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 |
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1,504,458 | On a page like <http://localhost/sitename/?q=category/tags/tag1> I've got a layout that's decided by page.tpl.php and then some more fine grained .tpl.php files.
For blogs I'm using page-blogs.tpl.php, for events I have events.tpl.php etc. How can I get a similar page just for the category url's? The reason is that this page.tpl.php is also used for other pages than the categories and I'd rather not put all kind of messy if/else in page.tpl.php
page-category.tpl.php doesn't seem to work.
Any ideas?
Thanks,
Stef | 2009/10/01 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/1504458",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/149664/"
] | If you use the theamer part of the [devel module](http://drupal.org/project/devel), that can show you the candidate templates used. That will give you an idea of what templates to use to override any part of your site. | Second @googletorp -- be careful with devel module as it has wrecked my site's layout in the past. |
12,592 | Totally basic question, but I'm clueless :(.
How do I buy stocks (I'm based in UK)? I want to buy shares of index funds.
[Vanguard in the U.K.](https://vanguard.co.uk) offers following options:
* Invest directly - minimum £100k required per fund (I'd need at least 500k for a portfolio of 5 funds)
* Invest through a platform (I guess this is what I'm looking for?)
What would you recommend?
Is registering with an online brokerage a good way to do that?
**Edit:**
Follow-up question: From what I've read online brokerage holds my shares electronically.
What would happen to the shares and other securities if the company (broker) went bankrupt? | 2011/12/23 | [
"https://money.stackexchange.com/questions/12592",
"https://money.stackexchange.com",
"https://money.stackexchange.com/users/5359/"
] | It's the only way. Vanguard UK will not let *you* invest directly.
So you'd need to decide among the brokers who handle retail investors. [Schwab](http://www.schwab.co.uk/public/schwab-uk-en) is among those who have a UK presence. | You don't buy shares of index funds you invest your money in them, a subtle difference.
There are other low cost index funds that would be suitable for you such as the HSBC ones
<http://www.assetmanagement.hsbc.com/uk/advisers/funds-in-focus/indextrack_fund.html>
These have very low fees which are comparable to those of vanguard but without the large minimum holdings.
For the follow up question, the shares are held in trust for you and there is no risk to them if the broker went bankrupt. However there is the (small) risk of fraud of the broker using clients money/shares inappropriately (as may have been the case with MF Global (The Case is ongoing)). |
12,592 | Totally basic question, but I'm clueless :(.
How do I buy stocks (I'm based in UK)? I want to buy shares of index funds.
[Vanguard in the U.K.](https://vanguard.co.uk) offers following options:
* Invest directly - minimum £100k required per fund (I'd need at least 500k for a portfolio of 5 funds)
* Invest through a platform (I guess this is what I'm looking for?)
What would you recommend?
Is registering with an online brokerage a good way to do that?
**Edit:**
Follow-up question: From what I've read online brokerage holds my shares electronically.
What would happen to the shares and other securities if the company (broker) went bankrupt? | 2011/12/23 | [
"https://money.stackexchange.com/questions/12592",
"https://money.stackexchange.com",
"https://money.stackexchange.com/users/5359/"
] | It's the only way. Vanguard UK will not let *you* invest directly.
So you'd need to decide among the brokers who handle retail investors. [Schwab](http://www.schwab.co.uk/public/schwab-uk-en) is among those who have a UK presence. | Why do you want to by stocks via a unit trust? with all those extra platform charges?
iShares are ETF's that mirror a number of uk (and other indexes) they are brought via a broker like any other share or security.
Id also consider some of the UK investment trusts some of which have been running for 100's of years and have been paying dividends for decade upon decade.
I would investigate the various uk based dealers and pick one whose charges you like.
Money Observer, Investors chronicle would be a couple of good UK based magazines to read to do research as is motley fool UK. |
12,592 | Totally basic question, but I'm clueless :(.
How do I buy stocks (I'm based in UK)? I want to buy shares of index funds.
[Vanguard in the U.K.](https://vanguard.co.uk) offers following options:
* Invest directly - minimum £100k required per fund (I'd need at least 500k for a portfolio of 5 funds)
* Invest through a platform (I guess this is what I'm looking for?)
What would you recommend?
Is registering with an online brokerage a good way to do that?
**Edit:**
Follow-up question: From what I've read online brokerage holds my shares electronically.
What would happen to the shares and other securities if the company (broker) went bankrupt? | 2011/12/23 | [
"https://money.stackexchange.com/questions/12592",
"https://money.stackexchange.com",
"https://money.stackexchange.com/users/5359/"
] | You don't buy shares of index funds you invest your money in them, a subtle difference.
There are other low cost index funds that would be suitable for you such as the HSBC ones
<http://www.assetmanagement.hsbc.com/uk/advisers/funds-in-focus/indextrack_fund.html>
These have very low fees which are comparable to those of vanguard but without the large minimum holdings.
For the follow up question, the shares are held in trust for you and there is no risk to them if the broker went bankrupt. However there is the (small) risk of fraud of the broker using clients money/shares inappropriately (as may have been the case with MF Global (The Case is ongoing)). | Why do you want to by stocks via a unit trust? with all those extra platform charges?
iShares are ETF's that mirror a number of uk (and other indexes) they are brought via a broker like any other share or security.
Id also consider some of the UK investment trusts some of which have been running for 100's of years and have been paying dividends for decade upon decade.
I would investigate the various uk based dealers and pick one whose charges you like.
Money Observer, Investors chronicle would be a couple of good UK based magazines to read to do research as is motley fool UK. |
25,054 | (UK) My girl is 11 months old and is now too big for her baby bouncer chair, which she really loves and it is convenient to put her in to keep her out of the way for a bit.
What comes next? Is there a larger baby bouncer for a 1-2 year old? Is there something else on the market? I think a larger bouncing chair would be ideal for her rather than just surrounding her with pillows. | 2016/05/22 | [
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com/questions/25054",
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com",
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com/users/9297/"
] | If you're using BPA and Pthalate free bottles and nipples, then what we can say is that there's no known significant concern from doing so. It's impossible to say that there are *no* side effects, though,and there could well be other endocrine disruptors not yet known in the plastics (BPA after all was not known about immediately, either).
You will have to weight that for yourself, whether that is a risk worth taking. If your son has a hard time eating from other methods, it seems like that's more of a concern than a small risk from plastics, particularly if you can't afford glass or other options.
Glass is likely the least concerning, as it's effectively inert silicon dioxide which is well understood. That's what we used (Glass bottles with silicon nipples); they're very easy to sterilize and easy to use. Just put a silicon sleeve around them to ensure they don't break as easily.
The claims of 'boosts immunity' are largely incorrect; metals don't do any such thing unless you are deficient in that metal. As far as cooling the body, I find that irrelevant (you don't want formula cool, you want it warm!). Being bacteria free is true to a large extent - it's easier to sterilize metal or glass than plastic, though glass is better (more scratch resistant; scratches can harbor bacteria or other things). | >
> As far as I know, our elders are used this mainly because it is
> bacteria free, boosts immunity, non toxic and cools the body - mainly,
> it will retain and restores freshness of water and liquids.
>
>
>
Boosts immunity? How? Cools the body? Huh? What is the mechanism by which silver "refreshes" a liquid? What does that even mean?
People were using it because it's what they had on hand, that's all.
BPA-free bottles are fine. Anything that gets the milk into the baby, and is easy to clean is fine. The paladai is fine too, IF it's working for you. But it certainly is not as magic as you described it.
Plastic bottles don't need to be sterilized (except before the first use), provided you have safe drinking water available for washing. Just washed in warm soapy water. Use boiling water one a week if you want, you don't have to do that every time. |
3,783,719 | I Am trying to learn the RDBMS. I have question for you guys. Why does a DBMS interleave the actions of the different transactions instead of executing transactions one after another? | 2010/09/24 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3783719",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/356973/"
] | A DBMS is typically shared among many users. Transactions from these users
can be interleaved to improve the execution time of users’ queries. By interleaving
queries, users do not have to wait for other user’s transactions to complete
fully before their own transaction begins. Without interleaving, if user A begins
a transaction that will take 10 seconds to complete, and user B wants to begin
a transaction, user B would have to wait an additional 10 seconds for user
A’s transaction to complete before the database would begin processing user B’s
request. | It is to increase the transaction throughput. Assume that there are five billing machines in a super market and all these machines are connected to a database server. If the server handles transactions in serial order, ie., one after the other, then the use of 5 billing machines is a mere waste. If many transactions are able to be executed simultaneously by the server, then we could add even more billing machines and we are able to generate many bills.
For more information on [transaction management and concepts please visit here](http://www.exploredatabase.com/2016/04/transaction-management-in-database-management-systems.html). |
3,783,719 | I Am trying to learn the RDBMS. I have question for you guys. Why does a DBMS interleave the actions of the different transactions instead of executing transactions one after another? | 2010/09/24 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3783719",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/356973/"
] | A DBMS is typically shared among many users. Transactions from these users
can be interleaved to improve the execution time of users’ queries. By interleaving
queries, users do not have to wait for other user’s transactions to complete
fully before their own transaction begins. Without interleaving, if user A begins
a transaction that will take 10 seconds to complete, and user B wants to begin
a transaction, user B would have to wait an additional 10 seconds for user
A’s transaction to complete before the database would begin processing user B’s
request. | The transaction can be defined as the group of tasks or the program unit which after execution changes the contents of a database.
To decrease waiting time of users DBMS uses concurrent transactions.
[DBMS Transactions](https://whatisdbms.com/explain-dbms-transactions/) |
3,783,719 | I Am trying to learn the RDBMS. I have question for you guys. Why does a DBMS interleave the actions of the different transactions instead of executing transactions one after another? | 2010/09/24 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3783719",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/356973/"
] | It is to increase the transaction throughput. Assume that there are five billing machines in a super market and all these machines are connected to a database server. If the server handles transactions in serial order, ie., one after the other, then the use of 5 billing machines is a mere waste. If many transactions are able to be executed simultaneously by the server, then we could add even more billing machines and we are able to generate many bills.
For more information on [transaction management and concepts please visit here](http://www.exploredatabase.com/2016/04/transaction-management-in-database-management-systems.html). | The transaction can be defined as the group of tasks or the program unit which after execution changes the contents of a database.
To decrease waiting time of users DBMS uses concurrent transactions.
[DBMS Transactions](https://whatisdbms.com/explain-dbms-transactions/) |
92,230 | Coronavirus, HIV, 1918 Flu, etc. They all come from animals. Do any infectious diseases (in humans) come from plants? More specifically, are there viruses that infect plants that can mutate to infect humans? | 2020/03/30 | [
"https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/92230",
"https://biology.stackexchange.com",
"https://biology.stackexchange.com/users/5735/"
] | **Question**
>
> “Are there viruses that infect plants that can mutate to infect
> humans?”
>
>
>
**Answer**
*None appear to have been reported so far.* It is difficult to provide supporting evidence for an assertion that they do not exist, but a recent review on the relationship between plant and animal viromes does not include any examples, and our general understanding of the mechanisms by which viruses infect organisms and cells suggest that this is unlikely. *There are, however, examples of plant viruses replicating in the insect vectors that transmit them.*
**Evidence**
In 2011 Dolja and Koonin of the NIH published a review in [*Current Opinion in Virology* **1** 322-331](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3293486/) entitled *Common origins and host-dependent diversity of plant and animal viromes*. In this they considered:
>
> “…three distinct scenarios for the origin of related viruses of plants
> and animals: i) evolution from a common ancestral virus predating the
> divergence of plants and animals; ii) horizontal transfer of viruses,
> for example, through insect vectors; iii) parallel origin from related
> genetic elements.”
>
>
>
The very fact that there was a need to argue for a relationship indicates the assumed distinction between animal and plant viruses, and indeed they write:
>
> “…plants are not known to support reproduction of dsDNA viruses and
> retroviruses.”
>
>
>
The only reference in the whole article to an actual biological relationship between animal and plant viruses is the following:
>
> “Strikingly, viruses of the order *Mononegavirales* and the family
> *Bunyaviridae*… can also reproduce in their arthropod vectors.”
>
>
>
The paper referenced in support of this statement is by Hogenhout *et al.* and was published in the *Annual Review of Phytophathology* (2008) **46** 327–359, and is entitled [*Insect Vector Interactions with Persistently Transmitted Viruses*](https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.phyto.022508.09213). From this it emerges that there is a class of plant viruses called *persistent propogative viruses* which replicate in the circulation of their insect vectors, in contrast to most types of circulative viruses. The insects involved include the leafhopper (illustrated below in Fig 1 from that review) and the [thrip](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrips).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/nmz5a.png)
*Schematic representation of persistent virus transmission by a leafhopper. Viruses that are transmitted in a circulative persistent manner do not replicate in the insect and usually enter the salivary glands from the hemolymph. In plants, replication of circulative viruses is frequently restricted to the phloem tissues. In contrast, most propagative viruses replicate in several plant tissues and in different organs of the insect vectors ( yellow arrows) and may enter the salivary glands either from the hemolymph or from other connecting tissues, e.g., the nervous system or trachea.*
It is not clear to me whether the virus is in any way detremental to the insect vector — certainly it is not the primary target of the virus, and replication can be regarded as allowing it to survive longer before the insect transmits it to the plant.
**Today insects, tomorrow people?**
The very fact that persistent propogative insect viruses can replicate in their animal vectors raises the question whether the insects could somehow transmit them to human beings. In an [answer to a different question](https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/90174/is-there-any-disease-in-common-between-human-and-insects/90493#90493) on whether insect pathogens can infect humans I have argued that the absence of examples in situations where people come into close contact with insects and the difference in anatomy and molecular structure of cell membranes makes this unlikely. In the present case we are not even talking about an insect pathogen, but a plant pathogen. | This is a great biological question! I'm glad we encourage such questions from curious people who want to learn more about modern biology.
Much as other animals can be [vectors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_(epidemiology)) for diseases that infect humans, plants can be vectors for pathogenic infectious agents.
You may occasionally read news stories of [disease-causing strains](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathogenic_Escherichia_coli) of *[Escherichia coli](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escherichia_coli)* which contaminate vegetables and force product recalls. There is currently a [CDC advisory](https://www.cdc.gov/ecoli/2020/o103h2-02-20/index.html) to not eat clover sprouts, as an example, because of contamination with *E. coli* O103, a strain which can cause a variety of health problems (including kidney damage, in severe cases).
This kind of contamination is becoming more common, largely as a consequence of [how we produce food](https://extension.colostate.edu/topic-areas/nutrition-food-safety-health/preventing-e-coli-from-garden-to-plate-9-369/):
>
> Fresh fruits and vegetables once were thought to be relatively free of disease-producing pathogens. In recent years, however, outbreaks of foodborne illness linked to fruits and vegetables have become more common. These outbreaks come from produce grown both in the United States and in other countries. Outbreaks have been linked to *Escherichia coli* O157:H7 and *Salmonella* on apples, lettuce, cantaloupe and sprouts; *Listeria monocytogenes* on cabbage and cantaloupe; *Shigella* on parsley and lettuce; and *Cyclospora* on imported raspberries.
>
>
> Changes in microorganisms have undoubtedly contributed to this increase, as have changes in growing, harvesting, distribution, processing and consumption practices. *Listeria monocytogenes*, *Clostridium botulinum* and *Bacillus cereus* are naturally present in some soils. Their presence on fresh produce is not uncommon. *Salmonella*, *E. coli* O157:H7, *Campylobacter jejuni*, *Vibrio cholerae*, parasites and viruses can contaminate produce through raw or improperly composted manure, irrigation water containing untreated sewage or manure, and contaminated wash water. Contact with mammals, reptiles, fowl, insects and unpasteurized animal products are other sources of contamination.
>
>
>
Wash your fruits and veggies! |
3,962,304 | What is the best way to manage GPS coordinates (latitude and longitude) in django models ?
I know that there is a module called GeoDjango but reading the tutorial seems dedicated to GIS and not simply to manage the latitude and longitude.
I do not care to have convenient interface for the admin because int the application I'm creatin the admin is virtually absent. But instead the application will often comunicate with mobile device such as iPhone that,for example, treat coordinates as double (double typedef CLLocationDegrees).
I would simply like an easy way to manage these data in the model? | 2010/10/18 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3962304",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/76593/"
] | They help you write efficient code and solve problems in optimal or near-optimal ways. Without them, you will be reinventing the wheel - not always successfully.
Also, they help you structure your code, so that it can be maintained more easily by encouraging a better design / implementation. | Algorithms and data structures are the basic tools of a programmer. They are as essential as a hammer (or nail gun) to a house framer. They are the tools that solve problems so you don't have to reinvent the solution.
You should understand what they are, why and how they work, and what their shortcomings are. Knowing this will save you a huge amount of time that could be wasted trying to solve a problem that has a solution. |
3,962,304 | What is the best way to manage GPS coordinates (latitude and longitude) in django models ?
I know that there is a module called GeoDjango but reading the tutorial seems dedicated to GIS and not simply to manage the latitude and longitude.
I do not care to have convenient interface for the admin because int the application I'm creatin the admin is virtually absent. But instead the application will often comunicate with mobile device such as iPhone that,for example, treat coordinates as double (double typedef CLLocationDegrees).
I would simply like an easy way to manage these data in the model? | 2010/10/18 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3962304",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/76593/"
] | They help you write efficient code and solve problems in optimal or near-optimal ways. Without them, you will be reinventing the wheel - not always successfully.
Also, they help you structure your code, so that it can be maintained more easily by encouraging a better design / implementation. | You can get by programming without being proficient in a particular language, but you cannot program without the knowledge of data structures. Data structures are more of a Computer Science obsession. Each problem will have its own ideal data structure that fits naturally to it and to manipualte the data in the structure you will need algorithms. |
3,962,304 | What is the best way to manage GPS coordinates (latitude and longitude) in django models ?
I know that there is a module called GeoDjango but reading the tutorial seems dedicated to GIS and not simply to manage the latitude and longitude.
I do not care to have convenient interface for the admin because int the application I'm creatin the admin is virtually absent. But instead the application will often comunicate with mobile device such as iPhone that,for example, treat coordinates as double (double typedef CLLocationDegrees).
I would simply like an easy way to manage these data in the model? | 2010/10/18 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3962304",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/76593/"
] | Algorithms and data structures are the basic tools of a programmer. They are as essential as a hammer (or nail gun) to a house framer. They are the tools that solve problems so you don't have to reinvent the solution.
You should understand what they are, why and how they work, and what their shortcomings are. Knowing this will save you a huge amount of time that could be wasted trying to solve a problem that has a solution. | You can get by programming without being proficient in a particular language, but you cannot program without the knowledge of data structures. Data structures are more of a Computer Science obsession. Each problem will have its own ideal data structure that fits naturally to it and to manipualte the data in the structure you will need algorithms. |
202,583 | Star Trek TOS has (at least) two computers with round screens, the M5 and the Beta 5 described below. This is an *out-of-universe* question on the design of the props.
Both remind me of the early PDP computers shown in [this question](https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/q/8493/7118) but I don't know if it is just a coincidence (round CRTs were more common then perhaps?) or if inspiration was really drawn from real computers of the time. Is there any information on this, or perhaps on the people who designed the computers for the sets of these episodes?
I'm also interested if there is any information on the artistic design of the moving/drifting wavy lines, projected onto the round screen of M5 and in the upper rectangular screen of the Beta 5, and the rectangular displays with fixed, thin rectilinear color lines. I could ask that separately if someone expresses an interest in answering separately.
---
M5 (The Ultimate Computer)
--------------------------
From [this answer](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/199086/51174):
>
> In the TOS episode [The Ultimate Computer](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Ultimate_Computer_(episode)) the famous scientist [Dr. Richard Daystrom](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Richard_Daystrom) (namesake of the [Daystron Institude](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Daystrom_Institute)) has a mental breakdown after the M5, closely modeled after Daystrom's own mind, had committed what Daystrom felt to be murder by intentionally destroying a Starfleet ship as part of an exercise gone wrong. At the end, Daystrom needed to be taken to "a total rehabilitation facility".
>
>
>
Screen shot from [Star Trek: Daystrom Speaks to The Unit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjIj-2ww53o):
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/NZLD4.jpg)
Beta 5 (Assignment Earth)
-------------------------
The [Beta 5 Computer](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Beta_5_computer)
>
> ...was a sophisticated computer built by unknown aliens from a hidden planet located more than 1,000 light years from Earth. It was installed in 1968 at 811 East 68th Street, Apartment 12-B in New York City, which was occupied by pseudo-secret agent Gary Seven.
>
>
>
Screen shot from [Star Trek - Missile Alert](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfAP6fJZ1is)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/zrw8W.jpg) | 2019/01/02 | [
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/202583",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/users/51174/"
] | You have asked *two* questions.
**Who designed the props?**
**NKCampbell** generously provided information in his comment below:
>
> the prop master for "Assignment: Earth" was named Irving Feinberg fwiw. He would have been involved to some degree with it - either picking stuff out from a prop house or computer equipment dealer or working w/ the production design staff
>
>
>
**What inspired the circular computer screens?**
This I can answer with some small degree of first hand knowledge. For this, you need to know a little about computer and electronics history.
A **CRT** is a *Cathode Ray Tube*. It works by sending a stream of electrons out, interrupted for ‘off’ pixels on the display. The radiation is directed by pairs of electromagnets, one pair to deflect the beam horizontally, and one pair to deflect the beam vertically. [You can read more over at howstuffworks.com](https://computer.howstuffworks.com/monitor7.htm).
Very old equipment, such as an [oscilloscope](https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=oscilloscope+vintage) (link to Google image search) had an even coat of phosphorus on the display, and you could actually see the beam tracing back and forth (which was the point). Adjust the frequency low enough and watch for hours of fun. (Don’t be distracted by the square ‘lines’ — they were painted on the glass.)
The design was rather primitive, and a round screen was very much easier both to manufacture and to program for the bounds of the beam. [Google finds pics of vintage TVs easily](https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=old+round+crt). The edges are rounded, not because of the signal encoding (the TV signal has always been for a rectangular image, IIRC), but because the image at the corners was either missing (cropped due to the bounds on the beam) or not very well defined (and hence fuzzy, and fuzzy is bad marketing).
More modern CRTs, like the stuff you grew up with in the 70s and 80s actually swept the beam much further than the (square) display, and had hardware to control turning the beam off past the edges, and a significantly more complex hardware for controlling the beam to strike the RGB phosphors in color TVs. (Get yourself an old EGA/VGA hardware manual if you want some interesting technical reading — you can control the bounds directly with software! :-)
Now, **the idea of round displays** was not new even with Star Trek. You can see round display screens in older sci-fi like Flash Gordon. Here’s a pic I found of an old FG comic featuring a round view screen. Looks a lot like an oscilloscope, doesn’t it?  Round displays even featured in TV episodes along with the bleach-bottle ray guns.
During the late 40s and through the 50s, when people thought of hi-tech stuff, they thought of these cool devices that showed a picture. They thought of early televisions, which in the 60s still were new, high-tech stuff operated by nerdy science-y people.
Even today round is sleek and high-tech. I bet you can easily find many sci-fi movies featuring pretty, round/curved, holographic/see-through/awesome futuristic displays, with *no square corners*, all on your own.
**Moving, drifty, waving lines**
Simply, money. Oh, and corporate aesthetics. Psychadelic, cool stuff doesn't look like the text-graphics computer displays in the Andromeda Strain. .
Star Trek (TOS) was shot on an exceedingly tight budget given what they were doing. Masking part of an image to place another above it was a time-consuming technique. Doing things like lining up a spaceship against a planet was an expensive task. Why spend time and money to display something that we would consider ‘real’ that had no effect on the plot? It was much easier to simply put up a pretty color wash that got perfectly cropped by the masking.
Even if Spock had to look into the display and ‘read’ something, it wasn't too far-fetched. A lot of old optical equipment could only properly display things to people directly in front of it. Those in the audience’s position would not see anything more than colored light. I suppose that on Star Trek the displays were just more advanced so you got a lot of colors. That or it was a screensaver, LOL.
**tl;dr**
So, to finish, the main points are:
* It wasn't really new, just pretty and more futuristic versions of stuff we already had
* It was cheap and easy to produce that way
Enjoy! | Circular screens, and horizontal/vertical linear lights of Star Trek TOS computers:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/hzNOa.jpg) [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/QaMgd.jpg)
---
I just ran across these images in Theclever.com's [15 Huge Supercomputers That Were Less Powerful Than Your Smartphone](https://www.theclever.com/15-huge-supercomputers-that-were-less-powerful-than-your-smartphone/)
### Circular Screens
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ntUTS.jpg)
>
> 11. CDC 6600
>
>
> In the 1960s and 1970s, one person, Seymour Cray, pretty much ruled the supercomputing world. Think of him as the Elon Musk of the “Mad Men” era, sans electric car. While working for CDC, he designed the first true supercomputer, the CDC 6600. Released in 1964, the 6600 was three times as fast as its closest competitor, boasting a processing speed of three megaflops, or 300,000 floating point operations per second—making it the fastest supercomputer in the world at the time. By comparison, the iPhone 5S, now almost a junker of a smartphone, can handle 76.8 gigaflops (that’s 768 trillion flops). Cray would go on to form his own company, Cray Research, which set the pace for supercomputers for the next two decades.
>
>
>
### Horizontal/vertical linear lights
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/0nJK1.jpg)
>
> 2.INTEL PARAGON XP/S 140
>
>
> The Samsung Galaxy S5, released over two years ago, is on par with 1994’s hottest supercomputer, Intel’s Paragon XP/S 140. The supercomputer had a benchmark speed of 143.4 gigaflops, while the Galaxy S5 comes in just under that speed metric at about 142 gigaflops. The Paragon was a massively parallel supercomputer, meaning it used a whole lot of processors, or separate computers, to perform a set of computations simultaneously. Supercomputers after the Paragon XP/S 140 began to really prove out Moore’s Law, and finally, in the mid-1990s, they began bringing the speed. The Hitachi SR2201 quickly succeeded the Intel Paragon and the Numerical Wind Tunnel in 1996 with a processing speed of 220.4 gigaflops, and by the early 2000s most supercomputers were easily jumping over the teraflop barrier.
>
>
> |
69,041,706 | How can I request permission for accessing the device microphone for recording audio in Flutter?
I have tried looking this up but haven't been able to find a clear answer. | 2021/09/03 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/69041706",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/15151446/"
] | For me it was because I copied a flutter project folder. I deleted the .fvm folder and did fvm use and it worked | I don't know if this is the correct way but I solved it by running vscode as administrator. |
69,041,706 | How can I request permission for accessing the device microphone for recording audio in Flutter?
I have tried looking this up but haven't been able to find a clear answer. | 2021/09/03 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/69041706",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/15151446/"
] | I fixed this issue by turning on developer mode as the logs suggest. Go to your Settings, search for Developer settings and enable it from there. Now restart the IDE and try again. | I don't know if this is the correct way but I solved it by running vscode as administrator. |
69,041,706 | How can I request permission for accessing the device microphone for recording audio in Flutter?
I have tried looking this up but haven't been able to find a clear answer. | 2021/09/03 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/69041706",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/15151446/"
] | For me it was because I copied a flutter project folder. I deleted the .fvm folder and did fvm use and it worked | I fixed this issue by turning on developer mode as the logs suggest. Go to your Settings, search for Developer settings and enable it from there. Now restart the IDE and try again. |
345,414 | I have an API which is basically comprised of two parts: 1. A TensorFlow neural net that provides predictions based on input image (mainly GPU computations) and 2. Post processing on those predictions (mainly CPU)
This is kind of a best practices/recommendation question. What I am wondering is if these two sections of the application should be decoupled, placed in separate Docker containers and scaled separately. There is no other use for the TensorFlow predictions (no other apps would want to receive predictions directly so there is no need for decoupling in terms of accessibility).
The only scenario I can think of that would warrant decoupling is if the Post-Processing consumed a large amount of CPU resources that forced the application to scale when the GPU was being underutilized (the prediction part of the app was handling the load just fine) and by forcing the application to scale we are using more GPU resources than necessary.
However as long as sufficient CPU resources can be allocated to the server so that the point at which the app scales is a point of high utilization on both the CPU and GPU I would see no reason why the services should be decoupled.
Hopefully this makes sense - any suggestions? | 2017/04/02 | [
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/345414",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/users/267377/"
] | From experience at my current job, decouple as soon as you can. Design things as far apart as possible. We have some similar workflows at my current job from the sounds of it so let me give an anecdote from my world.
In the begining we did A and B, B was dependent on A so it made sense to just throw them together. Then we started doing C which was really independent of A and B, but hey, it's easier to just throw it right after B than to rework some small aspects of our product. Then one day D and E showed up at the door. D was independent of everything at this point but E requires C and D. The effort to now split up the work is much greater than when we had just A,B and C. So we just throw D and E in line.
Oh look F,G,H, and J just walked through the door, each with a big pile of money; now we need to work fast, no time to rework things. Who cares three of the 4 are independent and by throwing them into the mix one after one another we are doing huge amounts of unneeded work.
Now we do all the work for everybody, but clients only pay us for what they want to see so we just don't return the parts of the response a client does not pay us for.
(BTW, sounds like I am ragging on my employer, but I love the work. Thankfully I work almost exclusively on the individual modules and not on the glue sticking them together, the people working mostly on the glue though do have a bit of a different attitude which is a different story altogether.) | My preference will be decoupling, since you will not need post processing for every image you have. It will give you a more flexible portfolio of services for future optimization and scalability as you stated.
Your desired functionality, requirements for speed and resource allocation will decide it though. You can start with one implementation and give a month for a dry run, and if you are not happy with your results you can revert to the other too. Best option might be giving a unified interface to the user but implementing in a decoupled fashion. |
5,123 | I had a website tying messages-with gifts online around 2006. I notice that there are several patents dealing with this topic and I believe that I have written evidence that I considered the same processes that are now patented. I am wondering if I have something to sell to the patent holders? | 2013/09/25 | [
"https://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/5123",
"https://patents.stackexchange.com",
"https://patents.stackexchange.com/users/5864/"
] | I am not a patent agent or attorney, yet I believe patent agents and attorneys' help is extremely valuable for filing patent applications because of **their experience**. You can do large parts of the filing yourself, yet you should better seek help for writing the application and the arguments during prosecution.
**It is quite easy to obtain a patent entirely on your own**. If you invented something worth patenting, and have some experience in writing say scientific papers, you can get a patent on this invention eventually. It requires quite a fair amount of work, quite a long time, but it's doable. However, the patent you will get might be worth nothing at all *from an IP point of view*. It might even be counter-productive as it will publicly disclose your invention.
The description is filed initially, and mostly cannot be changed. It sets the priority date. If you realize you missed something in your description, you might need to file a new patent application and added matter will get a new priority date. Since patent prosecution is long, you will typically realize this during examination, several years later, and your invention will not be so fresh and will therefore be less patentable.
**Patent agents and attorneys will help you get the description right initially**. They can ask you to write a description of your invention and will transform it to make it a great patent application. For example, they know about subtle elements that must be present the description, especially in the difficult field of software patents. They know this because they are aware of appeals decisions and they acquired experience from past cases with other clients. You could read about appeals and other decisions, learn from blogs (and pass the exam to become an agent yourself), yet there are things you will only learn from experience of prosecution. Besides, if you plan to seek patents internationally, you will need help from agents or attorneys who are aware of usage abroad.
**Patent agents and attorneys will also help for writing claims**. Part of this help comes from *not being the inventor* and understanding the value of the patent application. Part of this help also comes from their experience of prosecution. Also, they know the usage for writing claims, but you can figure this out yourself.
**Patent agents and attorneys also know how to argue with examiners**. This is less critical than getting the description right initially, yet it is both a time-saver and a way to get a patent *as broad as possible*. Examination is often tough and office actions are not always easy to understand. Besides, not being the inventor helps them react rationally. They also know the usage for writing amendments, but you can figure this out yourself.
**Patent agents and attorneys know how to file forms** and design figures that respect the requirements. This is the less critical aspect and will only save time. If you do it wrong, the office will usually give you a chance to fix the forms or the figures.
Eventually, **patent agents and attorneys know about the timing**. They typically use software or some tool to perform all operations in time. Most offices will tell you about acceptable delays for procedure, and in many cases *you can do things late with a financial penalty*. Yet failing to respect timing can invalidate your application. | You might consider writing a patent using this analogy: writing a critical app using a new coding language that is vaguely related to the language you presently prefer, but that has a few interesting type conventions which, if you don't know about them, will lead to significant bugs.
You get one chance to compile and debug, after the code is written. The compiler may produce recoverable errors, or it may produce unrecoverable errors. The recoverable errors will cost $1000s to fix, while the unrecoverable ones will not be fixable.
How do you feel about writing a patent document on your own? |
5,123 | I had a website tying messages-with gifts online around 2006. I notice that there are several patents dealing with this topic and I believe that I have written evidence that I considered the same processes that are now patented. I am wondering if I have something to sell to the patent holders? | 2013/09/25 | [
"https://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/5123",
"https://patents.stackexchange.com",
"https://patents.stackexchange.com/users/5864/"
] | You might consider writing a patent using this analogy: writing a critical app using a new coding language that is vaguely related to the language you presently prefer, but that has a few interesting type conventions which, if you don't know about them, will lead to significant bugs.
You get one chance to compile and debug, after the code is written. The compiler may produce recoverable errors, or it may produce unrecoverable errors. The recoverable errors will cost $1000s to fix, while the unrecoverable ones will not be fixable.
How do you feel about writing a patent document on your own? | I agree completely with Ken S (the above poster), and couldn't put it better. I have also drafted my own patent application, and my lawyer has had to change very little.
Writing the claims is something else. It seems to require a different, more strategic approach, than the descriptions. Those are truly just technical documents detailing your invention and illustrating the novel aspects.
Still, going it alone might not always be a bad choice. The claims I had written, but not shown, to my lawyer were nearly identical to her wording and substance as well. Either she is a bad lawyer or I've grasped something about the process.
Studying approved patents, and also what happened to those products, is great practice whether you lawyer-up or not. |
5,123 | I had a website tying messages-with gifts online around 2006. I notice that there are several patents dealing with this topic and I believe that I have written evidence that I considered the same processes that are now patented. I am wondering if I have something to sell to the patent holders? | 2013/09/25 | [
"https://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/5123",
"https://patents.stackexchange.com",
"https://patents.stackexchange.com/users/5864/"
] | I am not a patent agent or attorney, yet I believe patent agents and attorneys' help is extremely valuable for filing patent applications because of **their experience**. You can do large parts of the filing yourself, yet you should better seek help for writing the application and the arguments during prosecution.
**It is quite easy to obtain a patent entirely on your own**. If you invented something worth patenting, and have some experience in writing say scientific papers, you can get a patent on this invention eventually. It requires quite a fair amount of work, quite a long time, but it's doable. However, the patent you will get might be worth nothing at all *from an IP point of view*. It might even be counter-productive as it will publicly disclose your invention.
The description is filed initially, and mostly cannot be changed. It sets the priority date. If you realize you missed something in your description, you might need to file a new patent application and added matter will get a new priority date. Since patent prosecution is long, you will typically realize this during examination, several years later, and your invention will not be so fresh and will therefore be less patentable.
**Patent agents and attorneys will help you get the description right initially**. They can ask you to write a description of your invention and will transform it to make it a great patent application. For example, they know about subtle elements that must be present the description, especially in the difficult field of software patents. They know this because they are aware of appeals decisions and they acquired experience from past cases with other clients. You could read about appeals and other decisions, learn from blogs (and pass the exam to become an agent yourself), yet there are things you will only learn from experience of prosecution. Besides, if you plan to seek patents internationally, you will need help from agents or attorneys who are aware of usage abroad.
**Patent agents and attorneys will also help for writing claims**. Part of this help comes from *not being the inventor* and understanding the value of the patent application. Part of this help also comes from their experience of prosecution. Also, they know the usage for writing claims, but you can figure this out yourself.
**Patent agents and attorneys also know how to argue with examiners**. This is less critical than getting the description right initially, yet it is both a time-saver and a way to get a patent *as broad as possible*. Examination is often tough and office actions are not always easy to understand. Besides, not being the inventor helps them react rationally. They also know the usage for writing amendments, but you can figure this out yourself.
**Patent agents and attorneys know how to file forms** and design figures that respect the requirements. This is the less critical aspect and will only save time. If you do it wrong, the office will usually give you a chance to fix the forms or the figures.
Eventually, **patent agents and attorneys know about the timing**. They typically use software or some tool to perform all operations in time. Most offices will tell you about acceptable delays for procedure, and in many cases *you can do things late with a financial penalty*. Yet failing to respect timing can invalidate your application. | There are inventors who do a reasonable job of drafting a provisional application that has some value. If they understand the limits of the value they are getting and do not get a false sense of security from it, they will probably be better off than if they had done nothing. Although I do **not** recommend writing your own patent application, I **do** highly recommend reading *Patent it Yourself* by David Pressman. It is updated every year and he has a web site covering errata and changes in the law. If you study the book, do not skip the complex parts or the boring parts and feel confident you could write a regular patent application then you might be able to write a provisional application without shooting yourself in the foot.
The more abstract and complex your invention is the lower the likelihood is that you, or anyone, will get it right. But there are prolific inventors who follow courts cases, attend the annual USPTO independent inventor conferences in D.C. and faithfully read the PatentlyO blog every day. If you consistently have 10 good ideas a year and are willing to learn enough so you could almost pass the patent bar exam (you can find old ones on-line) and to play the percentages of winning and loosing, getting better at it as you go, then have at it.
I am a relative newbie, having passed the patent bar five years ago in order to get into a second career as a patent agent after being an engineer, technical manager and entrepreneur for 20+ years. I was always the person interfacing between the outside patent attorneys and the engineer/inventors and I thought I had a pretty good handle on the topic. I didn't.
The first step in becoming a registered patent practitioner is filling out a form and sending it with your college transcript to the USPTO. I got the form back with a letter: "Please fill out and submit the form again. You included your name on line 1a, thank you, but you neglected to fill in your name as it appears on your government issued ID in line 1b." Just the tip of the iceberg of nits to get right or your patent goes abandoned.
*After* studying for and passing the patent bar (it has a 50% pass rate), I decided to take one of my own (lame) ideas and do a patentability search and then write an application before I hung up a shingle to take on anyone else's project. Every week for three months I announced to my wife that "Last week I thought I knew what I was doing but I was wrong, now I really do know what I am doing." |
5,123 | I had a website tying messages-with gifts online around 2006. I notice that there are several patents dealing with this topic and I believe that I have written evidence that I considered the same processes that are now patented. I am wondering if I have something to sell to the patent holders? | 2013/09/25 | [
"https://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/5123",
"https://patents.stackexchange.com",
"https://patents.stackexchange.com/users/5864/"
] | There are inventors who do a reasonable job of drafting a provisional application that has some value. If they understand the limits of the value they are getting and do not get a false sense of security from it, they will probably be better off than if they had done nothing. Although I do **not** recommend writing your own patent application, I **do** highly recommend reading *Patent it Yourself* by David Pressman. It is updated every year and he has a web site covering errata and changes in the law. If you study the book, do not skip the complex parts or the boring parts and feel confident you could write a regular patent application then you might be able to write a provisional application without shooting yourself in the foot.
The more abstract and complex your invention is the lower the likelihood is that you, or anyone, will get it right. But there are prolific inventors who follow courts cases, attend the annual USPTO independent inventor conferences in D.C. and faithfully read the PatentlyO blog every day. If you consistently have 10 good ideas a year and are willing to learn enough so you could almost pass the patent bar exam (you can find old ones on-line) and to play the percentages of winning and loosing, getting better at it as you go, then have at it.
I am a relative newbie, having passed the patent bar five years ago in order to get into a second career as a patent agent after being an engineer, technical manager and entrepreneur for 20+ years. I was always the person interfacing between the outside patent attorneys and the engineer/inventors and I thought I had a pretty good handle on the topic. I didn't.
The first step in becoming a registered patent practitioner is filling out a form and sending it with your college transcript to the USPTO. I got the form back with a letter: "Please fill out and submit the form again. You included your name on line 1a, thank you, but you neglected to fill in your name as it appears on your government issued ID in line 1b." Just the tip of the iceberg of nits to get right or your patent goes abandoned.
*After* studying for and passing the patent bar (it has a 50% pass rate), I decided to take one of my own (lame) ideas and do a patentability search and then write an application before I hung up a shingle to take on anyone else's project. Every week for three months I announced to my wife that "Last week I thought I knew what I was doing but I was wrong, now I really do know what I am doing." | I agree completely with Ken S (the above poster), and couldn't put it better. I have also drafted my own patent application, and my lawyer has had to change very little.
Writing the claims is something else. It seems to require a different, more strategic approach, than the descriptions. Those are truly just technical documents detailing your invention and illustrating the novel aspects.
Still, going it alone might not always be a bad choice. The claims I had written, but not shown, to my lawyer were nearly identical to her wording and substance as well. Either she is a bad lawyer or I've grasped something about the process.
Studying approved patents, and also what happened to those products, is great practice whether you lawyer-up or not. |
5,123 | I had a website tying messages-with gifts online around 2006. I notice that there are several patents dealing with this topic and I believe that I have written evidence that I considered the same processes that are now patented. I am wondering if I have something to sell to the patent holders? | 2013/09/25 | [
"https://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/5123",
"https://patents.stackexchange.com",
"https://patents.stackexchange.com/users/5864/"
] | I am not a patent agent or attorney, yet I believe patent agents and attorneys' help is extremely valuable for filing patent applications because of **their experience**. You can do large parts of the filing yourself, yet you should better seek help for writing the application and the arguments during prosecution.
**It is quite easy to obtain a patent entirely on your own**. If you invented something worth patenting, and have some experience in writing say scientific papers, you can get a patent on this invention eventually. It requires quite a fair amount of work, quite a long time, but it's doable. However, the patent you will get might be worth nothing at all *from an IP point of view*. It might even be counter-productive as it will publicly disclose your invention.
The description is filed initially, and mostly cannot be changed. It sets the priority date. If you realize you missed something in your description, you might need to file a new patent application and added matter will get a new priority date. Since patent prosecution is long, you will typically realize this during examination, several years later, and your invention will not be so fresh and will therefore be less patentable.
**Patent agents and attorneys will help you get the description right initially**. They can ask you to write a description of your invention and will transform it to make it a great patent application. For example, they know about subtle elements that must be present the description, especially in the difficult field of software patents. They know this because they are aware of appeals decisions and they acquired experience from past cases with other clients. You could read about appeals and other decisions, learn from blogs (and pass the exam to become an agent yourself), yet there are things you will only learn from experience of prosecution. Besides, if you plan to seek patents internationally, you will need help from agents or attorneys who are aware of usage abroad.
**Patent agents and attorneys will also help for writing claims**. Part of this help comes from *not being the inventor* and understanding the value of the patent application. Part of this help also comes from their experience of prosecution. Also, they know the usage for writing claims, but you can figure this out yourself.
**Patent agents and attorneys also know how to argue with examiners**. This is less critical than getting the description right initially, yet it is both a time-saver and a way to get a patent *as broad as possible*. Examination is often tough and office actions are not always easy to understand. Besides, not being the inventor helps them react rationally. They also know the usage for writing amendments, but you can figure this out yourself.
**Patent agents and attorneys know how to file forms** and design figures that respect the requirements. This is the less critical aspect and will only save time. If you do it wrong, the office will usually give you a chance to fix the forms or the figures.
Eventually, **patent agents and attorneys know about the timing**. They typically use software or some tool to perform all operations in time. Most offices will tell you about acceptable delays for procedure, and in many cases *you can do things late with a financial penalty*. Yet failing to respect timing can invalidate your application. | 80% of a patent you can write yourself. I have written over 50. The process is very straight forward as long as you understand how to organize it. I have probably saved over $100,000 writing my own.
The part you absolutely want to have a lawyer do (keyword: absolutely!) is drafting your claims. This language is key to obtaining your patent and getting your claims accepted. It is an "art form" few master with out considerable experience. I would also advise having a lawyer submit your patent as the submittal, and follow on correspondence, can be tricky. |
5,123 | I had a website tying messages-with gifts online around 2006. I notice that there are several patents dealing with this topic and I believe that I have written evidence that I considered the same processes that are now patented. I am wondering if I have something to sell to the patent holders? | 2013/09/25 | [
"https://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/5123",
"https://patents.stackexchange.com",
"https://patents.stackexchange.com/users/5864/"
] | I am not a patent agent or attorney, yet I believe patent agents and attorneys' help is extremely valuable for filing patent applications because of **their experience**. You can do large parts of the filing yourself, yet you should better seek help for writing the application and the arguments during prosecution.
**It is quite easy to obtain a patent entirely on your own**. If you invented something worth patenting, and have some experience in writing say scientific papers, you can get a patent on this invention eventually. It requires quite a fair amount of work, quite a long time, but it's doable. However, the patent you will get might be worth nothing at all *from an IP point of view*. It might even be counter-productive as it will publicly disclose your invention.
The description is filed initially, and mostly cannot be changed. It sets the priority date. If you realize you missed something in your description, you might need to file a new patent application and added matter will get a new priority date. Since patent prosecution is long, you will typically realize this during examination, several years later, and your invention will not be so fresh and will therefore be less patentable.
**Patent agents and attorneys will help you get the description right initially**. They can ask you to write a description of your invention and will transform it to make it a great patent application. For example, they know about subtle elements that must be present the description, especially in the difficult field of software patents. They know this because they are aware of appeals decisions and they acquired experience from past cases with other clients. You could read about appeals and other decisions, learn from blogs (and pass the exam to become an agent yourself), yet there are things you will only learn from experience of prosecution. Besides, if you plan to seek patents internationally, you will need help from agents or attorneys who are aware of usage abroad.
**Patent agents and attorneys will also help for writing claims**. Part of this help comes from *not being the inventor* and understanding the value of the patent application. Part of this help also comes from their experience of prosecution. Also, they know the usage for writing claims, but you can figure this out yourself.
**Patent agents and attorneys also know how to argue with examiners**. This is less critical than getting the description right initially, yet it is both a time-saver and a way to get a patent *as broad as possible*. Examination is often tough and office actions are not always easy to understand. Besides, not being the inventor helps them react rationally. They also know the usage for writing amendments, but you can figure this out yourself.
**Patent agents and attorneys know how to file forms** and design figures that respect the requirements. This is the less critical aspect and will only save time. If you do it wrong, the office will usually give you a chance to fix the forms or the figures.
Eventually, **patent agents and attorneys know about the timing**. They typically use software or some tool to perform all operations in time. Most offices will tell you about acceptable delays for procedure, and in many cases *you can do things late with a financial penalty*. Yet failing to respect timing can invalidate your application. | I agree completely with Ken S (the above poster), and couldn't put it better. I have also drafted my own patent application, and my lawyer has had to change very little.
Writing the claims is something else. It seems to require a different, more strategic approach, than the descriptions. Those are truly just technical documents detailing your invention and illustrating the novel aspects.
Still, going it alone might not always be a bad choice. The claims I had written, but not shown, to my lawyer were nearly identical to her wording and substance as well. Either she is a bad lawyer or I've grasped something about the process.
Studying approved patents, and also what happened to those products, is great practice whether you lawyer-up or not. |
5,123 | I had a website tying messages-with gifts online around 2006. I notice that there are several patents dealing with this topic and I believe that I have written evidence that I considered the same processes that are now patented. I am wondering if I have something to sell to the patent holders? | 2013/09/25 | [
"https://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/5123",
"https://patents.stackexchange.com",
"https://patents.stackexchange.com/users/5864/"
] | 80% of a patent you can write yourself. I have written over 50. The process is very straight forward as long as you understand how to organize it. I have probably saved over $100,000 writing my own.
The part you absolutely want to have a lawyer do (keyword: absolutely!) is drafting your claims. This language is key to obtaining your patent and getting your claims accepted. It is an "art form" few master with out considerable experience. I would also advise having a lawyer submit your patent as the submittal, and follow on correspondence, can be tricky. | I agree completely with Ken S (the above poster), and couldn't put it better. I have also drafted my own patent application, and my lawyer has had to change very little.
Writing the claims is something else. It seems to require a different, more strategic approach, than the descriptions. Those are truly just technical documents detailing your invention and illustrating the novel aspects.
Still, going it alone might not always be a bad choice. The claims I had written, but not shown, to my lawyer were nearly identical to her wording and substance as well. Either she is a bad lawyer or I've grasped something about the process.
Studying approved patents, and also what happened to those products, is great practice whether you lawyer-up or not. |
107,702 | I admit it has been years since reading LOTR but I always thought Strider wasn't revealed as the king until Return of the King.
Is this correct? | 2015/11/13 | [
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/107702",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/users/55754/"
] | I'm not entirely clear on what you mean by "revealed", but he's announced as the *rightful* king (i.e. the heir of Isildur) in *Fellowship*:
>
> 'And here in the house of Elrond more shall be made clear to you' said Aragorn, standing up. He cast his sword upon the table that stood before Elrond, and the blade was in two pieces. 'Here is the Sword that was Broken!' he said.
>
>
> 'And who are you, and what have you to do with Minas Tirith?' asked Boromir, looking in wonder at the lean face of the Ranger and his weather-stained cloak.
>
>
> 'He is Aragorn son of Arathorn,' said Elrond; 'and he is descended through many fathers from Isildur Elendil's son of Minas Ithil. He is the Chief of the Dúnedain in the North, and few are now left of that folk.'
>
>
> *Fellowship of the Ring* Book II Chapter 2: "The Council of Elrond"
>
>
>
And near the end of the book (emphasis mine):
>
> 'Fear not!' said a strange voice behind [Frodo]. Frodo turned and saw Strider, and yet not Strider; for the weatherworn Ranger was no longer there. In the stern sat Aragorn son of Arathorn, proud and erect, guiding the boat with skilful strokes; his hood was cast back, and his dark hair was blowing in the wind, a light was in his eyes: **a king returning from exile to his own land**.
>
>
> *Fellowship of the Ring* Book II Chapter 9: "The Great River"
>
>
>
That he eventually *becomes* king is also spoiled in *Fellowship*, in the prologue (emphasis mine):
>
> That book was a copy, made at the request of **King Elessar**, of the Red Book of the Periannath, and was brought to him by the Thain Peregrin when he retired to Gondor in IV 64.
>
>
> *Fellowship of the Ring* Prologue 5: "Note on the Shire Records"
>
>
>
Later in the book, Elessar is announced as another name for Aragorn (emphasis mine):
>
> 'Yet maybe this will lighten your heart,' said Galadriel; 'for it was left in my care to be given to you, should you pass through this land.' Then she lifted from her lap a great stone of a clear green, set in a silver brooch that was wrought in the likeness of an eagle with outspread wings; and as she held it up the gem flashed like the sun shining through the leaves of spring. 'This stone I gave to Celebrían my daughter, and she to hers; and now it comes to you as a token of hope. **In this hour take the name that was foretold for you, Elessar, the Elfstone of the house of Elendil!**'
>
>
> *Fellowship of the Ring* Book II Chapter 8: "Farewell to Lórien"
>
>
> | From virtually the moment Strider is introduced, in Bree, he is proclaimed the subject of Bilbo's poem in Gandalf's unsent letter, which says the broken sword (and which Strider shows the hobbits) shall be renewed and the crownless shall be king. 2 + 2 = 4 and Strider, holder of the broken sword, is none other than Isildur's heir. |
661,760 | Im looking to see if there are any pre-existing projects that do this.
Generally, I need something that will load in a c++ file and parse it and then based on a set of rules in script, transform it, say to add headers, reformat, or remove coding quirks for example, turning const int parameters in functions to int parameters, etc Or perhaps something that would generate a dom of some sorts based on the c++ file fed in that could be manipulated and written out again.
Are there any such projects/products out there free or commercial? | 2009/03/19 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/661760",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/57482/"
] | You can use the export function of subversion, this will allow you to export all files under version control, but also all files NOT under control. Both methods will skip the .svn folders.
You didn't mention your client, but Tortoise has the 'export unversioned files too' option.
See [here](http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.0/re10.html) for commandline syntax | You can use an ftp client if it's support filters (exclude .svn folders, i.e FlashFXP).
Currently I'm using Nusphere PhpEd IDE's built in feature called "Smart upload", so it only updates changed files (with modified time changed). |
661,760 | Im looking to see if there are any pre-existing projects that do this.
Generally, I need something that will load in a c++ file and parse it and then based on a set of rules in script, transform it, say to add headers, reformat, or remove coding quirks for example, turning const int parameters in functions to int parameters, etc Or perhaps something that would generate a dom of some sorts based on the c++ file fed in that could be manipulated and written out again.
Are there any such projects/products out there free or commercial? | 2009/03/19 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/661760",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/57482/"
] | You can use an ftp client if it's support filters (exclude .svn folders, i.e FlashFXP).
Currently I'm using Nusphere PhpEd IDE's built in feature called "Smart upload", so it only updates changed files (with modified time changed). | I stumbled recently on the same issue running Ubuntu 9.
In FileZilla you can choose ignore filters which contain even presets to prevent copying .svn folders and windows .thumb files! You can find this in the **View** menu under **Filename filters...** Works like a charm!
Thumbs up for the FileZilla folks! |
661,760 | Im looking to see if there are any pre-existing projects that do this.
Generally, I need something that will load in a c++ file and parse it and then based on a set of rules in script, transform it, say to add headers, reformat, or remove coding quirks for example, turning const int parameters in functions to int parameters, etc Or perhaps something that would generate a dom of some sorts based on the c++ file fed in that could be manipulated and written out again.
Are there any such projects/products out there free or commercial? | 2009/03/19 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/661760",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/57482/"
] | You can use the export function of subversion, this will allow you to export all files under version control, but also all files NOT under control. Both methods will skip the .svn folders.
You didn't mention your client, but Tortoise has the 'export unversioned files too' option.
See [here](http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.0/re10.html) for commandline syntax | I use [rsync](http://samba.org/rsync/) which is a fast command line tool which only sends the changed parts of files. You can set it up to exclude .svn directories as outlined [here](http://blog.gungfu.de/archives/2005/09/25/using-rsync-together-with-subversion/):
If you wish to continue doing this with fileZilla you can go to View->Filename Filters and select to ignore SVN and CVS directories. You can also only upload changed files with FileZilla however I find rsync far faster. As rsync is command line based you could easily hook it up with Eclipse as an external tool to enable 1 click transferring |
661,760 | Im looking to see if there are any pre-existing projects that do this.
Generally, I need something that will load in a c++ file and parse it and then based on a set of rules in script, transform it, say to add headers, reformat, or remove coding quirks for example, turning const int parameters in functions to int parameters, etc Or perhaps something that would generate a dom of some sorts based on the c++ file fed in that could be manipulated and written out again.
Are there any such projects/products out there free or commercial? | 2009/03/19 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/661760",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/57482/"
] | You can use the export function of subversion, this will allow you to export all files under version control, but also all files NOT under control. Both methods will skip the .svn folders.
You didn't mention your client, but Tortoise has the 'export unversioned files too' option.
See [here](http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.0/re10.html) for commandline syntax | I stumbled recently on the same issue running Ubuntu 9.
In FileZilla you can choose ignore filters which contain even presets to prevent copying .svn folders and windows .thumb files! You can find this in the **View** menu under **Filename filters...** Works like a charm!
Thumbs up for the FileZilla folks! |
661,760 | Im looking to see if there are any pre-existing projects that do this.
Generally, I need something that will load in a c++ file and parse it and then based on a set of rules in script, transform it, say to add headers, reformat, or remove coding quirks for example, turning const int parameters in functions to int parameters, etc Or perhaps something that would generate a dom of some sorts based on the c++ file fed in that could be manipulated and written out again.
Are there any such projects/products out there free or commercial? | 2009/03/19 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/661760",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/57482/"
] | You can use the export function of subversion, this will allow you to export all files under version control, but also all files NOT under control. Both methods will skip the .svn folders.
You didn't mention your client, but Tortoise has the 'export unversioned files too' option.
See [here](http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.0/re10.html) for commandline syntax | You can use springloops, they cover SVN commit and checkouts but most importantly deployment to FTP server with a click of a mouse... |
661,760 | Im looking to see if there are any pre-existing projects that do this.
Generally, I need something that will load in a c++ file and parse it and then based on a set of rules in script, transform it, say to add headers, reformat, or remove coding quirks for example, turning const int parameters in functions to int parameters, etc Or perhaps something that would generate a dom of some sorts based on the c++ file fed in that could be manipulated and written out again.
Are there any such projects/products out there free or commercial? | 2009/03/19 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/661760",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/57482/"
] | I use [rsync](http://samba.org/rsync/) which is a fast command line tool which only sends the changed parts of files. You can set it up to exclude .svn directories as outlined [here](http://blog.gungfu.de/archives/2005/09/25/using-rsync-together-with-subversion/):
If you wish to continue doing this with fileZilla you can go to View->Filename Filters and select to ignore SVN and CVS directories. You can also only upload changed files with FileZilla however I find rsync far faster. As rsync is command line based you could easily hook it up with Eclipse as an external tool to enable 1 click transferring | I stumbled recently on the same issue running Ubuntu 9.
In FileZilla you can choose ignore filters which contain even presets to prevent copying .svn folders and windows .thumb files! You can find this in the **View** menu under **Filename filters...** Works like a charm!
Thumbs up for the FileZilla folks! |
661,760 | Im looking to see if there are any pre-existing projects that do this.
Generally, I need something that will load in a c++ file and parse it and then based on a set of rules in script, transform it, say to add headers, reformat, or remove coding quirks for example, turning const int parameters in functions to int parameters, etc Or perhaps something that would generate a dom of some sorts based on the c++ file fed in that could be manipulated and written out again.
Are there any such projects/products out there free or commercial? | 2009/03/19 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/661760",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/57482/"
] | You can use springloops, they cover SVN commit and checkouts but most importantly deployment to FTP server with a click of a mouse... | I stumbled recently on the same issue running Ubuntu 9.
In FileZilla you can choose ignore filters which contain even presets to prevent copying .svn folders and windows .thumb files! You can find this in the **View** menu under **Filename filters...** Works like a charm!
Thumbs up for the FileZilla folks! |
63,908 | Recently, I received an inheritance of $1.2 million. I'm planning on investing 1/4 of that in properties. With that being said, I'm still way above the FDIC coverage. Besides investing, what else could I do to protect my money? Should I just open multiple accounts in other banks to spread out my money? thanks | 2016/05/09 | [
"https://money.stackexchange.com/questions/63908",
"https://money.stackexchange.com",
"https://money.stackexchange.com/users/42049/"
] | If you are concerned about FDIC coverage, then yes, you can spread your money across multiple banks. The limit is $250k, so after you invest in property, 4 banks should do it.
That having been said, in my opinion, it would be a waste to keep all this money in a bank's savings account. You will slowly lose value over time due to inflation. I suggest you spend a little money on an independent fee-based investment advisor. Choose someone who will teach you about investing in mutual funds, so you can feel comfortable with it. He or she should take into account your tolerance for risk, look at your goals, and help you come up with a low cost plan for investing your money.
It's certainly okay to keep the money in a bank short-term, but don't wait too long; take steps toward putting that money to work for you. | Be very careful to hold on tight to your money! I agree with paying for an investment advisor, but I would say use at least two to get different viewpoints, and get credentials and references! Don't let relatives convince you to invest in their business, or help them out, or any other such nonsense. Real estate still is one of the best investments out there in my opinion. You could buy a fixer upper and rent it out? |
4,731 | Should questions consisting in barely asking for a copy or link to some given paper be community-wiki?
A recent example, among others, is and [Reference of J.L. Waldspurger's paper on Shimura correspondence](https://mathoverflow.net/questions/373208/).
(I'm assuming the reference is to an explicit paper, so this concerns only a minority of [reference-request](https://mathoverflow.net/questions/tagged/reference-request "show questions tagged 'reference-request'") questions. The appropriate tag is [paper-request](https://mathoverflow.net/questions/tagged/paper-request "show questions tagged 'paper-request'") but often not used by default.)
I'm tempted each time to flag them to moderators to this effect, basically for the following reason: there's no reason to gratify asking or answering such questions. Should I?
Comments welcome (especially by mods); also below is a poll-style answer, to be upvoted or downvoted.
(A natural question is to which extent these questions should be welcome, but it's not my main point here.) | 2020/10/05 | [
"https://meta.mathoverflow.net/questions/4731",
"https://meta.mathoverflow.net",
"https://meta.mathoverflow.net/users/14094/"
] | At the request of Martin Sleziak I'm converting some comments into an answer.
I don't really understand why questions asking for a paper should be community wiki. And, although you say it's unrelated to your question, I think the "should they be welcome" aspect actually is related to what you're getting at: that these kind of questions are not a meaningful contribution to MO. In my opinion, whether they are a contribution depends on the specific question. If the question can be answered by a few seconds of googling, then it's not a good question. But if it's asking about an obscure old paper not easily available in most university settings, or something even less "published" like notes or correspondences, then I think it can be a very good and useful question (in particular, worthy of the points the upvotes it gets). For a recent example see: [Deligne's letter to Bhargava from March 2004](https://mathoverflow.net/questions/372518/delignes-letter-to-bhargava-from-march-2004).
(Sometimes these questions are about getting around barriers in access to journals for people without adequate university associations- then I think they are also questionable, but on the other hand MO can provide an important resource. And there are also concerns about the legality of the "answers." So those questions are maybe in another category.) | Yes, they should be cw.
(Upvote/downvote if agree/disagree) |
489,267 | I've come across a quote by Teddy Roosevelt which shows his admiration for Alexander Hamilton. It uses the phrase "the touch of the purple," but supplies little hint as to what it means.
>
> Roosevelt saw in Hamilton “the touch of the heroic, the touch of the
> purple, the touch of the gallant.”
>
>
>
The best explanation I've found is a possible religious meaning, gleaned from the phrase's inclusion in [this Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozzetta). I am also aware that purple has a connotation of royalty or nobility in that, some centuries ago, purple dyes were extravagant and therefore used as a symbol of wealth and power. I'm not entirely convinced that either of these are the sense that Roosevelt was invoking. | 2019/03/11 | [
"https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/489267",
"https://english.stackexchange.com",
"https://english.stackexchange.com/users/117325/"
] | Here, **purple** is used as noun. So, if you check the definition of purple according to the Merriam Webster especially 2 of 3 entry and particularly 2a, you will find exquisite definition of **purple**:
<https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/purple>
>
> imperial or regal rank or power
>
>
>
Backed by Google definition:
>
>
> >
> > a crimson dye obtained from some molluscs, formerly used for fabric worn by an emperor or senior magistrate in ancient Rome or Byzantium.
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> | I take it to mean an aristocratic or lordly quality; he sees in Hamilton something lofty, as if he towers above others. |
489,267 | I've come across a quote by Teddy Roosevelt which shows his admiration for Alexander Hamilton. It uses the phrase "the touch of the purple," but supplies little hint as to what it means.
>
> Roosevelt saw in Hamilton “the touch of the heroic, the touch of the
> purple, the touch of the gallant.”
>
>
>
The best explanation I've found is a possible religious meaning, gleaned from the phrase's inclusion in [this Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozzetta). I am also aware that purple has a connotation of royalty or nobility in that, some centuries ago, purple dyes were extravagant and therefore used as a symbol of wealth and power. I'm not entirely convinced that either of these are the sense that Roosevelt was invoking. | 2019/03/11 | [
"https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/489267",
"https://english.stackexchange.com",
"https://english.stackexchange.com/users/117325/"
] | ***Theodore Roosevelt and 'the touch of the purple'***
The quotation you cite appears in Stephen Knott, [*Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Myth*](https://books.google.com/books?id=DI12AAAAMAAJ&q=%22the+touch+of+the+purple,+the+touch%22&dq=%22the+touch+of+the+purple,+the+touch%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiHip-34PvgAhUjGzQIHb66C58Q6AEINTAC) (2002), subsequently reprinted in [*The Many Faces of Alexander Hamilton: The Life and Legacy of America's Most Elusive Founding Father*](https://books.google.com/books?id=DI12AAAAMAAJ&q=%22touch+of+the+purple,+the+touch%22&dq=%22touch+of+the+purple,+the+touch%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiT_OTmwfvgAhUZFjQIHUMbAYAQ6AEINTAC) (2006):
>
> On the recommendation of his friend Henry Cabot Lodge, Roosevelt wrote two volumes for John Morse's American Statesmen series. In 1887 he completed Governeur Morris and later told Morris's great-grandson that Morris and Hamilton "embodied what was best in the Federalist Party. ... They both of them had in them the touch of the heroic, **the touch of the purple**, the touch of the gallant." Both Roosevelt and Lodge adored Hamilton, and on a trip to London in 1886 Roosevelt could not wait to inform Lodge that James Bryce was "especially complimentary about your Hamilton."
>
>
>
The comment addressed to the descendant of Gouverneur Morris (also named Governeur Morris) appears in a [letter from Theodore Roosevelt to the later Gouverneur Morris dated November 23, 1910](https://books.google.com/books?id=EmwLAQAAIAAJ&q=%22touch+of+the+purple,+the+touch%22&dq=%22touch+of+the+purple,+the+touch%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiT_OTmwfvgAhUZFjQIHUMbAYAQ6AEIOjAD), reproduced in *The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt: The Days of Armageddon, 1900–1914* (1954) [combined snippets]:
>
> *My dear Morris:* You could not have made a gift which I should have appreciated more, nor could you have given those books to any other man who would have appreciated them as much. Moreover, the box in which have been kind enough to have them put is just exactly right for my library. ... I shall keep your letter in the box with the three volumes. I am naturally very much pleased at your thinking of me in comparison with your great ancestor. I have always not merely admired him immensely but what is something totally different, been very greatly drawn to his personality. He and Hamilton embodied what was best in the Federalist Party, excepting of course in so far as you can say that Washington was a Federalist. They both of them had in them the touch of the heroic, **the touch of the purple**, the touch of the gallant, the dashing, the picturesque, which ranks the possessors among those historical characters about whom one really cares to read. It is simply fine that you continue to like my sketch of your ancestor. Since I wrote it, I have had much more experience of public life myself; and should I now rewrite it, my praise would be more heart and my criticism far more guarded.
>
>
>
But Roosevelt had actually alluded to "the touch of the purple" 12 years earlier, in the one-paragraph preface to the 1898 edition of Theodore Roosevelt, [*Gouverneur Morris*](https://books.google.com/books?id=D4slAQAAMAAJ&pg=PP17&dq=%22the+purple%22+%22Governeur+Morris%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjSxsLjufvgAhXDHjQIHYvbAZIQ6AEILDAA#v=onepage&q=%22the%20purple%22%20%22Governeur%20Morris%22&f=false) (1888/1898). Here, for maximum context, is that preface in its entirety:
>
> Gouverneur Morris, like his far greater friend and political associate, Alexander Hamilton, had about him **that "touch of the purple"** which is always so strongly attractive. He was too unstable and erratic to leave a profound mark upon our political developments, but he performed two or three conspicuous feats, he rendered several marked services to the country, and he embodied to a peculiar degree both the qualities which made the Federalist party so brilliant and so useful, and hose other qualities which finally brought about its downfall. Hamilton and even Jay represented better what was highest in the Federalist party. Gouverneur Morris stood for its weakness as well as for its strength. Able, fearless, and cultivated, deeply devoted to his people, and of much too tough fibre ever to be misled, into losing his affection for things American because of American faults and shortcomings, as was and is in the case with weaker natures, he was able to render distinguished service to his country. Other American ministers have been greater and more successful diplomats that Morris was ; but no one has better represented those qualities of generous daring and lofty disinterestedness which we like to associate with the name American, than did the minister who, alone among the foreign ministers, kept his residence in Paris through the "Terror." He stood for the honest payment of debts. Unlike many of his colleagues, he was a polished man of the world, whose comments on men and things showed that curious insight and power of observation which come only when to natural ability there is added special training. But he distrusted the mass of the people in other sections of the country than his own, who had not the habits of refinement and the ways of looking at life which he and his associates possessed ; and thus it happened when the federalists sank into a secessionist faction, the name of Gouverneur Morris was associated with the names of the others who at that time lacked the power, but not the will, to split a great nation into a chaos of feeble and quarrelsome little states.
>
>
>
Roosevelt also used the expression "the touch of the purple" in his [review of Edward Arlington Robinson's "The Children of the Night"](https://books.google.com/books?id=kENYAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA913&lpg=PA913&dq=%22the+touch+of+the+purple%22&source=bl&ots=lSXfGjpt-t&sig=ACfU3U3sPGz6A9nsOwtNsscJMk8wx3ybeQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjVqb_AyPvgAhWqKDQIHSNSAyMQ6AEwBHoECAUQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22the%20touch%20of%20the%20purple%22&f=false) in *The Outlook* (August 12, 1905):
>
> The "twilight of the poets" has been especially gray in America ; for poetry is of course one of those arts in which the smallest amount of work of the very highest class is worth an infinity of good work that is not of the highest class. **The touch of the purple** makes a poem out of verse, and if it is not there, there is no substitute. It is hard to account for the failure to produce in America of recent years a poet who in the world of letters will rank as high as certain sculptors and painters rank in the world of art.
>
>
>
And in a [letter dated January 9, 1899, to Henry Cabot Lodge](https://books.google.com/books?id=12N3AAAAMAAJ&q=%22has+the+touch+of+the+purple%22&dq=%22has+the+touch+of+the+purple%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiW2dT4y_vgAhWCMX0KHfuUD8UQ6AEIKjAA), reproduced in *The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt: The Years of Preparation, 1868–1900* (1951) [combined snippets]:
>
> *Dear Cabot:*—I think that on the whole your last chapter is the best thing you have done. ...
>
>
> As for Bay's [George Cabot Lodge's] poems, as you know, I think he has "**the touch of the purple**" in him. My favorites in his book are "The Song of the Wave"; "The Song of the Sword"; "The Mothers of Men"; "The Norsemen"; and the First and Fifth Sonnets—especially the Fifth, although I am not absolutely clear what it is about!
>
>
>
To top things off, Roosevelt used the expression a fifth time in a [letter dated November 30, 1908, to George Cabot Lodge](https://books.google.com/books?id=bzooAQAAMAAJ&dq=I+am+immensely+imprest+by+the+poem&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22the+touch+of+the+purple%22), reprinted in John W. Crowley, "'Dear Bay': Theodore Roosevelt's Letters to George Cabot Lodge," in *New York History* (April 1972):
>
> *Dear Bay:* I have read "Herakles" half thru already. You have **the touch of the purple**, all right! I am immensely imprest by the poem.
>
>
>
Roosevelt also uses the shorter term "the purple" in a [letter to Anna Roosevelt Cowles dated June 28, 1896](https://archive.org/stream/letttersoftheodo006691mbp/letttersoftheodo006691mbp_djvu.txt):
>
> I have been so absorbed by my own special work and it's ramifications that I have time to keep very little in touch with anything outside of my own duties; I see but little of the life of the great world; I am but little in touch even with our national politics. The work of the Police Board has absorbed all the time and energy I could give to such work at all. There is nothing of **the purple** in it; it is as grimy as all work for municipal reform over here must be for some decades to come; and it is inconceivably arduous, disheartening and irritating, beyond almost all other work of the kind, because of the special circumstances of the case. I have to contend with the hostility of Tammany, and the almost equal hostility of the Republican machine; I have to contend with the folly of the reformers and the indifference of decent citizens; above all I have to contend with the singularly foolish law under which we administer the Department.
>
>
>
In this last instance, "the purple" seems to allude to "points of honor" or "exalted service"—a meaning somewhat echoed in Roosevelt's instances of "the touch of the purple."
---
***Conclusions***
As other answerers have noted, "purple" can allude to imperial, regal, aristocratic, or lordly rank, power, or quality. *Merriam-Webster's Eleventh Collegiate Dictionary* (2003) lists two relevant definitions:
>
> **purple** *n* ... **2 a:** imperial or regal rank or power **b :** high rank or station
>
>
>
And *The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language* (2010) has this relevant definition:
>
> **purple** *n.* ... 3. Imperial power; high rank: *born to the purple*.
>
>
>
The expression "born to the purple" is in fact quite old in English, appearing at least as early as 1727 in a [translation of the Abbé de Vertout, *The History of the Revolution in Sweden*](https://books.google.com/books?id=VjvCV0R1ytkC&pg=RA1-PA9&dq=%22born+to+the+purple%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiZrZSv1PvgAhXNIzQIHfLTBKIQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=%22born%20to%20the%20purple%22&f=false), volume 2:
>
> The Mayors of the Palace were Elected by the *French* alone; *i. e.* by the Body of the Nobility : They themselves made Choice of the General, under whose Banner they were to fight. *Fredegarias* has even transmitted to us the Form of that Election: But as for our Kings, they must be **born to the Purple**, they must be Princes of the Blood; and even it is to be observed, that in *Marculph's Formulæ*, the Name of Kings was often given to them, as soon as they were born.
>
>
>
In contrast, the first five instances of the expression "the [or *that*] touch of the purple" that a Google Books search turns up occur during the period 1898–1910, and all appear in writings by Theodore Roosevelt. The [next-earliest instance](http://www.talentteacher.com/LessonPDFs/L010PaintedDoggy.pdf) of "touch of the purple" that Google Books brings up occurs many years later in a literal context: "Add a **touch of the purple** to the yellow to get a toned yellow brown."
Given that "the touch of the purple" seems to have originated (and more or less ended) as a set phrase with Theodore Roosevelt, I think its meaning is probably peculiar to him. In trying to get at what precisely Roosevelt had in mind when he used it, we need to take into account its suitability in both political contexts (as applied to Gouverneur Morris and Alexander Hamilton) and poetic ones (as applied to George Cabot Lodge and Edward Arlington Robinson).
In my opinion, "imperial," "regal," "aristocratic," and "lordly" offer a somewhat incomplete description of what Roosevelt intended to convey with the phrase "the touch of the purple." I think he probably did think of it as meaning, in part, "having an aristocratic sensibility"—one imbued with the confidence, manners, sophistication, and tastes of the high-born. But I think he probably also understood it to comprehend having the intellect and aspirations of the high-minded, the discriminating, the judicious, the honorable, and the public-spirited—all of which may have been aspects of Roosevelt's own conception of greatness.
In any event, "the touch of the purple" seems to have had a distinctive meaning for Roosevelt that made it appropriate in different situations. But it isn't clear that that meaning or complex of meanings survived him. | I take it to mean an aristocratic or lordly quality; he sees in Hamilton something lofty, as if he towers above others. |
489,267 | I've come across a quote by Teddy Roosevelt which shows his admiration for Alexander Hamilton. It uses the phrase "the touch of the purple," but supplies little hint as to what it means.
>
> Roosevelt saw in Hamilton “the touch of the heroic, the touch of the
> purple, the touch of the gallant.”
>
>
>
The best explanation I've found is a possible religious meaning, gleaned from the phrase's inclusion in [this Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozzetta). I am also aware that purple has a connotation of royalty or nobility in that, some centuries ago, purple dyes were extravagant and therefore used as a symbol of wealth and power. I'm not entirely convinced that either of these are the sense that Roosevelt was invoking. | 2019/03/11 | [
"https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/489267",
"https://english.stackexchange.com",
"https://english.stackexchange.com/users/117325/"
] | Here, **purple** is used as noun. So, if you check the definition of purple according to the Merriam Webster especially 2 of 3 entry and particularly 2a, you will find exquisite definition of **purple**:
<https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/purple>
>
> imperial or regal rank or power
>
>
>
Backed by Google definition:
>
>
> >
> > a crimson dye obtained from some molluscs, formerly used for fabric worn by an emperor or senior magistrate in ancient Rome or Byzantium.
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> | ***Theodore Roosevelt and 'the touch of the purple'***
The quotation you cite appears in Stephen Knott, [*Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Myth*](https://books.google.com/books?id=DI12AAAAMAAJ&q=%22the+touch+of+the+purple,+the+touch%22&dq=%22the+touch+of+the+purple,+the+touch%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiHip-34PvgAhUjGzQIHb66C58Q6AEINTAC) (2002), subsequently reprinted in [*The Many Faces of Alexander Hamilton: The Life and Legacy of America's Most Elusive Founding Father*](https://books.google.com/books?id=DI12AAAAMAAJ&q=%22touch+of+the+purple,+the+touch%22&dq=%22touch+of+the+purple,+the+touch%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiT_OTmwfvgAhUZFjQIHUMbAYAQ6AEINTAC) (2006):
>
> On the recommendation of his friend Henry Cabot Lodge, Roosevelt wrote two volumes for John Morse's American Statesmen series. In 1887 he completed Governeur Morris and later told Morris's great-grandson that Morris and Hamilton "embodied what was best in the Federalist Party. ... They both of them had in them the touch of the heroic, **the touch of the purple**, the touch of the gallant." Both Roosevelt and Lodge adored Hamilton, and on a trip to London in 1886 Roosevelt could not wait to inform Lodge that James Bryce was "especially complimentary about your Hamilton."
>
>
>
The comment addressed to the descendant of Gouverneur Morris (also named Governeur Morris) appears in a [letter from Theodore Roosevelt to the later Gouverneur Morris dated November 23, 1910](https://books.google.com/books?id=EmwLAQAAIAAJ&q=%22touch+of+the+purple,+the+touch%22&dq=%22touch+of+the+purple,+the+touch%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiT_OTmwfvgAhUZFjQIHUMbAYAQ6AEIOjAD), reproduced in *The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt: The Days of Armageddon, 1900–1914* (1954) [combined snippets]:
>
> *My dear Morris:* You could not have made a gift which I should have appreciated more, nor could you have given those books to any other man who would have appreciated them as much. Moreover, the box in which have been kind enough to have them put is just exactly right for my library. ... I shall keep your letter in the box with the three volumes. I am naturally very much pleased at your thinking of me in comparison with your great ancestor. I have always not merely admired him immensely but what is something totally different, been very greatly drawn to his personality. He and Hamilton embodied what was best in the Federalist Party, excepting of course in so far as you can say that Washington was a Federalist. They both of them had in them the touch of the heroic, **the touch of the purple**, the touch of the gallant, the dashing, the picturesque, which ranks the possessors among those historical characters about whom one really cares to read. It is simply fine that you continue to like my sketch of your ancestor. Since I wrote it, I have had much more experience of public life myself; and should I now rewrite it, my praise would be more heart and my criticism far more guarded.
>
>
>
But Roosevelt had actually alluded to "the touch of the purple" 12 years earlier, in the one-paragraph preface to the 1898 edition of Theodore Roosevelt, [*Gouverneur Morris*](https://books.google.com/books?id=D4slAQAAMAAJ&pg=PP17&dq=%22the+purple%22+%22Governeur+Morris%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjSxsLjufvgAhXDHjQIHYvbAZIQ6AEILDAA#v=onepage&q=%22the%20purple%22%20%22Governeur%20Morris%22&f=false) (1888/1898). Here, for maximum context, is that preface in its entirety:
>
> Gouverneur Morris, like his far greater friend and political associate, Alexander Hamilton, had about him **that "touch of the purple"** which is always so strongly attractive. He was too unstable and erratic to leave a profound mark upon our political developments, but he performed two or three conspicuous feats, he rendered several marked services to the country, and he embodied to a peculiar degree both the qualities which made the Federalist party so brilliant and so useful, and hose other qualities which finally brought about its downfall. Hamilton and even Jay represented better what was highest in the Federalist party. Gouverneur Morris stood for its weakness as well as for its strength. Able, fearless, and cultivated, deeply devoted to his people, and of much too tough fibre ever to be misled, into losing his affection for things American because of American faults and shortcomings, as was and is in the case with weaker natures, he was able to render distinguished service to his country. Other American ministers have been greater and more successful diplomats that Morris was ; but no one has better represented those qualities of generous daring and lofty disinterestedness which we like to associate with the name American, than did the minister who, alone among the foreign ministers, kept his residence in Paris through the "Terror." He stood for the honest payment of debts. Unlike many of his colleagues, he was a polished man of the world, whose comments on men and things showed that curious insight and power of observation which come only when to natural ability there is added special training. But he distrusted the mass of the people in other sections of the country than his own, who had not the habits of refinement and the ways of looking at life which he and his associates possessed ; and thus it happened when the federalists sank into a secessionist faction, the name of Gouverneur Morris was associated with the names of the others who at that time lacked the power, but not the will, to split a great nation into a chaos of feeble and quarrelsome little states.
>
>
>
Roosevelt also used the expression "the touch of the purple" in his [review of Edward Arlington Robinson's "The Children of the Night"](https://books.google.com/books?id=kENYAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA913&lpg=PA913&dq=%22the+touch+of+the+purple%22&source=bl&ots=lSXfGjpt-t&sig=ACfU3U3sPGz6A9nsOwtNsscJMk8wx3ybeQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjVqb_AyPvgAhWqKDQIHSNSAyMQ6AEwBHoECAUQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22the%20touch%20of%20the%20purple%22&f=false) in *The Outlook* (August 12, 1905):
>
> The "twilight of the poets" has been especially gray in America ; for poetry is of course one of those arts in which the smallest amount of work of the very highest class is worth an infinity of good work that is not of the highest class. **The touch of the purple** makes a poem out of verse, and if it is not there, there is no substitute. It is hard to account for the failure to produce in America of recent years a poet who in the world of letters will rank as high as certain sculptors and painters rank in the world of art.
>
>
>
And in a [letter dated January 9, 1899, to Henry Cabot Lodge](https://books.google.com/books?id=12N3AAAAMAAJ&q=%22has+the+touch+of+the+purple%22&dq=%22has+the+touch+of+the+purple%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiW2dT4y_vgAhWCMX0KHfuUD8UQ6AEIKjAA), reproduced in *The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt: The Years of Preparation, 1868–1900* (1951) [combined snippets]:
>
> *Dear Cabot:*—I think that on the whole your last chapter is the best thing you have done. ...
>
>
> As for Bay's [George Cabot Lodge's] poems, as you know, I think he has "**the touch of the purple**" in him. My favorites in his book are "The Song of the Wave"; "The Song of the Sword"; "The Mothers of Men"; "The Norsemen"; and the First and Fifth Sonnets—especially the Fifth, although I am not absolutely clear what it is about!
>
>
>
To top things off, Roosevelt used the expression a fifth time in a [letter dated November 30, 1908, to George Cabot Lodge](https://books.google.com/books?id=bzooAQAAMAAJ&dq=I+am+immensely+imprest+by+the+poem&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22the+touch+of+the+purple%22), reprinted in John W. Crowley, "'Dear Bay': Theodore Roosevelt's Letters to George Cabot Lodge," in *New York History* (April 1972):
>
> *Dear Bay:* I have read "Herakles" half thru already. You have **the touch of the purple**, all right! I am immensely imprest by the poem.
>
>
>
Roosevelt also uses the shorter term "the purple" in a [letter to Anna Roosevelt Cowles dated June 28, 1896](https://archive.org/stream/letttersoftheodo006691mbp/letttersoftheodo006691mbp_djvu.txt):
>
> I have been so absorbed by my own special work and it's ramifications that I have time to keep very little in touch with anything outside of my own duties; I see but little of the life of the great world; I am but little in touch even with our national politics. The work of the Police Board has absorbed all the time and energy I could give to such work at all. There is nothing of **the purple** in it; it is as grimy as all work for municipal reform over here must be for some decades to come; and it is inconceivably arduous, disheartening and irritating, beyond almost all other work of the kind, because of the special circumstances of the case. I have to contend with the hostility of Tammany, and the almost equal hostility of the Republican machine; I have to contend with the folly of the reformers and the indifference of decent citizens; above all I have to contend with the singularly foolish law under which we administer the Department.
>
>
>
In this last instance, "the purple" seems to allude to "points of honor" or "exalted service"—a meaning somewhat echoed in Roosevelt's instances of "the touch of the purple."
---
***Conclusions***
As other answerers have noted, "purple" can allude to imperial, regal, aristocratic, or lordly rank, power, or quality. *Merriam-Webster's Eleventh Collegiate Dictionary* (2003) lists two relevant definitions:
>
> **purple** *n* ... **2 a:** imperial or regal rank or power **b :** high rank or station
>
>
>
And *The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language* (2010) has this relevant definition:
>
> **purple** *n.* ... 3. Imperial power; high rank: *born to the purple*.
>
>
>
The expression "born to the purple" is in fact quite old in English, appearing at least as early as 1727 in a [translation of the Abbé de Vertout, *The History of the Revolution in Sweden*](https://books.google.com/books?id=VjvCV0R1ytkC&pg=RA1-PA9&dq=%22born+to+the+purple%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiZrZSv1PvgAhXNIzQIHfLTBKIQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=%22born%20to%20the%20purple%22&f=false), volume 2:
>
> The Mayors of the Palace were Elected by the *French* alone; *i. e.* by the Body of the Nobility : They themselves made Choice of the General, under whose Banner they were to fight. *Fredegarias* has even transmitted to us the Form of that Election: But as for our Kings, they must be **born to the Purple**, they must be Princes of the Blood; and even it is to be observed, that in *Marculph's Formulæ*, the Name of Kings was often given to them, as soon as they were born.
>
>
>
In contrast, the first five instances of the expression "the [or *that*] touch of the purple" that a Google Books search turns up occur during the period 1898–1910, and all appear in writings by Theodore Roosevelt. The [next-earliest instance](http://www.talentteacher.com/LessonPDFs/L010PaintedDoggy.pdf) of "touch of the purple" that Google Books brings up occurs many years later in a literal context: "Add a **touch of the purple** to the yellow to get a toned yellow brown."
Given that "the touch of the purple" seems to have originated (and more or less ended) as a set phrase with Theodore Roosevelt, I think its meaning is probably peculiar to him. In trying to get at what precisely Roosevelt had in mind when he used it, we need to take into account its suitability in both political contexts (as applied to Gouverneur Morris and Alexander Hamilton) and poetic ones (as applied to George Cabot Lodge and Edward Arlington Robinson).
In my opinion, "imperial," "regal," "aristocratic," and "lordly" offer a somewhat incomplete description of what Roosevelt intended to convey with the phrase "the touch of the purple." I think he probably did think of it as meaning, in part, "having an aristocratic sensibility"—one imbued with the confidence, manners, sophistication, and tastes of the high-born. But I think he probably also understood it to comprehend having the intellect and aspirations of the high-minded, the discriminating, the judicious, the honorable, and the public-spirited—all of which may have been aspects of Roosevelt's own conception of greatness.
In any event, "the touch of the purple" seems to have had a distinctive meaning for Roosevelt that made it appropriate in different situations. But it isn't clear that that meaning or complex of meanings survived him. |
222,276 | I have finally finished my web site. I published it, and I was surprised at the results. Although the App\_Code compiled into a single DLL file, every page's code behind compiled into its own DLL file. How do I make it so that it is one DLL file?
Also, is it possible to compile everything (SubSonic, AJAX, etc.) into that same single DLL file? | 2008/10/21 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/222276",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/5633/"
] | You might prefer to use the web application project style for that.
You can use [ILMerge](http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=22914587-B4AD-4EAE-87CF-B14AE6A939B0&displaylang=en) to merge assemblies into one. | To accomplish this you will have to covert your project into a Web Application Project (Supported in Visual Studio 2005 SP1 and Visual Studio 2008).
The process of converting is not that hard, but you will need to move everything out of the app\_code folder, as WAP (Web Application Projects) projects do not have code inside app\_code.
Once you do this, everything inside your project is compiled into a single DLL file, any external assemblies are still contained in their own DLL files though, but there are options around that as well. |
222,276 | I have finally finished my web site. I published it, and I was surprised at the results. Although the App\_Code compiled into a single DLL file, every page's code behind compiled into its own DLL file. How do I make it so that it is one DLL file?
Also, is it possible to compile everything (SubSonic, AJAX, etc.) into that same single DLL file? | 2008/10/21 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/222276",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/5633/"
] | You might prefer to use the web application project style for that.
You can use [ILMerge](http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=22914587-B4AD-4EAE-87CF-B14AE6A939B0&displaylang=en) to merge assemblies into one. | The way we do it is by adding a deployment project to our site:
<http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/asp.net/aa336619.aspx> |
222,276 | I have finally finished my web site. I published it, and I was surprised at the results. Although the App\_Code compiled into a single DLL file, every page's code behind compiled into its own DLL file. How do I make it so that it is one DLL file?
Also, is it possible to compile everything (SubSonic, AJAX, etc.) into that same single DLL file? | 2008/10/21 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/222276",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/5633/"
] | You might prefer to use the web application project style for that.
You can use [ILMerge](http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=22914587-B4AD-4EAE-87CF-B14AE6A939B0&displaylang=en) to merge assemblies into one. | We use build scripts for our websites and run the aspnet\_merge.exe from the command line. Here's the MSDN page: <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb397866.aspx> |
89,938 | I want to post my manuscript to bioRxiv before submitting onto formal journals, but I still have several concerns:
1. Can I claim I am the first for the discovery by posting my findings on bioRxiv ?
2. Similarly, is it a feasible way to prevent others from publishing ealier than me on the same topic ?
3. Are there any risks of having my research scooped after posting my manuscript on bioRxiv ?
Thanks and Best regards,
Michael | 2017/05/24 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/89938",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73930/"
] | (1) I discussed this question recently with few colleagues from biomedical field, and, as far as I can see, major part of the field do not accept a non-reviewed experimental findings as a proof of discovery. This is mostly for two reasons: first, there is no single preprint server in biology. There are BioRxiv, F1000, PeerJ, ASAPbio, Arxiv q-bio, and probably more. And all these papers are not indexed in the main paper bases, like PubMed or WoS. So to keep up with the "pre-publications" one will need to check every single pre-print server. And this is too much. Second problem is the fear that if the field will start to acknowledge the priority based on the claim, without checking the rigor of experimental design, it may promote the sloppy data handling, because researchers will rush to put their flag everywhere. And we are talking about the very populated field, where many sub-fields have a clinical relevance or otherwise related to highly sensitive problems of human/animal health and well-being.
(2) Probably no, but this is the risk that one takes in research when he/she is going to conference, submitting grant application, and etc. The question is whether this risk provides some benefits in return.
(3) I still think that biomedical field, in general, would benefit from fast communications of the research finding behind the closed doors (i.e. without making scientific statements to the public). Even from the personal perspective, it is a way to faster position yourself as a researcher among other colleagues. | Putting immature article before peer review is not proof of discovery.
If yes, we can easily scoop other's findings by posting quick, short and sloppy article in Preprint server (after knowing their data for example in some research conference) .
Also, the benefit of Preprint server is that researcher can publish there data quickly before long peer review and publication process.
However, in reality, most of the author post their articles in preprint sever when they noticed that some other group were also working on the same topics and wanted to insist their priority. This is quite ugly and selfish motivation.
All paper needs to go through peer review when the paper needs to be polished.
Even though that is time-consuming, this process is equally required for all academic paper.
Therefore, posting article in preprint server after knowing some competition is dirty scooping. |
89,938 | I want to post my manuscript to bioRxiv before submitting onto formal journals, but I still have several concerns:
1. Can I claim I am the first for the discovery by posting my findings on bioRxiv ?
2. Similarly, is it a feasible way to prevent others from publishing ealier than me on the same topic ?
3. Are there any risks of having my research scooped after posting my manuscript on bioRxiv ?
Thanks and Best regards,
Michael | 2017/05/24 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/89938",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73930/"
] | In fields that use [arXiv](https://arxiv.org/), publication in arXiv does establish a definitive date-stamp on the work (and an accompanying archival DOI) that is generally understood and respected by practitioners in the field. Nobody could reasonable "scoop" a work published there without being called on it by their peers.
bioRxiv is intended to provide the same for biology-related fields and technically does so. The culture of those fields, however, is often not yet as accepting of the idea of pre-publication and incrementally evolving works. Hence, for example, the much greater concern with the ideas of "priority" and "scoop" to begin with. A few journals still even consider sharing a pre-print in bioRxiv to be a sort of "self-scoop" that prevents you from submitting for peer review in that journal!
Still, the only way to change this culture is to embrace more open and sharing practices. I would advise checking whether others in your sub-field use bioRxiv, checking the publication policy of your target journal in [SHERPA/RoMEO](http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/journalbrowse.php?la=en&fIDnum=%7C&mode=simple), and checking if your co-authors are amenable to pre-print sharing. If you see others in your subfield sharing, and if there is no veto from the journal or co-authors, then go ahead! | Putting immature article before peer review is not proof of discovery.
If yes, we can easily scoop other's findings by posting quick, short and sloppy article in Preprint server (after knowing their data for example in some research conference) .
Also, the benefit of Preprint server is that researcher can publish there data quickly before long peer review and publication process.
However, in reality, most of the author post their articles in preprint sever when they noticed that some other group were also working on the same topics and wanted to insist their priority. This is quite ugly and selfish motivation.
All paper needs to go through peer review when the paper needs to be polished.
Even though that is time-consuming, this process is equally required for all academic paper.
Therefore, posting article in preprint server after knowing some competition is dirty scooping. |
11,007,454 | I am very new to the field of machine learning and am basically teaching myself, I was reading a couple of papers related to Support Vector Machines as that is what I am planning to use in solving my text classification problem. I could not however make much headway into any of the papers as I kept getting stuck on the concept of kernels and kernel methods and mapping the data into higher dimensions.
I know this is asking a lot because I have seen entire textbooks written about kernel methods and kernels but could somebody take a shot at posting an explanation about kernels and kernel methods starting from a very basic level because all the explanations I have seen so far assume a certain amount of prior knowledge about the field.
Also I am kind of unclear about the kernel function and how it is used to map "the data into higher dimensional spaces" if someone could please clarify these concepts for me or point me to a basic resource that explains these things from the basic level, I would be very grateful.
Thanks in advance. | 2012/06/13 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/11007454",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1009091/"
] | It's difficult to distill complex mathematics to a simple level, but this example helps I believe.
I apologize, it appears that Stack Overflow does not have support for math markup like [Computional Science](http://scicomp.stackexchange.com) does, so you'll have to bear with some crappy text based equations. Vector **x** = [*x1*, *x2*], so *x1* is the first component of the vector **x**.
For simplicity, lets imagine you have just two attributes for each training example, so your data is two-dimensional. You have developed a mapping function to map these two attributes into a higher dimension of three attributes. Your mapping function is as follows:
Φ(**x**) = [*x12*, *x22*, *x1* \* *x2*]
In the SVM Lagrangian formula:
Each training example appears as an inner product with another training example (the above image shows this in the first equation). If you want to use your mapping function, you would plug it in for each training example.
If you do it this way of course you will have to calculate Φ(**x**) for each training example explicitly, then calculate the inner product of the two vectors in your higher dimensional space. If we do this out for two vectors **x** and **y**, we would have:
Φ(**x**) \* Φ(**y**) = [*x12*, *x22*, *x1* \* *x2*] \* [*y12*, *y22*, *y1* \* *y2*] = *x12* \* *y12* + *x22* \* *y22* + *x1* \* *x2* \* *y1* \* *y2*
Imagine instead you used the polynomial kernel *K*(**x** , **y**) = (**x** \* **y**)*d* with the degree of two, you would have:
*K*(**x**, **y**) = (*x1* \* *y1* + *x2* \* *y2*)2 = *x12* \* *y12* + *x22* \* *y22* + *x1* \* *x2* \* *y1* \* *y2*
The kernel function allowed you to avoid calculating the higher dimensional space before calculating the inner product, but still resulted in the inner product of two vectors in that higher dimensional space. In this case we kept the example simple so we could do it out explicitly, but [Mercer's Theorem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercer%27s_theorem) shows that we can prove this is true for other functions without having to know the explicit mapping, as long as the function obeys [Mercer's condition](http://www.svms.org/mercer/). You can see how the kernel parameter *d* affects the mapping significantly, *d = 3* would result in a completely different mapping, so changing the kernel parameters is modifying the higher-dimensional space.
Since the higher-dimensional mapping is never used explicitly, only rather as a way to choose our optimal alpha's, we don't really need to know what it is, we can take advantage of it without having to calculate it. | Since your application is text classification you don't need to bother with non-linear kernels. Text already "lives" in a high dimensional (and sparse) space and there is no need to go into a space of even higher dimensionality.
You can safely try only Linear kernel.
Read the classic Joachims thesis and papers, author of SVMLight, on text classification to get a deeper understanding of this. |
15,963 | The [ping manual](http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/maverick/en/man8/ping.8.html) says that `ping -a` will generate audible pings, but when I try this no sound is made.
What am I doing wrong? | 2010/12/02 | [
"https://askubuntu.com/questions/15963",
"https://askubuntu.com",
"https://askubuntu.com/users/1859/"
] | Because the question is not specified for Unity only, I'll make a little hint about KDEs Konsole. You just should specify a sound for a "Bell in Visible Session" which is under *Settings -> Configure Notifications*. For example I'm using sounds from */usr/share/sounds/* section. I don't remember is there such an option in Ubuntu's Unity terminal. | If you are using Terminator as terminal on Ubuntu 18.10, left-click the Terminator, select preferences/profiles, and there is the audible beep option. |
11,532,992 | I've already learned how to generate BMP images based on the **BMP files structure** ([here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMP_file_format) and [here](http://www.ue.eti.pg.gda.pl/fpgalab/zadania.spartan3/zad_vga_struktura_pliku_bmp_en.html)).
Now I'm looking for the **PNG file structure** but I haven't found any good explanations.
Do you know where I can find this explanation with schemes as well? | 2012/07/18 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/11532992",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1378681/"
] | The complete specification is available here: <http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/spec/1.2/png-1.2.pdf>
Note that the PNG format is much more complex than BMP, since it allows compression, etc. | What about [Wikipedia's explanation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Network_Graphics#Technical_details)? It seems to be written very well and is very easy to understand. There's also the [specification](http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/spec/1.2/png-1.2.pdf), which goes into everything. |
130,481 | I want to hide a blob of information or a paragraph.
I identified two ways to try this neither of which worked.
One was to store it in a **comment** which takes it outside the page but I can't use because it puts it on the side of the page.
The other way to store it in a **link**. However this does not work as the link adder wants a valid URL.
Is there another way to do this I am missing?
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/HAy0V.png) | 2019/06/04 | [
"https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/130481",
"https://webapps.stackexchange.com",
"https://webapps.stackexchange.com/users/220091/"
] | Use the script editor to store hidden information. You can use comments `/* */` to hold the actual information.
Make sure and click save when you are done. | **Option\_1**
Yes. Simple but *not secure*.
Change the color of the paragraph to white.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/grhem.png)
Then you can use a simple search to find the hidden areas (in this case they are preceeded of # symbol, as if they were comments in code)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/hAcsO.png)
Note: If anyone does a 'select all' they will see the hidden text, so the usability is very limited.
**Option\_2**
Another way, a bit more convoluted, is to link paragraphs to cells in a google sheets document (let's call it Document\_A). If on Document\_A you delete the cells the Doc is referencing and update on Doc, the content is gone.
I hope the video is clearer.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/bhjzA.gif)
To created linked content (extremely easy), just copy the cells, and paste on the Doc. A pop-up will ask you if you want to link the content. Answer Yes. |
30,772 | I'm experimenting with NFC and realized that my passport actually stores data that is only available when the passport is opened. (A closed passport doesn't seem to divulge any information)
>
> What sequence of instructions is required to read data from a passport?
>
>
>
I assume a passive reading is insufficient, and some challenge / response is required. (I base this on how existing 3rd party NFC applications interact with passport data) | 2013/02/12 | [
"https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/30772",
"https://security.stackexchange.com",
"https://security.stackexchange.com/users/396/"
] | Information in passports is protected by the [Basic Access Control](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_access_control) protocol, the standard can be found [here](http://icao.int/publications/pages/publication.aspx?docnum=9303) (Updated from Wojciech's comment). In order to read from the passport you need certain pieces of information; the passport number, the D.O.B and the date of expiry.
[NFC TagInfo](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=at.mroland.android.apps.nfctaginfo&hl=en) is quite a nice app that can read passports amongst other things, make sure you enter the correct information before attempting the read though. It can take a few seconds to read due to the amount of information being transferred.
In the USA there are foil covers over the passport which [prevent the NFC working](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_passport#Biometric_passport) without the passport being open however with my UK passport I can read it just fine when it's closed. | These following posts: [1](http://randomoracle.wordpress.com/2012/08/27/reading-the-us-passport-using-an-android-phone-overview/) & [2](http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-technology/1342167-viewing-info-epassport-chip-using-android-phone-nfc.html) has some high-level information on the steps that you have to go through. It describes the steps through the use of an NFC tag reading app, but the steps look to include. First identifying the tag and making an attempt to read. The read requires information fromthe passport to decrypt the stored data.
Hope this helps some. |
13,204,539 | On average how long does it take Apple to update/publish my new app/update on the App Store and iTunes website? | 2012/11/02 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/13204539",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1761447/"
] | It depends on a human at Apple reviewing your app. If you'd made a few small graphics changes then it won't take very long, if you've added stuff like access to the address book or whatever they may look more closely. And it may take a while for them to get to yours if lots of other apps have been submitted recently too. So you might as well ask "How long is a piece of string?" | This link requires you to sign-in to your developer account:
<https://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/index.html#expect>
There is a box on the right with approval statistics - *most* update reviews are currently being completed within 8 business days.
E:
There are no longer statistics on that page (and it is no longer dev-account protected).
Statistics are now available without signing in:
<https://developer.apple.com/support/appstore/#appReviewStatus>
There is a box on the left with % of new/updated apps reviewed in the past 5 business days.
There are also community efforts to continue tracking approval statistics by # of days:
<http://appreviewtimes.com/>
Keep in mind that community efforts rely on self-reporting of approval times. |
13,204,539 | On average how long does it take Apple to update/publish my new app/update on the App Store and iTunes website? | 2012/11/02 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/13204539",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1761447/"
] | It depends on a human at Apple reviewing your app. If you'd made a few small graphics changes then it won't take very long, if you've added stuff like access to the address book or whatever they may look more closely. And it may take a while for them to get to yours if lots of other apps have been submitted recently too. So you might as well ask "How long is a piece of string?" | usually around 8-10 days from what I've experiences (and according to this site)
<http://reviewtimes.shinydevelopment.com> |
13,204,539 | On average how long does it take Apple to update/publish my new app/update on the App Store and iTunes website? | 2012/11/02 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/13204539",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1761447/"
] | This link requires you to sign-in to your developer account:
<https://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/index.html#expect>
There is a box on the right with approval statistics - *most* update reviews are currently being completed within 8 business days.
E:
There are no longer statistics on that page (and it is no longer dev-account protected).
Statistics are now available without signing in:
<https://developer.apple.com/support/appstore/#appReviewStatus>
There is a box on the left with % of new/updated apps reviewed in the past 5 business days.
There are also community efforts to continue tracking approval statistics by # of days:
<http://appreviewtimes.com/>
Keep in mind that community efforts rely on self-reporting of approval times. | usually around 8-10 days from what I've experiences (and according to this site)
<http://reviewtimes.shinydevelopment.com> |
167,776 | Can jump from any custom rim to any other by just having twrp recovery installed ? Or do I need to first come back to stock ROM and again install another custom ROM ? | 2017/01/26 | [
"https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/167776",
"https://android.stackexchange.com",
"https://android.stackexchange.com/users/205783/"
] | If you want to switch to other custom ROM just go to TWRP/CWM and perform the wipes and flash it, no need to install stock ROM. If you want to go to stock ROM than you'll need pc with software to flash firmware or via download mode on phone. | To install a custom rom you need a custom recovery for your phone .Then you can switch from a stock rom to a custom rom or from a custom rom to another custom rom . You do not need to install the stock rom for installing new custom rom. But if you flash your stock rom and it vanishes your custom recovery and install the stock recovery again then you have to install the custom recovery twrp or touchwiz recovery again to switch a custom rom ,you also have to room your phone again . |
50,953 | Normally, in Magic the Gathering, your library is a hidden zone; neither you nor your opponent are allowed to look at the cards in it during a game of Magic: the Gathering unless an effect says that you can. However, with the release of Ikoria, there are now Companion cards that allow you to cast them if you've obeyed certain deck building restrictions.
When you go to cast one from outside the game, how does your opponent verify that you meet the deckbuilding requirement for doing so? They can't look at the contents of your library, so it's entirely possible that your deck has one or more cards that violate the Companion's deckbuilding restriction, and you just haven't played them to a public zone yet. I've look at the [article](https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/ikoria-lair-behemoths-and-commander-2020-edition-release-notes-2020-04-10) on the WotC website explaining the set mechanics of Ikoria, and it doesn't mention this problem at all.
You can choose a Companion that you're incapable of casting (e.g. to trick the opponent into thinking your deck is something it isn't), right? Is the only way for your opponent to verify your ability to cast a Companion to call a Judge to look at your decklist? | 2020/04/20 | [
"https://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/50953",
"https://boardgames.stackexchange.com",
"https://boardgames.stackexchange.com/users/24024/"
] | Presenting a card as your companion requires you meet the companion condition. Like every keyword in magic, there is a section of the [comprehensive rules](https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Companion) that cover the ability, and those rules are what really matter. I think what you're doing is reading the reminder text as if it were the entirety of the rules for companion (reminding that you could originally cast a companion from outside the game once, now can add it to your hand for 3 mana) Here are the sections, with my emphasis:
>
> ***103.1b*** If a player wishes to reveal a card with a companion ability that they own from outside the game, they may do so after setting aside their sideboard. A player may reveal no more than one card this way, and may do so **only if their deck fulfills the condition of that card’s companion ability.** (See rule 702.138, “Companion.”)
>
>
> ***702.138a*** Companion is a keyword ability that functions outside the game. It’s written as “Companion—[Condition].” **Before the game begins, you may reveal one card you own from outside the game with a companion ability whose condition is fulfilled by your starting deck.** (See rule 103.1b.) ~~If you do, once during that game, you may play that card from outside the game.~~ Once during the game, any time you have priority and the stack is empty, but only during a main phase of your turn, you may pay {3} and put that card into your hand. This is a special action that doesn’t use the stack (see rule 116.2g). This is a change from previous rules.
>
>
>
These two connected rules, with one being a restating of part of the other with a different focus (one from the start of game rules section, the other from the companion section) explain how companion really works - that the deck MUST meet the companion restriction for you to reveal this card. The text in brackets on the card (the reminder text) originally told you what you can do with your companion, before the rules change, but the rules themselves say how a card can become your companion. Revealing a companion that your deck does not meet the conditions for makes it an illegal deck.
As for how you verify if a deck is legal under companion rules, this works the same way as any other deck construction rule, that is you assume the deck is legally constructed until you prove otherwise. If you see a 5th copy of any of the cards (other than the 16 that can legally have more than 4 copies of) you see the deck is illegal and act on that. So if you see a 2 drop in a deck with [Keruga, the Macrosage](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=%2b%5bKeruga%2c%20the%20Macrosage%5d) as the companion, you know the deck rules have been violated. This is actually pretty hard to hide - You can't play that card, it can't be in your hand when you get hit with something like [Thoughtseize](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=%2b%5bThoughtseize%5d), it can't be milled from your deck, and your opponent can't play any card that lets them look at your deck like [Surgical Extraction](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=%2b%5bSurgical%20Extraction%5d). An invalid companion would be just as hard to hide as a 5th copy of a card to an opponent paying attention.
Any potential psychological advantage fooling your opponent about what your deck is by announcing a companion that couldn't legally be your companion really doesn't exist - now you're playing with a deck that doesn't have 60 useful cards in it, it has say 50 cards that match the restriction and 10 dead ones that show you to be cheating so you could never let your opponent see them. It's also just poor sportsmanship to try and cheat. | **A player may declare a companion only if that player's starting deck conforms to that companion's deckbuilding rule. You cannot directly check your opponent's deck for being legal for that companion; only a judge may perform a deck check. You assume the opponent follows all rules until you see they don't; in that case, you call a judge. That being said, there is no way for players to gain an unfair advantage from misconstructing a deck under the companion rules or otherwise, since all such attempts would become public the moment they would reveal the illegal card(s).**
By declaring a card as a companion, a player claims that their current starting deck conforms to the additional deckbuilding rule imposed by that companion. If that player's current starting deck would not in fact be legal for that companion, the player is not allowed to declare that companion in the first place, let alone to cast it from outside the game. Of course, as stated above, you have no way of checking that at the start of a game, but the "contract" is that you believe the opponent until you see contrary evidence.
Declaring a companion happens before each game starts and is public knowledge, because the declared companion card is visible to all players while it's still in the sideboard:
>
> 702.138a Companion is a keyword ability that functions outside the game. It’s written as “Companion—[Condition].” Before the game begins, you may reveal one card you own from outside the game with a companion ability whose condition is fulfilled by your starting deck. (See rule 103.1b.) If you do, once during that game, you may play that card from outside the game.
>
>
>
Note that, unlike e.g. the Commander in Commander games, declaring a companion is neither mandatory nor fixed. If you choose to not declare a companion for a game, then there are no additional deckbuilding rules for that game. Sideboarding between games changes your starting deck and therefore might affect the legality of a certain companion. You can even declare a different companion for each game, as long as you sideboarded accordingly:
>
> Starting Deck
>
>
> After a player has set aside their sideboard, their remaining deck becomes their starting deck. See rule 103.1.
>
>
>
If, at any point during the game, a card that does violate the current companion's rule is revealed, you call a jduge who will then perform a deck check. I'm no judge, but intuitively, I would apply a harsh penalty (game loss) for illegally declaring a companion, even by mistake - declaring a companion can completely change the way their opponent would play the game. Even if the companion, or none of the illegal cards, are played, their implied potential can cause drastic strategic changes, such as withholding counters or removal.
If the illegal companion was declared intentionally, it would be cheating and cause for disqualification. Determining which applies is up to the judge. |
50,953 | Normally, in Magic the Gathering, your library is a hidden zone; neither you nor your opponent are allowed to look at the cards in it during a game of Magic: the Gathering unless an effect says that you can. However, with the release of Ikoria, there are now Companion cards that allow you to cast them if you've obeyed certain deck building restrictions.
When you go to cast one from outside the game, how does your opponent verify that you meet the deckbuilding requirement for doing so? They can't look at the contents of your library, so it's entirely possible that your deck has one or more cards that violate the Companion's deckbuilding restriction, and you just haven't played them to a public zone yet. I've look at the [article](https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/ikoria-lair-behemoths-and-commander-2020-edition-release-notes-2020-04-10) on the WotC website explaining the set mechanics of Ikoria, and it doesn't mention this problem at all.
You can choose a Companion that you're incapable of casting (e.g. to trick the opponent into thinking your deck is something it isn't), right? Is the only way for your opponent to verify your ability to cast a Companion to call a Judge to look at your decklist? | 2020/04/20 | [
"https://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/50953",
"https://boardgames.stackexchange.com",
"https://boardgames.stackexchange.com/users/24024/"
] | Companion-related cheating is much the same as other existing forms of cheating regarding illegal decks and sideboard. Call a judge just like in any other situation where you suspect someone is running an illegal deck.
The updated [Infraction Procedure Guide](https://media.wpn.wizards.com/attachements/mtg_ipg_17apr20_en_0.pdf) (IPG) has specifically addressed Companion cards. At a high level, Companion deck restrictions fall under other existing deck restrictions and enforcement actions. For example, it was already illegal to run more than 4 copies of any card (other than basic land) or a 59 card constructed deck.
For constructed events, decklists should be used. From the decklist, Judges should be able to verify that an opponent's deck does or doesn't meet the required deckbuilding restriction for companion. Most decklists errors are penalized with a game loss, but the Companion-related errors (if caught early enough) may be remedied instead.
>
> Companions affect what the player intended to play, and may produce a situation in which the deck and decklist match, but violate the restriction on the intended companion. In these situations, it is acceptable to alter the deck and sideboard configuration to meet the restriction.
>
>
>
If there is no problem with the decklist, but you suspect that a player has improperly sideboarded, this fall under a Deck Problem (section 3.5). By default, these errors (which are assumed to be honest mistakes) carry only a warning, but a judge may upgrade these sideboarding errors as needed. New guidance regarding Companion-related Deck Problems includes:
>
> If the error caused a violation of a companion restriction and it is a post-sideboard game (or a pre-sideboard game and the player has elected to continue with the deck they registered that does not match the revealed companion condition), choose at random from cards in the sideboard that meet the companion restriction; the opponent decides where each chosen card goes. If making the deck match the companion condition is impossible, upgrade the penalty to a Game Loss.
>
>
>
And possible upgrades to a game loss regarding companion:
>
> Upgrade: If an error resulted in more copies of a main deck card being played than were
> registered or allowed by companion restriction and this was discovered after the game had
> begun, the penalty is a Game Loss unless all copies of the card are still in the random portion of the library. For example if the decklist has two copies of Shock in the main deck and two in the sideboard, but a search finds two copies of Shock in the library with another already in the graveyard, the penalty is upgraded.
>
>
> | **A player may declare a companion only if that player's starting deck conforms to that companion's deckbuilding rule. You cannot directly check your opponent's deck for being legal for that companion; only a judge may perform a deck check. You assume the opponent follows all rules until you see they don't; in that case, you call a judge. That being said, there is no way for players to gain an unfair advantage from misconstructing a deck under the companion rules or otherwise, since all such attempts would become public the moment they would reveal the illegal card(s).**
By declaring a card as a companion, a player claims that their current starting deck conforms to the additional deckbuilding rule imposed by that companion. If that player's current starting deck would not in fact be legal for that companion, the player is not allowed to declare that companion in the first place, let alone to cast it from outside the game. Of course, as stated above, you have no way of checking that at the start of a game, but the "contract" is that you believe the opponent until you see contrary evidence.
Declaring a companion happens before each game starts and is public knowledge, because the declared companion card is visible to all players while it's still in the sideboard:
>
> 702.138a Companion is a keyword ability that functions outside the game. It’s written as “Companion—[Condition].” Before the game begins, you may reveal one card you own from outside the game with a companion ability whose condition is fulfilled by your starting deck. (See rule 103.1b.) If you do, once during that game, you may play that card from outside the game.
>
>
>
Note that, unlike e.g. the Commander in Commander games, declaring a companion is neither mandatory nor fixed. If you choose to not declare a companion for a game, then there are no additional deckbuilding rules for that game. Sideboarding between games changes your starting deck and therefore might affect the legality of a certain companion. You can even declare a different companion for each game, as long as you sideboarded accordingly:
>
> Starting Deck
>
>
> After a player has set aside their sideboard, their remaining deck becomes their starting deck. See rule 103.1.
>
>
>
If, at any point during the game, a card that does violate the current companion's rule is revealed, you call a jduge who will then perform a deck check. I'm no judge, but intuitively, I would apply a harsh penalty (game loss) for illegally declaring a companion, even by mistake - declaring a companion can completely change the way their opponent would play the game. Even if the companion, or none of the illegal cards, are played, their implied potential can cause drastic strategic changes, such as withholding counters or removal.
If the illegal companion was declared intentionally, it would be cheating and cause for disqualification. Determining which applies is up to the judge. |
50,953 | Normally, in Magic the Gathering, your library is a hidden zone; neither you nor your opponent are allowed to look at the cards in it during a game of Magic: the Gathering unless an effect says that you can. However, with the release of Ikoria, there are now Companion cards that allow you to cast them if you've obeyed certain deck building restrictions.
When you go to cast one from outside the game, how does your opponent verify that you meet the deckbuilding requirement for doing so? They can't look at the contents of your library, so it's entirely possible that your deck has one or more cards that violate the Companion's deckbuilding restriction, and you just haven't played them to a public zone yet. I've look at the [article](https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/ikoria-lair-behemoths-and-commander-2020-edition-release-notes-2020-04-10) on the WotC website explaining the set mechanics of Ikoria, and it doesn't mention this problem at all.
You can choose a Companion that you're incapable of casting (e.g. to trick the opponent into thinking your deck is something it isn't), right? Is the only way for your opponent to verify your ability to cast a Companion to call a Judge to look at your decklist? | 2020/04/20 | [
"https://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/50953",
"https://boardgames.stackexchange.com",
"https://boardgames.stackexchange.com/users/24024/"
] | Presenting a card as your companion requires you meet the companion condition. Like every keyword in magic, there is a section of the [comprehensive rules](https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Companion) that cover the ability, and those rules are what really matter. I think what you're doing is reading the reminder text as if it were the entirety of the rules for companion (reminding that you could originally cast a companion from outside the game once, now can add it to your hand for 3 mana) Here are the sections, with my emphasis:
>
> ***103.1b*** If a player wishes to reveal a card with a companion ability that they own from outside the game, they may do so after setting aside their sideboard. A player may reveal no more than one card this way, and may do so **only if their deck fulfills the condition of that card’s companion ability.** (See rule 702.138, “Companion.”)
>
>
> ***702.138a*** Companion is a keyword ability that functions outside the game. It’s written as “Companion—[Condition].” **Before the game begins, you may reveal one card you own from outside the game with a companion ability whose condition is fulfilled by your starting deck.** (See rule 103.1b.) ~~If you do, once during that game, you may play that card from outside the game.~~ Once during the game, any time you have priority and the stack is empty, but only during a main phase of your turn, you may pay {3} and put that card into your hand. This is a special action that doesn’t use the stack (see rule 116.2g). This is a change from previous rules.
>
>
>
These two connected rules, with one being a restating of part of the other with a different focus (one from the start of game rules section, the other from the companion section) explain how companion really works - that the deck MUST meet the companion restriction for you to reveal this card. The text in brackets on the card (the reminder text) originally told you what you can do with your companion, before the rules change, but the rules themselves say how a card can become your companion. Revealing a companion that your deck does not meet the conditions for makes it an illegal deck.
As for how you verify if a deck is legal under companion rules, this works the same way as any other deck construction rule, that is you assume the deck is legally constructed until you prove otherwise. If you see a 5th copy of any of the cards (other than the 16 that can legally have more than 4 copies of) you see the deck is illegal and act on that. So if you see a 2 drop in a deck with [Keruga, the Macrosage](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=%2b%5bKeruga%2c%20the%20Macrosage%5d) as the companion, you know the deck rules have been violated. This is actually pretty hard to hide - You can't play that card, it can't be in your hand when you get hit with something like [Thoughtseize](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=%2b%5bThoughtseize%5d), it can't be milled from your deck, and your opponent can't play any card that lets them look at your deck like [Surgical Extraction](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=%2b%5bSurgical%20Extraction%5d). An invalid companion would be just as hard to hide as a 5th copy of a card to an opponent paying attention.
Any potential psychological advantage fooling your opponent about what your deck is by announcing a companion that couldn't legally be your companion really doesn't exist - now you're playing with a deck that doesn't have 60 useful cards in it, it has say 50 cards that match the restriction and 10 dead ones that show you to be cheating so you could never let your opponent see them. It's also just poor sportsmanship to try and cheat. | Companion-related cheating is much the same as other existing forms of cheating regarding illegal decks and sideboard. Call a judge just like in any other situation where you suspect someone is running an illegal deck.
The updated [Infraction Procedure Guide](https://media.wpn.wizards.com/attachements/mtg_ipg_17apr20_en_0.pdf) (IPG) has specifically addressed Companion cards. At a high level, Companion deck restrictions fall under other existing deck restrictions and enforcement actions. For example, it was already illegal to run more than 4 copies of any card (other than basic land) or a 59 card constructed deck.
For constructed events, decklists should be used. From the decklist, Judges should be able to verify that an opponent's deck does or doesn't meet the required deckbuilding restriction for companion. Most decklists errors are penalized with a game loss, but the Companion-related errors (if caught early enough) may be remedied instead.
>
> Companions affect what the player intended to play, and may produce a situation in which the deck and decklist match, but violate the restriction on the intended companion. In these situations, it is acceptable to alter the deck and sideboard configuration to meet the restriction.
>
>
>
If there is no problem with the decklist, but you suspect that a player has improperly sideboarded, this fall under a Deck Problem (section 3.5). By default, these errors (which are assumed to be honest mistakes) carry only a warning, but a judge may upgrade these sideboarding errors as needed. New guidance regarding Companion-related Deck Problems includes:
>
> If the error caused a violation of a companion restriction and it is a post-sideboard game (or a pre-sideboard game and the player has elected to continue with the deck they registered that does not match the revealed companion condition), choose at random from cards in the sideboard that meet the companion restriction; the opponent decides where each chosen card goes. If making the deck match the companion condition is impossible, upgrade the penalty to a Game Loss.
>
>
>
And possible upgrades to a game loss regarding companion:
>
> Upgrade: If an error resulted in more copies of a main deck card being played than were
> registered or allowed by companion restriction and this was discovered after the game had
> begun, the penalty is a Game Loss unless all copies of the card are still in the random portion of the library. For example if the decklist has two copies of Shock in the main deck and two in the sideboard, but a search finds two copies of Shock in the library with another already in the graveyard, the penalty is upgraded.
>
>
> |
100,492 | I have a reservation for a TGV train that I won't be able to make due to major delays on the DeutscheBahn. I was given a new suggested itinerary by a gate agent, but she did not make an actual change to my ticket or reservations. It involved being on the subsequent TGV.
The TGV as I understand it requires reservations, so I am wondering if this will cause a problem? I also don't want to end up not having a space on the train or a seat as I have two young kids and an airplane to catch from Paris tomorrow.
If it will cause a problem, how can I get a reservation for a seat? The DB agent said she could not arrange it but told me it would not be a problem, but I don't know that I believe her. Unfortunately I have very short changeover times from here on out. | 2017/08/19 | [
"https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/100492",
"https://travel.stackexchange.com",
"https://travel.stackexchange.com/users/19006/"
] | What ultimately ended up happening was just as the DB agent said: I made my train (with one *more* delay, as my RE engine overheated and started smoking...) and had no trouble going the rest of the way.
It worked out in part because the train was originating in a different location (originally was supposed to originate in Karlsruhe, instead originated in Mannheim) and so was effectively a new train that nobody could buy tickets/reservations for. We ended up having the entire bottom of a first class car to ourselves and never were even asked for our tickets (I think I ended up going the entire route, 4 trains, with only being asked for my ticket once). | Don't worry, whenever in France you cannot catch up with your TGV or TER, use SNCF App on iPhone or other phones, find when is next TGV/TER to your destination, get on it, find a seat, and rest until conductors come to you. They know all about delayed/cancelled trains and will not bother you at all but will even help. |
8,927 | In the US, there are many large cities that are dominated by a single party. After Reconstruction and through the 70s, the Southern States were solidly Democratic.
There are often strong factions in these single party districts, but they do not become full parties with clear signalling mechanisms and separate governance structure.
Why not? What are the theories of why local parties do not emerge?
Are there any examples of local parties emerging in the US? | 2015/09/07 | [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/8927",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/6186/"
] | blip's answer kind of hinted at an answer, but not to the underlying cause.
One of the major reason for polarization is that, as researchers discovered, " people want to live among people who share their ideology as well. People are motivated to move away from communities where they don't fit in and try to find areas that are more congenial".
This is discussed in detail in this NPR article: <http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/11/26/247362143/how-republicans-and-democrats-ended-up-living-apart>; but the underlying major study is summarized as:
>
> But the U.Va. and USC researchers, in a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Experiment Social Psychology, suggest that increasing numbers of people want to live among people who share their ideology as well. People are motivated to move away from communities where they don't fit in and try to find areas that are more congenial.
>
>
> Individuals have always sought to live among others they find congenial and similar to themselves, but, increasingly, that includes partisan leanings, Bishop says.
>
>
> "It is natural for people to desire communities where they share a worldview with their neighbors," writes the team, led by Matt Motyl, a doctoral candidate in psychology at U.Va.
>
>
> | Broadly speaking: demographics. In the US, rural tends to lean republican and urban leans democrat. We also have bigger regional leanings (like New England vs. Texas). On top of that, we have gerrymandering where a party that is in power draws the district lines in hopes they can stay in power.
>
> What are the theories of why local parties do not emerge?
>
>
>
They do emerge, but are often at a disadvantage against candidates from the major parties, who find plenty of support being a part of the bigger machine.
>
> Are there any examples of local parties emerging in the US?
>
>
>
Yes. Some that come to mind would be:
* [The Independence Party of MN](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_Party_of_Minnesota) who famously got [Jesse Ventura](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Ventura) elected as governor.
* [Socialist Alternative](http://www.socialistalternative.org/) in Seattle who got [Kshama Sawant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kshama_Sawant#Seattle_City_Council) elected to city council.
* Wikipedia also has a [long list of regional parties in the US](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_the_United_States#Regional_parties). |
8,927 | In the US, there are many large cities that are dominated by a single party. After Reconstruction and through the 70s, the Southern States were solidly Democratic.
There are often strong factions in these single party districts, but they do not become full parties with clear signalling mechanisms and separate governance structure.
Why not? What are the theories of why local parties do not emerge?
Are there any examples of local parties emerging in the US? | 2015/09/07 | [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/8927",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/6186/"
] | Broadly speaking: demographics. In the US, rural tends to lean republican and urban leans democrat. We also have bigger regional leanings (like New England vs. Texas). On top of that, we have gerrymandering where a party that is in power draws the district lines in hopes they can stay in power.
>
> What are the theories of why local parties do not emerge?
>
>
>
They do emerge, but are often at a disadvantage against candidates from the major parties, who find plenty of support being a part of the bigger machine.
>
> Are there any examples of local parties emerging in the US?
>
>
>
Yes. Some that come to mind would be:
* [The Independence Party of MN](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_Party_of_Minnesota) who famously got [Jesse Ventura](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Ventura) elected as governor.
* [Socialist Alternative](http://www.socialistalternative.org/) in Seattle who got [Kshama Sawant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kshama_Sawant#Seattle_City_Council) elected to city council.
* Wikipedia also has a [long list of regional parties in the US](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_the_United_States#Regional_parties). | My answer is a bit more narrow than the others. Third parties in the US are rarely successful due to the first-past-the-post voting system, otherwise known as winner-take-all voting.
Imagine that a party that mostly aligns with the democrats but has some slightly different views rises up in one area that has a history of voting about 60% democrats 40% republicans in most elections. When it comes to election time they've managed to sway about half of the democrat voters and the election results come out like this:
* 30% democrats
* 30% third party
* 40% republicans
The republicans win even though 60% of voters don't want them in government, at the next election, everyone gives up on the third party and goes back to voting democrat because they have the best chance of winning, the third party all but disappears and everything basically goes back to normal.
This is known as vote splitting and leads to factional divisions and power struggles within a party in favour of forming new parties, it also means that it normally takes a massive effort to upset the status quo of a political system that uses this voting system.
If you want to learn about alternative systems of voting I highly recommend watching CGP Grey's series ["Politics in the Animal Kingdom"](http://www.cgpgrey.com/politics-in-the-animal-kingdom/) and researching Condorcet voting. |
8,927 | In the US, there are many large cities that are dominated by a single party. After Reconstruction and through the 70s, the Southern States were solidly Democratic.
There are often strong factions in these single party districts, but they do not become full parties with clear signalling mechanisms and separate governance structure.
Why not? What are the theories of why local parties do not emerge?
Are there any examples of local parties emerging in the US? | 2015/09/07 | [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/8927",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/6186/"
] | Broadly speaking: demographics. In the US, rural tends to lean republican and urban leans democrat. We also have bigger regional leanings (like New England vs. Texas). On top of that, we have gerrymandering where a party that is in power draws the district lines in hopes they can stay in power.
>
> What are the theories of why local parties do not emerge?
>
>
>
They do emerge, but are often at a disadvantage against candidates from the major parties, who find plenty of support being a part of the bigger machine.
>
> Are there any examples of local parties emerging in the US?
>
>
>
Yes. Some that come to mind would be:
* [The Independence Party of MN](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_Party_of_Minnesota) who famously got [Jesse Ventura](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Ventura) elected as governor.
* [Socialist Alternative](http://www.socialistalternative.org/) in Seattle who got [Kshama Sawant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kshama_Sawant#Seattle_City_Council) elected to city council.
* Wikipedia also has a [long list of regional parties in the US](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_the_United_States#Regional_parties). | In the United States, state and local governments have significant power. Many Americans are willing to move between parts of the country, especially in their early adult years. State and local governments have repeatedly imposed policies that encouraged people who agreed with the policy-makers to move to their jurisdictions, and encouraged people who disagreed with the policy-makers to leave. Over the course of a generation, this effect can be strong enough to lock-in the politics of a region. For example:
* During most of the 20th century, public education (or expensive private-school education) was mandatory for most children between the ages of 6 and 16.
* In places that concentrated control of large school districts, public education often became so poor that people who could afford to leave did. The emigration often was triggered by real estate "block-busting" or "forced bussing" of school-children.
* "Open-shop" and "closed-shop" laws for establishing and maintaining unionized work-places tend to change what kinds of jobs are available in a state.
* Alcohol sales are regulated at a state or local level. These policies often distinguish between different kinds of alcohol, in ways that make some ethnic groups comfortable, and encourage other ethnic groups to leave.
* Prostitution and gambling are also regulated at a state or local level. (Gambling laws have become looser, due to competition between Indian casinos and state lotteries.)
* Gun-control laws attract people who are afraid of guns, and repel people who own guns.
* Generous government benefits programs attract people who are eligible for benefits. The concomitant high tax rates repel people (and their employees) who are subject to the taxes.
* Major cities and "college towns" tend to disproportionately retain young people who did not "fit in" in the communities they came from.
* Some states have "growth control" laws designed to limit suburban sprawl. These laws tend to create an auction for a limited number of places to live. In-city homes tend to become very expensive. Young people delay marrying and starting families. Young families tend to move to places that allow building new single-family homes with yards.
* Some states have severe restrictions on nuclear power, coal-fired power, and automobile tailpipe emissions. These states also tend to have large subsidies for solar power and wind power. These policies substantially increase the cost of electricity and gasoline. Initially, these policies greatly reduced smog. The ongoing effect is hard to distinguish from a large tax increase.
* Many states have made it illegal to exercise one's conscience in choosing whom to interact with. The number of kinds of such regulated interactions is increasing.
Note that one major U.S. political party is associated with teachers' unions, other government employees' unions, closed-shop laws, gun control laws, generous government benefits programs, increasing taxes, growth control, "environmental regulations", and laws restricting freedom of conscience. Thus, most of these policies tend to reinforce each other. |
8,927 | In the US, there are many large cities that are dominated by a single party. After Reconstruction and through the 70s, the Southern States were solidly Democratic.
There are often strong factions in these single party districts, but they do not become full parties with clear signalling mechanisms and separate governance structure.
Why not? What are the theories of why local parties do not emerge?
Are there any examples of local parties emerging in the US? | 2015/09/07 | [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/8927",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/6186/"
] | blip's answer kind of hinted at an answer, but not to the underlying cause.
One of the major reason for polarization is that, as researchers discovered, " people want to live among people who share their ideology as well. People are motivated to move away from communities where they don't fit in and try to find areas that are more congenial".
This is discussed in detail in this NPR article: <http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/11/26/247362143/how-republicans-and-democrats-ended-up-living-apart>; but the underlying major study is summarized as:
>
> But the U.Va. and USC researchers, in a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Experiment Social Psychology, suggest that increasing numbers of people want to live among people who share their ideology as well. People are motivated to move away from communities where they don't fit in and try to find areas that are more congenial.
>
>
> Individuals have always sought to live among others they find congenial and similar to themselves, but, increasingly, that includes partisan leanings, Bishop says.
>
>
> "It is natural for people to desire communities where they share a worldview with their neighbors," writes the team, led by Matt Motyl, a doctoral candidate in psychology at U.Va.
>
>
> | My answer is a bit more narrow than the others. Third parties in the US are rarely successful due to the first-past-the-post voting system, otherwise known as winner-take-all voting.
Imagine that a party that mostly aligns with the democrats but has some slightly different views rises up in one area that has a history of voting about 60% democrats 40% republicans in most elections. When it comes to election time they've managed to sway about half of the democrat voters and the election results come out like this:
* 30% democrats
* 30% third party
* 40% republicans
The republicans win even though 60% of voters don't want them in government, at the next election, everyone gives up on the third party and goes back to voting democrat because they have the best chance of winning, the third party all but disappears and everything basically goes back to normal.
This is known as vote splitting and leads to factional divisions and power struggles within a party in favour of forming new parties, it also means that it normally takes a massive effort to upset the status quo of a political system that uses this voting system.
If you want to learn about alternative systems of voting I highly recommend watching CGP Grey's series ["Politics in the Animal Kingdom"](http://www.cgpgrey.com/politics-in-the-animal-kingdom/) and researching Condorcet voting. |
8,927 | In the US, there are many large cities that are dominated by a single party. After Reconstruction and through the 70s, the Southern States were solidly Democratic.
There are often strong factions in these single party districts, but they do not become full parties with clear signalling mechanisms and separate governance structure.
Why not? What are the theories of why local parties do not emerge?
Are there any examples of local parties emerging in the US? | 2015/09/07 | [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/8927",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/6186/"
] | blip's answer kind of hinted at an answer, but not to the underlying cause.
One of the major reason for polarization is that, as researchers discovered, " people want to live among people who share their ideology as well. People are motivated to move away from communities where they don't fit in and try to find areas that are more congenial".
This is discussed in detail in this NPR article: <http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/11/26/247362143/how-republicans-and-democrats-ended-up-living-apart>; but the underlying major study is summarized as:
>
> But the U.Va. and USC researchers, in a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Experiment Social Psychology, suggest that increasing numbers of people want to live among people who share their ideology as well. People are motivated to move away from communities where they don't fit in and try to find areas that are more congenial.
>
>
> Individuals have always sought to live among others they find congenial and similar to themselves, but, increasingly, that includes partisan leanings, Bishop says.
>
>
> "It is natural for people to desire communities where they share a worldview with their neighbors," writes the team, led by Matt Motyl, a doctoral candidate in psychology at U.Va.
>
>
> | In the United States, state and local governments have significant power. Many Americans are willing to move between parts of the country, especially in their early adult years. State and local governments have repeatedly imposed policies that encouraged people who agreed with the policy-makers to move to their jurisdictions, and encouraged people who disagreed with the policy-makers to leave. Over the course of a generation, this effect can be strong enough to lock-in the politics of a region. For example:
* During most of the 20th century, public education (or expensive private-school education) was mandatory for most children between the ages of 6 and 16.
* In places that concentrated control of large school districts, public education often became so poor that people who could afford to leave did. The emigration often was triggered by real estate "block-busting" or "forced bussing" of school-children.
* "Open-shop" and "closed-shop" laws for establishing and maintaining unionized work-places tend to change what kinds of jobs are available in a state.
* Alcohol sales are regulated at a state or local level. These policies often distinguish between different kinds of alcohol, in ways that make some ethnic groups comfortable, and encourage other ethnic groups to leave.
* Prostitution and gambling are also regulated at a state or local level. (Gambling laws have become looser, due to competition between Indian casinos and state lotteries.)
* Gun-control laws attract people who are afraid of guns, and repel people who own guns.
* Generous government benefits programs attract people who are eligible for benefits. The concomitant high tax rates repel people (and their employees) who are subject to the taxes.
* Major cities and "college towns" tend to disproportionately retain young people who did not "fit in" in the communities they came from.
* Some states have "growth control" laws designed to limit suburban sprawl. These laws tend to create an auction for a limited number of places to live. In-city homes tend to become very expensive. Young people delay marrying and starting families. Young families tend to move to places that allow building new single-family homes with yards.
* Some states have severe restrictions on nuclear power, coal-fired power, and automobile tailpipe emissions. These states also tend to have large subsidies for solar power and wind power. These policies substantially increase the cost of electricity and gasoline. Initially, these policies greatly reduced smog. The ongoing effect is hard to distinguish from a large tax increase.
* Many states have made it illegal to exercise one's conscience in choosing whom to interact with. The number of kinds of such regulated interactions is increasing.
Note that one major U.S. political party is associated with teachers' unions, other government employees' unions, closed-shop laws, gun control laws, generous government benefits programs, increasing taxes, growth control, "environmental regulations", and laws restricting freedom of conscience. Thus, most of these policies tend to reinforce each other. |
8,927 | In the US, there are many large cities that are dominated by a single party. After Reconstruction and through the 70s, the Southern States were solidly Democratic.
There are often strong factions in these single party districts, but they do not become full parties with clear signalling mechanisms and separate governance structure.
Why not? What are the theories of why local parties do not emerge?
Are there any examples of local parties emerging in the US? | 2015/09/07 | [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/8927",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/6186/"
] | My answer is a bit more narrow than the others. Third parties in the US are rarely successful due to the first-past-the-post voting system, otherwise known as winner-take-all voting.
Imagine that a party that mostly aligns with the democrats but has some slightly different views rises up in one area that has a history of voting about 60% democrats 40% republicans in most elections. When it comes to election time they've managed to sway about half of the democrat voters and the election results come out like this:
* 30% democrats
* 30% third party
* 40% republicans
The republicans win even though 60% of voters don't want them in government, at the next election, everyone gives up on the third party and goes back to voting democrat because they have the best chance of winning, the third party all but disappears and everything basically goes back to normal.
This is known as vote splitting and leads to factional divisions and power struggles within a party in favour of forming new parties, it also means that it normally takes a massive effort to upset the status quo of a political system that uses this voting system.
If you want to learn about alternative systems of voting I highly recommend watching CGP Grey's series ["Politics in the Animal Kingdom"](http://www.cgpgrey.com/politics-in-the-animal-kingdom/) and researching Condorcet voting. | In the United States, state and local governments have significant power. Many Americans are willing to move between parts of the country, especially in their early adult years. State and local governments have repeatedly imposed policies that encouraged people who agreed with the policy-makers to move to their jurisdictions, and encouraged people who disagreed with the policy-makers to leave. Over the course of a generation, this effect can be strong enough to lock-in the politics of a region. For example:
* During most of the 20th century, public education (or expensive private-school education) was mandatory for most children between the ages of 6 and 16.
* In places that concentrated control of large school districts, public education often became so poor that people who could afford to leave did. The emigration often was triggered by real estate "block-busting" or "forced bussing" of school-children.
* "Open-shop" and "closed-shop" laws for establishing and maintaining unionized work-places tend to change what kinds of jobs are available in a state.
* Alcohol sales are regulated at a state or local level. These policies often distinguish between different kinds of alcohol, in ways that make some ethnic groups comfortable, and encourage other ethnic groups to leave.
* Prostitution and gambling are also regulated at a state or local level. (Gambling laws have become looser, due to competition between Indian casinos and state lotteries.)
* Gun-control laws attract people who are afraid of guns, and repel people who own guns.
* Generous government benefits programs attract people who are eligible for benefits. The concomitant high tax rates repel people (and their employees) who are subject to the taxes.
* Major cities and "college towns" tend to disproportionately retain young people who did not "fit in" in the communities they came from.
* Some states have "growth control" laws designed to limit suburban sprawl. These laws tend to create an auction for a limited number of places to live. In-city homes tend to become very expensive. Young people delay marrying and starting families. Young families tend to move to places that allow building new single-family homes with yards.
* Some states have severe restrictions on nuclear power, coal-fired power, and automobile tailpipe emissions. These states also tend to have large subsidies for solar power and wind power. These policies substantially increase the cost of electricity and gasoline. Initially, these policies greatly reduced smog. The ongoing effect is hard to distinguish from a large tax increase.
* Many states have made it illegal to exercise one's conscience in choosing whom to interact with. The number of kinds of such regulated interactions is increasing.
Note that one major U.S. political party is associated with teachers' unions, other government employees' unions, closed-shop laws, gun control laws, generous government benefits programs, increasing taxes, growth control, "environmental regulations", and laws restricting freedom of conscience. Thus, most of these policies tend to reinforce each other. |
1,115 | While [this](https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/657/what-am-i-supposed-to-do-if-someone-is-breaking-the-terms-of-my-licensed-softwar) question says what to do if *someone* is breaking the terms of a license, I am asking what do I do if *I* breaking the terms of an open source license?
I was using a piece of software and misread one of the terms of the agreement. I reread the license recently and noticed I am breaking one of the terms.
**My question:**
To fix this issue, could I just delete all the files I have used in relation to this program? Or should I contact the owner? | 2015/07/13 | [
"https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/1115",
"https://opensource.stackexchange.com",
"https://opensource.stackexchange.com/users/271/"
] | It depends on whether you have, in fact, distributed something to other people in violation of the license. If you have not, you almost certainly have not violated the license, just prepared to.
If you have, I can tell you what we would generally do at the Apache Foundation if we found that we had, by some accident, incorporated some inappropriately licensed content.
As soon as practical:
1. make a commit to the source repository to remove the inappropriate content.
2. make a release of the product that no longer contains the inappropriate content.
3. notify that the release(s) containing inappropriate content had the problem they had.
4. make it harder to download those releases.
What I don't think that we'd do is to edit history in source control to remove all traces; for a license which imposes restrictions on distribution (the usual situation with FLOSS), there's no sufficient reason to do that. | That depends on the license, but in the case of the GNU GPLv3, this is what it says about termination (sec. 8):
>
> You may not propagate or modify a covered work except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to propagate or modify it is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License (including any patent licenses granted under the third paragraph of section 11).
>
>
> However, if you cease all violation of this License, then your license from a particular copyright holder is reinstated (a) provisionally, unless and until the copyright holder explicitly and finally terminates your license, and (b) permanently, if the copyright holder fails to notify you of the violation by some reasonable means prior to 60 days after the cessation.
>
>
> Moreover, your license from a particular copyright holder is reinstated permanently if the copyright holder notifies you of the violation by some reasonable means, this is the first time you have received notice of violation of this License (for any work) from that copyright holder, and you cure the violation prior to 30 days after your receipt of the notice.
>
>
>
This means that you're usually *allowed* to fix the issue by doing whatever it takes to repair the violation after you've discovered your mistake. There are some other terms (depending on whether this is your first time transgression or not), but the gist is that a good-faith violation is repairable, and if you're able to repair, you can go on using the licensed materials.
The GPLv3 does *not* oblige you to inform the copyright holder (but other free software licenses may - read the license text).
If you're not able to repair (for instance, you're distributing GPL code as part of an unfree project), then you need to stop doing it, delete the files, issue a recall to your customers, and probably: hire a lawyer to help you sort out the mess. |
63,708,044 | I have to make a UML Design class diagram of a sale. When creating the classes, one of the classes (Product) has an image of the item as one of its properties. I have to indicate visibility, the property and the datatype. Which datatype do I use for the image? For example I have properties like :
* productId : int
* productName : string
* productPrice : decimal
* productImage : ???? | 2020/09/02 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/63708044",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/13543300/"
] | UML does not prescribe which **PrimitiveTypes** or **DataTypes** you need to use.
It does define a set of reusable Primitive Types, but this is mainly used in the definition of meta-models.
You should define your own **PrimitiveTypes** and **DataTypes** that are to be used in your model.
In this case it seems like the best option would be to create a **DataType** `Image`.
This could look something like this, depending on your needs:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/tKmTB.png) | There is no primitive type for an image, you can create your own class *Image* for that.
Out of that warning the primitives types names you use are not the predefined ones, probably you want in order :
* Integer
* String
* Real
(c.f. chapter 21 of [formal 2017/12/05](http://www.omg.org/spec/UML/2.5.1) ) |
131,463 | In Alien 3, Ripley has a queen baby in her. When she finds this out, she searches out the xenomorph, and he doesn't kill her. But why doesn't he cocoon her? Surely that would have been a safer option for the baby queen. Just leaving her to go free gives her the option of trying to find a way to kill the baby queen, which is exactly what she does. | 2016/06/09 | [
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/131463",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/users/67319/"
] | She's already impregnated, so there's no need.
Newt, in *Aliens*, is **cocooned to prepare** her for any nearby hatching facehugger.
The gestation period is like 24 hours, so why bother? Most sentient species aren't inclined to self-sacrifice, and any subspecies wouldn't.
It's **business as usual** until mama comes home:
>
> [*Why did the alien kill everyone instead of cocooning them?*](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103644/faq#.2.1.33)
>
>
> In the original film, the alien birthed from Kane (John Hurt), killed Parker (Yaphet Kotto) and Lambert (Veronica Cartwright), and cocooned only Brett (Harry Dean Stanton) and Dallas (Tom Skerritt) although, in the continuity of the series, their deaths are left ambiguous.
>
>
> In Aliens, they killed the majority of the Marines, but they cocooned Apone (Al Matthews), Dietrich (Cynthia Dale Scott), and possibly Hudson (Bill Paxton) and Burke (Paul Reiser) (the original script and novelisation of the second film included a scene where Ripley finds Burke cocooned). A large majority of the colonists were cocooned as well.
>
>
> It was about 15 people vs 100 aliens. **In this film, it is one Alien versus approximately 25 people, so it needs to get rid of a lot of humans that could potentially become a threat if they work together.** –IMDB
>
>
> | Maybe it couldn't. The films never depict the xenomorphs actually secreting resin but we know the drone from the first film could do it and something from the Hadley's Hope hive could do it. Maybe the runner alien didn't have the right food supply or resources to produce resin in Florina?
>
> The gestation period is like 24 hours, so why bother? Most sentient species aren't inclined to self-sacrifice, and any subspecies wouldn't.
>
>
>
The reason why it should bother is as a preventative measure. Indeed, most species are interested in self-preservation. However, allowing the host to wander around increases the possibility they'll died accidentally such as falling from high walkways or tripping on laces. It's also easier to keep an eye on the host if they are immobilised and easier to defend the host from a gang of prisoner murderers. |
950 | I will be playing traditional/gypsy music on my classical violin, and would like to have a sound that is stylistically appropriate (deep/rich/warm/old/woody as opposed to brilliant/sweet/ringy).
Can I achieve this with different strings? What string characteristics will give me this kind of rich and warm sound, and what are some options I could try? | 2011/05/26 | [
"https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/950",
"https://music.stackexchange.com",
"https://music.stackexchange.com/users/530/"
] | You should try using [*Pirastro Oliv*](https://www.pirastro.com/public_pirastro/pages/en/Oliv-00005) strings which have a natural gut core which will give you the warm deep sound that you wish to achieve.
You can also ask your local professional luthier to make the tip of your bow heavier by adding a heavy metal implant into the tip of the bow. This will increase the stickiness of the sound.
Alternatively you can try using a viola bow which is naturally heavier and the balance is slightly different which will contribute towards the sound that you are trying to achieve. | Rather than different strings, maybe try a different bow. You can find a really "heavy" dark and rough horse-hair bow that scrapes the strings a lot more. I've seen it used on a Double Bass but there may be a Violin version.
There's also a great technique is in this video by [Taraf de Haidouks](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu-lFgLrgUs)
They tie a single horse hair to the string, put heaps of rosin on the fingers and draw it across slowly. You can finger the notes as required. |
124,150 | My guitar sounds pretty good just plugged in to the amp, but unfortunately my new pedal is starting to sound off; it sounds really strained and the effect is barely audible. It's less than a week old and sounded perfect out of the box when I first hooked it up. However, yesterday when I tried to play it again, dials and everything still in same place, it was almost as if it wasn't hooked up at all. Just have this sinking feeling that it's broken.
The only thing I can think of that I might have done wrong was hook it up to an external generator since I'm still waiting for my ISO bric to arrive; I wanted to play out in the summer a bit. At first glance it doesn't seem like a bad thing, the power generator is for general outdoor use and matches exactly my wall socket specs in terms of polarity, voltage and current -- erego I can't see how it would be mechanically any different than just playing in my bedroom.
Question
--------
Given my pedal's issues of sounding weak and totally unlike when I first plugged it in, what would be a likely explanation and/or the worst case scenario? I'm wondering if it's possible to underpower a pedal and if so, I guess it's just scrap metal now? Not sure what I should do if that's the case.
**Note:**
* Working with EHX Mainframe
* I realize this pedal sounds glitchy to begin with, but there truly is
a big difference from when I unboxed it. Fairly scientific about
concluding something seems wrong
* I have reached out to the vendor, not resolved yet, but I think I'm
within my rights. Either way, I want to learn more about these kind
of pitfalls just in case
* No battery slot
Edit
----
I returned it to the vendor. Then I noticed another pedal I bought last year seems to be off. But I took it to a guitar shop and it played just fine on their amp. So the joke's on my amp; never would have thought. Systems built on systems....
Thanks to all who gave input; helped greatly. | 2022/08/01 | [
"https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/124150",
"https://music.stackexchange.com",
"https://music.stackexchange.com/users/50675/"
] | The Mainframe is such an odd effect, most folks reckon that if you change some settings it is almost impossible to get back to the sound you had before.
That said, your outdoor power generator may not be well regulated, and it could have produced current spikes that could destroy circuitry.
The usual troubleshooting guidance applies - can you compare with someone else's pedal? But without an audio file, or more usefully a video file showing what settings you are using while playing through it, there is not much we can do from here. It sounds like getting EHX to look at it is the best course of action. | I don't understand "..hook it up to an external generator since I'm still waiting for my ISO bric to arrive..."
The Mainframe manual states that a power supply - presumably a 'wall-wart' type - is included. So I HOPE that's what you were using!
"WARNING: Your Mainframe comes equipped with an Electro-Harmonix 9.6DC-200BI power supply. The Mainframe requires 90mA at 9VDC with a center negative plug. Use of the wrong adapter or a plug with the wrong polarity may damage your Mainframe and void the warranty. Do not exceed 10.5VDC on the power plug. Power supplies rated for less than 90mA will cause the Mainframe to act unreliably."
If your generator DID damage anything, with any luck it was just the power supply. |
32,657 | I can't really recall what is this board / card game.
I am not sure is it a werewolf, vampire, some other social deduction game, or it's a different one from what I have mentioned.
Each character card will have an ultimate skill. In order to use the skill, you need to reveal your role card.
Anyone can figure out what is this game?
Sorry for the small amount of details. | 2016/10/05 | [
"https://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/32657",
"https://boardgames.stackexchange.com",
"https://boardgames.stackexchange.com/users/18581/"
] | Sounds to me like you are thinking of [Shadow Hunters](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/24068/shadow-hunters). Its got some social deduction aspects to it, and each player has a special ability that they can use by revealing who they are. | Perhaps it's [Citadels](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citadels_(card_game)).
Each turn, players get to pick their role cards from a deck of 8 or 9, the King calls each character (Assassin, Mage, King, Priest ...) forward in a fixed order and in your turn, the chosen character card grants certain abilities and advantages. Some of these characters have a color that can correspond to the color of buildings you own, generating extra income.
During one turn, depending on the number of players, you could get to pick two characters and effectively have two turns-in-one. |
46,317 | The label on my central air conditioner looks a lot like [this one](http://i802.photobucket.com/albums/yy303/svejkovat/SDC14619_zpse26493a5.jpg) (photo below). What do the two numbers (separated by a slash) mean for voltage and the three amperage ratings?
 | 2014/07/18 | [
"https://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/46317",
"https://diy.stackexchange.com",
"https://diy.stackexchange.com/users/13615/"
] | The text *Volts 208/230 Phase 1* means the device will run on either 208 volts or 230 volts (which is nominally 240 volts).
In the amps section, the separated numbers (which are the same) are the corresponding value for operation on 208 or 230 volts, respectively. | To add to this answer, air conditioners, motors and welders follow different rules than what is considered conventional.
The MCA (minimum circuit ampacity) is what you size your wire by.
The maximum/minimum fuse or breaker is what you can size your overcurrent (fuses or circuit breakers) by.
So this unit, having a 19A MCA, can be wired with #12cu wire, and must be fused or breakered at 25 or 30A.
YES, I AM saying you can put #12 wire on a 30A breaker. |
4,133,890 | hii friends,
My application based on RSS Feeds where i have to use database for offline support
which is the apt approach either by using Core Data or Sqlite,
i read this article
<http://inessential.com/2010/02/26/on_switching_away_from_core_data>
Lets puts this in your View? | 2010/11/09 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/4133890",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/479092/"
] | That article describes a singular situation where Core Data did not benefit his application design. It is the exception that proves the rule.
Core Data should be your first option for any application that persists data on iOS. FMDB, while useful before Core Data was available on iOS, is not nearly as powerful as Core Data nor does it provide you with all of the performance and memory benefits.
Stick with Core Data. | Going with anything other than CoreDate would be premature optimisation - unless you know you are going to store tens of thousands of objects, and iterate over them in a timely fashion, then I see no reason not to use CoreData. |
1,329 | [counting](https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/counting "show questions tagged 'counting'") currently has 13 questions bearing this tag. Should [combinatorics](https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/combinatorics "show questions tagged 'combinatorics'") and [counting](https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/counting "show questions tagged 'counting'") be merged, or one be made a synonym of the other? | 2010/12/11 | [
"https://math.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1329",
"https://math.meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://math.meta.stackexchange.com/users/498/"
] | UPDATE:
New OTF font files have been downloaded and applied to all installations where MathJax is used. If you are still having trouble **clear your browser cache**.
>
> Davide and Sean were able to update
> the MathJax fonts, and we just posted
> an update at mathjax.org. See
> <http://www.mathjax.org/download>.
>
>
> Davide also updates the fonts.zip file
> in our github repo and in the
> SourceForge SVN rep. The only
> difference is the updates for Firefox,
> so if you get the above patch file,
> you don't need to download the whole
> fonts.zip.
>
>
>
It appears that members of the MathJax team are aware of this and are working on a fix.
<https://github.com/mathjax/MathJax/issues#issue/22/comment/601772>
>
> OK, I've looked into it, and it seems
> this is not going to be easy to fix
> (it is going to take more exploring
> than I have time for at the moment).
> On the other had, I do have an interim
> solution: it seems that FF is unhappy
> with the OTF versions of the fonts,
> but it is able to load TTF versions.
> We don't currently have them in the
> fonts distribution, but I do make them
> (as part of the creation of EOT
> versions), and these do seem to work
> with FF4.0b as well as 3.6.13. It is a
> straightforward change to include the
> TTF versions and have FF use them for
> v3.6.13 and above. (Do we know that
> this is the version where it came into
> play?) So there is at least a
> solution. I will still work on
> figuring out what is wrong with the
> fonts and how to fix it, but I'm not
> really a font expert, and it takes me
> a while to work through it.
>
>
>
**UPDATE:**
>
> From: robertminer
>
>
> The current plan is to put out a
> workaround that uses ttf fonts in the
> affected versions of Firefox hopefully
> tomorrow, Saturday, Dec 11 for folks
> like gdalgas for whom the problem is
> mission critical. That will likely be
> in the form of a couple line patch to
> a JavaScript file, along with the
> necessary ttf fonts which will have to
> be deployed along with the existing
> .otf fonts
>
>
> | I just upgraded my Firefox from 3.6.12 to 3.6.13(Mac OSX 10.5.8). I'm able to reproduce the problem.
It seems it takes FF forever to load the math font.
But eventually the font does get loaded.
However I noticed the font is now a sans-serif type. Where as before, and currently in other browerser it is(and should be) a serif type.
I'll look into this. I suspect this isn't an isolated issue with Math.SE. Seems like a FF 3.6.13 issue. I wonder if other sites that use mathjax are affected as well? |
269,439 | I have a need to explain MVC to non-programmers. Namely, to managers of other departments, in the context of progress report. One of the things I do is refactor our codebase towards MVC separation.
What is MVC separation they might ask?
Why is it needed they might ask?
After reading a fairly technical answer like this: [What is MVC, really?](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/127624/what-is-mvc-really), I am not entirely satisfied, since I will be talking to non-programmers. They may nod their heads but they probably will not understand what it is and why it is needed.
In reality, I don't fully grasp what MVC is other than "separation of concerns, duties, functions, classes, blocks, tasks, things, in order to improve flexibility of making changes to the software". Separating database from view and view from business logic using techniques like DI and OO tools and techniques is something I consider to be MVC separation.
So next time you are explaining MVC to a non-programmer who has background in sales and accounting for example, what would you tell them? | 2015/01/08 | [
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/269439",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/users/119333/"
] | You don't explain MVC.
What you do is explain that this is a restructuring of the codebase.
A restructuring that simplifies the codebase and therefore enables the developers to make faster and better changes to bug reports and feature requests, with less bugs.
They don't need to know the technical details, just why it was done, what was achieved by doing it and how the business benefits.
In other words - speak their language to them. | I halfway-agree with Oded - learning how to convince your non-technical peers and managers that what you are doing is important and useful, without explaining the gritty details, is a necessary skill that you would be wise to develop.
However, I believe that having the *ability* to explain complex concepts in simple terms actually helps with that - one problem non-technical managers often have is that since they have trouble understanding exactly what it is the tech folks are doing, they have a tendency to mistrust them. It's just human nature: it's easier to believe that something you don't understand is useless or wrong than it is to put your faith in it. Therefore, if you can make concepts easy to understand at will, you can use that whenever you need it, and over time, your non-technical managers will learn that they *can* understand it if they want to - you aren't pulling one over on them - you are just sparing them the details for their own sanity. They will trust you more.
That aside, let's answer the question:
I find it useful to use analogies that business people understand. For MVC, I describe it as a business.
* **Models** are responsible for the business logic and data - they are the things that define what the program does and the details of how it does it. If the program were a business, then models would be the warehouses, factories, workers, and capital equipment. They would also be the lower-level managers that make sure rules are followed and policy is enforced.
* **Views** are the presentation layer - they show users what is going on in the system and provide a means for interacting with the program. If our program were a company, views would be like the showroom floor, the sales booth at the trade convention, or the sales reps. They display options, provide user-friendly information and feedback, and take requests back to the company.
* **Controllers** are the coordination layer - they make sure that information gets from the models to the views and vice versa, and that everything works together to do their job. If the program were a company, then controllers would be the mid- and high-level management. They don't get too involved in the details, but they make sure that the right people have the right tools to do their jobs, and they approve or deny high-level decisions. They provide the overall direction so that things can work together.
The benefit to explaining it with this analogy is that a good manager will see the wisdom in separating concerns this way, and might decide that they should be more controller-like, and not get too involved in the details in the future!
That hopefully will answer the "what" - the "why" is also easy with this analogy:
Imagine an ideal company, where each department is responsible for one set of tasks, and knows that it will always have the resources it needs without having to worry about what others are doing. A sales rep finds a customer, gets their order, passes it back to management who approves, and then it goes to the warehouse/production/engineering for fulfillment. Feedback is direct - no one else needs to get involved unless there is a problem. That's a good MVC design - each part has a job, and it doesn't have to worry about other parts. That way, it's easy to change if we need to. In a non-MVC design, responsibilities aren't clear. The sales rep may try to modify the product when the customer asks for something different. Or they might give different prices depending on how they felt that day. The CEO might be down on the factory floor messing with the production line, when he should be worried about how to get a more reliable supply chain in place. The warehouse workers might be out on the sales floor talking to customers when they should be fulfilling the orders that were already taken.
In other words, good MVC design lets each part focus on one thing, so that it can do it right - just like a well-organized company.
\*\*Disclaimer - if your company is poorly organized, they might get offended by this. In that case, you will need another analogy. You might also need a different job. |
269,439 | I have a need to explain MVC to non-programmers. Namely, to managers of other departments, in the context of progress report. One of the things I do is refactor our codebase towards MVC separation.
What is MVC separation they might ask?
Why is it needed they might ask?
After reading a fairly technical answer like this: [What is MVC, really?](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/127624/what-is-mvc-really), I am not entirely satisfied, since I will be talking to non-programmers. They may nod their heads but they probably will not understand what it is and why it is needed.
In reality, I don't fully grasp what MVC is other than "separation of concerns, duties, functions, classes, blocks, tasks, things, in order to improve flexibility of making changes to the software". Separating database from view and view from business logic using techniques like DI and OO tools and techniques is something I consider to be MVC separation.
So next time you are explaining MVC to a non-programmer who has background in sales and accounting for example, what would you tell them? | 2015/01/08 | [
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/269439",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/users/119333/"
] | You don't explain MVC.
What you do is explain that this is a restructuring of the codebase.
A restructuring that simplifies the codebase and therefore enables the developers to make faster and better changes to bug reports and feature requests, with less bugs.
They don't need to know the technical details, just why it was done, what was achieved by doing it and how the business benefits.
In other words - speak their language to them. | * Model - Wires/electricity
* View - Light Fixture
* Controller - Light Switch
Relatively easy to switch out components (light fixture, light switch/dimmer). Maybe not so much the wiring, but still can be done without effecting other components. Everyone should be able to visualize that in thier head, even marketing/sales types. (Clear separation, etc.)
Now tell your boss/co-workers that in our application/system the switch is embedded inside the light fixture and the light fixture is wrapped around in copper wire. Now imagine trying update the light fixture, switch, or wire. Very costly, impact to other components very high and perhaps dangerous to do without breaking something else.
MVC is applying a pattern to the code base which turns the jumbled (but working) mess into something where changes can happen faster and easier with less errors. |
269,439 | I have a need to explain MVC to non-programmers. Namely, to managers of other departments, in the context of progress report. One of the things I do is refactor our codebase towards MVC separation.
What is MVC separation they might ask?
Why is it needed they might ask?
After reading a fairly technical answer like this: [What is MVC, really?](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/127624/what-is-mvc-really), I am not entirely satisfied, since I will be talking to non-programmers. They may nod their heads but they probably will not understand what it is and why it is needed.
In reality, I don't fully grasp what MVC is other than "separation of concerns, duties, functions, classes, blocks, tasks, things, in order to improve flexibility of making changes to the software". Separating database from view and view from business logic using techniques like DI and OO tools and techniques is something I consider to be MVC separation.
So next time you are explaining MVC to a non-programmer who has background in sales and accounting for example, what would you tell them? | 2015/01/08 | [
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/269439",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/users/119333/"
] | While I endorse the gist of [Oded's answer](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/a/269440/55314), that you should explain technical projects to business managers in "their language," I have a qualm about "they don't need to know technical details, just why it was done."
If you are in a project or investment review meeting with department heads, and you declare "this is what we're doing," they may want to ask "Umm...why? That seems like a big investment of time and energy. Could you give us a little more understanding what you're doing and why?" That seems an eminently reasonable question. You don't want to be caught out in a position of "Well...it's complicated." or "No, I can't really explain it." or "Don't worry yourselves about it." The more senior the staff you're doing the project review for, the less likely they are to let "it's just stuff I can't explain well" fly. Better if you can go at least one level deeper to make others feel comfortable that 1) you know what you're doing and 2) this really is a reasonably-considered effort/investment.
So, have a sketch of MVC in your hip pocket, ready to go. Something like:
"It's a bit technical, but... MVC divides code into Models (responsible for the core data and business logic), Views (which displays the data), and Controllers (which handle user interactions and updates). It's a proven architecture--possibly software engineering's most successful "design pattern." I know it might like seem like "just some plumbing," but to handle all the requests coming in, we need a stronger foundation. This will put us on the right footing to build new features and resolve bugs faster."
Even if they don't fully understand MVC at the end of it, and even if you had to over-simplify to make it comprehensible ("break some eggs to make an omelet"), I wager you will find it much more comfortable to have an explanation ready than to have to say "I can't explain it" or "you aren't qualified to understand it" to senior managers. | Explain the advantages
======================
I would explain MVC in terms of business benefits. Your managers will be able to understand this, and will get on board if the advantages are convincing.
MVC allows you to break down your application into sensible units, each of which exists independently of the others. You get clean, maintainable, testable code, and potentially code reuse between systems.
The Model
---------
Each model encapsulates a single type of business information, for example, a customer record or a product, along with all related business logic.
Separating this out allows you to easily test your business logic in isolation from other parts of your application.
You can also easily extend the application by adding additional models, it's very modular and clean.
Each model in theory can exist independently of the others. You might consider enforcing this by using service objects to handle relationships between models. You can swap out models without affecting the rest of the system.
The View
--------
Separating out your view allows you to easily update your front end without breaking the underlying back end.
You can give your front end code to another developer without necessarily giving them access to the whole system.
You are also free to create alternative front ends that work with the existing system. You might show your data as a mobile app, or an API, or a PDF, or an Excel spreadsheet. You can do this without hacking into the rest of the system. You're less likely to break things accidentally. You can readily create integration points for existing systems to hook into.
The Controller
--------------
The controller wires the models to the view. It keeps everything separate. You can wire in a different view very easily. If you change your model code, the view doesn't even need to know.
Other Advantages
----------------
It's a common pattern. Other developers will be able to understand your code and work on it. If you return to your code years later, you will likely be able to understand it and make changes. Your code will be less likely to become another legacy headache for a future developer.
Because everything has a place, it's much easier to produce clean code. The risk of spaghettification is dramatically reduced (though not eliminated). Your code becomes maintainable.
Because everything is modular, you can test parts of it in isolation. Your code is testable and less likely to harbour bugs or security holes. Future upgrades will be much easier as you will be able to easily test the whole system. |
269,439 | I have a need to explain MVC to non-programmers. Namely, to managers of other departments, in the context of progress report. One of the things I do is refactor our codebase towards MVC separation.
What is MVC separation they might ask?
Why is it needed they might ask?
After reading a fairly technical answer like this: [What is MVC, really?](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/127624/what-is-mvc-really), I am not entirely satisfied, since I will be talking to non-programmers. They may nod their heads but they probably will not understand what it is and why it is needed.
In reality, I don't fully grasp what MVC is other than "separation of concerns, duties, functions, classes, blocks, tasks, things, in order to improve flexibility of making changes to the software". Separating database from view and view from business logic using techniques like DI and OO tools and techniques is something I consider to be MVC separation.
So next time you are explaining MVC to a non-programmer who has background in sales and accounting for example, what would you tell them? | 2015/01/08 | [
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/269439",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/users/119333/"
] | >
> in order to improve flexibility of making changes to the software
>
>
>
Managers are interested in the end result. The less technical they are the less likely they are concerned with how you get there. MVC is very common, popular and proven.
When change requests are made in the future, you can let management know they can be made easier and faster. Everybody likes to hear this.
It is a common strategy, so hiring new developers shouldn't present a problem. In fact, you may attract better developers who are strong proponents.
This is all going to be very difficult if there are many pressing issues in this particular project. They may not be wiling to take a step back so you can take two steps forward. On solution may be to wait or implement in smaller pieces. | I would tell them that MVC separates my concerns.
My first concern is the code logic - what I do behind the scenes to make the website perform the actions they want it to.
My second concern is the business logic - what they (the user) want the application to do.
My third concern is how the site looks - The page they visit to do what they want.
(I woudln't tell them this next part) So, in order, my explanations were for the Model, Controller, and View. |
269,439 | I have a need to explain MVC to non-programmers. Namely, to managers of other departments, in the context of progress report. One of the things I do is refactor our codebase towards MVC separation.
What is MVC separation they might ask?
Why is it needed they might ask?
After reading a fairly technical answer like this: [What is MVC, really?](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/127624/what-is-mvc-really), I am not entirely satisfied, since I will be talking to non-programmers. They may nod their heads but they probably will not understand what it is and why it is needed.
In reality, I don't fully grasp what MVC is other than "separation of concerns, duties, functions, classes, blocks, tasks, things, in order to improve flexibility of making changes to the software". Separating database from view and view from business logic using techniques like DI and OO tools and techniques is something I consider to be MVC separation.
So next time you are explaining MVC to a non-programmer who has background in sales and accounting for example, what would you tell them? | 2015/01/08 | [
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/269439",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/users/119333/"
] | While I endorse the gist of [Oded's answer](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/a/269440/55314), that you should explain technical projects to business managers in "their language," I have a qualm about "they don't need to know technical details, just why it was done."
If you are in a project or investment review meeting with department heads, and you declare "this is what we're doing," they may want to ask "Umm...why? That seems like a big investment of time and energy. Could you give us a little more understanding what you're doing and why?" That seems an eminently reasonable question. You don't want to be caught out in a position of "Well...it's complicated." or "No, I can't really explain it." or "Don't worry yourselves about it." The more senior the staff you're doing the project review for, the less likely they are to let "it's just stuff I can't explain well" fly. Better if you can go at least one level deeper to make others feel comfortable that 1) you know what you're doing and 2) this really is a reasonably-considered effort/investment.
So, have a sketch of MVC in your hip pocket, ready to go. Something like:
"It's a bit technical, but... MVC divides code into Models (responsible for the core data and business logic), Views (which displays the data), and Controllers (which handle user interactions and updates). It's a proven architecture--possibly software engineering's most successful "design pattern." I know it might like seem like "just some plumbing," but to handle all the requests coming in, we need a stronger foundation. This will put us on the right footing to build new features and resolve bugs faster."
Even if they don't fully understand MVC at the end of it, and even if you had to over-simplify to make it comprehensible ("break some eggs to make an omelet"), I wager you will find it much more comfortable to have an explanation ready than to have to say "I can't explain it" or "you aren't qualified to understand it" to senior managers. | >
> in order to improve flexibility of making changes to the software
>
>
>
Managers are interested in the end result. The less technical they are the less likely they are concerned with how you get there. MVC is very common, popular and proven.
When change requests are made in the future, you can let management know they can be made easier and faster. Everybody likes to hear this.
It is a common strategy, so hiring new developers shouldn't present a problem. In fact, you may attract better developers who are strong proponents.
This is all going to be very difficult if there are many pressing issues in this particular project. They may not be wiling to take a step back so you can take two steps forward. On solution may be to wait or implement in smaller pieces. |
269,439 | I have a need to explain MVC to non-programmers. Namely, to managers of other departments, in the context of progress report. One of the things I do is refactor our codebase towards MVC separation.
What is MVC separation they might ask?
Why is it needed they might ask?
After reading a fairly technical answer like this: [What is MVC, really?](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/127624/what-is-mvc-really), I am not entirely satisfied, since I will be talking to non-programmers. They may nod their heads but they probably will not understand what it is and why it is needed.
In reality, I don't fully grasp what MVC is other than "separation of concerns, duties, functions, classes, blocks, tasks, things, in order to improve flexibility of making changes to the software". Separating database from view and view from business logic using techniques like DI and OO tools and techniques is something I consider to be MVC separation.
So next time you are explaining MVC to a non-programmer who has background in sales and accounting for example, what would you tell them? | 2015/01/08 | [
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/269439",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/users/119333/"
] | You don't explain MVC.
What you do is explain that this is a restructuring of the codebase.
A restructuring that simplifies the codebase and therefore enables the developers to make faster and better changes to bug reports and feature requests, with less bugs.
They don't need to know the technical details, just why it was done, what was achieved by doing it and how the business benefits.
In other words - speak their language to them. | >
> in order to improve flexibility of making changes to the software
>
>
>
Managers are interested in the end result. The less technical they are the less likely they are concerned with how you get there. MVC is very common, popular and proven.
When change requests are made in the future, you can let management know they can be made easier and faster. Everybody likes to hear this.
It is a common strategy, so hiring new developers shouldn't present a problem. In fact, you may attract better developers who are strong proponents.
This is all going to be very difficult if there are many pressing issues in this particular project. They may not be wiling to take a step back so you can take two steps forward. On solution may be to wait or implement in smaller pieces. |
269,439 | I have a need to explain MVC to non-programmers. Namely, to managers of other departments, in the context of progress report. One of the things I do is refactor our codebase towards MVC separation.
What is MVC separation they might ask?
Why is it needed they might ask?
After reading a fairly technical answer like this: [What is MVC, really?](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/127624/what-is-mvc-really), I am not entirely satisfied, since I will be talking to non-programmers. They may nod their heads but they probably will not understand what it is and why it is needed.
In reality, I don't fully grasp what MVC is other than "separation of concerns, duties, functions, classes, blocks, tasks, things, in order to improve flexibility of making changes to the software". Separating database from view and view from business logic using techniques like DI and OO tools and techniques is something I consider to be MVC separation.
So next time you are explaining MVC to a non-programmer who has background in sales and accounting for example, what would you tell them? | 2015/01/08 | [
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/269439",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/users/119333/"
] | While I endorse the gist of [Oded's answer](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/a/269440/55314), that you should explain technical projects to business managers in "their language," I have a qualm about "they don't need to know technical details, just why it was done."
If you are in a project or investment review meeting with department heads, and you declare "this is what we're doing," they may want to ask "Umm...why? That seems like a big investment of time and energy. Could you give us a little more understanding what you're doing and why?" That seems an eminently reasonable question. You don't want to be caught out in a position of "Well...it's complicated." or "No, I can't really explain it." or "Don't worry yourselves about it." The more senior the staff you're doing the project review for, the less likely they are to let "it's just stuff I can't explain well" fly. Better if you can go at least one level deeper to make others feel comfortable that 1) you know what you're doing and 2) this really is a reasonably-considered effort/investment.
So, have a sketch of MVC in your hip pocket, ready to go. Something like:
"It's a bit technical, but... MVC divides code into Models (responsible for the core data and business logic), Views (which displays the data), and Controllers (which handle user interactions and updates). It's a proven architecture--possibly software engineering's most successful "design pattern." I know it might like seem like "just some plumbing," but to handle all the requests coming in, we need a stronger foundation. This will put us on the right footing to build new features and resolve bugs faster."
Even if they don't fully understand MVC at the end of it, and even if you had to over-simplify to make it comprehensible ("break some eggs to make an omelet"), I wager you will find it much more comfortable to have an explanation ready than to have to say "I can't explain it" or "you aren't qualified to understand it" to senior managers. | I halfway-agree with Oded - learning how to convince your non-technical peers and managers that what you are doing is important and useful, without explaining the gritty details, is a necessary skill that you would be wise to develop.
However, I believe that having the *ability* to explain complex concepts in simple terms actually helps with that - one problem non-technical managers often have is that since they have trouble understanding exactly what it is the tech folks are doing, they have a tendency to mistrust them. It's just human nature: it's easier to believe that something you don't understand is useless or wrong than it is to put your faith in it. Therefore, if you can make concepts easy to understand at will, you can use that whenever you need it, and over time, your non-technical managers will learn that they *can* understand it if they want to - you aren't pulling one over on them - you are just sparing them the details for their own sanity. They will trust you more.
That aside, let's answer the question:
I find it useful to use analogies that business people understand. For MVC, I describe it as a business.
* **Models** are responsible for the business logic and data - they are the things that define what the program does and the details of how it does it. If the program were a business, then models would be the warehouses, factories, workers, and capital equipment. They would also be the lower-level managers that make sure rules are followed and policy is enforced.
* **Views** are the presentation layer - they show users what is going on in the system and provide a means for interacting with the program. If our program were a company, views would be like the showroom floor, the sales booth at the trade convention, or the sales reps. They display options, provide user-friendly information and feedback, and take requests back to the company.
* **Controllers** are the coordination layer - they make sure that information gets from the models to the views and vice versa, and that everything works together to do their job. If the program were a company, then controllers would be the mid- and high-level management. They don't get too involved in the details, but they make sure that the right people have the right tools to do their jobs, and they approve or deny high-level decisions. They provide the overall direction so that things can work together.
The benefit to explaining it with this analogy is that a good manager will see the wisdom in separating concerns this way, and might decide that they should be more controller-like, and not get too involved in the details in the future!
That hopefully will answer the "what" - the "why" is also easy with this analogy:
Imagine an ideal company, where each department is responsible for one set of tasks, and knows that it will always have the resources it needs without having to worry about what others are doing. A sales rep finds a customer, gets their order, passes it back to management who approves, and then it goes to the warehouse/production/engineering for fulfillment. Feedback is direct - no one else needs to get involved unless there is a problem. That's a good MVC design - each part has a job, and it doesn't have to worry about other parts. That way, it's easy to change if we need to. In a non-MVC design, responsibilities aren't clear. The sales rep may try to modify the product when the customer asks for something different. Or they might give different prices depending on how they felt that day. The CEO might be down on the factory floor messing with the production line, when he should be worried about how to get a more reliable supply chain in place. The warehouse workers might be out on the sales floor talking to customers when they should be fulfilling the orders that were already taken.
In other words, good MVC design lets each part focus on one thing, so that it can do it right - just like a well-organized company.
\*\*Disclaimer - if your company is poorly organized, they might get offended by this. In that case, you will need another analogy. You might also need a different job. |
1,185,369 | Markov chains are a (almost standard) way to generate [random gibberish](http://uswaretech.com/blog/2009/06/pseudo-random-text-markov-chains-python/) which looks intelligent to untrained eye. How would you go about identifying markov generated text from human written text.
It would be awesome if the resources you point to are Python friendly. | 2009/07/26 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/1185369",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/121793/"
] | You could use a "brute force" approach, whereby you compare the generated language to data collected on n-grams of higher order than the Markov model that generated it.
i.e. If the language was generated with a 2nd order Markov model, up to 3-grams are going to have the correct frequencies, but 4-grams probably won't.
You can get up to 5-gram frequencies from Google's public [n-gram dataset.](http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2006/08/all-our-n-gram-are-belong-to-you.html) It's huge though - 24G *compressed* - you need to get it by post on DVDs from [LDC](http://www.ldc.upenn.edu).
EDIT: Added some implementation details
The n-grams have already been counted, so you just need to store the counts (or frequencies) in a way that's quick to search. A properly indexed database, or perhaps a Lucene index should work.
Given a piece of text, scan across it and look up the frequency of each 5-gram in your database, and see where it ranks compared to other 5-grams that start with the same 4 words.
Practically, a bigger obstacle might be the licensing terms of the dataset. Using it for a commercial app might be prohibited. | One simple approach would be to have a large group of humans read input text for you and see if the text makes sense. I'm only half-joking, this is a tricky problem.
I believe this to be a hard problem, because Markov-chain generated text is going to have a lot of the same properties of real human text in terms of word frequency and simple relationships between the ordering of words.
The differences between real text and text generated by a Markov chain are in higher-level rules of grammar and in semantic meaning, which are hard to encode programmatically. The other problem is that Markov chains are good enough at generating text that they sometimes come up with grammatically and semantically correct statements.
As an example, here's an [aphorism from the kantmachine](http://www.beetleinabox.com/cgi-bin/kant.pl):
>
> Today, he would feel convinced that
> the human will is free; to-morrow,
> considering the indissoluble chain of
> nature, he would look on freedom as a
> mere illusion and declare nature to be
> all-in-all.
>
>
>
While this string was written by a computer program, it's hard to say that a human would never say this.
I think that unless you can give us more specific details about the computer and human-generated text that expose more obvious differences it will be difficult to solve this using computer programming. |
1,185,369 | Markov chains are a (almost standard) way to generate [random gibberish](http://uswaretech.com/blog/2009/06/pseudo-random-text-markov-chains-python/) which looks intelligent to untrained eye. How would you go about identifying markov generated text from human written text.
It would be awesome if the resources you point to are Python friendly. | 2009/07/26 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/1185369",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/121793/"
] | One simple approach would be to have a large group of humans read input text for you and see if the text makes sense. I'm only half-joking, this is a tricky problem.
I believe this to be a hard problem, because Markov-chain generated text is going to have a lot of the same properties of real human text in terms of word frequency and simple relationships between the ordering of words.
The differences between real text and text generated by a Markov chain are in higher-level rules of grammar and in semantic meaning, which are hard to encode programmatically. The other problem is that Markov chains are good enough at generating text that they sometimes come up with grammatically and semantically correct statements.
As an example, here's an [aphorism from the kantmachine](http://www.beetleinabox.com/cgi-bin/kant.pl):
>
> Today, he would feel convinced that
> the human will is free; to-morrow,
> considering the indissoluble chain of
> nature, he would look on freedom as a
> mere illusion and declare nature to be
> all-in-all.
>
>
>
While this string was written by a computer program, it's hard to say that a human would never say this.
I think that unless you can give us more specific details about the computer and human-generated text that expose more obvious differences it will be difficult to solve this using computer programming. | If you write a program which generates Markovian transition probabilities from any sequence of symbols, and then calculates the entropy rate of the markov matrix. (see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_rate#Entropy_rates_for_Markov_chains>) This is basically an estimate of how easily the text could be predicted using just the markov chain (higher entropy means *harder* to predict). Therefore I would think that the lower the entropy of the markov matrix is, the more likely that the sample of text is controlled by a markov matrix. If you have questions on how to write this code, I happen to have a program in python which does exactly this on my computer, so I can help you out |
1,185,369 | Markov chains are a (almost standard) way to generate [random gibberish](http://uswaretech.com/blog/2009/06/pseudo-random-text-markov-chains-python/) which looks intelligent to untrained eye. How would you go about identifying markov generated text from human written text.
It would be awesome if the resources you point to are Python friendly. | 2009/07/26 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/1185369",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/121793/"
] | You could use a "brute force" approach, whereby you compare the generated language to data collected on n-grams of higher order than the Markov model that generated it.
i.e. If the language was generated with a 2nd order Markov model, up to 3-grams are going to have the correct frequencies, but 4-grams probably won't.
You can get up to 5-gram frequencies from Google's public [n-gram dataset.](http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2006/08/all-our-n-gram-are-belong-to-you.html) It's huge though - 24G *compressed* - you need to get it by post on DVDs from [LDC](http://www.ldc.upenn.edu).
EDIT: Added some implementation details
The n-grams have already been counted, so you just need to store the counts (or frequencies) in a way that's quick to search. A properly indexed database, or perhaps a Lucene index should work.
Given a piece of text, scan across it and look up the frequency of each 5-gram in your database, and see where it ranks compared to other 5-grams that start with the same 4 words.
Practically, a bigger obstacle might be the licensing terms of the dataset. Using it for a commercial app might be prohibited. | If you had several large Markov-generated texts, you could possibly determine that they were so by comparing the word frequencies between each of the samples. Since Markov chains depend on constant word probabilities, the proportions of any given word should be roughly equal from sample to sample. |
1,185,369 | Markov chains are a (almost standard) way to generate [random gibberish](http://uswaretech.com/blog/2009/06/pseudo-random-text-markov-chains-python/) which looks intelligent to untrained eye. How would you go about identifying markov generated text from human written text.
It would be awesome if the resources you point to are Python friendly. | 2009/07/26 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/1185369",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/121793/"
] | I suggest a generalization of Evan's answer: make a Markov model of your own and train it with a big chunk of the (very large) sample you're given, reserving the rest of the sample as "test data". Now, see how well the model you've trained does on the test data, e.g. with a chi square test that will suggest situation in which "fit is TOO good" (suggesting the test data is indeed generated by this model) as well as ones in which the fit is very bad (suggesting error in model structure -- an over-trained model with the wrong structure does a notoriously bad job in such cases).
Of course there are still many issues for calibration, such as the structure of the model -- are you suspecting a simple model based on Ntuples of words and little more, or a more sophisticated one with grammar states and the like. Fortunately you can calibrate things pretty well by using large corpora of known-to-be-natural text and also ones you generate yourself with models of various structures.
A different approach is to use [nltk](http://www.nltk.org/) to parse the sentences you're given -- a small number of mis-parses is to be expected even in natural text (as humans are imperfect and so is the parser -- it may not know that word X can be used as a verb and only classify it as a noun, etc, etc), but most Markov models (unless they're modeling essentially the same grammar structure your parser happens to be using -- and you can use several parsers to try and counteract that!-) will cause VASTLY more mis-parses than even dyslexic humans. Again, calibrate that on natural vs synthetic texts, and you'll see what I mean!-) | If you write a program which generates Markovian transition probabilities from any sequence of symbols, and then calculates the entropy rate of the markov matrix. (see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_rate#Entropy_rates_for_Markov_chains>) This is basically an estimate of how easily the text could be predicted using just the markov chain (higher entropy means *harder* to predict). Therefore I would think that the lower the entropy of the markov matrix is, the more likely that the sample of text is controlled by a markov matrix. If you have questions on how to write this code, I happen to have a program in python which does exactly this on my computer, so I can help you out |
1,185,369 | Markov chains are a (almost standard) way to generate [random gibberish](http://uswaretech.com/blog/2009/06/pseudo-random-text-markov-chains-python/) which looks intelligent to untrained eye. How would you go about identifying markov generated text from human written text.
It would be awesome if the resources you point to are Python friendly. | 2009/07/26 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/1185369",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/121793/"
] | I suggest a generalization of Evan's answer: make a Markov model of your own and train it with a big chunk of the (very large) sample you're given, reserving the rest of the sample as "test data". Now, see how well the model you've trained does on the test data, e.g. with a chi square test that will suggest situation in which "fit is TOO good" (suggesting the test data is indeed generated by this model) as well as ones in which the fit is very bad (suggesting error in model structure -- an over-trained model with the wrong structure does a notoriously bad job in such cases).
Of course there are still many issues for calibration, such as the structure of the model -- are you suspecting a simple model based on Ntuples of words and little more, or a more sophisticated one with grammar states and the like. Fortunately you can calibrate things pretty well by using large corpora of known-to-be-natural text and also ones you generate yourself with models of various structures.
A different approach is to use [nltk](http://www.nltk.org/) to parse the sentences you're given -- a small number of mis-parses is to be expected even in natural text (as humans are imperfect and so is the parser -- it may not know that word X can be used as a verb and only classify it as a noun, etc, etc), but most Markov models (unless they're modeling essentially the same grammar structure your parser happens to be using -- and you can use several parsers to try and counteract that!-) will cause VASTLY more mis-parses than even dyslexic humans. Again, calibrate that on natural vs synthetic texts, and you'll see what I mean!-) | Crowdsourcing. Use Mechanical Turk and get a number of humans to vote on this. There are even some libraries to help you pull this off. For example:
* [TurKit - Iterative Tasks on Mechanical Turk](http://groups.csail.mit.edu/uid/turkit/)
Here's a blog post from O'Reilly Radar on tips for using Mechanical Turk to get your work done:
* [Mechanical Turk Best Practices](http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/06/mechanical-turk-best-practices.html) |
1,185,369 | Markov chains are a (almost standard) way to generate [random gibberish](http://uswaretech.com/blog/2009/06/pseudo-random-text-markov-chains-python/) which looks intelligent to untrained eye. How would you go about identifying markov generated text from human written text.
It would be awesome if the resources you point to are Python friendly. | 2009/07/26 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/1185369",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/121793/"
] | One simple approach would be to have a large group of humans read input text for you and see if the text makes sense. I'm only half-joking, this is a tricky problem.
I believe this to be a hard problem, because Markov-chain generated text is going to have a lot of the same properties of real human text in terms of word frequency and simple relationships between the ordering of words.
The differences between real text and text generated by a Markov chain are in higher-level rules of grammar and in semantic meaning, which are hard to encode programmatically. The other problem is that Markov chains are good enough at generating text that they sometimes come up with grammatically and semantically correct statements.
As an example, here's an [aphorism from the kantmachine](http://www.beetleinabox.com/cgi-bin/kant.pl):
>
> Today, he would feel convinced that
> the human will is free; to-morrow,
> considering the indissoluble chain of
> nature, he would look on freedom as a
> mere illusion and declare nature to be
> all-in-all.
>
>
>
While this string was written by a computer program, it's hard to say that a human would never say this.
I think that unless you can give us more specific details about the computer and human-generated text that expose more obvious differences it will be difficult to solve this using computer programming. | Crowdsourcing. Use Mechanical Turk and get a number of humans to vote on this. There are even some libraries to help you pull this off. For example:
* [TurKit - Iterative Tasks on Mechanical Turk](http://groups.csail.mit.edu/uid/turkit/)
Here's a blog post from O'Reilly Radar on tips for using Mechanical Turk to get your work done:
* [Mechanical Turk Best Practices](http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/06/mechanical-turk-best-practices.html) |
1,185,369 | Markov chains are a (almost standard) way to generate [random gibberish](http://uswaretech.com/blog/2009/06/pseudo-random-text-markov-chains-python/) which looks intelligent to untrained eye. How would you go about identifying markov generated text from human written text.
It would be awesome if the resources you point to are Python friendly. | 2009/07/26 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/1185369",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/121793/"
] | You could use a "brute force" approach, whereby you compare the generated language to data collected on n-grams of higher order than the Markov model that generated it.
i.e. If the language was generated with a 2nd order Markov model, up to 3-grams are going to have the correct frequencies, but 4-grams probably won't.
You can get up to 5-gram frequencies from Google's public [n-gram dataset.](http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2006/08/all-our-n-gram-are-belong-to-you.html) It's huge though - 24G *compressed* - you need to get it by post on DVDs from [LDC](http://www.ldc.upenn.edu).
EDIT: Added some implementation details
The n-grams have already been counted, so you just need to store the counts (or frequencies) in a way that's quick to search. A properly indexed database, or perhaps a Lucene index should work.
Given a piece of text, scan across it and look up the frequency of each 5-gram in your database, and see where it ranks compared to other 5-grams that start with the same 4 words.
Practically, a bigger obstacle might be the licensing terms of the dataset. Using it for a commercial app might be prohibited. | I suggest a generalization of Evan's answer: make a Markov model of your own and train it with a big chunk of the (very large) sample you're given, reserving the rest of the sample as "test data". Now, see how well the model you've trained does on the test data, e.g. with a chi square test that will suggest situation in which "fit is TOO good" (suggesting the test data is indeed generated by this model) as well as ones in which the fit is very bad (suggesting error in model structure -- an over-trained model with the wrong structure does a notoriously bad job in such cases).
Of course there are still many issues for calibration, such as the structure of the model -- are you suspecting a simple model based on Ntuples of words and little more, or a more sophisticated one with grammar states and the like. Fortunately you can calibrate things pretty well by using large corpora of known-to-be-natural text and also ones you generate yourself with models of various structures.
A different approach is to use [nltk](http://www.nltk.org/) to parse the sentences you're given -- a small number of mis-parses is to be expected even in natural text (as humans are imperfect and so is the parser -- it may not know that word X can be used as a verb and only classify it as a noun, etc, etc), but most Markov models (unless they're modeling essentially the same grammar structure your parser happens to be using -- and you can use several parsers to try and counteract that!-) will cause VASTLY more mis-parses than even dyslexic humans. Again, calibrate that on natural vs synthetic texts, and you'll see what I mean!-) |
1,185,369 | Markov chains are a (almost standard) way to generate [random gibberish](http://uswaretech.com/blog/2009/06/pseudo-random-text-markov-chains-python/) which looks intelligent to untrained eye. How would you go about identifying markov generated text from human written text.
It would be awesome if the resources you point to are Python friendly. | 2009/07/26 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/1185369",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/121793/"
] | One simple approach would be to have a large group of humans read input text for you and see if the text makes sense. I'm only half-joking, this is a tricky problem.
I believe this to be a hard problem, because Markov-chain generated text is going to have a lot of the same properties of real human text in terms of word frequency and simple relationships between the ordering of words.
The differences between real text and text generated by a Markov chain are in higher-level rules of grammar and in semantic meaning, which are hard to encode programmatically. The other problem is that Markov chains are good enough at generating text that they sometimes come up with grammatically and semantically correct statements.
As an example, here's an [aphorism from the kantmachine](http://www.beetleinabox.com/cgi-bin/kant.pl):
>
> Today, he would feel convinced that
> the human will is free; to-morrow,
> considering the indissoluble chain of
> nature, he would look on freedom as a
> mere illusion and declare nature to be
> all-in-all.
>
>
>
While this string was written by a computer program, it's hard to say that a human would never say this.
I think that unless you can give us more specific details about the computer and human-generated text that expose more obvious differences it will be difficult to solve this using computer programming. | If you had several large Markov-generated texts, you could possibly determine that they were so by comparing the word frequencies between each of the samples. Since Markov chains depend on constant word probabilities, the proportions of any given word should be roughly equal from sample to sample. |
1,185,369 | Markov chains are a (almost standard) way to generate [random gibberish](http://uswaretech.com/blog/2009/06/pseudo-random-text-markov-chains-python/) which looks intelligent to untrained eye. How would you go about identifying markov generated text from human written text.
It would be awesome if the resources you point to are Python friendly. | 2009/07/26 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/1185369",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/121793/"
] | If you had several large Markov-generated texts, you could possibly determine that they were so by comparing the word frequencies between each of the samples. Since Markov chains depend on constant word probabilities, the proportions of any given word should be roughly equal from sample to sample. | If you write a program which generates Markovian transition probabilities from any sequence of symbols, and then calculates the entropy rate of the markov matrix. (see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_rate#Entropy_rates_for_Markov_chains>) This is basically an estimate of how easily the text could be predicted using just the markov chain (higher entropy means *harder* to predict). Therefore I would think that the lower the entropy of the markov matrix is, the more likely that the sample of text is controlled by a markov matrix. If you have questions on how to write this code, I happen to have a program in python which does exactly this on my computer, so I can help you out |
1,185,369 | Markov chains are a (almost standard) way to generate [random gibberish](http://uswaretech.com/blog/2009/06/pseudo-random-text-markov-chains-python/) which looks intelligent to untrained eye. How would you go about identifying markov generated text from human written text.
It would be awesome if the resources you point to are Python friendly. | 2009/07/26 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/1185369",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/121793/"
] | I suggest a generalization of Evan's answer: make a Markov model of your own and train it with a big chunk of the (very large) sample you're given, reserving the rest of the sample as "test data". Now, see how well the model you've trained does on the test data, e.g. with a chi square test that will suggest situation in which "fit is TOO good" (suggesting the test data is indeed generated by this model) as well as ones in which the fit is very bad (suggesting error in model structure -- an over-trained model with the wrong structure does a notoriously bad job in such cases).
Of course there are still many issues for calibration, such as the structure of the model -- are you suspecting a simple model based on Ntuples of words and little more, or a more sophisticated one with grammar states and the like. Fortunately you can calibrate things pretty well by using large corpora of known-to-be-natural text and also ones you generate yourself with models of various structures.
A different approach is to use [nltk](http://www.nltk.org/) to parse the sentences you're given -- a small number of mis-parses is to be expected even in natural text (as humans are imperfect and so is the parser -- it may not know that word X can be used as a verb and only classify it as a noun, etc, etc), but most Markov models (unless they're modeling essentially the same grammar structure your parser happens to be using -- and you can use several parsers to try and counteract that!-) will cause VASTLY more mis-parses than even dyslexic humans. Again, calibrate that on natural vs synthetic texts, and you'll see what I mean!-) | If you had several large Markov-generated texts, you could possibly determine that they were so by comparing the word frequencies between each of the samples. Since Markov chains depend on constant word probabilities, the proportions of any given word should be roughly equal from sample to sample. |
150,885 | I'd like to change the OS on my laptop. I currently use Windows 7, but would like to install Ubuntu, but I'm not sure exactly what I need on the new OS. I've deployed an app to Heroku, which required my ssh key, is that all I need to copy over? Or are there other files I need as well? | 2010/06/09 | [
"https://superuser.com/questions/150885",
"https://superuser.com",
"https://superuser.com/users/-1/"
] | It's hard to say because I don't know what else is on your computer.
If you're afraid you might miss something, try using a tool called [Disk2Vhd](http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/ee656415.aspx) to make a snapshot of your Windows 7 machine. After you have Ubuntu installed and you realize you're missing something, install [VirtualBox](http://www.virtualbox.org/) and you can run a virtual instance of your machine and go back to get the files you need. (you'll want to check to make sure your CPU supports virtualization first for any of this to work) | Is there enough space for you to shrink your Windows partition ([gparted](http://gparted.sourceforge.net/) can do this), then install Ubuntu on the freed up space? Then you could dual-boot and have both, and not be losing all of your existing documents and everything. |
150,885 | I'd like to change the OS on my laptop. I currently use Windows 7, but would like to install Ubuntu, but I'm not sure exactly what I need on the new OS. I've deployed an app to Heroku, which required my ssh key, is that all I need to copy over? Or are there other files I need as well? | 2010/06/09 | [
"https://superuser.com/questions/150885",
"https://superuser.com",
"https://superuser.com/users/-1/"
] | Only you can know what you need to pack before moving, in real life and in the digital one. What I'd recommend is installing Wubi (<http://wubi-installer.org/>). It's the official virtualization of Ubuntu for Windows. Once installed you can use Ubuntu just as if you'd installed the "real thing", only without any risk of destroying your Windows data. Use it continuously over the next few weeks. If you find yourself needing to dip into Windows for anything, make note of it. After a few weeks you should have an idea of precisely what you need to take with you on your journey to Ubuntu. | Is there enough space for you to shrink your Windows partition ([gparted](http://gparted.sourceforge.net/) can do this), then install Ubuntu on the freed up space? Then you could dual-boot and have both, and not be losing all of your existing documents and everything. |
29,090 | I'm going to be recording some piano music in the near future, and I'm interested in the (possibly crazy) idea of tuning the piano to a non-equal-tempered system for the recording.
I am recording songs in F (x3), dm, fm, D (x2), and em. Would this require retuning the piano to center the tuning system around the key of each song?
In the case of just intonation, I'd assume so. But is well-temperament key-agnostic, or would I tune the piano to "F well-temperament" and then "D well-temperament"?
(Bonus: Any idea how I'd find a tuner who could do this?) | 2015/01/24 | [
"https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/29090",
"https://music.stackexchange.com",
"https://music.stackexchange.com/users/1212/"
] | The point of unequal well-tempered tunings is that the keys don't sound the same. Temperaments like Werckmeister III or Vallotti or 18th century French *ordinaire* are meant to be usable in any key while letting each have its own colour. (Vallotti is quite commonly used on fortepianos.)
For most of what you're doing, you could probably get away with a mean tone tuning (which isn't well-tempered, but does a reasonably good job with the keys around C Major - it was the original compromise), but F minor would likely be problematic for the standard 1/4-comma temperament. A 1/5-comma or 1/6-comma tuning *might* do the job.
All of these temperaments, well-tempered and mean tone, give the brightest character to C Major, with an increasing dark flavour as you move away by fifths.
To find a tuner, you'd best make use of any contacts you have in the Early Music field, and see if they know of piano tuners who deal with this. (Yeah, there are apps for tuning, but you'll probably want someone who can do it by ear, because on a modern piano, you'll also need the tuning *stretched* to deal with the inharmonicity of modern piano strings.) | *Equal* temperament is key-agnostic. *Well-tempered* tuning isn't. The point of well-tempered tuning is that all keys are tolerable, but some are still better than others and each has its own character.
This own character was pretty much the whole point of Bach's "Wohltemperirtes Clavier" (it is usually assumed that some Werckmeister tuning reflects the expected tuning best). Since such a tuning is supposed to lend different keys different characters, it would be quite pointless to retune to a different center of tonality for different pieces. Well-tempered tunings are a flavored *compromise*. If you can move a tuning around, there is no point in compromising. Just use just tuning then. If you can't move anything around, equal temperament is a flavorless compromise not distinguishing between keys. |
2,371,824 | I have an even number of teams and I need to create a list of fixtures. The rule is that a team that plays a fixture at home will play the next one away.
What do you think is the best aproach for this problem?
So the problem is to generate half of the fixtures, the other will be generated reversing home - away.
So, if I have 6 teams {A, B, C, D, E, F}
I need to generate:
Fixture 1
A - B, C - D, E - F
Fixture 2
F - A, B - C. D - E
and so on
Steve is right, it is not possible to implement it the way I said it. But anyway, the question still stands for the fixtures, even if a team will play two consecutive home games. | 2010/03/03 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/2371824",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/219418/"
] | The way you list it, with "Fixture 1" for all teams followed by "Fixture 2" for all teams and so on, it's not possible.
Teams play the same number of home and away games, and never play two home games in a row, it follows that teams must alternate home and away through the season.
So, suppose that A and C both play at home on the first week. Then for the rest of the season, they will always either both be playing at home, or both away. When can they play each other? Never.
You need bye weeks, and even then I'm not sure whether it's possible and how many byes you need. Are there any professional leagues which have your home-away alternation rule? | Generate all home games first, let every team play one home game versus another team. Make sure that a team won't meet the same opponent twice untill you've had all teams then you're list will be completed. After you've done the home games, you can just switch around the teams and they will be playing away :).
GL! |
17,093 | There are three problems with the setting of *Game of Thrones*:
1. Because if the continent of Westeros in the show (and books) are probably set on either a parallel Earth or a very Earth-like alien world.
2. But the problem is that we find out that there are roughly forty years of winter for every ten years of summer (it could be more or less) so this planet is obviously not Earth because it must have a very different orbit to our world. It obviously takes fifty Earth years to orbit their sun and the planet is only positioned for summer for a short period of that time.
3. But we see in the opening credits that Westeros is inside the shell of a planet and at the centre is their large mechanical artificial sun, I don't think the opening credits of the show show us what is literally happening, I think it's an artists representation, so it's good to bear this point in mind but safe to ignore it.
So any ideas?
---
I believe I have confused some people with this question, first of all the story tells us something along the lines of "The summers last years and the winters last lifetimes!" I'm not sure what the exact wording is, but whether the tilt of the planet or the distance from the sun or the atmosphere is responsible is irrelevant, I think we can agree that it's not Earth or at least not our version of Earth.
What I was hoping for was a little specific info on what this planet is for example, Lord of the Rings happens in a lost age in Europe, back when Elves, Hobbits and Dwarves shared the world with man, so we know Middle Earth, is Earth. Also we know Masters of the Universe happens on Eternia, Transformers happens on Earth and Cybertron so what planet does Game of Thrones happen on? | 2012/05/22 | [
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/17093",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/users/6407/"
] | The planet is not named in the books or in the series. We see the world of the Song of Ice and Fire through the eyes of its inhabitants who are about the level of the middle ages in terms of scientific knowledge. IIRC, they don't even know that their world is round, not to mention that there are other planets orbiting around stars, so it is plausible that they may not have a name for their planet. Also, none of the religions described in the books seem to have a concept of heaven or paradise, which may explain why there is no term for *earth* as opposed to *heaven*. | In [this chat](http://web.archive.org/web/20001005212114/eventhorizon.com/sfzine/chats/transcripts/031899.html), GRRM confirms that the story does not literally take place on our earth, but rather a secondary world:
>
> With references to aurochs, direwolves, and "winter is coming," are we to read any Earth prehistory into these books? Like the ice ages?
>
>
> **George\_RR\_Martin** - No, it's a secondary world, like Tolkien's Middle Earth. No link to "our" earth.
>
>
> |
17,093 | There are three problems with the setting of *Game of Thrones*:
1. Because if the continent of Westeros in the show (and books) are probably set on either a parallel Earth or a very Earth-like alien world.
2. But the problem is that we find out that there are roughly forty years of winter for every ten years of summer (it could be more or less) so this planet is obviously not Earth because it must have a very different orbit to our world. It obviously takes fifty Earth years to orbit their sun and the planet is only positioned for summer for a short period of that time.
3. But we see in the opening credits that Westeros is inside the shell of a planet and at the centre is their large mechanical artificial sun, I don't think the opening credits of the show show us what is literally happening, I think it's an artists representation, so it's good to bear this point in mind but safe to ignore it.
So any ideas?
---
I believe I have confused some people with this question, first of all the story tells us something along the lines of "The summers last years and the winters last lifetimes!" I'm not sure what the exact wording is, but whether the tilt of the planet or the distance from the sun or the atmosphere is responsible is irrelevant, I think we can agree that it's not Earth or at least not our version of Earth.
What I was hoping for was a little specific info on what this planet is for example, Lord of the Rings happens in a lost age in Europe, back when Elves, Hobbits and Dwarves shared the world with man, so we know Middle Earth, is Earth. Also we know Masters of the Universe happens on Eternia, Transformers happens on Earth and Cybertron so what planet does Game of Thrones happen on? | 2012/05/22 | [
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/17093",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/users/6407/"
] | In [this chat](http://web.archive.org/web/20001005212114/eventhorizon.com/sfzine/chats/transcripts/031899.html), GRRM confirms that the story does not literally take place on our earth, but rather a secondary world:
>
> With references to aurochs, direwolves, and "winter is coming," are we to read any Earth prehistory into these books? Like the ice ages?
>
>
> **George\_RR\_Martin** - No, it's a secondary world, like Tolkien's Middle Earth. No link to "our" earth.
>
>
> | Since an elliptical orbit of this nature would kill everyone and everything on the planet, this can't be the answer.
The story is most likely occurring on an earth sized moon orbiting around a Jupiter sized planet. When the lumbering Jupiter sized planet slowly made its orbit around its sun, the faster orbiting (assumption) earth sized moon would sporadically be blocked from the sun for years at a time. This mathematical combination of two different orbits, combined with two different possible processions of the two axis would also contribute to the seemingly chaotic and random length of seasons, days, and nights.
Well that is my theory, anyhow. |
17,093 | There are three problems with the setting of *Game of Thrones*:
1. Because if the continent of Westeros in the show (and books) are probably set on either a parallel Earth or a very Earth-like alien world.
2. But the problem is that we find out that there are roughly forty years of winter for every ten years of summer (it could be more or less) so this planet is obviously not Earth because it must have a very different orbit to our world. It obviously takes fifty Earth years to orbit their sun and the planet is only positioned for summer for a short period of that time.
3. But we see in the opening credits that Westeros is inside the shell of a planet and at the centre is their large mechanical artificial sun, I don't think the opening credits of the show show us what is literally happening, I think it's an artists representation, so it's good to bear this point in mind but safe to ignore it.
So any ideas?
---
I believe I have confused some people with this question, first of all the story tells us something along the lines of "The summers last years and the winters last lifetimes!" I'm not sure what the exact wording is, but whether the tilt of the planet or the distance from the sun or the atmosphere is responsible is irrelevant, I think we can agree that it's not Earth or at least not our version of Earth.
What I was hoping for was a little specific info on what this planet is for example, Lord of the Rings happens in a lost age in Europe, back when Elves, Hobbits and Dwarves shared the world with man, so we know Middle Earth, is Earth. Also we know Masters of the Universe happens on Eternia, Transformers happens on Earth and Cybertron so what planet does Game of Thrones happen on? | 2012/05/22 | [
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/17093",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/users/6407/"
] | G.R.R. Martin is very keen on basing *invented* things in real ones, such as names (Geoffrey turns to Joffrey, for instance) or even food. Therefore, a planet which seems quite similar to Earth but its definitely not, is most likely the answer.
And for the Seasons length, as [Till B](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/17093/what-planet-does-game-of-thrones-happen-on#comment31736_17093) says, Martin has stated that the [explanation](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/3008/explanation-of-seasons-in-a-song-of-ice-and-fire) is magical, and will be given in the last book. | Look to the Stars
=================
In *The Sworn Sword* from the *Dunk & Egg* stories, Dunk looks up at the sky and spots a star which sounds remarkably like the '[North Star](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Star)':
>
> But there were clouds to the north, and the blue eye of the Ice Dragon was lost to him, **the blue eye that pointed north**.
>
>
>
---
There are many instances of the word 'earth' being used within the books to refer to the plane of their existence.
Examples
========
Says Melisandre of the looming doom of the Others' appearance:
>
> “It means that the battle is begun,” said Melisandre. “The sand is running through the glass more quickly now, and man’s hour on **earth** is almost done.
> *-A Song of Ice and Fire: A Storm of Swords, Davos.*
>
>
>
Kraznys mo Nakloz says to Dany:
>
> The Unsullied are the purest creatures on the **earth**.”
>
>
>
and later...
>
> Tell her they are like Valyrian steel, folded over and over and hammered for years on end, until they are stronger and more resilient than any metal on **earth**.”
> *-A Song of Ice and Fire: A Storm of Swords, Daenerys.*
>
>
>
Ygritte tells Jon:
>
> “The gods made the **earth** for all men t’ share.
> *-A Song of Ice and Fire: A Storm of Swords, Jon.*
>
>
>
There are more examples, but you get my point.
---
Earth or earth?
===============
Please note the use of the un-capitalised version of the word 'earth' as opposed to 'Earth'.
**What is the difference?**
[Dictionary.com](http://dictionary.reference.com/help/faq/language/s05.html) states that when referring to the celestial body or planet as a *proper noun* then you need to either capitalise the word or use an *article* (the).
The word 'earth' is never capitalised in any of the examples (which I've found), but it *is* used with an article; note Ygritte's "The gods made **the** earth..." and Kraznyz's "...purest creatures on **the** earth..."
Whether is it specifically intended by the author (GRRM) to make this distinction I have no idea.
This could also be a hangover from the way he speaks when he refers to *his* plane of existence - as mentioned in [this article](http://grammarist.com/style/earth/):
>
> It can also mean the land surface of the world or the realm of mortal existence without becoming a proper noun.
>
>
>
So GRRM may have written 'earth' or 'the earth' to denote that that is how its inhabitants see the world; as *their* earth or plane of existence.
In fact he has recently stated that if you asked a Maester what planet they live in:
>
> He would probably call it Earth.
>
> Of course, it would not be that word, since he'd be speaking the Common Tongue, not English.
>
> But it would **mean** Earth.
>
>
>
> |
17,093 | There are three problems with the setting of *Game of Thrones*:
1. Because if the continent of Westeros in the show (and books) are probably set on either a parallel Earth or a very Earth-like alien world.
2. But the problem is that we find out that there are roughly forty years of winter for every ten years of summer (it could be more or less) so this planet is obviously not Earth because it must have a very different orbit to our world. It obviously takes fifty Earth years to orbit their sun and the planet is only positioned for summer for a short period of that time.
3. But we see in the opening credits that Westeros is inside the shell of a planet and at the centre is their large mechanical artificial sun, I don't think the opening credits of the show show us what is literally happening, I think it's an artists representation, so it's good to bear this point in mind but safe to ignore it.
So any ideas?
---
I believe I have confused some people with this question, first of all the story tells us something along the lines of "The summers last years and the winters last lifetimes!" I'm not sure what the exact wording is, but whether the tilt of the planet or the distance from the sun or the atmosphere is responsible is irrelevant, I think we can agree that it's not Earth or at least not our version of Earth.
What I was hoping for was a little specific info on what this planet is for example, Lord of the Rings happens in a lost age in Europe, back when Elves, Hobbits and Dwarves shared the world with man, so we know Middle Earth, is Earth. Also we know Masters of the Universe happens on Eternia, Transformers happens on Earth and Cybertron so what planet does Game of Thrones happen on? | 2012/05/22 | [
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/17093",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/users/6407/"
] | G.R.R. Martin is very keen on basing *invented* things in real ones, such as names (Geoffrey turns to Joffrey, for instance) or even food. Therefore, a planet which seems quite similar to Earth but its definitely not, is most likely the answer.
And for the Seasons length, as [Till B](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/17093/what-planet-does-game-of-thrones-happen-on#comment31736_17093) says, Martin has stated that the [explanation](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/3008/explanation-of-seasons-in-a-song-of-ice-and-fire) is magical, and will be given in the last book. | In [this chat](http://web.archive.org/web/20001005212114/eventhorizon.com/sfzine/chats/transcripts/031899.html), GRRM confirms that the story does not literally take place on our earth, but rather a secondary world:
>
> With references to aurochs, direwolves, and "winter is coming," are we to read any Earth prehistory into these books? Like the ice ages?
>
>
> **George\_RR\_Martin** - No, it's a secondary world, like Tolkien's Middle Earth. No link to "our" earth.
>
>
> |
17,093 | There are three problems with the setting of *Game of Thrones*:
1. Because if the continent of Westeros in the show (and books) are probably set on either a parallel Earth or a very Earth-like alien world.
2. But the problem is that we find out that there are roughly forty years of winter for every ten years of summer (it could be more or less) so this planet is obviously not Earth because it must have a very different orbit to our world. It obviously takes fifty Earth years to orbit their sun and the planet is only positioned for summer for a short period of that time.
3. But we see in the opening credits that Westeros is inside the shell of a planet and at the centre is their large mechanical artificial sun, I don't think the opening credits of the show show us what is literally happening, I think it's an artists representation, so it's good to bear this point in mind but safe to ignore it.
So any ideas?
---
I believe I have confused some people with this question, first of all the story tells us something along the lines of "The summers last years and the winters last lifetimes!" I'm not sure what the exact wording is, but whether the tilt of the planet or the distance from the sun or the atmosphere is responsible is irrelevant, I think we can agree that it's not Earth or at least not our version of Earth.
What I was hoping for was a little specific info on what this planet is for example, Lord of the Rings happens in a lost age in Europe, back when Elves, Hobbits and Dwarves shared the world with man, so we know Middle Earth, is Earth. Also we know Masters of the Universe happens on Eternia, Transformers happens on Earth and Cybertron so what planet does Game of Thrones happen on? | 2012/05/22 | [
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/17093",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/users/6407/"
] | G.R.R. Martin is very keen on basing *invented* things in real ones, such as names (Geoffrey turns to Joffrey, for instance) or even food. Therefore, a planet which seems quite similar to Earth but its definitely not, is most likely the answer.
And for the Seasons length, as [Till B](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/17093/what-planet-does-game-of-thrones-happen-on#comment31736_17093) says, Martin has stated that the [explanation](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/3008/explanation-of-seasons-in-a-song-of-ice-and-fire) is magical, and will be given in the last book. | Since an elliptical orbit of this nature would kill everyone and everything on the planet, this can't be the answer.
The story is most likely occurring on an earth sized moon orbiting around a Jupiter sized planet. When the lumbering Jupiter sized planet slowly made its orbit around its sun, the faster orbiting (assumption) earth sized moon would sporadically be blocked from the sun for years at a time. This mathematical combination of two different orbits, combined with two different possible processions of the two axis would also contribute to the seemingly chaotic and random length of seasons, days, and nights.
Well that is my theory, anyhow. |
17,093 | There are three problems with the setting of *Game of Thrones*:
1. Because if the continent of Westeros in the show (and books) are probably set on either a parallel Earth or a very Earth-like alien world.
2. But the problem is that we find out that there are roughly forty years of winter for every ten years of summer (it could be more or less) so this planet is obviously not Earth because it must have a very different orbit to our world. It obviously takes fifty Earth years to orbit their sun and the planet is only positioned for summer for a short period of that time.
3. But we see in the opening credits that Westeros is inside the shell of a planet and at the centre is their large mechanical artificial sun, I don't think the opening credits of the show show us what is literally happening, I think it's an artists representation, so it's good to bear this point in mind but safe to ignore it.
So any ideas?
---
I believe I have confused some people with this question, first of all the story tells us something along the lines of "The summers last years and the winters last lifetimes!" I'm not sure what the exact wording is, but whether the tilt of the planet or the distance from the sun or the atmosphere is responsible is irrelevant, I think we can agree that it's not Earth or at least not our version of Earth.
What I was hoping for was a little specific info on what this planet is for example, Lord of the Rings happens in a lost age in Europe, back when Elves, Hobbits and Dwarves shared the world with man, so we know Middle Earth, is Earth. Also we know Masters of the Universe happens on Eternia, Transformers happens on Earth and Cybertron so what planet does Game of Thrones happen on? | 2012/05/22 | [
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/17093",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/users/6407/"
] | Look to the Stars
=================
In *The Sworn Sword* from the *Dunk & Egg* stories, Dunk looks up at the sky and spots a star which sounds remarkably like the '[North Star](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Star)':
>
> But there were clouds to the north, and the blue eye of the Ice Dragon was lost to him, **the blue eye that pointed north**.
>
>
>
---
There are many instances of the word 'earth' being used within the books to refer to the plane of their existence.
Examples
========
Says Melisandre of the looming doom of the Others' appearance:
>
> “It means that the battle is begun,” said Melisandre. “The sand is running through the glass more quickly now, and man’s hour on **earth** is almost done.
> *-A Song of Ice and Fire: A Storm of Swords, Davos.*
>
>
>
Kraznys mo Nakloz says to Dany:
>
> The Unsullied are the purest creatures on the **earth**.”
>
>
>
and later...
>
> Tell her they are like Valyrian steel, folded over and over and hammered for years on end, until they are stronger and more resilient than any metal on **earth**.”
> *-A Song of Ice and Fire: A Storm of Swords, Daenerys.*
>
>
>
Ygritte tells Jon:
>
> “The gods made the **earth** for all men t’ share.
> *-A Song of Ice and Fire: A Storm of Swords, Jon.*
>
>
>
There are more examples, but you get my point.
---
Earth or earth?
===============
Please note the use of the un-capitalised version of the word 'earth' as opposed to 'Earth'.
**What is the difference?**
[Dictionary.com](http://dictionary.reference.com/help/faq/language/s05.html) states that when referring to the celestial body or planet as a *proper noun* then you need to either capitalise the word or use an *article* (the).
The word 'earth' is never capitalised in any of the examples (which I've found), but it *is* used with an article; note Ygritte's "The gods made **the** earth..." and Kraznyz's "...purest creatures on **the** earth..."
Whether is it specifically intended by the author (GRRM) to make this distinction I have no idea.
This could also be a hangover from the way he speaks when he refers to *his* plane of existence - as mentioned in [this article](http://grammarist.com/style/earth/):
>
> It can also mean the land surface of the world or the realm of mortal existence without becoming a proper noun.
>
>
>
So GRRM may have written 'earth' or 'the earth' to denote that that is how its inhabitants see the world; as *their* earth or plane of existence.
In fact he has recently stated that if you asked a Maester what planet they live in:
>
> He would probably call it Earth.
>
> Of course, it would not be that word, since he'd be speaking the Common Tongue, not English.
>
> But it would **mean** Earth.
>
>
>
> | From the mouth of the creator himself;
"It's Earth. But it's not our Earth"
====================================
>
> *[JH] This may be a silly question, but: When you think of the world you’ve created, where seasons last for years, where is it? It is another planet?*
>
>
> [GRRM] It’s what Tolkien wrote was “the secondary world.” **It’s not another planet. It’s Earth. But it’s not our Earth.** If you wanted to do a science fiction approach, you could call it an alternate world, but that sounds too science fictional. Tolkien really pioneered that with Middle Earth[sic]. He put in some vague things about tying it to our past, but that doesn’t really hold up. I have people constantly writing me with science fiction theories about the seasons — “It’s a double star system with a black dwarf and that would explain–” It’s fantasy, man, it’s magic.
>
>
> *- [A Dance With Dragons Interview, James Hibberd, July 12, 2011](http://ew.com/article/2011/07/12/george-martin-talks-a-dance-with-dragons/)*
>
>
>
It seems that George may have changed his mind or updated his theory on the style choice to compare it to Middle-earth as an [earlier answer](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/56426/57310) in 1999 stated something similar, but in a more ambiguous way. I believe this interview in 2011 clears up some of this ambiguity and clearly draws the "secondary Earth" parallel. |
17,093 | There are three problems with the setting of *Game of Thrones*:
1. Because if the continent of Westeros in the show (and books) are probably set on either a parallel Earth or a very Earth-like alien world.
2. But the problem is that we find out that there are roughly forty years of winter for every ten years of summer (it could be more or less) so this planet is obviously not Earth because it must have a very different orbit to our world. It obviously takes fifty Earth years to orbit their sun and the planet is only positioned for summer for a short period of that time.
3. But we see in the opening credits that Westeros is inside the shell of a planet and at the centre is their large mechanical artificial sun, I don't think the opening credits of the show show us what is literally happening, I think it's an artists representation, so it's good to bear this point in mind but safe to ignore it.
So any ideas?
---
I believe I have confused some people with this question, first of all the story tells us something along the lines of "The summers last years and the winters last lifetimes!" I'm not sure what the exact wording is, but whether the tilt of the planet or the distance from the sun or the atmosphere is responsible is irrelevant, I think we can agree that it's not Earth or at least not our version of Earth.
What I was hoping for was a little specific info on what this planet is for example, Lord of the Rings happens in a lost age in Europe, back when Elves, Hobbits and Dwarves shared the world with man, so we know Middle Earth, is Earth. Also we know Masters of the Universe happens on Eternia, Transformers happens on Earth and Cybertron so what planet does Game of Thrones happen on? | 2012/05/22 | [
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/17093",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/users/6407/"
] | Since an elliptical orbit of this nature would kill everyone and everything on the planet, this can't be the answer.
The story is most likely occurring on an earth sized moon orbiting around a Jupiter sized planet. When the lumbering Jupiter sized planet slowly made its orbit around its sun, the faster orbiting (assumption) earth sized moon would sporadically be blocked from the sun for years at a time. This mathematical combination of two different orbits, combined with two different possible processions of the two axis would also contribute to the seemingly chaotic and random length of seasons, days, and nights.
Well that is my theory, anyhow. | After someone mentioned that they still use earth years to determine their age, we can assume that their planet has a relatively earth like orbit around it's sun. So if you were to purely base this on science and not magic, we could say that a number of geological factors play a role in longer winters and summers. Some possible reasons could be, volcanoes in other parts of the unknown planet that have unpredictable activity that could sometimes last for years. Ashes from the volcanoes would block out the sun in that part of the planet and cause planetary cooling. Likewise, there could be high mountain ranges as well which would also help cool planetary temperatures. Another could be solar activity. Our sun has periods of high and low activity. At the moment our sun is at it's high period which lasts about 11 years. So their sun could have solar activity that at low points can get low enough to cause mini ice ages. So with all that said and done, I think their world is our world just with differing variables. |
17,093 | There are three problems with the setting of *Game of Thrones*:
1. Because if the continent of Westeros in the show (and books) are probably set on either a parallel Earth or a very Earth-like alien world.
2. But the problem is that we find out that there are roughly forty years of winter for every ten years of summer (it could be more or less) so this planet is obviously not Earth because it must have a very different orbit to our world. It obviously takes fifty Earth years to orbit their sun and the planet is only positioned for summer for a short period of that time.
3. But we see in the opening credits that Westeros is inside the shell of a planet and at the centre is their large mechanical artificial sun, I don't think the opening credits of the show show us what is literally happening, I think it's an artists representation, so it's good to bear this point in mind but safe to ignore it.
So any ideas?
---
I believe I have confused some people with this question, first of all the story tells us something along the lines of "The summers last years and the winters last lifetimes!" I'm not sure what the exact wording is, but whether the tilt of the planet or the distance from the sun or the atmosphere is responsible is irrelevant, I think we can agree that it's not Earth or at least not our version of Earth.
What I was hoping for was a little specific info on what this planet is for example, Lord of the Rings happens in a lost age in Europe, back when Elves, Hobbits and Dwarves shared the world with man, so we know Middle Earth, is Earth. Also we know Masters of the Universe happens on Eternia, Transformers happens on Earth and Cybertron so what planet does Game of Thrones happen on? | 2012/05/22 | [
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/17093",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/users/6407/"
] | Look to the Stars
=================
In *The Sworn Sword* from the *Dunk & Egg* stories, Dunk looks up at the sky and spots a star which sounds remarkably like the '[North Star](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Star)':
>
> But there were clouds to the north, and the blue eye of the Ice Dragon was lost to him, **the blue eye that pointed north**.
>
>
>
---
There are many instances of the word 'earth' being used within the books to refer to the plane of their existence.
Examples
========
Says Melisandre of the looming doom of the Others' appearance:
>
> “It means that the battle is begun,” said Melisandre. “The sand is running through the glass more quickly now, and man’s hour on **earth** is almost done.
> *-A Song of Ice and Fire: A Storm of Swords, Davos.*
>
>
>
Kraznys mo Nakloz says to Dany:
>
> The Unsullied are the purest creatures on the **earth**.”
>
>
>
and later...
>
> Tell her they are like Valyrian steel, folded over and over and hammered for years on end, until they are stronger and more resilient than any metal on **earth**.”
> *-A Song of Ice and Fire: A Storm of Swords, Daenerys.*
>
>
>
Ygritte tells Jon:
>
> “The gods made the **earth** for all men t’ share.
> *-A Song of Ice and Fire: A Storm of Swords, Jon.*
>
>
>
There are more examples, but you get my point.
---
Earth or earth?
===============
Please note the use of the un-capitalised version of the word 'earth' as opposed to 'Earth'.
**What is the difference?**
[Dictionary.com](http://dictionary.reference.com/help/faq/language/s05.html) states that when referring to the celestial body or planet as a *proper noun* then you need to either capitalise the word or use an *article* (the).
The word 'earth' is never capitalised in any of the examples (which I've found), but it *is* used with an article; note Ygritte's "The gods made **the** earth..." and Kraznyz's "...purest creatures on **the** earth..."
Whether is it specifically intended by the author (GRRM) to make this distinction I have no idea.
This could also be a hangover from the way he speaks when he refers to *his* plane of existence - as mentioned in [this article](http://grammarist.com/style/earth/):
>
> It can also mean the land surface of the world or the realm of mortal existence without becoming a proper noun.
>
>
>
So GRRM may have written 'earth' or 'the earth' to denote that that is how its inhabitants see the world; as *their* earth or plane of existence.
In fact he has recently stated that if you asked a Maester what planet they live in:
>
> He would probably call it Earth.
>
> Of course, it would not be that word, since he'd be speaking the Common Tongue, not English.
>
> But it would **mean** Earth.
>
>
>
> | Personally, I don't think it is meant to be "another planet" necessarily. GRRM was a huge fan of Tolkien's "Middle Earth" which is just a mythological representation of our Earth in the distant past when there were magical and mythological figures and people. So, basically, in my opinion, GOT is just GRRM's own fantasy interpretation of our planet Earth (since the characters are clearly human) in the past OR possibly millions of years in the future after technology has been lost and our continents have shifted, and the seasons have changed drastically. Just my opinion based on the things I have read from the author's interviews. |
17,093 | There are three problems with the setting of *Game of Thrones*:
1. Because if the continent of Westeros in the show (and books) are probably set on either a parallel Earth or a very Earth-like alien world.
2. But the problem is that we find out that there are roughly forty years of winter for every ten years of summer (it could be more or less) so this planet is obviously not Earth because it must have a very different orbit to our world. It obviously takes fifty Earth years to orbit their sun and the planet is only positioned for summer for a short period of that time.
3. But we see in the opening credits that Westeros is inside the shell of a planet and at the centre is their large mechanical artificial sun, I don't think the opening credits of the show show us what is literally happening, I think it's an artists representation, so it's good to bear this point in mind but safe to ignore it.
So any ideas?
---
I believe I have confused some people with this question, first of all the story tells us something along the lines of "The summers last years and the winters last lifetimes!" I'm not sure what the exact wording is, but whether the tilt of the planet or the distance from the sun or the atmosphere is responsible is irrelevant, I think we can agree that it's not Earth or at least not our version of Earth.
What I was hoping for was a little specific info on what this planet is for example, Lord of the Rings happens in a lost age in Europe, back when Elves, Hobbits and Dwarves shared the world with man, so we know Middle Earth, is Earth. Also we know Masters of the Universe happens on Eternia, Transformers happens on Earth and Cybertron so what planet does Game of Thrones happen on? | 2012/05/22 | [
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/17093",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/users/6407/"
] | G.R.R. Martin is very keen on basing *invented* things in real ones, such as names (Geoffrey turns to Joffrey, for instance) or even food. Therefore, a planet which seems quite similar to Earth but its definitely not, is most likely the answer.
And for the Seasons length, as [Till B](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/17093/what-planet-does-game-of-thrones-happen-on#comment31736_17093) says, Martin has stated that the [explanation](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/3008/explanation-of-seasons-in-a-song-of-ice-and-fire) is magical, and will be given in the last book. | From the mouth of the creator himself;
"It's Earth. But it's not our Earth"
====================================
>
> *[JH] This may be a silly question, but: When you think of the world you’ve created, where seasons last for years, where is it? It is another planet?*
>
>
> [GRRM] It’s what Tolkien wrote was “the secondary world.” **It’s not another planet. It’s Earth. But it’s not our Earth.** If you wanted to do a science fiction approach, you could call it an alternate world, but that sounds too science fictional. Tolkien really pioneered that with Middle Earth[sic]. He put in some vague things about tying it to our past, but that doesn’t really hold up. I have people constantly writing me with science fiction theories about the seasons — “It’s a double star system with a black dwarf and that would explain–” It’s fantasy, man, it’s magic.
>
>
> *- [A Dance With Dragons Interview, James Hibberd, July 12, 2011](http://ew.com/article/2011/07/12/george-martin-talks-a-dance-with-dragons/)*
>
>
>
It seems that George may have changed his mind or updated his theory on the style choice to compare it to Middle-earth as an [earlier answer](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/56426/57310) in 1999 stated something similar, but in a more ambiguous way. I believe this interview in 2011 clears up some of this ambiguity and clearly draws the "secondary Earth" parallel. |
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