960 | What exactly is the difference between a "netbook" and a "notebook"? What are some examples? | 2011/02/08 | [
"https://superuser.com/questions/242960",
"https://superuser.com",
"https://superuser.com/users/28404/"
] | From [What's the difference between notebooks, netbooks and ultra-mobile PCs?](http://computer.howstuffworks.com/notebook-vs-netbook-vs-ultra-mobile-pc.htm) :
>
> The answer to these questions depends
> upon whom you ask. One person may call
> a particular PC a netbook while
> another insists it's a notebook. It's
> like asking someone to describe an
> elevated geographic feature -- some
> may call it a hill and others insist
> it's a mountain. There's no universal
> definition upon which you can rely.
>
>
> There are, however, some general
> guidelines we can use. Laptop
> computers, notebooks and netbooks use
> the same basic form factor -- the main
> differentiator is size. That form
> factor is a computer with two main
> parts: a screen and a keyboard
> attached by hinges. In general,
> netbook computers are smaller and
> lighter than notebook computers, which
> in turn are smaller and lighter than
> laptops. But there are no specific
> size or weight classes for computers.
> So, for example, if the computer has
> an 11-inch (27.9 centimeter) screen,
> is it a netbook or a notebook? That's
> where people disagree.
>
>
>
Another point is that a netbook is guaranteed to have wireless connection, while a notebook is not (although practically speaking they all do today). | There's no official definition of a netbook - it tends to be a marketing decision whether a particular laptop is called one. You might also see similar machines called a "sub-notebook" or "ultra-portable" depending on what spin the vendor wants to put on the product.
The main defining features of a netbook are low cost, size, weight and performance coupled with long battery life. They're designed for checking e-mail and browsing the web while sitting on the sofa, and little else. Unlike a notebook, they'll struggle with more powerful applications like Microsoft Word, and tend to lack certain hardware such as optical disk drives. They're more likely than a normal notebook to have a built-in 3G data connection, or use a non-Windows alternative operating system - usually based on Linux.
Probably the best known - and one of the first - netbooks is the Asus Eee PC. It's has a seven inch display, 800 MHz CPU, 512MB of RAM, a 2GB SSD and no optical drive. It runs a Linux variant called Xandros. |
242,960 | What exactly is the difference between a "netbook" and a "notebook"? What are some examples? | 2011/02/08 | [
"https://superuser.com/questions/242960",
"https://superuser.com",
"https://superuser.com/users/28404/"
] | From [What's the difference between notebooks, netbooks and ultra-mobile PCs?](http://computer.howstuffworks.com/notebook-vs-netbook-vs-ultra-mobile-pc.htm) :
>
> The answer to these questions depends
> upon whom you ask. One person may call
> a particular PC a netbook while
> another insists it's a notebook. It's
> like asking someone to describe an
> elevated geographic feature -- some
> may call it a hill and others insist
> it's a mountain. There's no universal
> definition upon which you can rely.
>
>
> There are, however, some general
> guidelines we can use. Laptop
> computers, notebooks and netbooks use
> the same basic form factor -- the main
> differentiator is size. That form
> factor is a computer with two main
> parts: a screen and a keyboard
> attached by hinges. In general,
> netbook computers are smaller and
> lighter than notebook computers, which
> in turn are smaller and lighter than
> laptops. But there are no specific
> size or weight classes for computers.
> So, for example, if the computer has
> an 11-inch (27.9 centimeter) screen,
> is it a netbook or a notebook? That's
> where people disagree.
>
>
>
Another point is that a netbook is guaranteed to have wireless connection, while a notebook is not (although practically speaking they all do today). | There is no sharp dividing line.
In 2009 and early 2010, netbooks almost universally featured:
* Intel Atom processor
* Integrated Intel graphics with no 3d acceleration
* A screen 11" or less, 1024x600 resolution
* 1Gb RAM, no optical drive
* Long battery life (4-8h)
* Low price (usually $300 to $500 USD).
One good example is [Samsung N150](http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/pc-peripherals/notebook-computers/netbooks/NP-N150-JP07UK/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail&tab=specification). Notebooks are normally above that spec, for instance featuring a dual-core processor or a larger screen (see [ThinkPad x201s](http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/lenovo-thinkpad-x201s.aspx)).
As times goes by, netbook and low-end laptop categories are merging, and the distinction is becoming meaningless. |
242,960 | What exactly is the difference between a "netbook" and a "notebook"? What are some examples? | 2011/02/08 | [
"https://superuser.com/questions/242960",
"https://superuser.com",
"https://superuser.com/users/28404/"
] | From [What's the difference between notebooks, netbooks and ultra-mobile PCs?](http://computer.howstuffworks.com/notebook-vs-netbook-vs-ultra-mobile-pc.htm) :
>
> The answer to these questions depends
> upon whom you ask. One person may call
> a particular PC a netbook while
> another insists it's a notebook. It's
> like asking someone to describe an
> elevated geographic feature -- some
> may call it a hill and others insist
> it's a mountain. There's no universal
> definition upon which you can rely.
>
>
> There are, however, some general
> guidelines we can use. Laptop
> computers, notebooks and netbooks use
> the same basic form factor -- the main
> differentiator is size. That form
> factor is a computer with two main
> parts: a screen and a keyboard
> attached by hinges. In general,
> netbook computers are smaller and
> lighter than notebook computers, which
> in turn are smaller and lighter than
> laptops. But there are no specific
> size or weight classes for computers.
> So, for example, if the computer has
> an 11-inch (27.9 centimeter) screen,
> is it a netbook or a notebook? That's
> where people disagree.
>
>
>
Another point is that a netbook is guaranteed to have wireless connection, while a notebook is not (although practically speaking they all do today). | [The Register](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/13/miniature_computer_field_guide/) put together an interesting flowchart depicting how to tell if your computer is a laptop, ultraportable, or notebook:
I don't necessarily agree with every single thing on here, but it's a good general guide. |
242,960 | What exactly is the difference between a "netbook" and a "notebook"? What are some examples? | 2011/02/08 | [
"https://superuser.com/questions/242960",
"https://superuser.com",
"https://superuser.com/users/28404/"
] | There's no official definition of a netbook - it tends to be a marketing decision whether a particular laptop is called one. You might also see similar machines called a "sub-notebook" or "ultra-portable" depending on what spin the vendor wants to put on the product.
The main defining features of a netbook are low cost, size, weight and performance coupled with long battery life. They're designed for checking e-mail and browsing the web while sitting on the sofa, and little else. Unlike a notebook, they'll struggle with more powerful applications like Microsoft Word, and tend to lack certain hardware such as optical disk drives. They're more likely than a normal notebook to have a built-in 3G data connection, or use a non-Windows alternative operating system - usually based on Linux.
Probably the best known - and one of the first - netbooks is the Asus Eee PC. It's has a seven inch display, 800 MHz CPU, 512MB of RAM, a 2GB SSD and no optical drive. It runs a Linux variant called Xandros. | There is no sharp dividing line.
In 2009 and early 2010, netbooks almost universally featured:
* Intel Atom processor
* Integrated Intel graphics with no 3d acceleration
* A screen 11" or less, 1024x600 resolution
* 1Gb RAM, no optical drive
* Long battery life (4-8h)
* Low price (usually $300 to $500 USD).
One good example is [Samsung N150](http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/pc-peripherals/notebook-computers/netbooks/NP-N150-JP07UK/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail&tab=specification). Notebooks are normally above that spec, for instance featuring a dual-core processor or a larger screen (see [ThinkPad x201s](http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/lenovo-thinkpad-x201s.aspx)).
As times goes by, netbook and low-end laptop categories are merging, and the distinction is becoming meaningless. |
242,960 | What exactly is the difference between a "netbook" and a "notebook"? What are some examples? | 2011/02/08 | [
"https://superuser.com/questions/242960",
"https://superuser.com",
"https://superuser.com/users/28404/"
] | [The Register](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/13/miniature_computer_field_guide/) put together an interesting flowchart depicting how to tell if your computer is a laptop, ultraportable, or notebook:
I don't necessarily agree with every single thing on here, but it's a good general guide. | There is no sharp dividing line.
In 2009 and early 2010, netbooks almost universally featured:
* Intel Atom processor
* Integrated Intel graphics with no 3d acceleration
* A screen 11" or less, 1024x600 resolution
* 1Gb RAM, no optical drive
* Long battery life (4-8h)
* Low price (usually $300 to $500 USD).
One good example is [Samsung N150](http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/pc-peripherals/notebook-computers/netbooks/NP-N150-JP07UK/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail&tab=specification). Notebooks are normally above that spec, for instance featuring a dual-core processor or a larger screen (see [ThinkPad x201s](http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/lenovo-thinkpad-x201s.aspx)).
As times goes by, netbook and low-end laptop categories are merging, and the distinction is becoming meaningless. |
28,801 | Wondering if the translation of languages such as Chinese and Japanese into Romanized versions is accurate. That is, it doesn't *lose* information. For example, in [Romanization of Chinese](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization_of_Chinese), they say there are *variations in pronunciation*. So what I imagine is when it is Romanized, you can't necessarily go back and translate it back to the original Chinese. Wondering if that is correct. If so, wondering how much information you generally lose, and where you loose it. If not, well that's great!
Basically wondering if the *sound* translation of non-sound-based languages (e.g. logographic ones for example) is accurate, or how much information is lost (preventing reverse translation). | 2018/08/29 | [
"https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/28801",
"https://linguistics.stackexchange.com",
"https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/users/3142/"
] | The purpose of a good romanization is to represent the phonemic distinctions of the language accurately, so that a native speaker who understands the romanization can get the same information from the romanized words as they would from those same words spoken aloud.
For example, if English were just being romanized now (from some other writing system), the romanization would ideally not have any silent E's, double consonants, or other irrelevancies: it would represent the pronunciation accurately, so that a native English-speaker would be able to pronounce an unfamiliar word accurately just from its romanized form. (While [Shavian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shavian_alphabet) isn't a romanization, it's a good example of how these principles would be applied.)
And indeed, such a romanization would lose information! For example, "your" and "you're" would be written the same in such a system. But the key is, it's clear that English-speakers can always tell the difference from context: after all, spoken English doesn't make any distinction between those words, and we can understand spoken English perfectly fine.
On the flipside, such a romanization wouldn't necessarily represent all the details of the pronunciation in the way an IPA transcription would. For example, it might represent the vowels in "trap" and "bath" with the same symbol, even though [some speakers pronounce them differently](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap-bath_split). Or it might represent the `/k/` in "kit" and "skit" with the same symbol, even though [there's an objective difference in pronunciation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspirated_consonant#Allophonic). The key is that these differences aren't seen as *phonemic*: they're predictable from the context and don't need to be represented explicitly.
*(Many modern romanizations aren't actually perfectly phonemic; it's a balance. But that would be the ideal.)*
So while a good romanization can indeed lose information, and can indeed fail to represent all the details of pronunciation, the key is that *it contains the same information as the spoken language*. Since languages tend to be spoken first and foremost, with writing as a secondary concern, this is generally considered the ideal. | A theoretical issue arises in Japanese, in that 箸 'chopsticks' and 橋 'bridge' are Romanized as *hashi* but have different pronunciations (the accent is on a different syllable), likewise 今 'now' and 居間 'living room' = *ima*; 牡蠣 'oyster', 垣 'fence', 柿 'persimmon'; 鮭 'salmon' = *kaki*, 酒 'alcohol' = *sake*. It may also be necessary to put the words in context to get a difference in pronunciation, putatively in the case of 'chopsticks' vs. 'bridge': this depends on dialect as well. Writing systems typically omit tone diacritics (but may include consonant work-arounds as in the Romanized Popular Alphabet for Hmong or the Chao Romanization). The situation as I understand it is that tones are not normally marked in Pinyin except in language teaching materials (whereas my Japanese textbooks don't bother with any accent marking).
The extent of accentual significance in Japanese is fairly minimal, and normally people can distinguish persimmons from oysters in the grocery store, so signage could probably be all Romanized. Such information about word choice as is not conveyed in the spelling can usually be reconstructed heuristically. Chinese without tones is more challenging. The ultimate test of information loss is that comprehension problems arise in one writing system that are avoided in another. Since Pinyin has not replaced Chinese characters, I doubt that the question can be put to the test. |
67,741 | Wimbledon Station: zone 3
Waterloo Station: zone 1
The fastest way is to take a direct train that takes 16 minutes - [Google Maps](https://www.google.co.uk/maps/dir/Waterloo+Station,+Waterloo+Road,+London/Wimbledon,+The+Broadway,+Wimbledon,+London+SW19+7NL/@51.4618725,-0.2301853,12z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x487604b9c09f521d:0x1d0598197b5003ba!2m2!1d-0.1123051!2d51.5031653!1m5!1m1!1s0x487608b740504077:0x4ea120dcc5bed452!2m2!1d-0.206595!2d51.4213717)
The cheapest way is to take the Tube but it would take much longer.
<https://tfl.gov.uk/fares-and-payments/fares/single-fare-finder>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/cspN0.png)
I would assume that TFL (company operating Tube) and South West Trains are working together allowing commuters to use Oyster / contactless... So what is the rationale for different prices for the same distance covered? | 2016/05/04 | [
"https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/67741",
"https://travel.stackexchange.com",
"https://travel.stackexchange.com/users/32531/"
] | Your assumption that TfL and SWT are working together is wrong - at least so far as fare setting goes. And there are in fact four different fares available to you - although only the first two involve a reasonable journey; the two more expensive ones will be slower than at least one of the cheaper options.
State owned TfL in agreement with the Mayor sets fares for journeys that involve only the Underground, the Overground, or both. That's your £3.30 peak fare. There's a political incentive to keep fares relatively low, or you get voted out.
The privately owned train companies jointly (as ATOC) set the rail-only fares. These are also valid for journeys on rail + Overground, as historically the Overground was part of the rail. That's a £3.40 peak fare, but only £2.50 off peak. To see these prices, you'll have to search for a journey from Wimbledon to London Waterloo Rail Station. The train companies are limited in the fare rises they can make to certain fares, I believe including these ones.
To add to the confusion, the train only peak fare also applies in the evening; all the other fares only have a peak time in the morning.
The train companies and TfL both want their slice of the pie on the joint fare, which is the £5.00 one. This is for any journey involving both National Rail and Underground. The fare was really designed for those coming into the rail terminals on the train, then switching to the tube to head into the City (say). The rail companies don't want to accept significantly less from them them than someone leaving the system at Waterloo, and TfL don't want to accept significantly less than anyone else using the tube system (they also want to discourage you from using it for a short journey).
Your final option is the £4.80 one. This one's really two separate fares - a £2.40 Zone 2-3 rail fare, and a £2.40 Zone 1 tube fare - Elephant and Castle and Vauxhall are both on the Zone 1/2 boundary. They could charge you the £5.00 fare for this journey, but I guess they're being nice so they charge you the lower option. | Aw, that's one of my old commutes (although I lived in Southfields, so pretty much had to take the tube).
Without sitting in their pricing meetings, I'd suggest it's supply and demand.
As you said, the tube takes longer, but is cheaper. People are prepared to pay more for timeliness / shorter journeys.
In addition, there may be more people on one than the other, and people may be prepared to pay more for more comfort. Similarly, by raising prices you can spread load as people look for the cheaper options.
Finally, it may cost a lot more to run one than the other, depending on maintenance, fuel and service costs. To offset this and keep it running, they may be required to charge more for it. |
67,741 | Wimbledon Station: zone 3
Waterloo Station: zone 1
The fastest way is to take a direct train that takes 16 minutes - [Google Maps](https://www.google.co.uk/maps/dir/Waterloo+Station,+Waterloo+Road,+London/Wimbledon,+The+Broadway,+Wimbledon,+London+SW19+7NL/@51.4618725,-0.2301853,12z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x487604b9c09f521d:0x1d0598197b5003ba!2m2!1d-0.1123051!2d51.5031653!1m5!1m1!1s0x487608b740504077:0x4ea120dcc5bed452!2m2!1d-0.206595!2d51.4213717)
The cheapest way is to take the Tube but it would take much longer.
<https://tfl.gov.uk/fares-and-payments/fares/single-fare-finder>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/cspN0.png)
I would assume that TFL (company operating Tube) and South West Trains are working together allowing commuters to use Oyster / contactless... So what is the rationale for different prices for the same distance covered? | 2016/05/04 | [
"https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/67741",
"https://travel.stackexchange.com",
"https://travel.stackexchange.com/users/32531/"
] | Aw, that's one of my old commutes (although I lived in Southfields, so pretty much had to take the tube).
Without sitting in their pricing meetings, I'd suggest it's supply and demand.
As you said, the tube takes longer, but is cheaper. People are prepared to pay more for timeliness / shorter journeys.
In addition, there may be more people on one than the other, and people may be prepared to pay more for more comfort. Similarly, by raising prices you can spread load as people look for the cheaper options.
Finally, it may cost a lot more to run one than the other, depending on maintenance, fuel and service costs. To offset this and keep it running, they may be required to charge more for it. | So to add further confusion to the mix, I think it massively depends on the ATOC.
For GWR services, if you travel from a NR station say Drayton Green (Zone 4) to Paddington NR (Zone 1) the cost is £3.90 peak and £2.80 off-peak.
However if you then interchange onto the tube at Paddington and continuing to somewhere inside zone 1 like Oxford Circus the price is *exactly* the same.
Doing the same on SWR services, from a NR station, say St. Margarets (Zone 4) to Waterloo NR (Zone 1) the cost is £4.10 peak & £3.00 off-peak, almost the same price.
Interchanging onto the tube at Waterloo and continuing to Oxford Circus would mean the total journey price is £5.80 peak & £4.50 off-peak, around 50% for the same number of zones!
So much for travelling by zones being equal pricing, no wonder TfL got rid of the fare PDF chart from their website as all these nuances are now hidden! |
67,741 | Wimbledon Station: zone 3
Waterloo Station: zone 1
The fastest way is to take a direct train that takes 16 minutes - [Google Maps](https://www.google.co.uk/maps/dir/Waterloo+Station,+Waterloo+Road,+London/Wimbledon,+The+Broadway,+Wimbledon,+London+SW19+7NL/@51.4618725,-0.2301853,12z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x487604b9c09f521d:0x1d0598197b5003ba!2m2!1d-0.1123051!2d51.5031653!1m5!1m1!1s0x487608b740504077:0x4ea120dcc5bed452!2m2!1d-0.206595!2d51.4213717)
The cheapest way is to take the Tube but it would take much longer.
<https://tfl.gov.uk/fares-and-payments/fares/single-fare-finder>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/cspN0.png)
I would assume that TFL (company operating Tube) and South West Trains are working together allowing commuters to use Oyster / contactless... So what is the rationale for different prices for the same distance covered? | 2016/05/04 | [
"https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/67741",
"https://travel.stackexchange.com",
"https://travel.stackexchange.com/users/32531/"
] | Your assumption that TfL and SWT are working together is wrong - at least so far as fare setting goes. And there are in fact four different fares available to you - although only the first two involve a reasonable journey; the two more expensive ones will be slower than at least one of the cheaper options.
State owned TfL in agreement with the Mayor sets fares for journeys that involve only the Underground, the Overground, or both. That's your £3.30 peak fare. There's a political incentive to keep fares relatively low, or you get voted out.
The privately owned train companies jointly (as ATOC) set the rail-only fares. These are also valid for journeys on rail + Overground, as historically the Overground was part of the rail. That's a £3.40 peak fare, but only £2.50 off peak. To see these prices, you'll have to search for a journey from Wimbledon to London Waterloo Rail Station. The train companies are limited in the fare rises they can make to certain fares, I believe including these ones.
To add to the confusion, the train only peak fare also applies in the evening; all the other fares only have a peak time in the morning.
The train companies and TfL both want their slice of the pie on the joint fare, which is the £5.00 one. This is for any journey involving both National Rail and Underground. The fare was really designed for those coming into the rail terminals on the train, then switching to the tube to head into the City (say). The rail companies don't want to accept significantly less from them them than someone leaving the system at Waterloo, and TfL don't want to accept significantly less than anyone else using the tube system (they also want to discourage you from using it for a short journey).
Your final option is the £4.80 one. This one's really two separate fares - a £2.40 Zone 2-3 rail fare, and a £2.40 Zone 1 tube fare - Elephant and Castle and Vauxhall are both on the Zone 1/2 boundary. They could charge you the £5.00 fare for this journey, but I guess they're being nice so they charge you the lower option. | So to add further confusion to the mix, I think it massively depends on the ATOC.
For GWR services, if you travel from a NR station say Drayton Green (Zone 4) to Paddington NR (Zone 1) the cost is £3.90 peak and £2.80 off-peak.
However if you then interchange onto the tube at Paddington and continuing to somewhere inside zone 1 like Oxford Circus the price is *exactly* the same.
Doing the same on SWR services, from a NR station, say St. Margarets (Zone 4) to Waterloo NR (Zone 1) the cost is £4.10 peak & £3.00 off-peak, almost the same price.
Interchanging onto the tube at Waterloo and continuing to Oxford Circus would mean the total journey price is £5.80 peak & £4.50 off-peak, around 50% for the same number of zones!
So much for travelling by zones being equal pricing, no wonder TfL got rid of the fare PDF chart from their website as all these nuances are now hidden! |
196,829 | Unlike other professions (such as Accounting, Law, Medicine, etc.), there is no profession-wide certification for Software Engineering.
I am well aware of the multitude of technology and methodology specific certifications that aim to serve as proof of specialisation and experience, but there is no public Software Engineering society / governing body that sets (and has the power to legally assess) generally accepted professional standards.
I understand that software is a dynamic beast - that is part art, part science - but I'm wondering whether Software Engineering has the potential to become a formal profession.
What needs to change for this to happen, and would it even be a good thing?
(If anybody knows of formal research into this topic I'd greatly appreciate references)
Update
------
I agree with many of the good points raised below regarding the current level of certification in Software Engineering. I also find it very interesting that some countries treat Software Engineering as a profession whilst others don't.
There does however seem to be a bit of shroud surrounding the term "formal profession", and how it would apply to Software Engineering. I think the key issue with Software Engineering - and the primary reason it is not a full-blown profession - is that if you're a certified Software Engineer, and - for example - some software you wrote for an elevator malfunctions and kills people, your certification and / or membership to a formal professional body won't get revoked.
Sure, your company might get sued for millions, and you personally might lose your job and earn a bad reference, but generally speaking, you personally are protected by the shield of limited liability as a result of being employed by said company. In other words, and as far as I know, there is no legal assessment / enforcement in place (unlike other formal professions and their governing societies) which have the mandate to officially bar you from trading once you've made a colossal stuff-up.
I quite liked the answer that touched on the fact that Software Engineering - as it stands - is a meritocracy, which doesn't need to be a formal profession, and that this is a good thing that shouldn't change. At the same time, I think we need to make a clear distinction between Software Engineers of mission-critical software versus developers of miscellaneous / non-critical software.
To those of you who work / have worked on mission-critical software - is there any personal liability? Surely there is a need for formal repercussions in the event of the Software Engineer making a costly mistake? | 2013/05/02 | [
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/196829",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/users/66292/"
] | A widely established and accepted professional body for software developers/engineers/architects/etc would not be a good thing.
Currently, this is one of the few fields that can act as a meritocracy. As in, I don't care what degree you have (or if you have one at all), how much seniority you have, which languages you know, etc. It is relatively easy to figure out if you are a good developer or not, and at the end of the day that is the only thing that matters. i.e. Can you get things done?
Currently you are gauged by your ability, not by some accreditation that someone awarded you. And this is a fair, Good Thing (tm). | I think it should be possible to become a certified software developer by passing an exam the way a lawyer passes a bar exam. I also think that non-certified programmers should still be able to operate as programmers. The difference is that employers would be able to advertise specifically for certified programmers if that's what they want, and a certified programmer would come with certain guarantees of accountability, as well as a higher price tag.
I agree with the poster who says that software development is a buggy mess with no accountability. I don't think it has to be that way. There are developers who want to make good software and are willing to be accountable for it. We just need a way to distinguish ourselves.
I have been developing software for more than 20 years. I don't claim this makes me a great developer by itself, but I do think I'm a pretty good developer. The problem is that I have to constantly demonstrate why I'm a better developer than every kid who learned programming in his spare time and wants the same job as me. Not to mention the legions of "offshore" developers who promise to do the same job for a fraction of the money. Right now this takes a lot of effort. I have to provide work samples, references, take tests, do interviews. I could easily have a bad day, make a mistake on a test, and get disqualified. I'd rather just say, "yes, I'm a certified developer and here is my certificate". I'd still have to do interviews, but at least I'd only be competing against other certified developers. |
196,829 | Unlike other professions (such as Accounting, Law, Medicine, etc.), there is no profession-wide certification for Software Engineering.
I am well aware of the multitude of technology and methodology specific certifications that aim to serve as proof of specialisation and experience, but there is no public Software Engineering society / governing body that sets (and has the power to legally assess) generally accepted professional standards.
I understand that software is a dynamic beast - that is part art, part science - but I'm wondering whether Software Engineering has the potential to become a formal profession.
What needs to change for this to happen, and would it even be a good thing?
(If anybody knows of formal research into this topic I'd greatly appreciate references)
Update
------
I agree with many of the good points raised below regarding the current level of certification in Software Engineering. I also find it very interesting that some countries treat Software Engineering as a profession whilst others don't.
There does however seem to be a bit of shroud surrounding the term "formal profession", and how it would apply to Software Engineering. I think the key issue with Software Engineering - and the primary reason it is not a full-blown profession - is that if you're a certified Software Engineer, and - for example - some software you wrote for an elevator malfunctions and kills people, your certification and / or membership to a formal professional body won't get revoked.
Sure, your company might get sued for millions, and you personally might lose your job and earn a bad reference, but generally speaking, you personally are protected by the shield of limited liability as a result of being employed by said company. In other words, and as far as I know, there is no legal assessment / enforcement in place (unlike other formal professions and their governing societies) which have the mandate to officially bar you from trading once you've made a colossal stuff-up.
I quite liked the answer that touched on the fact that Software Engineering - as it stands - is a meritocracy, which doesn't need to be a formal profession, and that this is a good thing that shouldn't change. At the same time, I think we need to make a clear distinction between Software Engineers of mission-critical software versus developers of miscellaneous / non-critical software.
To those of you who work / have worked on mission-critical software - is there any personal liability? Surely there is a need for formal repercussions in the event of the Software Engineer making a costly mistake? | 2013/05/02 | [
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/196829",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/users/66292/"
] | I think it should be possible to become a certified software developer by passing an exam the way a lawyer passes a bar exam. I also think that non-certified programmers should still be able to operate as programmers. The difference is that employers would be able to advertise specifically for certified programmers if that's what they want, and a certified programmer would come with certain guarantees of accountability, as well as a higher price tag.
I agree with the poster who says that software development is a buggy mess with no accountability. I don't think it has to be that way. There are developers who want to make good software and are willing to be accountable for it. We just need a way to distinguish ourselves.
I have been developing software for more than 20 years. I don't claim this makes me a great developer by itself, but I do think I'm a pretty good developer. The problem is that I have to constantly demonstrate why I'm a better developer than every kid who learned programming in his spare time and wants the same job as me. Not to mention the legions of "offshore" developers who promise to do the same job for a fraction of the money. Right now this takes a lot of effort. I have to provide work samples, references, take tests, do interviews. I could easily have a bad day, make a mistake on a test, and get disqualified. I'd rather just say, "yes, I'm a certified developer and here is my certificate". I'd still have to do interviews, but at least I'd only be competing against other certified developers. | It never will, at least not entirely. Software is a medium, like paint. There are people who do industrial scale painting jobs of large structures, there are people that design new paints to perform to high standards, but there are also people who buy paint to do small scale jobs like paint their shed, and still others who might mix their own paint but just use it to paint pictures of cats.
Similarly while I could see a future where safety critical and/or financial software needs accredited engineers working on it, there will never be a need for people producing art or entertainment software. What needs to change to get safety or financial software required to have accredited engineers? Well much like those other professions it would require a law to mandate it. |
196,829 | Unlike other professions (such as Accounting, Law, Medicine, etc.), there is no profession-wide certification for Software Engineering.
I am well aware of the multitude of technology and methodology specific certifications that aim to serve as proof of specialisation and experience, but there is no public Software Engineering society / governing body that sets (and has the power to legally assess) generally accepted professional standards.
I understand that software is a dynamic beast - that is part art, part science - but I'm wondering whether Software Engineering has the potential to become a formal profession.
What needs to change for this to happen, and would it even be a good thing?
(If anybody knows of formal research into this topic I'd greatly appreciate references)
Update
------
I agree with many of the good points raised below regarding the current level of certification in Software Engineering. I also find it very interesting that some countries treat Software Engineering as a profession whilst others don't.
There does however seem to be a bit of shroud surrounding the term "formal profession", and how it would apply to Software Engineering. I think the key issue with Software Engineering - and the primary reason it is not a full-blown profession - is that if you're a certified Software Engineer, and - for example - some software you wrote for an elevator malfunctions and kills people, your certification and / or membership to a formal professional body won't get revoked.
Sure, your company might get sued for millions, and you personally might lose your job and earn a bad reference, but generally speaking, you personally are protected by the shield of limited liability as a result of being employed by said company. In other words, and as far as I know, there is no legal assessment / enforcement in place (unlike other formal professions and their governing societies) which have the mandate to officially bar you from trading once you've made a colossal stuff-up.
I quite liked the answer that touched on the fact that Software Engineering - as it stands - is a meritocracy, which doesn't need to be a formal profession, and that this is a good thing that shouldn't change. At the same time, I think we need to make a clear distinction between Software Engineers of mission-critical software versus developers of miscellaneous / non-critical software.
To those of you who work / have worked on mission-critical software - is there any personal liability? Surely there is a need for formal repercussions in the event of the Software Engineer making a costly mistake? | 2013/05/02 | [
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/196829",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/users/66292/"
] | A widely established and accepted professional body for software developers/engineers/architects/etc would not be a good thing.
Currently, this is one of the few fields that can act as a meritocracy. As in, I don't care what degree you have (or if you have one at all), how much seniority you have, which languages you know, etc. It is relatively easy to figure out if you are a good developer or not, and at the end of the day that is the only thing that matters. i.e. Can you get things done?
Currently you are gauged by your ability, not by some accreditation that someone awarded you. And this is a fair, Good Thing (tm). | Nothing needs to change.
As [pointed out by Thomas](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/a/196843/31260 "in another answer here"), software engineering is already a profession. It can be called engineering, programming, hacking, and/or crafting, but it *is* as profession and lots of people are making money on it.
I think your question is is around licensing.
Right now there is no formal licensing for software engineering. Anyone with enough smarts and programming ability can get hired and paid for creating code than runs on a machine or a device.
This is unlike other industries (law and medicine being examples as cited in the question). A license is required for those professions. Anyone can drive a car, but to drive one legally you have to have a dirvers license is another example. Anyone can program, no license or certification(s) required.
Now, I beleive that licensing is good in that it proves that someone has the ability to do something (like drive a car) and knows the ins and outs of the rules (of the road).
A similiar license could be required for software engineering, but I don't think it would do much good. In fact there are many licensed drivers who are horrible drivers, so just becase you have a license doesn't mean your a good driver or programmer.
A license creates a barrier for entry, which in this industry would not be a good thing, so I don't see any perceived benefit of such licensing.
Companies that hire software engineers should definately test the ability of that potential programmer with a "programming test" (and I am no talking about fizz buzz type) based on the skill set needed. Programmers with "certifications" look good on paper, but they should really be put to the test with a real world test to gauge experience and aptitude. |
196,829 | Unlike other professions (such as Accounting, Law, Medicine, etc.), there is no profession-wide certification for Software Engineering.
I am well aware of the multitude of technology and methodology specific certifications that aim to serve as proof of specialisation and experience, but there is no public Software Engineering society / governing body that sets (and has the power to legally assess) generally accepted professional standards.
I understand that software is a dynamic beast - that is part art, part science - but I'm wondering whether Software Engineering has the potential to become a formal profession.
What needs to change for this to happen, and would it even be a good thing?
(If anybody knows of formal research into this topic I'd greatly appreciate references)
Update
------
I agree with many of the good points raised below regarding the current level of certification in Software Engineering. I also find it very interesting that some countries treat Software Engineering as a profession whilst others don't.
There does however seem to be a bit of shroud surrounding the term "formal profession", and how it would apply to Software Engineering. I think the key issue with Software Engineering - and the primary reason it is not a full-blown profession - is that if you're a certified Software Engineer, and - for example - some software you wrote for an elevator malfunctions and kills people, your certification and / or membership to a formal professional body won't get revoked.
Sure, your company might get sued for millions, and you personally might lose your job and earn a bad reference, but generally speaking, you personally are protected by the shield of limited liability as a result of being employed by said company. In other words, and as far as I know, there is no legal assessment / enforcement in place (unlike other formal professions and their governing societies) which have the mandate to officially bar you from trading once you've made a colossal stuff-up.
I quite liked the answer that touched on the fact that Software Engineering - as it stands - is a meritocracy, which doesn't need to be a formal profession, and that this is a good thing that shouldn't change. At the same time, I think we need to make a clear distinction between Software Engineers of mission-critical software versus developers of miscellaneous / non-critical software.
To those of you who work / have worked on mission-critical software - is there any personal liability? Surely there is a need for formal repercussions in the event of the Software Engineer making a costly mistake? | 2013/05/02 | [
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/196829",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/users/66292/"
] | I think it should be possible to become a certified software developer by passing an exam the way a lawyer passes a bar exam. I also think that non-certified programmers should still be able to operate as programmers. The difference is that employers would be able to advertise specifically for certified programmers if that's what they want, and a certified programmer would come with certain guarantees of accountability, as well as a higher price tag.
I agree with the poster who says that software development is a buggy mess with no accountability. I don't think it has to be that way. There are developers who want to make good software and are willing to be accountable for it. We just need a way to distinguish ourselves.
I have been developing software for more than 20 years. I don't claim this makes me a great developer by itself, but I do think I'm a pretty good developer. The problem is that I have to constantly demonstrate why I'm a better developer than every kid who learned programming in his spare time and wants the same job as me. Not to mention the legions of "offshore" developers who promise to do the same job for a fraction of the money. Right now this takes a lot of effort. I have to provide work samples, references, take tests, do interviews. I could easily have a bad day, make a mistake on a test, and get disqualified. I'd rather just say, "yes, I'm a certified developer and here is my certificate". I'd still have to do interviews, but at least I'd only be competing against other certified developers. | Software is not a profession, nor will it ever be one.
"A profession arises when any trade or occupation transforms itself through the development of formal qualifications based upon education, apprenticeship, and examinations, the emergence of regulatory bodies with powers to admit and discipline members, and some degree of monopoly rights."
That description doesn't match software at all.
First off, anyone with an interest in software can go out and try to find a job developing software. Many of those people have college degrees totally unrelated to computer programming and many have no degree at all. There's nothing stopping either of those groups from becoming software programmers.
Software can't become a profession because "licensed" members become responsible for damage they cause and their malpractice. 80-90% of developers will lose their job within a couple of years for that one alone.
In general, software quality is atrocious, bug prone and just plain not very well done. Is that worthy of being a profession? Do you foresee that stopping because people get licensed? If a professional organization isn't going to stand for high standards and professional quality then there's no point to it. That goes directly against industry practice. Writing quality, robust and working software is against the principles of most of the companies out there, because time-to-market, cost, it is good enough, don't want to break anything else trying to fix broken software is viewed as more important than professional grade software.
Also, regarding malpractice. How are you going to prove that one develper versus another is to blame. In software it is way to easy to point fingers and both developers "are right". Who is to blame when that developer uses the undocumented API hidden in the bowels of the OS and then the OS vendor changes its function or removes it?
Good luck with that regulatory body thing. Let's see congress say no to Microsoft when Microsoft asks them to kill that bill because it will only allow them to hire "licensed" developers. Without that regulatory body, then who is going to join an organization that has the right to discipline you and charge you dues especially if there is no added value like getting monopoly rights without the regulatory body.
As for, would it be a good thing to require licensing? Absolutely, for those who can get accredited. Your pay would rise dramatically with your new found monopoly.
However, for everyone else...the use of computer technology in businesses would probably decline along with the fast pace of advancement we see nowadays. There will certainly be barriers to new software advances, such as languages and design methodologies. After all, who is going to want to push for new ways of doing things that will require years of retraining in order to maintain your license. Most licensed developers will prefer to keep things just the way they are in that regard. |
196,829 | Unlike other professions (such as Accounting, Law, Medicine, etc.), there is no profession-wide certification for Software Engineering.
I am well aware of the multitude of technology and methodology specific certifications that aim to serve as proof of specialisation and experience, but there is no public Software Engineering society / governing body that sets (and has the power to legally assess) generally accepted professional standards.
I understand that software is a dynamic beast - that is part art, part science - but I'm wondering whether Software Engineering has the potential to become a formal profession.
What needs to change for this to happen, and would it even be a good thing?
(If anybody knows of formal research into this topic I'd greatly appreciate references)
Update
------
I agree with many of the good points raised below regarding the current level of certification in Software Engineering. I also find it very interesting that some countries treat Software Engineering as a profession whilst others don't.
There does however seem to be a bit of shroud surrounding the term "formal profession", and how it would apply to Software Engineering. I think the key issue with Software Engineering - and the primary reason it is not a full-blown profession - is that if you're a certified Software Engineer, and - for example - some software you wrote for an elevator malfunctions and kills people, your certification and / or membership to a formal professional body won't get revoked.
Sure, your company might get sued for millions, and you personally might lose your job and earn a bad reference, but generally speaking, you personally are protected by the shield of limited liability as a result of being employed by said company. In other words, and as far as I know, there is no legal assessment / enforcement in place (unlike other formal professions and their governing societies) which have the mandate to officially bar you from trading once you've made a colossal stuff-up.
I quite liked the answer that touched on the fact that Software Engineering - as it stands - is a meritocracy, which doesn't need to be a formal profession, and that this is a good thing that shouldn't change. At the same time, I think we need to make a clear distinction between Software Engineers of mission-critical software versus developers of miscellaneous / non-critical software.
To those of you who work / have worked on mission-critical software - is there any personal liability? Surely there is a need for formal repercussions in the event of the Software Engineer making a costly mistake? | 2013/05/02 | [
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/196829",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/users/66292/"
] | A widely established and accepted professional body for software developers/engineers/architects/etc would not be a good thing.
Currently, this is one of the few fields that can act as a meritocracy. As in, I don't care what degree you have (or if you have one at all), how much seniority you have, which languages you know, etc. It is relatively easy to figure out if you are a good developer or not, and at the end of the day that is the only thing that matters. i.e. Can you get things done?
Currently you are gauged by your ability, not by some accreditation that someone awarded you. And this is a fair, Good Thing (tm). | It never will, at least not entirely. Software is a medium, like paint. There are people who do industrial scale painting jobs of large structures, there are people that design new paints to perform to high standards, but there are also people who buy paint to do small scale jobs like paint their shed, and still others who might mix their own paint but just use it to paint pictures of cats.
Similarly while I could see a future where safety critical and/or financial software needs accredited engineers working on it, there will never be a need for people producing art or entertainment software. What needs to change to get safety or financial software required to have accredited engineers? Well much like those other professions it would require a law to mandate it. |
196,829 | Unlike other professions (such as Accounting, Law, Medicine, etc.), there is no profession-wide certification for Software Engineering.
I am well aware of the multitude of technology and methodology specific certifications that aim to serve as proof of specialisation and experience, but there is no public Software Engineering society / governing body that sets (and has the power to legally assess) generally accepted professional standards.
I understand that software is a dynamic beast - that is part art, part science - but I'm wondering whether Software Engineering has the potential to become a formal profession.
What needs to change for this to happen, and would it even be a good thing?
(If anybody knows of formal research into this topic I'd greatly appreciate references)
Update
------
I agree with many of the good points raised below regarding the current level of certification in Software Engineering. I also find it very interesting that some countries treat Software Engineering as a profession whilst others don't.
There does however seem to be a bit of shroud surrounding the term "formal profession", and how it would apply to Software Engineering. I think the key issue with Software Engineering - and the primary reason it is not a full-blown profession - is that if you're a certified Software Engineer, and - for example - some software you wrote for an elevator malfunctions and kills people, your certification and / or membership to a formal professional body won't get revoked.
Sure, your company might get sued for millions, and you personally might lose your job and earn a bad reference, but generally speaking, you personally are protected by the shield of limited liability as a result of being employed by said company. In other words, and as far as I know, there is no legal assessment / enforcement in place (unlike other formal professions and their governing societies) which have the mandate to officially bar you from trading once you've made a colossal stuff-up.
I quite liked the answer that touched on the fact that Software Engineering - as it stands - is a meritocracy, which doesn't need to be a formal profession, and that this is a good thing that shouldn't change. At the same time, I think we need to make a clear distinction between Software Engineers of mission-critical software versus developers of miscellaneous / non-critical software.
To those of you who work / have worked on mission-critical software - is there any personal liability? Surely there is a need for formal repercussions in the event of the Software Engineer making a costly mistake? | 2013/05/02 | [
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/196829",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/users/66292/"
] | Based on available information, I believe that Software Engineering is already a formal profession. It may not be widely accepted as such, but it is meeting the generally accepted criteria for the characteristics of a profession.
From [Wikipedia's article on Profession](http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Profession&oldid=549676994):
>
> There is considerable agreement about defining the characteristic
> features of a profession. They have a "professional association,
> cognitive base, institutionalized training, licensing, work autonomy,
> colleague control... (and) code of ethics,"[18] to which Larson then
> also adds, "high standards of professional and intellectual
> excellence," (Larson, p. 221) that "professions are occupations with
> special power and prestige," (Larson, p.x) and that they comprise "an
> exclusive elite group," (Larson, p. 20) in all societies.
>
>
>
This quotes Magali Sarfatti Larson's [The Rise of Professionalism: A Sociological Analysis](https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0520039505) extensively. Searching for "characteristics of a profession" tend to lead similar results.
How does Software Engineering stack up against these characteristics?
* **Professional Association** There are numerous professional associations for software engineers. The [IEEE](http://www.ieee.org/index.html) and more specifically the [IEEE Computer Society](http://www.computer.org/portal/web/guest/home) serve professionals working in engineering around the world, with the IEEE Computer Society focusing specifically on computer and software engineers. The [ACM](http://www.acm.org/) is another professional organization for professionals working in computing, generally in the Americas. There's also the [British Computer Society](http://www.bcs.org/), which caters to various aspects of professions in information and communication technology, generally in the UK.
* **Cognitive Base** The Software Engineering Body of Knowledge is sponsored by the IEEE, Boeing, National Research Council Canada, Raytheon, Construx Software, Canadian Council of Professional Engineers, the MITRE Corporation, NIST, Rational, SAP (for the 2004 version). It was started specifically as [a step toward "making software engineering a legitimate engineering discipline and a recognized profession"](http://www.computer.org/portal/web/swebok/faq).
* **Institutionalized Training** In the United States, Information Technology, Computer Science, and Software Engineering programs can be accredited by [ABET](http://www.abet.org/). In Canada, Computer Science and Software Engineering programs are accredited by [CIPS](http://www.cips.ca/). These organizations define minimum standards and expected outcomes for students graduating from an accredited program to enable them to function in a professional environment. The IEEE also offers two exams based on the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge - the [Certified Software Development Associate](http://www.computer.org/portal/web/certification/csda) exam for undergraduates (or recently graduated undergraduates) and the [Certified Software Development Professional](http://www.computer.org/portal/web/certification/csdp) exam for mid-career professionals.
* **Licensing** As of April 2013, [NCEES offers a Professional Engineering exam in Software Engineering](http://ncees.org/exams/pe-exam/). It is offered on a state-by-state basis in the United States. However, the Software Engineering PE exam is not currently offered by every state, and even fewer require the license. [This article, published in the November/December 1999 issue of IEEE Software](http://sce.uhcl.edu/helm/SWEBOK_IEEE/papers/10%20reprint%205.pdf), discusses licensing requirements in the state of Texas and a brief discussion of licensing in Ontario and British Columbia, Canada and the UK. In Texas, a license is only required to work on the design, testing, or implementation of embedded or real-time systems that "require a detailed understanding of the engineered electrical or mechanical components" and for software systems for "mechanical devices, electrical devices, and power systems" - a relatively small amount of software development work. In states that offer licensing, the worst case scenario is disciplinary action, sanctions, or loss of your license should a client or employer file a complaint. However, the only real harm comes in states that require a license - unless the license is required to do the work, losing it doesn't mean anything.
* **Code of Ethics** The ACM and IEEE Computer Society created a [Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice](https://ethics.acm.org/code-of-ethics/software-engineering-code/). In the United States, graduates of ABET accredited engineering programs, including Software Engineering programs, can also join the [Order of the Engineer](http://www.order-of-the-engineer.org/), which maintains a code of ethics that generally applies to professional engineers.
* **Work Autonomy, Colleague Control, High Standards of Professional and Intellectual Excellence** These are frequently visible in an environment where software engineering is treated as an engineering discipline. That is to say that not all employers (or freelancers) treat software development as engineering. | Nothing needs to change.
As [pointed out by Thomas](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/a/196843/31260 "in another answer here"), software engineering is already a profession. It can be called engineering, programming, hacking, and/or crafting, but it *is* as profession and lots of people are making money on it.
I think your question is is around licensing.
Right now there is no formal licensing for software engineering. Anyone with enough smarts and programming ability can get hired and paid for creating code than runs on a machine or a device.
This is unlike other industries (law and medicine being examples as cited in the question). A license is required for those professions. Anyone can drive a car, but to drive one legally you have to have a dirvers license is another example. Anyone can program, no license or certification(s) required.
Now, I beleive that licensing is good in that it proves that someone has the ability to do something (like drive a car) and knows the ins and outs of the rules (of the road).
A similiar license could be required for software engineering, but I don't think it would do much good. In fact there are many licensed drivers who are horrible drivers, so just becase you have a license doesn't mean your a good driver or programmer.
A license creates a barrier for entry, which in this industry would not be a good thing, so I don't see any perceived benefit of such licensing.
Companies that hire software engineers should definately test the ability of that potential programmer with a "programming test" (and I am no talking about fizz buzz type) based on the skill set needed. Programmers with "certifications" look good on paper, but they should really be put to the test with a real world test to gauge experience and aptitude. |
196,829 | Unlike other professions (such as Accounting, Law, Medicine, etc.), there is no profession-wide certification for Software Engineering.
I am well aware of the multitude of technology and methodology specific certifications that aim to serve as proof of specialisation and experience, but there is no public Software Engineering society / governing body that sets (and has the power to legally assess) generally accepted professional standards.
I understand that software is a dynamic beast - that is part art, part science - but I'm wondering whether Software Engineering has the potential to become a formal profession.
What needs to change for this to happen, and would it even be a good thing?
(If anybody knows of formal research into this topic I'd greatly appreciate references)
Update
------
I agree with many of the good points raised below regarding the current level of certification in Software Engineering. I also find it very interesting that some countries treat Software Engineering as a profession whilst others don't.
There does however seem to be a bit of shroud surrounding the term "formal profession", and how it would apply to Software Engineering. I think the key issue with Software Engineering - and the primary reason it is not a full-blown profession - is that if you're a certified Software Engineer, and - for example - some software you wrote for an elevator malfunctions and kills people, your certification and / or membership to a formal professional body won't get revoked.
Sure, your company might get sued for millions, and you personally might lose your job and earn a bad reference, but generally speaking, you personally are protected by the shield of limited liability as a result of being employed by said company. In other words, and as far as I know, there is no legal assessment / enforcement in place (unlike other formal professions and their governing societies) which have the mandate to officially bar you from trading once you've made a colossal stuff-up.
I quite liked the answer that touched on the fact that Software Engineering - as it stands - is a meritocracy, which doesn't need to be a formal profession, and that this is a good thing that shouldn't change. At the same time, I think we need to make a clear distinction between Software Engineers of mission-critical software versus developers of miscellaneous / non-critical software.
To those of you who work / have worked on mission-critical software - is there any personal liability? Surely there is a need for formal repercussions in the event of the Software Engineer making a costly mistake? | 2013/05/02 | [
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/196829",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/users/66292/"
] | Based on available information, I believe that Software Engineering is already a formal profession. It may not be widely accepted as such, but it is meeting the generally accepted criteria for the characteristics of a profession.
From [Wikipedia's article on Profession](http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Profession&oldid=549676994):
>
> There is considerable agreement about defining the characteristic
> features of a profession. They have a "professional association,
> cognitive base, institutionalized training, licensing, work autonomy,
> colleague control... (and) code of ethics,"[18] to which Larson then
> also adds, "high standards of professional and intellectual
> excellence," (Larson, p. 221) that "professions are occupations with
> special power and prestige," (Larson, p.x) and that they comprise "an
> exclusive elite group," (Larson, p. 20) in all societies.
>
>
>
This quotes Magali Sarfatti Larson's [The Rise of Professionalism: A Sociological Analysis](https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0520039505) extensively. Searching for "characteristics of a profession" tend to lead similar results.
How does Software Engineering stack up against these characteristics?
* **Professional Association** There are numerous professional associations for software engineers. The [IEEE](http://www.ieee.org/index.html) and more specifically the [IEEE Computer Society](http://www.computer.org/portal/web/guest/home) serve professionals working in engineering around the world, with the IEEE Computer Society focusing specifically on computer and software engineers. The [ACM](http://www.acm.org/) is another professional organization for professionals working in computing, generally in the Americas. There's also the [British Computer Society](http://www.bcs.org/), which caters to various aspects of professions in information and communication technology, generally in the UK.
* **Cognitive Base** The Software Engineering Body of Knowledge is sponsored by the IEEE, Boeing, National Research Council Canada, Raytheon, Construx Software, Canadian Council of Professional Engineers, the MITRE Corporation, NIST, Rational, SAP (for the 2004 version). It was started specifically as [a step toward "making software engineering a legitimate engineering discipline and a recognized profession"](http://www.computer.org/portal/web/swebok/faq).
* **Institutionalized Training** In the United States, Information Technology, Computer Science, and Software Engineering programs can be accredited by [ABET](http://www.abet.org/). In Canada, Computer Science and Software Engineering programs are accredited by [CIPS](http://www.cips.ca/). These organizations define minimum standards and expected outcomes for students graduating from an accredited program to enable them to function in a professional environment. The IEEE also offers two exams based on the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge - the [Certified Software Development Associate](http://www.computer.org/portal/web/certification/csda) exam for undergraduates (or recently graduated undergraduates) and the [Certified Software Development Professional](http://www.computer.org/portal/web/certification/csdp) exam for mid-career professionals.
* **Licensing** As of April 2013, [NCEES offers a Professional Engineering exam in Software Engineering](http://ncees.org/exams/pe-exam/). It is offered on a state-by-state basis in the United States. However, the Software Engineering PE exam is not currently offered by every state, and even fewer require the license. [This article, published in the November/December 1999 issue of IEEE Software](http://sce.uhcl.edu/helm/SWEBOK_IEEE/papers/10%20reprint%205.pdf), discusses licensing requirements in the state of Texas and a brief discussion of licensing in Ontario and British Columbia, Canada and the UK. In Texas, a license is only required to work on the design, testing, or implementation of embedded or real-time systems that "require a detailed understanding of the engineered electrical or mechanical components" and for software systems for "mechanical devices, electrical devices, and power systems" - a relatively small amount of software development work. In states that offer licensing, the worst case scenario is disciplinary action, sanctions, or loss of your license should a client or employer file a complaint. However, the only real harm comes in states that require a license - unless the license is required to do the work, losing it doesn't mean anything.
* **Code of Ethics** The ACM and IEEE Computer Society created a [Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice](https://ethics.acm.org/code-of-ethics/software-engineering-code/). In the United States, graduates of ABET accredited engineering programs, including Software Engineering programs, can also join the [Order of the Engineer](http://www.order-of-the-engineer.org/), which maintains a code of ethics that generally applies to professional engineers.
* **Work Autonomy, Colleague Control, High Standards of Professional and Intellectual Excellence** These are frequently visible in an environment where software engineering is treated as an engineering discipline. That is to say that not all employers (or freelancers) treat software development as engineering. | I think it should be possible to become a certified software developer by passing an exam the way a lawyer passes a bar exam. I also think that non-certified programmers should still be able to operate as programmers. The difference is that employers would be able to advertise specifically for certified programmers if that's what they want, and a certified programmer would come with certain guarantees of accountability, as well as a higher price tag.
I agree with the poster who says that software development is a buggy mess with no accountability. I don't think it has to be that way. There are developers who want to make good software and are willing to be accountable for it. We just need a way to distinguish ourselves.
I have been developing software for more than 20 years. I don't claim this makes me a great developer by itself, but I do think I'm a pretty good developer. The problem is that I have to constantly demonstrate why I'm a better developer than every kid who learned programming in his spare time and wants the same job as me. Not to mention the legions of "offshore" developers who promise to do the same job for a fraction of the money. Right now this takes a lot of effort. I have to provide work samples, references, take tests, do interviews. I could easily have a bad day, make a mistake on a test, and get disqualified. I'd rather just say, "yes, I'm a certified developer and here is my certificate". I'd still have to do interviews, but at least I'd only be competing against other certified developers. |
196,829 | Unlike other professions (such as Accounting, Law, Medicine, etc.), there is no profession-wide certification for Software Engineering.
I am well aware of the multitude of technology and methodology specific certifications that aim to serve as proof of specialisation and experience, but there is no public Software Engineering society / governing body that sets (and has the power to legally assess) generally accepted professional standards.
I understand that software is a dynamic beast - that is part art, part science - but I'm wondering whether Software Engineering has the potential to become a formal profession.
What needs to change for this to happen, and would it even be a good thing?
(If anybody knows of formal research into this topic I'd greatly appreciate references)
Update
------
I agree with many of the good points raised below regarding the current level of certification in Software Engineering. I also find it very interesting that some countries treat Software Engineering as a profession whilst others don't.
There does however seem to be a bit of shroud surrounding the term "formal profession", and how it would apply to Software Engineering. I think the key issue with Software Engineering - and the primary reason it is not a full-blown profession - is that if you're a certified Software Engineer, and - for example - some software you wrote for an elevator malfunctions and kills people, your certification and / or membership to a formal professional body won't get revoked.
Sure, your company might get sued for millions, and you personally might lose your job and earn a bad reference, but generally speaking, you personally are protected by the shield of limited liability as a result of being employed by said company. In other words, and as far as I know, there is no legal assessment / enforcement in place (unlike other formal professions and their governing societies) which have the mandate to officially bar you from trading once you've made a colossal stuff-up.
I quite liked the answer that touched on the fact that Software Engineering - as it stands - is a meritocracy, which doesn't need to be a formal profession, and that this is a good thing that shouldn't change. At the same time, I think we need to make a clear distinction between Software Engineers of mission-critical software versus developers of miscellaneous / non-critical software.
To those of you who work / have worked on mission-critical software - is there any personal liability? Surely there is a need for formal repercussions in the event of the Software Engineer making a costly mistake? | 2013/05/02 | [
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/196829",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/users/66292/"
] | Nothing needs to change.
As [pointed out by Thomas](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/a/196843/31260 "in another answer here"), software engineering is already a profession. It can be called engineering, programming, hacking, and/or crafting, but it *is* as profession and lots of people are making money on it.
I think your question is is around licensing.
Right now there is no formal licensing for software engineering. Anyone with enough smarts and programming ability can get hired and paid for creating code than runs on a machine or a device.
This is unlike other industries (law and medicine being examples as cited in the question). A license is required for those professions. Anyone can drive a car, but to drive one legally you have to have a dirvers license is another example. Anyone can program, no license or certification(s) required.
Now, I beleive that licensing is good in that it proves that someone has the ability to do something (like drive a car) and knows the ins and outs of the rules (of the road).
A similiar license could be required for software engineering, but I don't think it would do much good. In fact there are many licensed drivers who are horrible drivers, so just becase you have a license doesn't mean your a good driver or programmer.
A license creates a barrier for entry, which in this industry would not be a good thing, so I don't see any perceived benefit of such licensing.
Companies that hire software engineers should definately test the ability of that potential programmer with a "programming test" (and I am no talking about fizz buzz type) based on the skill set needed. Programmers with "certifications" look good on paper, but they should really be put to the test with a real world test to gauge experience and aptitude. | It never will, at least not entirely. Software is a medium, like paint. There are people who do industrial scale painting jobs of large structures, there are people that design new paints to perform to high standards, but there are also people who buy paint to do small scale jobs like paint their shed, and still others who might mix their own paint but just use it to paint pictures of cats.
Similarly while I could see a future where safety critical and/or financial software needs accredited engineers working on it, there will never be a need for people producing art or entertainment software. What needs to change to get safety or financial software required to have accredited engineers? Well much like those other professions it would require a law to mandate it. |
196,829 | Unlike other professions (such as Accounting, Law, Medicine, etc.), there is no profession-wide certification for Software Engineering.
I am well aware of the multitude of technology and methodology specific certifications that aim to serve as proof of specialisation and experience, but there is no public Software Engineering society / governing body that sets (and has the power to legally assess) generally accepted professional standards.
I understand that software is a dynamic beast - that is part art, part science - but I'm wondering whether Software Engineering has the potential to become a formal profession.
What needs to change for this to happen, and would it even be a good thing?
(If anybody knows of formal research into this topic I'd greatly appreciate references)
Update
------
I agree with many of the good points raised below regarding the current level of certification in Software Engineering. I also find it very interesting that some countries treat Software Engineering as a profession whilst others don't.
There does however seem to be a bit of shroud surrounding the term "formal profession", and how it would apply to Software Engineering. I think the key issue with Software Engineering - and the primary reason it is not a full-blown profession - is that if you're a certified Software Engineer, and - for example - some software you wrote for an elevator malfunctions and kills people, your certification and / or membership to a formal professional body won't get revoked.
Sure, your company might get sued for millions, and you personally might lose your job and earn a bad reference, but generally speaking, you personally are protected by the shield of limited liability as a result of being employed by said company. In other words, and as far as I know, there is no legal assessment / enforcement in place (unlike other formal professions and their governing societies) which have the mandate to officially bar you from trading once you've made a colossal stuff-up.
I quite liked the answer that touched on the fact that Software Engineering - as it stands - is a meritocracy, which doesn't need to be a formal profession, and that this is a good thing that shouldn't change. At the same time, I think we need to make a clear distinction between Software Engineers of mission-critical software versus developers of miscellaneous / non-critical software.
To those of you who work / have worked on mission-critical software - is there any personal liability? Surely there is a need for formal repercussions in the event of the Software Engineer making a costly mistake? | 2013/05/02 | [
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/196829",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/users/66292/"
] | Based on available information, I believe that Software Engineering is already a formal profession. It may not be widely accepted as such, but it is meeting the generally accepted criteria for the characteristics of a profession.
From [Wikipedia's article on Profession](http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Profession&oldid=549676994):
>
> There is considerable agreement about defining the characteristic
> features of a profession. They have a "professional association,
> cognitive base, institutionalized training, licensing, work autonomy,
> colleague control... (and) code of ethics,"[18] to which Larson then
> also adds, "high standards of professional and intellectual
> excellence," (Larson, p. 221) that "professions are occupations with
> special power and prestige," (Larson, p.x) and that they comprise "an
> exclusive elite group," (Larson, p. 20) in all societies.
>
>
>
This quotes Magali Sarfatti Larson's [The Rise of Professionalism: A Sociological Analysis](https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0520039505) extensively. Searching for "characteristics of a profession" tend to lead similar results.
How does Software Engineering stack up against these characteristics?
* **Professional Association** There are numerous professional associations for software engineers. The [IEEE](http://www.ieee.org/index.html) and more specifically the [IEEE Computer Society](http://www.computer.org/portal/web/guest/home) serve professionals working in engineering around the world, with the IEEE Computer Society focusing specifically on computer and software engineers. The [ACM](http://www.acm.org/) is another professional organization for professionals working in computing, generally in the Americas. There's also the [British Computer Society](http://www.bcs.org/), which caters to various aspects of professions in information and communication technology, generally in the UK.
* **Cognitive Base** The Software Engineering Body of Knowledge is sponsored by the IEEE, Boeing, National Research Council Canada, Raytheon, Construx Software, Canadian Council of Professional Engineers, the MITRE Corporation, NIST, Rational, SAP (for the 2004 version). It was started specifically as [a step toward "making software engineering a legitimate engineering discipline and a recognized profession"](http://www.computer.org/portal/web/swebok/faq).
* **Institutionalized Training** In the United States, Information Technology, Computer Science, and Software Engineering programs can be accredited by [ABET](http://www.abet.org/). In Canada, Computer Science and Software Engineering programs are accredited by [CIPS](http://www.cips.ca/). These organizations define minimum standards and expected outcomes for students graduating from an accredited program to enable them to function in a professional environment. The IEEE also offers two exams based on the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge - the [Certified Software Development Associate](http://www.computer.org/portal/web/certification/csda) exam for undergraduates (or recently graduated undergraduates) and the [Certified Software Development Professional](http://www.computer.org/portal/web/certification/csdp) exam for mid-career professionals.
* **Licensing** As of April 2013, [NCEES offers a Professional Engineering exam in Software Engineering](http://ncees.org/exams/pe-exam/). It is offered on a state-by-state basis in the United States. However, the Software Engineering PE exam is not currently offered by every state, and even fewer require the license. [This article, published in the November/December 1999 issue of IEEE Software](http://sce.uhcl.edu/helm/SWEBOK_IEEE/papers/10%20reprint%205.pdf), discusses licensing requirements in the state of Texas and a brief discussion of licensing in Ontario and British Columbia, Canada and the UK. In Texas, a license is only required to work on the design, testing, or implementation of embedded or real-time systems that "require a detailed understanding of the engineered electrical or mechanical components" and for software systems for "mechanical devices, electrical devices, and power systems" - a relatively small amount of software development work. In states that offer licensing, the worst case scenario is disciplinary action, sanctions, or loss of your license should a client or employer file a complaint. However, the only real harm comes in states that require a license - unless the license is required to do the work, losing it doesn't mean anything.
* **Code of Ethics** The ACM and IEEE Computer Society created a [Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice](https://ethics.acm.org/code-of-ethics/software-engineering-code/). In the United States, graduates of ABET accredited engineering programs, including Software Engineering programs, can also join the [Order of the Engineer](http://www.order-of-the-engineer.org/), which maintains a code of ethics that generally applies to professional engineers.
* **Work Autonomy, Colleague Control, High Standards of Professional and Intellectual Excellence** These are frequently visible in an environment where software engineering is treated as an engineering discipline. That is to say that not all employers (or freelancers) treat software development as engineering. | Software is not a profession, nor will it ever be one.
"A profession arises when any trade or occupation transforms itself through the development of formal qualifications based upon education, apprenticeship, and examinations, the emergence of regulatory bodies with powers to admit and discipline members, and some degree of monopoly rights."
That description doesn't match software at all.
First off, anyone with an interest in software can go out and try to find a job developing software. Many of those people have college degrees totally unrelated to computer programming and many have no degree at all. There's nothing stopping either of those groups from becoming software programmers.
Software can't become a profession because "licensed" members become responsible for damage they cause and their malpractice. 80-90% of developers will lose their job within a couple of years for that one alone.
In general, software quality is atrocious, bug prone and just plain not very well done. Is that worthy of being a profession? Do you foresee that stopping because people get licensed? If a professional organization isn't going to stand for high standards and professional quality then there's no point to it. That goes directly against industry practice. Writing quality, robust and working software is against the principles of most of the companies out there, because time-to-market, cost, it is good enough, don't want to break anything else trying to fix broken software is viewed as more important than professional grade software.
Also, regarding malpractice. How are you going to prove that one develper versus another is to blame. In software it is way to easy to point fingers and both developers "are right". Who is to blame when that developer uses the undocumented API hidden in the bowels of the OS and then the OS vendor changes its function or removes it?
Good luck with that regulatory body thing. Let's see congress say no to Microsoft when Microsoft asks them to kill that bill because it will only allow them to hire "licensed" developers. Without that regulatory body, then who is going to join an organization that has the right to discipline you and charge you dues especially if there is no added value like getting monopoly rights without the regulatory body.
As for, would it be a good thing to require licensing? Absolutely, for those who can get accredited. Your pay would rise dramatically with your new found monopoly.
However, for everyone else...the use of computer technology in businesses would probably decline along with the fast pace of advancement we see nowadays. There will certainly be barriers to new software advances, such as languages and design methodologies. After all, who is going to want to push for new ways of doing things that will require years of retraining in order to maintain your license. Most licensed developers will prefer to keep things just the way they are in that regard. |
196,829 | Unlike other professions (such as Accounting, Law, Medicine, etc.), there is no profession-wide certification for Software Engineering.
I am well aware of the multitude of technology and methodology specific certifications that aim to serve as proof of specialisation and experience, but there is no public Software Engineering society / governing body that sets (and has the power to legally assess) generally accepted professional standards.
I understand that software is a dynamic beast - that is part art, part science - but I'm wondering whether Software Engineering has the potential to become a formal profession.
What needs to change for this to happen, and would it even be a good thing?
(If anybody knows of formal research into this topic I'd greatly appreciate references)
Update
------
I agree with many of the good points raised below regarding the current level of certification in Software Engineering. I also find it very interesting that some countries treat Software Engineering as a profession whilst others don't.
There does however seem to be a bit of shroud surrounding the term "formal profession", and how it would apply to Software Engineering. I think the key issue with Software Engineering - and the primary reason it is not a full-blown profession - is that if you're a certified Software Engineer, and - for example - some software you wrote for an elevator malfunctions and kills people, your certification and / or membership to a formal professional body won't get revoked.
Sure, your company might get sued for millions, and you personally might lose your job and earn a bad reference, but generally speaking, you personally are protected by the shield of limited liability as a result of being employed by said company. In other words, and as far as I know, there is no legal assessment / enforcement in place (unlike other formal professions and their governing societies) which have the mandate to officially bar you from trading once you've made a colossal stuff-up.
I quite liked the answer that touched on the fact that Software Engineering - as it stands - is a meritocracy, which doesn't need to be a formal profession, and that this is a good thing that shouldn't change. At the same time, I think we need to make a clear distinction between Software Engineers of mission-critical software versus developers of miscellaneous / non-critical software.
To those of you who work / have worked on mission-critical software - is there any personal liability? Surely there is a need for formal repercussions in the event of the Software Engineer making a costly mistake? | 2013/05/02 | [
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/196829",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/users/66292/"
] | Nothing needs to change.
As [pointed out by Thomas](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/a/196843/31260 "in another answer here"), software engineering is already a profession. It can be called engineering, programming, hacking, and/or crafting, but it *is* as profession and lots of people are making money on it.
I think your question is is around licensing.
Right now there is no formal licensing for software engineering. Anyone with enough smarts and programming ability can get hired and paid for creating code than runs on a machine or a device.
This is unlike other industries (law and medicine being examples as cited in the question). A license is required for those professions. Anyone can drive a car, but to drive one legally you have to have a dirvers license is another example. Anyone can program, no license or certification(s) required.
Now, I beleive that licensing is good in that it proves that someone has the ability to do something (like drive a car) and knows the ins and outs of the rules (of the road).
A similiar license could be required for software engineering, but I don't think it would do much good. In fact there are many licensed drivers who are horrible drivers, so just becase you have a license doesn't mean your a good driver or programmer.
A license creates a barrier for entry, which in this industry would not be a good thing, so I don't see any perceived benefit of such licensing.
Companies that hire software engineers should definately test the ability of that potential programmer with a "programming test" (and I am no talking about fizz buzz type) based on the skill set needed. Programmers with "certifications" look good on paper, but they should really be put to the test with a real world test to gauge experience and aptitude. | Software is not a profession, nor will it ever be one.
"A profession arises when any trade or occupation transforms itself through the development of formal qualifications based upon education, apprenticeship, and examinations, the emergence of regulatory bodies with powers to admit and discipline members, and some degree of monopoly rights."
That description doesn't match software at all.
First off, anyone with an interest in software can go out and try to find a job developing software. Many of those people have college degrees totally unrelated to computer programming and many have no degree at all. There's nothing stopping either of those groups from becoming software programmers.
Software can't become a profession because "licensed" members become responsible for damage they cause and their malpractice. 80-90% of developers will lose their job within a couple of years for that one alone.
In general, software quality is atrocious, bug prone and just plain not very well done. Is that worthy of being a profession? Do you foresee that stopping because people get licensed? If a professional organization isn't going to stand for high standards and professional quality then there's no point to it. That goes directly against industry practice. Writing quality, robust and working software is against the principles of most of the companies out there, because time-to-market, cost, it is good enough, don't want to break anything else trying to fix broken software is viewed as more important than professional grade software.
Also, regarding malpractice. How are you going to prove that one develper versus another is to blame. In software it is way to easy to point fingers and both developers "are right". Who is to blame when that developer uses the undocumented API hidden in the bowels of the OS and then the OS vendor changes its function or removes it?
Good luck with that regulatory body thing. Let's see congress say no to Microsoft when Microsoft asks them to kill that bill because it will only allow them to hire "licensed" developers. Without that regulatory body, then who is going to join an organization that has the right to discipline you and charge you dues especially if there is no added value like getting monopoly rights without the regulatory body.
As for, would it be a good thing to require licensing? Absolutely, for those who can get accredited. Your pay would rise dramatically with your new found monopoly.
However, for everyone else...the use of computer technology in businesses would probably decline along with the fast pace of advancement we see nowadays. There will certainly be barriers to new software advances, such as languages and design methodologies. After all, who is going to want to push for new ways of doing things that will require years of retraining in order to maintain your license. Most licensed developers will prefer to keep things just the way they are in that regard. |
19,129,461 | I want to pull data from multiple excel sheets and generate PDF report. Can you please suggest best way to do it? I am thinking of using Perl Excel & PDF modules. Will this work? or any other easy ways to achieve this same.
Your help is greatly appreciated. | 2013/10/02 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/19129461",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/2837131/"
] | EMR does a lot of things for you that you won't find on standard Hadoop on EC2. Some particularly important ones include
* Copying Hadoop logs from your machines to S3. This is very useful for debugging errors after the cluster has been shut down.
* Running job flows of multiple MapReduce, Pig, or Hive jobs
* Setting sensible configuration defaults based on hardware size you choose
* Access to spot instances for cheaper compute
* Ability to resize clusters dynamically
You'll also find that the EMR S3 filesystem is faster and more reliable than the standard one packaged with Apache Hadoop. It supports Multipart upload, and streams writes directly to S3 rather than buffering to disk first. For a bit more on this, see [Tip #5](http://blog.mortardata.com/post/58920122308/s3-hadoop-performance.)
Additionally, if you do decide to use EC2 directly, I'd recommend using instance-storage instead of EBS for your nodes. There's really no reason to pay the extra cost of EBS for Hadoop; you'll notice that EMR clusters all run on instance-storage nodes as well. | You are correct that EMR uses instance-store backed EC2 instances, rather than EBS. However, there's nothing stopping you from creating an instance-store based instance, packing an AMI and using it for your Hadoop cluster. Using EBS also might not represent a lot of additional costs, depending on your workload and frequency. Also, there's an added cost to the EC2 instance when using it through EMR.
I've been using EMR for two years now and I would highly recommend the service as you don't need to invest time in managing and updating your distribution. If your workload is compatible with EMR (getting data from DynamoDB or S3), I would go for EMR as opposed to EC2/Hadoop. |
13,159,957 | I have a UITableView and I'm adding an iAD as a footer view at the bottom of the screen added to a UITableView.
The iAD is effectively pinned there since I update the iAD's position whenever the screen is scrolled with -(void)viewDidScroll...
However, since my UITableView is full of indexes, the indexes for some reason, appear IN FRONT of the iAD, effectively blocking it! The rest of the UITableView works fine, with the UITableViewCells appearing behind the iAD.
How can I fix this? | 2012/10/31 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/13159957",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1318213/"
] | Here is a link to a tutorial that implements the iad in the bottom of the screen in uitableview, hope it helps. Adrian
<http://www.ioslearner.com/implement-iads-tutorial-iphone-ipad-sdk/> | You can try resizing the TableView and place it over iAD Frame, so that they dont overlap each other. |
13,159,957 | I have a UITableView and I'm adding an iAD as a footer view at the bottom of the screen added to a UITableView.
The iAD is effectively pinned there since I update the iAD's position whenever the screen is scrolled with -(void)viewDidScroll...
However, since my UITableView is full of indexes, the indexes for some reason, appear IN FRONT of the iAD, effectively blocking it! The rest of the UITableView works fine, with the UITableViewCells appearing behind the iAD.
How can I fix this? | 2012/10/31 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/13159957",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1318213/"
] | Here is a link to a tutorial that implements the iad in the bottom of the screen in uitableview, hope it helps. Adrian
<http://www.ioslearner.com/implement-iads-tutorial-iphone-ipad-sdk/> | You could put the iAd in a fixed section of the table view. Alternatively I would just size the tableview (in interface builder or whatever) to make space for the iAd at the bottom. |
199,649 | I was thinking about humanoid designs, usually the most prolific version adds a digitigrade posture, looks cool and have some advantages for cursorial creatures providing speed but reducing stability and efficience when walk requiring mor energy than necesary for keep this humanoid creature walking or even just standing, my current conclusion of the causes of this is because the support area is notoriously reduced with just having the fingers contacting with the floor that made me wonder could these humanoids even walk? Won't they continually fall? Is the energy cost of keeping your legs this way worth it?.
Those are the reasons of why I thought a kangaroo-like tail could be very useful for improve the posture providing with third support point and helping with balance.
In fact currently was in develop a robotic tail to help with balance problems and almost sure is possible use this tail to stand, not for much time but maybe for rest short time periods is good.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZL7r5.png)
Even if my assumption about the use of the kangaroo like tail is wrong, the tail presence still being interesting and problematic, because I remember read that the presence of tail in a humanoid shape is harmful or contradictory to the correct posture, gluteus and other muscles used to stand, because the tail required other massive muscles to work.
But even I found some infomation which would indicate this is less problematic as could seems. With [sthenurine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sthenurus) kangaroos which probably had a semihumanoid erected posture convergent in some aspects with hominidae features, obtaining a digitigrade (or even unguligrade) posture supported by the tail, coupled with the fact that this family of kangaroos would have put jumping aside in favor of walking, being able to move their legs independently. But this were just some visions and reconstructions of these species, as they are not conclusive and something truly functional still needs an analysis.
And as last complemente, kangaroos' tails are special, are very different to other species, these kind of tails have a great versatility, because even looking as rigid supports to stand, can turn flexible and be used with ondulatory moves to swim (as you can see in this [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lj8kQycZvYw)) and other interesting feature is the nail tail from the [wallaby](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_nail-tail_wallaby), which practically have a little claw with unknown function but could be for defense or be used in [drepanosaurus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drepanosaurus) like style.
So my questions are: how to get or develop and anatomically correct humanoid with a strong and versatile kangaroo like tail?, what kind of anatomical changes are necesary?
I emphasize that my problems are with the skeletal and muscular configuration of this fictitious species, since generally it would have to have a torso similar to a human but underneath with the aforementioned characteristics of digitigrade and a versatile and strong tail like a kangaroo.
A last addition, this question can be highly related with this
[How much I can change the humanoid body plan and still be able to perform the high speed throwing?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/199712/how-much-i-can-change-the-humanoid-body-plan-and-still-be-able-to-perform-the-hi) | 2021/03/29 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/199649",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/80688/"
] | Tails don't help you be digitigrade
-----------------------------------
First off: some humans ARE digitigrade. About 5% of healthy children undergo growth spurts where their calf muscles grow slower than their tibia and fibula causing them to walk on their toes. Because the calf mussels are pulled tighter than normal, they stand on their toes using the tension in the muscles rather than needing to exert any extra force to bring them up to a digitigrade posture. So, for these people, it is as comfortable to stand, walk, run, and jump up on the balls of their feet as it is for most people to do those things flat footed. This can cause temporary balance issues as they may transition back and forth between digitigrade and plantigrade, but these balance issue have nothing inherently to do with being digitigrade.
While more rare, some perfectly healthy adults are also permanently digitigrade. This is most common among people who are/were athletes who needed MORE balance (boxers, wrestlers, etc.) where they spend/spent so much time training in a digitigrade posture, that the muscles tightened and they assumed this as the default posture. A plantigrade posture is easier on your bones and muscles, but makes you slower, less well balanced (not more as the OP suggests), and only uses less energy if your muscles are not designed to be digitigrade. Despite the the smaller ground contact area, humans in a digitigrade stance have much better balance than plantigrade humans because they can react better to lateral forces without the risk of being rolled over their heels: thus the expression "[caught flat-footed](https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/caught+flat-footed)".
The only reason most humans are plantigrade is because it causes less health problems as we get older. Because the bones in our feet are not fused together, extended use of the digitigrade posture can stretch out ligaments and cause foot pain. Humans are designed to be nomadic. We can walk for very long distances compared to other animals, but this is not a necessary feature of all humanoid or bipedal beings. Ostridges for example are bipedal and digitigrade and suffer no significant negative side effects from it... but they are built for sprinting, not distance, so they have evolved to be better suited to a digitigrade default stance.
Why so many bipeds have minimal tails
-------------------------------------
The biggest problem with the bipedal body design is weight. Things that make you heavier are a bigger deal than when you are a quadruped; so, heavy things like tails actually slow you down making them counter-productive. Tails only help bipeds with balance when their body plan is leaned forward (like a kangaroo or t-rex), but when you make your weight distribution more vertical, like a human, you can drop the weight of the tail allowing you to become faster and still maintain good balance by centering your weight over your feet. If you are upright, a tail will just make you want to fall backwards.
Going upright, and loosing the tail frees up a lot of weight which means your bipeds can also support larger stronger arms which is important specifically for humanoid body designs. For a biped to have a forward leaning torso, adding the weight of large arms would have to be offset by an equally heavier tail (which is probably why kangaroos and t-rexes have such small arms)
In summary: if you want an upright biped to be digitigrade just make them digitigrade: it works well, and adding a tail only adds problems, not solutions. BUT if you want to add a tail for the sake of adding a tail, then you will need to make the body lean forward so that the body and tail can counterbalance each other. | Let us suppose that we have a normal human being without a tail. If we focus on the pelvic skeletal area, we can see the vestigial remnants of the tail which has devolved from our distant ancestors, in the form of the coccyx.
Now, the OP proposes that we add a substantial tail to this basic body plan, a tail that is as capable and useful to its owner as a kangaroo's is to its owner, capable of supporting the being's full weight and providing propulsion in both terrestrial and aquatic locomotion. The OP is correct in believing that adding such a tail would not be as simple as replacing the coccyx with the far more substantial appendage desired.
Why *wouldn't* we be able to just 'whack on' a big tail and call it a day? What would we have to do to make it work?
Consider the dimensions of this new tail. As any tail, it would consist of an extension of the vertebral column beyond the pelvis. In order to be able to support its owner's full weight and contribute to locomotion, it would have to have vertebrae that are robust enough to support the load, with muscle attachment processes big enough to anchor strong muscles. It would have to be *at least* as long as the leg plus the length of the foot - it would not support its owner's weight directly on its tip, but on at least twenty to forty centimeters of the end of the tail, almost like an extra foot, much as kangaroos use their tails.
With all this muscle and bone, we are looking at a substantial, massive appendage, with vertebrae roughly the same thickness as the lumbar vertebrae, surrounded by muscle that might make it as much as ten centimeters in diameter where it emerges from the pelvis. Unlike the picture of the artificial tail, it would emerge from the pelvis in line with the spine, not at right-angles to it.
This extra mass of muscle and bone would not come without consequences. The main consequence would be the alteration of the pelvic opening. Naively, this tail would 'bulk up' the coccyx on both sides, but this would result in it projecting into the pelvic girdle. For kangaroos, which give birth to offspring that weigh a few grams, this is not an issue, but for a human, which gives birth to offspring weighing five kilograms or more, with heads that have a diameter of ten centimeters, obstructing the pelvic opening could be fatal for both mother and child. This could be solved by moving the pelvic girdle ventrally so that its opening was unobstructed. This would result in the lower back appearing not almost flat from side to side as in modern humans, but with a rather more projecting bump on the lower back. At the very least, this would make lying supine more difficult, as the pelvis would tend to roll to one side or the other.
The next problem is that of locomotion. Unless the tail is even more bulky and muscular than I have described, it would not be used as a means of propulsion when walking or running. Fully tripodal locomotion involving the tail would be awkward enough that it is unlikely to evolve at this point. However, the presence of this weighty, bulky appendage would not be without its effects.
When walking and running, if the pelvic spine was vertical as it is in modern humans, a tail of this bulk would collide with the legs and the ground unless it was held up and to the rear. However, in that case, the weight of the tail behind its owner would shift the centre of mass backwards unless the torso was moved forward to compensate, resulting in a forward-leaning posture when walking or running. In fact, this would likely lead to the natural position of the legs being not directly in line with the torso, but being at a slight angle. This change would be reflected in the shape of the pelvis, with a slightly different shape to the pelvic bones to allow for the altered stance.
Having such a tail would mean that when stationary, the being could lean back on their tail, holding their torso fully erect in a tripodal stance, almost as if they were carrying a tall, narrow unipod seat around with them. As humans' upright stance likely evolved in order to see over tall grass in a plains environment, this tail would assist in such a posture, and allow a lookout to maintain a more comfortable stance while standing watch.
Given the strength of the tail, it would be capable of pushing its owner forward from a standing position, making the transition from standing to walking or running easier and more rapid, and would also allow a powerful braced two-footed kick as practised by modern kangaroos.
Given sufficient lateral musculature in the tail, it could contribute to aquatic locomotion to a small degree, given that in humans, the bulk of the power when swimming is provided by the upper body. This musculature would also enable the tail to be used as a weapon, to be swung about to bludgeon an enemy, as well as its use as a brace to strengthen a kick.
The tail is unlikely to be prehensile, given that African monkeys do not use their tails for grasping, while only South American monkeys use their tails in that fashion. Tailed Humans, probably being evolved from African monkeys and apes, would be unlikely to have prehensile tails due to that ancestry. However, the OP may be considering an alternative evolutionary path that allows for a prehensile, grasping tail.
Should this tail be prehensile, its strength would allow it to be used for crude grasping, and to help anchor an object being worked upon by the more dexterous hands.
The last significant difference in anatomy would be in the brain. In contrast to modern humans, these tailed humans would have a slightly different brain structure in order to provide the motor output from and sensory input to the tail. It wouldn't be a particularly major difference, but would likely be enough that an expert could tell the difference between a modern human and a tailed human from their gross brain anatomy, especially if the tail was prehensile.
The energy for this tail could easily be provided for by a modern human's digestive system, so there would be no need for any significant change in dentition, gastrointestinal or cardiopulmonary anatomy.
There would be other consequences to this change in anatomy, including likely alterations in the manner of copulation, preferred sleeping positions, furniture and transport design, and other sociological implications, but these go beyond the scope of the OP's question. |
199,649 | I was thinking about humanoid designs, usually the most prolific version adds a digitigrade posture, looks cool and have some advantages for cursorial creatures providing speed but reducing stability and efficience when walk requiring mor energy than necesary for keep this humanoid creature walking or even just standing, my current conclusion of the causes of this is because the support area is notoriously reduced with just having the fingers contacting with the floor that made me wonder could these humanoids even walk? Won't they continually fall? Is the energy cost of keeping your legs this way worth it?.
Those are the reasons of why I thought a kangaroo-like tail could be very useful for improve the posture providing with third support point and helping with balance.
In fact currently was in develop a robotic tail to help with balance problems and almost sure is possible use this tail to stand, not for much time but maybe for rest short time periods is good.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZL7r5.png)
Even if my assumption about the use of the kangaroo like tail is wrong, the tail presence still being interesting and problematic, because I remember read that the presence of tail in a humanoid shape is harmful or contradictory to the correct posture, gluteus and other muscles used to stand, because the tail required other massive muscles to work.
But even I found some infomation which would indicate this is less problematic as could seems. With [sthenurine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sthenurus) kangaroos which probably had a semihumanoid erected posture convergent in some aspects with hominidae features, obtaining a digitigrade (or even unguligrade) posture supported by the tail, coupled with the fact that this family of kangaroos would have put jumping aside in favor of walking, being able to move their legs independently. But this were just some visions and reconstructions of these species, as they are not conclusive and something truly functional still needs an analysis.
And as last complemente, kangaroos' tails are special, are very different to other species, these kind of tails have a great versatility, because even looking as rigid supports to stand, can turn flexible and be used with ondulatory moves to swim (as you can see in this [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lj8kQycZvYw)) and other interesting feature is the nail tail from the [wallaby](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_nail-tail_wallaby), which practically have a little claw with unknown function but could be for defense or be used in [drepanosaurus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drepanosaurus) like style.
So my questions are: how to get or develop and anatomically correct humanoid with a strong and versatile kangaroo like tail?, what kind of anatomical changes are necesary?
I emphasize that my problems are with the skeletal and muscular configuration of this fictitious species, since generally it would have to have a torso similar to a human but underneath with the aforementioned characteristics of digitigrade and a versatile and strong tail like a kangaroo.
A last addition, this question can be highly related with this
[How much I can change the humanoid body plan and still be able to perform the high speed throwing?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/199712/how-much-i-can-change-the-humanoid-body-plan-and-still-be-able-to-perform-the-hi) | 2021/03/29 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/199649",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/80688/"
] | Tails don't help you be digitigrade
-----------------------------------
First off: some humans ARE digitigrade. About 5% of healthy children undergo growth spurts where their calf muscles grow slower than their tibia and fibula causing them to walk on their toes. Because the calf mussels are pulled tighter than normal, they stand on their toes using the tension in the muscles rather than needing to exert any extra force to bring them up to a digitigrade posture. So, for these people, it is as comfortable to stand, walk, run, and jump up on the balls of their feet as it is for most people to do those things flat footed. This can cause temporary balance issues as they may transition back and forth between digitigrade and plantigrade, but these balance issue have nothing inherently to do with being digitigrade.
While more rare, some perfectly healthy adults are also permanently digitigrade. This is most common among people who are/were athletes who needed MORE balance (boxers, wrestlers, etc.) where they spend/spent so much time training in a digitigrade posture, that the muscles tightened and they assumed this as the default posture. A plantigrade posture is easier on your bones and muscles, but makes you slower, less well balanced (not more as the OP suggests), and only uses less energy if your muscles are not designed to be digitigrade. Despite the the smaller ground contact area, humans in a digitigrade stance have much better balance than plantigrade humans because they can react better to lateral forces without the risk of being rolled over their heels: thus the expression "[caught flat-footed](https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/caught+flat-footed)".
The only reason most humans are plantigrade is because it causes less health problems as we get older. Because the bones in our feet are not fused together, extended use of the digitigrade posture can stretch out ligaments and cause foot pain. Humans are designed to be nomadic. We can walk for very long distances compared to other animals, but this is not a necessary feature of all humanoid or bipedal beings. Ostridges for example are bipedal and digitigrade and suffer no significant negative side effects from it... but they are built for sprinting, not distance, so they have evolved to be better suited to a digitigrade default stance.
Why so many bipeds have minimal tails
-------------------------------------
The biggest problem with the bipedal body design is weight. Things that make you heavier are a bigger deal than when you are a quadruped; so, heavy things like tails actually slow you down making them counter-productive. Tails only help bipeds with balance when their body plan is leaned forward (like a kangaroo or t-rex), but when you make your weight distribution more vertical, like a human, you can drop the weight of the tail allowing you to become faster and still maintain good balance by centering your weight over your feet. If you are upright, a tail will just make you want to fall backwards.
Going upright, and loosing the tail frees up a lot of weight which means your bipeds can also support larger stronger arms which is important specifically for humanoid body designs. For a biped to have a forward leaning torso, adding the weight of large arms would have to be offset by an equally heavier tail (which is probably why kangaroos and t-rexes have such small arms)
In summary: if you want an upright biped to be digitigrade just make them digitigrade: it works well, and adding a tail only adds problems, not solutions. BUT if you want to add a tail for the sake of adding a tail, then you will need to make the body lean forward so that the body and tail can counterbalance each other. | Nature provides a model of an upright digitigrade biped.
--------------------------------------------------------
Therizinosaurs are a group of dinosaurs that are basically upright digitigrade bipeds, they are not as upright as humans, but that is because they have a tail which means they need to sling the body slightly forward for balance, the bigger you make the tail the more forward the body needs to be. so your best bet is to estimate how much the tail of your creature weights, that will tell you how much you need to change the posture. Your problem is if you want a tail long enough, thick enough, and strong enough to support the weight of human well, it ends up weighing so much your person is closer to horizontal than upright.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/WMLlc.png)
Note the pelvis of this group has a very sharp bend in it to keep the tail pointed backwards. The tail supports the muscles that move the legs so it needs to remain roughly horizontal. Your tail does not need to be that horizontal.
there is already a question and answer about tails and balance so you can look for more info there. [Lizardfolk and the problem of balance and anatomically sound tails](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/171328/lizardfolk-and-the-problem-of-balance-and-anatomically-sound-tails/171345#171345)
**You are correct that putting a tail on a human frame causes all kinds of problem, but you don't have to worry about that**. Mammals evolved butt muscles to move the hind leg because they could not anchor them to the tail the way lizards and dinosaurs do, because they had greatly reduced the tail. If your creature evolved with a tail there is no reason to believe it would have this kind of musculature, Kangaroos do not. Note the kangaroo musculature is also different than the dinosaur system.
**Digitigrade** animals have much larger toes than humans have, so as long as you make the toes bigger you can put a biped on a digitigrade stance no problem. The energy cost if being digitigrade is not significant, you need muscle tension to stand no matter what you are, being digitigrade does not make it significantly worse. It is harder for humans to walk digitigrade but humans evolved plantigrade, it is harder for digitigrades wo walk plantigrade as well. Just like any posture it comes down to the arrangement and size of muscles. There is a saving to being plantigrade but it is so minimal that you can safely ignore it when designing a fictional organism unless you absolutely need them to be endurance walkers like humans.
As a side note at least two groups of dinosaurs use their tails for support while standing on their hind legs, diplodocid sauropods and stegosaurs, however they are not bipeds, only standing to feed. these tails are very thick and strong (just like kangaroo) also both groups use them as weapons, so you do have some comparisons to look at.
So what changes do you need to make
-----------------------------------
You need **bigger toes** you also need to decide what kind of foot to give them, specifically how many toes and in what arrangement, kangaroo use four toes to get a pseudo-three-toed foot, [wallaby foot dissection](https://svpow.com/2009/11/06/things-to-make-and-do-part-3b-wallaby-feet/) but you could use a dog like foot, dinosaur like foot or a selection of other digitigrades.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/L0lxd.png)
You need a **bent pelvis**, your pelvis needs to have a bend in it just like therizinosaurs to get the tail pointed is a reasonable direction, although it does not need to be bent as much. You will likely want to reinforce the sacrum as well, since you want it to support lateral loading.
You will need to adjust the musculature, for one thing your creature will not have a butt shaped like a human one, the musculature from the tail will blend together with it.
you will need to **tilt the body forward**, your creature will not be as upright as a human, they will be leaned forward, likely close to 45 degrees maybe a little less, to balance the weight of the tail. |
102,855 | The only living thing that seems to be native to another planet are the worms of Dune. I remember something called a "slig" but that seems to be a new species created by genetic engineering, and that man-wolf to which an honored matre tries to feed a Bene gisseret seems the same.
It is said that the Great Houses could only use their atomic weapons in the case that alien invaders were to attack humanity. And the implication is that this hasn't happened so far.
I remember something about a house making a fortune selling whale fur, it doesn't say if these whales had been transplanted from earth and somehow modified to have this fur.
Is there any information about alien life; intelligent, animal-like or plant-like? Does it come out and just say "the only planet beside earth that has native life is Dune and then only worms"? | 2015/09/15 | [
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/102855",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/users/4398/"
] | In Dunes exanded universe we have
1. humans originated on earth
2. they never encounter other intelligent life
3. humans do find plant and animal life on other worlds
4. the only other intelligent lifeforms in this universe are the thinking machines created by humans before the Butlerian Jihad. | In *Dune*, there are references to both native and terraform plants:
On Arrakis, for example,
>
> There was a rare native root plant that grew above the 2,500 meter level in the northern temperate zone. A tuber two meters long yielded half a liter of water. And there were the terraform desert plants: the tougher ones showed signs of thriving if planted in depressions lined with dew precipitators.
>
>
>
--From Appendix I: "The Ecology of Dune"
In the *Terminology of the Imperium* appendix, there is this entry:
>
> SCHLAG: animal native to Tupile once hunted almost to extinction for its thin, tough hide.
>
>
>
as well as references to a few 'native' plants from various planets. |
102,855 | The only living thing that seems to be native to another planet are the worms of Dune. I remember something called a "slig" but that seems to be a new species created by genetic engineering, and that man-wolf to which an honored matre tries to feed a Bene gisseret seems the same.
It is said that the Great Houses could only use their atomic weapons in the case that alien invaders were to attack humanity. And the implication is that this hasn't happened so far.
I remember something about a house making a fortune selling whale fur, it doesn't say if these whales had been transplanted from earth and somehow modified to have this fur.
Is there any information about alien life; intelligent, animal-like or plant-like? Does it come out and just say "the only planet beside earth that has native life is Dune and then only worms"? | 2015/09/15 | [
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/102855",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/users/4398/"
] | In Dunes exanded universe we have
1. humans originated on earth
2. they never encounter other intelligent life
3. humans do find plant and animal life on other worlds
4. the only other intelligent lifeforms in this universe are the thinking machines created by humans before the Butlerian Jihad. | *Children of Dune* makes it explicitly clear that the sandworms are not native to Arrakis.
As for other life, the great likelihood is that almost all animal life is originally from Terra and then adapted, either through genetic artifice or more naturally over time, to the various worlds humans settled. Some species may be completely artificial, designed and cultivated in some lab here or there over the course of human expansion through space (I believe this is the provenance of the sandworm). The reason why this is probably true is two-fold:
1. The incredible unlikelihood of animal species of a totally alien biochemistry evolving not only forms recognizable to human settlers but also of a composition that is useful to those same pioneers.
2. The further unlikely situation that animal life would arise independently on multiple planets but *not* develop into intelligent forms either during the period of human exploration or at some time in the distant past and leave evidence of their existence.
Now, there *are* definite plant and bacterial-type species native to other planets which is making an interesting but implicit argument: abiogenesis is not unique to Earth, but the Great Filter lies at the line separating sessile, autotrophic, 'plant-like' life from mobile, voracious life. It would seem that in the *Duniverse* animal life either arose only once - on Earth - or it is extremely rare.
Finally, a very intriguing possibility is raised by the native flora of the planet Ecaz when asking if there's any *intelligent* alien life in Dune. Ecaz is home to fogwood, which can be molded by making skin-to-skin contact with the plant and simply *thinking* it into shape. Elacca comes from Ecaz, and this wood is the source of the drug which renders the user's consciousness totally sublimed to it, where physical self-preservation ceases to carry any weight. Elacca is also the source of semuta which also produces this 'consciousness-dispersing' effect. Ecaz is further the home planet of the sapho berry, which when processed into juice is drunk by mentats to increase their calculative abilities and sharpen their focus. Finally Ecaz is the source of Verite, the drug used by the BG and others as a truth serum.
What I mean by all that above is that life from Ecaz, always flora, interacts in powerful, meaningful ways with human mental faculties and processes. This may suggest that although *animal* life is uniquely Terran in the Dune series, *consciousness* and perhaps even *intelligence* has evolved at least one other time, in the various interconnected floral species of Ecaz.
In Dune's *Terminology of the Imperium* Frank Herbert tells us the sandtrout themselves are half-plant, half-animal, which might suggest an Ecazi origin as decomposers (sealing off the moisture and absorbing the nutrients of dead plant matter) before being unwittingly or short-sightedly carried to the planet of Arrakis when it was still a wet world. The Fremen keep predator fish in their caches so the sandtrout don't wall away all the water. That this works tells us the sandtrout not only didn't evolve on Arrakis, as they've no defense against the predator, but also that they seem to have evolved on a world with ample moisture **but no animal predators**. That could most certainly be Ecaz, especially when we consider what may have kept them from desiccating it was the conscious effort of the plant species that had evolved alongside them. |
30,572,953 | i want to know does the android device id change when the android version is update to latest. If it changes, how can i get notified about the version change. | 2015/06/01 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/30572953",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/4131697/"
] | Device ID is a 64-bit number (as a hexadecimal string) that is randomly generated on the device’s first boot and should remain constant for the lifetime of the device, though the value may change if a factory reset is performed on the device.
The device ID does not change when the Android version is updated to the latest version. If you want to change your device ID then visit [here](http://www.prophethacker.com/2014/08/how-change-your-android-mobile-device-id.html). | This may no longer be a correct answer. The following from <https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2017/04/changes-to-device-identifiers-in.html>
Android ID
In O, Android ID (Settings.Secure.ANDROID\_ID or SSAID) has a different value for each app and each user on the device. Developers requiring a device-scoped identifier, should instead use a resettable identifier, such as Advertising ID, giving users more control. Advertising ID also provides a user-facing setting to limit ad tracking.
Additionally in Android O:
The ANDROID\_ID value won't change on package uninstall/reinstall, as long as the package name and signing key are the same. Apps can rely on this value to maintain state across reinstalls.
If an app was installed on a device running an earlier version of Android, the Android ID remains the same when the device is updated to Android O, unless the app is uninstalled and reinstalled.
The Android ID value only changes if the device is factory reset or if the signing key rotates between uninstall and reinstall events.
This change is only required for device manufacturers shipping with Google Play services and Advertising ID. Other device manufacturers may provide an alternative resettable ID or continue to provide ANDROID ID. |
30,572,953 | i want to know does the android device id change when the android version is update to latest. If it changes, how can i get notified about the version change. | 2015/06/01 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/30572953",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/4131697/"
] | Device ID is a 64-bit number (as a hexadecimal string) that is randomly generated on the device’s first boot and should remain constant for the lifetime of the device, though the value may change if a factory reset is performed on the device.
The device ID does not change when the Android version is updated to the latest version. If you want to change your device ID then visit [here](http://www.prophethacker.com/2014/08/how-change-your-android-mobile-device-id.html). | Yes it changes,
I found that device ID changed in my case. In my app each device is connected with my database for certain special tasks, varies device by device and I uniquely identify each device by Settings.Secure.ANDROID\_ID which gives me device unique ID.
But I found that that it changed on one of Samsung android device and disconnected from Database Server. |
30,572,953 | i want to know does the android device id change when the android version is update to latest. If it changes, how can i get notified about the version change. | 2015/06/01 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/30572953",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/4131697/"
] | This may no longer be a correct answer. The following from <https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2017/04/changes-to-device-identifiers-in.html>
Android ID
In O, Android ID (Settings.Secure.ANDROID\_ID or SSAID) has a different value for each app and each user on the device. Developers requiring a device-scoped identifier, should instead use a resettable identifier, such as Advertising ID, giving users more control. Advertising ID also provides a user-facing setting to limit ad tracking.
Additionally in Android O:
The ANDROID\_ID value won't change on package uninstall/reinstall, as long as the package name and signing key are the same. Apps can rely on this value to maintain state across reinstalls.
If an app was installed on a device running an earlier version of Android, the Android ID remains the same when the device is updated to Android O, unless the app is uninstalled and reinstalled.
The Android ID value only changes if the device is factory reset or if the signing key rotates between uninstall and reinstall events.
This change is only required for device manufacturers shipping with Google Play services and Advertising ID. Other device manufacturers may provide an alternative resettable ID or continue to provide ANDROID ID. | Yes it changes,
I found that device ID changed in my case. In my app each device is connected with my database for certain special tasks, varies device by device and I uniquely identify each device by Settings.Secure.ANDROID\_ID which gives me device unique ID.
But I found that that it changed on one of Samsung android device and disconnected from Database Server. |
13,045 | I want to begin with drawing but I have literally no experience. I wonder if there are high quality video tutorials, like www.digitaltutors.com just for drawing?
I want to start with hard surface objects.
Also would you recommend me to begin with a pencil or with a tablet? | 2012/11/29 | [
"https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/13045",
"https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com",
"https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/users/5231/"
] | Definitely start with just a pencil and drawing pad. You don't want to spend money on an expensive tablet just to find out you don't like it and won't stick with it.
That said, it depends on what your goals are, but drawing from life is the best way to understand whatever it is your trying to draw. If you just want to get better at drawing objects in perspective there's not any better way than just setting objects out on a table and sketching them. Photo reference works too, but you lose the benefit of seeing an object from any angle right in front of you.
This site has a lot of information on art in general. It's geared toward painting, but he stresses drawing as a base so you may find a lot of this stuff useful.
<http://www.beta.ctrlpaint.com/category/drawing/>
Here's another tutorial site. He has a good series on drawing people.
<http://www.proko.com/>
Other than that, search youtube. There's tons of people putting instructional videos up out there. And keep drawing. | Lynda have lots of tutorials on illustrations check the list of Illustrator tutorials on the link below
<http://www.lynda.com/Illustrator-training-tutorials/227-0.html> |
13,045 | I want to begin with drawing but I have literally no experience. I wonder if there are high quality video tutorials, like www.digitaltutors.com just for drawing?
I want to start with hard surface objects.
Also would you recommend me to begin with a pencil or with a tablet? | 2012/11/29 | [
"https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/13045",
"https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com",
"https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/users/5231/"
] | Get a nature journal and spend a few weeks making a go at it. Small things are good so you can focus on the basics of observation and not get overwhelmed by the subject. You'll make lots of mistakes but don't criticize too early. Just draw. *A lot*. And draw everything you see.
Any sketchbook that seems convenient will work. I like [Moleskine's Cahier books](http://www.moleskineus.com/cahier-pocket-plain.html) for their portability and durability. I keep my drawing kit close at hand but I also have [a wallet with a mini sketch area](http://www.levenger.com/Bags-11/Pocket-Briefcases-76/International-Pocket-Briefcase-with-pen-6168.aspx), just in case.
Once you get your feet wet, pick up some drawing books and study the principals while you work through the exercises. These are my faves:
* [Keys to Drawing](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0891343377)
* [Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1585429201)
Those two will get you a long way toward understanding how to really see. | Lynda have lots of tutorials on illustrations check the list of Illustrator tutorials on the link below
<http://www.lynda.com/Illustrator-training-tutorials/227-0.html> |
13,045 | I want to begin with drawing but I have literally no experience. I wonder if there are high quality video tutorials, like www.digitaltutors.com just for drawing?
I want to start with hard surface objects.
Also would you recommend me to begin with a pencil or with a tablet? | 2012/11/29 | [
"https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/13045",
"https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com",
"https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/users/5231/"
] | I have a graphic and product design studio, for me what i can say is that the best you can do is practicing every single day.
Time you spend doing things is when you gain your skills, buy a bunch of pencils and a paper block, and follow this guy here: <http://www.youtube.com/user/sketchadaydotcom/videos> there are some great videos about how to draw basic shapes, use of colors, markers etc...
I this is a solid start, when you are happy of your pencils results, buy a tablet. | Lynda have lots of tutorials on illustrations check the list of Illustrator tutorials on the link below
<http://www.lynda.com/Illustrator-training-tutorials/227-0.html> |
13,045 | I want to begin with drawing but I have literally no experience. I wonder if there are high quality video tutorials, like www.digitaltutors.com just for drawing?
I want to start with hard surface objects.
Also would you recommend me to begin with a pencil or with a tablet? | 2012/11/29 | [
"https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/13045",
"https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com",
"https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/users/5231/"
] | Get a nature journal and spend a few weeks making a go at it. Small things are good so you can focus on the basics of observation and not get overwhelmed by the subject. You'll make lots of mistakes but don't criticize too early. Just draw. *A lot*. And draw everything you see.
Any sketchbook that seems convenient will work. I like [Moleskine's Cahier books](http://www.moleskineus.com/cahier-pocket-plain.html) for their portability and durability. I keep my drawing kit close at hand but I also have [a wallet with a mini sketch area](http://www.levenger.com/Bags-11/Pocket-Briefcases-76/International-Pocket-Briefcase-with-pen-6168.aspx), just in case.
Once you get your feet wet, pick up some drawing books and study the principals while you work through the exercises. These are my faves:
* [Keys to Drawing](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0891343377)
* [Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1585429201)
Those two will get you a long way toward understanding how to really see. | Definitely start with just a pencil and drawing pad. You don't want to spend money on an expensive tablet just to find out you don't like it and won't stick with it.
That said, it depends on what your goals are, but drawing from life is the best way to understand whatever it is your trying to draw. If you just want to get better at drawing objects in perspective there's not any better way than just setting objects out on a table and sketching them. Photo reference works too, but you lose the benefit of seeing an object from any angle right in front of you.
This site has a lot of information on art in general. It's geared toward painting, but he stresses drawing as a base so you may find a lot of this stuff useful.
<http://www.beta.ctrlpaint.com/category/drawing/>
Here's another tutorial site. He has a good series on drawing people.
<http://www.proko.com/>
Other than that, search youtube. There's tons of people putting instructional videos up out there. And keep drawing. |
13,045 | I want to begin with drawing but I have literally no experience. I wonder if there are high quality video tutorials, like www.digitaltutors.com just for drawing?
I want to start with hard surface objects.
Also would you recommend me to begin with a pencil or with a tablet? | 2012/11/29 | [
"https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/13045",
"https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com",
"https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/users/5231/"
] | Get a nature journal and spend a few weeks making a go at it. Small things are good so you can focus on the basics of observation and not get overwhelmed by the subject. You'll make lots of mistakes but don't criticize too early. Just draw. *A lot*. And draw everything you see.
Any sketchbook that seems convenient will work. I like [Moleskine's Cahier books](http://www.moleskineus.com/cahier-pocket-plain.html) for their portability and durability. I keep my drawing kit close at hand but I also have [a wallet with a mini sketch area](http://www.levenger.com/Bags-11/Pocket-Briefcases-76/International-Pocket-Briefcase-with-pen-6168.aspx), just in case.
Once you get your feet wet, pick up some drawing books and study the principals while you work through the exercises. These are my faves:
* [Keys to Drawing](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0891343377)
* [Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1585429201)
Those two will get you a long way toward understanding how to really see. | I have a graphic and product design studio, for me what i can say is that the best you can do is practicing every single day.
Time you spend doing things is when you gain your skills, buy a bunch of pencils and a paper block, and follow this guy here: <http://www.youtube.com/user/sketchadaydotcom/videos> there are some great videos about how to draw basic shapes, use of colors, markers etc...
I this is a solid start, when you are happy of your pencils results, buy a tablet. |
16,580,482 | I have an application which is supposed to use google maps and mapkit framework. Now, google maps are only supported on iOS version 5.1 and further whereas Mapkit framework is supported on lower versions.
I want to the application to:
1. Load Mapkit on lower versions of the device.
2. Load Google maps for 5.1 and above versions,
before linking.
Bottomline is, is it possible to load the specific libraries based on iOS version of the device when application launches, before linking ? OR so can I programmatically choose between the two, based on the iOS version ?
Thanks for any help. | 2013/05/16 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/16580482",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1852663/"
] | It is possible to choose between the two, but what you are describing exactly is not possible. Apple doesn't allow third-party dynamically linked frameworks. The Google Maps framework will actually be a static library inside your application, so it exists in your binary itself (no linking involved). | I should point out that the SDKs are obviously not API-compatible, so you will need different code in each case and can't just, for example, change the class of your map view based on iOS version. |
16,580,482 | I have an application which is supposed to use google maps and mapkit framework. Now, google maps are only supported on iOS version 5.1 and further whereas Mapkit framework is supported on lower versions.
I want to the application to:
1. Load Mapkit on lower versions of the device.
2. Load Google maps for 5.1 and above versions,
before linking.
Bottomline is, is it possible to load the specific libraries based on iOS version of the device when application launches, before linking ? OR so can I programmatically choose between the two, based on the iOS version ?
Thanks for any help. | 2013/05/16 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/16580482",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1852663/"
] | Note that just including the Google Maps SDK for iOS in your app will make it crash on iOS 4.x - even if you don't call anything in the SDK. See here for details:
[Google Maps SDK for iOS trying to run on iOS 4.3](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14030418/google-maps-sdk-for-ios-trying-to-run-on-ios-4-3)
So if you take this approach, you'll be able to use Google maps on iOS 5.1+, but only be able to use Apple maps on iOS 5.0. Given that probably less than 1% of users are running iOS 5.0 ([see here](http://david-smith.org/iosversionstats/)), it might not be worth the trouble. | It is possible to choose between the two, but what you are describing exactly is not possible. Apple doesn't allow third-party dynamically linked frameworks. The Google Maps framework will actually be a static library inside your application, so it exists in your binary itself (no linking involved). |
16,580,482 | I have an application which is supposed to use google maps and mapkit framework. Now, google maps are only supported on iOS version 5.1 and further whereas Mapkit framework is supported on lower versions.
I want to the application to:
1. Load Mapkit on lower versions of the device.
2. Load Google maps for 5.1 and above versions,
before linking.
Bottomline is, is it possible to load the specific libraries based on iOS version of the device when application launches, before linking ? OR so can I programmatically choose between the two, based on the iOS version ?
Thanks for any help. | 2013/05/16 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/16580482",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1852663/"
] | Note that just including the Google Maps SDK for iOS in your app will make it crash on iOS 4.x - even if you don't call anything in the SDK. See here for details:
[Google Maps SDK for iOS trying to run on iOS 4.3](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14030418/google-maps-sdk-for-ios-trying-to-run-on-ios-4-3)
So if you take this approach, you'll be able to use Google maps on iOS 5.1+, but only be able to use Apple maps on iOS 5.0. Given that probably less than 1% of users are running iOS 5.0 ([see here](http://david-smith.org/iosversionstats/)), it might not be worth the trouble. | I should point out that the SDKs are obviously not API-compatible, so you will need different code in each case and can't just, for example, change the class of your map view based on iOS version. |
44,086,092 | There is a class whose constructor is annotated with @Autowired. I want to create an object of this class without actually passing the constructor parameters and using the default parameters. Can someone tell me how can i create an object of this class? | 2017/05/20 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/44086092",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/4316526/"
] | I have the feeling you are thinking to complex with all those abstract classes.
The simplest case is to have an interface Foo with getState.
You then have an implementation of Foo in the internal package.
This case does not require other bundles to have access to the impl class in internal. The key point is to also have an interface for FooManager in the api package.
You then create FooManagerImpl that implements FooManager and export it as a service with the interface. Other bundles can then use this service to call the updateState() method and other methods that manipulate FooImpl classes. | Expanding on the previous answer.
Something that might simplify things for you is if you encapsulate the mutable foo state, and expose a factory as a service. It might be sensible to have the foo manager service be the factory, in order to make sure that they stay in sync.
The FooState implementation can provide methods for changing the state which are not included in the interface and which are private to the implementation bundle. The FooState interface should be marked as being not for Consumer implementation.
The Foo interface can be changed to allow access to the FooState. This object is read only (unless reflection is used), but is not properly immutable. You could add the access method directly to Foo, or you could create an extra, exported interface to avoid complicating the interface for API users who don't care about this.
The AbstractFoo implementation, can be moved to a separate, exported package. This can be nice if the default implementation is likely to sprout protected methods and generally change more rapidly than the API itself, you won't have to bump the version of the API as frequently.
The abstract class can take care of getting a FooState along with the other implementation support tasks.
There can be a few extra complications if you need to be able to update the manager implementation without updating the Foos, but this does not seem to be a requirement. |
4,202,977 | We're about to look at implementing some PHP Coding Standards in our workplace to add some consistency between all of our developers.
I've read around and seen Zend and PEAR standards etc, but what's the best way to enforce these?
I've found a PHP Codesniffer plugin for netbeans, but are there any other ways I could enforce a standard, possibly CI (Continuous Integration) / Hudson or even when committing to SVN?
I was just wondering If anyone had experience or any other tools/methods I could look into?
Thanks | 2010/11/17 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/4202977",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/390426/"
] | CodeSniffer is indeed the best tool for this.
There is a number of ways to use it:
* [integrating into Eclipse](http://www.phpsrc.org/)
* [integrate as pre-commit hook in you VCS](http://gregsherwood.blogspot.com/2008/03/using-phpcodesniffer-in-svn-pre-commit.html)
* [integrating into your CI Server](http://luhman.org/blog/2009/12/16/adding-php-codesniffer-your-hudson-phing-continuous-integration-process)
Disclaimer: the linked pages are just random picks from Google on that topic. They are not to suggest to use Eclipse, SVN or Hudson. Use what you think is appropriate for your development environment.
Also see <http://www.qatools.org> for additional tools. | I always wanted to perform code beautification on each SVN commit via SVN hooks.
Still belive it's the best & most efficient way.
Currently all team members just know that XXX is approved code beautifier and everyone supposed to use it. |
4,202,977 | We're about to look at implementing some PHP Coding Standards in our workplace to add some consistency between all of our developers.
I've read around and seen Zend and PEAR standards etc, but what's the best way to enforce these?
I've found a PHP Codesniffer plugin for netbeans, but are there any other ways I could enforce a standard, possibly CI (Continuous Integration) / Hudson or even when committing to SVN?
I was just wondering If anyone had experience or any other tools/methods I could look into?
Thanks | 2010/11/17 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/4202977",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/390426/"
] | CodeSniffer is indeed the best tool for this.
There is a number of ways to use it:
* [integrating into Eclipse](http://www.phpsrc.org/)
* [integrate as pre-commit hook in you VCS](http://gregsherwood.blogspot.com/2008/03/using-phpcodesniffer-in-svn-pre-commit.html)
* [integrating into your CI Server](http://luhman.org/blog/2009/12/16/adding-php-codesniffer-your-hudson-phing-continuous-integration-process)
Disclaimer: the linked pages are just random picks from Google on that topic. They are not to suggest to use Eclipse, SVN or Hudson. Use what you think is appropriate for your development environment.
Also see <http://www.qatools.org> for additional tools. | **At 2017** you have basically 3 options:
From oldest to newest (by features and codebase):
* [PHP\_CodeSniffer](https://github.com/squizlabs/PHP_CodeSniffer)
* [PHP CS Fixer](https://github.com/friendsofphp/php-cs-fixer)
* **[EasyCodingStandard](https://github.com/Symplify/EasyCodingStandard) - connects them both in super easy to understand way** |
28,140 | I have been trying for hours to make this kind of shadow in Photoshop (the red one). Can somebody help me? Notice that there is a gap between the font and the shadow.
 | 2014/03/10 | [
"https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/28140",
"https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com",
"https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/users/20577/"
] | Just two type layers.
The top type layer has a white fill and a blue stroke.
The bottom type layer has a simple red fill.
You could also simply use a hard-edged drop shadow on a single type layer:
 | [Scott's answer](https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/a/28141/12189) is very good. I would take it just a step further by creating **3 type layers** in order to account for the overlap of the white lettering over the green. Check out the triangle of the "A" or the hole of the "P".
 |
28,140 | I have been trying for hours to make this kind of shadow in Photoshop (the red one). Can somebody help me? Notice that there is a gap between the font and the shadow.
 | 2014/03/10 | [
"https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/28140",
"https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com",
"https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/users/20577/"
] | Just two type layers.
The top type layer has a white fill and a blue stroke.
The bottom type layer has a simple red fill.
You could also simply use a hard-edged drop shadow on a single type layer:
 | Like both answers, but I'd take it a step back :)
I think all this can be done in a single layer with 2 layer styles. Stroke and Drop Shadow. You can play around with the style settings to get the right look.
The advantage of having it in one layer is that it makes editing of your text very easy. If you use multiple layers you would have to edit the text multiple times whenever you need to change the copy. |
563,072 | I read about Kepler's Laws and in one of them he mentions that the path of a planet is an ellipse, with the sun as one of its foci (I'm narrowing down this to only our solar system).
However though I'm not experienced in this subject, I had a doubt.
I read in places that the Sun is not stationary. Please correct me if it's not the case.
But if it is the case, then the path of the planets is an ellipse only with respect to the Sun.
So the actual path of a planet observed from, let's say, a point in space, would differ from an ellipse?
Or is this already factored into the law?
Please help me because I'm new to this concept. | 2020/07/01 | [
"https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/563072",
"https://physics.stackexchange.com",
"https://physics.stackexchange.com/users/259549/"
] | Take a basket ball, how would you map it mathematically? With an equations describing a sphere, where the center of the sphere is the center of mass of the ball, no?
Throw it to the basket, would you still call it a sphere?
The difference with the elliptical trajectory of a planet around the sun is that it is not solid. Still it is a mathematical mapping of the trajectory where the sun is in one of the focuses. The mathematics does not change if the observational reference system changes. The whole ellipse will be describing an additional motion, but the description of sun-planet will be always an ellipse with a sun as the focus. The trajectory of the planet itself will be different for different reference frames but the ellipse mapping will always be there | Yes, what you're talking about are reference frames.
For an outside observer looking at our solar system the whole thing, sun and planets including, would swoosh by in space and obviously not trace circular orbits. For an observer stationary with regards to the sun however they would indeed trace elliptical sources. |
563,072 | I read about Kepler's Laws and in one of them he mentions that the path of a planet is an ellipse, with the sun as one of its foci (I'm narrowing down this to only our solar system).
However though I'm not experienced in this subject, I had a doubt.
I read in places that the Sun is not stationary. Please correct me if it's not the case.
But if it is the case, then the path of the planets is an ellipse only with respect to the Sun.
So the actual path of a planet observed from, let's say, a point in space, would differ from an ellipse?
Or is this already factored into the law?
Please help me because I'm new to this concept. | 2020/07/01 | [
"https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/563072",
"https://physics.stackexchange.com",
"https://physics.stackexchange.com/users/259549/"
] | Take a basket ball, how would you map it mathematically? With an equations describing a sphere, where the center of the sphere is the center of mass of the ball, no?
Throw it to the basket, would you still call it a sphere?
The difference with the elliptical trajectory of a planet around the sun is that it is not solid. Still it is a mathematical mapping of the trajectory where the sun is in one of the focuses. The mathematics does not change if the observational reference system changes. The whole ellipse will be describing an additional motion, but the description of sun-planet will be always an ellipse with a sun as the focus. The trajectory of the planet itself will be different for different reference frames but the ellipse mapping will always be there | This one has different answers depending on which of the sun's motions we consider. Kepler's Law is only true when there are exactly two bodies under consideration. They orbit around their common center of mass.
However, you talk about the solar system, which has several planets. Even if we just consider 3 things it gets hard. Suppose we're doing the sun, the earth, and Jupiter. Jupiter is so heavy that the center of mass of the Jupiter-sun system is outside the sun. The sun wobbles viewed from an inertial frame. If we ask what the earth's orbit is, given the wobbling sun, the answer is complex. I would guess that there is no closed-form solution -- certainly not an ellipse. It would not be an ellipse when viewed from *any* inertial frame, nor from one anchored to the sun.
The calculation is difficult, but I believe I have answered the question. |
563,072 | I read about Kepler's Laws and in one of them he mentions that the path of a planet is an ellipse, with the sun as one of its foci (I'm narrowing down this to only our solar system).
However though I'm not experienced in this subject, I had a doubt.
I read in places that the Sun is not stationary. Please correct me if it's not the case.
But if it is the case, then the path of the planets is an ellipse only with respect to the Sun.
So the actual path of a planet observed from, let's say, a point in space, would differ from an ellipse?
Or is this already factored into the law?
Please help me because I'm new to this concept. | 2020/07/01 | [
"https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/563072",
"https://physics.stackexchange.com",
"https://physics.stackexchange.com/users/259549/"
] | Yes, what you're talking about are reference frames.
For an outside observer looking at our solar system the whole thing, sun and planets including, would swoosh by in space and obviously not trace circular orbits. For an observer stationary with regards to the sun however they would indeed trace elliptical sources. | Well, *which* point in space? And how does the Sun move with regard to that point? If you have the answer to that question, then simply take the Sun's motion relative to your chosen point, and *add* it to the planets' motion relative to the Sun, to obtain the motion of the planets relative to your chosen point (principle of superposition). |
563,072 | I read about Kepler's Laws and in one of them he mentions that the path of a planet is an ellipse, with the sun as one of its foci (I'm narrowing down this to only our solar system).
However though I'm not experienced in this subject, I had a doubt.
I read in places that the Sun is not stationary. Please correct me if it's not the case.
But if it is the case, then the path of the planets is an ellipse only with respect to the Sun.
So the actual path of a planet observed from, let's say, a point in space, would differ from an ellipse?
Or is this already factored into the law?
Please help me because I'm new to this concept. | 2020/07/01 | [
"https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/563072",
"https://physics.stackexchange.com",
"https://physics.stackexchange.com/users/259549/"
] | This one has different answers depending on which of the sun's motions we consider. Kepler's Law is only true when there are exactly two bodies under consideration. They orbit around their common center of mass.
However, you talk about the solar system, which has several planets. Even if we just consider 3 things it gets hard. Suppose we're doing the sun, the earth, and Jupiter. Jupiter is so heavy that the center of mass of the Jupiter-sun system is outside the sun. The sun wobbles viewed from an inertial frame. If we ask what the earth's orbit is, given the wobbling sun, the answer is complex. I would guess that there is no closed-form solution -- certainly not an ellipse. It would not be an ellipse when viewed from *any* inertial frame, nor from one anchored to the sun.
The calculation is difficult, but I believe I have answered the question. | Well, *which* point in space? And how does the Sun move with regard to that point? If you have the answer to that question, then simply take the Sun's motion relative to your chosen point, and *add* it to the planets' motion relative to the Sun, to obtain the motion of the planets relative to your chosen point (principle of superposition). |
563,072 | I read about Kepler's Laws and in one of them he mentions that the path of a planet is an ellipse, with the sun as one of its foci (I'm narrowing down this to only our solar system).
However though I'm not experienced in this subject, I had a doubt.
I read in places that the Sun is not stationary. Please correct me if it's not the case.
But if it is the case, then the path of the planets is an ellipse only with respect to the Sun.
So the actual path of a planet observed from, let's say, a point in space, would differ from an ellipse?
Or is this already factored into the law?
Please help me because I'm new to this concept. | 2020/07/01 | [
"https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/563072",
"https://physics.stackexchange.com",
"https://physics.stackexchange.com/users/259549/"
] | This is an interesting question, since it raises the problem of the reference frame where Kepler's laws are true, which is often neglected.
As a consequence of Newton's laws, in the inertial reference frames where the center of mass (c.m.) is fixed (there is a triple infinity of them, differing only with respect to the position of the c.m.) both planet and Sun describe an elliptic motion having the center of mass as one focus of the ellipse. The two ellipses are similar, with a rescaling factor equal to the planet/Sun mass ratio.
In every other inertial frame, the elliptic motion is combined with a uniform translation, therefore, in such systems, no closed orbit exist anymore.
There are two additional reference frames where the orbit is an ellipse. Both are non-inertial. One is the non-inertial reference frame where the Sun is fixed. You correctly noticed that the Sun is non-stationary. But this is true in any inertial frame. If one picks precisely the non-rotating, non-inertial system where the Sun is fixed, it stays forever at the position of one focus of the elliptic orbit of the planet. Similarly, one could sit on the planet without rotations, and in that system the orbit of the Sun would be again an ellipse like the one of the planet, with the planet at one focus position.
In conclusion, there is not **the actual path**. Shapes and properties of the orbits are not invariant with respect to changes of reference. | Well, *which* point in space? And how does the Sun move with regard to that point? If you have the answer to that question, then simply take the Sun's motion relative to your chosen point, and *add* it to the planets' motion relative to the Sun, to obtain the motion of the planets relative to your chosen point (principle of superposition). |
563,072 | I read about Kepler's Laws and in one of them he mentions that the path of a planet is an ellipse, with the sun as one of its foci (I'm narrowing down this to only our solar system).
However though I'm not experienced in this subject, I had a doubt.
I read in places that the Sun is not stationary. Please correct me if it's not the case.
But if it is the case, then the path of the planets is an ellipse only with respect to the Sun.
So the actual path of a planet observed from, let's say, a point in space, would differ from an ellipse?
Or is this already factored into the law?
Please help me because I'm new to this concept. | 2020/07/01 | [
"https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/563072",
"https://physics.stackexchange.com",
"https://physics.stackexchange.com/users/259549/"
] | This one has different answers depending on which of the sun's motions we consider. Kepler's Law is only true when there are exactly two bodies under consideration. They orbit around their common center of mass.
However, you talk about the solar system, which has several planets. Even if we just consider 3 things it gets hard. Suppose we're doing the sun, the earth, and Jupiter. Jupiter is so heavy that the center of mass of the Jupiter-sun system is outside the sun. The sun wobbles viewed from an inertial frame. If we ask what the earth's orbit is, given the wobbling sun, the answer is complex. I would guess that there is no closed-form solution -- certainly not an ellipse. It would not be an ellipse when viewed from *any* inertial frame, nor from one anchored to the sun.
The calculation is difficult, but I believe I have answered the question. | Yes, what you're talking about are reference frames.
For an outside observer looking at our solar system the whole thing, sun and planets including, would swoosh by in space and obviously not trace circular orbits. For an observer stationary with regards to the sun however they would indeed trace elliptical sources. |
563,072 | I read about Kepler's Laws and in one of them he mentions that the path of a planet is an ellipse, with the sun as one of its foci (I'm narrowing down this to only our solar system).
However though I'm not experienced in this subject, I had a doubt.
I read in places that the Sun is not stationary. Please correct me if it's not the case.
But if it is the case, then the path of the planets is an ellipse only with respect to the Sun.
So the actual path of a planet observed from, let's say, a point in space, would differ from an ellipse?
Or is this already factored into the law?
Please help me because I'm new to this concept. | 2020/07/01 | [
"https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/563072",
"https://physics.stackexchange.com",
"https://physics.stackexchange.com/users/259549/"
] | >
> with the sun as one of its foci
>
>
>
That's probably the source of your confusion. The focus (one of them) is the place of the center of mass of the system (also called barycenter). The elliptical orbit is around [that CM](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduced_mass#Applications) of the entire system.
But because usually the star takes up the large part of the mass (well into the high-90%s for single-star systems such as the Sun), then the center of mass ends up very close ([often inside](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_(astronomy)#/media/File:Solar_system_barycenter.svg)) the star, but not at the center of the star. From afar (enough that a pointlike star is a good enough approximation), it resembles that the star is on one of the foci of the ellipse. | This one has different answers depending on which of the sun's motions we consider. Kepler's Law is only true when there are exactly two bodies under consideration. They orbit around their common center of mass.
However, you talk about the solar system, which has several planets. Even if we just consider 3 things it gets hard. Suppose we're doing the sun, the earth, and Jupiter. Jupiter is so heavy that the center of mass of the Jupiter-sun system is outside the sun. The sun wobbles viewed from an inertial frame. If we ask what the earth's orbit is, given the wobbling sun, the answer is complex. I would guess that there is no closed-form solution -- certainly not an ellipse. It would not be an ellipse when viewed from *any* inertial frame, nor from one anchored to the sun.
The calculation is difficult, but I believe I have answered the question. |
563,072 | I read about Kepler's Laws and in one of them he mentions that the path of a planet is an ellipse, with the sun as one of its foci (I'm narrowing down this to only our solar system).
However though I'm not experienced in this subject, I had a doubt.
I read in places that the Sun is not stationary. Please correct me if it's not the case.
But if it is the case, then the path of the planets is an ellipse only with respect to the Sun.
So the actual path of a planet observed from, let's say, a point in space, would differ from an ellipse?
Or is this already factored into the law?
Please help me because I'm new to this concept. | 2020/07/01 | [
"https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/563072",
"https://physics.stackexchange.com",
"https://physics.stackexchange.com/users/259549/"
] | >
> with the sun as one of its foci
>
>
>
That's probably the source of your confusion. The focus (one of them) is the place of the center of mass of the system (also called barycenter). The elliptical orbit is around [that CM](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduced_mass#Applications) of the entire system.
But because usually the star takes up the large part of the mass (well into the high-90%s for single-star systems such as the Sun), then the center of mass ends up very close ([often inside](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_(astronomy)#/media/File:Solar_system_barycenter.svg)) the star, but not at the center of the star. From afar (enough that a pointlike star is a good enough approximation), it resembles that the star is on one of the foci of the ellipse. | Yes, what you're talking about are reference frames.
For an outside observer looking at our solar system the whole thing, sun and planets including, would swoosh by in space and obviously not trace circular orbits. For an observer stationary with regards to the sun however they would indeed trace elliptical sources. |
563,072 | I read about Kepler's Laws and in one of them he mentions that the path of a planet is an ellipse, with the sun as one of its foci (I'm narrowing down this to only our solar system).
However though I'm not experienced in this subject, I had a doubt.
I read in places that the Sun is not stationary. Please correct me if it's not the case.
But if it is the case, then the path of the planets is an ellipse only with respect to the Sun.
So the actual path of a planet observed from, let's say, a point in space, would differ from an ellipse?
Or is this already factored into the law?
Please help me because I'm new to this concept. | 2020/07/01 | [
"https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/563072",
"https://physics.stackexchange.com",
"https://physics.stackexchange.com/users/259549/"
] | This is an interesting question, since it raises the problem of the reference frame where Kepler's laws are true, which is often neglected.
As a consequence of Newton's laws, in the inertial reference frames where the center of mass (c.m.) is fixed (there is a triple infinity of them, differing only with respect to the position of the c.m.) both planet and Sun describe an elliptic motion having the center of mass as one focus of the ellipse. The two ellipses are similar, with a rescaling factor equal to the planet/Sun mass ratio.
In every other inertial frame, the elliptic motion is combined with a uniform translation, therefore, in such systems, no closed orbit exist anymore.
There are two additional reference frames where the orbit is an ellipse. Both are non-inertial. One is the non-inertial reference frame where the Sun is fixed. You correctly noticed that the Sun is non-stationary. But this is true in any inertial frame. If one picks precisely the non-rotating, non-inertial system where the Sun is fixed, it stays forever at the position of one focus of the elliptic orbit of the planet. Similarly, one could sit on the planet without rotations, and in that system the orbit of the Sun would be again an ellipse like the one of the planet, with the planet at one focus position.
In conclusion, there is not **the actual path**. Shapes and properties of the orbits are not invariant with respect to changes of reference. | This one has different answers depending on which of the sun's motions we consider. Kepler's Law is only true when there are exactly two bodies under consideration. They orbit around their common center of mass.
However, you talk about the solar system, which has several planets. Even if we just consider 3 things it gets hard. Suppose we're doing the sun, the earth, and Jupiter. Jupiter is so heavy that the center of mass of the Jupiter-sun system is outside the sun. The sun wobbles viewed from an inertial frame. If we ask what the earth's orbit is, given the wobbling sun, the answer is complex. I would guess that there is no closed-form solution -- certainly not an ellipse. It would not be an ellipse when viewed from *any* inertial frame, nor from one anchored to the sun.
The calculation is difficult, but I believe I have answered the question. |
563,072 | I read about Kepler's Laws and in one of them he mentions that the path of a planet is an ellipse, with the sun as one of its foci (I'm narrowing down this to only our solar system).
However though I'm not experienced in this subject, I had a doubt.
I read in places that the Sun is not stationary. Please correct me if it's not the case.
But if it is the case, then the path of the planets is an ellipse only with respect to the Sun.
So the actual path of a planet observed from, let's say, a point in space, would differ from an ellipse?
Or is this already factored into the law?
Please help me because I'm new to this concept. | 2020/07/01 | [
"https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/563072",
"https://physics.stackexchange.com",
"https://physics.stackexchange.com/users/259549/"
] | Take a basket ball, how would you map it mathematically? With an equations describing a sphere, where the center of the sphere is the center of mass of the ball, no?
Throw it to the basket, would you still call it a sphere?
The difference with the elliptical trajectory of a planet around the sun is that it is not solid. Still it is a mathematical mapping of the trajectory where the sun is in one of the focuses. The mathematics does not change if the observational reference system changes. The whole ellipse will be describing an additional motion, but the description of sun-planet will be always an ellipse with a sun as the focus. The trajectory of the planet itself will be different for different reference frames but the ellipse mapping will always be there | Well, *which* point in space? And how does the Sun move with regard to that point? If you have the answer to that question, then simply take the Sun's motion relative to your chosen point, and *add* it to the planets' motion relative to the Sun, to obtain the motion of the planets relative to your chosen point (principle of superposition). |
4,445,480 | I'm working with really long URLs or more specifically URL Queries and I've encountered a problem.
If I do a < a href..> with the URL that I've appended to the bottom of this post and click it it gives me the same page as I was on but with a long URL Query, since it's the same page it contains this same < a href..> with the same URL, now if I click that link again it does NOT send me to a new instance of that page, it does nothing, why would it do that? I want my links to work no matter what instance of the page it is.
So basically I have a page with a link that links to the same page but with a query, this link only works in the first instance of the page, not the second, if entering the page through that link.
I've only tested this in Firefox and Chromium.
I've put up an example of this here: <http://173.45.231.202/hypnotic/link_problem.html> , the URL in question is the following..
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What gives? | 2010/12/14 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/4445480",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/473368/"
] | Use a POST request instead! GET request sizes are limited by browsers, web servers and who knows what else, from anything between about 256 characters to 4000. So generally, it is unreliable to send massive amounts of data through an ordinary GET. Submit that using POST, through a HTML form, and you should not face any problems. | The maximum supported URL length (of a GET) in IE is 2048 characters. Generally speaking you want to avoid anything over about 500 bytes since certain browser and server implementations won't support it.
If youn need larger sets use a POST from either a form action or an AJAX request that processes the return value from the server. |
19 | I've created objects that use the Halo material but it has a vertex glow. How would I make a whole line glow without dividing my surface into an absurdly large number of vertices? | 2013/05/22 | [
"https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/19",
"https://blender.stackexchange.com",
"https://blender.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] | If you want to do this relatively easily and for certain edges, select the appropriate faces in edit mode and click EDIT->Mesh->Faces->Wire Frame on a duplicate of your original model.
Assign new materials with emission. I recommend just doing a solid material and join the models back together (I really usually work in Cycles, and if doing so you can use a simple Emission shader since Blender Internal doesn't really like emitting from materials in my experience). This adds a few vertices, depending on how smooth you want your outlines to be, but I've found that usually they can be pretty simple. You wind up with something like this:
 | A material/texture approach wouldn't be best for this application for the reason you stated, as well as the problem of it not being able to shine light. I would use a combination of a Cycles emission material and compositing to blur the object. This will allow the material to actually shine light; while compositing adds the glowing effect. For a non-glowing fuzzy line, a hair particle system would work in many cases. |
19 | I've created objects that use the Halo material but it has a vertex glow. How would I make a whole line glow without dividing my surface into an absurdly large number of vertices? | 2013/05/22 | [
"https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/19",
"https://blender.stackexchange.com",
"https://blender.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] | The solution is different depending upon whether you are using the Cycles render engine or the Blender Internal render engine.
* Cycles: Select your object and go into edit
mode. From that screen, select each of the edges you want to glow,
then go to the materials menu and assign them an 'emissions'
material. This is probably not only the easiest way to handle glow,
but also will produce the nicest results.
* Blender Internal: First,
duplicate your shape: one of the copies will serve as your
object-proper, and the other one will produce the glow. Select one of
these, and apply a subsurface division to it. Now go into edit mode
and apply loop cuts on every side, sliding them up so that they lie
very near to the actual edges of the object. Optimally, you should be
able to get these loop cuts close enough to the edge that when you
zoom back out and go into object mode, it should look almost as sharp
as the original shape. However, by doing this, the other copy of the
object should be just peeking through the object along every edge.
Select the other shape, and shrink it down ever so slightly (maybe a
factor of .995 or so) so that it fits snugly inside the first shape.
Finally, you should go to the material menu and assign the inner
object a material, then go down to the 'Shading' options and increase
the Emission value. If everything is sized properly, then the edges
should have a nice glow.
With either of these options, you can always use either the compositor, or an external editing program (like GIMP or Photoshop) to enhance these effects. | A material/texture approach wouldn't be best for this application for the reason you stated, as well as the problem of it not being able to shine light. I would use a combination of a Cycles emission material and compositing to blur the object. This will allow the material to actually shine light; while compositing adds the glowing effect. For a non-glowing fuzzy line, a hair particle system would work in many cases. |
19 | I've created objects that use the Halo material but it has a vertex glow. How would I make a whole line glow without dividing my surface into an absurdly large number of vertices? | 2013/05/22 | [
"https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/19",
"https://blender.stackexchange.com",
"https://blender.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] | This is something that I saw today that is kind of interesting.
Take your model, and UV unwrap it normally.
Duplicate the UV unwrapping, and click UV Unwrap->Reset on this second UV unwrap (check the far right of the image below and you'll see if you did this right)
Create nodes as follows for your material:
*Note that the UV values correlate to R and G above.*
This solution adds no extra geometry, and handles subdivision well (if you do it, however, remember to un-check "Subdivide UV" in the modifier or you'll get issues). You can adjust thresholds by moving the Greater Than math functions closer/further to or from 0 or 1.
I mostly based my setup off of this tutorial from TheBlenderNerd (to the point where I even used the same thresholds!), which can be helpful if you want to figure out what exactly I did, or if you run into an issue with forming the UV maps.
Here it is: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjhdGY21WqQ> | A material/texture approach wouldn't be best for this application for the reason you stated, as well as the problem of it not being able to shine light. I would use a combination of a Cycles emission material and compositing to blur the object. This will allow the material to actually shine light; while compositing adds the glowing effect. For a non-glowing fuzzy line, a hair particle system would work in many cases. |
19 | I've created objects that use the Halo material but it has a vertex glow. How would I make a whole line glow without dividing my surface into an absurdly large number of vertices? | 2013/05/22 | [
"https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/19",
"https://blender.stackexchange.com",
"https://blender.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] | If you want to do this relatively easily and for certain edges, select the appropriate faces in edit mode and click EDIT->Mesh->Faces->Wire Frame on a duplicate of your original model.
Assign new materials with emission. I recommend just doing a solid material and join the models back together (I really usually work in Cycles, and if doing so you can use a simple Emission shader since Blender Internal doesn't really like emitting from materials in my experience). This adds a few vertices, depending on how smooth you want your outlines to be, but I've found that usually they can be pretty simple. You wind up with something like this:
 | The solution is different depending upon whether you are using the Cycles render engine or the Blender Internal render engine.
* Cycles: Select your object and go into edit
mode. From that screen, select each of the edges you want to glow,
then go to the materials menu and assign them an 'emissions'
material. This is probably not only the easiest way to handle glow,
but also will produce the nicest results.
* Blender Internal: First,
duplicate your shape: one of the copies will serve as your
object-proper, and the other one will produce the glow. Select one of
these, and apply a subsurface division to it. Now go into edit mode
and apply loop cuts on every side, sliding them up so that they lie
very near to the actual edges of the object. Optimally, you should be
able to get these loop cuts close enough to the edge that when you
zoom back out and go into object mode, it should look almost as sharp
as the original shape. However, by doing this, the other copy of the
object should be just peeking through the object along every edge.
Select the other shape, and shrink it down ever so slightly (maybe a
factor of .995 or so) so that it fits snugly inside the first shape.
Finally, you should go to the material menu and assign the inner
object a material, then go down to the 'Shading' options and increase
the Emission value. If everything is sized properly, then the edges
should have a nice glow.
With either of these options, you can always use either the compositor, or an external editing program (like GIMP or Photoshop) to enhance these effects. |
19 | I've created objects that use the Halo material but it has a vertex glow. How would I make a whole line glow without dividing my surface into an absurdly large number of vertices? | 2013/05/22 | [
"https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/19",
"https://blender.stackexchange.com",
"https://blender.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] | If you want to do this relatively easily and for certain edges, select the appropriate faces in edit mode and click EDIT->Mesh->Faces->Wire Frame on a duplicate of your original model.
Assign new materials with emission. I recommend just doing a solid material and join the models back together (I really usually work in Cycles, and if doing so you can use a simple Emission shader since Blender Internal doesn't really like emitting from materials in my experience). This adds a few vertices, depending on how smooth you want your outlines to be, but I've found that usually they can be pretty simple. You wind up with something like this:
 | This is something that I saw today that is kind of interesting.
Take your model, and UV unwrap it normally.
Duplicate the UV unwrapping, and click UV Unwrap->Reset on this second UV unwrap (check the far right of the image below and you'll see if you did this right)
Create nodes as follows for your material:
*Note that the UV values correlate to R and G above.*
This solution adds no extra geometry, and handles subdivision well (if you do it, however, remember to un-check "Subdivide UV" in the modifier or you'll get issues). You can adjust thresholds by moving the Greater Than math functions closer/further to or from 0 or 1.
I mostly based my setup off of this tutorial from TheBlenderNerd (to the point where I even used the same thresholds!), which can be helpful if you want to figure out what exactly I did, or if you run into an issue with forming the UV maps.
Here it is: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjhdGY21WqQ> |
19 | I've created objects that use the Halo material but it has a vertex glow. How would I make a whole line glow without dividing my surface into an absurdly large number of vertices? | 2013/05/22 | [
"https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/19",
"https://blender.stackexchange.com",
"https://blender.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] | This is something that I saw today that is kind of interesting.
Take your model, and UV unwrap it normally.
Duplicate the UV unwrapping, and click UV Unwrap->Reset on this second UV unwrap (check the far right of the image below and you'll see if you did this right)
Create nodes as follows for your material:
*Note that the UV values correlate to R and G above.*
This solution adds no extra geometry, and handles subdivision well (if you do it, however, remember to un-check "Subdivide UV" in the modifier or you'll get issues). You can adjust thresholds by moving the Greater Than math functions closer/further to or from 0 or 1.
I mostly based my setup off of this tutorial from TheBlenderNerd (to the point where I even used the same thresholds!), which can be helpful if you want to figure out what exactly I did, or if you run into an issue with forming the UV maps.
Here it is: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjhdGY21WqQ> | The solution is different depending upon whether you are using the Cycles render engine or the Blender Internal render engine.
* Cycles: Select your object and go into edit
mode. From that screen, select each of the edges you want to glow,
then go to the materials menu and assign them an 'emissions'
material. This is probably not only the easiest way to handle glow,
but also will produce the nicest results.
* Blender Internal: First,
duplicate your shape: one of the copies will serve as your
object-proper, and the other one will produce the glow. Select one of
these, and apply a subsurface division to it. Now go into edit mode
and apply loop cuts on every side, sliding them up so that they lie
very near to the actual edges of the object. Optimally, you should be
able to get these loop cuts close enough to the edge that when you
zoom back out and go into object mode, it should look almost as sharp
as the original shape. However, by doing this, the other copy of the
object should be just peeking through the object along every edge.
Select the other shape, and shrink it down ever so slightly (maybe a
factor of .995 or so) so that it fits snugly inside the first shape.
Finally, you should go to the material menu and assign the inner
object a material, then go down to the 'Shading' options and increase
the Emission value. If everything is sized properly, then the edges
should have a nice glow.
With either of these options, you can always use either the compositor, or an external editing program (like GIMP or Photoshop) to enhance these effects. |
83,671 | Can DHIS2 be used for other development programs besides health? For example: education or economic development? | 2015/08/03 | [
"https://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/83671",
"https://webmasters.stackexchange.com",
"https://webmasters.stackexchange.com/users/54606/"
] | Yes. While DHIS2 was primarily designed for HIS use, its development has shifted towards a flexible meta-data approach.
There's a beautiful guide available here:
*How to Set-up DHIS2 in a New Context?*
<https://www.mn.uio.no/ifi/english/research/networks/hisp/integrated-health-information-architecture/ch-07.pdf> | Yes it can definitely be used outside the health domain. The system is designed to be generic and domain-agnostic. Successful implementations have been done within logistics, forestry, facility registry, surveys, education, food security, water and sanitation and social franchising. |
6,979,502 | I have a crawler program that stores sport data from 7 difference news agencies every day. it stores about 1200 sport news every day.
I want to categorize news of last two days into sub-categories. So every two days I have about 2400 news that are exactly for these days and many of their topics are talking exactly about the same event.
for example:
>
> 70 news are talking about 500 miles racing of Brad Keselowski.
>
>
> 120 news are talking about US swimmer Nyad that begins swimming.
>
>
> 28 new are talking about the match between Man United and Man City.
>
>
> . . .
>
>
>
In other words, I want to make something like [Google News](http://news.google.com/).
The problem is that this situation **is not a classification problem**, because I don't have special classes. for example, my classes are not swimming, golf, football, etc. my classes are a special events in every field that happened in these two years. So I cannot use classification algorithms such as Naive Bayes.
On the other hand, my problem **is not solving with clustering algorithms too**. Because I don't want to force them to put into n clusters. Maybe one of the news doesn't have any similar news or maybe in one pack of two days, there are 12 different stories, but in other two days, there are 30 different issues. So I cannot use clustering algorithms such as "Single Link( Maximum Similarity)", "Complete Link( Minimum Similarity)", "Maximum Weighted Matching" or "Group Average( Average Intra Similarity)".
I have some ideas myself to do this, for example, each two news that have 10 common words, should be in the same class. But if we don't consider some parameters such as length of documents, influence of common and rare words and some other things, this will not work well.
I have read [this paper](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.80.4329&rep=rep1&type=pdf), but it was not my answer.
Is there any known algorithm to solve this problem? | 2011/08/08 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/6979502",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/878672/"
] | The problem strikes me as a clustering problem with an unknown quality measure for the clusters. That points to an unsupervised method, which is ultimately based on detecting correlations using redundancy in the data. Perhaps something like [principal component analysis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal_components_analysis) or [latent semantic analysis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latent_semantic_analysis) could be useful. The different dimensions (principal components or singular vectors) would indicate distinct major themes, with the terms corresponding to the vector components hopefully being the words appearing in the description. One drawback is that there's no guarantee that the strongest correlations would lead easily to a sensible description. | There are many document clustering algorithms out there. Take a look at ["Hierarchical document clustering using frequent itemsets"](http://books.google.co.nz/books?hl=en&lr=&id=AyJ9xrrwDnIC&oi=fnd&pg=PA59&dq=cluster%20topic%20document&ots=K_FyqhI--U&sig=2aMxWJtmvsCEb-9cy_6ZfFsnpTM#v=onepage&q=cluster%20topic%20document&f=false), for example, and see if that is similar to what you want. If you're programming in Java, you may get some mileage out of the [S-space package](http://code.google.com/p/airhead-research/), which includes algorithms for latent semantic analysis (LSA) among others. |
6,979,502 | I have a crawler program that stores sport data from 7 difference news agencies every day. it stores about 1200 sport news every day.
I want to categorize news of last two days into sub-categories. So every two days I have about 2400 news that are exactly for these days and many of their topics are talking exactly about the same event.
for example:
>
> 70 news are talking about 500 miles racing of Brad Keselowski.
>
>
> 120 news are talking about US swimmer Nyad that begins swimming.
>
>
> 28 new are talking about the match between Man United and Man City.
>
>
> . . .
>
>
>
In other words, I want to make something like [Google News](http://news.google.com/).
The problem is that this situation **is not a classification problem**, because I don't have special classes. for example, my classes are not swimming, golf, football, etc. my classes are a special events in every field that happened in these two years. So I cannot use classification algorithms such as Naive Bayes.
On the other hand, my problem **is not solving with clustering algorithms too**. Because I don't want to force them to put into n clusters. Maybe one of the news doesn't have any similar news or maybe in one pack of two days, there are 12 different stories, but in other two days, there are 30 different issues. So I cannot use clustering algorithms such as "Single Link( Maximum Similarity)", "Complete Link( Minimum Similarity)", "Maximum Weighted Matching" or "Group Average( Average Intra Similarity)".
I have some ideas myself to do this, for example, each two news that have 10 common words, should be in the same class. But if we don't consider some parameters such as length of documents, influence of common and rare words and some other things, this will not work well.
I have read [this paper](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.80.4329&rep=rep1&type=pdf), but it was not my answer.
Is there any known algorithm to solve this problem? | 2011/08/08 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/6979502",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/878672/"
] | Take a look at "topic models" and "Latent Dirichlet Allocation". These are popular and you'll find code in a variety of languages. | There are many document clustering algorithms out there. Take a look at ["Hierarchical document clustering using frequent itemsets"](http://books.google.co.nz/books?hl=en&lr=&id=AyJ9xrrwDnIC&oi=fnd&pg=PA59&dq=cluster%20topic%20document&ots=K_FyqhI--U&sig=2aMxWJtmvsCEb-9cy_6ZfFsnpTM#v=onepage&q=cluster%20topic%20document&f=false), for example, and see if that is similar to what you want. If you're programming in Java, you may get some mileage out of the [S-space package](http://code.google.com/p/airhead-research/), which includes algorithms for latent semantic analysis (LSA) among others. |
6,979,502 | I have a crawler program that stores sport data from 7 difference news agencies every day. it stores about 1200 sport news every day.
I want to categorize news of last two days into sub-categories. So every two days I have about 2400 news that are exactly for these days and many of their topics are talking exactly about the same event.
for example:
>
> 70 news are talking about 500 miles racing of Brad Keselowski.
>
>
> 120 news are talking about US swimmer Nyad that begins swimming.
>
>
> 28 new are talking about the match between Man United and Man City.
>
>
> . . .
>
>
>
In other words, I want to make something like [Google News](http://news.google.com/).
The problem is that this situation **is not a classification problem**, because I don't have special classes. for example, my classes are not swimming, golf, football, etc. my classes are a special events in every field that happened in these two years. So I cannot use classification algorithms such as Naive Bayes.
On the other hand, my problem **is not solving with clustering algorithms too**. Because I don't want to force them to put into n clusters. Maybe one of the news doesn't have any similar news or maybe in one pack of two days, there are 12 different stories, but in other two days, there are 30 different issues. So I cannot use clustering algorithms such as "Single Link( Maximum Similarity)", "Complete Link( Minimum Similarity)", "Maximum Weighted Matching" or "Group Average( Average Intra Similarity)".
I have some ideas myself to do this, for example, each two news that have 10 common words, should be in the same class. But if we don't consider some parameters such as length of documents, influence of common and rare words and some other things, this will not work well.
I have read [this paper](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.80.4329&rep=rep1&type=pdf), but it was not my answer.
Is there any known algorithm to solve this problem? | 2011/08/08 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/6979502",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/878672/"
] | The problem strikes me as a clustering problem with an unknown quality measure for the clusters. That points to an unsupervised method, which is ultimately based on detecting correlations using redundancy in the data. Perhaps something like [principal component analysis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal_components_analysis) or [latent semantic analysis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latent_semantic_analysis) could be useful. The different dimensions (principal components or singular vectors) would indicate distinct major themes, with the terms corresponding to the vector components hopefully being the words appearing in the description. One drawback is that there's no guarantee that the strongest correlations would lead easily to a sensible description. | You might use hierarchical clustering algorithms to investigate relationships between your items - the closest items (news with almost the same description) would be in the same clusters, and the closest clusters (groups of similar news) would be in the same super-cluster etc.
Also, there is pretty nice and fast algorithm called CLOPE - <http://www.google.com.ua/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=11&sqi=2&ved=0CF0QFjAK&url=http%3A%2F%2Fciteseerx.ist.psu.edu%2Fviewdoc%2Fdownload%3Fdoi%3D10.1.1.13.7142%26rep%3Drep1%26type%3Dpdf&rct=j&q=CLOPE&ei=gvo_Tsi4AsKa-gas-uCkAw&usg=AFQjCNGcR9sFqhsEkAJowEjIGbDBwSjeXw&cad=rja> |
6,979,502 | I have a crawler program that stores sport data from 7 difference news agencies every day. it stores about 1200 sport news every day.
I want to categorize news of last two days into sub-categories. So every two days I have about 2400 news that are exactly for these days and many of their topics are talking exactly about the same event.
for example:
>
> 70 news are talking about 500 miles racing of Brad Keselowski.
>
>
> 120 news are talking about US swimmer Nyad that begins swimming.
>
>
> 28 new are talking about the match between Man United and Man City.
>
>
> . . .
>
>
>
In other words, I want to make something like [Google News](http://news.google.com/).
The problem is that this situation **is not a classification problem**, because I don't have special classes. for example, my classes are not swimming, golf, football, etc. my classes are a special events in every field that happened in these two years. So I cannot use classification algorithms such as Naive Bayes.
On the other hand, my problem **is not solving with clustering algorithms too**. Because I don't want to force them to put into n clusters. Maybe one of the news doesn't have any similar news or maybe in one pack of two days, there are 12 different stories, but in other two days, there are 30 different issues. So I cannot use clustering algorithms such as "Single Link( Maximum Similarity)", "Complete Link( Minimum Similarity)", "Maximum Weighted Matching" or "Group Average( Average Intra Similarity)".
I have some ideas myself to do this, for example, each two news that have 10 common words, should be in the same class. But if we don't consider some parameters such as length of documents, influence of common and rare words and some other things, this will not work well.
I have read [this paper](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.80.4329&rep=rep1&type=pdf), but it was not my answer.
Is there any known algorithm to solve this problem? | 2011/08/08 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/6979502",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/878672/"
] | Take a look at "topic models" and "Latent Dirichlet Allocation". These are popular and you'll find code in a variety of languages. | You might use hierarchical clustering algorithms to investigate relationships between your items - the closest items (news with almost the same description) would be in the same clusters, and the closest clusters (groups of similar news) would be in the same super-cluster etc.
Also, there is pretty nice and fast algorithm called CLOPE - <http://www.google.com.ua/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=11&sqi=2&ved=0CF0QFjAK&url=http%3A%2F%2Fciteseerx.ist.psu.edu%2Fviewdoc%2Fdownload%3Fdoi%3D10.1.1.13.7142%26rep%3Drep1%26type%3Dpdf&rct=j&q=CLOPE&ei=gvo_Tsi4AsKa-gas-uCkAw&usg=AFQjCNGcR9sFqhsEkAJowEjIGbDBwSjeXw&cad=rja> |
6,979,502 | I have a crawler program that stores sport data from 7 difference news agencies every day. it stores about 1200 sport news every day.
I want to categorize news of last two days into sub-categories. So every two days I have about 2400 news that are exactly for these days and many of their topics are talking exactly about the same event.
for example:
>
> 70 news are talking about 500 miles racing of Brad Keselowski.
>
>
> 120 news are talking about US swimmer Nyad that begins swimming.
>
>
> 28 new are talking about the match between Man United and Man City.
>
>
> . . .
>
>
>
In other words, I want to make something like [Google News](http://news.google.com/).
The problem is that this situation **is not a classification problem**, because I don't have special classes. for example, my classes are not swimming, golf, football, etc. my classes are a special events in every field that happened in these two years. So I cannot use classification algorithms such as Naive Bayes.
On the other hand, my problem **is not solving with clustering algorithms too**. Because I don't want to force them to put into n clusters. Maybe one of the news doesn't have any similar news or maybe in one pack of two days, there are 12 different stories, but in other two days, there are 30 different issues. So I cannot use clustering algorithms such as "Single Link( Maximum Similarity)", "Complete Link( Minimum Similarity)", "Maximum Weighted Matching" or "Group Average( Average Intra Similarity)".
I have some ideas myself to do this, for example, each two news that have 10 common words, should be in the same class. But if we don't consider some parameters such as length of documents, influence of common and rare words and some other things, this will not work well.
I have read [this paper](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.80.4329&rep=rep1&type=pdf), but it was not my answer.
Is there any known algorithm to solve this problem? | 2011/08/08 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/6979502",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/878672/"
] | The problem strikes me as a clustering problem with an unknown quality measure for the clusters. That points to an unsupervised method, which is ultimately based on detecting correlations using redundancy in the data. Perhaps something like [principal component analysis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal_components_analysis) or [latent semantic analysis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latent_semantic_analysis) could be useful. The different dimensions (principal components or singular vectors) would indicate distinct major themes, with the terms corresponding to the vector components hopefully being the words appearing in the description. One drawback is that there's no guarantee that the strongest correlations would lead easily to a sensible description. | Take a look at "topic models" and "Latent Dirichlet Allocation". These are popular and you'll find code in a variety of languages. |
90,642 | I do not trust any RAID types for home use. I've got 2 Terabytes of Data that I want to copy (duplicate) to about 4-6 drives for redundancy so that I will never lose these pics and videos I've created of my family. I know that 100% failure prevention is impossible. And yes I know the obvious "copy to many sources such as online storage, DVDs, etc.".
However let's get back to hard disks for now. I am not focusing on anything else for this thread.
So I do not trust RAID for home use, and so if I am going to copy new pictures or video to a primary disk, it would be nice if I could find some kind of controller card that would essentially do a copy on demand to the other drives so that I'd have complete duplicates of anything I do to my primary drive.
My understanding is that RAID 1 does this but then you still have the problem of it being a RAID issue...that you're still being dependent on an array which is not what I want.
I merely want the action of RAID 1 (meaning I write to disk A, write the same to disk b, c, d,.etc.) without the reliance or dependency on any stupid failure prone array.
I think ideally if I can set up a box, put about 6 drives in it and somehow maybe get a couple of controller cards that when I write to a designated drive...or delete, or whatever, it duplicates that action realtime to the other x drives.
Anyone seen anything that can do this such as a card (I want to build my own box and drives, etc. to do this) outside of something like this: <http://www.aleratec.com/alhddcrhadid.html> or this <http://www.abcusinc.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=HDD> but I want to do it myself over a controller card(s) in my own box that I will be building?
Obviously a RAID controller card is not what I'm after here. I'm after hopefully a card that allows me to plug in lets say 4 drives internally to it and somehow it duplicates from a designated primary drive to the other 3. I'm not sure if such a thing exists.
Basically I want to build my own server doing what that box does...and put an ASUS board in it, etc. I want complete control over this but I need to find some sort of plan using a card or something that does this duplication without the raid array dependency. | 2010/01/03 | [
"https://superuser.com/questions/90642",
"https://superuser.com",
"https://superuser.com/users/23511/"
] | RAID1 is exactly what you want. Buy a well known controller card so if it craps out you can replace it. That way:
1. Hard drive fails? Replace it, RAID will rebuild
2. Controller fails? Replace it, RAID will be intact
My understanding is you can get RAID controllers that keep the configuration on the controller, so the disks are 1:1 duplicates without proprietary information on the disk. This means you can pull it out and put it into another PC.
I don't see how this would be any more "failure prone" than a disk duplicator. With a disk duplicator:
1. Hard drive fails? Replace it, disk will duplicate later
2. Duplicator fails? Replace it, disk data will be intact
What happens when your primary hard drive you are duplicating gets a bad sector, and when you are duplicating the duplicator can't read it and writes 0's to your other hard drives? With RAID you would be warned and while the data would be lost on one disk it is still intact on the others. | On linux you can do exactly that, a RAID 1 with more than 2 disks, (i have done this with four sata disks) About drivers or card you don't need any you just install disk drives as JBOD (just bunch of drives) and linux takes care about the rest.
I don't care about the speed performance but, if you have N disks there N-1 disks could fail and even then there would not be loosing data. |
90,642 | I do not trust any RAID types for home use. I've got 2 Terabytes of Data that I want to copy (duplicate) to about 4-6 drives for redundancy so that I will never lose these pics and videos I've created of my family. I know that 100% failure prevention is impossible. And yes I know the obvious "copy to many sources such as online storage, DVDs, etc.".
However let's get back to hard disks for now. I am not focusing on anything else for this thread.
So I do not trust RAID for home use, and so if I am going to copy new pictures or video to a primary disk, it would be nice if I could find some kind of controller card that would essentially do a copy on demand to the other drives so that I'd have complete duplicates of anything I do to my primary drive.
My understanding is that RAID 1 does this but then you still have the problem of it being a RAID issue...that you're still being dependent on an array which is not what I want.
I merely want the action of RAID 1 (meaning I write to disk A, write the same to disk b, c, d,.etc.) without the reliance or dependency on any stupid failure prone array.
I think ideally if I can set up a box, put about 6 drives in it and somehow maybe get a couple of controller cards that when I write to a designated drive...or delete, or whatever, it duplicates that action realtime to the other x drives.
Anyone seen anything that can do this such as a card (I want to build my own box and drives, etc. to do this) outside of something like this: <http://www.aleratec.com/alhddcrhadid.html> or this <http://www.abcusinc.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=HDD> but I want to do it myself over a controller card(s) in my own box that I will be building?
Obviously a RAID controller card is not what I'm after here. I'm after hopefully a card that allows me to plug in lets say 4 drives internally to it and somehow it duplicates from a designated primary drive to the other 3. I'm not sure if such a thing exists.
Basically I want to build my own server doing what that box does...and put an ASUS board in it, etc. I want complete control over this but I need to find some sort of plan using a card or something that does this duplication without the raid array dependency. | 2010/01/03 | [
"https://superuser.com/questions/90642",
"https://superuser.com",
"https://superuser.com/users/23511/"
] | RAID1 is exactly what you want. Buy a well known controller card so if it craps out you can replace it. That way:
1. Hard drive fails? Replace it, RAID will rebuild
2. Controller fails? Replace it, RAID will be intact
My understanding is you can get RAID controllers that keep the configuration on the controller, so the disks are 1:1 duplicates without proprietary information on the disk. This means you can pull it out and put it into another PC.
I don't see how this would be any more "failure prone" than a disk duplicator. With a disk duplicator:
1. Hard drive fails? Replace it, disk will duplicate later
2. Duplicator fails? Replace it, disk data will be intact
What happens when your primary hard drive you are duplicating gets a bad sector, and when you are duplicating the duplicator can't read it and writes 0's to your other hard drives? With RAID you would be warned and while the data would be lost on one disk it is still intact on the others. | ZFS can do it either way - either triple (or quadruple, or more) mirroring, or setting the copies option to 3:
>
> Controls the number of copies of data stored for this
> dataset. These copies are in addition to any redundancy
> provided by the pool, for example, mirroring or raid-z.
> The copies are stored on different disks, if possible.
> The space used by multiple copies is charged to the
> associated file and dataset, changing the "used" pro-
> perty and counting against quotas and reservations.
>
>
>
ZFS also works best without a RAID controller, so you can just move the disks to a new system if the old one breaks, and it has checksums of all your data so you know not a single bit has changed.
Yes, it's still a single pool that could break, so to be really paranoid you could have three ZFS pools (ideally consisting of two drives each for redundancy and error-recovery) that you then have a script that automatically send snapshots from the master pool to the other two. |
90,642 | I do not trust any RAID types for home use. I've got 2 Terabytes of Data that I want to copy (duplicate) to about 4-6 drives for redundancy so that I will never lose these pics and videos I've created of my family. I know that 100% failure prevention is impossible. And yes I know the obvious "copy to many sources such as online storage, DVDs, etc.".
However let's get back to hard disks for now. I am not focusing on anything else for this thread.
So I do not trust RAID for home use, and so if I am going to copy new pictures or video to a primary disk, it would be nice if I could find some kind of controller card that would essentially do a copy on demand to the other drives so that I'd have complete duplicates of anything I do to my primary drive.
My understanding is that RAID 1 does this but then you still have the problem of it being a RAID issue...that you're still being dependent on an array which is not what I want.
I merely want the action of RAID 1 (meaning I write to disk A, write the same to disk b, c, d,.etc.) without the reliance or dependency on any stupid failure prone array.
I think ideally if I can set up a box, put about 6 drives in it and somehow maybe get a couple of controller cards that when I write to a designated drive...or delete, or whatever, it duplicates that action realtime to the other x drives.
Anyone seen anything that can do this such as a card (I want to build my own box and drives, etc. to do this) outside of something like this: <http://www.aleratec.com/alhddcrhadid.html> or this <http://www.abcusinc.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=HDD> but I want to do it myself over a controller card(s) in my own box that I will be building?
Obviously a RAID controller card is not what I'm after here. I'm after hopefully a card that allows me to plug in lets say 4 drives internally to it and somehow it duplicates from a designated primary drive to the other 3. I'm not sure if such a thing exists.
Basically I want to build my own server doing what that box does...and put an ASUS board in it, etc. I want complete control over this but I need to find some sort of plan using a card or something that does this duplication without the raid array dependency. | 2010/01/03 | [
"https://superuser.com/questions/90642",
"https://superuser.com",
"https://superuser.com/users/23511/"
] | On linux you can do exactly that, a RAID 1 with more than 2 disks, (i have done this with four sata disks) About drivers or card you don't need any you just install disk drives as JBOD (just bunch of drives) and linux takes care about the rest.
I don't care about the speed performance but, if you have N disks there N-1 disks could fail and even then there would not be loosing data. | I think all the good answers were given.
I like **ZFS** because cryptographic verified reads/writes, multi-drive mirror, free with OpenSolaris, FreeBSD, Linux and appliances OSs like FreeNAS (which is FreeBSD).
I like **RAID 1 controller** because the drives will be identical regardless of OS. If you must, you can have two controller cards, each with two drives and have the OS (like Windows) make a software mirror across the two RAID 1 controllers. So all four drive should be the same.
Lastly, I like the **Robocopy** script and mirror between separate drives.
If you are as concerned about data integrity as it sounds, you would love ZFS. It is my choice and I will be building a server with a RAIDZ2 or I hear they will have RAIDZ3 & 4 coming out soon. I think RAIDZ3 means you can lose 3 of 10 drives.
Also, if you are going this far, you may want to replicate between machines because if the power supply in the machines smokes you could fry all the hard drives in that machine.
Of course none of this is the same as a backup. Because if all this works right, and a user, glitch or virus comes along and somehow deletes or modifies a file you have no way to revert (except ZFS which could take snapshots if configured, or if the RAID controller does snapshots). But as you said you don't want backup strategies. I assume this information need high availability to keep so many online copies.
You have some great answers to help you choose you data storage strategy and I hope your data remains safe. |
90,642 | I do not trust any RAID types for home use. I've got 2 Terabytes of Data that I want to copy (duplicate) to about 4-6 drives for redundancy so that I will never lose these pics and videos I've created of my family. I know that 100% failure prevention is impossible. And yes I know the obvious "copy to many sources such as online storage, DVDs, etc.".
However let's get back to hard disks for now. I am not focusing on anything else for this thread.
So I do not trust RAID for home use, and so if I am going to copy new pictures or video to a primary disk, it would be nice if I could find some kind of controller card that would essentially do a copy on demand to the other drives so that I'd have complete duplicates of anything I do to my primary drive.
My understanding is that RAID 1 does this but then you still have the problem of it being a RAID issue...that you're still being dependent on an array which is not what I want.
I merely want the action of RAID 1 (meaning I write to disk A, write the same to disk b, c, d,.etc.) without the reliance or dependency on any stupid failure prone array.
I think ideally if I can set up a box, put about 6 drives in it and somehow maybe get a couple of controller cards that when I write to a designated drive...or delete, or whatever, it duplicates that action realtime to the other x drives.
Anyone seen anything that can do this such as a card (I want to build my own box and drives, etc. to do this) outside of something like this: <http://www.aleratec.com/alhddcrhadid.html> or this <http://www.abcusinc.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=HDD> but I want to do it myself over a controller card(s) in my own box that I will be building?
Obviously a RAID controller card is not what I'm after here. I'm after hopefully a card that allows me to plug in lets say 4 drives internally to it and somehow it duplicates from a designated primary drive to the other 3. I'm not sure if such a thing exists.
Basically I want to build my own server doing what that box does...and put an ASUS board in it, etc. I want complete control over this but I need to find some sort of plan using a card or something that does this duplication without the raid array dependency. | 2010/01/03 | [
"https://superuser.com/questions/90642",
"https://superuser.com",
"https://superuser.com/users/23511/"
] | ZFS can do it either way - either triple (or quadruple, or more) mirroring, or setting the copies option to 3:
>
> Controls the number of copies of data stored for this
> dataset. These copies are in addition to any redundancy
> provided by the pool, for example, mirroring or raid-z.
> The copies are stored on different disks, if possible.
> The space used by multiple copies is charged to the
> associated file and dataset, changing the "used" pro-
> perty and counting against quotas and reservations.
>
>
>
ZFS also works best without a RAID controller, so you can just move the disks to a new system if the old one breaks, and it has checksums of all your data so you know not a single bit has changed.
Yes, it's still a single pool that could break, so to be really paranoid you could have three ZFS pools (ideally consisting of two drives each for redundancy and error-recovery) that you then have a script that automatically send snapshots from the master pool to the other two. | Interesting question; if you're doing RAID 1 mirroring to two drives, it does seem logical to allow three drives.. or even (n) drives do the same thing. I found [one reference](http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/expert/KnowledgebaseAnswer/0,289625,sid5_gci1273437,00.html):
>
> If you are having challenges finding examples of multiple drive (more than two) RAID 1 implementations, try searching on "triple mirror RAID". It has been a host operating system capability for 15-17 years. Storage system vendors and even application vendors like Oracle also support triple mirror RAID. Another implementation of multiple drive RAID 1 would be a hybrid RAID 0+1 or 1+0 also known as RAID 10. This implementation works well when, for example, six disk drives are used with three each in the two unique RAID groups that are then striped or mirrored together (this depends on whether you're using 0+1 or 1+0).
>
>
> Another way of finding specific implementations is to look for vendors that implement a combination of horizontal and vertical RAID. This is where one RAID group is created horizontally across a group or shelf of disk drives and the other RAID group, using perhaps a different RAID level, is created vertically across the horizontal RAID groups usually more for performance than availability.
>
>
>
although this "triple mirroring and beyond" doesn't seem to be supported by [many controllers](http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/242492-32-raid-mirroring-drives):
>
>
> >
> > Its possible to make a 8 drive RAID 1 if you want, provided your controller supports it. But what a waste of space. It is not recommended to be swapping drives out of a raid 1 for backup. Thats adds undue stress on the whole system.
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> I thought the same thing until i did research as no Dell controller, or lsi logic or adaptec controller supports that.
>
>
> |
90,642 | I do not trust any RAID types for home use. I've got 2 Terabytes of Data that I want to copy (duplicate) to about 4-6 drives for redundancy so that I will never lose these pics and videos I've created of my family. I know that 100% failure prevention is impossible. And yes I know the obvious "copy to many sources such as online storage, DVDs, etc.".
However let's get back to hard disks for now. I am not focusing on anything else for this thread.
So I do not trust RAID for home use, and so if I am going to copy new pictures or video to a primary disk, it would be nice if I could find some kind of controller card that would essentially do a copy on demand to the other drives so that I'd have complete duplicates of anything I do to my primary drive.
My understanding is that RAID 1 does this but then you still have the problem of it being a RAID issue...that you're still being dependent on an array which is not what I want.
I merely want the action of RAID 1 (meaning I write to disk A, write the same to disk b, c, d,.etc.) without the reliance or dependency on any stupid failure prone array.
I think ideally if I can set up a box, put about 6 drives in it and somehow maybe get a couple of controller cards that when I write to a designated drive...or delete, or whatever, it duplicates that action realtime to the other x drives.
Anyone seen anything that can do this such as a card (I want to build my own box and drives, etc. to do this) outside of something like this: <http://www.aleratec.com/alhddcrhadid.html> or this <http://www.abcusinc.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=HDD> but I want to do it myself over a controller card(s) in my own box that I will be building?
Obviously a RAID controller card is not what I'm after here. I'm after hopefully a card that allows me to plug in lets say 4 drives internally to it and somehow it duplicates from a designated primary drive to the other 3. I'm not sure if such a thing exists.
Basically I want to build my own server doing what that box does...and put an ASUS board in it, etc. I want complete control over this but I need to find some sort of plan using a card or something that does this duplication without the raid array dependency. | 2010/01/03 | [
"https://superuser.com/questions/90642",
"https://superuser.com",
"https://superuser.com/users/23511/"
] | RAID1 is exactly what you want. Buy a well known controller card so if it craps out you can replace it. That way:
1. Hard drive fails? Replace it, RAID will rebuild
2. Controller fails? Replace it, RAID will be intact
My understanding is you can get RAID controllers that keep the configuration on the controller, so the disks are 1:1 duplicates without proprietary information on the disk. This means you can pull it out and put it into another PC.
I don't see how this would be any more "failure prone" than a disk duplicator. With a disk duplicator:
1. Hard drive fails? Replace it, disk will duplicate later
2. Duplicator fails? Replace it, disk data will be intact
What happens when your primary hard drive you are duplicating gets a bad sector, and when you are duplicating the duplicator can't read it and writes 0's to your other hard drives? With RAID you would be warned and while the data would be lost on one disk it is still intact on the others. | I think all the good answers were given.
I like **ZFS** because cryptographic verified reads/writes, multi-drive mirror, free with OpenSolaris, FreeBSD, Linux and appliances OSs like FreeNAS (which is FreeBSD).
I like **RAID 1 controller** because the drives will be identical regardless of OS. If you must, you can have two controller cards, each with two drives and have the OS (like Windows) make a software mirror across the two RAID 1 controllers. So all four drive should be the same.
Lastly, I like the **Robocopy** script and mirror between separate drives.
If you are as concerned about data integrity as it sounds, you would love ZFS. It is my choice and I will be building a server with a RAIDZ2 or I hear they will have RAIDZ3 & 4 coming out soon. I think RAIDZ3 means you can lose 3 of 10 drives.
Also, if you are going this far, you may want to replicate between machines because if the power supply in the machines smokes you could fry all the hard drives in that machine.
Of course none of this is the same as a backup. Because if all this works right, and a user, glitch or virus comes along and somehow deletes or modifies a file you have no way to revert (except ZFS which could take snapshots if configured, or if the RAID controller does snapshots). But as you said you don't want backup strategies. I assume this information need high availability to keep so many online copies.
You have some great answers to help you choose you data storage strategy and I hope your data remains safe. |
90,642 | I do not trust any RAID types for home use. I've got 2 Terabytes of Data that I want to copy (duplicate) to about 4-6 drives for redundancy so that I will never lose these pics and videos I've created of my family. I know that 100% failure prevention is impossible. And yes I know the obvious "copy to many sources such as online storage, DVDs, etc.".
However let's get back to hard disks for now. I am not focusing on anything else for this thread.
So I do not trust RAID for home use, and so if I am going to copy new pictures or video to a primary disk, it would be nice if I could find some kind of controller card that would essentially do a copy on demand to the other drives so that I'd have complete duplicates of anything I do to my primary drive.
My understanding is that RAID 1 does this but then you still have the problem of it being a RAID issue...that you're still being dependent on an array which is not what I want.
I merely want the action of RAID 1 (meaning I write to disk A, write the same to disk b, c, d,.etc.) without the reliance or dependency on any stupid failure prone array.
I think ideally if I can set up a box, put about 6 drives in it and somehow maybe get a couple of controller cards that when I write to a designated drive...or delete, or whatever, it duplicates that action realtime to the other x drives.
Anyone seen anything that can do this such as a card (I want to build my own box and drives, etc. to do this) outside of something like this: <http://www.aleratec.com/alhddcrhadid.html> or this <http://www.abcusinc.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=HDD> but I want to do it myself over a controller card(s) in my own box that I will be building?
Obviously a RAID controller card is not what I'm after here. I'm after hopefully a card that allows me to plug in lets say 4 drives internally to it and somehow it duplicates from a designated primary drive to the other 3. I'm not sure if such a thing exists.
Basically I want to build my own server doing what that box does...and put an ASUS board in it, etc. I want complete control over this but I need to find some sort of plan using a card or something that does this duplication without the raid array dependency. | 2010/01/03 | [
"https://superuser.com/questions/90642",
"https://superuser.com",
"https://superuser.com/users/23511/"
] | You won't be able to add comments until your reputation is over 100. For instance, I do not have 100 reputation so I'm making a new answer.
>
> what I don't like about any RAID, even RAID 1 is that you are reliant on an array. If that array fails, you're screwed. That's why i like the manual copy x drive to x drives route. Rather than relying on a raid to rebuild which if I'm not incorrect after researching, RAID 1 would still have to do.
>
>
>
An array failure is a complete failure. For RAID other than RAID0, the array will not fail if a single disk fails. Yes, you will need to rebuild the array. Some RAID controllers allow you to rebuild from within Windows (see nVidia's NVRAID). Rebuilds can be transparent, but performance will be reduces while the new drive is syncing up.
Bear in mind this is only if the drive fails. We're talking maybe once every 5 years for good hard drives under reasonable load. Check the mean time to failure on your hard drives.
Note that controller failure can be recovered from by swapping in another card.
>
> Lets put it this way, I'd much rather be using Norton Ghost or some other software solution and manually do a disk copy to 1 or more hard drives than risk losing my entire array.
>
>
>
If you want a poor man's solution then put some 1TB drives into your PC as I: J: and K: and then use Robocopy <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robocopy> with a combination of the /MON and /MOT and /XC to copy every so often. You would need to find a way to run Robocopy in the background - see Srvany <http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/137890> | I think all the good answers were given.
I like **ZFS** because cryptographic verified reads/writes, multi-drive mirror, free with OpenSolaris, FreeBSD, Linux and appliances OSs like FreeNAS (which is FreeBSD).
I like **RAID 1 controller** because the drives will be identical regardless of OS. If you must, you can have two controller cards, each with two drives and have the OS (like Windows) make a software mirror across the two RAID 1 controllers. So all four drive should be the same.
Lastly, I like the **Robocopy** script and mirror between separate drives.
If you are as concerned about data integrity as it sounds, you would love ZFS. It is my choice and I will be building a server with a RAIDZ2 or I hear they will have RAIDZ3 & 4 coming out soon. I think RAIDZ3 means you can lose 3 of 10 drives.
Also, if you are going this far, you may want to replicate between machines because if the power supply in the machines smokes you could fry all the hard drives in that machine.
Of course none of this is the same as a backup. Because if all this works right, and a user, glitch or virus comes along and somehow deletes or modifies a file you have no way to revert (except ZFS which could take snapshots if configured, or if the RAID controller does snapshots). But as you said you don't want backup strategies. I assume this information need high availability to keep so many online copies.
You have some great answers to help you choose you data storage strategy and I hope your data remains safe. |
90,642 | I do not trust any RAID types for home use. I've got 2 Terabytes of Data that I want to copy (duplicate) to about 4-6 drives for redundancy so that I will never lose these pics and videos I've created of my family. I know that 100% failure prevention is impossible. And yes I know the obvious "copy to many sources such as online storage, DVDs, etc.".
However let's get back to hard disks for now. I am not focusing on anything else for this thread.
So I do not trust RAID for home use, and so if I am going to copy new pictures or video to a primary disk, it would be nice if I could find some kind of controller card that would essentially do a copy on demand to the other drives so that I'd have complete duplicates of anything I do to my primary drive.
My understanding is that RAID 1 does this but then you still have the problem of it being a RAID issue...that you're still being dependent on an array which is not what I want.
I merely want the action of RAID 1 (meaning I write to disk A, write the same to disk b, c, d,.etc.) without the reliance or dependency on any stupid failure prone array.
I think ideally if I can set up a box, put about 6 drives in it and somehow maybe get a couple of controller cards that when I write to a designated drive...or delete, or whatever, it duplicates that action realtime to the other x drives.
Anyone seen anything that can do this such as a card (I want to build my own box and drives, etc. to do this) outside of something like this: <http://www.aleratec.com/alhddcrhadid.html> or this <http://www.abcusinc.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=HDD> but I want to do it myself over a controller card(s) in my own box that I will be building?
Obviously a RAID controller card is not what I'm after here. I'm after hopefully a card that allows me to plug in lets say 4 drives internally to it and somehow it duplicates from a designated primary drive to the other 3. I'm not sure if such a thing exists.
Basically I want to build my own server doing what that box does...and put an ASUS board in it, etc. I want complete control over this but I need to find some sort of plan using a card or something that does this duplication without the raid array dependency. | 2010/01/03 | [
"https://superuser.com/questions/90642",
"https://superuser.com",
"https://superuser.com/users/23511/"
] | This idea you have that RAID arrays are failure prone is not valid. Certain kinds of RAID (like RAID 0) are risky, and you can have issues with a controller or if you have more disks fail than the array supports, but correctly implemented fault-tolerant volumes, with replaceable controllers, are still the safest option available.
Let me put it simply: **Fault-tolerant RAID arrays do not just fail.** Period. *Hard drives* fail, or *controllers* fail, but you should build your array to allow for the replacement of either.
You mention concern about rebuilding a RAID 1 mirror if a disk fails. Your alternative is manually copying to different disks. What do you think happens under your plan if a disk fails and you want to replace it? You have to make a whole new copy. This is *more* work than RAID, not less, because the RAID volume will do it automatically, rather than requiring you to manually make your copy.
Finally, I want to make one more point — **mirrored data alone, with or without RAID, is not a backup.** This only protects you against one kind of failure: a broken hard disk. A real backup also protects against local disaster (the building burns down) and accidental modification or deletion. This is accomplished by physically separating the backup from the live data, and by keeping multiple versions of your copied data.
---
### With all that in mind, here's what I think you really want to do:
1. Suck it up and get a simple two-disk RAID 1 volume. Remember that this will only be part of the solution. Use a replaceable add-on card if you're that concerned about it.
2. Get a few (at least 3) extra disks with external enclosures.
3. Periodically (where the period depends on the rate of change for your data — daily or weekly should work) use a software package to copy your RAID 1 volume to just one (not all) of your external disks. Software options include Windows Backup, Microsoft SyncToy, or other third-party option.
4. Rotate which external disk you use each time, and make sure you take your most recent backup to a location some distance away.
This will be far superior to your plan to put a bunch of copies on disks in a server, because your sever will still allow all your disks to be destroyed in single fire and will faithfully copy accidental changes or deletions to all of your disks. **If you truly value your data, you will not continue with your current plan.** | On linux you can do exactly that, a RAID 1 with more than 2 disks, (i have done this with four sata disks) About drivers or card you don't need any you just install disk drives as JBOD (just bunch of drives) and linux takes care about the rest.
I don't care about the speed performance but, if you have N disks there N-1 disks could fail and even then there would not be loosing data. |
90,642 | I do not trust any RAID types for home use. I've got 2 Terabytes of Data that I want to copy (duplicate) to about 4-6 drives for redundancy so that I will never lose these pics and videos I've created of my family. I know that 100% failure prevention is impossible. And yes I know the obvious "copy to many sources such as online storage, DVDs, etc.".
However let's get back to hard disks for now. I am not focusing on anything else for this thread.
So I do not trust RAID for home use, and so if I am going to copy new pictures or video to a primary disk, it would be nice if I could find some kind of controller card that would essentially do a copy on demand to the other drives so that I'd have complete duplicates of anything I do to my primary drive.
My understanding is that RAID 1 does this but then you still have the problem of it being a RAID issue...that you're still being dependent on an array which is not what I want.
I merely want the action of RAID 1 (meaning I write to disk A, write the same to disk b, c, d,.etc.) without the reliance or dependency on any stupid failure prone array.
I think ideally if I can set up a box, put about 6 drives in it and somehow maybe get a couple of controller cards that when I write to a designated drive...or delete, or whatever, it duplicates that action realtime to the other x drives.
Anyone seen anything that can do this such as a card (I want to build my own box and drives, etc. to do this) outside of something like this: <http://www.aleratec.com/alhddcrhadid.html> or this <http://www.abcusinc.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=HDD> but I want to do it myself over a controller card(s) in my own box that I will be building?
Obviously a RAID controller card is not what I'm after here. I'm after hopefully a card that allows me to plug in lets say 4 drives internally to it and somehow it duplicates from a designated primary drive to the other 3. I'm not sure if such a thing exists.
Basically I want to build my own server doing what that box does...and put an ASUS board in it, etc. I want complete control over this but I need to find some sort of plan using a card or something that does this duplication without the raid array dependency. | 2010/01/03 | [
"https://superuser.com/questions/90642",
"https://superuser.com",
"https://superuser.com/users/23511/"
] | RAID1 is exactly what you want. Buy a well known controller card so if it craps out you can replace it. That way:
1. Hard drive fails? Replace it, RAID will rebuild
2. Controller fails? Replace it, RAID will be intact
My understanding is you can get RAID controllers that keep the configuration on the controller, so the disks are 1:1 duplicates without proprietary information on the disk. This means you can pull it out and put it into another PC.
I don't see how this would be any more "failure prone" than a disk duplicator. With a disk duplicator:
1. Hard drive fails? Replace it, disk will duplicate later
2. Duplicator fails? Replace it, disk data will be intact
What happens when your primary hard drive you are duplicating gets a bad sector, and when you are duplicating the duplicator can't read it and writes 0's to your other hard drives? With RAID you would be warned and while the data would be lost on one disk it is still intact on the others. | This idea you have that RAID arrays are failure prone is not valid. Certain kinds of RAID (like RAID 0) are risky, and you can have issues with a controller or if you have more disks fail than the array supports, but correctly implemented fault-tolerant volumes, with replaceable controllers, are still the safest option available.
Let me put it simply: **Fault-tolerant RAID arrays do not just fail.** Period. *Hard drives* fail, or *controllers* fail, but you should build your array to allow for the replacement of either.
You mention concern about rebuilding a RAID 1 mirror if a disk fails. Your alternative is manually copying to different disks. What do you think happens under your plan if a disk fails and you want to replace it? You have to make a whole new copy. This is *more* work than RAID, not less, because the RAID volume will do it automatically, rather than requiring you to manually make your copy.
Finally, I want to make one more point — **mirrored data alone, with or without RAID, is not a backup.** This only protects you against one kind of failure: a broken hard disk. A real backup also protects against local disaster (the building burns down) and accidental modification or deletion. This is accomplished by physically separating the backup from the live data, and by keeping multiple versions of your copied data.
---
### With all that in mind, here's what I think you really want to do:
1. Suck it up and get a simple two-disk RAID 1 volume. Remember that this will only be part of the solution. Use a replaceable add-on card if you're that concerned about it.
2. Get a few (at least 3) extra disks with external enclosures.
3. Periodically (where the period depends on the rate of change for your data — daily or weekly should work) use a software package to copy your RAID 1 volume to just one (not all) of your external disks. Software options include Windows Backup, Microsoft SyncToy, or other third-party option.
4. Rotate which external disk you use each time, and make sure you take your most recent backup to a location some distance away.
This will be far superior to your plan to put a bunch of copies on disks in a server, because your sever will still allow all your disks to be destroyed in single fire and will faithfully copy accidental changes or deletions to all of your disks. **If you truly value your data, you will not continue with your current plan.** |
14,412 | I have created the 10 contents(Article content type) in the Drupal.
And now, I want to associate these contents with new group in CiviCRM.
Please tell me how to associate these things ? | 2016/08/16 | [
"https://civicrm.stackexchange.com/questions/14412",
"https://civicrm.stackexchange.com",
"https://civicrm.stackexchange.com/users/3609/"
] | You may also want to look at [Organic Groups](https://www.drupal.org/project/og), which you can also [sync with civicrm](https://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/Organic+Groups+CiviCRM+Synchronization), so a contact in a civicrm group is a member of an Organic Group, or vice versa. Then you can use OG as containers for your content. Probably not worth it if you only have a few pages of information. | If I understand you correctly, you want to limit who can view content that you have added in Drupal.
To control access to Drupal content you need to create a role in Drupal and assign the correct permissions to this group.
More details here: [Users, roles and permissions](https://www.drupal.org/node/120614)
If you want to link the access to these articles with a specific group within CiviCRM you will have to synchronise the CiviCRM group with the Drupal role. You can do this using the CiviGroup Roles Sync module.
More details here: [CiviGroup Roles Sync](https://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/CiviGroup+Roles+Sync) |
1,964,416 | To complete college (or what the equivalent in Denmark would be) I will have to write a text about a topic that I choose.
I have chosen to write about mathematics in business economics, and specifically, I want it to be about investment analysis and risk assessment.
I am seeking some inspiration for possible mathematical topics to include.
My knowledge in math is at bachelor degree, but I am up for a challenge.
I already have a few ideas, e.g. I am pretty sure I will include something about the poisson distribution.
Any answer is appreciated. Thank you in advance. | 2016/10/11 | [
"https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1964416",
"https://math.stackexchange.com",
"https://math.stackexchange.com/users/306413/"
] | You might look at how over-reliance on the normal distribution contributed to the Great Financial Crisis. | Hull's book "Options, Future and Other Derivatives" is a well-organised and well-written text that might be a useful source of examples for you. |
1,964,416 | To complete college (or what the equivalent in Denmark would be) I will have to write a text about a topic that I choose.
I have chosen to write about mathematics in business economics, and specifically, I want it to be about investment analysis and risk assessment.
I am seeking some inspiration for possible mathematical topics to include.
My knowledge in math is at bachelor degree, but I am up for a challenge.
I already have a few ideas, e.g. I am pretty sure I will include something about the poisson distribution.
Any answer is appreciated. Thank you in advance. | 2016/10/11 | [
"https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1964416",
"https://math.stackexchange.com",
"https://math.stackexchange.com/users/306413/"
] | Or try Iceberg Risk by Kent Osband. Hull has another book, Risk Management and Financial Institutions that will also have examples. So I second @Rob Arthan. | Hull's book "Options, Future and Other Derivatives" is a well-organised and well-written text that might be a useful source of examples for you. |
9,639 | Brewing 5 gallon batches at home.
During the transfer from my primary fermenter to the secondary, and when filling bottles from my bottling bucket I constantly need to use plastic tubing to transfer the beer/wort. After Im done i give these tubes a thorough rinse but often find that there are small specks of yeast/hops that get stuck in the tube that seem impossible to wash out. are there any good methods for cleaning these tubes or am i expected to buy new tubing for each brew?
Ive also found that even if i do manage to clean them well enough that there is no visible residue, drying these tubes is a pain as well. Ive tried hanging them up or using the dishwasher, but either they deform under the heat or there is condensation that forms which is impossible to remove that eventually starts to mold.
Any tips?
Thanks! | 2013/03/25 | [
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com/questions/9639",
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com",
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com/users/3226/"
] | I take a sponge and cut a 1.5 inch long and width is approximately the ID of my hose. I stuff this into my hose (wet it first) then stick it in my faucet and let the water pressure push the sponge through the hose. Do this a couple times and any little fragments that may be stuck on inside of the tube come loose. I do it right after I use it before it has a chance to dry. Ditto on above about flushing and star san before next use. | I flush with hot water, initially from one end of the tubing, and then, from the other end. After doing this for three years, I have yet to detect debris in the tubing. Back in the day, before adopting this procedure, I would occasionally detect signs of mold, which would necessitate a squirt of bleach, resulting in the mold promptly disappearing.
This problem has now been eliminated. After flushing the tubing, I take it outdoors and whirl it around my head for a minute, then do the same holding the other end of the tubing. Droplets of water are just about eliminated, and the odd one remaining apparently evaporates. At any rate, no mold!
Before each use of the tubing, I sanitize with Starsan solution, ensuring that all internal surfaces are subjected to at least 20 seconds contact, with the actual contact time considerably increased by the formation of foam.
Works for me. |
9,639 | Brewing 5 gallon batches at home.
During the transfer from my primary fermenter to the secondary, and when filling bottles from my bottling bucket I constantly need to use plastic tubing to transfer the beer/wort. After Im done i give these tubes a thorough rinse but often find that there are small specks of yeast/hops that get stuck in the tube that seem impossible to wash out. are there any good methods for cleaning these tubes or am i expected to buy new tubing for each brew?
Ive also found that even if i do manage to clean them well enough that there is no visible residue, drying these tubes is a pain as well. Ive tried hanging them up or using the dishwasher, but either they deform under the heat or there is condensation that forms which is impossible to remove that eventually starts to mold.
Any tips?
Thanks! | 2013/03/25 | [
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com/questions/9639",
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com",
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com/users/3226/"
] | Well as you asked for 'tips', I've used the following to both dislodge stubborn material from the inside of tubes, and to remove excess water which aids drying:
It's a stainless steel brake cable from a bicycle, with a peice of towelling skewered on the end. The one I used was just over 2 meters long. I sterilise the whole thing, and just 'drag' it through the lines.
Obviously there's a maximum tube ID this will work for, and tubes over 2 meters are an issue, but.. it's an idea and saved me some hassle over time.
Addition: I'm told 'towelling' might not be the name used outside the UK. Apparently it's often called Terry Cloth. | For cleaning, if you're able to get all the debris out with water and a cleanser then I wouldn't worry about it.
I usually give the stubborn stuff a good soak in warm PBW, then flush with hot water. Worst case scenario, I use a bottle brush or dip tube brush.
For drying, the two most common methods are hanging and blowing out with an air compressor. There's a relevant discussion on the AHA forums here:
[American Homebrewers Association Forum.](http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=15015.0)
I really don't worry about getting my hoses fully dry. After wash and rinse I just hang them and sometimes even put them away slightly wet. I always flush hoses before use and sanitize if they're going to touch post-brew wort or beer. I've never had a problem, never seen mold growing in them, never smelled anything funky. |
9,639 | Brewing 5 gallon batches at home.
During the transfer from my primary fermenter to the secondary, and when filling bottles from my bottling bucket I constantly need to use plastic tubing to transfer the beer/wort. After Im done i give these tubes a thorough rinse but often find that there are small specks of yeast/hops that get stuck in the tube that seem impossible to wash out. are there any good methods for cleaning these tubes or am i expected to buy new tubing for each brew?
Ive also found that even if i do manage to clean them well enough that there is no visible residue, drying these tubes is a pain as well. Ive tried hanging them up or using the dishwasher, but either they deform under the heat or there is condensation that forms which is impossible to remove that eventually starts to mold.
Any tips?
Thanks! | 2013/03/25 | [
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com/questions/9639",
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com",
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com/users/3226/"
] | I take a sponge and cut a 1.5 inch long and width is approximately the ID of my hose. I stuff this into my hose (wet it first) then stick it in my faucet and let the water pressure push the sponge through the hose. Do this a couple times and any little fragments that may be stuck on inside of the tube come loose. I do it right after I use it before it has a chance to dry. Ditto on above about flushing and star san before next use. | I always keep two 5 gallon buckets on hand when I'm brewing. One filled with PBW and one filled with Sanitizer.
Before the hoses come in contact with my cooled wort, they soak in PBW the entire time I'm brewing up the beer. I make these buckets at the very beginning of the brew day.
When the time comes to use them, I attach to my autosiphon and run a few pumps of the solution through the hoses. After that, I do a quick rinse in the starsan, pump some of it through the hose and I'm good to go.
When I'm done transferring I'll run some more PBW through the lines and then rinse with starsan and hang it up to dry for next time. |
9,639 | Brewing 5 gallon batches at home.
During the transfer from my primary fermenter to the secondary, and when filling bottles from my bottling bucket I constantly need to use plastic tubing to transfer the beer/wort. After Im done i give these tubes a thorough rinse but often find that there are small specks of yeast/hops that get stuck in the tube that seem impossible to wash out. are there any good methods for cleaning these tubes or am i expected to buy new tubing for each brew?
Ive also found that even if i do manage to clean them well enough that there is no visible residue, drying these tubes is a pain as well. Ive tried hanging them up or using the dishwasher, but either they deform under the heat or there is condensation that forms which is impossible to remove that eventually starts to mold.
Any tips?
Thanks! | 2013/03/25 | [
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com/questions/9639",
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com",
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com/users/3226/"
] | For cleaning, if you're able to get all the debris out with water and a cleanser then I wouldn't worry about it.
I usually give the stubborn stuff a good soak in warm PBW, then flush with hot water. Worst case scenario, I use a bottle brush or dip tube brush.
For drying, the two most common methods are hanging and blowing out with an air compressor. There's a relevant discussion on the AHA forums here:
[American Homebrewers Association Forum.](http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=15015.0)
I really don't worry about getting my hoses fully dry. After wash and rinse I just hang them and sometimes even put them away slightly wet. I always flush hoses before use and sanitize if they're going to touch post-brew wort or beer. I've never had a problem, never seen mold growing in them, never smelled anything funky. | I always keep two 5 gallon buckets on hand when I'm brewing. One filled with PBW and one filled with Sanitizer.
Before the hoses come in contact with my cooled wort, they soak in PBW the entire time I'm brewing up the beer. I make these buckets at the very beginning of the brew day.
When the time comes to use them, I attach to my autosiphon and run a few pumps of the solution through the hoses. After that, I do a quick rinse in the starsan, pump some of it through the hose and I'm good to go.
When I'm done transferring I'll run some more PBW through the lines and then rinse with starsan and hang it up to dry for next time. |
9,639 | Brewing 5 gallon batches at home.
During the transfer from my primary fermenter to the secondary, and when filling bottles from my bottling bucket I constantly need to use plastic tubing to transfer the beer/wort. After Im done i give these tubes a thorough rinse but often find that there are small specks of yeast/hops that get stuck in the tube that seem impossible to wash out. are there any good methods for cleaning these tubes or am i expected to buy new tubing for each brew?
Ive also found that even if i do manage to clean them well enough that there is no visible residue, drying these tubes is a pain as well. Ive tried hanging them up or using the dishwasher, but either they deform under the heat or there is condensation that forms which is impossible to remove that eventually starts to mold.
Any tips?
Thanks! | 2013/03/25 | [
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com/questions/9639",
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com",
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com/users/3226/"
] | I've also never had a real problem with my tubing. Always rinse immediately after using with hot water and then hang up... I typically forget About Them until next time I need them. At that point is another rinse and Starsan soak. | I flush with hot water, initially from one end of the tubing, and then, from the other end. After doing this for three years, I have yet to detect debris in the tubing. Back in the day, before adopting this procedure, I would occasionally detect signs of mold, which would necessitate a squirt of bleach, resulting in the mold promptly disappearing.
This problem has now been eliminated. After flushing the tubing, I take it outdoors and whirl it around my head for a minute, then do the same holding the other end of the tubing. Droplets of water are just about eliminated, and the odd one remaining apparently evaporates. At any rate, no mold!
Before each use of the tubing, I sanitize with Starsan solution, ensuring that all internal surfaces are subjected to at least 20 seconds contact, with the actual contact time considerably increased by the formation of foam.
Works for me. |
9,639 | Brewing 5 gallon batches at home.
During the transfer from my primary fermenter to the secondary, and when filling bottles from my bottling bucket I constantly need to use plastic tubing to transfer the beer/wort. After Im done i give these tubes a thorough rinse but often find that there are small specks of yeast/hops that get stuck in the tube that seem impossible to wash out. are there any good methods for cleaning these tubes or am i expected to buy new tubing for each brew?
Ive also found that even if i do manage to clean them well enough that there is no visible residue, drying these tubes is a pain as well. Ive tried hanging them up or using the dishwasher, but either they deform under the heat or there is condensation that forms which is impossible to remove that eventually starts to mold.
Any tips?
Thanks! | 2013/03/25 | [
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com/questions/9639",
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com",
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com/users/3226/"
] | Well as you asked for 'tips', I've used the following to both dislodge stubborn material from the inside of tubes, and to remove excess water which aids drying:
It's a stainless steel brake cable from a bicycle, with a peice of towelling skewered on the end. The one I used was just over 2 meters long. I sterilise the whole thing, and just 'drag' it through the lines.
Obviously there's a maximum tube ID this will work for, and tubes over 2 meters are an issue, but.. it's an idea and saved me some hassle over time.
Addition: I'm told 'towelling' might not be the name used outside the UK. Apparently it's often called Terry Cloth. | I always keep two 5 gallon buckets on hand when I'm brewing. One filled with PBW and one filled with Sanitizer.
Before the hoses come in contact with my cooled wort, they soak in PBW the entire time I'm brewing up the beer. I make these buckets at the very beginning of the brew day.
When the time comes to use them, I attach to my autosiphon and run a few pumps of the solution through the hoses. After that, I do a quick rinse in the starsan, pump some of it through the hose and I'm good to go.
When I'm done transferring I'll run some more PBW through the lines and then rinse with starsan and hang it up to dry for next time. |
9,639 | Brewing 5 gallon batches at home.
During the transfer from my primary fermenter to the secondary, and when filling bottles from my bottling bucket I constantly need to use plastic tubing to transfer the beer/wort. After Im done i give these tubes a thorough rinse but often find that there are small specks of yeast/hops that get stuck in the tube that seem impossible to wash out. are there any good methods for cleaning these tubes or am i expected to buy new tubing for each brew?
Ive also found that even if i do manage to clean them well enough that there is no visible residue, drying these tubes is a pain as well. Ive tried hanging them up or using the dishwasher, but either they deform under the heat or there is condensation that forms which is impossible to remove that eventually starts to mold.
Any tips?
Thanks! | 2013/03/25 | [
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com/questions/9639",
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com",
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com/users/3226/"
] | For cleaning, if you're able to get all the debris out with water and a cleanser then I wouldn't worry about it.
I usually give the stubborn stuff a good soak in warm PBW, then flush with hot water. Worst case scenario, I use a bottle brush or dip tube brush.
For drying, the two most common methods are hanging and blowing out with an air compressor. There's a relevant discussion on the AHA forums here:
[American Homebrewers Association Forum.](http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=15015.0)
I really don't worry about getting my hoses fully dry. After wash and rinse I just hang them and sometimes even put them away slightly wet. I always flush hoses before use and sanitize if they're going to touch post-brew wort or beer. I've never had a problem, never seen mold growing in them, never smelled anything funky. | I think soaking the tubings in hot water with some detergent would help
I has worked for me before |
9,639 | Brewing 5 gallon batches at home.
During the transfer from my primary fermenter to the secondary, and when filling bottles from my bottling bucket I constantly need to use plastic tubing to transfer the beer/wort. After Im done i give these tubes a thorough rinse but often find that there are small specks of yeast/hops that get stuck in the tube that seem impossible to wash out. are there any good methods for cleaning these tubes or am i expected to buy new tubing for each brew?
Ive also found that even if i do manage to clean them well enough that there is no visible residue, drying these tubes is a pain as well. Ive tried hanging them up or using the dishwasher, but either they deform under the heat or there is condensation that forms which is impossible to remove that eventually starts to mold.
Any tips?
Thanks! | 2013/03/25 | [
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com/questions/9639",
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com",
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com/users/3226/"
] | I flush with hot water, initially from one end of the tubing, and then, from the other end. After doing this for three years, I have yet to detect debris in the tubing. Back in the day, before adopting this procedure, I would occasionally detect signs of mold, which would necessitate a squirt of bleach, resulting in the mold promptly disappearing.
This problem has now been eliminated. After flushing the tubing, I take it outdoors and whirl it around my head for a minute, then do the same holding the other end of the tubing. Droplets of water are just about eliminated, and the odd one remaining apparently evaporates. At any rate, no mold!
Before each use of the tubing, I sanitize with Starsan solution, ensuring that all internal surfaces are subjected to at least 20 seconds contact, with the actual contact time considerably increased by the formation of foam.
Works for me. | I think soaking the tubings in hot water with some detergent would help
I has worked for me before |
9,639 | Brewing 5 gallon batches at home.
During the transfer from my primary fermenter to the secondary, and when filling bottles from my bottling bucket I constantly need to use plastic tubing to transfer the beer/wort. After Im done i give these tubes a thorough rinse but often find that there are small specks of yeast/hops that get stuck in the tube that seem impossible to wash out. are there any good methods for cleaning these tubes or am i expected to buy new tubing for each brew?
Ive also found that even if i do manage to clean them well enough that there is no visible residue, drying these tubes is a pain as well. Ive tried hanging them up or using the dishwasher, but either they deform under the heat or there is condensation that forms which is impossible to remove that eventually starts to mold.
Any tips?
Thanks! | 2013/03/25 | [
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com/questions/9639",
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com",
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com/users/3226/"
] | Well as you asked for 'tips', I've used the following to both dislodge stubborn material from the inside of tubes, and to remove excess water which aids drying:
It's a stainless steel brake cable from a bicycle, with a peice of towelling skewered on the end. The one I used was just over 2 meters long. I sterilise the whole thing, and just 'drag' it through the lines.
Obviously there's a maximum tube ID this will work for, and tubes over 2 meters are an issue, but.. it's an idea and saved me some hassle over time.
Addition: I'm told 'towelling' might not be the name used outside the UK. Apparently it's often called Terry Cloth. | I've also never had a real problem with my tubing. Always rinse immediately after using with hot water and then hang up... I typically forget About Them until next time I need them. At that point is another rinse and Starsan soak. |
9,639 | Brewing 5 gallon batches at home.
During the transfer from my primary fermenter to the secondary, and when filling bottles from my bottling bucket I constantly need to use plastic tubing to transfer the beer/wort. After Im done i give these tubes a thorough rinse but often find that there are small specks of yeast/hops that get stuck in the tube that seem impossible to wash out. are there any good methods for cleaning these tubes or am i expected to buy new tubing for each brew?
Ive also found that even if i do manage to clean them well enough that there is no visible residue, drying these tubes is a pain as well. Ive tried hanging them up or using the dishwasher, but either they deform under the heat or there is condensation that forms which is impossible to remove that eventually starts to mold.
Any tips?
Thanks! | 2013/03/25 | [
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com/questions/9639",
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com",
"https://homebrew.stackexchange.com/users/3226/"
] | I've also never had a real problem with my tubing. Always rinse immediately after using with hot water and then hang up... I typically forget About Them until next time I need them. At that point is another rinse and Starsan soak. | I think soaking the tubings in hot water with some detergent would help
I has worked for me before |
6,686,881 | I am writing an iPad app and I would like to use Xcode Instruments to see if my app has any memory leaks. I have used Instruments successfully before but with Xcode 4.0.2 recently with this app I have the problem described in the title. It only works very rarely.
Steps to use Instruments:
- From the Xcode menu: Product>Profile
- Choose the Leaks instument
- Watch Instruments start recording allocations and leaks while the app shows its splash screen.
- The app's initial view controller becomes visible and Instruments stops recording at the same time.
Am I doing something wrong? Is this a bug in Instruments?
Any help would be appreciated.
**Edit:**
Instruments works on the iPad simulator but not the device (iPad 2) | 2011/07/13 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/6686881",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/242976/"
] | Have you tried changing the profile build from Release to Debug (go into "Edit Schemes" and you can change it there for Profiling)?
It could be something in the release build is causing Instruments to disconnect.
Also, pull up the device console in Organizer while it is running, and see if you see any messages related to the detachment. | Be sure, you device is turned on (in some cases it can be spontaneously shut down). |
4,891 | Has anyone with a Sony PCM D50 had better luck with an alternative or custom windsock?
Cutting out wind from recordings on near-windless days is getting a bit tired..
It's great otherwise, so I'm not really complaining
J | 2010/11/30 | [
"https://sound.stackexchange.com/questions/4891",
"https://sound.stackexchange.com",
"https://sound.stackexchange.com/users/300/"
] | The [Rode Dead Kitten](http://www.rodemic.com/accessory.php?product=DeadKitten) is meant to be a good alternative, not used one on a D50 but works well with an Nt-4
Thew's Reviews posted a comparison of the Dead Kitten & the standard Sony one [here](http://www.thewsreviews.com/2009/09/comparison-sony-adpcm1-and-rde-dead.html) | @James The D50 is really not of much use without a windscreen unless its statically positioned and inside. Personally I had a hard time justifying the high price tag of Sony's own and tried alternatives. I found GigWig's Eliminator a great buy, it eliminates the wind a great deal, it's cheap, doesn't shed a lot and it actually stays in place on top of the recorder.
[GigWig Windscreens](http://stores.ebay.com/GigWig-Windscreens) |
4,891 | Has anyone with a Sony PCM D50 had better luck with an alternative or custom windsock?
Cutting out wind from recordings on near-windless days is getting a bit tired..
It's great otherwise, so I'm not really complaining
J | 2010/11/30 | [
"https://sound.stackexchange.com/questions/4891",
"https://sound.stackexchange.com",
"https://sound.stackexchange.com/users/300/"
] | The [Rode Dead Kitten](http://www.rodemic.com/accessory.php?product=DeadKitten) is meant to be a good alternative, not used one on a D50 but works well with an Nt-4
Thew's Reviews posted a comparison of the Dead Kitten & the standard Sony one [here](http://www.thewsreviews.com/2009/09/comparison-sony-adpcm1-and-rde-dead.html) | I buy from [Red Head Windscreens](http://www.redheadwindscreens.com/products/) they work out a lot cheaper for me. |
4,891 | Has anyone with a Sony PCM D50 had better luck with an alternative or custom windsock?
Cutting out wind from recordings on near-windless days is getting a bit tired..
It's great otherwise, so I'm not really complaining
J | 2010/11/30 | [
"https://sound.stackexchange.com/questions/4891",
"https://sound.stackexchange.com",
"https://sound.stackexchange.com/users/300/"
] | The [Rode Dead Kitten](http://www.rodemic.com/accessory.php?product=DeadKitten) is meant to be a good alternative, not used one on a D50 but works well with an Nt-4
Thew's Reviews posted a comparison of the Dead Kitten & the standard Sony one [here](http://www.thewsreviews.com/2009/09/comparison-sony-adpcm1-and-rde-dead.html) | my wife made one for me out of cheesecloth and fuzzy yarn. Works great and looks awesome. :) |
164,613 | For a long time I was thinking about a quite abstract game design problem, to which I didn't see a good solution yet. In abstract: How can a player have owned bases, units and infrastructure in a persistent multiplayer world, which can be interacted or attacked by other players, all the while the owning player may be offline and unable to give his input?
As a concrete example:
Assume you have a very large 2D world, in which you can build bases and have units guarding them. The bases can be visited or used by other players as automated trading stations, in which you represent the vendors. But the bases should also be able to be contested by hostile players - be it plundering or outright destruction.
How can I solve the issue that the owner of the base may be offline during an attack? Or that a player attacks at times where people are usually not online (sleeping, working, school)? Or that a player may actively go or stay offline in order to exploit potential protection mechanisms? How can I avoid forcing players to go online for a certain time at certain time ranges in order to maintain such protection?
Ideas (which are not satisfactory though):
1. Bases cannot be attacked in normal ways. People can send "troops" with a delay hopefully long enough to ensure the other player can give his optional input. The outcome of these battles is an automatically calculated result. Such sieges may go over multiple days.
2. Bases can only be attacked while their owners are online - or have been offline for too long. The explanation why those cannot be attacked is severely lacking though - given that trading should still be possible.
3. When a player intends to attack, both players somehow have to make an appointment in order for both to be online and to start the battle. This is a bad solution for obvious reasons.
4. Bases are inactive and invulnerable while their owners are offline or setting it inactive, and trading/other activities continue only temporarily based on the previous online/active time. This raises issues with visible bases and ongoing infrastructure, as they'd essentially need to be hidden or hideable, and other players may get bothered by it becoming inaccessible.
What other methodology does exist or could be employed in order to tackle this online-offline issue with persistent elements? I am also open for mathematical or systematic solutions. Be reminded that other players should be able to assist either side as well, and that their online/offline times would require some consideration as well. | 2018/10/17 | [
"https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/164613",
"https://gamedev.stackexchange.com",
"https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/users/117840/"
] | Players have lives outside of the game, so you can not expect them to protect their property 24/7. You can be a bit more cruel about this when properties are not owned by individual players but collectively by large groups of players, because if the group is large enough then at least someone will be online most of the time. But this still creates a lot of unnecessary pressure for players to play more than they want to.
So if you want online PvP battles for the control of property, then you have to balance some conflicting interests against each other:
* The interest of the defender to defend the property when it is convenient for them and not lose property because their life outside of the game came in the way.
* The interest of the attacker to be able to conquer any property they want as long as they are strong enough to do so.
* The interest of the game to have both attacker and defender present for the battle, so you have a fair contest of skills.
* The interest of everyone to play your game when they want to and not neglect their life outside of the game.
In order to balance these interests, you need some game mechanic which allows players to **negotiate a date for when the battle is going to take place**. The negotiation mechanic must be designed in a way that it is in the interest of both parties to have the battle as soon as possible (so no party can win or grief by biding time), but still allows both parties some degree of control in order to find a time window where both parties are present.
---
A good subject for a case study in this regard might be **Eve Online**. Disclaimer: I read a lot about Eve Online, but I never played the game myself. So please write a comment if I misunderstood something.
Players can own stations, which still exist while the player is offline. Other players can attack these stations. But as soon as the station drops to 25% shield strength, it enters what is called [Reinforced Mode](http://eve-wiki.net/index.php?title=Reinforced_mode).
While the station is in reinforced mode, other players can not damage it anymore, but the station also loses functionality and starts to consume a resource which can not be replenished while in this mode. When there is enough of that resource in stock, then it can last for more than a day.
So when the attacker wants to take the station, they either need to wait until the station runs out of resources or until the owner shows up to defend it.
The effect of this game mechanic is that the defender decides when to fight for the station. The attacker is the one who needs to stay online and prevent the defender from refueling. But it is still in the interest of the defender to react early, because while the station is reinforced, the station consumes resources without doing anything productive.
---
A mechanic I have seen in another MMO game (unfortunately I don't remember the name) was that the owner of a base can explicitly **set time windows in which they are vulnerable to attacks**. So the player can make sure that they are only attacked during times where they are usually online. | Many MMO RTS games delay attacks based on distance, and limit the size of the attack based on supply lines. They also tend to grant defense bonuses to defenders that are not available to attackers. For example, attackers may be limited from sending only X troops, but defenders might have unlimited troops (e.g. as many troops as they can build), walls, traps, and so on, which can be upgraded.
Make it more difficult for attackers to succeed, and they'll consider their choices carefully, especially if there's also a real-time attack delay (e.g. an attack will take one hour to reach a target, and you'll lose those troops for defense during the duration). If practical, allow an option to send a push notification or some other means to alert offline users of an imminent attack. Attacks should also probably be rate-limited so that throwing a large number of smaller waves won't wear down an opponent that can't respond readily.
As mentioned elsewhere, reaching some critical threshold should trigger a protective mechanism of some type. For example, attacks become less effective, no further resources can be farmed from the target, auto-build troops or allow "wounded" troops to return to battle at some time. A defeated player should still have a decent chance of rebuilding after a severe attack. |
164,613 | For a long time I was thinking about a quite abstract game design problem, to which I didn't see a good solution yet. In abstract: How can a player have owned bases, units and infrastructure in a persistent multiplayer world, which can be interacted or attacked by other players, all the while the owning player may be offline and unable to give his input?
As a concrete example:
Assume you have a very large 2D world, in which you can build bases and have units guarding them. The bases can be visited or used by other players as automated trading stations, in which you represent the vendors. But the bases should also be able to be contested by hostile players - be it plundering or outright destruction.
How can I solve the issue that the owner of the base may be offline during an attack? Or that a player attacks at times where people are usually not online (sleeping, working, school)? Or that a player may actively go or stay offline in order to exploit potential protection mechanisms? How can I avoid forcing players to go online for a certain time at certain time ranges in order to maintain such protection?
Ideas (which are not satisfactory though):
1. Bases cannot be attacked in normal ways. People can send "troops" with a delay hopefully long enough to ensure the other player can give his optional input. The outcome of these battles is an automatically calculated result. Such sieges may go over multiple days.
2. Bases can only be attacked while their owners are online - or have been offline for too long. The explanation why those cannot be attacked is severely lacking though - given that trading should still be possible.
3. When a player intends to attack, both players somehow have to make an appointment in order for both to be online and to start the battle. This is a bad solution for obvious reasons.
4. Bases are inactive and invulnerable while their owners are offline or setting it inactive, and trading/other activities continue only temporarily based on the previous online/active time. This raises issues with visible bases and ongoing infrastructure, as they'd essentially need to be hidden or hideable, and other players may get bothered by it becoming inaccessible.
What other methodology does exist or could be employed in order to tackle this online-offline issue with persistent elements? I am also open for mathematical or systematic solutions. Be reminded that other players should be able to assist either side as well, and that their online/offline times would require some consideration as well. | 2018/10/17 | [
"https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/164613",
"https://gamedev.stackexchange.com",
"https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/users/117840/"
] | **From a player perspective**
A pet peeve of mine, as a game player, is when a game tries to hard to get me to play more, so much so that the games advertise themselves as "addictive" are the ones I stay away from the most.
However, I realize that a game that doesn't get played is of no benefit to anyone, so games should provide some draw to continue playing, and play somewhat regularly.
Having said that, I would propose a combination of 2 elements:
First, an automatically adjusting difficulty on the AI for the offline player and, second, something like a "difficulty" setting manually selected by the players themselves, but related to how often they expect to be online.
Some examples:
If an offline player selected an "Easy" difficulty, then their base might be invulnerable for 24 hours after their last login. After that, their base can be attacked, but their are given a defending AI with a 99% success rate (or whatever number is reasonable for the specific game mechanics) at defending the base. That percentage then slowly decreases over time, for as long as the player doesn't log in, until it reaches 1% (or other applicable pre-set minimum). Logging in takes it back to halfway between the min and max AI levels, and slowly increases from there for each consecutive day they log in or for the length of each gameplay session, etc.
If an offline player selected a "Hard" difficulty, then their base might not have the 24 hour invulnerable period after their last login. Instead, the defending AI starts at 99% success rate (or whatever number is reasonable for the specific game mechanics) at defending the base, as soon as they log off. That percentage then slowly decreases over time, for as long as the player doesn't log in, until it reaches 1% (or other applicable pre-set minimum). Logging in doesn't take it back to halfway, but immediately starts slowly increasing for each consecutive day they log in or for the length of each gameplay session, etc.
Add intermediary "difficulty levels" and fine tune the numbers and concept as needed for the specific game mechanics and application. | A few simple rules:
1. Ongoing sieges when logging off procede as normal.
2. Once all ongoing sieges have been resolved, apply a defensive boost that gradually declines over a set period.
3. Succesful attacks on other players (while online, obviously) increase this period, succesful attacks on you reduce it.
4. Once the defensive bonus decreases to 0, mark the player 'inactive' such that no interactions, positive or negative, are possible. |
164,613 | For a long time I was thinking about a quite abstract game design problem, to which I didn't see a good solution yet. In abstract: How can a player have owned bases, units and infrastructure in a persistent multiplayer world, which can be interacted or attacked by other players, all the while the owning player may be offline and unable to give his input?
As a concrete example:
Assume you have a very large 2D world, in which you can build bases and have units guarding them. The bases can be visited or used by other players as automated trading stations, in which you represent the vendors. But the bases should also be able to be contested by hostile players - be it plundering or outright destruction.
How can I solve the issue that the owner of the base may be offline during an attack? Or that a player attacks at times where people are usually not online (sleeping, working, school)? Or that a player may actively go or stay offline in order to exploit potential protection mechanisms? How can I avoid forcing players to go online for a certain time at certain time ranges in order to maintain such protection?
Ideas (which are not satisfactory though):
1. Bases cannot be attacked in normal ways. People can send "troops" with a delay hopefully long enough to ensure the other player can give his optional input. The outcome of these battles is an automatically calculated result. Such sieges may go over multiple days.
2. Bases can only be attacked while their owners are online - or have been offline for too long. The explanation why those cannot be attacked is severely lacking though - given that trading should still be possible.
3. When a player intends to attack, both players somehow have to make an appointment in order for both to be online and to start the battle. This is a bad solution for obvious reasons.
4. Bases are inactive and invulnerable while their owners are offline or setting it inactive, and trading/other activities continue only temporarily based on the previous online/active time. This raises issues with visible bases and ongoing infrastructure, as they'd essentially need to be hidden or hideable, and other players may get bothered by it becoming inaccessible.
What other methodology does exist or could be employed in order to tackle this online-offline issue with persistent elements? I am also open for mathematical or systematic solutions. Be reminded that other players should be able to assist either side as well, and that their online/offline times would require some consideration as well. | 2018/10/17 | [
"https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/164613",
"https://gamedev.stackexchange.com",
"https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/users/117840/"
] | Players have lives outside of the game, so you can not expect them to protect their property 24/7. You can be a bit more cruel about this when properties are not owned by individual players but collectively by large groups of players, because if the group is large enough then at least someone will be online most of the time. But this still creates a lot of unnecessary pressure for players to play more than they want to.
So if you want online PvP battles for the control of property, then you have to balance some conflicting interests against each other:
* The interest of the defender to defend the property when it is convenient for them and not lose property because their life outside of the game came in the way.
* The interest of the attacker to be able to conquer any property they want as long as they are strong enough to do so.
* The interest of the game to have both attacker and defender present for the battle, so you have a fair contest of skills.
* The interest of everyone to play your game when they want to and not neglect their life outside of the game.
In order to balance these interests, you need some game mechanic which allows players to **negotiate a date for when the battle is going to take place**. The negotiation mechanic must be designed in a way that it is in the interest of both parties to have the battle as soon as possible (so no party can win or grief by biding time), but still allows both parties some degree of control in order to find a time window where both parties are present.
---
A good subject for a case study in this regard might be **Eve Online**. Disclaimer: I read a lot about Eve Online, but I never played the game myself. So please write a comment if I misunderstood something.
Players can own stations, which still exist while the player is offline. Other players can attack these stations. But as soon as the station drops to 25% shield strength, it enters what is called [Reinforced Mode](http://eve-wiki.net/index.php?title=Reinforced_mode).
While the station is in reinforced mode, other players can not damage it anymore, but the station also loses functionality and starts to consume a resource which can not be replenished while in this mode. When there is enough of that resource in stock, then it can last for more than a day.
So when the attacker wants to take the station, they either need to wait until the station runs out of resources or until the owner shows up to defend it.
The effect of this game mechanic is that the defender decides when to fight for the station. The attacker is the one who needs to stay online and prevent the defender from refueling. But it is still in the interest of the defender to react early, because while the station is reinforced, the station consumes resources without doing anything productive.
---
A mechanic I have seen in another MMO game (unfortunately I don't remember the name) was that the owner of a base can explicitly **set time windows in which they are vulnerable to attacks**. So the player can make sure that they are only attacked during times where they are usually online. | A few simple rules:
1. Ongoing sieges when logging off procede as normal.
2. Once all ongoing sieges have been resolved, apply a defensive boost that gradually declines over a set period.
3. Succesful attacks on other players (while online, obviously) increase this period, succesful attacks on you reduce it.
4. Once the defensive bonus decreases to 0, mark the player 'inactive' such that no interactions, positive or negative, are possible. |
164,613 | For a long time I was thinking about a quite abstract game design problem, to which I didn't see a good solution yet. In abstract: How can a player have owned bases, units and infrastructure in a persistent multiplayer world, which can be interacted or attacked by other players, all the while the owning player may be offline and unable to give his input?
As a concrete example:
Assume you have a very large 2D world, in which you can build bases and have units guarding them. The bases can be visited or used by other players as automated trading stations, in which you represent the vendors. But the bases should also be able to be contested by hostile players - be it plundering or outright destruction.
How can I solve the issue that the owner of the base may be offline during an attack? Or that a player attacks at times where people are usually not online (sleeping, working, school)? Or that a player may actively go or stay offline in order to exploit potential protection mechanisms? How can I avoid forcing players to go online for a certain time at certain time ranges in order to maintain such protection?
Ideas (which are not satisfactory though):
1. Bases cannot be attacked in normal ways. People can send "troops" with a delay hopefully long enough to ensure the other player can give his optional input. The outcome of these battles is an automatically calculated result. Such sieges may go over multiple days.
2. Bases can only be attacked while their owners are online - or have been offline for too long. The explanation why those cannot be attacked is severely lacking though - given that trading should still be possible.
3. When a player intends to attack, both players somehow have to make an appointment in order for both to be online and to start the battle. This is a bad solution for obvious reasons.
4. Bases are inactive and invulnerable while their owners are offline or setting it inactive, and trading/other activities continue only temporarily based on the previous online/active time. This raises issues with visible bases and ongoing infrastructure, as they'd essentially need to be hidden or hideable, and other players may get bothered by it becoming inaccessible.
What other methodology does exist or could be employed in order to tackle this online-offline issue with persistent elements? I am also open for mathematical or systematic solutions. Be reminded that other players should be able to assist either side as well, and that their online/offline times would require some consideration as well. | 2018/10/17 | [
"https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/164613",
"https://gamedev.stackexchange.com",
"https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/users/117840/"
] | **Give allied players an incentive to defend on behalf of offline players.**
The MMO Dark Age of Camelot featured three warring player factions. A faction could gain advantages by capturing and holding bases in the PvP area. These bases were not owned by individual players; they gave their bonus to an entire faction and could be "claimed" by a guild for prestige.
You could come up with some variation on that for individually owned bases. For example, individual control of a base could give some bonus to a player's guild or faction, or players could be awarded XP for defending the base of an offline friendly player. Even just alerting online players that a friendly player's base is under attack could attract them there for PvP action. | This sounds like a game I used to play called Ogame (initially a German game I think). You had a fleet which could only be attacked while in orbit around one of your planets, so when you went offline, you'd send it on an 8 hour (for example) round trip so that you know what time you had to log in to interact with it again.
Good player would determine when your fleet was due back and send theirs to arrive (hopefully) seconds before yours arrives back and crash it. You'd be left with the survivors. |
164,613 | For a long time I was thinking about a quite abstract game design problem, to which I didn't see a good solution yet. In abstract: How can a player have owned bases, units and infrastructure in a persistent multiplayer world, which can be interacted or attacked by other players, all the while the owning player may be offline and unable to give his input?
As a concrete example:
Assume you have a very large 2D world, in which you can build bases and have units guarding them. The bases can be visited or used by other players as automated trading stations, in which you represent the vendors. But the bases should also be able to be contested by hostile players - be it plundering or outright destruction.
How can I solve the issue that the owner of the base may be offline during an attack? Or that a player attacks at times where people are usually not online (sleeping, working, school)? Or that a player may actively go or stay offline in order to exploit potential protection mechanisms? How can I avoid forcing players to go online for a certain time at certain time ranges in order to maintain such protection?
Ideas (which are not satisfactory though):
1. Bases cannot be attacked in normal ways. People can send "troops" with a delay hopefully long enough to ensure the other player can give his optional input. The outcome of these battles is an automatically calculated result. Such sieges may go over multiple days.
2. Bases can only be attacked while their owners are online - or have been offline for too long. The explanation why those cannot be attacked is severely lacking though - given that trading should still be possible.
3. When a player intends to attack, both players somehow have to make an appointment in order for both to be online and to start the battle. This is a bad solution for obvious reasons.
4. Bases are inactive and invulnerable while their owners are offline or setting it inactive, and trading/other activities continue only temporarily based on the previous online/active time. This raises issues with visible bases and ongoing infrastructure, as they'd essentially need to be hidden or hideable, and other players may get bothered by it becoming inaccessible.
What other methodology does exist or could be employed in order to tackle this online-offline issue with persistent elements? I am also open for mathematical or systematic solutions. Be reminded that other players should be able to assist either side as well, and that their online/offline times would require some consideration as well. | 2018/10/17 | [
"https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/164613",
"https://gamedev.stackexchange.com",
"https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/users/117840/"
] | The text-based game [1000AD](http://www.new1000ad.com/) handles this by letting players be attacked as normal. The way the game works, you obtain one "turn" every 15-30 minutes (depending on game speed), and one turn lets you execute one month's worth of orders.
Thus, players tend to log in every few days with 500-1500 turns available, and spend the first few pulling down their defenses, the bulk of them handling research, expansion, or attack, and the last few setting up defenses (towers, siege weaponry, armies of various compositions).
In fact, this setup has lead (over the years) to a meta where it's considered very rude to attack someone while they're online!
You could thus possibly build mechanics in order to enforce that structure, something like for the first 30 minutes of each 24-hour period that you're logged in, you're invulnerable from attack, and *center* the game around attacking offline foes (or at least foes that have depleted their 30-minute window). | There are a few ways to deal with this, which can be combined as desired.
Rate-limit attacks
------------------
This can be done in two ways:
**Any given player can only be attacked so many times during some time period (by anyone).**
If you don't allow outright destruction, the in-game explanation can be that there are only so many resources that can be taken from a base. If you do allow outright destruction, the best explanation might be honour - in-game it's viewed as disgraceful to "kick someone while they're down", and generals would outright refuse to launch such an attack.
It might make sense to incrementally do this, as in each successive attack on the same player reduces the rewards.
**Any given player can only attack so many times during some time period.**
This indirectly addresses the problem by limiting how many attacks can happen overall, thus also limiting how often any given player can be attacked (especially if you combine this with the locality suggestions below).
You can have attacks take some time, just have a delay between attacks (for soldiers to heal and rest) or have each attack cost some soldiers, which requires time to be replaced.
Don't punish the defender (much)
--------------------------------
The extreme here is that you only "punish" the attacker - their attacks cost them resources and soldiers, and they gain resources if they win, and the defending player isn't punished at all. This isn't really ideal for a "proper" multiplayer game, as you want your actions to affect others.
The middle ground is to "punish" the defender less severely than the attacker (they only lose certain types of resources, or they just lose *less* of it). *How much* less severely is something you'll need to play-test and optimise.
Limit rewards from attacking weak or far away players
-----------------------------------------------------
This is a less direct way to deal with this.
Attacks come with some overhead, which is dependent on the size of your army and the distance they must travel (you need to deploy your army, feed everyone on their way there, maybe lose a few soldiers to wildlife, disease or weather, etc.).
If you attack someone much weaker than you or far away, this overhead may very well be greater than the most you can hope to gain from such an attack (and you can also just refuse to execute such an attack for this reason).
The way this addresses the problem is by limiting who can attack who, which also limits how many times someone can get attacked.
You should be careful here to try to avoid situations where players can only attack a few small number of other players (or no other players).
Note: coming online to find your base severely damaged is generally just not fun
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That's not to say there's no way to make a fun game where this happens, but you should be careful here. I'd only really recommend this if you don't spend too long building a base from scratch to a point where you have something decent (e.g. a few minutes), you have many bases at the same time, thus losing one is not really a big deal, or losing your base still allows you to keep most of your wealth (have a global bank?), which will allow you to quickly get a decent base up and running again. |
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