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7,990 | [This post](http://greywulf.net/2011/05/interesting-characters-and-the-sliding-scale/) on Greywulf's Lair explores the concept of a one axis sliding scale for character building:
>
> One thing that all of these choices brings is the idea of a sliding scale. With 4e D&D, you can choose how much of the character concept affects the build, which in turn reflects the importance the PC places on the things which shape him (or her).
>
>
>
At the risk of being overly broad:
* What framework do you use when creating characters? [see [DIP/DAS](https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/7552/during-character-creation-do-you-prefer-to-develop-in-play-dip-or-develop-at-t) question for one example]
* How does this framework impact creation or playstyle?
* How generalizable is this framework? | 2011/05/21 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/7990",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/760/"
] | The only one I am aware of is the [Character Builder](http://www.wizards.com/dnd/tool.aspx?x=dnd/4new/tool/characterbuilder). Though you do have to be a Dungeons and Dragons Insider Subscriber to use it.
It's browser-based and runs in Microsoft Silverlight (it doesn't work in Linux with Moonlight. Sigh).
On a side note, if you do use the Character Builder, you can upload that info to <http://iplay4e.appspot.com> and use it to dynamically keep track of your character. | [4th Ed Excel Character Sheet](http://dnd4.com/dd-4th-edition-character-sheet) might do what you want. |
7,990 | [This post](http://greywulf.net/2011/05/interesting-characters-and-the-sliding-scale/) on Greywulf's Lair explores the concept of a one axis sliding scale for character building:
>
> One thing that all of these choices brings is the idea of a sliding scale. With 4e D&D, you can choose how much of the character concept affects the build, which in turn reflects the importance the PC places on the things which shape him (or her).
>
>
>
At the risk of being overly broad:
* What framework do you use when creating characters? [see [DIP/DAS](https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/7552/during-character-creation-do-you-prefer-to-develop-in-play-dip-or-develop-at-t) question for one example]
* How does this framework impact creation or playstyle?
* How generalizable is this framework? | 2011/05/21 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/7990",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/760/"
] | [Myth Weavers](http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetindex.php) has a decent browser based 4e sheet that does an OK job of keeping track of simple stuff.
I'm sticking this in here because it was part of a redundant question I asked about this subject, but I'm definitely looking for more free options. | If you are running Windows and can get your hands on the old D&D offline character builder the character sheet with that one is interactive. However, they stopped updating it before the essentials line came out. Some (read me) prefer the format of that character sheet to the one you can print online. |
7,990 | [This post](http://greywulf.net/2011/05/interesting-characters-and-the-sliding-scale/) on Greywulf's Lair explores the concept of a one axis sliding scale for character building:
>
> One thing that all of these choices brings is the idea of a sliding scale. With 4e D&D, you can choose how much of the character concept affects the build, which in turn reflects the importance the PC places on the things which shape him (or her).
>
>
>
At the risk of being overly broad:
* What framework do you use when creating characters? [see [DIP/DAS](https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/7552/during-character-creation-do-you-prefer-to-develop-in-play-dip-or-develop-at-t) question for one example]
* How does this framework impact creation or playstyle?
* How generalizable is this framework? | 2011/05/21 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/7990",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/760/"
] | The only one I am aware of is the [Character Builder](http://www.wizards.com/dnd/tool.aspx?x=dnd/4new/tool/characterbuilder). Though you do have to be a Dungeons and Dragons Insider Subscriber to use it.
It's browser-based and runs in Microsoft Silverlight (it doesn't work in Linux with Moonlight. Sigh).
On a side note, if you do use the Character Builder, you can upload that info to <http://iplay4e.appspot.com> and use it to dynamically keep track of your character. | I had the same question! I'm working on an (early) prototype [here](http://dragonputer.azurewebsites.net/).
It's designed for phone and tablets and saves everything directly on your browser. There's a cloud sync feature, but you'll have to send me your Facebook profile to get access. That feature is handy for character entry, since you can type/paste everything on your PC, then sync and have it available on your phone.
I'm actively working on it on weekends, so shoot me an email if you want to help test or even contribute code. I'm focusing on UI and making it table-friendly right now. 4e is on it's way out, so I'm hoping to take a second pass at it to generalize and make it work for other games. I'm also a D&D newbie so I need help from more seasoned players to make it work. |
7,990 | [This post](http://greywulf.net/2011/05/interesting-characters-and-the-sliding-scale/) on Greywulf's Lair explores the concept of a one axis sliding scale for character building:
>
> One thing that all of these choices brings is the idea of a sliding scale. With 4e D&D, you can choose how much of the character concept affects the build, which in turn reflects the importance the PC places on the things which shape him (or her).
>
>
>
At the risk of being overly broad:
* What framework do you use when creating characters? [see [DIP/DAS](https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/7552/during-character-creation-do-you-prefer-to-develop-in-play-dip-or-develop-at-t) question for one example]
* How does this framework impact creation or playstyle?
* How generalizable is this framework? | 2011/05/21 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/7990",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/760/"
] | [4th Ed Excel Character Sheet](http://dnd4.com/dd-4th-edition-character-sheet) might do what you want. | I had the same question! I'm working on an (early) prototype [here](http://dragonputer.azurewebsites.net/).
It's designed for phone and tablets and saves everything directly on your browser. There's a cloud sync feature, but you'll have to send me your Facebook profile to get access. That feature is handy for character entry, since you can type/paste everything on your PC, then sync and have it available on your phone.
I'm actively working on it on weekends, so shoot me an email if you want to help test or even contribute code. I'm focusing on UI and making it table-friendly right now. 4e is on it's way out, so I'm hoping to take a second pass at it to generalize and make it work for other games. I'm also a D&D newbie so I need help from more seasoned players to make it work. |
7,990 | [This post](http://greywulf.net/2011/05/interesting-characters-and-the-sliding-scale/) on Greywulf's Lair explores the concept of a one axis sliding scale for character building:
>
> One thing that all of these choices brings is the idea of a sliding scale. With 4e D&D, you can choose how much of the character concept affects the build, which in turn reflects the importance the PC places on the things which shape him (or her).
>
>
>
At the risk of being overly broad:
* What framework do you use when creating characters? [see [DIP/DAS](https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/7552/during-character-creation-do-you-prefer-to-develop-in-play-dip-or-develop-at-t) question for one example]
* How does this framework impact creation or playstyle?
* How generalizable is this framework? | 2011/05/21 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/7990",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/760/"
] | Lone Wolf Development's [Hero Lab](http://www.wolflair.com/index.php?context=hero_lab) is the best commercial character builder, and it supports 4e as well as 3.5e. Pathfinder, Savage Worlds, and many other game systems. I've used it a while and specifically baked it off against PCGen and RPGXplorer and it beats the pants off both.
Then besides a builder, it has full functionality to track in-play stuff, apply conditions, make rolls, etc. | I had the same question! I'm working on an (early) prototype [here](http://dragonputer.azurewebsites.net/).
It's designed for phone and tablets and saves everything directly on your browser. There's a cloud sync feature, but you'll have to send me your Facebook profile to get access. That feature is handy for character entry, since you can type/paste everything on your PC, then sync and have it available on your phone.
I'm actively working on it on weekends, so shoot me an email if you want to help test or even contribute code. I'm focusing on UI and making it table-friendly right now. 4e is on it's way out, so I'm hoping to take a second pass at it to generalize and make it work for other games. I'm also a D&D newbie so I need help from more seasoned players to make it work. |
7,990 | [This post](http://greywulf.net/2011/05/interesting-characters-and-the-sliding-scale/) on Greywulf's Lair explores the concept of a one axis sliding scale for character building:
>
> One thing that all of these choices brings is the idea of a sliding scale. With 4e D&D, you can choose how much of the character concept affects the build, which in turn reflects the importance the PC places on the things which shape him (or her).
>
>
>
At the risk of being overly broad:
* What framework do you use when creating characters? [see [DIP/DAS](https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/7552/during-character-creation-do-you-prefer-to-develop-in-play-dip-or-develop-at-t) question for one example]
* How does this framework impact creation or playstyle?
* How generalizable is this framework? | 2011/05/21 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/7990",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/760/"
] | [PCGen](http://pcgen.sourceforge.net/01_overview.php)
-----------------------------------------------------
The free and venerable PCGen supports 4E - it's meant to be both used to generate character sheets and to be used "live". | I had the same question! I'm working on an (early) prototype [here](http://dragonputer.azurewebsites.net/).
It's designed for phone and tablets and saves everything directly on your browser. There's a cloud sync feature, but you'll have to send me your Facebook profile to get access. That feature is handy for character entry, since you can type/paste everything on your PC, then sync and have it available on your phone.
I'm actively working on it on weekends, so shoot me an email if you want to help test or even contribute code. I'm focusing on UI and making it table-friendly right now. 4e is on it's way out, so I'm hoping to take a second pass at it to generalize and make it work for other games. I'm also a D&D newbie so I need help from more seasoned players to make it work. |
7,990 | [This post](http://greywulf.net/2011/05/interesting-characters-and-the-sliding-scale/) on Greywulf's Lair explores the concept of a one axis sliding scale for character building:
>
> One thing that all of these choices brings is the idea of a sliding scale. With 4e D&D, you can choose how much of the character concept affects the build, which in turn reflects the importance the PC places on the things which shape him (or her).
>
>
>
At the risk of being overly broad:
* What framework do you use when creating characters? [see [DIP/DAS](https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/7552/during-character-creation-do-you-prefer-to-develop-in-play-dip-or-develop-at-t) question for one example]
* How does this framework impact creation or playstyle?
* How generalizable is this framework? | 2011/05/21 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/7990",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/760/"
] | [Myth Weavers](http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetindex.php) has a decent browser based 4e sheet that does an OK job of keeping track of simple stuff.
I'm sticking this in here because it was part of a redundant question I asked about this subject, but I'm definitely looking for more free options. | Lone Wolf Development's [Hero Lab](http://www.wolflair.com/index.php?context=hero_lab) is the best commercial character builder, and it supports 4e as well as 3.5e. Pathfinder, Savage Worlds, and many other game systems. I've used it a while and specifically baked it off against PCGen and RPGXplorer and it beats the pants off both.
Then besides a builder, it has full functionality to track in-play stuff, apply conditions, make rolls, etc. |
7,990 | [This post](http://greywulf.net/2011/05/interesting-characters-and-the-sliding-scale/) on Greywulf's Lair explores the concept of a one axis sliding scale for character building:
>
> One thing that all of these choices brings is the idea of a sliding scale. With 4e D&D, you can choose how much of the character concept affects the build, which in turn reflects the importance the PC places on the things which shape him (or her).
>
>
>
At the risk of being overly broad:
* What framework do you use when creating characters? [see [DIP/DAS](https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/7552/during-character-creation-do-you-prefer-to-develop-in-play-dip-or-develop-at-t) question for one example]
* How does this framework impact creation or playstyle?
* How generalizable is this framework? | 2011/05/21 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/7990",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/760/"
] | [Myth Weavers](http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetindex.php) has a decent browser based 4e sheet that does an OK job of keeping track of simple stuff.
I'm sticking this in here because it was part of a redundant question I asked about this subject, but I'm definitely looking for more free options. | [4th Ed Excel Character Sheet](http://dnd4.com/dd-4th-edition-character-sheet) might do what you want. |
19,924 | Due to a disease that spread throught most of known world, all horses died. Without a replacement that was easy to grow, roman engineers found a solution. They invented the bicycle ! Now the roman army is prepared to commission the first bike riders legion. Part of the legion will fight as infantry and use bikes as mobility tools. But, a special modified group will ride the bikes at war, as if they where horses. Bikes will have a sharp point at the front, to be used as lance, in the event of a direct charge at enemy infantry.
Will it work ?
* It's a bicycle, not a motorbike.
* Not all charges are from the front, you can charge from the flanks or from behind. Actually romans were quite fond of attacking from behind infantry using cavalry.
New edit:
People said thats impossible to ride and fire, and to move a great mass etc. What about those bikes that have two sets of pedals to allow to persons to ride and power it ? Imagine a bike with two persons, the front one pedals and drives it, the back one has a bow and can fire at enemy while pedalling (he does not need to keep bike direction). Would this be effective as cavalry ? | 2015/07/01 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/19924",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/7066/"
] | EDIT:
Finally a clarification has been made: it's a bicycle!
The original post above assumes motorbike because why would anyone charge at anyone with a bicycle?
But let's re-answer with the clarification
Probably not.
In order to understand why, you need to see why horses were chosen in the first place: because they're fast and menacing. The point of a charge is to deter the enemy with a thundering shock and break the enemy ranks, this is impossible with bicycles because:
1) Cycling a bicycle requires physical effort on the rider, by the time they've reached the enemy while maintaining a charging speed, they'd be exhausted, which is not a goal of riding something in the first place.
2) If you crash against anything while cycling, you'll most definitely fall and not be able to continue your charge, the pointy end might hurt any poor sod that got stuck on it, but it also will render the bicycle useless until the guy is taken off the bike.
3) The momentum a bicycle provides is much less than that of even a young horse, thanks to the fact that bicycles have much less mass and weight, most people can carry a mountain bicycle, virtually nobody can piggyback a foal.
4) It is possible to have a bicycle with one cyclist and one archer to cycle-by, this is true, similar to a chariot archer, but a chariot archer has the luxury of standing on a relatively stable platform, which the passenger of a bicycle doesn't have. The closest you can get is if you utilize a bicycle with support wheels, which technically would make it a quadcycle. A Tricycle would also work well.
**However**
An archer would actually prefer staying behind the enemy lines and not join the frontlines. The "arc" in archer refers to the shape an arrow makes as it flies to the heavens and fall down to kiss gravity, this allows archers to shoot from great distance, the most popular long-distance archers being English Longbowmen. When archers join the frontlines they're usually as Chariot Archers that have fast mobility and don't need to fear enemy infantry (and relatively safe against cavalry too), or they're horse archers, which are archers themselves riding a horse, both of which are there to do ride-bys.
There is not much point in having archers charge at the enemy.
At most, bicycles will help you traverse the landscape, and not much beyond that
Original post for motorbike:
Probably not.
Unlike bikes, Horses are capable of standing upright with no support, largely thanks to the fact that they have 4 feet instead of 2 wheels. This allows you to take your hands off the reins for a moment and do something else like fighting while being stationary.
Even if we assume that your bikes are American bikes the likes of Harley Davidson instead of Japanese bikes the likes of Kawasaki (the ones used in MotoGP) or even worse an Italian scooter, charging at something with a pointy tip at the front might cause the rider to fall down along with the bike, and as anyone with a huge bike can tell you, getting it back up is a pain, even more so during a skirmish. To test this theory, try to charge at a fridge cardboard box filled to the brim with enough weight to simulate human weight, see if you can withstand it and not fall down.
Then there are other issues:
Horses are tall, we're not talking ponies here but real horses, this means if someone slashes at you, they'll get to your feet first before your head, the same cannot be said to bikes. This trait is obsolete with the advent of guns, but if you need to charge at the enemies for melee fight in the first place while the enemies have guns, you probably should replace your commander instead of your ride.
You also need stability to ride a bike, something that *will* interfere with your ability to swing weaponry. If you charge with a lance, the drag from piercing someone's chest might cause you to lose a bit of balance. Not a problem for the best of the best, I'm sure but that's something to think about.
Finally, bikes are the worst against offroad like the woods or rivers. They're cumbersome to turn around and if you get stuck on a mud, Kratos help you. Not to mention the complex nature of such machinery, so many things can go wrong.
It's not all doom and gloom, bikes are very good on plains and they don't need horse riding training like horses, you also can build bikes faster than you can raise horses, and they don't poop, so there's the morale boost. | I've seen this very thing (medieval combat on bicycles) in Portland, Oregon... ;)
**Terrain** - The location of your battles becomes very important; traversing through forests or across streams becomes more taxing. Not to say that you can't dismount and carry the bikes. *Design considerations* - large, flexible (leatherbound?) tires for going over rocks; light, sturdy frames (steel?).
**Protection** - It becomes critical to offer protection on the bike, rather than having your soldier hold a shield. *Design considerations* - thin, sturdy protective shield on the front and sides. It is also important to protect the wheels and the gears. Much like bringing down a horse, it could be very easy to immobilize a bike.
**Advantages** - You don't have to feed a bike. You can take a bike apart for transport over long or difficult terrain. A bike can be hauled up a short cliff a lot easier than a horse. Riders can change out on a bike indefinitely (barring the need for maintenance).
**Limitations** - Before switching to bikes, I think the Romans of the day would switch to the [Camel Calvary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel_cavalry): larger, stronger, faster, and suitable in many conditions. |
19,924 | Due to a disease that spread throught most of known world, all horses died. Without a replacement that was easy to grow, roman engineers found a solution. They invented the bicycle ! Now the roman army is prepared to commission the first bike riders legion. Part of the legion will fight as infantry and use bikes as mobility tools. But, a special modified group will ride the bikes at war, as if they where horses. Bikes will have a sharp point at the front, to be used as lance, in the event of a direct charge at enemy infantry.
Will it work ?
* It's a bicycle, not a motorbike.
* Not all charges are from the front, you can charge from the flanks or from behind. Actually romans were quite fond of attacking from behind infantry using cavalry.
New edit:
People said thats impossible to ride and fire, and to move a great mass etc. What about those bikes that have two sets of pedals to allow to persons to ride and power it ? Imagine a bike with two persons, the front one pedals and drives it, the back one has a bow and can fire at enemy while pedalling (he does not need to keep bike direction). Would this be effective as cavalry ? | 2015/07/01 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/19924",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/7066/"
] | The idea of bicycle-borne lancers does not seem feasible. At the very least, it would take the defending infantry only a few minutes to dig an obstacle that will stop such an attack. Maintaining any sort of speed on a bicycle requires very smooth, firm ground, especially if the rider is carrying any sort of load, which makes the idea problematic for troops wearing armor. | I've seen this very thing (medieval combat on bicycles) in Portland, Oregon... ;)
**Terrain** - The location of your battles becomes very important; traversing through forests or across streams becomes more taxing. Not to say that you can't dismount and carry the bikes. *Design considerations* - large, flexible (leatherbound?) tires for going over rocks; light, sturdy frames (steel?).
**Protection** - It becomes critical to offer protection on the bike, rather than having your soldier hold a shield. *Design considerations* - thin, sturdy protective shield on the front and sides. It is also important to protect the wheels and the gears. Much like bringing down a horse, it could be very easy to immobilize a bike.
**Advantages** - You don't have to feed a bike. You can take a bike apart for transport over long or difficult terrain. A bike can be hauled up a short cliff a lot easier than a horse. Riders can change out on a bike indefinitely (barring the need for maintenance).
**Limitations** - Before switching to bikes, I think the Romans of the day would switch to the [Camel Calvary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel_cavalry): larger, stronger, faster, and suitable in many conditions. |
19,924 | Due to a disease that spread throught most of known world, all horses died. Without a replacement that was easy to grow, roman engineers found a solution. They invented the bicycle ! Now the roman army is prepared to commission the first bike riders legion. Part of the legion will fight as infantry and use bikes as mobility tools. But, a special modified group will ride the bikes at war, as if they where horses. Bikes will have a sharp point at the front, to be used as lance, in the event of a direct charge at enemy infantry.
Will it work ?
* It's a bicycle, not a motorbike.
* Not all charges are from the front, you can charge from the flanks or from behind. Actually romans were quite fond of attacking from behind infantry using cavalry.
New edit:
People said thats impossible to ride and fire, and to move a great mass etc. What about those bikes that have two sets of pedals to allow to persons to ride and power it ? Imagine a bike with two persons, the front one pedals and drives it, the back one has a bow and can fire at enemy while pedalling (he does not need to keep bike direction). Would this be effective as cavalry ? | 2015/07/01 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/19924",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/7066/"
] | One major drawback would be power. Horses were the engines of the ancient era. The earliest engines used horsepower as a unit because they were meant to replace horses.
Momentum = mass x velocity
Not only does horsepower create higher velocity, but they also bring in a lot of mass. An adult horse is roughly 500kg. Combined with the rider, that makes them 9x heavier than an average person.
Which means that if an infantry charged into a mounted rider, the infantry would be knocked back 9 times as far.
Bikes do not bring in this much mass. A chariot might, but without horsepower, it won't be very effective.
Some military applications of bikes:
* Scouting
* Skirmishers. Cycle in, throw some javelins, cycle away.
* Blitzes. The Japanese used bikes go take over Malaya in a few days during WW2. With manufacturing, you can afford a bike for every infantry, which gives armies a lot of mobility. | What about other animals? For other uses there will be burro and mountain goats as pack animals.
Other animals that are not rideable or trainable to go where you want them to may still be usfull for power. There were treadals and walking in circles.
So... if mechanical vehicle technology is available, perhaps they will put animal power inside. Maybe a weapon platform or truck will use a rack of pigs or lions under the hood. Even if not for a weapons platform, the breeding of animals for *power* but not going where you want them etc. will put them in a power take-off rather than along a hitch. |
19,924 | Due to a disease that spread throught most of known world, all horses died. Without a replacement that was easy to grow, roman engineers found a solution. They invented the bicycle ! Now the roman army is prepared to commission the first bike riders legion. Part of the legion will fight as infantry and use bikes as mobility tools. But, a special modified group will ride the bikes at war, as if they where horses. Bikes will have a sharp point at the front, to be used as lance, in the event of a direct charge at enemy infantry.
Will it work ?
* It's a bicycle, not a motorbike.
* Not all charges are from the front, you can charge from the flanks or from behind. Actually romans were quite fond of attacking from behind infantry using cavalry.
New edit:
People said thats impossible to ride and fire, and to move a great mass etc. What about those bikes that have two sets of pedals to allow to persons to ride and power it ? Imagine a bike with two persons, the front one pedals and drives it, the back one has a bow and can fire at enemy while pedalling (he does not need to keep bike direction). Would this be effective as cavalry ? | 2015/07/01 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/19924",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/7066/"
] | Bikes were used by infantry scouts and couriers for a period of time into WWII (the Finnish ski troops who devastated the Russians during the winter war were bicycle scouts during the rest of the year, riding through logging trails.), as most nations simply did not have the industrial resources to mechanize their armies (even the German Army had more the 50% of its strength in dismounted Infantry divisions and supported by horse drawn wagons). For scouts hiding in the woods and sniping with rifles, this is effective to a certain extent, but only in situations where terrain, troop concentrations and so on favour the cyclists. Using bicycles as "shock cavalry" isn't going to be an option for the Romans, or anyone else, for that matter, since the physics simply are against you.
In fact, since the Romans were primarily a heavy infantry formation which used cavalry mostly for securing the flanks, scouting and pursuit of the fleeing enemy, their bicycle units would simply ride around the legions doing the same things. Someone noted "Dragoons", and this might make a good model; the Roman bicycle troops ride up, drop their bikes and run forward throwing javelins at an exposed flank before running back and riding away. Auxiliary troops might do the same, but use bows and arrows, or perhaps more useful for a cyclist, slings. A sling can be worn like a belt or bandolier while riding, and saddlebags full of lead pellets or stone shot could be carried without much difficulty so the slinger can reload his pouch after each encounter.
Cyclists trying to attack a Legionary formation will discover they are a hard nut to crack, being deployed in mutually supporting formations, fully protected by shields and armour and capable of throwing heavy "pilla" a considerable distance. Standing off and shooting at them with javelins, arrows and sling stones will certainly slow them down, and if you are good and lucky, might disrupt their formation, allowing *your* heavy infantry the opportunity to move in on them and engage in close combat. | The idea of bicycle-borne lancers does not seem feasible. At the very least, it would take the defending infantry only a few minutes to dig an obstacle that will stop such an attack. Maintaining any sort of speed on a bicycle requires very smooth, firm ground, especially if the rider is carrying any sort of load, which makes the idea problematic for troops wearing armor. |
19,924 | Due to a disease that spread throught most of known world, all horses died. Without a replacement that was easy to grow, roman engineers found a solution. They invented the bicycle ! Now the roman army is prepared to commission the first bike riders legion. Part of the legion will fight as infantry and use bikes as mobility tools. But, a special modified group will ride the bikes at war, as if they where horses. Bikes will have a sharp point at the front, to be used as lance, in the event of a direct charge at enemy infantry.
Will it work ?
* It's a bicycle, not a motorbike.
* Not all charges are from the front, you can charge from the flanks or from behind. Actually romans were quite fond of attacking from behind infantry using cavalry.
New edit:
People said thats impossible to ride and fire, and to move a great mass etc. What about those bikes that have two sets of pedals to allow to persons to ride and power it ? Imagine a bike with two persons, the front one pedals and drives it, the back one has a bow and can fire at enemy while pedalling (he does not need to keep bike direction). Would this be effective as cavalry ? | 2015/07/01 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/19924",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/7066/"
] | **Is a bicycle lance charge feasible?**
As a cyclist I'd just like to re-state the point a lot have put here.
**force = mass x acceleration**
Bikes do not have the mass required to make a lance charge realistic. The whole point of modern bicycles are that they have a high power to mass ratio - they create a lot of movement for little mass. At the end of the day, someone's got to pedal it! That's why bikes are made with more and more space-age lightweight materials - think carbon fibre, aluminium, light alloys etc. Assuming your Roman engineers created something usable and similar to a bike, they obviously wouldn't make them quite so light due to access to different materials. for them to be viable they'd still have to be light, however, so would likely be made of wood or something similarly light. Unfortunately this would also make them relatively brittle.
Lance charges worked because the mass behind the single point was huge - a charging horse and the person riding it PLUS all their gear would weigh a huge amount.
**Can't I just make my bikes weigh the same as a horse?**
Any bike weighing roughly 500 kilograms (average weight of a horse as per googling "average horse weight") would simply not be usable. Horses are so good as cavalry mounts because *they carry their own weight*! and remember, bikes are far easier to cycle across roads than they are rough terrain - at least without serious modification that the Romans would be unlikely to copy - suspension - fancy tyres etc...
**What about other sorts of charge?**
A different approach would be to use bikes to increase the speed and manouverability of your soldiers. Unfortunately this is not without its own pitfalls.
Firstly, bikes only work if the wheels can turn. All it takes is for your enemies to have some short lengths of wood or metal on them to shove through the spokes and your bike charge turns into a massacre as your soldiers are forcibly removed from their bikes and killed.
Secondly, collisions. Anyone who's hit something on their bike knows that this can be pretty dangerous in itself. I myself have broken bones as a result of a bicycle crash. as for riding into a skirmish where people are *actively* trying to kill me? no thanks!
Finally, maintenance. Bikes are pretty pernickety things at the best of times to keep maintained. Wheels are easily bent, brakes and gearsets easily damaged, headsets misaligned, derailleurs bent... How are you going to repair anybikes that survive combat? (if there are any!)
**What about other sorts of combat?**
OK, so that's charging out! what about archery?
Archery would be a serious possibility from a bike. It's conceivable that you could have some sort of tandem where the archer fires from the back, but again, over rough ground this would be hard. Horses would provide a far more stable platform to fire from and don't require two people to operate!
The best use for your bikeS? Logistics. fast movement of troops, and maybe mounting artillery pieces on some Frankenstein's Monster of a bicycle with four or five people pedalling at once could enable it to keep up.
Charging? Unlikely! | What about other animals? For other uses there will be burro and mountain goats as pack animals.
Other animals that are not rideable or trainable to go where you want them to may still be usfull for power. There were treadals and walking in circles.
So... if mechanical vehicle technology is available, perhaps they will put animal power inside. Maybe a weapon platform or truck will use a rack of pigs or lions under the hood. Even if not for a weapons platform, the breeding of animals for *power* but not going where you want them etc. will put them in a power take-off rather than along a hitch. |
19,924 | Due to a disease that spread throught most of known world, all horses died. Without a replacement that was easy to grow, roman engineers found a solution. They invented the bicycle ! Now the roman army is prepared to commission the first bike riders legion. Part of the legion will fight as infantry and use bikes as mobility tools. But, a special modified group will ride the bikes at war, as if they where horses. Bikes will have a sharp point at the front, to be used as lance, in the event of a direct charge at enemy infantry.
Will it work ?
* It's a bicycle, not a motorbike.
* Not all charges are from the front, you can charge from the flanks or from behind. Actually romans were quite fond of attacking from behind infantry using cavalry.
New edit:
People said thats impossible to ride and fire, and to move a great mass etc. What about those bikes that have two sets of pedals to allow to persons to ride and power it ? Imagine a bike with two persons, the front one pedals and drives it, the back one has a bow and can fire at enemy while pedalling (he does not need to keep bike direction). Would this be effective as cavalry ? | 2015/07/01 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/19924",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/7066/"
] | One major drawback would be power. Horses were the engines of the ancient era. The earliest engines used horsepower as a unit because they were meant to replace horses.
Momentum = mass x velocity
Not only does horsepower create higher velocity, but they also bring in a lot of mass. An adult horse is roughly 500kg. Combined with the rider, that makes them 9x heavier than an average person.
Which means that if an infantry charged into a mounted rider, the infantry would be knocked back 9 times as far.
Bikes do not bring in this much mass. A chariot might, but without horsepower, it won't be very effective.
Some military applications of bikes:
* Scouting
* Skirmishers. Cycle in, throw some javelins, cycle away.
* Blitzes. The Japanese used bikes go take over Malaya in a few days during WW2. With manufacturing, you can afford a bike for every infantry, which gives armies a lot of mobility. | The idea of bicycle-borne lancers does not seem feasible. At the very least, it would take the defending infantry only a few minutes to dig an obstacle that will stop such an attack. Maintaining any sort of speed on a bicycle requires very smooth, firm ground, especially if the rider is carrying any sort of load, which makes the idea problematic for troops wearing armor. |
19,924 | Due to a disease that spread throught most of known world, all horses died. Without a replacement that was easy to grow, roman engineers found a solution. They invented the bicycle ! Now the roman army is prepared to commission the first bike riders legion. Part of the legion will fight as infantry and use bikes as mobility tools. But, a special modified group will ride the bikes at war, as if they where horses. Bikes will have a sharp point at the front, to be used as lance, in the event of a direct charge at enemy infantry.
Will it work ?
* It's a bicycle, not a motorbike.
* Not all charges are from the front, you can charge from the flanks or from behind. Actually romans were quite fond of attacking from behind infantry using cavalry.
New edit:
People said thats impossible to ride and fire, and to move a great mass etc. What about those bikes that have two sets of pedals to allow to persons to ride and power it ? Imagine a bike with two persons, the front one pedals and drives it, the back one has a bow and can fire at enemy while pedalling (he does not need to keep bike direction). Would this be effective as cavalry ? | 2015/07/01 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/19924",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/7066/"
] | One major drawback would be power. Horses were the engines of the ancient era. The earliest engines used horsepower as a unit because they were meant to replace horses.
Momentum = mass x velocity
Not only does horsepower create higher velocity, but they also bring in a lot of mass. An adult horse is roughly 500kg. Combined with the rider, that makes them 9x heavier than an average person.
Which means that if an infantry charged into a mounted rider, the infantry would be knocked back 9 times as far.
Bikes do not bring in this much mass. A chariot might, but without horsepower, it won't be very effective.
Some military applications of bikes:
* Scouting
* Skirmishers. Cycle in, throw some javelins, cycle away.
* Blitzes. The Japanese used bikes go take over Malaya in a few days during WW2. With manufacturing, you can afford a bike for every infantry, which gives armies a lot of mobility. | I've seen this very thing (medieval combat on bicycles) in Portland, Oregon... ;)
**Terrain** - The location of your battles becomes very important; traversing through forests or across streams becomes more taxing. Not to say that you can't dismount and carry the bikes. *Design considerations* - large, flexible (leatherbound?) tires for going over rocks; light, sturdy frames (steel?).
**Protection** - It becomes critical to offer protection on the bike, rather than having your soldier hold a shield. *Design considerations* - thin, sturdy protective shield on the front and sides. It is also important to protect the wheels and the gears. Much like bringing down a horse, it could be very easy to immobilize a bike.
**Advantages** - You don't have to feed a bike. You can take a bike apart for transport over long or difficult terrain. A bike can be hauled up a short cliff a lot easier than a horse. Riders can change out on a bike indefinitely (barring the need for maintenance).
**Limitations** - Before switching to bikes, I think the Romans of the day would switch to the [Camel Calvary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel_cavalry): larger, stronger, faster, and suitable in many conditions. |
19,924 | Due to a disease that spread throught most of known world, all horses died. Without a replacement that was easy to grow, roman engineers found a solution. They invented the bicycle ! Now the roman army is prepared to commission the first bike riders legion. Part of the legion will fight as infantry and use bikes as mobility tools. But, a special modified group will ride the bikes at war, as if they where horses. Bikes will have a sharp point at the front, to be used as lance, in the event of a direct charge at enemy infantry.
Will it work ?
* It's a bicycle, not a motorbike.
* Not all charges are from the front, you can charge from the flanks or from behind. Actually romans were quite fond of attacking from behind infantry using cavalry.
New edit:
People said thats impossible to ride and fire, and to move a great mass etc. What about those bikes that have two sets of pedals to allow to persons to ride and power it ? Imagine a bike with two persons, the front one pedals and drives it, the back one has a bow and can fire at enemy while pedalling (he does not need to keep bike direction). Would this be effective as cavalry ? | 2015/07/01 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/19924",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/7066/"
] | **Is a bicycle lance charge feasible?**
As a cyclist I'd just like to re-state the point a lot have put here.
**force = mass x acceleration**
Bikes do not have the mass required to make a lance charge realistic. The whole point of modern bicycles are that they have a high power to mass ratio - they create a lot of movement for little mass. At the end of the day, someone's got to pedal it! That's why bikes are made with more and more space-age lightweight materials - think carbon fibre, aluminium, light alloys etc. Assuming your Roman engineers created something usable and similar to a bike, they obviously wouldn't make them quite so light due to access to different materials. for them to be viable they'd still have to be light, however, so would likely be made of wood or something similarly light. Unfortunately this would also make them relatively brittle.
Lance charges worked because the mass behind the single point was huge - a charging horse and the person riding it PLUS all their gear would weigh a huge amount.
**Can't I just make my bikes weigh the same as a horse?**
Any bike weighing roughly 500 kilograms (average weight of a horse as per googling "average horse weight") would simply not be usable. Horses are so good as cavalry mounts because *they carry their own weight*! and remember, bikes are far easier to cycle across roads than they are rough terrain - at least without serious modification that the Romans would be unlikely to copy - suspension - fancy tyres etc...
**What about other sorts of charge?**
A different approach would be to use bikes to increase the speed and manouverability of your soldiers. Unfortunately this is not without its own pitfalls.
Firstly, bikes only work if the wheels can turn. All it takes is for your enemies to have some short lengths of wood or metal on them to shove through the spokes and your bike charge turns into a massacre as your soldiers are forcibly removed from their bikes and killed.
Secondly, collisions. Anyone who's hit something on their bike knows that this can be pretty dangerous in itself. I myself have broken bones as a result of a bicycle crash. as for riding into a skirmish where people are *actively* trying to kill me? no thanks!
Finally, maintenance. Bikes are pretty pernickety things at the best of times to keep maintained. Wheels are easily bent, brakes and gearsets easily damaged, headsets misaligned, derailleurs bent... How are you going to repair anybikes that survive combat? (if there are any!)
**What about other sorts of combat?**
OK, so that's charging out! what about archery?
Archery would be a serious possibility from a bike. It's conceivable that you could have some sort of tandem where the archer fires from the back, but again, over rough ground this would be hard. Horses would provide a far more stable platform to fire from and don't require two people to operate!
The best use for your bikeS? Logistics. fast movement of troops, and maybe mounting artillery pieces on some Frankenstein's Monster of a bicycle with four or five people pedalling at once could enable it to keep up.
Charging? Unlikely! | The idea of bicycle-borne lancers does not seem feasible. At the very least, it would take the defending infantry only a few minutes to dig an obstacle that will stop such an attack. Maintaining any sort of speed on a bicycle requires very smooth, firm ground, especially if the rider is carrying any sort of load, which makes the idea problematic for troops wearing armor. |
19,924 | Due to a disease that spread throught most of known world, all horses died. Without a replacement that was easy to grow, roman engineers found a solution. They invented the bicycle ! Now the roman army is prepared to commission the first bike riders legion. Part of the legion will fight as infantry and use bikes as mobility tools. But, a special modified group will ride the bikes at war, as if they where horses. Bikes will have a sharp point at the front, to be used as lance, in the event of a direct charge at enemy infantry.
Will it work ?
* It's a bicycle, not a motorbike.
* Not all charges are from the front, you can charge from the flanks or from behind. Actually romans were quite fond of attacking from behind infantry using cavalry.
New edit:
People said thats impossible to ride and fire, and to move a great mass etc. What about those bikes that have two sets of pedals to allow to persons to ride and power it ? Imagine a bike with two persons, the front one pedals and drives it, the back one has a bow and can fire at enemy while pedalling (he does not need to keep bike direction). Would this be effective as cavalry ? | 2015/07/01 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/19924",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/7066/"
] | EDIT:
Finally a clarification has been made: it's a bicycle!
The original post above assumes motorbike because why would anyone charge at anyone with a bicycle?
But let's re-answer with the clarification
Probably not.
In order to understand why, you need to see why horses were chosen in the first place: because they're fast and menacing. The point of a charge is to deter the enemy with a thundering shock and break the enemy ranks, this is impossible with bicycles because:
1) Cycling a bicycle requires physical effort on the rider, by the time they've reached the enemy while maintaining a charging speed, they'd be exhausted, which is not a goal of riding something in the first place.
2) If you crash against anything while cycling, you'll most definitely fall and not be able to continue your charge, the pointy end might hurt any poor sod that got stuck on it, but it also will render the bicycle useless until the guy is taken off the bike.
3) The momentum a bicycle provides is much less than that of even a young horse, thanks to the fact that bicycles have much less mass and weight, most people can carry a mountain bicycle, virtually nobody can piggyback a foal.
4) It is possible to have a bicycle with one cyclist and one archer to cycle-by, this is true, similar to a chariot archer, but a chariot archer has the luxury of standing on a relatively stable platform, which the passenger of a bicycle doesn't have. The closest you can get is if you utilize a bicycle with support wheels, which technically would make it a quadcycle. A Tricycle would also work well.
**However**
An archer would actually prefer staying behind the enemy lines and not join the frontlines. The "arc" in archer refers to the shape an arrow makes as it flies to the heavens and fall down to kiss gravity, this allows archers to shoot from great distance, the most popular long-distance archers being English Longbowmen. When archers join the frontlines they're usually as Chariot Archers that have fast mobility and don't need to fear enemy infantry (and relatively safe against cavalry too), or they're horse archers, which are archers themselves riding a horse, both of which are there to do ride-bys.
There is not much point in having archers charge at the enemy.
At most, bicycles will help you traverse the landscape, and not much beyond that
Original post for motorbike:
Probably not.
Unlike bikes, Horses are capable of standing upright with no support, largely thanks to the fact that they have 4 feet instead of 2 wheels. This allows you to take your hands off the reins for a moment and do something else like fighting while being stationary.
Even if we assume that your bikes are American bikes the likes of Harley Davidson instead of Japanese bikes the likes of Kawasaki (the ones used in MotoGP) or even worse an Italian scooter, charging at something with a pointy tip at the front might cause the rider to fall down along with the bike, and as anyone with a huge bike can tell you, getting it back up is a pain, even more so during a skirmish. To test this theory, try to charge at a fridge cardboard box filled to the brim with enough weight to simulate human weight, see if you can withstand it and not fall down.
Then there are other issues:
Horses are tall, we're not talking ponies here but real horses, this means if someone slashes at you, they'll get to your feet first before your head, the same cannot be said to bikes. This trait is obsolete with the advent of guns, but if you need to charge at the enemies for melee fight in the first place while the enemies have guns, you probably should replace your commander instead of your ride.
You also need stability to ride a bike, something that *will* interfere with your ability to swing weaponry. If you charge with a lance, the drag from piercing someone's chest might cause you to lose a bit of balance. Not a problem for the best of the best, I'm sure but that's something to think about.
Finally, bikes are the worst against offroad like the woods or rivers. They're cumbersome to turn around and if you get stuck on a mud, Kratos help you. Not to mention the complex nature of such machinery, so many things can go wrong.
It's not all doom and gloom, bikes are very good on plains and they don't need horse riding training like horses, you also can build bikes faster than you can raise horses, and they don't poop, so there's the morale boost. | WhatRoughBeast suggested it would be easy for infantry to dig some kind of obstacles. I do not think they would even need to. What proportion of terrain is actually suitable for bicycles? Not much, I suppose. There are accounts of the Persians clearing rocks away to make ground suitable for chariots, which presumably they did not do for the fun of it.
Things with legs generally handle bad terrain better than wheels. A mountain pony can get where a jeep cannot. A human can scramble up a cliff where no car or bike could. |
19,924 | Due to a disease that spread throught most of known world, all horses died. Without a replacement that was easy to grow, roman engineers found a solution. They invented the bicycle ! Now the roman army is prepared to commission the first bike riders legion. Part of the legion will fight as infantry and use bikes as mobility tools. But, a special modified group will ride the bikes at war, as if they where horses. Bikes will have a sharp point at the front, to be used as lance, in the event of a direct charge at enemy infantry.
Will it work ?
* It's a bicycle, not a motorbike.
* Not all charges are from the front, you can charge from the flanks or from behind. Actually romans were quite fond of attacking from behind infantry using cavalry.
New edit:
People said thats impossible to ride and fire, and to move a great mass etc. What about those bikes that have two sets of pedals to allow to persons to ride and power it ? Imagine a bike with two persons, the front one pedals and drives it, the back one has a bow and can fire at enemy while pedalling (he does not need to keep bike direction). Would this be effective as cavalry ? | 2015/07/01 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/19924",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/7066/"
] | What about other animals? For other uses there will be burro and mountain goats as pack animals.
Other animals that are not rideable or trainable to go where you want them to may still be usfull for power. There were treadals and walking in circles.
So... if mechanical vehicle technology is available, perhaps they will put animal power inside. Maybe a weapon platform or truck will use a rack of pigs or lions under the hood. Even if not for a weapons platform, the breeding of animals for *power* but not going where you want them etc. will put them in a power take-off rather than along a hitch. | I've seen this very thing (medieval combat on bicycles) in Portland, Oregon... ;)
**Terrain** - The location of your battles becomes very important; traversing through forests or across streams becomes more taxing. Not to say that you can't dismount and carry the bikes. *Design considerations* - large, flexible (leatherbound?) tires for going over rocks; light, sturdy frames (steel?).
**Protection** - It becomes critical to offer protection on the bike, rather than having your soldier hold a shield. *Design considerations* - thin, sturdy protective shield on the front and sides. It is also important to protect the wheels and the gears. Much like bringing down a horse, it could be very easy to immobilize a bike.
**Advantages** - You don't have to feed a bike. You can take a bike apart for transport over long or difficult terrain. A bike can be hauled up a short cliff a lot easier than a horse. Riders can change out on a bike indefinitely (barring the need for maintenance).
**Limitations** - Before switching to bikes, I think the Romans of the day would switch to the [Camel Calvary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel_cavalry): larger, stronger, faster, and suitable in many conditions. |
354,942 | In *The Firstborn*, British author Laurie LEE, famous for his autobiographical novel *Cider with Rosie*, wrote – about his newborn daughter Jessy:
>
> I suppose the country can only properly be given to a child – as from birth it was given to me. And as it was given to me, so I'd like to show it to her, and see it again through her eyes – the veils of blue rain wandering up from Wales, streaking the sky before they hit the ground; copper clouds of thunder towering over the Severn, mist wiping great holes in the hillside, the beech-tops breaking into a storm of rooks, the light on the cows in the evening....
>
>
>
Isn't the phrase 'from birth' placed in the wrong clause for the first sentence to make sense?
Shouldn't it be
>
> I suppose the country can only properly be given to a child **from birth** – as it was given to me.
>
>
>
? Isnt' the first clause missing a complement (in what manner or when should the country be given to a child)?
The author must have rewritten the sentence a certain number of times and mixed things up in the end, mustn't he? | 2016/10/23 | [
"https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/354942",
"https://english.stackexchange.com",
"https://english.stackexchange.com/users/58319/"
] | The phrase 'from birth' is not in the wrong clause. The sentence can be paraphrased as follows:
>
> I suppose the country can only properly be given to a child, in the same way as it was given to me from birth.
>
>
>
So, "from birth" refers to the time when "the country" was given to the narrator.
If you rephrase the sentence as follows:
>
> I suppose the country can only properly be given to a child from birth – as it was given to me.
>
>
>
you leave out the information about *when* it was given to the narrator.
It is not clear why the sentence would need an additional complement. For comparison, here are a few more sentences with "x was/is given to ...":
* Land was given to the Church in perpetuity and until the Reformation could not be sold. ([The National Archives](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/domesday/world-of-domesday/church.htm))
* The vaccine is usually given to babies and children from birth up to the age of 16 who are identified as being at higher risk of the disease compared to the general population. It is also sometimes given to adults up to the age of 35, but the vaccine does not work well in adults. ([Vaccine Knowledge Project](http://vk.ovg.ox.ac.uk/bcg-vaccine))
* What was the name of the first royal corgi, which was given to the Queen on her 18th birthday in 1944? ([*Daily Mail*, January 2011](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1345988/Royal-Family-quiz-Whats-Prince-Philips-favourite-tipple.html))
* The Little House at Royal Lodge at Windsor was given to the Queen on her sixth birthday. ([*Daily Mail*, February 2012](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2099859/A-Wendy-house-fit-Queen-The-secrets-history-tiny-Welsh-cottage-grounds-Windsor-generations-royals-played.html))
Note: [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurie_Lee#Other_works) does not list *The Firstborn* as one of Laurie Lee's autobiographical novels. For this reason, I write "the narrator" instead of "Laurie Lee" or "the author". | Your question asked if the word order given here made sense. Well, seeing as you've found a way to change it so that it makes *more* sense than it did before, you've answered your own question, because the original text made just enough sense to you for you to be able to say to yourself, "Hey, this doesn't look right . . ." and post it here.
In short: No, the phrase 'from birth' ***isn't*** placed in the wrong clause for the first sentence to make sense.
Is it placed in the wrong clause to be grammatically correct? Be damned if I know.
Probably not the the answer you were looking for, but it's the only one I've got now, the only one I probably ever will have. *Plus* it's subject to interpretation.
***Shrug***
Sorry I couldn't be of more help. |
7,974 | Introduction
------------
This question is intended to be a collection of information on the tagging system, as it applies to Science Fiction & Fantasy. This includes information on how to tag, when to create tags, what to call them, and how to use them effectively.
Table of Contents
-----------------
* [What are tags and why do we have them?](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/a/7976/2816)
* [How should I decide what tags to put on my questions?](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/412/general-tagging-practices)
* [What can I do with a tag once I know it exists?](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/a/7978/2816) | 2016/01/19 | [
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/7974",
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2816/"
] | One of the complaints we see often is that many users are not aware of current meta policies. Additionally, some of the policy decisions conflict with each other. What do you suggest we do to make these policies more definitive and more accessible to the average user? | Here is a set of general questions, gathered as very common questions asked every election. As mentioned in the instructions, the first two questions are guaranteed to show up in the Q&A, while the others are if there aren't enough questions (or, if you like one enough, you may split it off as a separate answer for review within the community's 8).
* How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?
* How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?
---
* In your opinion, what do moderators do?
* A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?
* In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep? |
7,974 | Introduction
------------
This question is intended to be a collection of information on the tagging system, as it applies to Science Fiction & Fantasy. This includes information on how to tag, when to create tags, what to call them, and how to use them effectively.
Table of Contents
-----------------
* [What are tags and why do we have them?](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/a/7976/2816)
* [How should I decide what tags to put on my questions?](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/412/general-tagging-practices)
* [What can I do with a tag once I know it exists?](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/a/7978/2816) | 2016/01/19 | [
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/7974",
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2816/"
] | As a corollary to [Richard's question](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/a/7999/53771) about high rep users:
What will be your approach to low rep (<1k rep) users in general?
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Low rep users are the vast majority of the users, and the ones who frequently need some gentle guidance. As a low rep user I've felt like my opinion was discounted because it is assumed that low rep users "just don't understand XYZ" about the community.
How will you handle an issue raised by a low rep user so they don't feel like they're being discounted due to their rep?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | What, if any, previous moderator (or similar) experience do you have from a different Stack Exchange site, a different website, and/or the real world (e.g. arbitration)? |
7,974 | Introduction
------------
This question is intended to be a collection of information on the tagging system, as it applies to Science Fiction & Fantasy. This includes information on how to tag, when to create tags, what to call them, and how to use them effectively.
Table of Contents
-----------------
* [What are tags and why do we have them?](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/a/7976/2816)
* [How should I decide what tags to put on my questions?](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/412/general-tagging-practices)
* [What can I do with a tag once I know it exists?](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/a/7978/2816) | 2016/01/19 | [
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/7974",
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2816/"
] | Will you be able to separate yourself from relationships made in chat in order to fulfill your role as a moderator dealing with people you are chat friendly with on the main site? | How will you handle controversial topics?
=========================================
In the past, this site has had some issues when discussing controversial issues (e.g. politics, social issues, etc).
As a moderator, how will you handle these controversial topics? |
7,974 | Introduction
------------
This question is intended to be a collection of information on the tagging system, as it applies to Science Fiction & Fantasy. This includes information on how to tag, when to create tags, what to call them, and how to use them effectively.
Table of Contents
-----------------
* [What are tags and why do we have them?](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/a/7976/2816)
* [How should I decide what tags to put on my questions?](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/412/general-tagging-practices)
* [What can I do with a tag once I know it exists?](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/a/7978/2816) | 2016/01/19 | [
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/7974",
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2816/"
] | What do you do now to build the community, rather than your own prestige in the community? | Over the past 18 months, a sizeable number of the site's top 10 users (by rep) seem to have stopped actively participating in the site (e.g. in terms of their questions/answers dropping below one action per week).
Is this something that concerns you and, if so, what action would you take to address the situation? |
7,974 | Introduction
------------
This question is intended to be a collection of information on the tagging system, as it applies to Science Fiction & Fantasy. This includes information on how to tag, when to create tags, what to call them, and how to use them effectively.
Table of Contents
-----------------
* [What are tags and why do we have them?](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/a/7976/2816)
* [How should I decide what tags to put on my questions?](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/412/general-tagging-practices)
* [What can I do with a tag once I know it exists?](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/a/7978/2816) | 2016/01/19 | [
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/7974",
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2816/"
] | What do you do now to build the community, rather than your own prestige in the community? | How will you handle controversial topics?
=========================================
In the past, this site has had some issues when discussing controversial issues (e.g. politics, social issues, etc).
As a moderator, how will you handle these controversial topics? |
7,974 | Introduction
------------
This question is intended to be a collection of information on the tagging system, as it applies to Science Fiction & Fantasy. This includes information on how to tag, when to create tags, what to call them, and how to use them effectively.
Table of Contents
-----------------
* [What are tags and why do we have them?](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/a/7976/2816)
* [How should I decide what tags to put on my questions?](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/412/general-tagging-practices)
* [What can I do with a tag once I know it exists?](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/a/7978/2816) | 2016/01/19 | [
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/7974",
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2816/"
] | One of the most important aspects of moderators in Stack Exchange communities is that they come from the community itself. They are normally well respected within that community before being elected to a moderator role.
So my question is bipartite:
* Do you think it's possible to remain both a part of the community and as a moderator who also must police it?
* How do you, as a member of the community, actively engage as a *part* of the community, yet balance that with the extra weight carried by the diamond on everything you do and have done? | Given hypothetical absolute authority, what current community policy/policies would you reverse or otherwise change (regardless of community consensus)?
Clarification: The intent of this question is to understand what policy you most strongly disagree with or object to, it is not meant to focus on what sort of dictator you would be. |
7,974 | Introduction
------------
This question is intended to be a collection of information on the tagging system, as it applies to Science Fiction & Fantasy. This includes information on how to tag, when to create tags, what to call them, and how to use them effectively.
Table of Contents
-----------------
* [What are tags and why do we have them?](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/a/7976/2816)
* [How should I decide what tags to put on my questions?](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/412/general-tagging-practices)
* [What can I do with a tag once I know it exists?](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/a/7978/2816) | 2016/01/19 | [
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/7974",
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2816/"
] | One of the most important aspects of moderators in Stack Exchange communities is that they come from the community itself. They are normally well respected within that community before being elected to a moderator role.
So my question is bipartite:
* Do you think it's possible to remain both a part of the community and as a moderator who also must police it?
* How do you, as a member of the community, actively engage as a *part* of the community, yet balance that with the extra weight carried by the diamond on everything you do and have done? | What, if any, previous moderator (or similar) experience do you have from a different Stack Exchange site, a different website, and/or the real world (e.g. arbitration)? |
7,974 | Introduction
------------
This question is intended to be a collection of information on the tagging system, as it applies to Science Fiction & Fantasy. This includes information on how to tag, when to create tags, what to call them, and how to use them effectively.
Table of Contents
-----------------
* [What are tags and why do we have them?](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/a/7976/2816)
* [How should I decide what tags to put on my questions?](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/412/general-tagging-practices)
* [What can I do with a tag once I know it exists?](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/a/7978/2816) | 2016/01/19 | [
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/7974",
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2816/"
] | According to [**A Theory of Moderation**](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/05/a-theory-of-moderation/), a moderator should be a "human exception handler", one who steps in when the system needs **occasional intervention**.
**How will you best separate your own opinions and your responsibilities for being an ambassador for the site?** | What, if any, previous moderator (or similar) experience do you have from a different Stack Exchange site, a different website, and/or the real world (e.g. arbitration)? |
7,974 | Introduction
------------
This question is intended to be a collection of information on the tagging system, as it applies to Science Fiction & Fantasy. This includes information on how to tag, when to create tags, what to call them, and how to use them effectively.
Table of Contents
-----------------
* [What are tags and why do we have them?](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/a/7976/2816)
* [How should I decide what tags to put on my questions?](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/412/general-tagging-practices)
* [What can I do with a tag once I know it exists?](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/a/7978/2816) | 2016/01/19 | [
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/7974",
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2816/"
] | One of the most important aspects of moderators in Stack Exchange communities is that they come from the community itself. They are normally well respected within that community before being elected to a moderator role.
So my question is bipartite:
* Do you think it's possible to remain both a part of the community and as a moderator who also must police it?
* How do you, as a member of the community, actively engage as a *part* of the community, yet balance that with the extra weight carried by the diamond on everything you do and have done? | As a moderator, your votes become binding. Actions you used to take like flagging, reviewing, closing, and deleting will take effect immediately without any input from any other users or moderators.
How will you adapt the way you currently flag and vote to deal with this change? |
7,974 | Introduction
------------
This question is intended to be a collection of information on the tagging system, as it applies to Science Fiction & Fantasy. This includes information on how to tag, when to create tags, what to call them, and how to use them effectively.
Table of Contents
-----------------
* [What are tags and why do we have them?](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/a/7976/2816)
* [How should I decide what tags to put on my questions?](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/412/general-tagging-practices)
* [What can I do with a tag once I know it exists?](https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/a/7978/2816) | 2016/01/19 | [
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/7974",
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2816/"
] | According to [**A Theory of Moderation**](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/05/a-theory-of-moderation/), a moderator should be a "human exception handler", one who steps in when the system needs **occasional intervention**.
**How will you best separate your own opinions and your responsibilities for being an ambassador for the site?** | A considerable number of candidates were criticised for their past actions – rather than their lack of activity in certain areas. While we all make mistakes at times and being criticised is an inevitable part of moderation, I consider the way we handle such events a crucial indicator for good moderator candidates.
Was any past activity of yours particularly badly received (when in doubt, choose the worst or what was mentioned in the course of this election) and why do you think that this does not affect your suitability as a moderator? |
733,889 | I'm looking at how to try and prevent DDOS attacks before I launch a website as I will expect lots of online 'booters' to attack the server.
I've read through lots of threads on here and stackoverflow and realised that at my own server its not worth setting anything up as the damage is already being done.
This means I can either have a reverse proxy or try and work with my hosting provider.
What i'm trying to understand is how null routing traffic is effective.
Lets say that I have been able to identify the pattern of an attack and know which packets are from the attack, If I tell my hosting provider this and they decide to black hole these packets, isn't this still impacting their infrastructure?
Because the bandwidth is still be used in order for the attacker to send the packet in the first place, they can keep sending them regardless of receiving no response so all the hosting provider is doing is keeping my service up but still taking the damage?
Is this meant to make the attacker give up on the attack since the intended targets service is still up?
And finally, is the only actual solution to ddosing by having more bandwidth than the attacker? | 2015/11/04 | [
"https://serverfault.com/questions/733889",
"https://serverfault.com",
"https://serverfault.com/users/320431/"
] | Either `clone` the git repo as @alexises suggests which is the most general solution or if you're actually using github.com you can get to the files directly on <https://raw.github.com> which is explained more fully [here](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8779197/linking-files-directly-from-github). | You must clone the repo to get the file, it's a common case in a packaging environement. If you have a security issue you can fork, remove your capability and dowload the file under a non privilaged user. |
124,857 | In the original trilogy the Galactic Empire was built upon the Republic, so the newly created Imperial Military had all the Republic's immense resources and finances to completely reform army and navy, to be able to produce high-end machinery (like Star Destroyers or AT-ATs) and even to build two Death Stars.
But the First Order doesn't seem to have such a big industrial power behind it, yet somehow it manages to be able to train a considerable number of troops from an early age (which would require having large boarding schools and quite a lot of money and time to train the boys properly), to afford at least one Star Destroyer-class ship with a trained crew, a fleet of advanced TIE-fighters and even to be able to convert a whole planet into a Death Star III. All that is just impossible for a small "order", even if it may be founded on the remains of scattered Imperial Military. So the question is - are there any explanations as to where does the funding come from? Are there any major corporations or even whole sectors of the galaxy who sympathize the cause and are ready to finance the Order? | 2016/04/11 | [
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/124857",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/users/63910/"
] | There's actually a real world corollary: ISIS. It's not a state but it acts like one. The way ISIS funds itself is through taxation and seizure of assets from controlled territories. In the same way, think of Bespin and Lando's "deal" with Vader that, presumably, included them not seizing Bespin's assets.
It's pretty safe to say that not all of the Empire was liberated (it held pretty sizable territories when the Emperor died) so there would still be a sizable base to draw from. Add in that, by the time TFA starts, you have an ascendant First Order (the opening scroll implies the First Order is notorious). In fact, a secondary benefit of destroying the Hosnian System is that they could now easily expand their tax base. Systems paying tax to the First Order would not face their wrath. | Most likely the order is funded in a similar way to the separatists. As you said, they inherited the remnants of the Empire, and therefore were probably able to secure some of their remaining funds, as well as those of some of the former imperial officers. It's safe to assume that many amongst them were working with the new republic and betrayed them. These operatives could easily have secured significant funds from the new republic's vaults (or where ever they store their credits). As has been stated, they could also be gaining credits from systems that support them (similarly to the separatists), as well as from corporations looking to profit from a good war. All of these factors together could explain the source of their apparently vast funds. |
56,686,819 | I've been doing some research on pros and cons of MVC/MPV/MVVM and one common theme is that MVC is harder to unit test than MVP and MVVM but I don't fully understand why.
From my current understanding, in MVC, the view is dependent on the model and and controller so to test the view, both the controller and the model must be mocked. How is MVP/MVVM improve on this? | 2019/06/20 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/56686819",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/3826764/"
] | I face this issue two times it could help you.
**1st scenario**
There is a recursive function with the wrong base case
**Second scenario** is accidentally import same file two times | Not a solution but a workaround.
Compile your project with --aot=false and --buildOptimizer=false. |
30,999 | In *The Cabin in the Woods*, there was
>
> A giant red "Purge All" button that released all the monsters into the facility.
>
>
>
Is there any real reason why such a thing would exist? Or is this just another campy reference to horror movie theory? | 2013/01/26 | [
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/30999",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.stackexchange.com/users/3958/"
] | From my own answer from [M&TV](https://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/9623/purpose-of-the-purge-all-button-in-cabin-in-the-woods)
As per [The Cabin in the Woods Wikia-](http://thecabininthewoods.wikia.com/wiki/System_Purge)
>
> The System Purge, also called just the Purge or the Carnage, was when
> Marty Mikalski and Dana Polk unleashed all the monsters in the glass
> rooms into The Facility. This was accomplished with a button in the
> control panel marked "System Purge." During the Purge, each and every
> one of The Facilities monsters are let out in waves, eight at a time.
> The first wave of monsters includes: the werewolf, the zombies, a
> witch, the Dismemberment Goblins, the dragonbat, the Giant Snake, the
> Angry Molesting Tree and the killer robot.
>
>
> Why the facility had the need for a System Purge is unknown, but it is
> likely that this is a reference to the eleventh-hour deus ex machina
> that is a common trope in the horror genre.
>
>
>
So the button is an obvious satire of the eleventh-hour "deus ex machina" in horror movies.[(Reference)](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1259521/faq#.2.1.12) | If we’re being generous, maybe the chamber with the elevator doors was designed to allow a large number of weapons to be pointed at it, or had anti-monster devices built-in, also controlled from the booth that Dana and Marty were in.
So, under the intended circumstances, the monsters would be wiped out as soon as the doors open. But because Dana and Marty had pretty much just stumbled in there, it wasn’t prepared.
Personally, I would have liked the button to be labelled “Release All Monsters Into Facility For Some Reason”. |
24,563 | Is there some political theory to run a state without full-time politicians where policies are made based on sets of specialized communities?
I was wondering with the advance of information technology in theory it is possible to run a state somehow like the way Stackoverflow or other web 2.0 communities are managed but need some resource to study if such one already exist. | 2017/09/13 | [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/24563",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/1733/"
] | >
> I was wondering with the advance of information technology in theory it is possible to run a state somehow like the way Stackoverflow or other web 2.0 communities are managed but need some resource to study if such one already exist.
>
>
>
I don't think that you realize how StackOverflow is actually run. It is a [benevolent oligarchy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolent_dictatorship), not some kind of magical political system without politicians. They choose to delegate much of the power to the moderators, who are democratically elected. But they are in no way required to delegate that power.
It's also not true that StackOverflow does not have politicians. It does. We call them moderators. The reason why they don't seem much like politicians is that they have such limited power (they can't even levy taxes and then spend that money). If their power mattered more, the professionals would soon find ways to displace them. Then StackOverflow's politics would become more like those of more traditional governments. In other words, it's not the StackOverflow system that makes for great moderation. It's that we lack the corrupting power that encourages bad moderation.
Also, if there is a "bad" moderator, StackOverflow has the power to unseat that moderator, overturning the election results. This gives them a lot of power over moderation and the definition of bad moderation.
Overall, this is probably good. Think about it. To whom would you give a lifetime moderation power in your nation? How would you choose that person? How would that person become well enough known for you to choose? Politics.
In a comment, you said
>
> still radical moves have expensive consequences for them coz of system's transparency.
>
>
>
Presumably you mean that people would leave if such a thing happened. This is called [voting with your feet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_voting) or [jurisdiction shopping](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurisdiction_shopping). It doesn't work as well at the international level. There is no federated system where the only guarantee is free movement among the states. The two closest are the United States and the European Union, but both of those have central governments that are too strong for this.
For example, Japan's laws are inconsistent with being a US state. In the US, Japanese gun laws and treatment of searches would be unconstitutional. So a state can't copy the Japanese system.
Similarly, you couldn't copy the Saudi Arabian system to a European state. It wouldn't meet the civil rights constraints of the EU.
But if you can't copy those states, how would you ever satisfy those people who want to live in states like that? Note that both Japan and the US are democratic societies.
Another consequence is Brexit. If one country finds itself accumulating people that it doesn't want, it can of course leave the federated system.
The Stack system works here because the people make it work. And because its occasional failures are rather minor. Don't like the way things operate here? Stop coming. Or just read the posts and never post yourself. That works because this really isn't that important. But what if we were choosing things that actually affected your life? Tax rates. Spending. Laws. Regulations. You probably wouldn't be nearly as happy with the system then.
Anyway, there is some study on [benevolent dictatorships](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolent_dictatorship) and [jurisdiction arbitrage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurisdiction_shopping). | That's essentially what communism is about, however vague or unrealistic that notion might be. Technically, it's not a theory of running a “state” however, as abolishing the state itself is part of its stated goals. I am not sure I see how IT technology can help make it a reality.
On the other hand, I don't see what's fundamentally different about Web 2.0 governance. It's something between a democracy (vote and a degree self-organisation) and a technocracy. There are certainly different kind of politicians and people explicitly tasked with managing the rest in Web 2.0 communities (moderators, administrators, etc.) |
24,563 | Is there some political theory to run a state without full-time politicians where policies are made based on sets of specialized communities?
I was wondering with the advance of information technology in theory it is possible to run a state somehow like the way Stackoverflow or other web 2.0 communities are managed but need some resource to study if such one already exist. | 2017/09/13 | [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/24563",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/1733/"
] | >
> I was wondering with the advance of information technology in theory it is possible to run a state somehow like the way Stackoverflow or other web 2.0 communities are managed but need some resource to study if such one already exist.
>
>
>
I don't think that you realize how StackOverflow is actually run. It is a [benevolent oligarchy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolent_dictatorship), not some kind of magical political system without politicians. They choose to delegate much of the power to the moderators, who are democratically elected. But they are in no way required to delegate that power.
It's also not true that StackOverflow does not have politicians. It does. We call them moderators. The reason why they don't seem much like politicians is that they have such limited power (they can't even levy taxes and then spend that money). If their power mattered more, the professionals would soon find ways to displace them. Then StackOverflow's politics would become more like those of more traditional governments. In other words, it's not the StackOverflow system that makes for great moderation. It's that we lack the corrupting power that encourages bad moderation.
Also, if there is a "bad" moderator, StackOverflow has the power to unseat that moderator, overturning the election results. This gives them a lot of power over moderation and the definition of bad moderation.
Overall, this is probably good. Think about it. To whom would you give a lifetime moderation power in your nation? How would you choose that person? How would that person become well enough known for you to choose? Politics.
In a comment, you said
>
> still radical moves have expensive consequences for them coz of system's transparency.
>
>
>
Presumably you mean that people would leave if such a thing happened. This is called [voting with your feet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_voting) or [jurisdiction shopping](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurisdiction_shopping). It doesn't work as well at the international level. There is no federated system where the only guarantee is free movement among the states. The two closest are the United States and the European Union, but both of those have central governments that are too strong for this.
For example, Japan's laws are inconsistent with being a US state. In the US, Japanese gun laws and treatment of searches would be unconstitutional. So a state can't copy the Japanese system.
Similarly, you couldn't copy the Saudi Arabian system to a European state. It wouldn't meet the civil rights constraints of the EU.
But if you can't copy those states, how would you ever satisfy those people who want to live in states like that? Note that both Japan and the US are democratic societies.
Another consequence is Brexit. If one country finds itself accumulating people that it doesn't want, it can of course leave the federated system.
The Stack system works here because the people make it work. And because its occasional failures are rather minor. Don't like the way things operate here? Stop coming. Or just read the posts and never post yourself. That works because this really isn't that important. But what if we were choosing things that actually affected your life? Tax rates. Spending. Laws. Regulations. You probably wouldn't be nearly as happy with the system then.
Anyway, there is some study on [benevolent dictatorships](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolent_dictatorship) and [jurisdiction arbitrage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurisdiction_shopping). | Yes, there is such a theory, and people attempted to implement it in Spain in the 1930's. The implementation of this political system, and the very confusing ensuing civil war that followed, says a lot about how controversial it was. It could be said Fascism, Soviet Communism, and British Colonialism all provided military support to those who violently opposed the development of a political system with no centralized power structure.
It is called Anarchism - The most fun way to learn about this is to watch [this pseudo documentary called "Living Utopia"](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1826732/). It can be viewed on [youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPl_Y3Qdb7Y) and was, for me, an enjoyable experience.
I have a friend who thought that a more fictionalized film about this topic called [Land and Freedom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_and_Freedom) was pretty good. For me it was ok, but not as good as Living Utopia.
Of course, you can read about it in this [Wikipedia article about the experience of Anarchy in Spain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism_in_Spain).
Not surprisingly, TPTB have made the word Anarchy to be a dirty word that is synonymous with chaos and violence. The individuals who spoke from experience in Living Utopia made it clear that collective solidarity had very little chaos and violence; it just had no management. Whether it would work or not on a large scale is unknown; TPTB have done an efficient job of quashing the growth of this ideology. |
24,563 | Is there some political theory to run a state without full-time politicians where policies are made based on sets of specialized communities?
I was wondering with the advance of information technology in theory it is possible to run a state somehow like the way Stackoverflow or other web 2.0 communities are managed but need some resource to study if such one already exist. | 2017/09/13 | [
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/24563",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com",
"https://politics.stackexchange.com/users/1733/"
] | Yes, there is such a theory, and people attempted to implement it in Spain in the 1930's. The implementation of this political system, and the very confusing ensuing civil war that followed, says a lot about how controversial it was. It could be said Fascism, Soviet Communism, and British Colonialism all provided military support to those who violently opposed the development of a political system with no centralized power structure.
It is called Anarchism - The most fun way to learn about this is to watch [this pseudo documentary called "Living Utopia"](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1826732/). It can be viewed on [youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPl_Y3Qdb7Y) and was, for me, an enjoyable experience.
I have a friend who thought that a more fictionalized film about this topic called [Land and Freedom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_and_Freedom) was pretty good. For me it was ok, but not as good as Living Utopia.
Of course, you can read about it in this [Wikipedia article about the experience of Anarchy in Spain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism_in_Spain).
Not surprisingly, TPTB have made the word Anarchy to be a dirty word that is synonymous with chaos and violence. The individuals who spoke from experience in Living Utopia made it clear that collective solidarity had very little chaos and violence; it just had no management. Whether it would work or not on a large scale is unknown; TPTB have done an efficient job of quashing the growth of this ideology. | That's essentially what communism is about, however vague or unrealistic that notion might be. Technically, it's not a theory of running a “state” however, as abolishing the state itself is part of its stated goals. I am not sure I see how IT technology can help make it a reality.
On the other hand, I don't see what's fundamentally different about Web 2.0 governance. It's something between a democracy (vote and a degree self-organisation) and a technocracy. There are certainly different kind of politicians and people explicitly tasked with managing the rest in Web 2.0 communities (moderators, administrators, etc.) |
4,901 | In modern operating systems (for example: Windows), you can't access a memory location before you allocate that memory location to your program (or else a segmentation fault will occur).
I am wondering, do you need to also allocate memory before you use it in MS-DOS? | 2017/10/17 | [
"https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/4901",
"https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com",
"https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/users/6989/"
] | The basic answer is “yes”, assuming you want to be a good DOS citizen, however in many cases you don’t need to worry about it because the operating system takes care of it for you.
If you’re talking about conventional memory, allocating it explicitly isn’t necessary:
* EXE files’ headers specify the minimum and maximum amount of memory the program needs, and DOS pre-allocates that (if it can) for the program before passing control to it (by default, the maximum is “all available memory”);
* COM files don’t have a header, so DOS pre-allocates the largest available block of conventional memory for the program’s use.
DOS does provide APIs to allocate memory blocks, resize them and free them: respectively, [interrupt 0x21, function 0x48](https://fd.lod.bz/rbil/interrup/dos_kernel/2148.html), [interrupt 0x21, function 0x4A](https://fd.lod.bz/rbil/interrup/dos_kernel/214a.html) and [interrupt 0x21, function 0x49](https://fd.lod.bz/rbil/interrup/dos_kernel/2149.html). [Function 0x58](https://fd.lod.bz/rbil/interrup/dos_kernel/2158.html) affects how memory is allocated, including whether UMBs are considered (in MS-DOS 5 and later, and compatible implementations).
Some programs need to allocate memory separately, and therefore use these functions. One example is TSRs, since they need to reduce their pre-allocated block as much as possible and perhaps allocate other memory blocks, in order for them to remain allocated after they return control to the operating system but use as little as possible. It can also be useful to allocate memory if you want to use all the available memory: memory fragmentation might mean you wouldn’t get all the available memory in your pre-allocation.
You’d need to explicitly manage memory allocations if you wanted to use anything outside conventional memory: upper memory blocks, the HMA, EMS, XMS or plain extended memory. | For the sake of offering a contrary answer: there is no memory protection and there are no access levels, so there will be no segmentation fault or other hardware interrupt if you access memory that is there and which you have not asked for ownership of. If you are an MS-DOS program then you are driving the computer. Various of the interrupts will be set up to route through DOS when your program starts, but there is no access control to prevent you from disabling or rerouting every single one of them.
So you don't need to request ownership of memory provided that:
* you happen somehow to know exactly what memory exists; and
* you happen also to know exactly how that memory is being used by the various TSRs and drivers the user has loaded.
In practice you probably don't know those things. So instead of your code being declared faulty and evicted without harming the system as it would under a modern OS, you'll probably continue to run until you've broken some other part of the system and that part tries to run. E.g. maybe the user has a Gravis Ultrasound emulating a Sound Blaster, or is using MSCDEX plus their particular CD driver, or has their manufacturer's VESA driver occupying a certain block of memory, you stomp on that storage, then attempt to output audio, read from the CD or change the graphics mode.
I think that as to your question, the answer is therefore both yes and no. You don't need to allocate memory to be able to use it, but if you don't then you accept the risk of causing some other part of the system to crash or otherwise misbehave.
It's up to you though. |
4,901 | In modern operating systems (for example: Windows), you can't access a memory location before you allocate that memory location to your program (or else a segmentation fault will occur).
I am wondering, do you need to also allocate memory before you use it in MS-DOS? | 2017/10/17 | [
"https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/4901",
"https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com",
"https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/users/6989/"
] | The basic answer is “yes”, assuming you want to be a good DOS citizen, however in many cases you don’t need to worry about it because the operating system takes care of it for you.
If you’re talking about conventional memory, allocating it explicitly isn’t necessary:
* EXE files’ headers specify the minimum and maximum amount of memory the program needs, and DOS pre-allocates that (if it can) for the program before passing control to it (by default, the maximum is “all available memory”);
* COM files don’t have a header, so DOS pre-allocates the largest available block of conventional memory for the program’s use.
DOS does provide APIs to allocate memory blocks, resize them and free them: respectively, [interrupt 0x21, function 0x48](https://fd.lod.bz/rbil/interrup/dos_kernel/2148.html), [interrupt 0x21, function 0x4A](https://fd.lod.bz/rbil/interrup/dos_kernel/214a.html) and [interrupt 0x21, function 0x49](https://fd.lod.bz/rbil/interrup/dos_kernel/2149.html). [Function 0x58](https://fd.lod.bz/rbil/interrup/dos_kernel/2158.html) affects how memory is allocated, including whether UMBs are considered (in MS-DOS 5 and later, and compatible implementations).
Some programs need to allocate memory separately, and therefore use these functions. One example is TSRs, since they need to reduce their pre-allocated block as much as possible and perhaps allocate other memory blocks, in order for them to remain allocated after they return control to the operating system but use as little as possible. It can also be useful to allocate memory if you want to use all the available memory: memory fragmentation might mean you wouldn’t get all the available memory in your pre-allocation.
You’d need to explicitly manage memory allocations if you wanted to use anything outside conventional memory: upper memory blocks, the HMA, EMS, XMS or plain extended memory. | Technically, no. You DO NOT absolutely have to allocate memory before you use it in MS-DOS (for versions prior to the DOS that was included in OS/2 or the one in Windows 3.0). But note also that the ability to access any memory space (or not) in a machine is also determined by the hardware architecture (i.e., 8088, 8086, 80286, 80386, etc.) Now, to focus solely on the responsibility of the operating system (OS) here, [Robert J. Moore wrote in a November 01, 1988 article on Dr. Dobbs](http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/mapping-dos-memory-allocation/184408026) that, "Starting with Version 2.0, all versions of DOS contain functions to allocate memory (function 48H), free allocated memory (function 49H), and modify allocated memory (function 4AH)," via the use of Memory Control Blocks (MCBs). "If DOS detects any corruption in the MCB chain, it prints out an error message and halts the system." However, it is possible to, "break the MCB chain deliberately . . . DOS doesn't always notice." In fact, "DOS could be bypassed altogether for memory management," said Mr. Moore. Simply put, that's because BOTH the OS and the hardware allows it. Per the book, Intel Microprocessors: 8086/8088 - 8th Edition ([available on Google Books](https://books.google.com/books?id=KL09KAZM60EC&pg=PT38&lpg=PT38&dq=memory%20protection%208088%208086&source=bl&ots=RKersdf9Sw&sig=4Ten-nzPpOxJ0zcTJBnXXo7CKxI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjnhPOorfrWAhWO3oMKHT-qCFwQ6AEIVTAI#v=onepage&q=memory%20protection%208088%208086&f=false)), "Real mode, is an operating mode of 80286 and later x86-compatible CPUs. . . Real mode provides no support for memory protection, multitasking, or code privilege levels. 80186 CPUs and earlier, back to the original 8086, have only one operational mode, which is equivalent to real mode in later chips." Now, protected mode, as opposed to real mode, first available on the 80286, could allow your DOS programs to come under protected mode memory management--but that can happen *only* if you've installed OS/2 or Windows 3.0 (which are the first operating systems to implement versions of DOS capable of DPMI--the protected mode specification) which would allow your DOS programs to run in protected mode on 80286 series and later processors. Only then would you actually need to allocate memory before using it in your DOS programs. |
4,901 | In modern operating systems (for example: Windows), you can't access a memory location before you allocate that memory location to your program (or else a segmentation fault will occur).
I am wondering, do you need to also allocate memory before you use it in MS-DOS? | 2017/10/17 | [
"https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/4901",
"https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com",
"https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/users/6989/"
] | For the sake of offering a contrary answer: there is no memory protection and there are no access levels, so there will be no segmentation fault or other hardware interrupt if you access memory that is there and which you have not asked for ownership of. If you are an MS-DOS program then you are driving the computer. Various of the interrupts will be set up to route through DOS when your program starts, but there is no access control to prevent you from disabling or rerouting every single one of them.
So you don't need to request ownership of memory provided that:
* you happen somehow to know exactly what memory exists; and
* you happen also to know exactly how that memory is being used by the various TSRs and drivers the user has loaded.
In practice you probably don't know those things. So instead of your code being declared faulty and evicted without harming the system as it would under a modern OS, you'll probably continue to run until you've broken some other part of the system and that part tries to run. E.g. maybe the user has a Gravis Ultrasound emulating a Sound Blaster, or is using MSCDEX plus their particular CD driver, or has their manufacturer's VESA driver occupying a certain block of memory, you stomp on that storage, then attempt to output audio, read from the CD or change the graphics mode.
I think that as to your question, the answer is therefore both yes and no. You don't need to allocate memory to be able to use it, but if you don't then you accept the risk of causing some other part of the system to crash or otherwise misbehave.
It's up to you though. | Technically, no. You DO NOT absolutely have to allocate memory before you use it in MS-DOS (for versions prior to the DOS that was included in OS/2 or the one in Windows 3.0). But note also that the ability to access any memory space (or not) in a machine is also determined by the hardware architecture (i.e., 8088, 8086, 80286, 80386, etc.) Now, to focus solely on the responsibility of the operating system (OS) here, [Robert J. Moore wrote in a November 01, 1988 article on Dr. Dobbs](http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/mapping-dos-memory-allocation/184408026) that, "Starting with Version 2.0, all versions of DOS contain functions to allocate memory (function 48H), free allocated memory (function 49H), and modify allocated memory (function 4AH)," via the use of Memory Control Blocks (MCBs). "If DOS detects any corruption in the MCB chain, it prints out an error message and halts the system." However, it is possible to, "break the MCB chain deliberately . . . DOS doesn't always notice." In fact, "DOS could be bypassed altogether for memory management," said Mr. Moore. Simply put, that's because BOTH the OS and the hardware allows it. Per the book, Intel Microprocessors: 8086/8088 - 8th Edition ([available on Google Books](https://books.google.com/books?id=KL09KAZM60EC&pg=PT38&lpg=PT38&dq=memory%20protection%208088%208086&source=bl&ots=RKersdf9Sw&sig=4Ten-nzPpOxJ0zcTJBnXXo7CKxI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjnhPOorfrWAhWO3oMKHT-qCFwQ6AEIVTAI#v=onepage&q=memory%20protection%208088%208086&f=false)), "Real mode, is an operating mode of 80286 and later x86-compatible CPUs. . . Real mode provides no support for memory protection, multitasking, or code privilege levels. 80186 CPUs and earlier, back to the original 8086, have only one operational mode, which is equivalent to real mode in later chips." Now, protected mode, as opposed to real mode, first available on the 80286, could allow your DOS programs to come under protected mode memory management--but that can happen *only* if you've installed OS/2 or Windows 3.0 (which are the first operating systems to implement versions of DOS capable of DPMI--the protected mode specification) which would allow your DOS programs to run in protected mode on 80286 series and later processors. Only then would you actually need to allocate memory before using it in your DOS programs. |
12,391,063 | What are my choices of technologies, languages and tools to develop general-purpose software running on the integrated GPUs of Intel Ivy Bridge processors? OpenCL (if so, Intel drivers? Whose compiler?)? CUDA? Something based on LLVM?
I believe DirectCompute is not an option for us, because we won't be running windows.
**Edit**: Just found [this article](http://vr-zone.com/articles/ivy-bridge-hd-graphics-to-gain-4k-display-support-in-october/17173.html) that suggests that OpenCL support is coming in the IvyBridge drivers shortly. | 2012/09/12 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/12391063",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1520878/"
] | As @talonmies points out, on Intel OpenCL is supported on the integrated GPU, but only on Windows:
<http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/opencl-sdk-frequently-asked-questions/#14> | OpenGL-ES is running good on intel HD processors. |
24,213 | A strap running through a buckle is typically easy to loosen and tighten as desired. Usually, it stays in place. Sometimes, however, it slowly (or quickly) works its way loose, as though the thickness or smoothness of the webbing doesn't quite match the size or shape of the buckle. What can I do to make the strap more grippy?
The specific problem I have is with a new backpack (no wear and tear), and it happens in dry conditions (not wet and slippery). There are two places where it happens:
* On the hip belt, where the straps even have cloth-elastic bands wrapped around, right next to the buckles, but only function to keep things tidy, not grippy.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/JKnHL.jpg)
* Where the stop of the shoulder straps are tightened/loosened against the top of the pack.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/fivgg.jpg)
One method could be to add a separate clasp, as per [this question](https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/1448/how-can-i-improve-on-the-straps-on-my-travel-pack). Also, I imagine I could intentionally soak it in sea water and then not rinse it, leaving the salt crystals to gum up the works (I know this happens to kayak gear and it's usually a nuisance). Other techniques? I consider replacing either the strap or the buckle to be too drastic a solution. | 2019/09/30 | [
"https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/24213",
"https://outdoors.stackexchange.com",
"https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/users/11563/"
] | The solution on my backpack/bike helmet is a rubber band/hair tie like cord around the straps just below the buckle. In order to readjust the buckle you have to loosen the elastic cord around the straps and pull it away from the buckle.
Not sure exactly why this works, but I haven't had any problems with my helmet coming loose or backpack straps loosening either. | I added a bit of velcro to my shoulder straps with hot glue and it's worked perfectly. Get velcro at any fabric or craft store.
These are for my shoulder straps, which often slipped when I took big steps down on a descent. I added a small (1.5") piece of the "hooks" velcro to the end of the strap and then several inches of "loops" velcro to the same strap back near where it connects to the pack. Then I can get my straps adjusted, and secure the end so it won't slip.
I bought black velcro so it would blend into the straps.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/yo1sm.jpg) |
24,213 | A strap running through a buckle is typically easy to loosen and tighten as desired. Usually, it stays in place. Sometimes, however, it slowly (or quickly) works its way loose, as though the thickness or smoothness of the webbing doesn't quite match the size or shape of the buckle. What can I do to make the strap more grippy?
The specific problem I have is with a new backpack (no wear and tear), and it happens in dry conditions (not wet and slippery). There are two places where it happens:
* On the hip belt, where the straps even have cloth-elastic bands wrapped around, right next to the buckles, but only function to keep things tidy, not grippy.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/JKnHL.jpg)
* Where the stop of the shoulder straps are tightened/loosened against the top of the pack.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/fivgg.jpg)
One method could be to add a separate clasp, as per [this question](https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/1448/how-can-i-improve-on-the-straps-on-my-travel-pack). Also, I imagine I could intentionally soak it in sea water and then not rinse it, leaving the salt crystals to gum up the works (I know this happens to kayak gear and it's usually a nuisance). Other techniques? I consider replacing either the strap or the buckle to be too drastic a solution. | 2019/09/30 | [
"https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/24213",
"https://outdoors.stackexchange.com",
"https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/users/11563/"
] | The solution on my backpack/bike helmet is a rubber band/hair tie like cord around the straps just below the buckle. In order to readjust the buckle you have to loosen the elastic cord around the straps and pull it away from the buckle.
Not sure exactly why this works, but I haven't had any problems with my helmet coming loose or backpack straps loosening either. | I learned this tip from a former Navy Seal.
Dip your finger in rubber cement and rub it on the full length and width of web straps. Both sides. Let it dry, then rub off whatever comes off. It adds a tremendous amount of "stay power" to your straps. |
24,213 | A strap running through a buckle is typically easy to loosen and tighten as desired. Usually, it stays in place. Sometimes, however, it slowly (or quickly) works its way loose, as though the thickness or smoothness of the webbing doesn't quite match the size or shape of the buckle. What can I do to make the strap more grippy?
The specific problem I have is with a new backpack (no wear and tear), and it happens in dry conditions (not wet and slippery). There are two places where it happens:
* On the hip belt, where the straps even have cloth-elastic bands wrapped around, right next to the buckles, but only function to keep things tidy, not grippy.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/JKnHL.jpg)
* Where the stop of the shoulder straps are tightened/loosened against the top of the pack.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/fivgg.jpg)
One method could be to add a separate clasp, as per [this question](https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/1448/how-can-i-improve-on-the-straps-on-my-travel-pack). Also, I imagine I could intentionally soak it in sea water and then not rinse it, leaving the salt crystals to gum up the works (I know this happens to kayak gear and it's usually a nuisance). Other techniques? I consider replacing either the strap or the buckle to be too drastic a solution. | 2019/09/30 | [
"https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/24213",
"https://outdoors.stackexchange.com",
"https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/users/11563/"
] | If you've got the strap to the perfect length and want to maintain that length, you can sew a small fold in the strap, similar to what's used at the end to stop the whole strap running through. Slitting the stitches means you can change your mind later. Realistically this won't help for a waist belt that needs to adjust to different clothing, except as a backstop to limit the slippage.
These buckles work by friction between the two layers of webbing that want to move in opposite directions, so you need to increase the friction, probably by increasing the pressure. One way to do this is to sew another layer of webbing on the outside, but this could be a fairly tedious task if the region that needs building up is long. You'd probably need to find lighter webbing of the same width as the existing strap. You may be able to test this by just threading a length of webbing through the buckle with the strap, and pinning it.
Another way (that I haven't tried) should be to build up the buckle itself. Depending on the shape, a couple of cable ties around the past that presses together the two straps should be enough. | I added a bit of velcro to my shoulder straps with hot glue and it's worked perfectly. Get velcro at any fabric or craft store.
These are for my shoulder straps, which often slipped when I took big steps down on a descent. I added a small (1.5") piece of the "hooks" velcro to the end of the strap and then several inches of "loops" velcro to the same strap back near where it connects to the pack. Then I can get my straps adjusted, and secure the end so it won't slip.
I bought black velcro so it would blend into the straps.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/yo1sm.jpg) |
24,213 | A strap running through a buckle is typically easy to loosen and tighten as desired. Usually, it stays in place. Sometimes, however, it slowly (or quickly) works its way loose, as though the thickness or smoothness of the webbing doesn't quite match the size or shape of the buckle. What can I do to make the strap more grippy?
The specific problem I have is with a new backpack (no wear and tear), and it happens in dry conditions (not wet and slippery). There are two places where it happens:
* On the hip belt, where the straps even have cloth-elastic bands wrapped around, right next to the buckles, but only function to keep things tidy, not grippy.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/JKnHL.jpg)
* Where the stop of the shoulder straps are tightened/loosened against the top of the pack.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/fivgg.jpg)
One method could be to add a separate clasp, as per [this question](https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/1448/how-can-i-improve-on-the-straps-on-my-travel-pack). Also, I imagine I could intentionally soak it in sea water and then not rinse it, leaving the salt crystals to gum up the works (I know this happens to kayak gear and it's usually a nuisance). Other techniques? I consider replacing either the strap or the buckle to be too drastic a solution. | 2019/09/30 | [
"https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/24213",
"https://outdoors.stackexchange.com",
"https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/users/11563/"
] | If you've got the strap to the perfect length and want to maintain that length, you can sew a small fold in the strap, similar to what's used at the end to stop the whole strap running through. Slitting the stitches means you can change your mind later. Realistically this won't help for a waist belt that needs to adjust to different clothing, except as a backstop to limit the slippage.
These buckles work by friction between the two layers of webbing that want to move in opposite directions, so you need to increase the friction, probably by increasing the pressure. One way to do this is to sew another layer of webbing on the outside, but this could be a fairly tedious task if the region that needs building up is long. You'd probably need to find lighter webbing of the same width as the existing strap. You may be able to test this by just threading a length of webbing through the buckle with the strap, and pinning it.
Another way (that I haven't tried) should be to build up the buckle itself. Depending on the shape, a couple of cable ties around the past that presses together the two straps should be enough. | I learned this tip from a former Navy Seal.
Dip your finger in rubber cement and rub it on the full length and width of web straps. Both sides. Let it dry, then rub off whatever comes off. It adds a tremendous amount of "stay power" to your straps. |
24,213 | A strap running through a buckle is typically easy to loosen and tighten as desired. Usually, it stays in place. Sometimes, however, it slowly (or quickly) works its way loose, as though the thickness or smoothness of the webbing doesn't quite match the size or shape of the buckle. What can I do to make the strap more grippy?
The specific problem I have is with a new backpack (no wear and tear), and it happens in dry conditions (not wet and slippery). There are two places where it happens:
* On the hip belt, where the straps even have cloth-elastic bands wrapped around, right next to the buckles, but only function to keep things tidy, not grippy.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/JKnHL.jpg)
* Where the stop of the shoulder straps are tightened/loosened against the top of the pack.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/fivgg.jpg)
One method could be to add a separate clasp, as per [this question](https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/1448/how-can-i-improve-on-the-straps-on-my-travel-pack). Also, I imagine I could intentionally soak it in sea water and then not rinse it, leaving the salt crystals to gum up the works (I know this happens to kayak gear and it's usually a nuisance). Other techniques? I consider replacing either the strap or the buckle to be too drastic a solution. | 2019/09/30 | [
"https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/24213",
"https://outdoors.stackexchange.com",
"https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/users/11563/"
] | I find that simply tying a half knot below the buckle keeps it from slipping:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/3stUT.jpg) | I added a bit of velcro to my shoulder straps with hot glue and it's worked perfectly. Get velcro at any fabric or craft store.
These are for my shoulder straps, which often slipped when I took big steps down on a descent. I added a small (1.5") piece of the "hooks" velcro to the end of the strap and then several inches of "loops" velcro to the same strap back near where it connects to the pack. Then I can get my straps adjusted, and secure the end so it won't slip.
I bought black velcro so it would blend into the straps.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/yo1sm.jpg) |
24,213 | A strap running through a buckle is typically easy to loosen and tighten as desired. Usually, it stays in place. Sometimes, however, it slowly (or quickly) works its way loose, as though the thickness or smoothness of the webbing doesn't quite match the size or shape of the buckle. What can I do to make the strap more grippy?
The specific problem I have is with a new backpack (no wear and tear), and it happens in dry conditions (not wet and slippery). There are two places where it happens:
* On the hip belt, where the straps even have cloth-elastic bands wrapped around, right next to the buckles, but only function to keep things tidy, not grippy.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/JKnHL.jpg)
* Where the stop of the shoulder straps are tightened/loosened against the top of the pack.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/fivgg.jpg)
One method could be to add a separate clasp, as per [this question](https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/1448/how-can-i-improve-on-the-straps-on-my-travel-pack). Also, I imagine I could intentionally soak it in sea water and then not rinse it, leaving the salt crystals to gum up the works (I know this happens to kayak gear and it's usually a nuisance). Other techniques? I consider replacing either the strap or the buckle to be too drastic a solution. | 2019/09/30 | [
"https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/24213",
"https://outdoors.stackexchange.com",
"https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/users/11563/"
] | I find that simply tying a half knot below the buckle keeps it from slipping:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/3stUT.jpg) | I learned this tip from a former Navy Seal.
Dip your finger in rubber cement and rub it on the full length and width of web straps. Both sides. Let it dry, then rub off whatever comes off. It adds a tremendous amount of "stay power" to your straps. |
24,213 | A strap running through a buckle is typically easy to loosen and tighten as desired. Usually, it stays in place. Sometimes, however, it slowly (or quickly) works its way loose, as though the thickness or smoothness of the webbing doesn't quite match the size or shape of the buckle. What can I do to make the strap more grippy?
The specific problem I have is with a new backpack (no wear and tear), and it happens in dry conditions (not wet and slippery). There are two places where it happens:
* On the hip belt, where the straps even have cloth-elastic bands wrapped around, right next to the buckles, but only function to keep things tidy, not grippy.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/JKnHL.jpg)
* Where the stop of the shoulder straps are tightened/loosened against the top of the pack.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/fivgg.jpg)
One method could be to add a separate clasp, as per [this question](https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/1448/how-can-i-improve-on-the-straps-on-my-travel-pack). Also, I imagine I could intentionally soak it in sea water and then not rinse it, leaving the salt crystals to gum up the works (I know this happens to kayak gear and it's usually a nuisance). Other techniques? I consider replacing either the strap or the buckle to be too drastic a solution. | 2019/09/30 | [
"https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/24213",
"https://outdoors.stackexchange.com",
"https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/users/11563/"
] | Double-back your buckles as on a climbing harness?
If you can weave the strap around the bars in the buckle differently, you can change the level of friction at the expense of convenience. Here's a common 4-bar buckle:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/z26hE.jpg)
You can add some friction by tucking the loose end upwards under the top bar (double-back):
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6qz3v.jpg)
Or you could rethread it a couple ways (These are also good if a bar breaks):
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/0WzsT.jpg)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/FJEEL.jpg)
You can also add friction on a simpler buckle strap by adding hardware to make it work like a double D-ring strap:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/AFcm7.jpg)
It's a tradeoff between reduced friction for easy adjustability, and increased friction for security at the expense of adjustability. | I added a bit of velcro to my shoulder straps with hot glue and it's worked perfectly. Get velcro at any fabric or craft store.
These are for my shoulder straps, which often slipped when I took big steps down on a descent. I added a small (1.5") piece of the "hooks" velcro to the end of the strap and then several inches of "loops" velcro to the same strap back near where it connects to the pack. Then I can get my straps adjusted, and secure the end so it won't slip.
I bought black velcro so it would blend into the straps.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/yo1sm.jpg) |
24,213 | A strap running through a buckle is typically easy to loosen and tighten as desired. Usually, it stays in place. Sometimes, however, it slowly (or quickly) works its way loose, as though the thickness or smoothness of the webbing doesn't quite match the size or shape of the buckle. What can I do to make the strap more grippy?
The specific problem I have is with a new backpack (no wear and tear), and it happens in dry conditions (not wet and slippery). There are two places where it happens:
* On the hip belt, where the straps even have cloth-elastic bands wrapped around, right next to the buckles, but only function to keep things tidy, not grippy.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/JKnHL.jpg)
* Where the stop of the shoulder straps are tightened/loosened against the top of the pack.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/fivgg.jpg)
One method could be to add a separate clasp, as per [this question](https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/1448/how-can-i-improve-on-the-straps-on-my-travel-pack). Also, I imagine I could intentionally soak it in sea water and then not rinse it, leaving the salt crystals to gum up the works (I know this happens to kayak gear and it's usually a nuisance). Other techniques? I consider replacing either the strap or the buckle to be too drastic a solution. | 2019/09/30 | [
"https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/24213",
"https://outdoors.stackexchange.com",
"https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/users/11563/"
] | Double-back your buckles as on a climbing harness?
If you can weave the strap around the bars in the buckle differently, you can change the level of friction at the expense of convenience. Here's a common 4-bar buckle:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/z26hE.jpg)
You can add some friction by tucking the loose end upwards under the top bar (double-back):
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6qz3v.jpg)
Or you could rethread it a couple ways (These are also good if a bar breaks):
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/0WzsT.jpg)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/FJEEL.jpg)
You can also add friction on a simpler buckle strap by adding hardware to make it work like a double D-ring strap:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/AFcm7.jpg)
It's a tradeoff between reduced friction for easy adjustability, and increased friction for security at the expense of adjustability. | I learned this tip from a former Navy Seal.
Dip your finger in rubber cement and rub it on the full length and width of web straps. Both sides. Let it dry, then rub off whatever comes off. It adds a tremendous amount of "stay power" to your straps. |
105 | Like an F-15, 767, C-130, or the like?
Or will these just evolve as people ask questions related to them? | 2013/12/25 | [
"https://aviation.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/105",
"https://aviation.meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://aviation.meta.stackexchange.com/users/80/"
] | Just my opinion but ... while I wouldn't explicitly prohibit them and such fine granularity might be sometimes useful, I think it would create too many tags that would be a nightmare to control and edit in all their tag wikis. So perhaps we should go with the next superclass and use tags by their manufacturer, aircraft class, and so on, like e.g. [mcdonnell-douglas](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/mcdonnell-douglas "show questions tagged 'mcdonnell-douglas'"), [boeing](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/boeing "show questions tagged 'boeing'"), [lockheed](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/lockheed "show questions tagged 'lockheed'"), [turboprop](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/turboprop "show questions tagged 'turboprop'"), [transport](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/transport "show questions tagged 'transport'"), [fighter](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/fighter "show questions tagged 'fighter'"),... to add an additional way of classification on top of being able to search by text? | I expect there will be some need to have tags for the "typical" GA planes that you find on pretty much every flight line: ([cessna-152](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/cessna-152 "show questions tagged 'cessna-152'"), [cessna-172](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/cessna-172 "show questions tagged 'cessna-172'"), [pa28](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/pa28 "show questions tagged 'pa28'"), etc.).
I'm not sure how I feel about manufacturer tags, but broad categories like turboprops like [TidalWave suggests](https://aviation.meta.stackexchange.com/a/107/64) also seem logical, and complimentary with model-specific tags (e.g. a question about engine behavior in a Cessna Caravan could be tagged [cessna-208](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/cessna-208 "show questions tagged 'cessna-208'") and [turboprop](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/turboprop "show questions tagged 'turboprop'"), because it fits in both tags and might be of interest to any turboprop pilot). |
13,722 | I found [this sound effect resource](http://www.kyutwo.com/site/index.php?page=downloads&type=misc&id=sound-effects%2Fanime-sound-effects%2Fmechs_2 "Anime sound effects: Mech @ Kyutwo.com") for my mech game, but these sound effects are used in the [Gundam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gundam "Gundam @ Wikipedia") series. I know there are some shows and games other than Gundam that use identical sounds.
Is it legal to use them for making my own mobile game apps, if I alter the pitch and do some remixes? I'm making a 'fan-game' or 'mech-inspired' game, but in an original and legitimate way as possible. | 2016/08/31 | [
"https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/13722",
"https://law.stackexchange.com",
"https://law.stackexchange.com/users/8967/"
] | **No**
It says right on the page you linked:
>
> These downloads are not public domain, as they are parts of content that has already been licensed and distributed. Although using these downloads may be permissible as long as the project itself falls under the rule of "Fair Use," it is ill-advised to use these downloads for any project intended for profitable gain or commercial advertisement, unless otherwise stated by Kyutwo.com.
>
>
> | 15 seconds of any audio can be used for free. I hear this stated on the radio all the time so most sound effects should be fine. I assume you have to credit the original owners in your credits areas though. |
413,879 | I would like sometimes to enter Unicode characters such as a right arrow (→).
Currently, the only way I know is to use the [Unicode Input](http://www.fileformat.info/tool/unicodeinput/index.htm) application, but it's about as cumbersome as the Windows Character Map utility.
How can I type Unicode characters directly through the keyboard instead? | 2012/04/18 | [
"https://superuser.com/questions/413879",
"https://superuser.com",
"https://superuser.com/users/3906/"
] | You can use [Alt codes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt_code) - hold down the Alt key and type in a number on the numpad (assuming your keyboard has one). For instance, to get the → symbol, you'd hold down Alt and type **26**.
For more information and a list of all possible codes, see here: <http://alt-codes.org/> | If that's Chrome on Windows 10, then the short answer is: You need a Chrome extension, otherwise you can't.
There is no universal way, because chrome maps Alt + d, e and f to do things which stops you entering a hexadecimal unicode in with the 'universal' windows Alt+ num pad trick (which may itself require a registry key to work).
Worse, you may find (as I did) that using the alt-numpad code with a leading 0 for a unicode decimal entry also doesn't work (because it is input language specific).
The most universal way is to google for the name of the character you want, plus 'utf-8', and copy/paste it when you see it. Unsatisfying? Yes.
Else you can enter the code you know into another application, and copy/paste it into chrome. Wordpad is good - type the code in, and then hit alt-x.
If you want to avoid copy/pasting, then you need a chrome extension.
The most trivial is the 'Unicode Input' extension, which makes the insert key work like alt-x does in wordpad. There are many others also.
Another is the 'wasavi' chrome extension, which allows you to quickly drop into what behaves like a 'vim' in any text entry field on a web page.
Then, you can (in vim's insert mode) type ctrl-v, then `u` to put it into unicode entry mode, then you can finally type your unicode hex code in however you like.
Either of these mean you can enter unicode into chrome, like you want to, without having to install another windows application or mess with the registry.
Even if you cannot install software (don't have admin rights), you will be able to add the extension to your chrome account, and use it wherever you log in, on any platform. (This should also work in edge, but with your Microsoft account).
If you can touch-type, you should seriously consider learning how to drive vim. Given that you want to insert utf-8 characters by hex codes, you probably are a good match for it, and will find it useful. |
413,879 | I would like sometimes to enter Unicode characters such as a right arrow (→).
Currently, the only way I know is to use the [Unicode Input](http://www.fileformat.info/tool/unicodeinput/index.htm) application, but it's about as cumbersome as the Windows Character Map utility.
How can I type Unicode characters directly through the keyboard instead? | 2012/04/18 | [
"https://superuser.com/questions/413879",
"https://superuser.com",
"https://superuser.com/users/3906/"
] | The [Alt + method](http://www.fileformat.info/tip/microsoft/enter_unicode.htm) (e.g., Alt + 2192) is a bit more comfortable, but it may well require a change to Windows registry.
If you frequently need to enter some special characters like arrows, you could use [MSKLC](http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/tools/msklc.mspx) to set up a keyboard layout where they can be typed directly and just switch to that layout (perhaps with a simple Ctrl 2 or something like that) when needed. Unfortunately, the most natural choice, the arrow keys, cannot be used there, but you can assign any meanings (in terms of Unicode characters) to normal keys. | You can use [Alt codes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt_code) - hold down the Alt key and type in a number on the numpad (assuming your keyboard has one). For instance, to get the → symbol, you'd hold down Alt and type **26**.
For more information and a list of all possible codes, see here: <http://alt-codes.org/> |
98,946 | I was hired to be a secretary 3 years ago however, I possess Financial experience. Even though I was hired as an Secretary, I was brought in and was set up to do financial tasks with half of an alphabet population of patients where I secure authorizations for evaluations, listings, Inpatient transplant surgeries as well as post transplant care. I must manage every patient's insurance issues, advise them if they need to change insurance, maintain active authorizations for all of the existing as well as new patient's. etc.
I also travel (Some overnight and as much as two days) to do the financial registration for all of the patient's in the outlining locations to ensure they have coverage for the services. I was hosting a departmental huddle meeting every Friday. I have to give the approval for a patient to be listed for an organ and nothing happens until I give the approval. I have asked to be promoted to the Financial coordinator position (As this is the job, I actually perform) I have been told there wasn't any open positions which I understand.
Well a position became available and I wasn't informed however, once I found out I asked my supervisor about the position. She then asked if I thought I was a team player. I was astounded. I said yes, I do. Anything that needs to be done I do it without complaint. I come in early when needed. I cover other areas when needed. and in the 3 years I have been here I have never had any issues. Never been written up or reprimanded. I present to work on time and do my job. Then I was told that I act like I don't want to talk to anyone sometimes. I come in and speak and proceed to sit down and work. I engage in little conversation but, will talk when being talked to.
After that, I was told that she felt I needed more training. I again, was astounded. I have done the job for 3 years and continue to do this everyday without supervision and none of these "concerns" have been addressed in my evaluations or ever made a discussion. It became clear that I was not going to be considered for the job. I asked that I be considered for the job or, sent down to the area where the rest of the secretaries are to do what I was hired to do. I expressed that I do a financial coordinators job everyday (for 3 years) yet, I am paid a secretary's salary.
I feel it is appropriate to either allow me to be sent down where I am suppose to be and be a secretary or, to be considered for the position that I currently do. I also feel that they should retro-actively pay me for the wages they have shorted me for 3 years and counting. I am still doing the finance job and receiving the wage set for a secretary. What is my recourse? | 2017/09/14 | [
"https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/98946",
"https://workplace.stackexchange.com",
"https://workplace.stackexchange.com/users/76907/"
] | >
> I asked that I be considered for the job or, sent down to the area
> where the rest of the secretaries are to do what I was hired to do. I
> expressed that I do a financial coordinators job everyday (for 3
> years) yet, I am paid a secretary's salary. I feel it is appropriate
> to either allow me to be sent down where I am suppose to be and be a
> secretary or, to be considered for the position that I currently do.
>
>
>
But you already indicate that they don't intend to do that.
>
> I also feel that they should retro-actively pay me for the wages they
> have shorted me for 3 years and counting.
>
>
>
Clearly that isn't going to happen.
If you didn't want to perform the non-secretarial duties without additional compensation, the time to deal with that was when they were first assigned, not 3 years later.
>
> I am still doing the finance job and receiving the wage set for a
> secretary. What is my recourse?
>
>
>
You probably already know that you should find a new job, get and accept an offer, then turn in your notice here.
If for some reason you don't want to leave, you could ask for a title change and a raise while keeping your existing duties. But you may already have burned that bridge. | >
> I also feel that they should retro-actively pay me for the wages they have shorted me for 3 years and counting
>
>
>
There will never be any shortage of people who have contributed to others' efforts without any prior agreement for compensation who end up feeling used and abused. You've done this for three years, and I must say from the beginning that overall this is no one's doing but your *own*.
People don't appreciate what you give away for free. What's worse: in your situation, when you decided to gather the courage to ask for what you're worth, you got fed a "line" by your supervisor to basically put you back in your low place on the totem pole. But let's trace back to whenever you started doing these tasks outside of the 'secretary' responsibilities. How did it come about?
I'm going to take a guess that maybe you spotted something awry in a report, or overheard a conversation about a lapse, and decided to get yourself involved and fix the issue. Or maybe you were initially recognized at some point by a supervisor for being a problem-solver in a pinch. In either case, the end result was an ego stroke. And the people over you figured that **because you never raised a need beyond an ego stroke**, you were happy just receiving a "good job" and a pat on the back. Now, three years in, you're demanding change -- but they've gotten used to you accepting the pat on the back, so you're getting push-back.
The good news is that you seem to be a valuable asset to a team. The bad news is that you're going to have to find another team, on another job; when you do, don't miss any opportunity to speak up for yourself, or you're going to find yourself in the same boat again. There's some program in your head that says that it's selfish or improper to ask for help with your needs until you're at a desperate point. I really hope you can find this thing, and choke the living sh-- out of it. You seem like a great person, and to reach this goal you're going to have to start putting yourself first much sooner.
Best of luck. |
10,997,767 | Can somebody tell me what is the meaning of Installs: 100-500.
What Google Play counts? Dayly installs? Monthly installs? Total installs of application.
I`m trying to see applications of people and see how much they were installed. | 2012/06/12 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/10997767",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/965020/"
] | It is the total count of installs that is shown on the page, under it you will find a chart of the last 30 days, which you can use as an indication to see if it is still growing alot or the opposite. | it means between 100-500 have installed it total |
10,997,767 | Can somebody tell me what is the meaning of Installs: 100-500.
What Google Play counts? Dayly installs? Monthly installs? Total installs of application.
I`m trying to see applications of people and see how much they were installed. | 2012/06/12 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/10997767",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/965020/"
] | That's the total amount of installs of the applications/game. But google play does not show the amount of devices that has the applications installed at the momment. It´s a shame because an application can be installed 5000 times but only be installed in 500 because of 4500 desinstallations | it means between 100-500 have installed it total |
10,997,767 | Can somebody tell me what is the meaning of Installs: 100-500.
What Google Play counts? Dayly installs? Monthly installs? Total installs of application.
I`m trying to see applications of people and see how much they were installed. | 2012/06/12 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/10997767",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/965020/"
] | It is the total count of installs that is shown on the page, under it you will find a chart of the last 30 days, which you can use as an indication to see if it is still growing alot or the opposite. | That's the total amount of installs of the applications/game. But google play does not show the amount of devices that has the applications installed at the momment. It´s a shame because an application can be installed 5000 times but only be installed in 500 because of 4500 desinstallations |
185,899 | Recently I was asked this during a job interview. I was honest and said I knew how a symbolic link behaves and how to create one, but do not understand the use of a hard link and how it differs from a symbolic one. | 2008/10/09 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/185899",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/4960/"
] | What you think of as an ordinary "file" is actually two separate things: The data of a file, and a directory entry. When you create a hard link for a file, you actually create a second directory entry which refers to the same data. Both directory entries have the exact same functionality; each one can be used to open the file to read it. So you don't really have "a file plus a hard link", you have "file data with two directory entries". What you think of as deleting a file actually deletes a directory entry, and when the last directory entry for the data is deleted, then the data itself is deleted as well. For ordinary files that have only one directory entry, deleting the directory entry will delete the data as always. (While a file is opened, the OS creates a temporary link to the file, so even when you delete all directory entries, the data stays but disappears as soon as you close the file).
As an example, create a file A.txt, a hard link B.txt, and delete A.txt. When you created A.txt, some data was created, and a directory entry A.txt. When you created the hard link, another directory entry B.txt was created, pointing to the exact same data. When you delete A.txt, you still have all the data and a single directory entry B.txt, exactly as if you had create a file B.txt in the first place.
A soft link is just an (almost) ordinary file, except that it doesn't contain data, but the path of another directory entry. If you delete the file that the soft link refers to, then the soft link will contain a path that doesn't point to a directory entry anymore; it is broken. If you delete the soft link, it's like deleting any other file, the file it points to is unaffected. | Symbolic links give another name to a file, in a way similar to hard links. But a file can be deleted even if there are remaining symbolic links. |
185,899 | Recently I was asked this during a job interview. I was honest and said I knew how a symbolic link behaves and how to create one, but do not understand the use of a hard link and how it differs from a symbolic one. | 2008/10/09 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/185899",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/4960/"
] | I would point you to Wikipedia:
* [Symbolic link](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_link)
* [Hard link](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_link)
A few points:
* Symlinks, unlike hard links, can cross filesystems (most of the time).
* Symlinks can point to directories.
* Hard links point to a file and enable you to refer to the same file with more than one name.
* As long as there is at least one link, the data is still available. | IN this answer when i say a file i mean the location in memory
All the data that is saved is stored in memory using a data structure called inodes Every inode has a inodenumber.The inode number is used to access the inode.All the hard links to a file may have different names but share the same inode number.Since all the hard links have the same inodenumber(which inturn access the same inode),all of them point to the same physical memory.
A symbolic link is a special kind of file.Since it is also a file it will have a file name and an inode number.As said above the inode number acceses an inode which points to data.Now what makes a symbolic link special is that the inodenumbers in symbolic links access those inodes which point to "a path" to another file.More specifically the inode number in symbolic link acceses those inodes who point to another hard link.
when we are moving,copying,deleting a file in GUI we are playing with the hardlinks of the file not the physical memory.when we delete a file we are deleting the hardlink of the file. we are not wiping out the physical memory.If all the hardlinks to file are deleted then it will not be possible to access the data stored although it may still be present in memory |
185,899 | Recently I was asked this during a job interview. I was honest and said I knew how a symbolic link behaves and how to create one, but do not understand the use of a hard link and how it differs from a symbolic one. | 2008/10/09 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/185899",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/4960/"
] | Hard links are useful when the original file is getting moved around. For example, moving a file from /bin to /usr/bin or to /usr/local/bin. Any symlink to the file in /bin would be broken by this, but a hardlink, being a link directly to the inode for the file, wouldn't care.
Hard links may take less disk space as they only take up a directory entry, whereas a symlink needs its own inode to store the name it points to.
Hard links also take less time to resolve - symlinks can point to other symlinks that are in symlinked directories. And some of these could be on NFS or other high-latency file systems, and so could result in network traffic to resolve. Hard links, being always on the same file system, are always resolved in a single look-up, and never involve network latency (if it's a hardlink on an NFS filesystem, the NFS server would do the resolution, and it would be invisible to the client system). Sometimes this is important. Not for me, but I can imagine high-performance systems where this might be important.
I also think things like mmap(2) and even open(2) use the same functionality as hardlinks to keep a file's inode active so that even if the file gets unlink(2)ed, the inode remains to allow the process continued access, and only once the process closes it does the file really go away. This allows for much safer temporary files (if you can get the open and unlink to happen atomically, which there may be a POSIX API for that I'm not remembering, then you really have a safe temporary file) where you can read/write your data without anyone being able to access it. Well, that was true before /proc gave everyone the ability to look at your file descriptors, but that's another story.
Speaking of which, recovering a file that is open in process A, but unlinked on the file system revolves around using hardlinks to recreate the inode links so the file doesn't go away when the process which has it open closes it or goes away. | I just found an easy way to understand hard links in a common scenario, software install.
One day I downloaded a software to folder Downloads for install. After I did sudo make install, some executables were cped to local bin folder. Here, cp creates hard link. I was happy with the software but soon realized that Downloads isn't a good place in the long run. So I mved the software folder to source directory. Well, I can still run the software as before without worrying about any target link things, like in Windows. This means hard link finds inode directly and other files around. |
185,899 | Recently I was asked this during a job interview. I was honest and said I knew how a symbolic link behaves and how to create one, but do not understand the use of a hard link and how it differs from a symbolic one. | 2008/10/09 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/185899",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/4960/"
] | Symbolic links give another name to a file, in a way similar to hard links. But a file can be deleted even if there are remaining symbolic links. | I just found an easy way to understand hard links in a common scenario, software install.
One day I downloaded a software to folder Downloads for install. After I did sudo make install, some executables were cped to local bin folder. Here, cp creates hard link. I was happy with the software but soon realized that Downloads isn't a good place in the long run. So I mved the software folder to source directory. Well, I can still run the software as before without worrying about any target link things, like in Windows. This means hard link finds inode directly and other files around. |
1,891 | **What things can I do to increase the life of my diesel engine when I make lots of short trips in the car?**
My daily routine means that the trip to work goes via another destination which gives my engine time to warm up properly, but the trip home from the office is so short the engine never warms up.
Ideally I'd drop the car off at home after the morning trip and walk to work, however due to my job I often use the car during office hours and at short notice.
**Since I'm unable to change my routine as the morning trip is essential, as is having the car available at work, is there anything I can do to lower the impact of the short journeys on my car?**
I've heard "magnatech" oils can help, but I'm pretty clueless when it comes to cars.
Any advice welcome! | 2011/09/09 | [
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/questions/1891",
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com",
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/users/1034/"
] | Do nothing. Short trips are damaging for two reasons: fuel economy and engine wear. But unlike a gas car, excess "choke" fuel in a diesel doesn't strip lubrication from the cylinder walls. And as long as the engine gets up to operating temps every third or fourth trip, your oil won't accumulate water and lose lubricity.
You will burn more fuel per mile on short runs, but it won't damage the car the way you are describing it. | Can you change your behaviour in any other way? - Perhaps time your shopping trips to coincide with your drive home from work to make that journey long enough to warm the engine up fully (and save another separate journey).
What are the work journeys you do like? Are they long enough to get the engine properly warmed up? If not, try and get out for a good long run every few days to get it properly warm.
Otherwise, use a good quality oil and good filters, and change it regularly (look for the "harsh conditions" service schedule in your car's handbook) |
1,891 | **What things can I do to increase the life of my diesel engine when I make lots of short trips in the car?**
My daily routine means that the trip to work goes via another destination which gives my engine time to warm up properly, but the trip home from the office is so short the engine never warms up.
Ideally I'd drop the car off at home after the morning trip and walk to work, however due to my job I often use the car during office hours and at short notice.
**Since I'm unable to change my routine as the morning trip is essential, as is having the car available at work, is there anything I can do to lower the impact of the short journeys on my car?**
I've heard "magnatech" oils can help, but I'm pretty clueless when it comes to cars.
Any advice welcome! | 2011/09/09 | [
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/questions/1891",
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com",
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/users/1034/"
] | Do nothing. Short trips are damaging for two reasons: fuel economy and engine wear. But unlike a gas car, excess "choke" fuel in a diesel doesn't strip lubrication from the cylinder walls. And as long as the engine gets up to operating temps every third or fourth trip, your oil won't accumulate water and lose lubricity.
You will burn more fuel per mile on short runs, but it won't damage the car the way you are describing it. | **Mechanical Answer**
I would spend the extra couple of minutes allowing your car to warm up before starting your drive.
Even with letting it warm up, follow the maintenance schedule given in your owners manual for the extreme conditions (the one with shorter intervals for oil changes and other maintenance items).
**Alternate Transportation**
If you can walk within a reasonable amount of time between your home and work, it still seems an alternate mode of transport is ideal.
You said you'd consider doing your morning destination then back home and then walk to work if it weren't for needing to use the vehicle on short notice during the day.
Would riding a bicycle cut down the commute enough to when you do have those short notice needs you could ride home real quick and get your car?
Say it takes you 15 minutes to walk to work, you ought to easily be able to do that in about 5 minutes on a bicycle. So you would only be delayed 5 minutes getting to your vehicle if you needed to go somewhere.
If not wanting to deal with the bulk of a bicycle, depending on your area, roller skates or inline skates may be an alternative. Although these take some getting used to for safely using in an urban environment. |
1,891 | **What things can I do to increase the life of my diesel engine when I make lots of short trips in the car?**
My daily routine means that the trip to work goes via another destination which gives my engine time to warm up properly, but the trip home from the office is so short the engine never warms up.
Ideally I'd drop the car off at home after the morning trip and walk to work, however due to my job I often use the car during office hours and at short notice.
**Since I'm unable to change my routine as the morning trip is essential, as is having the car available at work, is there anything I can do to lower the impact of the short journeys on my car?**
I've heard "magnatech" oils can help, but I'm pretty clueless when it comes to cars.
Any advice welcome! | 2011/09/09 | [
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/questions/1891",
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com",
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/users/1034/"
] | **Mechanical Answer**
I would spend the extra couple of minutes allowing your car to warm up before starting your drive.
Even with letting it warm up, follow the maintenance schedule given in your owners manual for the extreme conditions (the one with shorter intervals for oil changes and other maintenance items).
**Alternate Transportation**
If you can walk within a reasonable amount of time between your home and work, it still seems an alternate mode of transport is ideal.
You said you'd consider doing your morning destination then back home and then walk to work if it weren't for needing to use the vehicle on short notice during the day.
Would riding a bicycle cut down the commute enough to when you do have those short notice needs you could ride home real quick and get your car?
Say it takes you 15 minutes to walk to work, you ought to easily be able to do that in about 5 minutes on a bicycle. So you would only be delayed 5 minutes getting to your vehicle if you needed to go somewhere.
If not wanting to deal with the bulk of a bicycle, depending on your area, roller skates or inline skates may be an alternative. Although these take some getting used to for safely using in an urban environment. | When driving diesels it is important to start the engine a few minutes before you start driving it to let the engine warm up. However, it should be fine if you don't push the engine too hard or hit high speeds on your cold engine. It might also be a good idea to put some fuel additives in your fuel to help extend the life and well being of your vehicle. |
1,891 | **What things can I do to increase the life of my diesel engine when I make lots of short trips in the car?**
My daily routine means that the trip to work goes via another destination which gives my engine time to warm up properly, but the trip home from the office is so short the engine never warms up.
Ideally I'd drop the car off at home after the morning trip and walk to work, however due to my job I often use the car during office hours and at short notice.
**Since I'm unable to change my routine as the morning trip is essential, as is having the car available at work, is there anything I can do to lower the impact of the short journeys on my car?**
I've heard "magnatech" oils can help, but I'm pretty clueless when it comes to cars.
Any advice welcome! | 2011/09/09 | [
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/questions/1891",
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com",
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/users/1034/"
] | If short cycling your diesel engine, the primary concern I might have is not reaching operational temperatures. This is important to "boil off" water from combustion blow-by in the crankcase, and to allow some additive packages to properly work. The water issue would be a primary concern.
A secondary concern would be that initial startup blow by may be greater at colder temperatures.
In the end, I believe that the actual impact on your engine life will be small, but if you were concerned, a possible counter measure would be to change the oil more frequently. This practice is consistent with most manufacturer data, as short runs are considered harsher or at least less typical service.
A final thought...what is the oil spec for your engine. If it is a heavy weight crankcase oil, which might be fine in a fully warmed crankcase, but too heavy in a cold crankcase, you might consider a wide viscosity synthetic oil. There are 5w-40 and 0w-40 oils which are diesel rated, and most manufacturers since the 1980s have been recommending such weight oils. | Can you change your behaviour in any other way? - Perhaps time your shopping trips to coincide with your drive home from work to make that journey long enough to warm the engine up fully (and save another separate journey).
What are the work journeys you do like? Are they long enough to get the engine properly warmed up? If not, try and get out for a good long run every few days to get it properly warm.
Otherwise, use a good quality oil and good filters, and change it regularly (look for the "harsh conditions" service schedule in your car's handbook) |
1,891 | **What things can I do to increase the life of my diesel engine when I make lots of short trips in the car?**
My daily routine means that the trip to work goes via another destination which gives my engine time to warm up properly, but the trip home from the office is so short the engine never warms up.
Ideally I'd drop the car off at home after the morning trip and walk to work, however due to my job I often use the car during office hours and at short notice.
**Since I'm unable to change my routine as the morning trip is essential, as is having the car available at work, is there anything I can do to lower the impact of the short journeys on my car?**
I've heard "magnatech" oils can help, but I'm pretty clueless when it comes to cars.
Any advice welcome! | 2011/09/09 | [
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/questions/1891",
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com",
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/users/1034/"
] | If the trip is so short that the engine isn't even warming up, you're not doing the car any favours, Diesel engine or Petrol engine.
TBH I'd look into alternative modes of transport like a bicycle instead and just use the car when you absolutely have to. | Can you change your behaviour in any other way? - Perhaps time your shopping trips to coincide with your drive home from work to make that journey long enough to warm the engine up fully (and save another separate journey).
What are the work journeys you do like? Are they long enough to get the engine properly warmed up? If not, try and get out for a good long run every few days to get it properly warm.
Otherwise, use a good quality oil and good filters, and change it regularly (look for the "harsh conditions" service schedule in your car's handbook) |
1,891 | **What things can I do to increase the life of my diesel engine when I make lots of short trips in the car?**
My daily routine means that the trip to work goes via another destination which gives my engine time to warm up properly, but the trip home from the office is so short the engine never warms up.
Ideally I'd drop the car off at home after the morning trip and walk to work, however due to my job I often use the car during office hours and at short notice.
**Since I'm unable to change my routine as the morning trip is essential, as is having the car available at work, is there anything I can do to lower the impact of the short journeys on my car?**
I've heard "magnatech" oils can help, but I'm pretty clueless when it comes to cars.
Any advice welcome! | 2011/09/09 | [
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/questions/1891",
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com",
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/users/1034/"
] | If the trip is so short that the engine isn't even warming up, you're not doing the car any favours, Diesel engine or Petrol engine.
TBH I'd look into alternative modes of transport like a bicycle instead and just use the car when you absolutely have to. | **Mechanical Answer**
I would spend the extra couple of minutes allowing your car to warm up before starting your drive.
Even with letting it warm up, follow the maintenance schedule given in your owners manual for the extreme conditions (the one with shorter intervals for oil changes and other maintenance items).
**Alternate Transportation**
If you can walk within a reasonable amount of time between your home and work, it still seems an alternate mode of transport is ideal.
You said you'd consider doing your morning destination then back home and then walk to work if it weren't for needing to use the vehicle on short notice during the day.
Would riding a bicycle cut down the commute enough to when you do have those short notice needs you could ride home real quick and get your car?
Say it takes you 15 minutes to walk to work, you ought to easily be able to do that in about 5 minutes on a bicycle. So you would only be delayed 5 minutes getting to your vehicle if you needed to go somewhere.
If not wanting to deal with the bulk of a bicycle, depending on your area, roller skates or inline skates may be an alternative. Although these take some getting used to for safely using in an urban environment. |
1,891 | **What things can I do to increase the life of my diesel engine when I make lots of short trips in the car?**
My daily routine means that the trip to work goes via another destination which gives my engine time to warm up properly, but the trip home from the office is so short the engine never warms up.
Ideally I'd drop the car off at home after the morning trip and walk to work, however due to my job I often use the car during office hours and at short notice.
**Since I'm unable to change my routine as the morning trip is essential, as is having the car available at work, is there anything I can do to lower the impact of the short journeys on my car?**
I've heard "magnatech" oils can help, but I'm pretty clueless when it comes to cars.
Any advice welcome! | 2011/09/09 | [
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/questions/1891",
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com",
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/users/1034/"
] | Do nothing. Short trips are damaging for two reasons: fuel economy and engine wear. But unlike a gas car, excess "choke" fuel in a diesel doesn't strip lubrication from the cylinder walls. And as long as the engine gets up to operating temps every third or fourth trip, your oil won't accumulate water and lose lubricity.
You will burn more fuel per mile on short runs, but it won't damage the car the way you are describing it. | If short cycling your diesel engine, the primary concern I might have is not reaching operational temperatures. This is important to "boil off" water from combustion blow-by in the crankcase, and to allow some additive packages to properly work. The water issue would be a primary concern.
A secondary concern would be that initial startup blow by may be greater at colder temperatures.
In the end, I believe that the actual impact on your engine life will be small, but if you were concerned, a possible counter measure would be to change the oil more frequently. This practice is consistent with most manufacturer data, as short runs are considered harsher or at least less typical service.
A final thought...what is the oil spec for your engine. If it is a heavy weight crankcase oil, which might be fine in a fully warmed crankcase, but too heavy in a cold crankcase, you might consider a wide viscosity synthetic oil. There are 5w-40 and 0w-40 oils which are diesel rated, and most manufacturers since the 1980s have been recommending such weight oils. |
1,891 | **What things can I do to increase the life of my diesel engine when I make lots of short trips in the car?**
My daily routine means that the trip to work goes via another destination which gives my engine time to warm up properly, but the trip home from the office is so short the engine never warms up.
Ideally I'd drop the car off at home after the morning trip and walk to work, however due to my job I often use the car during office hours and at short notice.
**Since I'm unable to change my routine as the morning trip is essential, as is having the car available at work, is there anything I can do to lower the impact of the short journeys on my car?**
I've heard "magnatech" oils can help, but I'm pretty clueless when it comes to cars.
Any advice welcome! | 2011/09/09 | [
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/questions/1891",
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com",
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/users/1034/"
] | Can you change your behaviour in any other way? - Perhaps time your shopping trips to coincide with your drive home from work to make that journey long enough to warm the engine up fully (and save another separate journey).
What are the work journeys you do like? Are they long enough to get the engine properly warmed up? If not, try and get out for a good long run every few days to get it properly warm.
Otherwise, use a good quality oil and good filters, and change it regularly (look for the "harsh conditions" service schedule in your car's handbook) | When driving diesels it is important to start the engine a few minutes before you start driving it to let the engine warm up. However, it should be fine if you don't push the engine too hard or hit high speeds on your cold engine. It might also be a good idea to put some fuel additives in your fuel to help extend the life and well being of your vehicle. |
1,891 | **What things can I do to increase the life of my diesel engine when I make lots of short trips in the car?**
My daily routine means that the trip to work goes via another destination which gives my engine time to warm up properly, but the trip home from the office is so short the engine never warms up.
Ideally I'd drop the car off at home after the morning trip and walk to work, however due to my job I often use the car during office hours and at short notice.
**Since I'm unable to change my routine as the morning trip is essential, as is having the car available at work, is there anything I can do to lower the impact of the short journeys on my car?**
I've heard "magnatech" oils can help, but I'm pretty clueless when it comes to cars.
Any advice welcome! | 2011/09/09 | [
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/questions/1891",
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com",
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/users/1034/"
] | If short cycling your diesel engine, the primary concern I might have is not reaching operational temperatures. This is important to "boil off" water from combustion blow-by in the crankcase, and to allow some additive packages to properly work. The water issue would be a primary concern.
A secondary concern would be that initial startup blow by may be greater at colder temperatures.
In the end, I believe that the actual impact on your engine life will be small, but if you were concerned, a possible counter measure would be to change the oil more frequently. This practice is consistent with most manufacturer data, as short runs are considered harsher or at least less typical service.
A final thought...what is the oil spec for your engine. If it is a heavy weight crankcase oil, which might be fine in a fully warmed crankcase, but too heavy in a cold crankcase, you might consider a wide viscosity synthetic oil. There are 5w-40 and 0w-40 oils which are diesel rated, and most manufacturers since the 1980s have been recommending such weight oils. | When driving diesels it is important to start the engine a few minutes before you start driving it to let the engine warm up. However, it should be fine if you don't push the engine too hard or hit high speeds on your cold engine. It might also be a good idea to put some fuel additives in your fuel to help extend the life and well being of your vehicle. |
1,891 | **What things can I do to increase the life of my diesel engine when I make lots of short trips in the car?**
My daily routine means that the trip to work goes via another destination which gives my engine time to warm up properly, but the trip home from the office is so short the engine never warms up.
Ideally I'd drop the car off at home after the morning trip and walk to work, however due to my job I often use the car during office hours and at short notice.
**Since I'm unable to change my routine as the morning trip is essential, as is having the car available at work, is there anything I can do to lower the impact of the short journeys on my car?**
I've heard "magnatech" oils can help, but I'm pretty clueless when it comes to cars.
Any advice welcome! | 2011/09/09 | [
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/questions/1891",
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com",
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/users/1034/"
] | **Mechanical Answer**
I would spend the extra couple of minutes allowing your car to warm up before starting your drive.
Even with letting it warm up, follow the maintenance schedule given in your owners manual for the extreme conditions (the one with shorter intervals for oil changes and other maintenance items).
**Alternate Transportation**
If you can walk within a reasonable amount of time between your home and work, it still seems an alternate mode of transport is ideal.
You said you'd consider doing your morning destination then back home and then walk to work if it weren't for needing to use the vehicle on short notice during the day.
Would riding a bicycle cut down the commute enough to when you do have those short notice needs you could ride home real quick and get your car?
Say it takes you 15 minutes to walk to work, you ought to easily be able to do that in about 5 minutes on a bicycle. So you would only be delayed 5 minutes getting to your vehicle if you needed to go somewhere.
If not wanting to deal with the bulk of a bicycle, depending on your area, roller skates or inline skates may be an alternative. Although these take some getting used to for safely using in an urban environment. | Can you change your behaviour in any other way? - Perhaps time your shopping trips to coincide with your drive home from work to make that journey long enough to warm the engine up fully (and save another separate journey).
What are the work journeys you do like? Are they long enough to get the engine properly warmed up? If not, try and get out for a good long run every few days to get it properly warm.
Otherwise, use a good quality oil and good filters, and change it regularly (look for the "harsh conditions" service schedule in your car's handbook) |
7,140,661 | Im new to Cassandra, so bear with me.
So, I am building a search engine using Cassandra as the db. I am interacting with it through Pycassa.
Now, I want to output Cassandra's response to a webpage, having the user submitted a query.
I am aware of tools such as django, fastCGI, SCGI, etc to allow python to web interaction. However, how does one run a python script on a webserver without turning this server into a single point of failure ( i.e., if this server dies than the system is not accessible by the user) - and therefore negating one purpose of Cassandra? | 2011/08/21 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/7140661",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/904887/"
] | I've seen this problem before - sometimes people need much more CPU power and bandwidth to generate and serve some server generated HTML and images than they do to run the actual query in Cassandra. For one customer, this was many 10's times the number of servers serving the front end of the website than in their Cassandra cluster.
You'll need to load balance between these front end servers somehow - investigate running **haproxy** on a few dedicated machines. Its quick and easy to configure, and similarly easy to reconfigure when your setup changes (unlike DNS, which can take days to propagate changes). I think you can also configure nginx to do the same. If you keep per-session information in your front end servers, you'll need each client to go to the same front end server for each request - this is called "session persistence", and can be achieved by hashing the client's IP to pick the front end server. Haproxy will do this for you.
However this approach will again create a SPOF in your configuration (the haproxy server) - you should run more than one, and potentially have a hot standby. Finally you will need to somehow balance load between your haproxies - we typically use round robin DNS for this, as the nodes running haproxy seldom change.
The benefit of this system is that you can easily scale up (and down) the number of front end servers without changing your DNS. You can read (a little bit) more about the setup I'm referring to at: <http://www.acunu.com/blogs/andy-ormsby/using-cassandra-acunu-power-britains-got-talent/> | Theo Schlossnagle's [Scalable Internet Architectures](https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/067232699X) covers load balancing and a lot more. Highly recommended. |
15,798,555 | Say I have to populate database fields of the likes of Memory size where in a numerical value with a unit is supposed to be saved.
It would have been possible to hardcode the logic needed for validating the data entered by the user, had this been the only field that I needed to take care of at one particular place alone in the project. But that not being the case it sounds quite impractical and foolish even think about embedding information of the likes of 1 MB = 1000 KB in the source code.
I need to keep such info in the product in order to be able to compare the memory size field of two different entities.
Question: **What is the ideal way to go about storing scalar data with a unit in a system such that the unit without degrading the unit to a meaning less string? And can be used in comparison operations?**
EDIT:
Data is coming in from sources I do not control, eg spreadsheets exported by third-parties or data scraped off web pages etc. The units there may be any thing. Hope it makes the question clear. | 2013/04/03 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/15798555",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/338691/"
] | In this situation I would normalise the input to a consistent unit. So in your example, you would normalise to bytes, or perhaps megabytes.
If you had two columns and stored both the numeric value and the units the database will be much harder to query. For example, a query for "who has more than 10 gigs of storage" will involve inline calculations to handle all the possible units. This will prove difficult to index compared to a column expressed in standard units.
If a user enters a figure in gigabytes you probably would not want to display them back as a large number bytes. This is a user-interface concern - you would write something to display the number of bytes in the most useful unit.
If you strictly need to display values using the same units as entered, then add a "displayUnits" column alongside the number of bytes. Use this in the user interface. | I wrote an answer for something similar here [Custom unit conversion](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4495813/sql-custom-unit-conversion/4497760#4497760)
Basically, you want to store a "Unit of Measure" along with your measure. For example, you can have the value "100" in the value column, and "KB" in the unit\_of\_measure column.
If you need to compare this with another row that has "100" and "MB" you need to convert them to a common measure first. This can be done with the conversion table I showed in the other answer.
If at all possible, you should strive to normalize the measures before inserting the data in table. This is better from most perspectives. Failing that, I think using a conversion table is the way to go. |
7,045,427 | Let's say I have 20 classes open and I am debugging the app.
I step the debugger thro its breakpoints. At a certain line, I get distracted and started scrolling thro the current source (which is like 2000 lines long). Then I started wading thro the other 19 source files.
After ten minutes wading, I wish to return to the current debug line. I had even forgotten what class it was. What is the best way? Here are my worst practices:
* click on the step into icon and then step out
* click on the step over hoping I don't miss out on anything important.
* Search for the highlighted line in the long stack of debug trace. Fiddle around to change display to high contrast and then change it back when I locate the line.
All the above is not good practice. If I am not wrong, when I used Visual Studio writing C#, we had a button that brought us right back to the current debug line.
Is there such a button in Eclipse? Why not? If not, has someone a plugin to do that?
Do you have an alternative convenient practice? A plugin would be great. | 2011/08/12 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/7045427",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/140803/"
] | Clicking on the top item in the debug trace will do exactly what you want. | Just double click on the top item on debug trace view. it will take you to the line of code where the breakpoint is. |
7,045,427 | Let's say I have 20 classes open and I am debugging the app.
I step the debugger thro its breakpoints. At a certain line, I get distracted and started scrolling thro the current source (which is like 2000 lines long). Then I started wading thro the other 19 source files.
After ten minutes wading, I wish to return to the current debug line. I had even forgotten what class it was. What is the best way? Here are my worst practices:
* click on the step into icon and then step out
* click on the step over hoping I don't miss out on anything important.
* Search for the highlighted line in the long stack of debug trace. Fiddle around to change display to high contrast and then change it back when I locate the line.
All the above is not good practice. If I am not wrong, when I used Visual Studio writing C#, we had a button that brought us right back to the current debug line.
Is there such a button in Eclipse? Why not? If not, has someone a plugin to do that?
Do you have an alternative convenient practice? A plugin would be great. | 2011/08/12 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/7045427",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/140803/"
] | Clicking on the top item in the debug trace will do exactly what you want. | In some instances, clicking or double-clicking on the top item in the debug trace view will NOT work, like when you are already viewing the proper file.
Unfortunately there's no guaranteed one-click/keystroke that this works in all situations that I know of. But this works with two clicks:
Click on any line of the debug trace EXCEPT the top line. Then click on the top line.
Good luck with the code (we all have to work in messy environments sometimes!). |
7,045,427 | Let's say I have 20 classes open and I am debugging the app.
I step the debugger thro its breakpoints. At a certain line, I get distracted and started scrolling thro the current source (which is like 2000 lines long). Then I started wading thro the other 19 source files.
After ten minutes wading, I wish to return to the current debug line. I had even forgotten what class it was. What is the best way? Here are my worst practices:
* click on the step into icon and then step out
* click on the step over hoping I don't miss out on anything important.
* Search for the highlighted line in the long stack of debug trace. Fiddle around to change display to high contrast and then change it back when I locate the line.
All the above is not good practice. If I am not wrong, when I used Visual Studio writing C#, we had a button that brought us right back to the current debug line.
Is there such a button in Eclipse? Why not? If not, has someone a plugin to do that?
Do you have an alternative convenient practice? A plugin would be great. | 2011/08/12 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/7045427",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/140803/"
] | Clicking on the top item in the debug trace will do exactly what you want. | Click **Suspend** (Pause icon) first. |
7,045,427 | Let's say I have 20 classes open and I am debugging the app.
I step the debugger thro its breakpoints. At a certain line, I get distracted and started scrolling thro the current source (which is like 2000 lines long). Then I started wading thro the other 19 source files.
After ten minutes wading, I wish to return to the current debug line. I had even forgotten what class it was. What is the best way? Here are my worst practices:
* click on the step into icon and then step out
* click on the step over hoping I don't miss out on anything important.
* Search for the highlighted line in the long stack of debug trace. Fiddle around to change display to high contrast and then change it back when I locate the line.
All the above is not good practice. If I am not wrong, when I used Visual Studio writing C#, we had a button that brought us right back to the current debug line.
Is there such a button in Eclipse? Why not? If not, has someone a plugin to do that?
Do you have an alternative convenient practice? A plugin would be great. | 2011/08/12 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/7045427",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/140803/"
] | In some instances, clicking or double-clicking on the top item in the debug trace view will NOT work, like when you are already viewing the proper file.
Unfortunately there's no guaranteed one-click/keystroke that this works in all situations that I know of. But this works with two clicks:
Click on any line of the debug trace EXCEPT the top line. Then click on the top line.
Good luck with the code (we all have to work in messy environments sometimes!). | Just double click on the top item on debug trace view. it will take you to the line of code where the breakpoint is. |
7,045,427 | Let's say I have 20 classes open and I am debugging the app.
I step the debugger thro its breakpoints. At a certain line, I get distracted and started scrolling thro the current source (which is like 2000 lines long). Then I started wading thro the other 19 source files.
After ten minutes wading, I wish to return to the current debug line. I had even forgotten what class it was. What is the best way? Here are my worst practices:
* click on the step into icon and then step out
* click on the step over hoping I don't miss out on anything important.
* Search for the highlighted line in the long stack of debug trace. Fiddle around to change display to high contrast and then change it back when I locate the line.
All the above is not good practice. If I am not wrong, when I used Visual Studio writing C#, we had a button that brought us right back to the current debug line.
Is there such a button in Eclipse? Why not? If not, has someone a plugin to do that?
Do you have an alternative convenient practice? A plugin would be great. | 2011/08/12 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/7045427",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/140803/"
] | Just double click on the top item on debug trace view. it will take you to the line of code where the breakpoint is. | Click **Suspend** (Pause icon) first. |
7,045,427 | Let's say I have 20 classes open and I am debugging the app.
I step the debugger thro its breakpoints. At a certain line, I get distracted and started scrolling thro the current source (which is like 2000 lines long). Then I started wading thro the other 19 source files.
After ten minutes wading, I wish to return to the current debug line. I had even forgotten what class it was. What is the best way? Here are my worst practices:
* click on the step into icon and then step out
* click on the step over hoping I don't miss out on anything important.
* Search for the highlighted line in the long stack of debug trace. Fiddle around to change display to high contrast and then change it back when I locate the line.
All the above is not good practice. If I am not wrong, when I used Visual Studio writing C#, we had a button that brought us right back to the current debug line.
Is there such a button in Eclipse? Why not? If not, has someone a plugin to do that?
Do you have an alternative convenient practice? A plugin would be great. | 2011/08/12 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/7045427",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/140803/"
] | In some instances, clicking or double-clicking on the top item in the debug trace view will NOT work, like when you are already viewing the proper file.
Unfortunately there's no guaranteed one-click/keystroke that this works in all situations that I know of. But this works with two clicks:
Click on any line of the debug trace EXCEPT the top line. Then click on the top line.
Good luck with the code (we all have to work in messy environments sometimes!). | Click **Suspend** (Pause icon) first. |
122,983 | This is not necessarily a server-related question, but more of a system admin question that I think would related to many on SF.
I'm doing Sysadmin/IT consulting for a small company. I only work about 3 days a week for them on average.
If a server goes down or something like that during off hours (nights, weekends, 3am, etc) and they need it fixed during those time periods, should I be charging overtime for that? Or would I not be justified in charging overtime until I've logged 40 hours for the week?
Perhaps calling it overtime isn't the best name. I guess maybe its better to call it an off-peak hourly rate. Anyways I just was curious what other consultants did in these circumstances. | 2010/03/16 | [
"https://serverfault.com/questions/122983",
"https://serverfault.com",
"https://serverfault.com/users/21307/"
] | Well you would have had put it in your contract first. I would also say it depends on how expensive to you are to start with. If you pricey, you should probably not charge any more. If you are a pretty good bargain, might be fair to ask for more if after hours work.
Take into account how often this happens. If they are going down all the time because the developers release into production without testing etc than you probably are justified charging more. If this only happens once and a rare while, the extra relatively few dollars you get is probably not worth aggravating them or fighting over.
So if you are more expensive, but when stuff goes down you are there to fix it when they need it the most and don't give them nonsense over pocket change billing, you will probably get a better reputation and make more money in the long run. | You should communicate your preferences to your customer using the price. If you don't like to do off-peak work, charge extra. Then the customer will evaluate if getting it fixed ASAP is important for them or not.
Remember to make the pricing clear so that the customer also understands what he's buying and how much it costs. It's good for all parties to have clarity in these matters, the customer knows how much it costs if the server goes down on a weekend, and you get some extra cash for doing things you'd prefer doing in another timeslot. |
122,983 | This is not necessarily a server-related question, but more of a system admin question that I think would related to many on SF.
I'm doing Sysadmin/IT consulting for a small company. I only work about 3 days a week for them on average.
If a server goes down or something like that during off hours (nights, weekends, 3am, etc) and they need it fixed during those time periods, should I be charging overtime for that? Or would I not be justified in charging overtime until I've logged 40 hours for the week?
Perhaps calling it overtime isn't the best name. I guess maybe its better to call it an off-peak hourly rate. Anyways I just was curious what other consultants did in these circumstances. | 2010/03/16 | [
"https://serverfault.com/questions/122983",
"https://serverfault.com",
"https://serverfault.com/users/21307/"
] | You should communicate your preferences to your customer using the price. If you don't like to do off-peak work, charge extra. Then the customer will evaluate if getting it fixed ASAP is important for them or not.
Remember to make the pricing clear so that the customer also understands what he's buying and how much it costs. It's good for all parties to have clarity in these matters, the customer knows how much it costs if the server goes down on a weekend, and you get some extra cash for doing things you'd prefer doing in another timeslot. | If you're a contractor it is your job to change as much as you can. In fact it is the role of any businessman to charge whatever you can get away with. Market forces will dictate what that is.
Let's face it, you let your bank force you to spend hours several times a year interpreting and agreeing (with implicit consent) changes to your terms and conditions. Why? Because they can. Because you can't do anything about it if you want a banking service. It's not fair, it's not just, but it happens.
So you should treat your customers. Do whatever you can get away with. Of course, often you can't get away with much at all. |
122,983 | This is not necessarily a server-related question, but more of a system admin question that I think would related to many on SF.
I'm doing Sysadmin/IT consulting for a small company. I only work about 3 days a week for them on average.
If a server goes down or something like that during off hours (nights, weekends, 3am, etc) and they need it fixed during those time periods, should I be charging overtime for that? Or would I not be justified in charging overtime until I've logged 40 hours for the week?
Perhaps calling it overtime isn't the best name. I guess maybe its better to call it an off-peak hourly rate. Anyways I just was curious what other consultants did in these circumstances. | 2010/03/16 | [
"https://serverfault.com/questions/122983",
"https://serverfault.com",
"https://serverfault.com/users/21307/"
] | Pay scale (including off-hours rate) is definitely something you need to consider when writing your contract. I can't tell you what to do in any particular situation, but here's generally what I've done in the past:
As a salaried employee I negotiate my salary to cover a reasonable amount of on-call/off-hours time (monthly/quarterly patching, etc.), and when I've been told my salary is "too high" I've politely explained why & that I come at a lower rate if I am guaranteed no off-hours calls.
If the workload becomes unreasonable or we can't agree on a fair salary then it's time to part ways.
As a consultant I **always** have a separate off-ours rate for 7pm-6am, weekends and holidays in order to discourage clients treating me as a "Just call him!" guy. Depending on the client this has been anywhere from 1.1 to 2 times my base rate, and always with a 1 or 2 hour minimum charge attached for waking me up.
In both cases I make it clear to my employer exactly what constitutes an incident worth calling me for during off hours: Something better be down, and it better be impacting the business (e.g. if something went down but its redundancy partner is up and working it can probably wait). | You should communicate your preferences to your customer using the price. If you don't like to do off-peak work, charge extra. Then the customer will evaluate if getting it fixed ASAP is important for them or not.
Remember to make the pricing clear so that the customer also understands what he's buying and how much it costs. It's good for all parties to have clarity in these matters, the customer knows how much it costs if the server goes down on a weekend, and you get some extra cash for doing things you'd prefer doing in another timeslot. |
122,983 | This is not necessarily a server-related question, but more of a system admin question that I think would related to many on SF.
I'm doing Sysadmin/IT consulting for a small company. I only work about 3 days a week for them on average.
If a server goes down or something like that during off hours (nights, weekends, 3am, etc) and they need it fixed during those time periods, should I be charging overtime for that? Or would I not be justified in charging overtime until I've logged 40 hours for the week?
Perhaps calling it overtime isn't the best name. I guess maybe its better to call it an off-peak hourly rate. Anyways I just was curious what other consultants did in these circumstances. | 2010/03/16 | [
"https://serverfault.com/questions/122983",
"https://serverfault.com",
"https://serverfault.com/users/21307/"
] | Well you would have had put it in your contract first. I would also say it depends on how expensive to you are to start with. If you pricey, you should probably not charge any more. If you are a pretty good bargain, might be fair to ask for more if after hours work.
Take into account how often this happens. If they are going down all the time because the developers release into production without testing etc than you probably are justified charging more. If this only happens once and a rare while, the extra relatively few dollars you get is probably not worth aggravating them or fighting over.
So if you are more expensive, but when stuff goes down you are there to fix it when they need it the most and don't give them nonsense over pocket change billing, you will probably get a better reputation and make more money in the long run. | If you're a contractor it is your job to change as much as you can. In fact it is the role of any businessman to charge whatever you can get away with. Market forces will dictate what that is.
Let's face it, you let your bank force you to spend hours several times a year interpreting and agreeing (with implicit consent) changes to your terms and conditions. Why? Because they can. Because you can't do anything about it if you want a banking service. It's not fair, it's not just, but it happens.
So you should treat your customers. Do whatever you can get away with. Of course, often you can't get away with much at all. |
122,983 | This is not necessarily a server-related question, but more of a system admin question that I think would related to many on SF.
I'm doing Sysadmin/IT consulting for a small company. I only work about 3 days a week for them on average.
If a server goes down or something like that during off hours (nights, weekends, 3am, etc) and they need it fixed during those time periods, should I be charging overtime for that? Or would I not be justified in charging overtime until I've logged 40 hours for the week?
Perhaps calling it overtime isn't the best name. I guess maybe its better to call it an off-peak hourly rate. Anyways I just was curious what other consultants did in these circumstances. | 2010/03/16 | [
"https://serverfault.com/questions/122983",
"https://serverfault.com",
"https://serverfault.com/users/21307/"
] | Well you would have had put it in your contract first. I would also say it depends on how expensive to you are to start with. If you pricey, you should probably not charge any more. If you are a pretty good bargain, might be fair to ask for more if after hours work.
Take into account how often this happens. If they are going down all the time because the developers release into production without testing etc than you probably are justified charging more. If this only happens once and a rare while, the extra relatively few dollars you get is probably not worth aggravating them or fighting over.
So if you are more expensive, but when stuff goes down you are there to fix it when they need it the most and don't give them nonsense over pocket change billing, you will probably get a better reputation and make more money in the long run. | Pay scale (including off-hours rate) is definitely something you need to consider when writing your contract. I can't tell you what to do in any particular situation, but here's generally what I've done in the past:
As a salaried employee I negotiate my salary to cover a reasonable amount of on-call/off-hours time (monthly/quarterly patching, etc.), and when I've been told my salary is "too high" I've politely explained why & that I come at a lower rate if I am guaranteed no off-hours calls.
If the workload becomes unreasonable or we can't agree on a fair salary then it's time to part ways.
As a consultant I **always** have a separate off-ours rate for 7pm-6am, weekends and holidays in order to discourage clients treating me as a "Just call him!" guy. Depending on the client this has been anywhere from 1.1 to 2 times my base rate, and always with a 1 or 2 hour minimum charge attached for waking me up.
In both cases I make it clear to my employer exactly what constitutes an incident worth calling me for during off hours: Something better be down, and it better be impacting the business (e.g. if something went down but its redundancy partner is up and working it can probably wait). |
122,983 | This is not necessarily a server-related question, but more of a system admin question that I think would related to many on SF.
I'm doing Sysadmin/IT consulting for a small company. I only work about 3 days a week for them on average.
If a server goes down or something like that during off hours (nights, weekends, 3am, etc) and they need it fixed during those time periods, should I be charging overtime for that? Or would I not be justified in charging overtime until I've logged 40 hours for the week?
Perhaps calling it overtime isn't the best name. I guess maybe its better to call it an off-peak hourly rate. Anyways I just was curious what other consultants did in these circumstances. | 2010/03/16 | [
"https://serverfault.com/questions/122983",
"https://serverfault.com",
"https://serverfault.com/users/21307/"
] | Pay scale (including off-hours rate) is definitely something you need to consider when writing your contract. I can't tell you what to do in any particular situation, but here's generally what I've done in the past:
As a salaried employee I negotiate my salary to cover a reasonable amount of on-call/off-hours time (monthly/quarterly patching, etc.), and when I've been told my salary is "too high" I've politely explained why & that I come at a lower rate if I am guaranteed no off-hours calls.
If the workload becomes unreasonable or we can't agree on a fair salary then it's time to part ways.
As a consultant I **always** have a separate off-ours rate for 7pm-6am, weekends and holidays in order to discourage clients treating me as a "Just call him!" guy. Depending on the client this has been anywhere from 1.1 to 2 times my base rate, and always with a 1 or 2 hour minimum charge attached for waking me up.
In both cases I make it clear to my employer exactly what constitutes an incident worth calling me for during off hours: Something better be down, and it better be impacting the business (e.g. if something went down but its redundancy partner is up and working it can probably wait). | If you're a contractor it is your job to change as much as you can. In fact it is the role of any businessman to charge whatever you can get away with. Market forces will dictate what that is.
Let's face it, you let your bank force you to spend hours several times a year interpreting and agreeing (with implicit consent) changes to your terms and conditions. Why? Because they can. Because you can't do anything about it if you want a banking service. It's not fair, it's not just, but it happens.
So you should treat your customers. Do whatever you can get away with. Of course, often you can't get away with much at all. |
268,660 | For once, good news: comment community moderation is working!
I've recently gone through some deleted comments on my diamond sites, and turned up a few gems(?) of nastiness that I hadn't been notified of. These were comments that
* contained a "trigger word" for comment flag-deletion (i.e. could be deleted by a single community flag)
* had been flagged as "rude/offensive" and deleted.
However, none of the moderation team had seen these comments, because the flag that deleted them was dismissed by the auto-deletion and not passed into the mod queue.
In this particular case, had I seen the comments at the time, I would have taken some further action.
This leaves us with a problem - community comment moderation is working *too well* - and mods are missing things that they might like to know about. What solutions are there to this? | 2015/10/29 | [
"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/268660",
"https://meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/262823/"
] | *This solution originally proposed by [Adam Lear](https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/155160/anna-lear), the SE dev.*
---
Implement auto-bans for comments
--------------------------------
Currently, auto-bans exist for questions and answers - there's an unspecified threshold past which you are prevented from posting more questions/answers for X time (or until you clean up after yourself).
This could be implemented for comments as well - after X comments have been deleted by community offensive flagging, you're banned from commenting for Y time.
Using this method, we don't load more information that *may or may not* be action-worthy onto the diamond queues, but we still keep a method of stopping Bad Things happening. | *This solution originally proposed by [Undo](https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/215468/undo), a moderator for Hardware and Software Recommendations*
---
Add another admin information page
----------------------------------
Currently, mods have access to summary information pages containing reports on various things that go on around the site. This could be extended to another page, containing a report of "users with most flagged comments".
This allows moderators to *have* the information they need (rather than it being hidden behind invisible flags) at their disposal, but doesn't add workload to the diamond queues. |
268,660 | For once, good news: comment community moderation is working!
I've recently gone through some deleted comments on my diamond sites, and turned up a few gems(?) of nastiness that I hadn't been notified of. These were comments that
* contained a "trigger word" for comment flag-deletion (i.e. could be deleted by a single community flag)
* had been flagged as "rude/offensive" and deleted.
However, none of the moderation team had seen these comments, because the flag that deleted them was dismissed by the auto-deletion and not passed into the mod queue.
In this particular case, had I seen the comments at the time, I would have taken some further action.
This leaves us with a problem - community comment moderation is working *too well* - and mods are missing things that they might like to know about. What solutions are there to this? | 2015/10/29 | [
"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/268660",
"https://meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/262823/"
] | >
> **The below suggestion [has been implemented](https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/280681/152859)**
>
>
>
---
[Allow moderators to see a summary of flags against a user's comments](https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/243715/162102)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Once moderators know about actual or potential problems with a particular user, we can go to that user's profile to see more information. We can see all flags against that user's *posts*, but currently can't see anything about flagged *comments*. Some of my sites have users who specialize in problematic comments (not posts), but we can't easily see that. We can also see all a user's comments (including deleted ones), but we don't see flag history there either.
I would like be able to see that a user's comments had N offensive flags, M not-constructive flags, and so on for the other flag reasons. I can think of two places where this could be put in the interface:
1. On the flags page, add a summary with the counts by flag type. We only care about flags that were marked helpful. If a user also receives spurious flags, well that's not his fault so shrug. Either provide some indication of timing -- are these recent flags or old? -- or just make these links to the filters in #2 (probably easier).
2. On the "all comments" page, add filters so we can look at comments by type. We can already filter for deleted versus not deleted; please further filter the deleted ones by deletion reason (self-deletion, offensive flags, too-chatty flags, etc).
Just giving us a total number of flagged comments doesn't address the need, because obsolete flags are usually not a sign of trouble. Often, in fact, they're the sign of a helpful user -- the user commented with a question or suggestion, the post actually got fixed, and now the comment no longer applies. | *This solution originally proposed by [Adam Lear](https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/155160/anna-lear), the SE dev.*
---
Implement auto-bans for comments
--------------------------------
Currently, auto-bans exist for questions and answers - there's an unspecified threshold past which you are prevented from posting more questions/answers for X time (or until you clean up after yourself).
This could be implemented for comments as well - after X comments have been deleted by community offensive flagging, you're banned from commenting for Y time.
Using this method, we don't load more information that *may or may not* be action-worthy onto the diamond queues, but we still keep a method of stopping Bad Things happening. |
268,660 | For once, good news: comment community moderation is working!
I've recently gone through some deleted comments on my diamond sites, and turned up a few gems(?) of nastiness that I hadn't been notified of. These were comments that
* contained a "trigger word" for comment flag-deletion (i.e. could be deleted by a single community flag)
* had been flagged as "rude/offensive" and deleted.
However, none of the moderation team had seen these comments, because the flag that deleted them was dismissed by the auto-deletion and not passed into the mod queue.
In this particular case, had I seen the comments at the time, I would have taken some further action.
This leaves us with a problem - community comment moderation is working *too well* - and mods are missing things that they might like to know about. What solutions are there to this? | 2015/10/29 | [
"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/268660",
"https://meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/262823/"
] | >
> **The below suggestion [has been implemented](https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/280681/152859)**
>
>
>
---
[Allow moderators to see a summary of flags against a user's comments](https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/243715/162102)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Once moderators know about actual or potential problems with a particular user, we can go to that user's profile to see more information. We can see all flags against that user's *posts*, but currently can't see anything about flagged *comments*. Some of my sites have users who specialize in problematic comments (not posts), but we can't easily see that. We can also see all a user's comments (including deleted ones), but we don't see flag history there either.
I would like be able to see that a user's comments had N offensive flags, M not-constructive flags, and so on for the other flag reasons. I can think of two places where this could be put in the interface:
1. On the flags page, add a summary with the counts by flag type. We only care about flags that were marked helpful. If a user also receives spurious flags, well that's not his fault so shrug. Either provide some indication of timing -- are these recent flags or old? -- or just make these links to the filters in #2 (probably easier).
2. On the "all comments" page, add filters so we can look at comments by type. We can already filter for deleted versus not deleted; please further filter the deleted ones by deletion reason (self-deletion, offensive flags, too-chatty flags, etc).
Just giving us a total number of flagged comments doesn't address the need, because obsolete flags are usually not a sign of trouble. Often, in fact, they're the sign of a helpful user -- the user commented with a question or suggestion, the post actually got fixed, and now the comment no longer applies. | *This solution originally proposed by [Undo](https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/215468/undo), a moderator for Hardware and Software Recommendations*
---
Add another admin information page
----------------------------------
Currently, mods have access to summary information pages containing reports on various things that go on around the site. This could be extended to another page, containing a report of "users with most flagged comments".
This allows moderators to *have* the information they need (rather than it being hidden behind invisible flags) at their disposal, but doesn't add workload to the diamond queues. |
19,886 | I have some binaries and code to be deployed to various environments. I currently use pexpect library in python to connect and rsync over sash to sync the code. Currently the method uses push mechanism to deploy. Is there a better way to do this? Is pull mechanism better. Any suggestions? | 2011/09/01 | [
"https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/19886",
"https://unix.stackexchange.com",
"https://unix.stackexchange.com/users/10172/"
] | You may want to look at [Fabric](http://docs.fabfile.org/en/1.3.4/index.html) or [Capistrano](https://github.com/capistrano/capistrano). | You are probably looking for a [distributed revision control system](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_revision_control_system) like [Git](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git_%28software%29), [Mercurial](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercurial_%28software%29) etc. |
19,886 | I have some binaries and code to be deployed to various environments. I currently use pexpect library in python to connect and rsync over sash to sync the code. Currently the method uses push mechanism to deploy. Is there a better way to do this? Is pull mechanism better. Any suggestions? | 2011/09/01 | [
"https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/19886",
"https://unix.stackexchange.com",
"https://unix.stackexchange.com/users/10172/"
] | You are probably looking for a [distributed revision control system](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_revision_control_system) like [Git](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git_%28software%29), [Mercurial](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercurial_%28software%29) etc. | <http://engineering.twitter.com/2010/07/murder-fast-datacenter-code-deploys.html>
Here's some interesting implementation of Bittorrent protocol for distributed deploy by Twitter guys. |
19,886 | I have some binaries and code to be deployed to various environments. I currently use pexpect library in python to connect and rsync over sash to sync the code. Currently the method uses push mechanism to deploy. Is there a better way to do this? Is pull mechanism better. Any suggestions? | 2011/09/01 | [
"https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/19886",
"https://unix.stackexchange.com",
"https://unix.stackexchange.com/users/10172/"
] | You may want to look at [Fabric](http://docs.fabfile.org/en/1.3.4/index.html) or [Capistrano](https://github.com/capistrano/capistrano). | <http://engineering.twitter.com/2010/07/murder-fast-datacenter-code-deploys.html>
Here's some interesting implementation of Bittorrent protocol for distributed deploy by Twitter guys. |
31,070 | Epiphenomenalists believe that consciousness exists but has no effect on the physical world. Why do they believe that consciousness exists? It would be a phenomenon completely unlike anything else in the world, but since it has no effect on the physical world there cannot be any evidence of its existence. How do they justify the existence of such a singular phenomenon without any evidence for it? | 2015/12/31 | [
"https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/31070",
"https://philosophy.stackexchange.com",
"https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/users/18732/"
] | Chalmers calls this The Paradox of Phenomenal Judgment and discusses it in [chapter 5 of The Conscious Mind](https://books.google.co.il/books?id=0fZZQHOfdAAC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA172#v=onepage&q&f=false).
In essence, Chalmers believes roughly that indeed zombie-chalmers without that mysterious epiphenomena will report having it just as the real Chalmers, but will not be justified in doing so. Chalmers would say that "I know I have qualia and I know that I am justified in saying so", and he is aware that his zombie twin will say the same thing, but believes that the zombie will not be justified in saying so, and he is aware that the zombie would hold these exact same beliefs.
Eliezer Yudkowsky looks into Chalmers' explanation in [an interesting article in Less Wrong](http://lesswrong.com/lw/p7/zombies_zombies/).
I think there is no resolution to this paradox, and that at some level epiphenomenalists know it. In a way they are saying - reality is weird beyond our ability to make sense of it - and they are simply choosing to live with what they see as the least evil. They subscribe to living with that paradox as one subscribes to living without a leg, or a lung or a kidney. Their choice is a testimony to how much more absurd they find materialism. | Nearly all people assume that conscisousness exists, epiphenomenalists are not distinguished in this respect. The general belief in consciousness results from the fact, that everybody experiences himself as beeing conscious.
Epiphenomenalists do not claim that consciousness is an agent in human actions. Because they - like all other scientists until today - cannot show a causal relation between the subjective experience of consciousness and our objective and observable actions. Epiphenomenalists accept the present state of a causally closed physical domain. They do not speculate beyond the limits of present explanations. |
31,070 | Epiphenomenalists believe that consciousness exists but has no effect on the physical world. Why do they believe that consciousness exists? It would be a phenomenon completely unlike anything else in the world, but since it has no effect on the physical world there cannot be any evidence of its existence. How do they justify the existence of such a singular phenomenon without any evidence for it? | 2015/12/31 | [
"https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/31070",
"https://philosophy.stackexchange.com",
"https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/users/18732/"
] | At the risk of pursuing peace when all sides want war, you need some sense of what you mean by a cause. Many things have multiple causes, but in some sense you have to choose a cause to be the 'most concrete' cause in a given circumstance. You need to choose a relevant point of leverage for language, or all such distinctions become circular.
Consider thermodynamics. We can look at it in many ways. We can think of it as being about heat as a force, or about temperature as a measure, or about the distribution of 'microstates', or as the side-effects of the molecular motion that cannot be fully described. Each perspective focusses on the notion of cause differently.
You can choose one of these and declare all the others wrong, or you can admit they all amount to the same thing. If you take the view that separates them, you quickly descend into absolute nonsense. *This is the path that theory of mind seems to want to take.* They all want to choose one of several basically equivalent viewpoints and create bizarre word games to claim the alternatives are not equivalent, for reasons of historical pride.
If we look at the versions of thermodynamics, we can map them vaguely onto theories of mind
"Heat as a Force", maps onto a straight functionalism -- we are concerned with effects and making engineering work, and we see inputs as causes, ignoring the detail that allows the energy transfer to take place. We see this interpretation just fails to give us any reasonable grasp of where some of the heat goes, but that is just life. The force of heat is the idealization of heat energy into a causal force.
"Microstates" maps onto emergentism -- we don't want to delve into what causes statistical variations in the distribution of energy, even though we need to look at it as energy and deal with the distribution of that energy as it is transformed back and forth from this form to and from kinetic and other stored forms. We have just enough handle to do the math right in our engineering, and we stop there. Microstates are the mechanism of emergence of heat energy, with entropy and information as other potential 'multiple realizations'.
Molecular motion maps onto materialism -- we see how the more complex phenomenon might be reduced to a more concrete observed phenomenon, and we are willing to believe it is totally explained by that more basic physics -- even though we can't do the math in most cases. So there is a bit more faith here than we might really be comfortable with. Molecular motion is the systematic reduction of heat energy to simpler physics.
That leaves the "transmission of temperature" model to map onto epiphenomenalism -- we know that temperature represents the quantity of something, and that if we trace the temperature as it travels, we can account for most of what is going on. But we also know that temperature is not causal, it is not a force, just the trace of one. Temperature is the basic epiphenomenon of heat energy.
We can agree that it does not *cause* anything, but is always and everywhere an *effect* of some cause we don't want to trace any deeper. It has no effect, it only accompanies effects.
Temperature then behaves quite like the thing you complain is 'singular'. Making *neither* of them 'a phenomenon completely unlike anything else in the world'. (Especially since any good science teacher can probably do this same breakdown for four or five rather old domains from electricity to acidity that have gone through a succession of equivalent models, and these same four stable positions are easy to identify in finance and psychology, as well.)
So there is no element of 'singularity' or other awkwardness involved.
We know that consciousness traces causal activity, as temperature traces whatever you want to describe heat via.
Consciousness is there when there is a mental cause, but we don't see how it can be the cause itself, because it does not seem to be structured in a way that other causes in our world are. This is very much the same way temperature is a very clear indication that traces when heat effects occur, but is not very directly converted into any field or kinetic measure that reliably works with the rest of physics. | Chalmers calls this The Paradox of Phenomenal Judgment and discusses it in [chapter 5 of The Conscious Mind](https://books.google.co.il/books?id=0fZZQHOfdAAC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA172#v=onepage&q&f=false).
In essence, Chalmers believes roughly that indeed zombie-chalmers without that mysterious epiphenomena will report having it just as the real Chalmers, but will not be justified in doing so. Chalmers would say that "I know I have qualia and I know that I am justified in saying so", and he is aware that his zombie twin will say the same thing, but believes that the zombie will not be justified in saying so, and he is aware that the zombie would hold these exact same beliefs.
Eliezer Yudkowsky looks into Chalmers' explanation in [an interesting article in Less Wrong](http://lesswrong.com/lw/p7/zombies_zombies/).
I think there is no resolution to this paradox, and that at some level epiphenomenalists know it. In a way they are saying - reality is weird beyond our ability to make sense of it - and they are simply choosing to live with what they see as the least evil. They subscribe to living with that paradox as one subscribes to living without a leg, or a lung or a kidney. Their choice is a testimony to how much more absurd they find materialism. |
31,070 | Epiphenomenalists believe that consciousness exists but has no effect on the physical world. Why do they believe that consciousness exists? It would be a phenomenon completely unlike anything else in the world, but since it has no effect on the physical world there cannot be any evidence of its existence. How do they justify the existence of such a singular phenomenon without any evidence for it? | 2015/12/31 | [
"https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/31070",
"https://philosophy.stackexchange.com",
"https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/users/18732/"
] | At the risk of pursuing peace when all sides want war, you need some sense of what you mean by a cause. Many things have multiple causes, but in some sense you have to choose a cause to be the 'most concrete' cause in a given circumstance. You need to choose a relevant point of leverage for language, or all such distinctions become circular.
Consider thermodynamics. We can look at it in many ways. We can think of it as being about heat as a force, or about temperature as a measure, or about the distribution of 'microstates', or as the side-effects of the molecular motion that cannot be fully described. Each perspective focusses on the notion of cause differently.
You can choose one of these and declare all the others wrong, or you can admit they all amount to the same thing. If you take the view that separates them, you quickly descend into absolute nonsense. *This is the path that theory of mind seems to want to take.* They all want to choose one of several basically equivalent viewpoints and create bizarre word games to claim the alternatives are not equivalent, for reasons of historical pride.
If we look at the versions of thermodynamics, we can map them vaguely onto theories of mind
"Heat as a Force", maps onto a straight functionalism -- we are concerned with effects and making engineering work, and we see inputs as causes, ignoring the detail that allows the energy transfer to take place. We see this interpretation just fails to give us any reasonable grasp of where some of the heat goes, but that is just life. The force of heat is the idealization of heat energy into a causal force.
"Microstates" maps onto emergentism -- we don't want to delve into what causes statistical variations in the distribution of energy, even though we need to look at it as energy and deal with the distribution of that energy as it is transformed back and forth from this form to and from kinetic and other stored forms. We have just enough handle to do the math right in our engineering, and we stop there. Microstates are the mechanism of emergence of heat energy, with entropy and information as other potential 'multiple realizations'.
Molecular motion maps onto materialism -- we see how the more complex phenomenon might be reduced to a more concrete observed phenomenon, and we are willing to believe it is totally explained by that more basic physics -- even though we can't do the math in most cases. So there is a bit more faith here than we might really be comfortable with. Molecular motion is the systematic reduction of heat energy to simpler physics.
That leaves the "transmission of temperature" model to map onto epiphenomenalism -- we know that temperature represents the quantity of something, and that if we trace the temperature as it travels, we can account for most of what is going on. But we also know that temperature is not causal, it is not a force, just the trace of one. Temperature is the basic epiphenomenon of heat energy.
We can agree that it does not *cause* anything, but is always and everywhere an *effect* of some cause we don't want to trace any deeper. It has no effect, it only accompanies effects.
Temperature then behaves quite like the thing you complain is 'singular'. Making *neither* of them 'a phenomenon completely unlike anything else in the world'. (Especially since any good science teacher can probably do this same breakdown for four or five rather old domains from electricity to acidity that have gone through a succession of equivalent models, and these same four stable positions are easy to identify in finance and psychology, as well.)
So there is no element of 'singularity' or other awkwardness involved.
We know that consciousness traces causal activity, as temperature traces whatever you want to describe heat via.
Consciousness is there when there is a mental cause, but we don't see how it can be the cause itself, because it does not seem to be structured in a way that other causes in our world are. This is very much the same way temperature is a very clear indication that traces when heat effects occur, but is not very directly converted into any field or kinetic measure that reliably works with the rest of physics. | Nearly all people assume that conscisousness exists, epiphenomenalists are not distinguished in this respect. The general belief in consciousness results from the fact, that everybody experiences himself as beeing conscious.
Epiphenomenalists do not claim that consciousness is an agent in human actions. Because they - like all other scientists until today - cannot show a causal relation between the subjective experience of consciousness and our objective and observable actions. Epiphenomenalists accept the present state of a causally closed physical domain. They do not speculate beyond the limits of present explanations. |
62,121 | Do Mormons believe that marriage is eternal? | 2018/02/11 | [
"https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/62121",
"https://christianity.stackexchange.com",
"https://christianity.stackexchange.com/users/234/"
] | Not automatically, but Latter-Day Saints do believe that marriage, and the family unit that it forms the foundation of, *can and should be* a sacred, eternal covenant that lasts "for time and all eternity" rather than simply "till death do you part." Like other things of this life that touch on eternity, an eternal marriage has to be set up under Priesthood authority. This is done in a holy temple, in a ceremony known as a *sealing*, where the marriage is "sealed" upon them under the same authority that was given to Peter in the New Testament, that what he should bind on earth would be bound in heaven.
This can be done as part of a wedding ceremony, or at a later point if the couple was already married before coming to the temple. In the latter case, it is also possible to bring any children of theirs into the same covenant, to be sealed to their parents as an eternal family. (This is not necessary for children born after the parents are sealed in marriage; they are considered "born under the covenant".)
See [LDS article on Marriage](https://www.lds.org/topics/marriage?lang=eng) | We believe marriage can be eternal. But you need to meet the standards of that honor. [D&C 132:7](https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/132.7?lang=eng#p6) teaches:
>
> And verily I say unto you, that the conditions of this law are these: All covenants, contracts, bonds, obligations, oaths, vows, performances, connections, associations, or expectations, **that are not made and entered into and sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, of him who is anointed, both as well for time and for all eternity,** and that too most holy, by revelation and commandment through the medium of mine anointed, whom I have appointed on the earth to hold this power (and I have appointed unto my servant Joseph to hold this power in the last days, and there is never but one on the earth at a time on whom this power and the keys of this priesthood are conferred), are of no efficacy, virtue, or force in and after the resurrection from the dead; for all contracts that are not made unto this end **have an end when men are dead.**
>
>
>
The emphasis is mine, and it is for the purpose of making a complex discussion simple.
For a marriage1 to be eternal:
* The marriage must be made and entered into by the Holy Spirit of Promise. This means through the use of a specific priesthood authority — the sealing authority. (see [D&C 124:124](https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/124.124?lang=eng&clang=eng#p123))
* The marriage must be sealed by the Holy Spirit of Promise, a specific function of the Holy Ghost that is required for entrance into the Celestial Kingdom (see [D&C 76:50-70 (53)](https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/76.50-70?lang=eng&clang=eng#p52)). This is an issue of personal responsibility. The LDS Church believes the Lord gave us commandments and instructed us in behavior to set a standard for conduct, education, and preparation for heavenly opportunities (see [D&C 20:29-30](https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/20.29-30?lang=eng&clang=eng#p28)). Meeting these standards is not enough to justify salvation (see [Luke 17:10](https://www.lds.org/scriptures/nt/luke/17.10?lang=eng&clang=eng#p9) and [Mosiah 2:21](https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/mosiah/2.21?lang=eng&clang=eng#p20)), we must also depend on the atoning grace of Jesus Christ. However, we also believe that the atoning grace of Jesus Christ alone is not enough to justify salvation, that judgement is a very real event and that standards exist for the sake of that judgement (see [Acts 17:30-31](https://www.lds.org/scriptures/nt/acts/17.30-31?lang=eng&clang=eng#p29) and [John 12:48-49](https://www.lds.org/scriptures/nt/john/12.48-49?lang=eng&clang=eng#p47)). Thus, our part is to meet His standards for judgement and His part is to extend his atoning grace. Together salvation is attained. (This is a VERY SIMPLE introduction to a complicated subject, which is well beyond the scope of this question to discuss.)
* The person officiating over the marriage must have been annointed to do so. This is important. The Aaronic priesthood cannot seal a marriage. The Melchezidek Priesthood generally cannot seal a marriage. Only someone specifically called and given the sealing power can do so. (for example [Helaman 10:6-7](https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/hel/10.6-7?lang=eng&clang=eng#p5) and [D&C 81:2](https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/81.2?lang=eng#p1))
* Finally, the marriage must specifically announce that the sealing is for time and all eternity. In other words, if a man annointed to be a sealer also serves as a bishop (who has the authority to perform civil marriages), then the fact that he is a sealer does NOT mean that the performance of a civil marriage constitutes an eternal sealing and those being married should not conclude otherwise. *(You'd think this was obvious, but every church's history can point to people whose misunderstanding of a loosely worded or incompletely expressed idea (such as happens when you read a single verse out of context) caused problems. Such people can create schisms, so the extra clarity is appreciated.)*
And if you don't meet all four of those requirements, your marriage ends when the first spouse dies.
---
1 *The word "marriage" to a Mormon means a civil marriage or a marriage made under the authority of another religion. It is a temporary union that ends when the first spouse dies. Mormons who qualify to enter our temples may participate in a "sealing," which is a potentially permanent union for time and all eternity. They are called a "sealing" to (a) distinguish it from a mere "marriage" and (b) to honor the priesthood key (the sealing authority) upon which it depends. However, in an effort to avoid as much confusion as possible, I'll use the much more recognizable word "marriage" throughout my answer.* |
186,004 | Is there a Linux / Unix tool that does de-duplication similar to the way Veeam does it before compressing and sending a backup with rsync to a mirrored location? | 2015/02/20 | [
"https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/186004",
"https://unix.stackexchange.com",
"https://unix.stackexchange.com/users/3570/"
] | I don't know what Veeam is, but I've been recommending [Borg Backup](https://borgbackup.readthedocs.org/en/stable/) to people for a while, since I discovered it. It's certainly a deduplicating backup tool, but you don't need to use rsync with it. It has its own method of transport. | [Backshift](http://stromberg.dnsalias.org/~strombrg/backshift/) looks like it would fit your requirement. I've not used it - but I do want to try it out. [How it works](http://stromberg.dnsalias.org/~strombrg/backshift/documentation/for-all/how-it-works.html).
[Lessfs](http://www.lessfs.com/wordpress/) also looks a good contender. Again, I've not used it but may give it a whirl. |
328,231 | I wonder if I need pull-up resistors when using the PCF8575 I/O extender.
It's not directly mentioned in the datasheet (<http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/pcf8575.pdf>). The datasheet does remark that the I/O ports are ***quasi-bidirectional push-pull design***, but I'm not sure if that says anything about internal pull-ups.
The PCF8575 is connected to ACPL-247 opto-couplers for input (collector/emittor side) and NCV8402D mosfets for output. | 2017/09/08 | [
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/328231",
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com",
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com/users/80785/"
] | The only real need for pull-ups would be to ensure that either the output starts or goes high when the output is not driven or to force the pin into a particular state when the pin has an open input.
The spec sheet says "At power on, the I/Os are high. In this mode,
only a current source (IOH) to VCC is active." That is, the maker already thought of that for you, **assuming you don't need it to start out low**....
However, if your particular design needs to hold a particular pin in some state while you switch it around, that is another matter. | You don't need additional pull-up resistors.
The PCF8575's datasheet says that:
>
> At power on, the I/Os are high.
>
>
>
So the outputs are in a known state. |
231,132 | Greetings all,
Right now I have a fairly standard video card with 2 DVI ports, one powering my single monitor and another powering my HDTV (with a DVI-to-HDMI cable), which are in separate rooms. I never need to have my monitor and TV active at the same time.
I'm looking into a possible computer upgrade. I'd like to know if the following situation is possible. I want three monitors on my desk powered by a single card, which I hear these new Eyefinity cards are capable of. But, I also want my TV hooked up. At any given time, I would want either my three monitors active or my TV active, never both at once. So it seems to me it might be possible to do this all a single 3-port card with a splitter of some kind.
Is this possible? What hardware would I need?
Thanks! | 2011/01/10 | [
"https://superuser.com/questions/231132",
"https://superuser.com",
"https://superuser.com/users/62140/"
] | Since this was technically never answered properly for others who may be interested in the same thing, here is the answer:
Yes, this is quite possible. Since the DisplayPort is required for your triple-display setup to work with Eyefinity, you will still have a free DVI or HDMI (on most if not all cards, this is actually just the output of a built-in DVI>HDMI converter) port. So assuming the remaining monitor or TV has the respective available port and you have the necessary cables and adapters, if necessary, then you will not need any "special" hardware to do it.
Keep in mind that when using Eyefinity for the triple-display, the remaining DVI/HDMI-connected display will have no signal. | Any reason you want all 3 off the same card? You should be able to get the same effect and more (all 4 on at once if you wanted) by simply getting another dual-dvi graphics card. |
231,132 | Greetings all,
Right now I have a fairly standard video card with 2 DVI ports, one powering my single monitor and another powering my HDTV (with a DVI-to-HDMI cable), which are in separate rooms. I never need to have my monitor and TV active at the same time.
I'm looking into a possible computer upgrade. I'd like to know if the following situation is possible. I want three monitors on my desk powered by a single card, which I hear these new Eyefinity cards are capable of. But, I also want my TV hooked up. At any given time, I would want either my three monitors active or my TV active, never both at once. So it seems to me it might be possible to do this all a single 3-port card with a splitter of some kind.
Is this possible? What hardware would I need?
Thanks! | 2011/01/10 | [
"https://superuser.com/questions/231132",
"https://superuser.com",
"https://superuser.com/users/62140/"
] | Since this was technically never answered properly for others who may be interested in the same thing, here is the answer:
Yes, this is quite possible. Since the DisplayPort is required for your triple-display setup to work with Eyefinity, you will still have a free DVI or HDMI (on most if not all cards, this is actually just the output of a built-in DVI>HDMI converter) port. So assuming the remaining monitor or TV has the respective available port and you have the necessary cables and adapters, if necessary, then you will not need any "special" hardware to do it.
Keep in mind that when using Eyefinity for the triple-display, the remaining DVI/HDMI-connected display will have no signal. | The ATI cards only support two "old world" interfaces at a time. (5xxx Series) Old world is everything which is not displayport.
So 1x Display + 1x DVI + 1x HDMI is possible but not 2x DVI + 1x HDMI. Note that a displayport-> DVI/HDMI Adapter will count as HDMI/DVI and not as displayport. See ATIs FAQ on this: <http://www.amd.com/us/products/technologies/amd-eyefinity-technology/how-to/Pages/faqs.aspx#how-many-monitors> |
231,132 | Greetings all,
Right now I have a fairly standard video card with 2 DVI ports, one powering my single monitor and another powering my HDTV (with a DVI-to-HDMI cable), which are in separate rooms. I never need to have my monitor and TV active at the same time.
I'm looking into a possible computer upgrade. I'd like to know if the following situation is possible. I want three monitors on my desk powered by a single card, which I hear these new Eyefinity cards are capable of. But, I also want my TV hooked up. At any given time, I would want either my three monitors active or my TV active, never both at once. So it seems to me it might be possible to do this all a single 3-port card with a splitter of some kind.
Is this possible? What hardware would I need?
Thanks! | 2011/01/10 | [
"https://superuser.com/questions/231132",
"https://superuser.com",
"https://superuser.com/users/62140/"
] | Since this was technically never answered properly for others who may be interested in the same thing, here is the answer:
Yes, this is quite possible. Since the DisplayPort is required for your triple-display setup to work with Eyefinity, you will still have a free DVI or HDMI (on most if not all cards, this is actually just the output of a built-in DVI>HDMI converter) port. So assuming the remaining monitor or TV has the respective available port and you have the necessary cables and adapters, if necessary, then you will not need any "special" hardware to do it.
Keep in mind that when using Eyefinity for the triple-display, the remaining DVI/HDMI-connected display will have no signal. | You would need a video card that supports 3 outputs. You can use a DVI Splitter because all a splitter does is display the same image on all monitors. It does not support extended desktop applications. |
148,777 | This has never come up, so I've never thought how a data or programming model should work that simulates (a) bird's eye view of cars moving and some rudimentary physics, (b) how the cars would follow a road layout and (c) how an efficient data structure for roads would look like.
Obviously, this question also means to ask how the road data structures would interact with cars.
Any recommendations, or reviews of such data models? | 2012/05/15 | [
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/148777",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com",
"https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/users/54158/"
] | I don't know whether you need life-perfect simulation or not, just one of my previous project as an example.
This was a part of the program for studying highway code (I'm not sure this is the correct word). It was developed in 1996 for Window 3.1 so the computer resources were much more limited that today. The program consisted of multiply random moving vehicles and single handled by the user (blue one on the screenshot). I divided the area with 40x40 cells that could be visually distinct but from the point of view of a car this was a single unit of analyzing and decision making. So for a virtual area of 4000x3000 pixels the program needed only 100x75 array of different data specific to road traffic and positions of the vehicles. The crosses were a more complex structures with the states of allowed directions and intentions of the participants appearing as temporal states and available for others also. | Roads need defined lanes: a spline that determines the center of each lane is probably the most convenient. Lane and shoulder boundaries may also make sense, if only for road-drawing purposes.
The interesting datastructure element is the ability to split and merge lanes: your lane splines should be associated with edges in a directed multigraph.
Cars need a position and a velocity; they should be able to efficiently query which cars are ahead/behind/beside them, in order to do rudimentary navigation. They will also need a bounding box, and of course a collision model... |
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