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511 | The purpose of this question is to get a clear policy about [reading-order](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reading-order "show questions tagged 'reading-order'") questions.
There have been instances where reading order questions have been closed because ["there doesn't seem to be any connection between the different... novels"](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/788/what-order-should-i-read-thomas-pynchons-novels-in#comment2330_788), such as the question [What order should I read Thomas Pynchon's novels in?](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/788/what-order-should-i-read-thomas-pynchons-novels-in) This creates problems because it's not exactly clear what qualifies as a connection between the different novels. For example, the question <https://literature.stackexchange.com/q/1783/111> isn't about books in the same series, but some community members have argued that the question is on-topic because the books revolve around a common theme.
What is the criteria for whether reading order questions are on-topic? | 2017/02/22 | [
"https://literature.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/511",
"https://literature.meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://literature.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] | Don't ask for a recommended reading order, ask for things that inform a choice of reading order
===============================================================================================
Let me back up a bit. **Why do people want to ask about reading order in the first place?** In 99% of the cases, you can't possibly go wrong with publication order. This is the order hundreds, thousands or millions of people (had to) read the texts when they were first released and in most cases this is also the order the author initially wanted people to experience them in. Publication order is usually easily determined by a quick glance at Wikipedia or some other source and doesn't require an "expert" answer on Stack Exchange (exception could be older works where the publication order might not be well documented).
This means that when people ask for a reading order of a set of books, they must have some reason to assume that there must be other factors which make deviating from publication order a good idea. Common reasons include:
* Publication order does not correspond to the chronological order of the plot. This is commonly the case when prequels are written later or when gaps in the story are filled in.
* Texts may be published in a different order than they were written. It's reasonable to assume ([but not necessarily the case](https://literature.stackexchange.com/a/141/298)), that following this more "natural" order will lead to better reading experience.
* This usually but not always goes hand in hand with the first point, but multiple texts surrounding the same story often spoil or foreshadow each others' plot twists. By changing the reading order, one might be able to enhance the suspense and satisfaction of plot twists. A popular example of this from the world of movies is [Machete order](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/11964/31127) for watching Star Wars.
* Sometimes multiple tangentially related stories are being told throughout several books. Do you read one story first and then the other? Do you interleave them in publication other? Do the stories intersect at important points in the plots due to which the books should ideally be interleaved in a different order?
I think that in all of these cases, we can craft better questions and answers if we just **ask directly about the thing that makes us think that publication order might not be the best**. *"What is the best order to read X in?"* is a fairly vague, broad and potentially very subjective question. However, all of the following are answerable questions, that help *the asker make an informed decision about the reading order themselves*:
* *What is the chronological order of the books in the X series?*
* *What order were X's novels written in?*
* *Can the books set in the X universe be split into separate subseries and how do those interrelate?*
Such questions would result in useful content that people can use to find a recording according to their own preferences. Note that [popular](https://i.stack.imgur.com/JmnAP.jpg) [answers](https://i.stack.imgur.com/339aO.jpg) [to](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VZpSf.jpg) existing reading order questions don't necessarily present a reading order. But they give the asker all the relevant information to pick out their own order without the risk of spoilers and with the chance to enhance their reading experience.
I want to make clear that I'm not advocating a blanket ban on reading order questions. The [Harper Lee question](https://literature.stackexchange.com/q/131/298) is an example of a very useful and evidently answerable question about an optimal reading order. But what makes it a good question is that *it focuses on the reason why one might deviate from publication order*. If you don't provide that reason in the question, you might just end up with an answer that is essentially "publication order, duh", but if you do that gives answerers a basis for telling you *why* one or the other might be better.
Another thing that came up in chat is asking questions *about a specific reading order*. Again, I think these can be good questions, if they want to discuss the merits of a certain order in way that falls into the scope of literary analysis. Going back to the example of Machete order (although it's not a literary example, it helps to illustrate the point), I could imagine the following question being answered in a way that is no more subjective than any other literary analysis:
* *How does Machete order improve the plot of Star Wars by reordering the major plot twists of the story?*
If we make reading-order questions about the reasons to deviate from publication order, and try to focus on the underlying information that would make someone choose and a different, then this will automatically eliminate reading-order questions about works where reading order is arbitrary (because all works are completely independent) or should necessarily be publication order (because each work builds on the previous one). | I think there are actually two classes of questions that might both be asked as "reading order" questions:
1. Questions about linked series of books (or plays, poems, etc.). These are the types of reading/viewing order questions we're used to seeing on SFF. For these it's clear that there is some factual basis for answers that's verifiable in some way (e.g. publication order, chronological order of events within universe, etc.).
2. Questions that might also be phrased "where do I start with author X?" (Or genre Y, or national literary tradition Z, etc.). These are cases where there's not necessarily a "within universe" connection between the works, but the prospective reader is simply trying to figure out how to tackle a monumental body of work and get a good introduction to its themes and tropes.
Now, for case #2, a lot of "primarily opinion-based" bells might be ringing there. But I believe that, at least in some cases, a well-researched answer could be supported by evidence. For example, if the question were asking for a reading order of Shakespeare's plays, an answer might provide an overview of which plays are typically covered in an Intro to Shakespeare course, based on a sampling of college syllabi. |
511 | The purpose of this question is to get a clear policy about [reading-order](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reading-order "show questions tagged 'reading-order'") questions.
There have been instances where reading order questions have been closed because ["there doesn't seem to be any connection between the different... novels"](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/788/what-order-should-i-read-thomas-pynchons-novels-in#comment2330_788), such as the question [What order should I read Thomas Pynchon's novels in?](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/788/what-order-should-i-read-thomas-pynchons-novels-in) This creates problems because it's not exactly clear what qualifies as a connection between the different novels. For example, the question <https://literature.stackexchange.com/q/1783/111> isn't about books in the same series, but some community members have argued that the question is on-topic because the books revolve around a common theme.
What is the criteria for whether reading order questions are on-topic? | 2017/02/22 | [
"https://literature.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/511",
"https://literature.meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://literature.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] | Reading order questions are a chance for us to offer practical, experience-based advice on how best to approach specific sections of the material this site is about. Obviously they should adhere to [good subjective](https://stackoverflow.blog/2010/09/good-subjective-bad-subjective/), of course, and should support their solutions clearly by explaining why and how the suggested reading order is a good one. But I'm honestly kind of baffled at the pushback against having questions that are so well-fitted to this site.
In the interests of [optimising for pearls, not sand](https://stackoverflow.blog/2011/06/optimizing-for-pearls-not-sand/), we would expect these questions to specify why the querent suspects the reading order of that particular group of works is non-obvious/non-trivial. To avoid collecting answers that aren't actionable solutions to the querent's problem we would close such questions as unclear or too broad--same as with any other kind of question.
And to be clear, reading order is not reading recommendation. Asking the order one should read a set implies that one has already chosen to read the set--so it's not [shopping](https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/158809/244929) and the primary reasons shopping questions are bad (both open-ended and quickly dated) don't transfer.
We just have to expect the same level of quality from reading-order questions and answers that we do from every other subjective question, and this will become a small but valuable subset of our site's content. | I would propose:
On-topic requests will ask for an ordering according a well-defined, non-subjective criteria.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here I'm thinking of things like:
* Publication order: "In what order were the *Narnia* books published?"
* Order by the internal chronology within the fiction: "What is the chronological order of the *Narnia* books?"
* Writing order: "Jane Austen's books were not published in the order they were written; in what order did Austen originally write them?"
* Identification and ordering of sub-series:"Which Discworld books have the Witches in them?", or "What are the various sub-series of the Discworld books?").
For large, intricate series, I think requesting a **reading guide** to a series makes for a great question -- based on chronology, subseries, a common element ("What are all the Dragonlance stories with Raistlin in them, by the fictional chronology?"). As long as a well-defined criteria for the guide is given, I think this falls within the bounds I've described here.
---
There might be other well-defined orderings that could be asked about; this can't be an exhaustive list.
But I would like to see reading-order questions nudged towards asking for a *particular* order - publishing, chronological, etc, rather than just asking "What order should I read this in?". I think it would be much clearer to have one question for publication order and a separate one for chronological order, than to have those be two different, contrasting answers to the same question, with vote-counts implying that one of these is "better" or "more correct" than the other.
---
Which is one part of a larger observation: **requesting subjective suggestions for reading order, is exactly the same as asking for a reading recommendation.** It may be a limited, well-scoped, well-defined reading recommendation, but it still boils down to "what do you recommend that I read," which we have [firmly come down against](https://literature.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2/should-recommendation-questions-be-on-topic).
This is the case whether the question is "What volumes of this series are essential and which can I skip"; or "What ordering of this author's works will best make me appreciate his themes and ideas"; or "I know the publication and chronology orders, but maybe *you* have a *different* reading order that makes reading the series *really fantastic*." These are all great things to discuss, but they are very poor Stack Exchange questions, and will have all the problems we're trying to avoid with reading recommendations.
Effectively, my position is that **requesting lists, orderings, subgroups of books is fine; requesting *recommendations* for reading order is just another recommendation quetion.** |
511 | The purpose of this question is to get a clear policy about [reading-order](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reading-order "show questions tagged 'reading-order'") questions.
There have been instances where reading order questions have been closed because ["there doesn't seem to be any connection between the different... novels"](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/788/what-order-should-i-read-thomas-pynchons-novels-in#comment2330_788), such as the question [What order should I read Thomas Pynchon's novels in?](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/788/what-order-should-i-read-thomas-pynchons-novels-in) This creates problems because it's not exactly clear what qualifies as a connection between the different novels. For example, the question <https://literature.stackexchange.com/q/1783/111> isn't about books in the same series, but some community members have argued that the question is on-topic because the books revolve around a common theme.
What is the criteria for whether reading order questions are on-topic? | 2017/02/22 | [
"https://literature.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/511",
"https://literature.meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://literature.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] | Don't ask for a recommended reading order, ask for things that inform a choice of reading order
===============================================================================================
Let me back up a bit. **Why do people want to ask about reading order in the first place?** In 99% of the cases, you can't possibly go wrong with publication order. This is the order hundreds, thousands or millions of people (had to) read the texts when they were first released and in most cases this is also the order the author initially wanted people to experience them in. Publication order is usually easily determined by a quick glance at Wikipedia or some other source and doesn't require an "expert" answer on Stack Exchange (exception could be older works where the publication order might not be well documented).
This means that when people ask for a reading order of a set of books, they must have some reason to assume that there must be other factors which make deviating from publication order a good idea. Common reasons include:
* Publication order does not correspond to the chronological order of the plot. This is commonly the case when prequels are written later or when gaps in the story are filled in.
* Texts may be published in a different order than they were written. It's reasonable to assume ([but not necessarily the case](https://literature.stackexchange.com/a/141/298)), that following this more "natural" order will lead to better reading experience.
* This usually but not always goes hand in hand with the first point, but multiple texts surrounding the same story often spoil or foreshadow each others' plot twists. By changing the reading order, one might be able to enhance the suspense and satisfaction of plot twists. A popular example of this from the world of movies is [Machete order](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/11964/31127) for watching Star Wars.
* Sometimes multiple tangentially related stories are being told throughout several books. Do you read one story first and then the other? Do you interleave them in publication other? Do the stories intersect at important points in the plots due to which the books should ideally be interleaved in a different order?
I think that in all of these cases, we can craft better questions and answers if we just **ask directly about the thing that makes us think that publication order might not be the best**. *"What is the best order to read X in?"* is a fairly vague, broad and potentially very subjective question. However, all of the following are answerable questions, that help *the asker make an informed decision about the reading order themselves*:
* *What is the chronological order of the books in the X series?*
* *What order were X's novels written in?*
* *Can the books set in the X universe be split into separate subseries and how do those interrelate?*
Such questions would result in useful content that people can use to find a recording according to their own preferences. Note that [popular](https://i.stack.imgur.com/JmnAP.jpg) [answers](https://i.stack.imgur.com/339aO.jpg) [to](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VZpSf.jpg) existing reading order questions don't necessarily present a reading order. But they give the asker all the relevant information to pick out their own order without the risk of spoilers and with the chance to enhance their reading experience.
I want to make clear that I'm not advocating a blanket ban on reading order questions. The [Harper Lee question](https://literature.stackexchange.com/q/131/298) is an example of a very useful and evidently answerable question about an optimal reading order. But what makes it a good question is that *it focuses on the reason why one might deviate from publication order*. If you don't provide that reason in the question, you might just end up with an answer that is essentially "publication order, duh", but if you do that gives answerers a basis for telling you *why* one or the other might be better.
Another thing that came up in chat is asking questions *about a specific reading order*. Again, I think these can be good questions, if they want to discuss the merits of a certain order in way that falls into the scope of literary analysis. Going back to the example of Machete order (although it's not a literary example, it helps to illustrate the point), I could imagine the following question being answered in a way that is no more subjective than any other literary analysis:
* *How does Machete order improve the plot of Star Wars by reordering the major plot twists of the story?*
If we make reading-order questions about the reasons to deviate from publication order, and try to focus on the underlying information that would make someone choose and a different, then this will automatically eliminate reading-order questions about works where reading order is arbitrary (because all works are completely independent) or should necessarily be publication order (because each work builds on the previous one). | I would propose:
On-topic requests will ask for an ordering according a well-defined, non-subjective criteria.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here I'm thinking of things like:
* Publication order: "In what order were the *Narnia* books published?"
* Order by the internal chronology within the fiction: "What is the chronological order of the *Narnia* books?"
* Writing order: "Jane Austen's books were not published in the order they were written; in what order did Austen originally write them?"
* Identification and ordering of sub-series:"Which Discworld books have the Witches in them?", or "What are the various sub-series of the Discworld books?").
For large, intricate series, I think requesting a **reading guide** to a series makes for a great question -- based on chronology, subseries, a common element ("What are all the Dragonlance stories with Raistlin in them, by the fictional chronology?"). As long as a well-defined criteria for the guide is given, I think this falls within the bounds I've described here.
---
There might be other well-defined orderings that could be asked about; this can't be an exhaustive list.
But I would like to see reading-order questions nudged towards asking for a *particular* order - publishing, chronological, etc, rather than just asking "What order should I read this in?". I think it would be much clearer to have one question for publication order and a separate one for chronological order, than to have those be two different, contrasting answers to the same question, with vote-counts implying that one of these is "better" or "more correct" than the other.
---
Which is one part of a larger observation: **requesting subjective suggestions for reading order, is exactly the same as asking for a reading recommendation.** It may be a limited, well-scoped, well-defined reading recommendation, but it still boils down to "what do you recommend that I read," which we have [firmly come down against](https://literature.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2/should-recommendation-questions-be-on-topic).
This is the case whether the question is "What volumes of this series are essential and which can I skip"; or "What ordering of this author's works will best make me appreciate his themes and ideas"; or "I know the publication and chronology orders, but maybe *you* have a *different* reading order that makes reading the series *really fantastic*." These are all great things to discuss, but they are very poor Stack Exchange questions, and will have all the problems we're trying to avoid with reading recommendations.
Effectively, my position is that **requesting lists, orderings, subgroups of books is fine; requesting *recommendations* for reading order is just another recommendation quetion.** |
511 | The purpose of this question is to get a clear policy about [reading-order](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reading-order "show questions tagged 'reading-order'") questions.
There have been instances where reading order questions have been closed because ["there doesn't seem to be any connection between the different... novels"](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/788/what-order-should-i-read-thomas-pynchons-novels-in#comment2330_788), such as the question [What order should I read Thomas Pynchon's novels in?](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/788/what-order-should-i-read-thomas-pynchons-novels-in) This creates problems because it's not exactly clear what qualifies as a connection between the different novels. For example, the question <https://literature.stackexchange.com/q/1783/111> isn't about books in the same series, but some community members have argued that the question is on-topic because the books revolve around a common theme.
What is the criteria for whether reading order questions are on-topic? | 2017/02/22 | [
"https://literature.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/511",
"https://literature.meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://literature.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] | Reading order questions are a chance for us to offer practical, experience-based advice on how best to approach specific sections of the material this site is about. Obviously they should adhere to [good subjective](https://stackoverflow.blog/2010/09/good-subjective-bad-subjective/), of course, and should support their solutions clearly by explaining why and how the suggested reading order is a good one. But I'm honestly kind of baffled at the pushback against having questions that are so well-fitted to this site.
In the interests of [optimising for pearls, not sand](https://stackoverflow.blog/2011/06/optimizing-for-pearls-not-sand/), we would expect these questions to specify why the querent suspects the reading order of that particular group of works is non-obvious/non-trivial. To avoid collecting answers that aren't actionable solutions to the querent's problem we would close such questions as unclear or too broad--same as with any other kind of question.
And to be clear, reading order is not reading recommendation. Asking the order one should read a set implies that one has already chosen to read the set--so it's not [shopping](https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/158809/244929) and the primary reasons shopping questions are bad (both open-ended and quickly dated) don't transfer.
We just have to expect the same level of quality from reading-order questions and answers that we do from every other subjective question, and this will become a small but valuable subset of our site's content. | All of them should be on topic.
===============================
Look. Most [reading-order](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reading-order "show questions tagged 'reading-order'") questions are by people who *don't know anything about the books*. They want to know how to read them.
Let's take a few examples.
If someone wants to know what order to read [rick-riordan](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/rick-riordan "show questions tagged 'rick-riordan'")'s books1 then great - they're all in the same universe, and there is a good order to read them in.
However, if someone wants to know what order to read [william-shakespeare](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/william-shakespeare "show questions tagged 'william-shakespeare'")'s plays, which *don't*, AFAIK, have a specific order, then **post an answer that says that it doesn't matter**.
Essentially, [reading-order](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reading-order "show questions tagged 'reading-order'") questions want to know how to read them. If there is a specific answer, perfect! Tell them what order. If, however, there *isn't* a specific answer, then also perfect! Tell them the answer - that it doesn't matter.
---
1[Blatant self promotion.](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/715/in-what-order-should-rick-riordans-mythological-series-be-read-to-make-the-most/717#717) |
511 | The purpose of this question is to get a clear policy about [reading-order](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reading-order "show questions tagged 'reading-order'") questions.
There have been instances where reading order questions have been closed because ["there doesn't seem to be any connection between the different... novels"](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/788/what-order-should-i-read-thomas-pynchons-novels-in#comment2330_788), such as the question [What order should I read Thomas Pynchon's novels in?](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/788/what-order-should-i-read-thomas-pynchons-novels-in) This creates problems because it's not exactly clear what qualifies as a connection between the different novels. For example, the question <https://literature.stackexchange.com/q/1783/111> isn't about books in the same series, but some community members have argued that the question is on-topic because the books revolve around a common theme.
What is the criteria for whether reading order questions are on-topic? | 2017/02/22 | [
"https://literature.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/511",
"https://literature.meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://literature.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] | Don't ask for a recommended reading order, ask for things that inform a choice of reading order
===============================================================================================
Let me back up a bit. **Why do people want to ask about reading order in the first place?** In 99% of the cases, you can't possibly go wrong with publication order. This is the order hundreds, thousands or millions of people (had to) read the texts when they were first released and in most cases this is also the order the author initially wanted people to experience them in. Publication order is usually easily determined by a quick glance at Wikipedia or some other source and doesn't require an "expert" answer on Stack Exchange (exception could be older works where the publication order might not be well documented).
This means that when people ask for a reading order of a set of books, they must have some reason to assume that there must be other factors which make deviating from publication order a good idea. Common reasons include:
* Publication order does not correspond to the chronological order of the plot. This is commonly the case when prequels are written later or when gaps in the story are filled in.
* Texts may be published in a different order than they were written. It's reasonable to assume ([but not necessarily the case](https://literature.stackexchange.com/a/141/298)), that following this more "natural" order will lead to better reading experience.
* This usually but not always goes hand in hand with the first point, but multiple texts surrounding the same story often spoil or foreshadow each others' plot twists. By changing the reading order, one might be able to enhance the suspense and satisfaction of plot twists. A popular example of this from the world of movies is [Machete order](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/11964/31127) for watching Star Wars.
* Sometimes multiple tangentially related stories are being told throughout several books. Do you read one story first and then the other? Do you interleave them in publication other? Do the stories intersect at important points in the plots due to which the books should ideally be interleaved in a different order?
I think that in all of these cases, we can craft better questions and answers if we just **ask directly about the thing that makes us think that publication order might not be the best**. *"What is the best order to read X in?"* is a fairly vague, broad and potentially very subjective question. However, all of the following are answerable questions, that help *the asker make an informed decision about the reading order themselves*:
* *What is the chronological order of the books in the X series?*
* *What order were X's novels written in?*
* *Can the books set in the X universe be split into separate subseries and how do those interrelate?*
Such questions would result in useful content that people can use to find a recording according to their own preferences. Note that [popular](https://i.stack.imgur.com/JmnAP.jpg) [answers](https://i.stack.imgur.com/339aO.jpg) [to](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VZpSf.jpg) existing reading order questions don't necessarily present a reading order. But they give the asker all the relevant information to pick out their own order without the risk of spoilers and with the chance to enhance their reading experience.
I want to make clear that I'm not advocating a blanket ban on reading order questions. The [Harper Lee question](https://literature.stackexchange.com/q/131/298) is an example of a very useful and evidently answerable question about an optimal reading order. But what makes it a good question is that *it focuses on the reason why one might deviate from publication order*. If you don't provide that reason in the question, you might just end up with an answer that is essentially "publication order, duh", but if you do that gives answerers a basis for telling you *why* one or the other might be better.
Another thing that came up in chat is asking questions *about a specific reading order*. Again, I think these can be good questions, if they want to discuss the merits of a certain order in way that falls into the scope of literary analysis. Going back to the example of Machete order (although it's not a literary example, it helps to illustrate the point), I could imagine the following question being answered in a way that is no more subjective than any other literary analysis:
* *How does Machete order improve the plot of Star Wars by reordering the major plot twists of the story?*
If we make reading-order questions about the reasons to deviate from publication order, and try to focus on the underlying information that would make someone choose and a different, then this will automatically eliminate reading-order questions about works where reading order is arbitrary (because all works are completely independent) or should necessarily be publication order (because each work builds on the previous one). | All of them should be on topic.
===============================
Look. Most [reading-order](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reading-order "show questions tagged 'reading-order'") questions are by people who *don't know anything about the books*. They want to know how to read them.
Let's take a few examples.
If someone wants to know what order to read [rick-riordan](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/rick-riordan "show questions tagged 'rick-riordan'")'s books1 then great - they're all in the same universe, and there is a good order to read them in.
However, if someone wants to know what order to read [william-shakespeare](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/william-shakespeare "show questions tagged 'william-shakespeare'")'s plays, which *don't*, AFAIK, have a specific order, then **post an answer that says that it doesn't matter**.
Essentially, [reading-order](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reading-order "show questions tagged 'reading-order'") questions want to know how to read them. If there is a specific answer, perfect! Tell them what order. If, however, there *isn't* a specific answer, then also perfect! Tell them the answer - that it doesn't matter.
---
1[Blatant self promotion.](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/715/in-what-order-should-rick-riordans-mythological-series-be-read-to-make-the-most/717#717) |
511 | The purpose of this question is to get a clear policy about [reading-order](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reading-order "show questions tagged 'reading-order'") questions.
There have been instances where reading order questions have been closed because ["there doesn't seem to be any connection between the different... novels"](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/788/what-order-should-i-read-thomas-pynchons-novels-in#comment2330_788), such as the question [What order should I read Thomas Pynchon's novels in?](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/788/what-order-should-i-read-thomas-pynchons-novels-in) This creates problems because it's not exactly clear what qualifies as a connection between the different novels. For example, the question <https://literature.stackexchange.com/q/1783/111> isn't about books in the same series, but some community members have argued that the question is on-topic because the books revolve around a common theme.
What is the criteria for whether reading order questions are on-topic? | 2017/02/22 | [
"https://literature.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/511",
"https://literature.meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://literature.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] | Don't ask for a recommended reading order, ask for things that inform a choice of reading order
===============================================================================================
Let me back up a bit. **Why do people want to ask about reading order in the first place?** In 99% of the cases, you can't possibly go wrong with publication order. This is the order hundreds, thousands or millions of people (had to) read the texts when they were first released and in most cases this is also the order the author initially wanted people to experience them in. Publication order is usually easily determined by a quick glance at Wikipedia or some other source and doesn't require an "expert" answer on Stack Exchange (exception could be older works where the publication order might not be well documented).
This means that when people ask for a reading order of a set of books, they must have some reason to assume that there must be other factors which make deviating from publication order a good idea. Common reasons include:
* Publication order does not correspond to the chronological order of the plot. This is commonly the case when prequels are written later or when gaps in the story are filled in.
* Texts may be published in a different order than they were written. It's reasonable to assume ([but not necessarily the case](https://literature.stackexchange.com/a/141/298)), that following this more "natural" order will lead to better reading experience.
* This usually but not always goes hand in hand with the first point, but multiple texts surrounding the same story often spoil or foreshadow each others' plot twists. By changing the reading order, one might be able to enhance the suspense and satisfaction of plot twists. A popular example of this from the world of movies is [Machete order](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/11964/31127) for watching Star Wars.
* Sometimes multiple tangentially related stories are being told throughout several books. Do you read one story first and then the other? Do you interleave them in publication other? Do the stories intersect at important points in the plots due to which the books should ideally be interleaved in a different order?
I think that in all of these cases, we can craft better questions and answers if we just **ask directly about the thing that makes us think that publication order might not be the best**. *"What is the best order to read X in?"* is a fairly vague, broad and potentially very subjective question. However, all of the following are answerable questions, that help *the asker make an informed decision about the reading order themselves*:
* *What is the chronological order of the books in the X series?*
* *What order were X's novels written in?*
* *Can the books set in the X universe be split into separate subseries and how do those interrelate?*
Such questions would result in useful content that people can use to find a recording according to their own preferences. Note that [popular](https://i.stack.imgur.com/JmnAP.jpg) [answers](https://i.stack.imgur.com/339aO.jpg) [to](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VZpSf.jpg) existing reading order questions don't necessarily present a reading order. But they give the asker all the relevant information to pick out their own order without the risk of spoilers and with the chance to enhance their reading experience.
I want to make clear that I'm not advocating a blanket ban on reading order questions. The [Harper Lee question](https://literature.stackexchange.com/q/131/298) is an example of a very useful and evidently answerable question about an optimal reading order. But what makes it a good question is that *it focuses on the reason why one might deviate from publication order*. If you don't provide that reason in the question, you might just end up with an answer that is essentially "publication order, duh", but if you do that gives answerers a basis for telling you *why* one or the other might be better.
Another thing that came up in chat is asking questions *about a specific reading order*. Again, I think these can be good questions, if they want to discuss the merits of a certain order in way that falls into the scope of literary analysis. Going back to the example of Machete order (although it's not a literary example, it helps to illustrate the point), I could imagine the following question being answered in a way that is no more subjective than any other literary analysis:
* *How does Machete order improve the plot of Star Wars by reordering the major plot twists of the story?*
If we make reading-order questions about the reasons to deviate from publication order, and try to focus on the underlying information that would make someone choose and a different, then this will automatically eliminate reading-order questions about works where reading order is arbitrary (because all works are completely independent) or should necessarily be publication order (because each work builds on the previous one). | Reading order questions are a chance for us to offer practical, experience-based advice on how best to approach specific sections of the material this site is about. Obviously they should adhere to [good subjective](https://stackoverflow.blog/2010/09/good-subjective-bad-subjective/), of course, and should support their solutions clearly by explaining why and how the suggested reading order is a good one. But I'm honestly kind of baffled at the pushback against having questions that are so well-fitted to this site.
In the interests of [optimising for pearls, not sand](https://stackoverflow.blog/2011/06/optimizing-for-pearls-not-sand/), we would expect these questions to specify why the querent suspects the reading order of that particular group of works is non-obvious/non-trivial. To avoid collecting answers that aren't actionable solutions to the querent's problem we would close such questions as unclear or too broad--same as with any other kind of question.
And to be clear, reading order is not reading recommendation. Asking the order one should read a set implies that one has already chosen to read the set--so it's not [shopping](https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/158809/244929) and the primary reasons shopping questions are bad (both open-ended and quickly dated) don't transfer.
We just have to expect the same level of quality from reading-order questions and answers that we do from every other subjective question, and this will become a small but valuable subset of our site's content. |
34,234 | How do I transfer photos and videos between iPad and iPad 2? | 2011/12/20 | [
"https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/34234",
"https://apple.stackexchange.com",
"https://apple.stackexchange.com/users/15309/"
] | This depends, do you have iCloud? as you can sync through iCloud.
You can also configure all the settings in iTunes. So you can import all the images into iTunes, once they are there you can connect the other iPad and sync them.
If you do not want to keep the iPad 1, you can just connect it to iTunes, sync it and then connect the iPad 2 and restore it from the back up of the 1st iPad. | The original question doesn't have enough detail to really offer a solution here. But to clarify previous answers, the fastest way to transfer photos and videos between an iPad and an iPad 2 would be to sync to a single installation of iTunes/iPhoto/Aperture.
A slower but simpler way would be to run Dropbox on the iPad, click on the UPLOAD tab at the bottom of the page, and upload all the photos and videos to the Dropbox. On the iPad 2, reverse the process and download all the photos back.
If you're only talking about a few photos and you don't want to do anything outside of the Photos app, you could simply email the photos to yourself from the iPad and save them to your photo library (via the Mail app) on the iPad 2.
I suspect all three answers sound simplistic, but it's hard to know what you're trying to achieve and where you're getting stuck. |
34,234 | How do I transfer photos and videos between iPad and iPad 2? | 2011/12/20 | [
"https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/34234",
"https://apple.stackexchange.com",
"https://apple.stackexchange.com/users/15309/"
] | This depends, do you have iCloud? as you can sync through iCloud.
You can also configure all the settings in iTunes. So you can import all the images into iTunes, once they are there you can connect the other iPad and sync them.
If you do not want to keep the iPad 1, you can just connect it to iTunes, sync it and then connect the iPad 2 and restore it from the back up of the 1st iPad. | No additional computer or "Cloud" necessary!
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ofUkg9Eb8s>
works brilliantly if you have a Camera Connection Kit (non-Apple one may even do)
You may need to reset the target iPad (press Home & Power button) to get it to highlight "import".
Remember that your charging lead goes from the source iPad & CCK into the target iPad. This idea is great if you're on holiday in a camp site for example. |
34,234 | How do I transfer photos and videos between iPad and iPad 2? | 2011/12/20 | [
"https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/34234",
"https://apple.stackexchange.com",
"https://apple.stackexchange.com/users/15309/"
] | The original question doesn't have enough detail to really offer a solution here. But to clarify previous answers, the fastest way to transfer photos and videos between an iPad and an iPad 2 would be to sync to a single installation of iTunes/iPhoto/Aperture.
A slower but simpler way would be to run Dropbox on the iPad, click on the UPLOAD tab at the bottom of the page, and upload all the photos and videos to the Dropbox. On the iPad 2, reverse the process and download all the photos back.
If you're only talking about a few photos and you don't want to do anything outside of the Photos app, you could simply email the photos to yourself from the iPad and save them to your photo library (via the Mail app) on the iPad 2.
I suspect all three answers sound simplistic, but it's hard to know what you're trying to achieve and where you're getting stuck. | No additional computer or "Cloud" necessary!
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ofUkg9Eb8s>
works brilliantly if you have a Camera Connection Kit (non-Apple one may even do)
You may need to reset the target iPad (press Home & Power button) to get it to highlight "import".
Remember that your charging lead goes from the source iPad & CCK into the target iPad. This idea is great if you're on holiday in a camp site for example. |
74,828 | It's a common practice to highlight an element on hover state.
By highlighting it, I obviously mean making it more visible than other elements.
But lately, I've witnessed the opposite trend on a couple of websites :
Opacity is set to 0.5 or less on hover, which makes the hovered element less visible instead.
To me, this is nothing but a bad practice.
Or is it a new trend backed by some well known data that I'm unaware of? | 2015/03/13 | [
"https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/74828",
"https://ux.stackexchange.com",
"https://ux.stackexchange.com/users/31968/"
] | The purpose of the hover state is to give visual feedback to the user highlighting an interaction opportunity, which does not necessarily require a visual highlighting.
While it has commonly been implemented in a way where a solid and prominent color was lightened on hover, this is not the only valid use. The appropriate use will depend on the context and other interaction elements in view and their relationship. | I agree that it is **currently** a bad practice, primarily because it is returning to the days of metaphoric design. The designer is trying to inspire the appearance of (and a realworld reference to) a frosted sheet of glass floating above the surface of the rest of the interface.
In this age of Modern-UI, it is common practice to avoid metaphoric/skeuomorphic elements in our designs.
From a purely UI standpoint, I don't think there is anything wrong with floating sheets of frosted glass. They are pretty in a nostogic kind of way... and they do focus the user's attention on a subset of input options which is what they are supposed to do.
They just are currently not popular; non-standard enough to be considered mainstream yet still too familiar to called revolutionary. Just a little too... dated. |
74,828 | It's a common practice to highlight an element on hover state.
By highlighting it, I obviously mean making it more visible than other elements.
But lately, I've witnessed the opposite trend on a couple of websites :
Opacity is set to 0.5 or less on hover, which makes the hovered element less visible instead.
To me, this is nothing but a bad practice.
Or is it a new trend backed by some well known data that I'm unaware of? | 2015/03/13 | [
"https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/74828",
"https://ux.stackexchange.com",
"https://ux.stackexchange.com/users/31968/"
] | I see your point – but I'll try to explain in two paragraphs why I think it's **not** 'bad practice' at all, while personally I also dislike this effect.
* Trying to imaging the opposite approach: every element has an oppacity <1 and only the 'highlighted' element has an oppacity =1 does not feel 'right' or 'better'
* 'highlight' in the context of a group of objects doesn't automatically mean, that the object/image should be seen 'as it should be' or 'with full saturation' or 'brighter' or the like. It basically only means the highlighted object should '***stand out***' from the rest. How that '*standing out*' effect is actually achieved is a different question – e.g. thinking of this text-overlay-effect that is/was quite popular, or changing color in text-links, or adding a border or the like – even making an object invisible on rollover. All of these practices could be technically considered 'highlights'.
One more 'real world' example: in the top navigation here on ux.stackexchange.com the main menu items ("Questions", "Tags" etc) change color on rollover – from bright white to some yellow/orange tone. So technically the rollover text's contrast to the background is lowered on hover. But IMHO it's still a '*highlight*' effect since it gives you a visual feedback that your mouse pointer is within the linked element. The menu item stands out from the rest – it's highlighted. | I agree that it is **currently** a bad practice, primarily because it is returning to the days of metaphoric design. The designer is trying to inspire the appearance of (and a realworld reference to) a frosted sheet of glass floating above the surface of the rest of the interface.
In this age of Modern-UI, it is common practice to avoid metaphoric/skeuomorphic elements in our designs.
From a purely UI standpoint, I don't think there is anything wrong with floating sheets of frosted glass. They are pretty in a nostogic kind of way... and they do focus the user's attention on a subset of input options which is what they are supposed to do.
They just are currently not popular; non-standard enough to be considered mainstream yet still too familiar to called revolutionary. Just a little too... dated. |
74,828 | It's a common practice to highlight an element on hover state.
By highlighting it, I obviously mean making it more visible than other elements.
But lately, I've witnessed the opposite trend on a couple of websites :
Opacity is set to 0.5 or less on hover, which makes the hovered element less visible instead.
To me, this is nothing but a bad practice.
Or is it a new trend backed by some well known data that I'm unaware of? | 2015/03/13 | [
"https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/74828",
"https://ux.stackexchange.com",
"https://ux.stackexchange.com/users/31968/"
] | ### Which of these things is not like the other?
[I tried lowering the opacity to 50%](http://codepen.io/run-time/full/MYPZxM/) to see how it looked and without the context of the mouse cursor **this could be interpreted as a disabled button**.
With the context of the mouse cursor, however, I really don't think users would get confused.
On the other hand, highlighting the button feels more inviting and has **less of a chance that a user interprets the button as unavailable** (even without the cursor)
 | I agree that it is **currently** a bad practice, primarily because it is returning to the days of metaphoric design. The designer is trying to inspire the appearance of (and a realworld reference to) a frosted sheet of glass floating above the surface of the rest of the interface.
In this age of Modern-UI, it is common practice to avoid metaphoric/skeuomorphic elements in our designs.
From a purely UI standpoint, I don't think there is anything wrong with floating sheets of frosted glass. They are pretty in a nostogic kind of way... and they do focus the user's attention on a subset of input options which is what they are supposed to do.
They just are currently not popular; non-standard enough to be considered mainstream yet still too familiar to called revolutionary. Just a little too... dated. |
134,693 | I'm not sure whether this is the right place to ask this kind of question.
We are launching a website for selling coupons. And there user can search coupons and companies(brands), like in google search there are sections like "All", "Images", "Videos" etc.
But in our case the "Companies" section will find shops, cafes, restaurants, cinemas, theatres, parks etc.
To name it "Companies" seems weird.
And I'm stuck on this. What is the best word for the section from point of UX?
I also thought about "Establishments", but it seems to be too long and not clear enough. | 2020/09/14 | [
"https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/134693",
"https://ux.stackexchange.com",
"https://ux.stackexchange.com/users/139189/"
] | Instead of looking for the kind of store or establishment, what can be helpful is to search the activity type:
* Leisure
* Free time
* Entertainment | It's best to find out what words your users are using when you're naming things.
Then make sure you're matching the words and phrases you use in your interface with the words and phrases your users are using when they're searching for these things.
This is good for user experience, good for the consistency and findability of your content, and good for SEO.
You could use a keyword research tool to explore search data to find out their most commonly-used words and phrases, or something like Google Search Console. You could also use your in-site searches, if you have access - but I think your site/app is probably not live yet. |
3,267,632 | In explanations I've read about public key cryptography, it is said that some large number is come up with by multiplying together 2 extremely large primes. Since factoring the product of large primes is almost impossibly time-consuming, you have security.
This seems like a problem that could be trivially solved with rainbow tables. If you know the approximate size of primes used and know there are 2 of them, you could quickly construct a rainbow table. It'd be a mighty large table, but it could be done and the task could be parallelized across hardware.
Why are rainbow tables not an effective way to beat public key crypto based on multiplying large primes?
Disclaimer: obviously tens of thousands of crazy-smart security conscious people didn't just happen to miss for decades what I thought up in an afternoon. I assume I'm misunderstanding this because I was reading simplified layman explanations (eg: if more than 2 numbers are used) but I don't know enough yet to know where my knowledge gap is.
*Edit:* I know "rainbow table" relates to using pre-calculated *hashes* in a lookup table but the above sounds like a rainbow table attack so I'm using the term here.
---
*Edit 2:* As noted in the answers, there's no way to store just all of the primes, much less all of their products.
* [This site](http://www.bennetyee.org/ucsd-pages/Courses/cse127.w03/lec10/index.html) says there are about this many 512 bit primes: ((2^511) \* 1) / (512 log(2)) = 4.35 × 10151
* The [mass of the sun](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun) is 2 × 1030 kg or 2 × 1033 g
* That's 2.17 × 10124 primes per gram of the sun.
* Qty. of 512 bit numbers that can fit in a kilobyte: 1 kb = 1024 bytes = 8192 bits / 512 = 16
* That can fit in a terabyte: 16\*1024\*1024\*1024 = 1.72 × 1010
* Petabyte: 16\*1024\*1024\*1024\*1024 = 1.72 × 1013
* Exabyte: 16\*1024\*1024\*1024\*1024\*1024 = 1.72 × 1016
Even if 1 exabyte weighed 1 gram, we're nowhere close to reaching the 2.17 × 10124 needed to be able to fit all of these numbers into a hard drive with the mass of the sun | 2010/07/16 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3267632",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/356/"
] | The primes used in RSA and Diffie-Hellman are typically on the order of 2512. In comparison, there are only about 2256 atoms in the known universe. That means 2512 is large enough to assign 2256 unique numbers to every atom in the universe.
There is simply no way to store/calculate that much data.
---
As an aside, I assume you mean "a large table of primes" - rainbow tables are specificly tailored for hashes, and have no real meaning here. | I think the main problem is that rainbow tables pregenerated for certain algorithms use a rather "small" range (usually something in the range of 128 bits). This doesn't usually cover the whole range, but speeds the brute force process up. They usually consume some TB of space.
In prime factorization, primes are much larger (for secure RSA, 2048 bits are recommended). So the rainbow tables wouldn't be "mighty large", but impossible to store anywhere (using up like millions of TB of space).
Also, rainbow tables use hash chains too further speed up the process ([Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_tables) has a good explanation) which can't be used for primes. |
3,267,632 | In explanations I've read about public key cryptography, it is said that some large number is come up with by multiplying together 2 extremely large primes. Since factoring the product of large primes is almost impossibly time-consuming, you have security.
This seems like a problem that could be trivially solved with rainbow tables. If you know the approximate size of primes used and know there are 2 of them, you could quickly construct a rainbow table. It'd be a mighty large table, but it could be done and the task could be parallelized across hardware.
Why are rainbow tables not an effective way to beat public key crypto based on multiplying large primes?
Disclaimer: obviously tens of thousands of crazy-smart security conscious people didn't just happen to miss for decades what I thought up in an afternoon. I assume I'm misunderstanding this because I was reading simplified layman explanations (eg: if more than 2 numbers are used) but I don't know enough yet to know where my knowledge gap is.
*Edit:* I know "rainbow table" relates to using pre-calculated *hashes* in a lookup table but the above sounds like a rainbow table attack so I'm using the term here.
---
*Edit 2:* As noted in the answers, there's no way to store just all of the primes, much less all of their products.
* [This site](http://www.bennetyee.org/ucsd-pages/Courses/cse127.w03/lec10/index.html) says there are about this many 512 bit primes: ((2^511) \* 1) / (512 log(2)) = 4.35 × 10151
* The [mass of the sun](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun) is 2 × 1030 kg or 2 × 1033 g
* That's 2.17 × 10124 primes per gram of the sun.
* Qty. of 512 bit numbers that can fit in a kilobyte: 1 kb = 1024 bytes = 8192 bits / 512 = 16
* That can fit in a terabyte: 16\*1024\*1024\*1024 = 1.72 × 1010
* Petabyte: 16\*1024\*1024\*1024\*1024 = 1.72 × 1013
* Exabyte: 16\*1024\*1024\*1024\*1024\*1024 = 1.72 × 1016
Even if 1 exabyte weighed 1 gram, we're nowhere close to reaching the 2.17 × 10124 needed to be able to fit all of these numbers into a hard drive with the mass of the sun | 2010/07/16 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3267632",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/356/"
] | From one of my favorite books ever, Applied Cryptography by Bruce Schneier
>
> "If someone created a database of all primes, won't he be
> able to use that database to break public-key algorithms?
> Yes, but he can't do it. If you could store one gigabyte
> of information on a drive weighing one gram, then a list
> of just the 512-bit primes would weigh so much that it
> would exceed the Chandrasekhar limit and collapse into a
> black hole... so you couldn't retrieve the data anyway"
>
>
>
In other words, it's impossible or unfeasible, or both. | I think the main problem is that rainbow tables pregenerated for certain algorithms use a rather "small" range (usually something in the range of 128 bits). This doesn't usually cover the whole range, but speeds the brute force process up. They usually consume some TB of space.
In prime factorization, primes are much larger (for secure RSA, 2048 bits are recommended). So the rainbow tables wouldn't be "mighty large", but impossible to store anywhere (using up like millions of TB of space).
Also, rainbow tables use hash chains too further speed up the process ([Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_tables) has a good explanation) which can't be used for primes. |
3,267,632 | In explanations I've read about public key cryptography, it is said that some large number is come up with by multiplying together 2 extremely large primes. Since factoring the product of large primes is almost impossibly time-consuming, you have security.
This seems like a problem that could be trivially solved with rainbow tables. If you know the approximate size of primes used and know there are 2 of them, you could quickly construct a rainbow table. It'd be a mighty large table, but it could be done and the task could be parallelized across hardware.
Why are rainbow tables not an effective way to beat public key crypto based on multiplying large primes?
Disclaimer: obviously tens of thousands of crazy-smart security conscious people didn't just happen to miss for decades what I thought up in an afternoon. I assume I'm misunderstanding this because I was reading simplified layman explanations (eg: if more than 2 numbers are used) but I don't know enough yet to know where my knowledge gap is.
*Edit:* I know "rainbow table" relates to using pre-calculated *hashes* in a lookup table but the above sounds like a rainbow table attack so I'm using the term here.
---
*Edit 2:* As noted in the answers, there's no way to store just all of the primes, much less all of their products.
* [This site](http://www.bennetyee.org/ucsd-pages/Courses/cse127.w03/lec10/index.html) says there are about this many 512 bit primes: ((2^511) \* 1) / (512 log(2)) = 4.35 × 10151
* The [mass of the sun](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun) is 2 × 1030 kg or 2 × 1033 g
* That's 2.17 × 10124 primes per gram of the sun.
* Qty. of 512 bit numbers that can fit in a kilobyte: 1 kb = 1024 bytes = 8192 bits / 512 = 16
* That can fit in a terabyte: 16\*1024\*1024\*1024 = 1.72 × 1010
* Petabyte: 16\*1024\*1024\*1024\*1024 = 1.72 × 1013
* Exabyte: 16\*1024\*1024\*1024\*1024\*1024 = 1.72 × 1016
Even if 1 exabyte weighed 1 gram, we're nowhere close to reaching the 2.17 × 10124 needed to be able to fit all of these numbers into a hard drive with the mass of the sun | 2010/07/16 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3267632",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/356/"
] | From one of my favorite books ever, Applied Cryptography by Bruce Schneier
>
> "If someone created a database of all primes, won't he be
> able to use that database to break public-key algorithms?
> Yes, but he can't do it. If you could store one gigabyte
> of information on a drive weighing one gram, then a list
> of just the 512-bit primes would weigh so much that it
> would exceed the Chandrasekhar limit and collapse into a
> black hole... so you couldn't retrieve the data anyway"
>
>
>
In other words, it's impossible or unfeasible, or both. | The primes used in RSA and Diffie-Hellman are typically on the order of 2512. In comparison, there are only about 2256 atoms in the known universe. That means 2512 is large enough to assign 2256 unique numbers to every atom in the universe.
There is simply no way to store/calculate that much data.
---
As an aside, I assume you mean "a large table of primes" - rainbow tables are specificly tailored for hashes, and have no real meaning here. |
206,211 | I have lurked for a time on security websites and similar. I came to wonder, with the number of passwords we have (or websites that need a password) how to manage this.
Since I have well over 400 sites where a password is used, how can I keep track of all the passwords and avoid reuse?
I have a password manager but still have passwords that are used way too many times. Is the best solution to just make 400 different passwords and let the password manager deal with the issue and look them up every time I want to login?
Or is reusing for minor accounts the best alternative in terms of usability? | 2019/03/27 | [
"https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/206211",
"https://security.stackexchange.com",
"https://security.stackexchange.com/users/202956/"
] | Yes - let your password manager handle all of them.
400 sites is not a lot to have in your password manager - I have many more than that. Most I generated randomly. Some I created on other systems and then transferred them in. But most importantly, I don't worry what they are, because my password manager handles them.
Before I used a password manager, I tried patterns, but they are relatively easily guessed once a couple end up leaked and brute-forced, and yes, I have had the haveIbeenpwned alerts on occasion and had to change things. Trust me, doing that is much worse if you have used any pattern, as you have to change them all!!! | 400 sites are a lot, I do not use that much, but I just let pw manager deal with passwords.
However I have some sites that I use frequently and don't want to login everytime in the password manager. For those sites I use a simple method to create easily remember passwords.
It is actually two methods.
I create a whole sentence and the first word usually the name of the site, a funny sentence coming from the function of the site or the title of the site. A whole sentence including some numbers or signs no way to crack, except brute force.
The other method is take a poet and the first letter of every word in a verse gives you a nice hash looking-like password. you can tune it up with numbers or signs. |
206,211 | I have lurked for a time on security websites and similar. I came to wonder, with the number of passwords we have (or websites that need a password) how to manage this.
Since I have well over 400 sites where a password is used, how can I keep track of all the passwords and avoid reuse?
I have a password manager but still have passwords that are used way too many times. Is the best solution to just make 400 different passwords and let the password manager deal with the issue and look them up every time I want to login?
Or is reusing for minor accounts the best alternative in terms of usability? | 2019/03/27 | [
"https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/206211",
"https://security.stackexchange.com",
"https://security.stackexchange.com/users/202956/"
] | The short answer is yes, let the password manager handle it.
You should have your password manager generate a unique password for each site. Don't make them yourself and you won't have to worry about reuse. For sites you currently reuse on, incrementally replace them as you come across them. Many have tools to identify password reuse which can also help you.
Based on your comments, you seem hesitant to commit to all random passwords because you use several different devices. Many password managers offer syncing solutions that work very well. Both Android and iOS support filling in login forms with password manager apps. If manual entry is a sticking point, consider generating [pass*phrases*](https://www.eff.org/dice), which are easier to remember momentarily. | 400 sites are a lot, I do not use that much, but I just let pw manager deal with passwords.
However I have some sites that I use frequently and don't want to login everytime in the password manager. For those sites I use a simple method to create easily remember passwords.
It is actually two methods.
I create a whole sentence and the first word usually the name of the site, a funny sentence coming from the function of the site or the title of the site. A whole sentence including some numbers or signs no way to crack, except brute force.
The other method is take a poet and the first letter of every word in a verse gives you a nice hash looking-like password. you can tune it up with numbers or signs. |
206,211 | I have lurked for a time on security websites and similar. I came to wonder, with the number of passwords we have (or websites that need a password) how to manage this.
Since I have well over 400 sites where a password is used, how can I keep track of all the passwords and avoid reuse?
I have a password manager but still have passwords that are used way too many times. Is the best solution to just make 400 different passwords and let the password manager deal with the issue and look them up every time I want to login?
Or is reusing for minor accounts the best alternative in terms of usability? | 2019/03/27 | [
"https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/206211",
"https://security.stackexchange.com",
"https://security.stackexchange.com/users/202956/"
] | Yes - let your password manager handle all of them.
400 sites is not a lot to have in your password manager - I have many more than that. Most I generated randomly. Some I created on other systems and then transferred them in. But most importantly, I don't worry what they are, because my password manager handles them.
Before I used a password manager, I tried patterns, but they are relatively easily guessed once a couple end up leaked and brute-forced, and yes, I have had the haveIbeenpwned alerts on occasion and had to change things. Trust me, doing that is much worse if you have used any pattern, as you have to change them all!!! | The short answer is yes, let the password manager handle it.
You should have your password manager generate a unique password for each site. Don't make them yourself and you won't have to worry about reuse. For sites you currently reuse on, incrementally replace them as you come across them. Many have tools to identify password reuse which can also help you.
Based on your comments, you seem hesitant to commit to all random passwords because you use several different devices. Many password managers offer syncing solutions that work very well. Both Android and iOS support filling in login forms with password manager apps. If manual entry is a sticking point, consider generating [pass*phrases*](https://www.eff.org/dice), which are easier to remember momentarily. |
602,195 | I was looking on Newegg for some SO-DIMM DDR3 ram for my laptop and noticed Kingston has a large variety of very similar laptop ram chips with different model numbers, marketed as ["System Specific"](http://www.kingston.com/us/memory/system_specific/) ram with a listing of "compatible" devices. (Curiously Newegg has a couple of Lenovo specific ones, but none match my laptop's model specifically.)
I'm used to buying *desktop* RAM for custom builds where "system specific" wouldn't even make sense but I'm a bit more hesitant to buy laptop ram. Is "system specific" something I should be worried about? Or if the RAM meets the specs my laptop's manual lists (SO-DIMM DDR3 PC3-8500) is that enough to be reasonably sure the chip will work with my laptop? | 2013/05/31 | [
"https://superuser.com/questions/602195",
"https://superuser.com",
"https://superuser.com/users/92650/"
] | "System specific" from Kingston, simply means that they have tested that RAM on that machine and it is guaranteed to work. However, any RAM that matches the requirements for your laptop should work.
Personally, if the system specific memory costs more, Id skip it and get "regular" memory. Even if it doesnt work (which it should), you can return it. | "System Specific" memory is just a marketing ploy. RAM manufacturers do not test their memory modules with all the products they list in their database. The only reason for them doing that is to capture the market share of those "savvy" customers entering "buy ram for product\_name" in their favorite search engine. |
13,293,552 | I'm trying to use R through SPSS syntax (I'm using SPSS 18 on windows 7) which requires installing a special plugin: PASWStatistics\_RPlugIn\_1802\_win32.exe. Also I had to install an older version of R(2.8.1 - required by my older version of SPSS - i like it better than the new ones). The plugin now works, R (both versions) works, but Rstudio stopped working and won't start even after uninstalling and re-installing.
Does anyone have any similar experience and could suggest a solution? | 2012/11/08 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/13293552",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1737251/"
] | The following link specifies how you can configure Rstudio to work with a specific R version you have installed:
<http://www.rstudio.com/ide/docs/advanced/versions_of_r>
Just install R 2.8 and 2.14 and let spss use one, and Rstudio another.
You are taking a risk by using old versions of spss and R (bugs that have been fixed in newer versions, decreased performance, possible incompatibility with other software e.g. R packages, missing functionality). | You can have multiple versions of R installed at the same time - I have five. The current version of Statistics, 21, goes with R2.14. I don't know how Rstudio determines which version to use. You might need to reset the R environment variables or your path settings. |
102,502 | Background
==========
There is a world with flora and fauna based on the life forms that evolved on Gondwana (see [here](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/78673/how-can-i-have-a-caravan-without-camels) for previous questions). Humans colonized this continent from a distant one some thousands of years ago, before the advent of agriculture (similar to human [colonization of Australia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_human_migrations#Coastal_migration)) and caused the extinction of most of the large mammals. The remaining megafauna has a few species such as elephants and giant sloths, but is heavily weighted towards [birds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratite) and [reptiles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mekosuchinae).
Now humans have developed agriculture in primarily tropical areas. I am using as a basis for development the actual human development of agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. One of the biggest things that held back African agriculture was the lack of traction animals, to provide both plowing and manure. My people have a similar problem; there are no animals that they can domesticate to plow. However, the important part isn't the plowing itself (enough people with hoes can replicate that work) but the manure those animals create. Without the ability to fertilize monsoonal tropical soils, they become leached of nutrients. In Indian and SE Asia, water buffalo were around to chew up local vegetation and poop it onto fields; in Africa water buffalo were excluded by tsetse fly, fields lost fertility, and agriculture had to slash and burn rotating fields in the forest...a much less efficient proposition.
Problem
=======
I want to replicate the manure creating effect of large domesticated animals like cows and water buffalo for a tropical region where there are no domesticated large animals.
The obvious answer might be composting; but composting has its own problems. First, compost takes at least a year, while cow's stomach takes a few days. Second, composting means lots of human labor to move things into a pile, then spread them out onto the fields. Cows move food into their stomachs then carry it into their stalls to deposit in piles; they also are used to drag the piles of manure out into the fields to spread them out.
**What is the least human labor intensive way to generate tons of manure/compost to continually fertilize a tropical farm?**
### Considerations
* Technology level is Bronze Age.
* You may assume any non-mammal, non-megafauna life form from Gondwana (South America, Africa, and Australia) is present. | 2018/01/17 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/102502",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/23519/"
] | Use [chicken manure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_manure).
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Other animals, besides livestock, also produce good manure, with different qualities. Now, not all manures are created equal; they differ in composition, volume, and production rate. If we define one "animal unit" as 1,000 pounds of animal, then [one dairy cow unit produces 15 tons of manure per year, while one chicken unit produces only a little bit less than that](http://www.sustainabletable.org/906/waste-management#manure). So in terms of animal mass alone, chickens are as good as cows.
There are also [some compositional differences](http://agrienvarchive.ca/bioenergy/facts.html#Volumes_&_Amounts). Cows can, under good conditions, produce up to 17 lbs of nitrogen per ton, and 11 lbs of phosphorous per ton. Poultry can beat that by a lot - 32 lbs per ton and 56 lbs per ton, respectively. Not all of the nitrogen and phosphorus in the dung is usable, but that's fine - chickens still beat out cows by a lot.
Per animal, yes, chickens come nowhere near cows. But that's fine; chickens don't eat as much as cows. And besides, that's pretty much your only option for non-human-based manure.
Also, chickens have other uses - and when selecting an animal for manure, that's something you want to take into account. With chickens, you get . . .
* Eggs.
* Meat - in this case white meat - which is good if you want some protein but obviously don't have beef available.
* A form of pest control, in some cases.
* An animal that might be loud, but at the least won't trample crops in the same way that a cow could. | While the other answers are good, I think you should consider taking another look at a few things.
**Compost**
[Here are some facts from the USDA.](https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/Compost_FINAL.pdf) The takeaway is that primary composting can finish much more rapidly than a year, and the application of younger compost during the off-season can allow the aging process to finish in the field. The process is also quicker with frequent turning and larger piles. Smaller piles will still compost, and with less labor, but take longer (as they produce less heat).
**Cover Cropping**
Assuming you can get the nutrients you need into the soil, you need to keep them there. Fields shouldn't be left fallow, but sown with cover crops that will keep the nutrients in the soil, reduce erosion, and, if the crop is a legume, pull nitrogen from the air. [When it's time for planting, the cover crop can be composted.](https://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/growing-green-manure-zmaz89sozshe)
**Humanure**
Don't shy away from the obvious. |
102,502 | Background
==========
There is a world with flora and fauna based on the life forms that evolved on Gondwana (see [here](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/78673/how-can-i-have-a-caravan-without-camels) for previous questions). Humans colonized this continent from a distant one some thousands of years ago, before the advent of agriculture (similar to human [colonization of Australia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_human_migrations#Coastal_migration)) and caused the extinction of most of the large mammals. The remaining megafauna has a few species such as elephants and giant sloths, but is heavily weighted towards [birds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratite) and [reptiles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mekosuchinae).
Now humans have developed agriculture in primarily tropical areas. I am using as a basis for development the actual human development of agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. One of the biggest things that held back African agriculture was the lack of traction animals, to provide both plowing and manure. My people have a similar problem; there are no animals that they can domesticate to plow. However, the important part isn't the plowing itself (enough people with hoes can replicate that work) but the manure those animals create. Without the ability to fertilize monsoonal tropical soils, they become leached of nutrients. In Indian and SE Asia, water buffalo were around to chew up local vegetation and poop it onto fields; in Africa water buffalo were excluded by tsetse fly, fields lost fertility, and agriculture had to slash and burn rotating fields in the forest...a much less efficient proposition.
Problem
=======
I want to replicate the manure creating effect of large domesticated animals like cows and water buffalo for a tropical region where there are no domesticated large animals.
The obvious answer might be composting; but composting has its own problems. First, compost takes at least a year, while cow's stomach takes a few days. Second, composting means lots of human labor to move things into a pile, then spread them out onto the fields. Cows move food into their stomachs then carry it into their stalls to deposit in piles; they also are used to drag the piles of manure out into the fields to spread them out.
**What is the least human labor intensive way to generate tons of manure/compost to continually fertilize a tropical farm?**
### Considerations
* Technology level is Bronze Age.
* You may assume any non-mammal, non-megafauna life form from Gondwana (South America, Africa, and Australia) is present. | 2018/01/17 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/102502",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/23519/"
] | Use bat [guano](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guano).
=====================================================
In a tropical civilization with no domesticated animals, bat dung may be your best option. Bats tend to naturally gather in large numbers and can create [huge piles of waste](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qjTWBKCHpw) beneath their nesting spots. Your colonists could locate a nearby cave home to many bats and simply fill wheelbarrows full of the guano. Guano is a great fertilizer and is still used today for that purpose. Another benefit is that this source doesn't move around. Your people can go back to the same cave month after month for more manure.
On a side note, bats are excellent at bug population control. This can help your plant growth by minimizing harmful insect populations in your area. | While the other answers are good, I think you should consider taking another look at a few things.
**Compost**
[Here are some facts from the USDA.](https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/Compost_FINAL.pdf) The takeaway is that primary composting can finish much more rapidly than a year, and the application of younger compost during the off-season can allow the aging process to finish in the field. The process is also quicker with frequent turning and larger piles. Smaller piles will still compost, and with less labor, but take longer (as they produce less heat).
**Cover Cropping**
Assuming you can get the nutrients you need into the soil, you need to keep them there. Fields shouldn't be left fallow, but sown with cover crops that will keep the nutrients in the soil, reduce erosion, and, if the crop is a legume, pull nitrogen from the air. [When it's time for planting, the cover crop can be composted.](https://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/growing-green-manure-zmaz89sozshe)
**Humanure**
Don't shy away from the obvious. |
102,502 | Background
==========
There is a world with flora and fauna based on the life forms that evolved on Gondwana (see [here](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/78673/how-can-i-have-a-caravan-without-camels) for previous questions). Humans colonized this continent from a distant one some thousands of years ago, before the advent of agriculture (similar to human [colonization of Australia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_human_migrations#Coastal_migration)) and caused the extinction of most of the large mammals. The remaining megafauna has a few species such as elephants and giant sloths, but is heavily weighted towards [birds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratite) and [reptiles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mekosuchinae).
Now humans have developed agriculture in primarily tropical areas. I am using as a basis for development the actual human development of agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. One of the biggest things that held back African agriculture was the lack of traction animals, to provide both plowing and manure. My people have a similar problem; there are no animals that they can domesticate to plow. However, the important part isn't the plowing itself (enough people with hoes can replicate that work) but the manure those animals create. Without the ability to fertilize monsoonal tropical soils, they become leached of nutrients. In Indian and SE Asia, water buffalo were around to chew up local vegetation and poop it onto fields; in Africa water buffalo were excluded by tsetse fly, fields lost fertility, and agriculture had to slash and burn rotating fields in the forest...a much less efficient proposition.
Problem
=======
I want to replicate the manure creating effect of large domesticated animals like cows and water buffalo for a tropical region where there are no domesticated large animals.
The obvious answer might be composting; but composting has its own problems. First, compost takes at least a year, while cow's stomach takes a few days. Second, composting means lots of human labor to move things into a pile, then spread them out onto the fields. Cows move food into their stomachs then carry it into their stalls to deposit in piles; they also are used to drag the piles of manure out into the fields to spread them out.
**What is the least human labor intensive way to generate tons of manure/compost to continually fertilize a tropical farm?**
### Considerations
* Technology level is Bronze Age.
* You may assume any non-mammal, non-megafauna life form from Gondwana (South America, Africa, and Australia) is present. | 2018/01/17 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/102502",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/23519/"
] | **Earthworms.**
The earthworms native to Europe are phenomenal recyclers of plant detritus. For agriculture they are an unalloyed boon. For forests, not so much. You can read about how well invasive earthworm populations recycle plant matter in accounts of ecosystems accustomed to accumulations of that plant matter - for example North American hardwood and boreal forests (which have been wormless since the glaciers).
>
> It’s an ironic truth—the traits that make earthworms wonderful for
> gardens are the same ones that make them dangerous for forests.
> Earthworms stir up the soil, making nutrients more accessible to
> flowers and vegetables. But plants in forests have evolved other ways
> to get nutrients from the ground. When earthworms convert them into
> easier-to-access forms, it can favor invasive plants that later take
> over the understory. In the process they have also been known to
> endanger birds and orchids. They can be a threat to humans as well,
> collapsing irrigation ditches and speeding up erosion.
> <https://ecosystemsontheedge.org/earthworm-invaders/>
>
>
>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/CJhCS.jpg)
<https://thenaturalhistorian.com/2013/09/07/night-of-the-invasive-earthworms-a-horror-story-for-northern-forests/>
Your worms can chew up plant matter and mix it into the soil in worm fashion. That is sort of prosaic; gets the job done I suppose. But you can do better. You want Gondwana worms. You can have **giant earthworms.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/kOstB.jpg)
[source](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/fc/aa/a2/fcaaa2bc2286cd15f7b18e9d9d0abdd9.jpg)
Tasking the [Gippsland giant earthworm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Gippsland_earthworm) to do the job of the nightcrawler does not seem like such a stretch. And you can giant them up a little more - I think for works of fiction a 50% size increase is acceptable, with rumors of occasional rarely seen "lunker worms" that get much, much bigger.
I have read that on a quiet day, one can hear the Gippsland giant worms down in their burrows. Doing worm things. | Organic waste be it fruits , dead animals or the like put it/them inside a basket(ofc as big as you need) throw in some worms let them digest everything pop out your fertilizer on the other end (and bones if you threw in dead animals).
Alternatively you can use insects that won't damage your crops, for example cockroaches have a reduced life cycle that could be acceptable.
If everything fails and you don't mind a bit of imagination throw in a fungus that devours anything and dies in contact with sunlight and use it to "digest" the organic waste like in the first idea. |
102,502 | Background
==========
There is a world with flora and fauna based on the life forms that evolved on Gondwana (see [here](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/78673/how-can-i-have-a-caravan-without-camels) for previous questions). Humans colonized this continent from a distant one some thousands of years ago, before the advent of agriculture (similar to human [colonization of Australia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_human_migrations#Coastal_migration)) and caused the extinction of most of the large mammals. The remaining megafauna has a few species such as elephants and giant sloths, but is heavily weighted towards [birds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratite) and [reptiles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mekosuchinae).
Now humans have developed agriculture in primarily tropical areas. I am using as a basis for development the actual human development of agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. One of the biggest things that held back African agriculture was the lack of traction animals, to provide both plowing and manure. My people have a similar problem; there are no animals that they can domesticate to plow. However, the important part isn't the plowing itself (enough people with hoes can replicate that work) but the manure those animals create. Without the ability to fertilize monsoonal tropical soils, they become leached of nutrients. In Indian and SE Asia, water buffalo were around to chew up local vegetation and poop it onto fields; in Africa water buffalo were excluded by tsetse fly, fields lost fertility, and agriculture had to slash and burn rotating fields in the forest...a much less efficient proposition.
Problem
=======
I want to replicate the manure creating effect of large domesticated animals like cows and water buffalo for a tropical region where there are no domesticated large animals.
The obvious answer might be composting; but composting has its own problems. First, compost takes at least a year, while cow's stomach takes a few days. Second, composting means lots of human labor to move things into a pile, then spread them out onto the fields. Cows move food into their stomachs then carry it into their stalls to deposit in piles; they also are used to drag the piles of manure out into the fields to spread them out.
**What is the least human labor intensive way to generate tons of manure/compost to continually fertilize a tropical farm?**
### Considerations
* Technology level is Bronze Age.
* You may assume any non-mammal, non-megafauna life form from Gondwana (South America, Africa, and Australia) is present. | 2018/01/17 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/102502",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/23519/"
] | Do it yourself
--------------
[Night soil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_soil) has been a traditional component of farming worldwide for as long as records exist.
Using human faeces as fertiliser does have downsides, of course. If the people moving the stuff aren't scrupulous about hygiene, they will pick up and pass on any diseases or parasites in the faeces. There is also a risk of these diseases being passed on in vegetables, although this should be fairly low. And in areas with toxins in the water, this can lead to concentration of those toxins in the farmland.
Still, awareness of all those downsides requires a level of biology which is well past Bronze Age people, so it's unlikely to stop them.
Let the river do it for you
---------------------------
The ancient Egyptians managed perfectly well without any extra fertilisers. [They relied on the Nile flooding to dump fresh soil every year](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_agriculture), which would be a nice mix of alluvial silt and the decomposing remains of plants and animal faeces washed downstream. Eventually they invented irrigation to develop more agricultural land, but initially they would simply wait for the land to flood and then wait for the flood to drain away. | Organic waste be it fruits , dead animals or the like put it/them inside a basket(ofc as big as you need) throw in some worms let them digest everything pop out your fertilizer on the other end (and bones if you threw in dead animals).
Alternatively you can use insects that won't damage your crops, for example cockroaches have a reduced life cycle that could be acceptable.
If everything fails and you don't mind a bit of imagination throw in a fungus that devours anything and dies in contact with sunlight and use it to "digest" the organic waste like in the first idea. |
102,502 | Background
==========
There is a world with flora and fauna based on the life forms that evolved on Gondwana (see [here](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/78673/how-can-i-have-a-caravan-without-camels) for previous questions). Humans colonized this continent from a distant one some thousands of years ago, before the advent of agriculture (similar to human [colonization of Australia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_human_migrations#Coastal_migration)) and caused the extinction of most of the large mammals. The remaining megafauna has a few species such as elephants and giant sloths, but is heavily weighted towards [birds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratite) and [reptiles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mekosuchinae).
Now humans have developed agriculture in primarily tropical areas. I am using as a basis for development the actual human development of agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. One of the biggest things that held back African agriculture was the lack of traction animals, to provide both plowing and manure. My people have a similar problem; there are no animals that they can domesticate to plow. However, the important part isn't the plowing itself (enough people with hoes can replicate that work) but the manure those animals create. Without the ability to fertilize monsoonal tropical soils, they become leached of nutrients. In Indian and SE Asia, water buffalo were around to chew up local vegetation and poop it onto fields; in Africa water buffalo were excluded by tsetse fly, fields lost fertility, and agriculture had to slash and burn rotating fields in the forest...a much less efficient proposition.
Problem
=======
I want to replicate the manure creating effect of large domesticated animals like cows and water buffalo for a tropical region where there are no domesticated large animals.
The obvious answer might be composting; but composting has its own problems. First, compost takes at least a year, while cow's stomach takes a few days. Second, composting means lots of human labor to move things into a pile, then spread them out onto the fields. Cows move food into their stomachs then carry it into their stalls to deposit in piles; they also are used to drag the piles of manure out into the fields to spread them out.
**What is the least human labor intensive way to generate tons of manure/compost to continually fertilize a tropical farm?**
### Considerations
* Technology level is Bronze Age.
* You may assume any non-mammal, non-megafauna life form from Gondwana (South America, Africa, and Australia) is present. | 2018/01/17 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/102502",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/23519/"
] | No draft animals. Ug. Seriously subsistent agriculture if done conventionally.
Thinking outside of the box, you need to slow down the leaching of the soil.
* Terra preta <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta> soil with bone, manure and charcoal. The charcoal binds nutrients.
* Low till. Farmers are now getting into this in the first world. This year's crops are in part fertilized by the decomposition of last years.
* Mulching. You bring masses of vegetation from the surrounding forest and use as weed control between rows. As they decompose their nutrints can be taken up by the crop. This is easier than compost in that it only has to be moved once, although if the distance is long,it may be worth harvesting, drying, then moving. It takes more skill because you don't want to bring in weed seeds. This requires some management of the zone you take the vegetation from.
* Fowl ranching. You would domesticate some local bird, breed it for meat/egg production, and keep clipping it's wings. If you use a decent sized bird (muscovy duck, goose) they are big enough to deal with coyote sized predators. By moving bird fencing across the field, you can do some kinds of weed control, while keeping them out of crops that you both like. Portable bird fencing could be as simple as wooden panels with either lath or twine fill in. A more intensive way to do this is a "Chicken Tractor" which is a light weight portable pen on skids with a hutch. Each day you move it one pen length.
* Guard birds. It may be possible to breed a bird to stand guard. Be best to start with one of the smarter social birds, say ravens.
* Riding birds. Ostriches can be raced. They are harder to manage than horses.
* Agroforestry/permaculture. Look to trees, bushes and perennials for much of your food. For an overview see Mark Sheperd "Restoration Agriculture" He is a north American temperate zone (Wisconsin) writer and farmer. A huge fraction of his system's calories come from chestnuts. But also look at the use of the olive in the mediterranean region. If the area is too dry normally for trees, do keyline ditches -- This is a a narrow ditch about a foot deep that can either run exactly along the contour, or if you want to collect surplus water in a given valley, with a very gentle slope toward that valley. Rainfall events get caught by the ditch and have more time to soak in. The volume of the ditch depends on the size of rainfall events, and the distance to the next ditch up hill. High water demand crops, such as trees, are planted downhill from the ditch.
* Aquaculture. This depends on the relative amount of rain. In general I don't think it will work with less than about 20 inches of rain a year. More significantly, you have to be able to collect more runoff than evaporates. In my climate with 16-20 inches of rain a year, we can count on about 1" of runoff each year. (3" is normal 1" in 95% of all years. Evaporation from dugouts is 3-4 feet a year. A 15 foot deep pond can overwinter fish. For long term water quality, you need at least as much drainage as you have evaporation, else you get salts. Drainage can be used for irrigation.
Build dams across dips. Run contour line irrigation ditches from the reservoir.
A long dip can have a chain of dams, with the leakage of each dam keeping the lower ones full. Lower dams have more consistent water levels but also have more leachate. | Organic waste be it fruits , dead animals or the like put it/them inside a basket(ofc as big as you need) throw in some worms let them digest everything pop out your fertilizer on the other end (and bones if you threw in dead animals).
Alternatively you can use insects that won't damage your crops, for example cockroaches have a reduced life cycle that could be acceptable.
If everything fails and you don't mind a bit of imagination throw in a fungus that devours anything and dies in contact with sunlight and use it to "digest" the organic waste like in the first idea. |
102,502 | Background
==========
There is a world with flora and fauna based on the life forms that evolved on Gondwana (see [here](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/78673/how-can-i-have-a-caravan-without-camels) for previous questions). Humans colonized this continent from a distant one some thousands of years ago, before the advent of agriculture (similar to human [colonization of Australia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_human_migrations#Coastal_migration)) and caused the extinction of most of the large mammals. The remaining megafauna has a few species such as elephants and giant sloths, but is heavily weighted towards [birds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratite) and [reptiles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mekosuchinae).
Now humans have developed agriculture in primarily tropical areas. I am using as a basis for development the actual human development of agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. One of the biggest things that held back African agriculture was the lack of traction animals, to provide both plowing and manure. My people have a similar problem; there are no animals that they can domesticate to plow. However, the important part isn't the plowing itself (enough people with hoes can replicate that work) but the manure those animals create. Without the ability to fertilize monsoonal tropical soils, they become leached of nutrients. In Indian and SE Asia, water buffalo were around to chew up local vegetation and poop it onto fields; in Africa water buffalo were excluded by tsetse fly, fields lost fertility, and agriculture had to slash and burn rotating fields in the forest...a much less efficient proposition.
Problem
=======
I want to replicate the manure creating effect of large domesticated animals like cows and water buffalo for a tropical region where there are no domesticated large animals.
The obvious answer might be composting; but composting has its own problems. First, compost takes at least a year, while cow's stomach takes a few days. Second, composting means lots of human labor to move things into a pile, then spread them out onto the fields. Cows move food into their stomachs then carry it into their stalls to deposit in piles; they also are used to drag the piles of manure out into the fields to spread them out.
**What is the least human labor intensive way to generate tons of manure/compost to continually fertilize a tropical farm?**
### Considerations
* Technology level is Bronze Age.
* You may assume any non-mammal, non-megafauna life form from Gondwana (South America, Africa, and Australia) is present. | 2018/01/17 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/102502",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/23519/"
] | While the other answers are good, I think you should consider taking another look at a few things.
**Compost**
[Here are some facts from the USDA.](https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/Compost_FINAL.pdf) The takeaway is that primary composting can finish much more rapidly than a year, and the application of younger compost during the off-season can allow the aging process to finish in the field. The process is also quicker with frequent turning and larger piles. Smaller piles will still compost, and with less labor, but take longer (as they produce less heat).
**Cover Cropping**
Assuming you can get the nutrients you need into the soil, you need to keep them there. Fields shouldn't be left fallow, but sown with cover crops that will keep the nutrients in the soil, reduce erosion, and, if the crop is a legume, pull nitrogen from the air. [When it's time for planting, the cover crop can be composted.](https://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/growing-green-manure-zmaz89sozshe)
**Humanure**
Don't shy away from the obvious. | Organic waste be it fruits , dead animals or the like put it/them inside a basket(ofc as big as you need) throw in some worms let them digest everything pop out your fertilizer on the other end (and bones if you threw in dead animals).
Alternatively you can use insects that won't damage your crops, for example cockroaches have a reduced life cycle that could be acceptable.
If everything fails and you don't mind a bit of imagination throw in a fungus that devours anything and dies in contact with sunlight and use it to "digest" the organic waste like in the first idea. |
102,502 | Background
==========
There is a world with flora and fauna based on the life forms that evolved on Gondwana (see [here](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/78673/how-can-i-have-a-caravan-without-camels) for previous questions). Humans colonized this continent from a distant one some thousands of years ago, before the advent of agriculture (similar to human [colonization of Australia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_human_migrations#Coastal_migration)) and caused the extinction of most of the large mammals. The remaining megafauna has a few species such as elephants and giant sloths, but is heavily weighted towards [birds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratite) and [reptiles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mekosuchinae).
Now humans have developed agriculture in primarily tropical areas. I am using as a basis for development the actual human development of agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. One of the biggest things that held back African agriculture was the lack of traction animals, to provide both plowing and manure. My people have a similar problem; there are no animals that they can domesticate to plow. However, the important part isn't the plowing itself (enough people with hoes can replicate that work) but the manure those animals create. Without the ability to fertilize monsoonal tropical soils, they become leached of nutrients. In Indian and SE Asia, water buffalo were around to chew up local vegetation and poop it onto fields; in Africa water buffalo were excluded by tsetse fly, fields lost fertility, and agriculture had to slash and burn rotating fields in the forest...a much less efficient proposition.
Problem
=======
I want to replicate the manure creating effect of large domesticated animals like cows and water buffalo for a tropical region where there are no domesticated large animals.
The obvious answer might be composting; but composting has its own problems. First, compost takes at least a year, while cow's stomach takes a few days. Second, composting means lots of human labor to move things into a pile, then spread them out onto the fields. Cows move food into their stomachs then carry it into their stalls to deposit in piles; they also are used to drag the piles of manure out into the fields to spread them out.
**What is the least human labor intensive way to generate tons of manure/compost to continually fertilize a tropical farm?**
### Considerations
* Technology level is Bronze Age.
* You may assume any non-mammal, non-megafauna life form from Gondwana (South America, Africa, and Australia) is present. | 2018/01/17 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/102502",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/23519/"
] | No draft animals. Ug. Seriously subsistent agriculture if done conventionally.
Thinking outside of the box, you need to slow down the leaching of the soil.
* Terra preta <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta> soil with bone, manure and charcoal. The charcoal binds nutrients.
* Low till. Farmers are now getting into this in the first world. This year's crops are in part fertilized by the decomposition of last years.
* Mulching. You bring masses of vegetation from the surrounding forest and use as weed control between rows. As they decompose their nutrints can be taken up by the crop. This is easier than compost in that it only has to be moved once, although if the distance is long,it may be worth harvesting, drying, then moving. It takes more skill because you don't want to bring in weed seeds. This requires some management of the zone you take the vegetation from.
* Fowl ranching. You would domesticate some local bird, breed it for meat/egg production, and keep clipping it's wings. If you use a decent sized bird (muscovy duck, goose) they are big enough to deal with coyote sized predators. By moving bird fencing across the field, you can do some kinds of weed control, while keeping them out of crops that you both like. Portable bird fencing could be as simple as wooden panels with either lath or twine fill in. A more intensive way to do this is a "Chicken Tractor" which is a light weight portable pen on skids with a hutch. Each day you move it one pen length.
* Guard birds. It may be possible to breed a bird to stand guard. Be best to start with one of the smarter social birds, say ravens.
* Riding birds. Ostriches can be raced. They are harder to manage than horses.
* Agroforestry/permaculture. Look to trees, bushes and perennials for much of your food. For an overview see Mark Sheperd "Restoration Agriculture" He is a north American temperate zone (Wisconsin) writer and farmer. A huge fraction of his system's calories come from chestnuts. But also look at the use of the olive in the mediterranean region. If the area is too dry normally for trees, do keyline ditches -- This is a a narrow ditch about a foot deep that can either run exactly along the contour, or if you want to collect surplus water in a given valley, with a very gentle slope toward that valley. Rainfall events get caught by the ditch and have more time to soak in. The volume of the ditch depends on the size of rainfall events, and the distance to the next ditch up hill. High water demand crops, such as trees, are planted downhill from the ditch.
* Aquaculture. This depends on the relative amount of rain. In general I don't think it will work with less than about 20 inches of rain a year. More significantly, you have to be able to collect more runoff than evaporates. In my climate with 16-20 inches of rain a year, we can count on about 1" of runoff each year. (3" is normal 1" in 95% of all years. Evaporation from dugouts is 3-4 feet a year. A 15 foot deep pond can overwinter fish. For long term water quality, you need at least as much drainage as you have evaporation, else you get salts. Drainage can be used for irrigation.
Build dams across dips. Run contour line irrigation ditches from the reservoir.
A long dip can have a chain of dams, with the leakage of each dam keeping the lower ones full. Lower dams have more consistent water levels but also have more leachate. | Do it yourself
--------------
[Night soil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_soil) has been a traditional component of farming worldwide for as long as records exist.
Using human faeces as fertiliser does have downsides, of course. If the people moving the stuff aren't scrupulous about hygiene, they will pick up and pass on any diseases or parasites in the faeces. There is also a risk of these diseases being passed on in vegetables, although this should be fairly low. And in areas with toxins in the water, this can lead to concentration of those toxins in the farmland.
Still, awareness of all those downsides requires a level of biology which is well past Bronze Age people, so it's unlikely to stop them.
Let the river do it for you
---------------------------
The ancient Egyptians managed perfectly well without any extra fertilisers. [They relied on the Nile flooding to dump fresh soil every year](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_agriculture), which would be a nice mix of alluvial silt and the decomposing remains of plants and animal faeces washed downstream. Eventually they invented irrigation to develop more agricultural land, but initially they would simply wait for the land to flood and then wait for the flood to drain away. |
102,502 | Background
==========
There is a world with flora and fauna based on the life forms that evolved on Gondwana (see [here](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/78673/how-can-i-have-a-caravan-without-camels) for previous questions). Humans colonized this continent from a distant one some thousands of years ago, before the advent of agriculture (similar to human [colonization of Australia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_human_migrations#Coastal_migration)) and caused the extinction of most of the large mammals. The remaining megafauna has a few species such as elephants and giant sloths, but is heavily weighted towards [birds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratite) and [reptiles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mekosuchinae).
Now humans have developed agriculture in primarily tropical areas. I am using as a basis for development the actual human development of agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. One of the biggest things that held back African agriculture was the lack of traction animals, to provide both plowing and manure. My people have a similar problem; there are no animals that they can domesticate to plow. However, the important part isn't the plowing itself (enough people with hoes can replicate that work) but the manure those animals create. Without the ability to fertilize monsoonal tropical soils, they become leached of nutrients. In Indian and SE Asia, water buffalo were around to chew up local vegetation and poop it onto fields; in Africa water buffalo were excluded by tsetse fly, fields lost fertility, and agriculture had to slash and burn rotating fields in the forest...a much less efficient proposition.
Problem
=======
I want to replicate the manure creating effect of large domesticated animals like cows and water buffalo for a tropical region where there are no domesticated large animals.
The obvious answer might be composting; but composting has its own problems. First, compost takes at least a year, while cow's stomach takes a few days. Second, composting means lots of human labor to move things into a pile, then spread them out onto the fields. Cows move food into their stomachs then carry it into their stalls to deposit in piles; they also are used to drag the piles of manure out into the fields to spread them out.
**What is the least human labor intensive way to generate tons of manure/compost to continually fertilize a tropical farm?**
### Considerations
* Technology level is Bronze Age.
* You may assume any non-mammal, non-megafauna life form from Gondwana (South America, Africa, and Australia) is present. | 2018/01/17 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/102502",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/23519/"
] | Use [chicken manure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_manure).
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Other animals, besides livestock, also produce good manure, with different qualities. Now, not all manures are created equal; they differ in composition, volume, and production rate. If we define one "animal unit" as 1,000 pounds of animal, then [one dairy cow unit produces 15 tons of manure per year, while one chicken unit produces only a little bit less than that](http://www.sustainabletable.org/906/waste-management#manure). So in terms of animal mass alone, chickens are as good as cows.
There are also [some compositional differences](http://agrienvarchive.ca/bioenergy/facts.html#Volumes_&_Amounts). Cows can, under good conditions, produce up to 17 lbs of nitrogen per ton, and 11 lbs of phosphorous per ton. Poultry can beat that by a lot - 32 lbs per ton and 56 lbs per ton, respectively. Not all of the nitrogen and phosphorus in the dung is usable, but that's fine - chickens still beat out cows by a lot.
Per animal, yes, chickens come nowhere near cows. But that's fine; chickens don't eat as much as cows. And besides, that's pretty much your only option for non-human-based manure.
Also, chickens have other uses - and when selecting an animal for manure, that's something you want to take into account. With chickens, you get . . .
* Eggs.
* Meat - in this case white meat - which is good if you want some protein but obviously don't have beef available.
* A form of pest control, in some cases.
* An animal that might be loud, but at the least won't trample crops in the same way that a cow could. | No draft animals. Ug. Seriously subsistent agriculture if done conventionally.
Thinking outside of the box, you need to slow down the leaching of the soil.
* Terra preta <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta> soil with bone, manure and charcoal. The charcoal binds nutrients.
* Low till. Farmers are now getting into this in the first world. This year's crops are in part fertilized by the decomposition of last years.
* Mulching. You bring masses of vegetation from the surrounding forest and use as weed control between rows. As they decompose their nutrints can be taken up by the crop. This is easier than compost in that it only has to be moved once, although if the distance is long,it may be worth harvesting, drying, then moving. It takes more skill because you don't want to bring in weed seeds. This requires some management of the zone you take the vegetation from.
* Fowl ranching. You would domesticate some local bird, breed it for meat/egg production, and keep clipping it's wings. If you use a decent sized bird (muscovy duck, goose) they are big enough to deal with coyote sized predators. By moving bird fencing across the field, you can do some kinds of weed control, while keeping them out of crops that you both like. Portable bird fencing could be as simple as wooden panels with either lath or twine fill in. A more intensive way to do this is a "Chicken Tractor" which is a light weight portable pen on skids with a hutch. Each day you move it one pen length.
* Guard birds. It may be possible to breed a bird to stand guard. Be best to start with one of the smarter social birds, say ravens.
* Riding birds. Ostriches can be raced. They are harder to manage than horses.
* Agroforestry/permaculture. Look to trees, bushes and perennials for much of your food. For an overview see Mark Sheperd "Restoration Agriculture" He is a north American temperate zone (Wisconsin) writer and farmer. A huge fraction of his system's calories come from chestnuts. But also look at the use of the olive in the mediterranean region. If the area is too dry normally for trees, do keyline ditches -- This is a a narrow ditch about a foot deep that can either run exactly along the contour, or if you want to collect surplus water in a given valley, with a very gentle slope toward that valley. Rainfall events get caught by the ditch and have more time to soak in. The volume of the ditch depends on the size of rainfall events, and the distance to the next ditch up hill. High water demand crops, such as trees, are planted downhill from the ditch.
* Aquaculture. This depends on the relative amount of rain. In general I don't think it will work with less than about 20 inches of rain a year. More significantly, you have to be able to collect more runoff than evaporates. In my climate with 16-20 inches of rain a year, we can count on about 1" of runoff each year. (3" is normal 1" in 95% of all years. Evaporation from dugouts is 3-4 feet a year. A 15 foot deep pond can overwinter fish. For long term water quality, you need at least as much drainage as you have evaporation, else you get salts. Drainage can be used for irrigation.
Build dams across dips. Run contour line irrigation ditches from the reservoir.
A long dip can have a chain of dams, with the leakage of each dam keeping the lower ones full. Lower dams have more consistent water levels but also have more leachate. |
102,502 | Background
==========
There is a world with flora and fauna based on the life forms that evolved on Gondwana (see [here](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/78673/how-can-i-have-a-caravan-without-camels) for previous questions). Humans colonized this continent from a distant one some thousands of years ago, before the advent of agriculture (similar to human [colonization of Australia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_human_migrations#Coastal_migration)) and caused the extinction of most of the large mammals. The remaining megafauna has a few species such as elephants and giant sloths, but is heavily weighted towards [birds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratite) and [reptiles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mekosuchinae).
Now humans have developed agriculture in primarily tropical areas. I am using as a basis for development the actual human development of agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. One of the biggest things that held back African agriculture was the lack of traction animals, to provide both plowing and manure. My people have a similar problem; there are no animals that they can domesticate to plow. However, the important part isn't the plowing itself (enough people with hoes can replicate that work) but the manure those animals create. Without the ability to fertilize monsoonal tropical soils, they become leached of nutrients. In Indian and SE Asia, water buffalo were around to chew up local vegetation and poop it onto fields; in Africa water buffalo were excluded by tsetse fly, fields lost fertility, and agriculture had to slash and burn rotating fields in the forest...a much less efficient proposition.
Problem
=======
I want to replicate the manure creating effect of large domesticated animals like cows and water buffalo for a tropical region where there are no domesticated large animals.
The obvious answer might be composting; but composting has its own problems. First, compost takes at least a year, while cow's stomach takes a few days. Second, composting means lots of human labor to move things into a pile, then spread them out onto the fields. Cows move food into their stomachs then carry it into their stalls to deposit in piles; they also are used to drag the piles of manure out into the fields to spread them out.
**What is the least human labor intensive way to generate tons of manure/compost to continually fertilize a tropical farm?**
### Considerations
* Technology level is Bronze Age.
* You may assume any non-mammal, non-megafauna life form from Gondwana (South America, Africa, and Australia) is present. | 2018/01/17 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/102502",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/23519/"
] | **Earthworms.**
The earthworms native to Europe are phenomenal recyclers of plant detritus. For agriculture they are an unalloyed boon. For forests, not so much. You can read about how well invasive earthworm populations recycle plant matter in accounts of ecosystems accustomed to accumulations of that plant matter - for example North American hardwood and boreal forests (which have been wormless since the glaciers).
>
> It’s an ironic truth—the traits that make earthworms wonderful for
> gardens are the same ones that make them dangerous for forests.
> Earthworms stir up the soil, making nutrients more accessible to
> flowers and vegetables. But plants in forests have evolved other ways
> to get nutrients from the ground. When earthworms convert them into
> easier-to-access forms, it can favor invasive plants that later take
> over the understory. In the process they have also been known to
> endanger birds and orchids. They can be a threat to humans as well,
> collapsing irrigation ditches and speeding up erosion.
> <https://ecosystemsontheedge.org/earthworm-invaders/>
>
>
>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/CJhCS.jpg)
<https://thenaturalhistorian.com/2013/09/07/night-of-the-invasive-earthworms-a-horror-story-for-northern-forests/>
Your worms can chew up plant matter and mix it into the soil in worm fashion. That is sort of prosaic; gets the job done I suppose. But you can do better. You want Gondwana worms. You can have **giant earthworms.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/kOstB.jpg)
[source](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/fc/aa/a2/fcaaa2bc2286cd15f7b18e9d9d0abdd9.jpg)
Tasking the [Gippsland giant earthworm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Gippsland_earthworm) to do the job of the nightcrawler does not seem like such a stretch. And you can giant them up a little more - I think for works of fiction a 50% size increase is acceptable, with rumors of occasional rarely seen "lunker worms" that get much, much bigger.
I have read that on a quiet day, one can hear the Gippsland giant worms down in their burrows. Doing worm things. | While the other answers are good, I think you should consider taking another look at a few things.
**Compost**
[Here are some facts from the USDA.](https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/Compost_FINAL.pdf) The takeaway is that primary composting can finish much more rapidly than a year, and the application of younger compost during the off-season can allow the aging process to finish in the field. The process is also quicker with frequent turning and larger piles. Smaller piles will still compost, and with less labor, but take longer (as they produce less heat).
**Cover Cropping**
Assuming you can get the nutrients you need into the soil, you need to keep them there. Fields shouldn't be left fallow, but sown with cover crops that will keep the nutrients in the soil, reduce erosion, and, if the crop is a legume, pull nitrogen from the air. [When it's time for planting, the cover crop can be composted.](https://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/growing-green-manure-zmaz89sozshe)
**Humanure**
Don't shy away from the obvious. |
102,502 | Background
==========
There is a world with flora and fauna based on the life forms that evolved on Gondwana (see [here](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/78673/how-can-i-have-a-caravan-without-camels) for previous questions). Humans colonized this continent from a distant one some thousands of years ago, before the advent of agriculture (similar to human [colonization of Australia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_human_migrations#Coastal_migration)) and caused the extinction of most of the large mammals. The remaining megafauna has a few species such as elephants and giant sloths, but is heavily weighted towards [birds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratite) and [reptiles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mekosuchinae).
Now humans have developed agriculture in primarily tropical areas. I am using as a basis for development the actual human development of agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. One of the biggest things that held back African agriculture was the lack of traction animals, to provide both plowing and manure. My people have a similar problem; there are no animals that they can domesticate to plow. However, the important part isn't the plowing itself (enough people with hoes can replicate that work) but the manure those animals create. Without the ability to fertilize monsoonal tropical soils, they become leached of nutrients. In Indian and SE Asia, water buffalo were around to chew up local vegetation and poop it onto fields; in Africa water buffalo were excluded by tsetse fly, fields lost fertility, and agriculture had to slash and burn rotating fields in the forest...a much less efficient proposition.
Problem
=======
I want to replicate the manure creating effect of large domesticated animals like cows and water buffalo for a tropical region where there are no domesticated large animals.
The obvious answer might be composting; but composting has its own problems. First, compost takes at least a year, while cow's stomach takes a few days. Second, composting means lots of human labor to move things into a pile, then spread them out onto the fields. Cows move food into their stomachs then carry it into their stalls to deposit in piles; they also are used to drag the piles of manure out into the fields to spread them out.
**What is the least human labor intensive way to generate tons of manure/compost to continually fertilize a tropical farm?**
### Considerations
* Technology level is Bronze Age.
* You may assume any non-mammal, non-megafauna life form from Gondwana (South America, Africa, and Australia) is present. | 2018/01/17 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/102502",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/23519/"
] | Use [chicken manure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_manure).
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Other animals, besides livestock, also produce good manure, with different qualities. Now, not all manures are created equal; they differ in composition, volume, and production rate. If we define one "animal unit" as 1,000 pounds of animal, then [one dairy cow unit produces 15 tons of manure per year, while one chicken unit produces only a little bit less than that](http://www.sustainabletable.org/906/waste-management#manure). So in terms of animal mass alone, chickens are as good as cows.
There are also [some compositional differences](http://agrienvarchive.ca/bioenergy/facts.html#Volumes_&_Amounts). Cows can, under good conditions, produce up to 17 lbs of nitrogen per ton, and 11 lbs of phosphorous per ton. Poultry can beat that by a lot - 32 lbs per ton and 56 lbs per ton, respectively. Not all of the nitrogen and phosphorus in the dung is usable, but that's fine - chickens still beat out cows by a lot.
Per animal, yes, chickens come nowhere near cows. But that's fine; chickens don't eat as much as cows. And besides, that's pretty much your only option for non-human-based manure.
Also, chickens have other uses - and when selecting an animal for manure, that's something you want to take into account. With chickens, you get . . .
* Eggs.
* Meat - in this case white meat - which is good if you want some protein but obviously don't have beef available.
* A form of pest control, in some cases.
* An animal that might be loud, but at the least won't trample crops in the same way that a cow could. | **Earthworms.**
The earthworms native to Europe are phenomenal recyclers of plant detritus. For agriculture they are an unalloyed boon. For forests, not so much. You can read about how well invasive earthworm populations recycle plant matter in accounts of ecosystems accustomed to accumulations of that plant matter - for example North American hardwood and boreal forests (which have been wormless since the glaciers).
>
> It’s an ironic truth—the traits that make earthworms wonderful for
> gardens are the same ones that make them dangerous for forests.
> Earthworms stir up the soil, making nutrients more accessible to
> flowers and vegetables. But plants in forests have evolved other ways
> to get nutrients from the ground. When earthworms convert them into
> easier-to-access forms, it can favor invasive plants that later take
> over the understory. In the process they have also been known to
> endanger birds and orchids. They can be a threat to humans as well,
> collapsing irrigation ditches and speeding up erosion.
> <https://ecosystemsontheedge.org/earthworm-invaders/>
>
>
>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/CJhCS.jpg)
<https://thenaturalhistorian.com/2013/09/07/night-of-the-invasive-earthworms-a-horror-story-for-northern-forests/>
Your worms can chew up plant matter and mix it into the soil in worm fashion. That is sort of prosaic; gets the job done I suppose. But you can do better. You want Gondwana worms. You can have **giant earthworms.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/kOstB.jpg)
[source](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/fc/aa/a2/fcaaa2bc2286cd15f7b18e9d9d0abdd9.jpg)
Tasking the [Gippsland giant earthworm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Gippsland_earthworm) to do the job of the nightcrawler does not seem like such a stretch. And you can giant them up a little more - I think for works of fiction a 50% size increase is acceptable, with rumors of occasional rarely seen "lunker worms" that get much, much bigger.
I have read that on a quiet day, one can hear the Gippsland giant worms down in their burrows. Doing worm things. |
71,584 | The PDF viewer Okular (part of KDE desktop) has lots of nice features and supports lots of file formats.
One of the things I like about it is the comments and annotations.
Unfortunately, all of the comments and metadata (like last viewed page) get stored locally in:
**~/.kde/share/apps/okular/docdata**
Is there any way to make Okular store them in the PDF itself? | 2013/04/07 | [
"https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/71584",
"https://unix.stackexchange.com",
"https://unix.stackexchange.com/users/33435/"
] | After making any annotation using Okular,
Go the the Print option (in File Menu or Ctrl+P) and then in the **Name** option change the value to Print to File(PDF) and in the **Output file** option give the path of the output file you need.
Voila, your annotations are now a part of your new PDF. | >
> From okular faq:
>
>
> **How can I annotate a document and send it to a friend/colleague/etc?**
>
>
> Since KDE 4.2, Okular has the "document archiving" feature. This is an Okular-specific format for carrying the document plus various metadata related to it (currently only annotations).
> You can save a "document archive" from the open document by choosing "File -> Export As -> Document Archive".
> To open an Okular document archive, just open it with Okular as it would be eg a PDF document.
>
>
>
<http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=107182#p247428> |
4,800,524 | I'm working on a very high-level domain specific language that deals with data analysis. There is virtual uniform agreement that one-based indexing is the way to go from a scientific perspective. Of course programmers hate this mismatch, but virtually all our users are used to using x[i] to denote the element i not element i-1.
Are there any design principles that can be used to preserve some sane interoperability story with the CLR? My sense was that if we automatically translate System.Collections space with one-based variants, along with our C# based APIs we should be 90% of the way there. But I'm not sure. For instance, should we automatically rebase the IList interface? But what happens then if the C# API implements CustomRemove(zeroBasedIndex)?
Is there anything else we can do to ease this painful mismatch? How far should we go in making System.Collections one based.
Finally, are there any examples of one-based languages on the CLR? | 2011/01/26 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/4800524",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/118402/"
] | Option 1: Burn an entry in your list. Set element 0 to a null value and all logical indexes start at 1.
Option 2: Create your own wrapper for the list and have its getter and increment the index for you. | VB used to allow you to specify the base index of arrays, but that feature was never implemented in VB.NET. That said, you can actually create 1-based arrays in the CLR, but they will be slightly slower and largely incompatible with other CLR languages. |
4,061,326 | I have upload control on my asp.net page. I upload pictures in folder cars and they show in windows explorer when I open that folder (cars), but in Visual Sudio they act like they not include in project ( that is the reason why they don't show on image control which point to some of them. What did I make wrong ? | 2010/10/31 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/4061326",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/486578/"
] | Uploading the images in the web application will never make any changes to your project. You will have to add them manually if you'll need them there. But generally these are pictures added by your user so the would just be in the file system - not really part of the solution, are they? | You have to click the refresh button at the top of the solution explorer in Visual Studio for it to show changes to the files. |
4,061,326 | I have upload control on my asp.net page. I upload pictures in folder cars and they show in windows explorer when I open that folder (cars), but in Visual Sudio they act like they not include in project ( that is the reason why they don't show on image control which point to some of them. What did I make wrong ? | 2010/10/31 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/4061326",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/486578/"
] | Uploading the images in the web application will never make any changes to your project. You will have to add them manually if you'll need them there. But generally these are pictures added by your user so the would just be in the file system - not really part of the solution, are they? | You have to click Refresh button. Also ensure that "Show all files" icon is selected. And finally, you will have to right click on the files and select Include in Project. That way it would become part of your project.
If I may ask, what exactly are you trying to achieve in your application? The reason I ask is, if there is an upload happening in your application, you shouldn't need to include the files in your project to refer to it from code. |
4,061,326 | I have upload control on my asp.net page. I upload pictures in folder cars and they show in windows explorer when I open that folder (cars), but in Visual Sudio they act like they not include in project ( that is the reason why they don't show on image control which point to some of them. What did I make wrong ? | 2010/10/31 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/4061326",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/486578/"
] | Uploading the images in the web application will never make any changes to your project. You will have to add them manually if you'll need them there. But generally these are pictures added by your user so the would just be in the file system - not really part of the solution, are they? | If you have choosen a webSITE then it will allow this, but not if a webPROJECT is selected.
I didn't find this on net, but I had two projects, and the one which was allowing me to show uploaded files was a website. |
4,061,326 | I have upload control on my asp.net page. I upload pictures in folder cars and they show in windows explorer when I open that folder (cars), but in Visual Sudio they act like they not include in project ( that is the reason why they don't show on image control which point to some of them. What did I make wrong ? | 2010/10/31 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/4061326",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/486578/"
] | If you have choosen a webSITE then it will allow this, but not if a webPROJECT is selected.
I didn't find this on net, but I had two projects, and the one which was allowing me to show uploaded files was a website. | You have to click the refresh button at the top of the solution explorer in Visual Studio for it to show changes to the files. |
4,061,326 | I have upload control on my asp.net page. I upload pictures in folder cars and they show in windows explorer when I open that folder (cars), but in Visual Sudio they act like they not include in project ( that is the reason why they don't show on image control which point to some of them. What did I make wrong ? | 2010/10/31 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/4061326",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/486578/"
] | If you have choosen a webSITE then it will allow this, but not if a webPROJECT is selected.
I didn't find this on net, but I had two projects, and the one which was allowing me to show uploaded files was a website. | You have to click Refresh button. Also ensure that "Show all files" icon is selected. And finally, you will have to right click on the files and select Include in Project. That way it would become part of your project.
If I may ask, what exactly are you trying to achieve in your application? The reason I ask is, if there is an upload happening in your application, you shouldn't need to include the files in your project to refer to it from code. |
50,372,240 | I'm curious to know what is the maximum bitmap width and height independently of each other. I did find that the maximum size is 32768x32768, but is that just referencing a perfect square? Is 32768x32768 = 1,073,741,824 the total amount of pixels I can play with and I can rearrange those pixels among the width and height as long as the total doesn't exceed?
I don't get any error if I do this:
Dim theBitmap as Bitmap = New Bitmap(450, 100000)
Even though I am unable to open the image after I save it (which I don't need to do), I am still able to work with the bitmap BUT I believe there is something not quite right... The final result does not yield the expected result...
The purpose of what I am doing is irrelevant. All I care about is answers to the questions I stated in the first paragraph. If the answer is that I am limited to 32768 for the height, then I'll change my code accordingly. Thanks! | 2018/05/16 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/50372240",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/7447607/"
] | I was able to figure out the answer to my initial questions. You are indeed able to work with any width and height as long as the total dimension stays within the maximum size specification. You may experience problem saving awkward dimensions (1 by 1,000,000), but if you only need to manipulate a bitmap, you can indeed work with such scenarios.
Cheers to everyone that contributed in the comment section! | PNG and JPEG have no explicit limit on file size, whereas BMP has a limit of 32K by 32K pixels, which I believe is your problem here (some places state that it can also hold 2Gx2G, but I couldn't find anything related to those claims). |
50,372,240 | I'm curious to know what is the maximum bitmap width and height independently of each other. I did find that the maximum size is 32768x32768, but is that just referencing a perfect square? Is 32768x32768 = 1,073,741,824 the total amount of pixels I can play with and I can rearrange those pixels among the width and height as long as the total doesn't exceed?
I don't get any error if I do this:
Dim theBitmap as Bitmap = New Bitmap(450, 100000)
Even though I am unable to open the image after I save it (which I don't need to do), I am still able to work with the bitmap BUT I believe there is something not quite right... The final result does not yield the expected result...
The purpose of what I am doing is irrelevant. All I care about is answers to the questions I stated in the first paragraph. If the answer is that I am limited to 32768 for the height, then I'll change my code accordingly. Thanks! | 2018/05/16 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/50372240",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/7447607/"
] | .bmps size is constrained by the max size of a uint32\_t, which is 4GB.
Any dimensions are acceptable as long as the .bmp remains under 4GB.
However, not all bitmaps are created equal. Monochrome bitmaps only need 1 bit per pixel, and also use a slightly smaller color pallet (8 bytes total) so can have a little more than 4x the total number of pixels a 16 color bitmap needs (which uses 4 bits per pixel, and 64 bytes for the color pallet).
This does not take into account compression, as bmps allow for compression for all non monochrome bmps. | PNG and JPEG have no explicit limit on file size, whereas BMP has a limit of 32K by 32K pixels, which I believe is your problem here (some places state that it can also hold 2Gx2G, but I couldn't find anything related to those claims). |
50,372,240 | I'm curious to know what is the maximum bitmap width and height independently of each other. I did find that the maximum size is 32768x32768, but is that just referencing a perfect square? Is 32768x32768 = 1,073,741,824 the total amount of pixels I can play with and I can rearrange those pixels among the width and height as long as the total doesn't exceed?
I don't get any error if I do this:
Dim theBitmap as Bitmap = New Bitmap(450, 100000)
Even though I am unable to open the image after I save it (which I don't need to do), I am still able to work with the bitmap BUT I believe there is something not quite right... The final result does not yield the expected result...
The purpose of what I am doing is irrelevant. All I care about is answers to the questions I stated in the first paragraph. If the answer is that I am limited to 32768 for the height, then I'll change my code accordingly. Thanks! | 2018/05/16 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/50372240",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/7447607/"
] | I was able to figure out the answer to my initial questions. You are indeed able to work with any width and height as long as the total dimension stays within the maximum size specification. You may experience problem saving awkward dimensions (1 by 1,000,000), but if you only need to manipulate a bitmap, you can indeed work with such scenarios.
Cheers to everyone that contributed in the comment section! | .bmps size is constrained by the max size of a uint32\_t, which is 4GB.
Any dimensions are acceptable as long as the .bmp remains under 4GB.
However, not all bitmaps are created equal. Monochrome bitmaps only need 1 bit per pixel, and also use a slightly smaller color pallet (8 bytes total) so can have a little more than 4x the total number of pixels a 16 color bitmap needs (which uses 4 bits per pixel, and 64 bytes for the color pallet).
This does not take into account compression, as bmps allow for compression for all non monochrome bmps. |
8,941,171 | >
> **Possible Duplicate:**
>
> [What are the naming guidelines for ASP.NET controls?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/181597/what-are-the-naming-guidelines-for-asp-net-controls)
>
>
>
Is there a standard guidelines as to the naming convention/style that asp.net control elements should be named. I have seen some developers prefixing textboxes with txt etc. Are there any standards that should be abided by? | 2012/01/20 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/8941171",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/373674/"
] | You can use ISO standard Naming convention or CMM level convention.
like Function name "Add"
variable name "strQuery"
Control Name "btnSubmit"
Class Name "Common"
Namespace "Sanjog.Web"
public Property Name "UniqueId"
private variable "\_uniqueId"
Hope this is what you are looking for. | MSDN has it covered -> [MSDN Naming Guidelines](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/xzf533w0%28v=vs.71%29.aspx)
*(follows an abstract from the linked page, too long to bring everything over)*
>
> Use the following three conventions for capitalizing identifiers.
>
>
> Pascal case - The first letter in the identifier and the first letter of
> each subsequent concatenated word are capitalized. You can use Pascal
> case for identifiers of three or more characters.
>
>
> For example: **BackColor**
>
>
> Camel case - The first letter of an identifier is lowercase
> and the first letter of each subsequent concatenated word is
> capitalized.
>
>
> For example: **backColor**
>
>
> Uppercase - All letters in the identifier are capitalized.
> Use this convention only for identifiers
> that consist of two or fewer letters.
>
>
> For example: **System.IO**, **System.Web.UI**
>
>
> You might also have to capitalize identifiers to
> maintain compatibility with existing, unmanaged symbol schemes, where
> all uppercase characters are often used for enumerations and constant
> values. In general, these symbols should not be visible outside of the
> assembly that uses them.
>
>
>
Anyway, as long as everyone working on a project follows the same convention, you're good to go, whatever that convention is. |
8,941,171 | >
> **Possible Duplicate:**
>
> [What are the naming guidelines for ASP.NET controls?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/181597/what-are-the-naming-guidelines-for-asp-net-controls)
>
>
>
Is there a standard guidelines as to the naming convention/style that asp.net control elements should be named. I have seen some developers prefixing textboxes with txt etc. Are there any standards that should be abided by? | 2012/01/20 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/8941171",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/373674/"
] | You can use ISO standard Naming convention or CMM level convention.
like Function name "Add"
variable name "strQuery"
Control Name "btnSubmit"
Class Name "Common"
Namespace "Sanjog.Web"
public Property Name "UniqueId"
private variable "\_uniqueId"
Hope this is what you are looking for. | Prefixes like "txt" are more common with developers who came up through VB6, or learned from developers who came up through VB6. In a truly object-oriented environment such as .NET its not as necessary to prefix items to indicate their type. However, doing so it entirely a matter of personal preference, just be consistent. |
8,941,171 | >
> **Possible Duplicate:**
>
> [What are the naming guidelines for ASP.NET controls?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/181597/what-are-the-naming-guidelines-for-asp-net-controls)
>
>
>
Is there a standard guidelines as to the naming convention/style that asp.net control elements should be named. I have seen some developers prefixing textboxes with txt etc. Are there any standards that should be abided by? | 2012/01/20 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/8941171",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/373674/"
] | You can use ISO standard Naming convention or CMM level convention.
like Function name "Add"
variable name "strQuery"
Control Name "btnSubmit"
Class Name "Common"
Namespace "Sanjog.Web"
public Property Name "UniqueId"
private variable "\_uniqueId"
Hope this is what you are looking for. | There is no official standard for naming of controls.
Actually the naming convention is only for your convenience so that it can be reusable and some one who will be editing it or trying to understand it would not be a big deal for him
Now coming to the point Generally Naming conventions are followed in company level
i.e some use the prefix of textbox (like textBoxName , textBoxPassword), some txt ( like txtName). Everything is right .
It is just that all the developers in a team must follow the same and the same to be maintained through out the project. |
18,468 | Are there any packages to do piecewise linear regression, which can detect the multiple knots automatically? Thanks.
When I use the strucchange package. I could not detect the change points. I have no idea how it detects the change points. From the plots, I could see there are several points I want it could help me to pick them out. Could anyone give an example here? | 2011/11/16 | [
"https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/18468",
"https://stats.stackexchange.com",
"https://stats.stackexchange.com/users/4810/"
] | There is a pretty nice algorithm described in [Tomé and Miranda (1984)](http://idl.ul.pt/sites/idl.ul.pt/files/docs/Tome%26Miranda2004GRL.pdf).
>
> The proposed methodology uses a least-squares approach to compute the best continuous set of straight lines that fit a given time series, subject to a number of constraints on the minimum distance between breakpoints and on the minimum trend change at each breakpoint.
>
>
>
The code and a GUI are available in both Fortran and IDL from their website:
<http://www.dfisica.ubi.pt/~artome/linearstep.html> | I once came across a program called [Joinpoint](http://surveillance.cancer.gov/joinpoint/). On their website they say it fits a joinpoint model where "several different lines are connected together at the 'joinpoints'". And further: "The user supplies the minimum and maximum number of joinpoints. The program starts with the minimum number of joinpoint (e.g. 0 joinpoints, which is a straight line) and tests whether more joinpoints are statistically significant and must be added to the model (up to that maximum number)."
The NCI uses it for trend modelling of cancer rates, maybe it fits your needs as well. |
18,468 | Are there any packages to do piecewise linear regression, which can detect the multiple knots automatically? Thanks.
When I use the strucchange package. I could not detect the change points. I have no idea how it detects the change points. From the plots, I could see there are several points I want it could help me to pick them out. Could anyone give an example here? | 2011/11/16 | [
"https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/18468",
"https://stats.stackexchange.com",
"https://stats.stackexchange.com/users/4810/"
] | There is a pretty nice algorithm described in [Tomé and Miranda (1984)](http://idl.ul.pt/sites/idl.ul.pt/files/docs/Tome%26Miranda2004GRL.pdf).
>
> The proposed methodology uses a least-squares approach to compute the best continuous set of straight lines that fit a given time series, subject to a number of constraints on the minimum distance between breakpoints and on the minimum trend change at each breakpoint.
>
>
>
The code and a GUI are available in both Fortran and IDL from their website:
<http://www.dfisica.ubi.pt/~artome/linearstep.html> | ... first of all you must to do it by iterations, and under some informative criterion, like AIC AICc BIC Cp; because you can get an "ideal" fit, if number of knots K = number od data points N, ok.
... first put K = 0; estimate L = K + 1 regressions, calculate AICc, for instance;
then assume minimal number of data points at a separate segment, say L = 3 or L = 4, ok
... put K = 1; start from L-th data as the first knot, calculate SS or MLE, ... and step by step the next data point as a knot, SS or MLE, up to the last knot at the N - L data; choose the arrangement with the best fit (SS or MLE) calculate AICc ...
... put K = 2; ... use all previous regressions (that is their SS or MLE), but step by step divide a single segment into all possible parts ... choose the arrangement with the best fit (SS or MLE) calculate AICc ... if the last AICc occurs greater then the previous one: stop the iterations ! This is an optimal solution under AICc criterion, ok |
19,276 | I am using DrawIndexedPrimitives() for drawing a loaded 3D model by drawing each [mesh part](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.xna.framework.graphics.modelmeshpart.aspx), but this process makes my application very slow. This is perhaps because of a very large number of vertex/index buffer data created in video memory.
That is why I am looking for a way to use the same method for each [model mesh](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.xna.framework.graphics.modelmesh.aspx) instead. The problem is that I don't know how I will set the textures of that mesh. Can anyone offer me some guidance? | 2011/11/01 | [
"https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/19276",
"https://gamedev.stackexchange.com",
"https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/users/10885/"
] | Make a single texture atlas by combining all your mesh's textures into one, in any image editing program. Then you'll have to go into your 3D modeling program to set the texture atlas to all the parts of your model, and UV re-map. The re-mapping is not as daunting as you might expect- it'll usually just be a matter of rotating, proportional scaling and moving the groups of vertices until they fit with the new texture. Export the mesh with the new texture coordinates.
Combine your mesh parts into a larger one in runtime. When the models are being loaded, read each vertex buffer and index buffer and join them together to create one large vertex buffer and index buffer. This is a non-destructive change, as you still get to keep the individual mesh parts if you want to go back and make any further tweaks in the modeling program. Now with these new buffers, you only need one draw call and one texture change to render each model.
Your program sounds like it's drawing a complex or busy scene, so it may take some time to build the new vertex buffers dynamically. However, you'll just do this once each time they load in the program. | If the entire model uses only one texture, theoretically you can set that texture and draw the model's vertex buffer and index buffer in one call, since the entire model is stored in a single vertex and index buffer.
Except, when you load the model the indexes for various mesh parts will not be relative the vertex buffer as a whole, but rather the mesh part's vertex offset, making that impossible for no good reason. So to draw the entire model in one draw call you will have to create a new index buffer with corrected indexes. |
14,595,570 | Beginner question: I'm working on web application which I will releasing to the world soon. Right now, I'm using AWS free tier to test my application written in Asp.Net Mvc 4.
I follow HN and Reddit. I have seen many sites crash or become unresponsive when the submission gets on front page of this site and can't handle the huge load that user pour on the site.
Now I want to be ready for this situation if submit link to my app to these sites and get same huge load. But this load may vary. So I want to know how could I know when to increase/decrease the number of instances. Is there any benchmark/threshold for Asp.net mvc to let me know that I can handle this much requests at the moment and you will need another instance in next few mins or requests? Or is it the case that EC2 automatically creates new instances depending on the load and I just need to enable the settings somewhere? Or there are some third party tools that does all this for me? | 2013/01/30 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/14595570",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1057297/"
] | You may want to look at some of the options [RightScale](http://rightscale.com) has to offer. They are one of the bigger providers and have a very robust suite of functionality.
If you want to roll up the sleeves and get a little more involved, this isn't hard to do directly via the AWS console using [auto scaling groups](http://aws.amazon.com/autoscaling/) either, it just requires a little more upfront time.
There is also a tool called [Asgard](https://github.com/Netflix/asgard/wiki/Quick-Start-Guide), open sourced form Netflix which you may find helpful. | I'm rather new to scaling on EC2s as well (most experience was with dedicated servers) it really depends on your app and how it's built. For one of my projects the app is relatively simple enough that I've created an image of the server and app, and then spin up new servers as needed. All data is stored in rds with replication so no data is stored on the web servers. I use ylastic.com which is an awesome way to manage your amazon acct. for $50 a month it lets you setup auto scaling based on time of day or CPU utilization really easy. Amazon does provide a GUI for scaling and you will need to use command line tools which was hard to understand (at least for me). With ylastic I setup an auto scaling group in 20 mins whereas if cpu utilization reached 40%, then spin up a new ec2 using a pure built image. You then set the min and max servers for the auto scaling group. When utilization drops, it terminates ec2s. So it also helps you to have compute power when you need it without having servers running 24/7. |
3,885,489 | I'm wondering if there is a test framework that allows for tests to be declared as being dependent on other tests. This would imply that they should not be run, or that their results should not be prominently displayed, if the tests that they depend on do not pass.
The point of such a setup would be to allow the root cause to be more readily determined in a situation where there are many test failures.
As a bonus, it would be great if there some way to use an object created with one test as a fixture for other tests.
Is this feature set provided by any of the Python testing frameworks? Or would such an approach be antithetical to unit testing's underlying philosophy? | 2010/10/07 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3885489",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/192812/"
] | >
> Or would such an approach be
> antithetical to unit testing's
> underlying philosophy?
>
>
>
Yep...if it is a unit test, it should be able to run on its own. Anytime I have found someone wanting to create dependencies on tests was due to the code being structured in a poor manner. I am not saying this is the instance in your case but it can often be a sign of code smell. | It looks like what you need is not to prevent the execution of your dependent tests but to report the results of your unit test in a more structured way that allows you to identify when an error in a test cascades onto other failed tests. |
3,885,489 | I'm wondering if there is a test framework that allows for tests to be declared as being dependent on other tests. This would imply that they should not be run, or that their results should not be prominently displayed, if the tests that they depend on do not pass.
The point of such a setup would be to allow the root cause to be more readily determined in a situation where there are many test failures.
As a bonus, it would be great if there some way to use an object created with one test as a fixture for other tests.
Is this feature set provided by any of the Python testing frameworks? Or would such an approach be antithetical to unit testing's underlying philosophy? | 2010/10/07 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3885489",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/192812/"
] | >
> Or would such an approach be
> antithetical to unit testing's
> underlying philosophy?
>
>
>
Yep...if it is a unit test, it should be able to run on its own. Anytime I have found someone wanting to create dependencies on tests was due to the code being structured in a poor manner. I am not saying this is the instance in your case but it can often be a sign of code smell. | This seems to be a recurring question - e.g. #3396055
It most probably isn't a unit-test, because they should be fast (and independent). So running them all isn't a big drag. I can see where this might help in short-circuiting integration/regression runs to save time. If this is a major need for you, I'd tag the setup tests with [Core] or some such attribute.
I then proceed to write a build script which has two tasks
* Taskn : run all tests in X,Y,Z dlls marked with tag [Core]
* Taskn+1 depends on Taskn: run all tests in X,Y,Z dlls excluding those marked with tag [Core]
(Taskn+1 shouldn't run if Taskn didn't succeed.) It isn't a perfect solution - e.g. it would just bail out if any one [Core] test failed. But I guess you should be fixing the Core ones instead of proceeding with Non-Core tests. |
3,885,489 | I'm wondering if there is a test framework that allows for tests to be declared as being dependent on other tests. This would imply that they should not be run, or that their results should not be prominently displayed, if the tests that they depend on do not pass.
The point of such a setup would be to allow the root cause to be more readily determined in a situation where there are many test failures.
As a bonus, it would be great if there some way to use an object created with one test as a fixture for other tests.
Is this feature set provided by any of the Python testing frameworks? Or would such an approach be antithetical to unit testing's underlying philosophy? | 2010/10/07 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3885489",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/192812/"
] | >
> Or would such an approach be
> antithetical to unit testing's
> underlying philosophy?
>
>
>
Yep...if it is a unit test, it should be able to run on its own. Anytime I have found someone wanting to create dependencies on tests was due to the code being structured in a poor manner. I am not saying this is the instance in your case but it can often be a sign of code smell. | The test runners py.test, Nosetests and unit2/unittest2 all support the notion of "exiting after the first failure". py.test more generally allows to specify "--maxfail=NUM" to stop running and reporting after NUM failures. This may already help your case especially since maintaining and updating dependencies for tests may not be that interesting a task. |
3,885,489 | I'm wondering if there is a test framework that allows for tests to be declared as being dependent on other tests. This would imply that they should not be run, or that their results should not be prominently displayed, if the tests that they depend on do not pass.
The point of such a setup would be to allow the root cause to be more readily determined in a situation where there are many test failures.
As a bonus, it would be great if there some way to use an object created with one test as a fixture for other tests.
Is this feature set provided by any of the Python testing frameworks? Or would such an approach be antithetical to unit testing's underlying philosophy? | 2010/10/07 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3885489",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/192812/"
] | >
> Or would such an approach be
> antithetical to unit testing's
> underlying philosophy?
>
>
>
Yep...if it is a unit test, it should be able to run on its own. Anytime I have found someone wanting to create dependencies on tests was due to the code being structured in a poor manner. I am not saying this is the instance in your case but it can often be a sign of code smell. | >
> [Proboscis](https://pythonhosted.org/proboscis/#how-it-works) is a Python test framework that extends Python’s built-in unittest module and Nose with features from TestNG.
>
>
>
Sounds like what you're looking for. Note that it works a bit differently to unittest and Nose, but that page explains how it works pretty well. |
3,885,489 | I'm wondering if there is a test framework that allows for tests to be declared as being dependent on other tests. This would imply that they should not be run, or that their results should not be prominently displayed, if the tests that they depend on do not pass.
The point of such a setup would be to allow the root cause to be more readily determined in a situation where there are many test failures.
As a bonus, it would be great if there some way to use an object created with one test as a fixture for other tests.
Is this feature set provided by any of the Python testing frameworks? Or would such an approach be antithetical to unit testing's underlying philosophy? | 2010/10/07 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3885489",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/192812/"
] | This seems to be a recurring question - e.g. #3396055
It most probably isn't a unit-test, because they should be fast (and independent). So running them all isn't a big drag. I can see where this might help in short-circuiting integration/regression runs to save time. If this is a major need for you, I'd tag the setup tests with [Core] or some such attribute.
I then proceed to write a build script which has two tasks
* Taskn : run all tests in X,Y,Z dlls marked with tag [Core]
* Taskn+1 depends on Taskn: run all tests in X,Y,Z dlls excluding those marked with tag [Core]
(Taskn+1 shouldn't run if Taskn didn't succeed.) It isn't a perfect solution - e.g. it would just bail out if any one [Core] test failed. But I guess you should be fixing the Core ones instead of proceeding with Non-Core tests. | It looks like what you need is not to prevent the execution of your dependent tests but to report the results of your unit test in a more structured way that allows you to identify when an error in a test cascades onto other failed tests. |
3,885,489 | I'm wondering if there is a test framework that allows for tests to be declared as being dependent on other tests. This would imply that they should not be run, or that their results should not be prominently displayed, if the tests that they depend on do not pass.
The point of such a setup would be to allow the root cause to be more readily determined in a situation where there are many test failures.
As a bonus, it would be great if there some way to use an object created with one test as a fixture for other tests.
Is this feature set provided by any of the Python testing frameworks? Or would such an approach be antithetical to unit testing's underlying philosophy? | 2010/10/07 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3885489",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/192812/"
] | >
> [Proboscis](https://pythonhosted.org/proboscis/#how-it-works) is a Python test framework that extends Python’s built-in unittest module and Nose with features from TestNG.
>
>
>
Sounds like what you're looking for. Note that it works a bit differently to unittest and Nose, but that page explains how it works pretty well. | It looks like what you need is not to prevent the execution of your dependent tests but to report the results of your unit test in a more structured way that allows you to identify when an error in a test cascades onto other failed tests. |
3,885,489 | I'm wondering if there is a test framework that allows for tests to be declared as being dependent on other tests. This would imply that they should not be run, or that their results should not be prominently displayed, if the tests that they depend on do not pass.
The point of such a setup would be to allow the root cause to be more readily determined in a situation where there are many test failures.
As a bonus, it would be great if there some way to use an object created with one test as a fixture for other tests.
Is this feature set provided by any of the Python testing frameworks? Or would such an approach be antithetical to unit testing's underlying philosophy? | 2010/10/07 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3885489",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/192812/"
] | This seems to be a recurring question - e.g. #3396055
It most probably isn't a unit-test, because they should be fast (and independent). So running them all isn't a big drag. I can see where this might help in short-circuiting integration/regression runs to save time. If this is a major need for you, I'd tag the setup tests with [Core] or some such attribute.
I then proceed to write a build script which has two tasks
* Taskn : run all tests in X,Y,Z dlls marked with tag [Core]
* Taskn+1 depends on Taskn: run all tests in X,Y,Z dlls excluding those marked with tag [Core]
(Taskn+1 shouldn't run if Taskn didn't succeed.) It isn't a perfect solution - e.g. it would just bail out if any one [Core] test failed. But I guess you should be fixing the Core ones instead of proceeding with Non-Core tests. | The test runners py.test, Nosetests and unit2/unittest2 all support the notion of "exiting after the first failure". py.test more generally allows to specify "--maxfail=NUM" to stop running and reporting after NUM failures. This may already help your case especially since maintaining and updating dependencies for tests may not be that interesting a task. |
3,885,489 | I'm wondering if there is a test framework that allows for tests to be declared as being dependent on other tests. This would imply that they should not be run, or that their results should not be prominently displayed, if the tests that they depend on do not pass.
The point of such a setup would be to allow the root cause to be more readily determined in a situation where there are many test failures.
As a bonus, it would be great if there some way to use an object created with one test as a fixture for other tests.
Is this feature set provided by any of the Python testing frameworks? Or would such an approach be antithetical to unit testing's underlying philosophy? | 2010/10/07 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3885489",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/192812/"
] | >
> [Proboscis](https://pythonhosted.org/proboscis/#how-it-works) is a Python test framework that extends Python’s built-in unittest module and Nose with features from TestNG.
>
>
>
Sounds like what you're looking for. Note that it works a bit differently to unittest and Nose, but that page explains how it works pretty well. | This seems to be a recurring question - e.g. #3396055
It most probably isn't a unit-test, because they should be fast (and independent). So running them all isn't a big drag. I can see where this might help in short-circuiting integration/regression runs to save time. If this is a major need for you, I'd tag the setup tests with [Core] or some such attribute.
I then proceed to write a build script which has two tasks
* Taskn : run all tests in X,Y,Z dlls marked with tag [Core]
* Taskn+1 depends on Taskn: run all tests in X,Y,Z dlls excluding those marked with tag [Core]
(Taskn+1 shouldn't run if Taskn didn't succeed.) It isn't a perfect solution - e.g. it would just bail out if any one [Core] test failed. But I guess you should be fixing the Core ones instead of proceeding with Non-Core tests. |
3,885,489 | I'm wondering if there is a test framework that allows for tests to be declared as being dependent on other tests. This would imply that they should not be run, or that their results should not be prominently displayed, if the tests that they depend on do not pass.
The point of such a setup would be to allow the root cause to be more readily determined in a situation where there are many test failures.
As a bonus, it would be great if there some way to use an object created with one test as a fixture for other tests.
Is this feature set provided by any of the Python testing frameworks? Or would such an approach be antithetical to unit testing's underlying philosophy? | 2010/10/07 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3885489",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/192812/"
] | >
> [Proboscis](https://pythonhosted.org/proboscis/#how-it-works) is a Python test framework that extends Python’s built-in unittest module and Nose with features from TestNG.
>
>
>
Sounds like what you're looking for. Note that it works a bit differently to unittest and Nose, but that page explains how it works pretty well. | The test runners py.test, Nosetests and unit2/unittest2 all support the notion of "exiting after the first failure". py.test more generally allows to specify "--maxfail=NUM" to stop running and reporting after NUM failures. This may already help your case especially since maintaining and updating dependencies for tests may not be that interesting a task. |
58,823 | I have to figure out how the CMIS support in SP2013 foundation does work out. And everything I find says that it is natively supported. But the site feature 'Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) Producer' does not exist. So I downloaded and installed the trial version of SP2013 Standard Edition and there it is... Already found out that the CMIS Producer was not a part of the preview but I installed the RTM release. So is it like in 2010 that CMIS is only available for Standand and Enterprise Edition? - because the site feature list says that it is also available for foundation ([http://office.microsoft.com](http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-server-help/activate-features-for-sites-HA102772224.aspx))
Edit:
Called Microsoft support and there is definitely no CMIS producer in SP2013 Foundation (but in Server Standard / Enterprise). The agent also clarified that there is no difference in editon features between SP2010 and SP2013 (no CMIS Producer in SP2010 Foundation = no CMIS Producer in SP2013 Foundation).
Thanks to everybody helping investigate in this | 2013/02/05 | [
"https://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/58823",
"https://sharepoint.stackexchange.com",
"https://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/users/14657/"
] | Called Microsoft support and there is definitely no CMIS producer in SP2013 Foundation (but in Server Standard / Enterprise). The agent also clarified that there is no difference in editon features between SP2010 and SP2013 (no CMIS Producer in SP2010 Foundation = no CMIS Producer in SP2013 Foundation).
Thanks Arsalan for participating | Swarley,
The article you have given on the top-right corner says:
>
> Applies to:
>
> SharePoint Foundation 2013,
> SharePoint Server 2013 Enterprise,
> SharePoint Server 2013 Standard
>
>
>
So the feature list is for all.. and AFAIK, till now there isn't any list that gives the feature difference between editions as it was [defined for SharePoint 2010](http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/en-us/buy/Pages/Editions-Comparison.aspx) |
4,282,720 | I tried searching but couldn't find a function which can create a shape by calculating difference of two NSBezier Paths or two CGPaths. Is there a function that can establish this in cocoa ?
Thanks. | 2010/11/26 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/4282720",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/125571/"
] | See "[Winding Rules](http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/CocoaDrawingGuide/Paths/Paths.html)" with NSBezierPath. You'll make a compound path by appending your two source paths to it. The resulting shape will depend upon the winding rule you set. | Finally did it by creating a bigger tracking area to enclose the whole shape and then tracking mouse moved events inside this tracking area. |
14,018 | I am building a medium-sized printer which needs to produce super-precise parts at a moderately fast print time. I frankly don't want to deal with belts or their tension issues but on the other hand, having ball screws on each axis will increase inertia...right?. I'm using Rexroth rails and will use (depending on what I decide) name brand belts or name brand ball screws. | 2020/07/05 | [
"https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/14018",
"https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com",
"https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/users/21785/"
] | The size of the nozzle usually isn't the main factor for how close you can put nozzles together. To keep the filament drive gear system from being the limiting factor, you would need Bowden extruders. "Then, the heat sinks and fans would be your limiting factor. Have you considered a single nozzle with three extruders? Otherwise, you need custom angled heat sinks similar to the three heat sinks on a single nozzle, and still a way to orient the nozzles at the same Z-height. That would be difficult if all the nozzles are on the same heater block. It still seems that nozzle size is the least of the issues of putting nozzles close together.
If you search for smaller nozzle sizes, you will get nozzles with smaller openings, not smaller overall size. The threads on the nozzles are a standard size. Thus, the smaller opening size can't be put closer together than the larger opening size. Otherwise, you have only small variations between different types of nozzles and need room to screw them in to the heater block if you put all of them into one block. You can get a nozzle using a 6 mm hex wrench that is smaller than one using a 7 mm hex (E3D). | One of the thinnest hotends I've seen are those from a Chinese factory Mellow Store, the heatsink is smaller than the top flange to mount the hotend. I don't know the quality of these hotends, the image below shows the basic layouts of available options:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/MsvUL.jpg)
Ultimaker uses high quality hotends which are pretty small 2.85 mm hotends they call "cores", they house 2 next to each other and use a lifting mechanism:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/pl0mt.png) |
34,014 | I am very new in security testing.
It will be very helpful if any one can suggest open-source/free tools that can run Scans for security issues (E.G SQL Injection) on REST APIs which use JSON requests.
Some services also use OAUTH.
Thanks | 2016/06/20 | [
"https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/34014",
"https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com",
"https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/users/24535/"
] | For VBScript or ASP Classic, or for modeling VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) such as macros used in Microsoft Excel (but without specific Excel libraries), there is:
<http://VBFiddle.net>
I developed this website/script a few weeks ago specifically as a Thank you! to all of the contributors of Stack Exchange, Stack Overflow, and all of their universe of sites, and I find it very useful for quick prototyping or to show someone my VBScript code... for example with VBScript's RegEx engine which has some quirks specific to VBScript.
VBFiddle.net does not yet support saving your VBScript on the website, but you can save your VBScript to say jSFiddle.net and link to that, and instruct people to copy and paste into <http://VBFiddle.net>. I will add saving support to VB Fiddle / Visual Basic Classic Fiddle if there is enough interest.
Enjoy! | Desktop editors like Context and Notepad++ provide syntax highlighters for Classic ASP. Microsoft Visual InterDev provides intellisense and code completion. It was part of Visual Studio 6. Unfortunately, current MSDN subscription provide access to VB6 but not Interdev. However old MSDN subscribers may have already obtained Interdev and be willing to sell it on Amazon.
I am not aware of online editors. |
335,097 | I'm a first timer here. In a normal liquid-vapor P-V biphasic curve at a temperature below critical temperature, we can compress a vapor at a constant temperature till it becomes saturated, or is just about to turn into a liquid. Any further compression would lead to the existence of the two phases together, as we know. Here we can see from the phase rule that we have just one degree of freedom. So just specifying the temperature will set the pressure and volume, just like what the Antoine equation gives.
---
A pre-question here is that once we come into the zone inside the bell curve of mutual phase existence, what does the volume in the X-axis specify? (Like volume of the gas or volume of the liquid)
---
My main question is once it enters this zone where the temperature and pressure are set at a saturated value, what is the driving force for the conversion of the vapor to liquid. By this I mean, how can we ensure that two distinct desired compositions can be achieved if we perform the experiment two different times. Surely this isn't to be a transient process where the end result is always full saturated water.
I would really appreciate if someone could clear this for me. I have tried looking everywhere for an answer to this, and I did not find it here either. Pardon me if I didn't look enough here. | 2017/05/24 | [
"https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/335097",
"https://physics.stackexchange.com",
"https://physics.stackexchange.com/users/157112/"
] | This answer is meant to add to [Luke's excellent concise answer](https://physics.stackexchange.com/a/335094/26076), so please read his answer first.
In quantum mechanics, only measurements have the statistical distributions, the "uncertainties" and all the things that are (validly) bothering you. As you point out, this makes notions of *measured* spacetime co-ordinates problematic.
But the underlying theory that lets one calculate these statistical distributions can be Lorentz-invariant.
It is not emphasized enough, particularly in many lay expositions, that much, if not most of quantum mechanics is *utterly deterministic*. This deterministic part is concerned with the description and calculation of the evolution of a system's quantum state. Aside from some more modern mathematical techniques and notations, this part of quantum mechanics probably wouldn't look very alien or physically unreasonable to even Laplace himself (whom we can take as a canonical thinker from the philosophy of determinism). This quantum state evolution takes place on an abstract spacetime manifold just like classical physics. When a quantum theory is said to be relativistic or Lorentz invariant, it is usually the deterministic quantum state space evolution that is being talked about. Note, in particular, that no measurement takes place in this part of the description, so there's no problem with a spacetime manifold parameterized by zero uncertainty spacetime co-ordinates.
We model *measurements* with special Hermitian operators and recipes for handling them called *observables*. Given a system's quantum state, these operators let us work out the statistical distributions of outcomes of the measurements we can make on a system with that quantum state. When people talk of quantum uncertainty, Heisenberg's principle and all the rest of it, they are speaking about the statistical distributions that come from these measurements. So, whilst Schrödinger's equation (the deterministic, unitarily evolving description) for the electron in a hydrogen atom is written in terms of zero uncertainty space and time co-ordinates (known as *parameters* to emphasize that they are not measurements), the outcome of a position *measurement* is uncertain and the position observable lets us calculate the statistical distribution of that outcome. | There is no full consensus about what relativistic means, but as a good start, we can take the criterion given by Tim Maudlin in his paper "Space-Time in the Quantum World":
>
> [A] theory is compatible with Relativity if it can be formulated without ascribing to space-time any more of different intrinsic structure than the [...] relativistic metric.
>
>
>
This directly implies that the laws must be invariant under Lorentz transformations, there is no preferred frame as such and nothing can propagate faster than light. This is a good notion since it does not need things like "speed of a photon" that are, as you pointed out, a bit problematic. |
335,097 | I'm a first timer here. In a normal liquid-vapor P-V biphasic curve at a temperature below critical temperature, we can compress a vapor at a constant temperature till it becomes saturated, or is just about to turn into a liquid. Any further compression would lead to the existence of the two phases together, as we know. Here we can see from the phase rule that we have just one degree of freedom. So just specifying the temperature will set the pressure and volume, just like what the Antoine equation gives.
---
A pre-question here is that once we come into the zone inside the bell curve of mutual phase existence, what does the volume in the X-axis specify? (Like volume of the gas or volume of the liquid)
---
My main question is once it enters this zone where the temperature and pressure are set at a saturated value, what is the driving force for the conversion of the vapor to liquid. By this I mean, how can we ensure that two distinct desired compositions can be achieved if we perform the experiment two different times. Surely this isn't to be a transient process where the end result is always full saturated water.
I would really appreciate if someone could clear this for me. I have tried looking everywhere for an answer to this, and I did not find it here either. Pardon me if I didn't look enough here. | 2017/05/24 | [
"https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/335097",
"https://physics.stackexchange.com",
"https://physics.stackexchange.com/users/157112/"
] | There is no full consensus about what relativistic means, but as a good start, we can take the criterion given by Tim Maudlin in his paper "Space-Time in the Quantum World":
>
> [A] theory is compatible with Relativity if it can be formulated without ascribing to space-time any more of different intrinsic structure than the [...] relativistic metric.
>
>
>
This directly implies that the laws must be invariant under Lorentz transformations, there is no preferred frame as such and nothing can propagate faster than light. This is a good notion since it does not need things like "speed of a photon" that are, as you pointed out, a bit problematic. | >
> How exactly did Dirac incorporate SR into his wave equation?
>
>
>
Relativity treats space and time on equal footing. Lorentz transformations ("boosts") "mix" space and time more or less analogously to the way a 3-dimensional rotations "mixes" the usual $(x,y,z)$ coordinates of space.
The Schrödinger equation describes non-relativistic quantum mechanical systems well, but is second-order in spatial derivatives and first-order in the temporal derivatives. In other words, space and time are not on equal footing.
Dirac, being a formal theorist, looked for an equation that would reproduce predictions (e.g., the energy levels of Hydrogen in the limit of slowly moving electrons) of the non-relativistic theory while treating space and time on equal footing. The equation which he discovered and now bears his name is a first-order differential equation in space and time. This "equal treatment of space and time" is the sense in which the Dirac equation incorporates special relativity. |
335,097 | I'm a first timer here. In a normal liquid-vapor P-V biphasic curve at a temperature below critical temperature, we can compress a vapor at a constant temperature till it becomes saturated, or is just about to turn into a liquid. Any further compression would lead to the existence of the two phases together, as we know. Here we can see from the phase rule that we have just one degree of freedom. So just specifying the temperature will set the pressure and volume, just like what the Antoine equation gives.
---
A pre-question here is that once we come into the zone inside the bell curve of mutual phase existence, what does the volume in the X-axis specify? (Like volume of the gas or volume of the liquid)
---
My main question is once it enters this zone where the temperature and pressure are set at a saturated value, what is the driving force for the conversion of the vapor to liquid. By this I mean, how can we ensure that two distinct desired compositions can be achieved if we perform the experiment two different times. Surely this isn't to be a transient process where the end result is always full saturated water.
I would really appreciate if someone could clear this for me. I have tried looking everywhere for an answer to this, and I did not find it here either. Pardon me if I didn't look enough here. | 2017/05/24 | [
"https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/335097",
"https://physics.stackexchange.com",
"https://physics.stackexchange.com/users/157112/"
] | This answer is meant to add to [Luke's excellent concise answer](https://physics.stackexchange.com/a/335094/26076), so please read his answer first.
In quantum mechanics, only measurements have the statistical distributions, the "uncertainties" and all the things that are (validly) bothering you. As you point out, this makes notions of *measured* spacetime co-ordinates problematic.
But the underlying theory that lets one calculate these statistical distributions can be Lorentz-invariant.
It is not emphasized enough, particularly in many lay expositions, that much, if not most of quantum mechanics is *utterly deterministic*. This deterministic part is concerned with the description and calculation of the evolution of a system's quantum state. Aside from some more modern mathematical techniques and notations, this part of quantum mechanics probably wouldn't look very alien or physically unreasonable to even Laplace himself (whom we can take as a canonical thinker from the philosophy of determinism). This quantum state evolution takes place on an abstract spacetime manifold just like classical physics. When a quantum theory is said to be relativistic or Lorentz invariant, it is usually the deterministic quantum state space evolution that is being talked about. Note, in particular, that no measurement takes place in this part of the description, so there's no problem with a spacetime manifold parameterized by zero uncertainty spacetime co-ordinates.
We model *measurements* with special Hermitian operators and recipes for handling them called *observables*. Given a system's quantum state, these operators let us work out the statistical distributions of outcomes of the measurements we can make on a system with that quantum state. When people talk of quantum uncertainty, Heisenberg's principle and all the rest of it, they are speaking about the statistical distributions that come from these measurements. So, whilst Schrödinger's equation (the deterministic, unitarily evolving description) for the electron in a hydrogen atom is written in terms of zero uncertainty space and time co-ordinates (known as *parameters* to emphasize that they are not measurements), the outcome of a position *measurement* is uncertain and the position observable lets us calculate the statistical distribution of that outcome. | >
> How exactly did Dirac incorporate SR into his wave equation?
>
>
>
Relativity treats space and time on equal footing. Lorentz transformations ("boosts") "mix" space and time more or less analogously to the way a 3-dimensional rotations "mixes" the usual $(x,y,z)$ coordinates of space.
The Schrödinger equation describes non-relativistic quantum mechanical systems well, but is second-order in spatial derivatives and first-order in the temporal derivatives. In other words, space and time are not on equal footing.
Dirac, being a formal theorist, looked for an equation that would reproduce predictions (e.g., the energy levels of Hydrogen in the limit of slowly moving electrons) of the non-relativistic theory while treating space and time on equal footing. The equation which he discovered and now bears his name is a first-order differential equation in space and time. This "equal treatment of space and time" is the sense in which the Dirac equation incorporates special relativity. |
114,281 | I emailed a potential supervisor at a US university recently. He replied promptly, cc'ing the graduate school dean in the email and saying I had a very good idea but then suggesting another research question that needs to be answered first.
I saw that no one has done it yet (nothing published, as far as I know), and I then asked if his lab is currently tackling the problem, and he simply responded:
>
> We are not working on it yet
>
>
>
I have asked the graduate school dean several questions after that, but I have not responded to the potential supervisor yet. How should I continue our correspondence? I'm really interested in the new research problem, but I don't know how to respond to him. | 2018/07/26 | [
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/114281",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/96428/"
] | I think he is busy and just responded in the quickest way possible to your query. If you are interested in it, respond that you are and would like to take it up. More importantly, respond that you want to take it up under his supervision and will be following up with your formal application.
If you come up with any deep thoughts on the problem or partial solutions, you can (now or later) communicate that you have progress and maybe share some of that. Since you don't really know much about him, I wouldn't lay everything out early on, however. Wait until you can assess one another first.
If you read other questions on this site note that some of them are about unethical behavior by supervisors. I have no reason to even suspect this is the case here (and since it is rare, I doubt it). Others questions are about misunderstandings. If you are familiar with the game [Poker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poker), don't show all your cards early. | One thing is, be clear and specific. If you are looking for a place to do graduate study, be sure to ask for this. "I am looking for a place to do my PhD. Would it be possible for me to be a PhD student at your lab? Would you be available to be my supervisor to complete my PhD?" If the answer is hazy, or unclear, or non-committal, then consider that you will soon need to make clear commitments to apply to a university. You may need to pay out money to apply. You may have to forego other possibilities to apply, due to time and money.
His response might reasonably be to ask for your record so far, like transcripts or references etc. And if you have financial support of some kind. And all the mundane things.
If there is agreement to take you as a PhD candidate, but the specific research topic is not decided in advance, you need to decide if that is a deal-killer for you. Again, ask specific questions. "What possible research topics would you be willing to supervise me for?" Again, if the answers don't please you, or they are vague, you need to regroup and re-plan.
With luck your academic career isn't limited to one research question. So, if you don't do the first choice question now, you may be able to keep that "in your pocket" for future work. That's got some value. It is a rare PhD candidate who gets to do all the research stuff he wants without fitting in to some existing research program. And being able to "hit the ground running" with your own original ideas after you get the PhD is pretty good.
Any reasonable prof will understand that you need to make firm decisions so you can decide what school you are attending. And who is to be your supervisor. If he won't, or can't, be helpful on that, maybe he is not the right supervisor. Possibly it is not that he is a bad person. Maybe he is just busy and distracted. But "busy and distracted" now, while it is your only data, is still data. |
238,089 | I'll try to explain this so it hopefully makes sense. I am putting a 9U server rack about 6 feet up a closet wall. I found a rack that has an open space in the back. My goal here is installing a 4 outlet box in the wall inside the rack to prevent anyone from unplugging it.
This is for a security camera NVR. This is the only one I could find without a backplate and tall enough to house some security equipment. I am going to put this close to the ceiling and drop the ethernet cables through an opening in the top of the rack. This should prevent anyone messing with the ethernet cables.
I would like to run a new line (breaker) from the breaker box to this outlet.
Do I need a stud to mount the outlet junction box to? I am not an electrician but would like to try and attempt this project. I have changed wall-switch outlets, and changed breakers before. This would be a step up from that and a good challenge. I am not sure what steps I would need to take to do this. Install the box, then the outlet, what is correct way to tackle this project?
Here are some pictures that hopefully tie this idea together.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/zVVx0.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/xto1T.jpg)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZlFMm.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/yL52S.png) | 2021/11/11 | [
"https://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/238089",
"https://diy.stackexchange.com",
"https://diy.stackexchange.com/users/120126/"
] | A few things to consider:
* Rack Mounting
The rack itself needs to be either attached to studs or screwed into something else that is attached to studs. Since it is unlikely that you would be able to get enough screws into studs by positioning the rack "just right", the usual method is to cut a sheet of plywood to be a little larger than the rack and all other equipment and mount that to the studs. Then you can put screws through every mounting hole of the rack into the plywood and it will be very secure.
* Receptacle Type
You are planning on 4 receptacles. Most typical installations I have worked with, whether computer, video or telephone equipment (or often a combination) only end up using one or two receptacles (so a standard duplex will be fine) and plug surge protectors into each receptacle. That allows for easy on/off without unplugging (and unplugging is a pain to do reaching past all the equipment into the back of the rack) and provides some protection against surges. If you have high *power* requirements (as opposed to just a lot of different small items, which is the more common situation) then whether a duplex or a quad you can bring in either two circuits or an MWBC (two circuits in one, essentially). If your expect power needs are 1500W or less than one circuit is plenty.
Note that four receptacles on one circuit costs very little more than two receptacles, just may not gain you anything at all.
* Receptacle Mounting
There are three ways you could go here.
* **Standard wall receptacles.** Install an ordinary one gang (2 receptacle) or two gang (4 receptacle) box in the wall. Run the cable. Install the receptacles. Put on an ordinary cover. When you are ready to put up the plywood, measure where the receptacle is and cut a rectangle where the receptacles will be. Leave an inch or so all around the cover plate so that you have a little work room in case so the receptacles can be replaced without taking down the rack and the plywood.
* **Make the Plywood the Wall.** Cut a hole the exact size of the needed opening (one gang or two gang) in the plywood. Install the plywood. Cut into the drywall through the hole in the plywood. Install the box and receptacles such that the front of the box/receptacles is flush mount with the plywood - i.e., the plywood becomes the wall.
* **Surface Mount.** Install the plywood. Install a metal box for the receptacles. Run the cable down the wall/plywood and into the top of the box. Install the receptacles. I don't think the cable needs damage protection on the wall in this case, but if it does (the pros will speak up if it does...) then use conduit or wiremold for the few feet from the ceiling to the box. | I'm adding an answer to supplement the excellent [answer from manassehkatz above](https://diy.stackexchange.com/a/238091/43874) because he beat me to most of the points I wanted to make.
If you can mount it right where you want it and have it centered between studs, thats great, but you have to make sure that electrical comes down the wall on one side and ethernet and camera cables come in as far as possible on the other side. Electrical lines can cause quite a bit of interference when they are run parallel and close to data cables.
What I would suggest is the plywood backing idea, but go ahead and have a stud go straight down the middle of the box to provide a solid divide between power and data. The plywood (3/4") screwed into the center stud will provide plenty of strength for this small rack. If you go with the plan to remove drywall and replace with plywood, then put some blocking right down the middle to create a divide. |
127,150 | >
> To that great man, I dedicate this book to.
>
>
>
Is this correct? I'm wondering if it's alright to end a sentence with a to proposition at the end. | 2017/04/19 | [
"https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/127150",
"https://ell.stackexchange.com",
"https://ell.stackexchange.com/users/54074/"
] | You can have either of the *to*'s, but not both; but the meaning is different.
>
> To that great man, I dedicate this book.
>
>
>
is a perfectly good sentence. It's a non-standard word order (more normal would be "I dedicate this book to that great man") so it has the effect of emphasising the great man.
>
> That great man I dedicate this book to.
>
>
>
(preferably without the comma) is a sentence fragment: there is an implied relative pronoun "That great man that/who/whom I dedicate this book to", so the fragment is a complex noun phrase, not a whole sentence. To make it a whole sentence you need a main verb:
>
> That great man I dedicate this book to is John Smith.
>
>
>
But in a suitable conversational context, a sentence fragment like that can stand on its own. | In this case the second *to* is wrong because the sentence already has one (at the beginning).
In the past, prepositions at the end of the sentence are termed "stranded prepositions" and regarded as a stylistic flaw, if not even grammatically wrong. More modern linguists and style guides, however, regard them as something that's perfectly permissible.
[Source:](http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2011/11/grammar-myths-prepositions/)
Personally, prepositions at the end of a sentence are nothing I object **to**. Ba-dum-tsss! |
31,613,390 | So I've got two iOS devices, an iPad and an iPhone. I have the iPad acting as an iBeacon and the phone picking it up and ranging correctly and that's all going swimmingly.
What I want to achieve is for the phone to send the iPad a single string once it has been picked up as CLProximityImmediate.
Is this possible and if so, anyone know how to implement it? | 2015/07/24 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/31613390",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/3320342/"
] | I'm doing this now too. I started off using MultiPeer Connectivity as suggested by Felz. However, I was forced into an architecture that would support Android as well, so I switched to BlueTooth. The iPad acting as an iBeacon also has BlueTooth code that is looking for "peripherals" with a certain signature.
Once the iPhone detects the iBeacon, the app then starts transmitting a BlueTooth peripheral signal with the appropriate signature. It uses characteristics to provide amount other things the user's ID (as supplied to the app earlier) - it could also supply the device type, etc.
When the iPad detects the peripheral, it reads the characteristics, then writes to a writeable characteristic to tell the iPhone "Hey, I got your info - you can shut down your Bluetooth transmit signal now".
I should add that in the end, it took me several hours to get MultiPeer networking working on both transmitter and receiver, and several days to get the BlueTooth code working (I'm doing this in Swift, and the BlueTooth classes have not been all that kind to Swifters - at least one bug on this still open even in latest iOS9 betas). But, it makes my boss happy since it will allow Android devices to play too! | Location services do not include data transfers. Try the [Multipeer Connectivity framework](https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/documentation/MultipeerConnectivity/Reference/MultipeerConnectivityFramework/index.html). |
1,207 | I've recently found a number of my own programs (very old!) on Spectrum +3 discs, and I'm about to get hold of a working +3. Assuming the discs are readable, I'd like to transfer the programs (mostly basic, some machine code) into something I can back-up and play with - ideally .TAP etc.
I presume I could load them into the +3 file by file and save them to real tape, and then audio-grab the tape and turn into .TAP via an emulator or utility - but it seems a bit long winded. Is there an easier way that I'm completely overlooking?
For reference, there are at best 4 sides full of data, so can't really be more than about 680Kb maximum spread over perhaps 50 or 60 files.
[Edit:outcome]
I got a 3.5" floppy working, with a doctored IDE-type cable, and I used SpeccyTape on the iPhone to transfer Garry Lancaster's various disk utilities down onto a +3 disk. From there I was able to format some +3-format and MSDOS format disks and transfer/backup and otherwise just 'use' my disks. Great stuff. Happy to help anyone else who wanders this way, although there is plenty of help already out there. | 2016/07/28 | [
"https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/1207",
"https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com",
"https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/users/2169/"
] | I once wrote a program for this sort of situation: [DSKREAD](http://www.seasip.info/dskread.zip). It runs on a +3 and archives entire disks to tape. You could record the audio, convert to a .TAP file, and then load the .TAP in a +3 emulator to recreate .DSK images containing the original files.
As far as I know, no-one's tested DSKREAD on a real +3, so I've no idea whether it would actually work. It certainly can't handle any form of copy protection, and I think bad sectors might give it trouble.
If your PC has a real floppy controller (ie, a 34-way floppy connector on the motherboard, not a USB drive), you could also try either:
* Connect the Spectrum's 3" drive to the PC's floppy controller, [using
a handwired cable](http://www.fvempel.nl/3pc.html). Then use a tool like [SamDisk](http://simonowen.com/samdisk/) to image the
discs directly.
* [Connect a 3.5" drive to the +3's external drive socket](https://randomkak.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/35-inch-drive-on-your-spectrum.html) (You may need to short the READY pin to ground, if the 3.5" drive doesn't produce a READY signal). Use the COPY command on the +3 to copy all the files to the 3.5" drive. Then put the 3.5" drive in the PC and do the same imaging process. | One solution is to [plug](http://torlus.com/floppy/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=403) an [HxC floppy emulator](http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/) into the external floppy port and do a simple disk copy to an image on the SD card. |
18,541 | I'd like to buy new resistors for breadboarding with my Arduino Uno. There are 0.25W, 0.4W, 0.6W, 1W, 2W, 3W, 5W, 10W resistors in the shop. What is the most suitable for this operation? | 2015/12/08 | [
"https://arduino.stackexchange.com/questions/18541",
"https://arduino.stackexchange.com",
"https://arduino.stackexchange.com/users/15454/"
] | The answer is: It depends what you want to use them for.
You need a wattage that is higher than the power it will dissipate. What that power is depends on what you are doing with them. There are standard formulae that tell you the power in any given situation.
For instance, if you know the current and the resistance you can use: P=I²×R. If you know the voltage across the resistor it's P=V²÷R.
Take as an example the common resistor for an LED. Assume a 2V LED and a 220 ohm resistor. With a 5V total voltage the voltage across the resistor would be 5-2=3V. So the power would be (3²)/220 = 9/220 = 0.041W so you could quite happily use a 0.125w (⅛w) resistor for that job.
To be honest though most common Arduino jobs can be accommodated by ⅛W or ¼W resistors. ¼W is better for breadboarding since the leads are fatter than ⅛W, but ⅛W can take two leads at once direct into an Arduino's headers. Also if you fold the leads in half and squash them with pliers they fit better. | The smaller the better for the most part. On 1/4 or 1/8 W resistors the leads size is small enough to work well in bread boards. Rarely do you need to dissipate large amounts of power so 1/8 is a good size for logic, maybe 1/4-1/2 for power supply areas. See Majenko's answer for the heavy math, mostly applicable in power supply areas as he points out. |
18,541 | I'd like to buy new resistors for breadboarding with my Arduino Uno. There are 0.25W, 0.4W, 0.6W, 1W, 2W, 3W, 5W, 10W resistors in the shop. What is the most suitable for this operation? | 2015/12/08 | [
"https://arduino.stackexchange.com/questions/18541",
"https://arduino.stackexchange.com",
"https://arduino.stackexchange.com/users/15454/"
] | Go with 1/4 Watt resistors but be prepared to use 1/2 Watts if the leads don't press down cleanly into the breadboard which is what I think you are asking about. If you need anything in the higher wattage range and you are working with an Arduino, then you are doing it wrong. An Arduino could not smoke a 1/4 watt if it tried.
I have fought for years with our purchasing agent over this at the college I work for. He buys 1/8th watt resistor in bulk, but fails to heed the advice that you cannot use these on standard classroom breadboard without bending the leads at best and failing to even make a good connection at worst. You need reliable connections and 1/8th and smaller are useless on breadboards. Just my two cents from years and years of experience. | The smaller the better for the most part. On 1/4 or 1/8 W resistors the leads size is small enough to work well in bread boards. Rarely do you need to dissipate large amounts of power so 1/8 is a good size for logic, maybe 1/4-1/2 for power supply areas. See Majenko's answer for the heavy math, mostly applicable in power supply areas as he points out. |
18,541 | I'd like to buy new resistors for breadboarding with my Arduino Uno. There are 0.25W, 0.4W, 0.6W, 1W, 2W, 3W, 5W, 10W resistors in the shop. What is the most suitable for this operation? | 2015/12/08 | [
"https://arduino.stackexchange.com/questions/18541",
"https://arduino.stackexchange.com",
"https://arduino.stackexchange.com/users/15454/"
] | The answer is: It depends what you want to use them for.
You need a wattage that is higher than the power it will dissipate. What that power is depends on what you are doing with them. There are standard formulae that tell you the power in any given situation.
For instance, if you know the current and the resistance you can use: P=I²×R. If you know the voltage across the resistor it's P=V²÷R.
Take as an example the common resistor for an LED. Assume a 2V LED and a 220 ohm resistor. With a 5V total voltage the voltage across the resistor would be 5-2=3V. So the power would be (3²)/220 = 9/220 = 0.041W so you could quite happily use a 0.125w (⅛w) resistor for that job.
To be honest though most common Arduino jobs can be accommodated by ⅛W or ¼W resistors. ¼W is better for breadboarding since the leads are fatter than ⅛W, but ⅛W can take two leads at once direct into an Arduino's headers. Also if you fold the leads in half and squash them with pliers they fit better. | Go with 1/4 Watt resistors but be prepared to use 1/2 Watts if the leads don't press down cleanly into the breadboard which is what I think you are asking about. If you need anything in the higher wattage range and you are working with an Arduino, then you are doing it wrong. An Arduino could not smoke a 1/4 watt if it tried.
I have fought for years with our purchasing agent over this at the college I work for. He buys 1/8th watt resistor in bulk, but fails to heed the advice that you cannot use these on standard classroom breadboard without bending the leads at best and failing to even make a good connection at worst. You need reliable connections and 1/8th and smaller are useless on breadboards. Just my two cents from years and years of experience. |
43,711 | The Wikipedia article on the [History of Writing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_writing) contains the following quote:
>
> the earliest solid evidence of Egyptian writing **differs in structure**
> and style from the Mesopotamian and must therefore have developed
> independently...
>
>
>
It's clear that the scripts differ in *style* aesthetically speaking but I'm not sure how they differ in *structure*. I've tried searching for a side-by-side comparison of the two scripts to no avail.
From what I've read, both writing systems appear to have made use of *logograms*, *phonetic complements* and *determinatives* to varying degrees in their "mature" stages (post-phoneticisation c.2800-2700 BC), with the main difference being that Egyptian phonograms represented consonants whereas Sumerian phonograms represented syllables. Is this correct? Apologies if I'm way off the mark with terminology or dates, I'm new to linguistics. | 2022/01/07 | [
"https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/43711",
"https://linguistics.stackexchange.com",
"https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/users/36204/"
] | The biggest difference, as you mention, is that the oldest forms of hieroglyphic writing don't indicate vowels at all and the oldest forms of cuneiform writing do. (By "oldest forms" here I mean the earliest forms that could indicate arbitrary words.) In hieroglyphs, the "mouth" glyph used phonetically could be used to write *ra* or *ri* or *ru* or *ar* and so on—the only part that mattered was the consonant `/r/`. In cuneiform, on the other hand, the "mouth" glyph used phonetically only meant *ka*, never \**ki* or \**ku* or \**ak*.
If one was actually based on the other, we'd expect these basic principles to get borrowed too, even if they changed later. But we don't see that. Instead, it seems like they were independent inventions; it's possible that the idea of "written symbols can represent spoken sounds" (or even something like the rebus principle) spread from one to the other, but the full details of the system did not. | I don't think much is known about the early stages of Egyptian writing. We get either a few objects with Hieroglyphic labels in the first few centuries or full blown passages in the pyramid texts a few centuries later on. There is nothing in between to show how the script arose and how it developed into mature writing.
We also assume that the hieroglyphs we normally see and use were actually a ceremonial elaborations of a more basic and simpler script closer in form to what we call Hieratic. Even so, the iconography glyphs used in the Sumerian and Egyptian scripts have nothing in common beyond chance. E.g., Sumerian "house" (/e/) is , and Egyptian "house" (/pr/) is [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/TcLUS.png). Aside from this difference, it is hard to compare the earliest stages of the scripts because of this lack of early Egyptian writing.
What I say below refers to what we see in the earliest Egyptian sentences. I am also obliged to use a later form of the Cuneiform glyphs used for writing in clay with a reed stylus, rather than the earlier more picture like glyphs.
Perhaps, because of the difference in language phonology, Sumerian writes with syllabic glyphs that always include a vowel, whereas Egyptian tries to write with glyphs representing 1-3 consonants, irrespective of the location or presence of the vowels in the spoken language.
Both scripts often use phonetic writing instead of an iconic glyph, but Sumerian also uses phonetic writing to indicate the last syllable of the stem plus a following particle beginning with a vowel. Egyptian never does this. Egyptian quite often indicates the consonants redundantly, using both unilateral signs and bilateral or trilateral signs. E.g., in "xnm" [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/pXpJL.png), is written phonetically as "x-n nm m" plus two determinatives.
A fourth difference is that some determinatives in Sumerian precede the rest of the word (e.g., "an" as a determinative of a God can precede the God "Enlil" ) and some follow (e.g., "ki" as a determinative of a city/country folows "Uruk"/"Unug" ). In Egyptian, determinatives only follow they accompanying phonetic glyphs.
A fifth difference that may have only developed later is that I think Sumerian typically uses only one determinative, whereas Egyptian often uses several. E.g.:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/w3aqT.png) The two figures of the people at the end are both determinatives. Even when hieroglyphs are used iconically, they are usually used with a | underneath to show this, as in the glyph for "pr" above. Most substantive Egyptian words use at least one determinative, almost as word dividers; whereas I think determinatives are much more sparingly used in Sumerian writing.
A sixth difference that may have developed later is that many Egyptian determinatives have no other use. If you look at [Gardiner's List under A](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Egyptian_hieroglyphs#A), I can only recall a handful of these being used other than as a determinatives. Notice how many have so many "readings" that they are basically useless in predicting what word they are used with (e.g., A2 and A19).
A seventh difference is that Cuneiform glyphs sometimes combine in ways that Egyptian glyphs do not. E.g., ([lugal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lugal), "king") is a combination of (lu, "man") and (gal, "great/large cup") written together. You can't do that with hieroglyphs.
With early Egyptian glyphs, duplication was used to indicate a noun with a dual ending, and writing it three times was used to show the plural (which usually had a different vowel ending and perhaps some internal changes). In cuneiform, repeated glyphs show a repeated syllable.
It is possible that earlier Egyptian scribes were aware of Sumerian writing, but it is highly doubtful they had any skill in writing or reading it. Old Egyptian and Akkadian are distantly related languages and broadly similar in morphology, but their scripts have nothing in common that they do not also share with Mayan and Old Chinese. We see how scribes knowledgeable in Sumerian script adapted it for writing Akkadian, and we have many examples of other scripts that were adapted to write unrelated languages (e.g., Hittite, Japanese, Tibetan). Egyptian shows no hint of such a process of adaptation. |
263,449 | I am designing a PCB in which there are 3 SIM800 GSM modules sharing a (commercial) external antenna. The external antenna is connected to the PCB via an antenna connector, and from that connector, the antenna signal is “shared” via PCB traces running to the GSM\_ANT port of the GSM modules (please see photo)
The reason I prefer this design is that it is both cheap and convenient.
But without in-depth knowledge on antenna design and EMI, my question is Could this be a bad design? Or should there be scenarios that this design does not work reliably?
Just to provide more info, the PCB will be housed inside a steel enclosure, and its main PSU is an AC-DC adapter (good brand) which is already sealed for EMI. The adapter is also inside the steel enclosure. The steel enclosure will be deployed in a residential area where there are no large machineries around.
Thanks in advance!
Dave
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/3yuLW.jpg)
**UPDATES:**
Following some of your answers, I update the question as follows:
Below is the old design, which uses 3 separate antenna connectors for the 3 GSM modules. However, these 3 antenna cables are combined (soldered) into one (with seal) outside the PCB and go to the external antenna.
The 3 GSM modules are supposed to be sending signal one at a time.
This old design has been tested and worked (though I suspect that signal strength are just around 8/10 of what it should be - good enough for the application though)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9rny1.jpg) | 2016/10/14 | [
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/263449",
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com",
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com/users/58335/"
] | At the risk of giving a product recommendation you may want to look at an RF power splitter/combiner IC from someone like mini-circuits. [Mini-circuits splitters](http://194.75.38.69/products/Splitters.shtml)
These will allow you to combine the 3 outputs (and split the returning signal) on the PCB without the impedance mismatches and other nasties caused by your current design. | This is a horiblle bodge (whether implemented in coax or on the PCB).
Firstly the direct interconnections will create horiblle impedance mismatches which will reduce signal integrity. Some high power RF transmitters can even be damaged by signal reflections.
Secondly whenever any module transmits a substational fraction of the transmit power will feed back into the other modules. This may blind the modules to incoming signals or in extreme cases may even damage them.
A proper impedance matched splitter is a better soloution but reflections from the splitter and antenna may still cause problems as impedance matches are rarely exact. |
263,449 | I am designing a PCB in which there are 3 SIM800 GSM modules sharing a (commercial) external antenna. The external antenna is connected to the PCB via an antenna connector, and from that connector, the antenna signal is “shared” via PCB traces running to the GSM\_ANT port of the GSM modules (please see photo)
The reason I prefer this design is that it is both cheap and convenient.
But without in-depth knowledge on antenna design and EMI, my question is Could this be a bad design? Or should there be scenarios that this design does not work reliably?
Just to provide more info, the PCB will be housed inside a steel enclosure, and its main PSU is an AC-DC adapter (good brand) which is already sealed for EMI. The adapter is also inside the steel enclosure. The steel enclosure will be deployed in a residential area where there are no large machineries around.
Thanks in advance!
Dave
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/3yuLW.jpg)
**UPDATES:**
Following some of your answers, I update the question as follows:
Below is the old design, which uses 3 separate antenna connectors for the 3 GSM modules. However, these 3 antenna cables are combined (soldered) into one (with seal) outside the PCB and go to the external antenna.
The 3 GSM modules are supposed to be sending signal one at a time.
This old design has been tested and worked (though I suspect that signal strength are just around 8/10 of what it should be - good enough for the application though)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9rny1.jpg) | 2016/10/14 | [
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/263449",
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com",
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com/users/58335/"
] | I think a more reasonable way would be to use an [external three way splitter](http://www.instockwireless.com/power_divider_3way.htm) and the old design to connect your three GSM modules to one antenna.
You don't seem to have the knowledge to do RF PCB designs (not knocking you, I don't either) so it would be safer for you to use an external device that "Just Works."
Three-way splitter:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/q8uEZ.jpg)
---
The old design may have been more advanced than you think - proper lengths of coax joined correctly can form an RF splitter. [See "Wilkinson power divider" on the Wikipedia power divider page.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_dividers_and_directional_couplers) For the uninformed eye, this would look like somebody just lashed a bunch of coax cables in parallel and hoped for the best - when in reality the lengths and connections were carefully selected to make a proper splitter that isolates the three sources from each other.
Wilkinson divider:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/4BSbd.png)
You can also make a [Wilkinson divider on your circuit board,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilkinson_power_divider) though that may take too much space.
Microstrip Wilkinson divider:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/1ff0I.png) | At the risk of giving a product recommendation you may want to look at an RF power splitter/combiner IC from someone like mini-circuits. [Mini-circuits splitters](http://194.75.38.69/products/Splitters.shtml)
These will allow you to combine the 3 outputs (and split the returning signal) on the PCB without the impedance mismatches and other nasties caused by your current design. |
263,449 | I am designing a PCB in which there are 3 SIM800 GSM modules sharing a (commercial) external antenna. The external antenna is connected to the PCB via an antenna connector, and from that connector, the antenna signal is “shared” via PCB traces running to the GSM\_ANT port of the GSM modules (please see photo)
The reason I prefer this design is that it is both cheap and convenient.
But without in-depth knowledge on antenna design and EMI, my question is Could this be a bad design? Or should there be scenarios that this design does not work reliably?
Just to provide more info, the PCB will be housed inside a steel enclosure, and its main PSU is an AC-DC adapter (good brand) which is already sealed for EMI. The adapter is also inside the steel enclosure. The steel enclosure will be deployed in a residential area where there are no large machineries around.
Thanks in advance!
Dave
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/3yuLW.jpg)
**UPDATES:**
Following some of your answers, I update the question as follows:
Below is the old design, which uses 3 separate antenna connectors for the 3 GSM modules. However, these 3 antenna cables are combined (soldered) into one (with seal) outside the PCB and go to the external antenna.
The 3 GSM modules are supposed to be sending signal one at a time.
This old design has been tested and worked (though I suspect that signal strength are just around 8/10 of what it should be - good enough for the application though)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9rny1.jpg) | 2016/10/14 | [
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/263449",
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com",
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com/users/58335/"
] | Apart from EMI issues, I have a hard time believing that this will work at all. Is there a reference design available for something similar? From what I would guess (I'm not an antenna specialist at all):
* Multiple drivers for one antenna
* No matching network (at least none which could be used if required)
* Your antenna line doesn't have a solid reference but there are traces on the other side.
* If this is a two layer board, I don't think that your trace is 50Ohms impedance
* The two connectors in the middle look like Ethernet. So it's probably metal, directly above your signal line.
* If you remove two of the SIM800, you will have crazy stub lines all around, nowhere terminated. | At the risk of giving a product recommendation you may want to look at an RF power splitter/combiner IC from someone like mini-circuits. [Mini-circuits splitters](http://194.75.38.69/products/Splitters.shtml)
These will allow you to combine the 3 outputs (and split the returning signal) on the PCB without the impedance mismatches and other nasties caused by your current design. |
263,449 | I am designing a PCB in which there are 3 SIM800 GSM modules sharing a (commercial) external antenna. The external antenna is connected to the PCB via an antenna connector, and from that connector, the antenna signal is “shared” via PCB traces running to the GSM\_ANT port of the GSM modules (please see photo)
The reason I prefer this design is that it is both cheap and convenient.
But without in-depth knowledge on antenna design and EMI, my question is Could this be a bad design? Or should there be scenarios that this design does not work reliably?
Just to provide more info, the PCB will be housed inside a steel enclosure, and its main PSU is an AC-DC adapter (good brand) which is already sealed for EMI. The adapter is also inside the steel enclosure. The steel enclosure will be deployed in a residential area where there are no large machineries around.
Thanks in advance!
Dave
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/3yuLW.jpg)
**UPDATES:**
Following some of your answers, I update the question as follows:
Below is the old design, which uses 3 separate antenna connectors for the 3 GSM modules. However, these 3 antenna cables are combined (soldered) into one (with seal) outside the PCB and go to the external antenna.
The 3 GSM modules are supposed to be sending signal one at a time.
This old design has been tested and worked (though I suspect that signal strength are just around 8/10 of what it should be - good enough for the application though)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9rny1.jpg) | 2016/10/14 | [
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/263449",
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com",
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com/users/58335/"
] | First of: all of the combiners from the other answers can only work on a single band. You can't use the same combiner for GSM900 as for GSM1900. That is physically impossible.
The fact that GSM devices can use the same antenna for transmit and receive at all is due to the fact that up- age downlink in GSM are on different frequencies, so that you can use a frequency-selective device, called a *diplexer* to avoid TX signal going into the receiver (and destroying it).
Now, the way a diplexer works is that you basically have at least one filter in the RX branch that blocks out the uplink frequencies and only lets through the downlink. Together with the same principle and a splitter, the TX branch is connected to the antenna. Since this is very cost-, space- and energy-efficient microwave technology, the two filters and the splitter are basically combined into one device.
The problem with that is that it's very hard to achieve perfect impedance matching on both RX and TX at the same time over all frequency bands that GSM exists on (800,900,1800,1900,...).
Since receiving successfully is more important than transmitting at perfect efficiency, typically a mismatch of the TX branch's impedance compared to the nominal antenna impedance is accepted. In the single-transmitter-per-antenna case, that's OK.
This means that quite a bit of the TX energy gets reflected back into the TX amplifier in the single antenna case.
Now, imagine you have two TXing senders A and B connected to a splitter. Not only will a bit of transmitter A's energy be reflected back into A at the diplexer, the remainder that actually goes into the splitter will inevitably at least partially be seen by B's diplexer, where it's going to be partially reflected back, and by the way all directive couplers work, destructively interfere with A's signal at the antenna port.
So, you'd need to build three diplexers, one for each GSM module, build an impedance matching network for the TXes, a three-way splitter (or, while you're at it and have singled out the RX signal, anyway, add an LNA) for RX, and then you'd have a truely better system. | How do you intend to use it? Do you want to use three SIM800 modules at the same time with one antenna? This will not work. First of all, due to impedance split. Secondly, the modules output will affect each other which will disrupt the communication. Just add two additional connections for the antennas. Remember that the antenna trace should be as short as possible.
You are aware of the fact that with an antenna on a PCB you need to certify your device?
One tip: Add a via shielding around the antenna trace. Google -> via shielding. |
263,449 | I am designing a PCB in which there are 3 SIM800 GSM modules sharing a (commercial) external antenna. The external antenna is connected to the PCB via an antenna connector, and from that connector, the antenna signal is “shared” via PCB traces running to the GSM\_ANT port of the GSM modules (please see photo)
The reason I prefer this design is that it is both cheap and convenient.
But without in-depth knowledge on antenna design and EMI, my question is Could this be a bad design? Or should there be scenarios that this design does not work reliably?
Just to provide more info, the PCB will be housed inside a steel enclosure, and its main PSU is an AC-DC adapter (good brand) which is already sealed for EMI. The adapter is also inside the steel enclosure. The steel enclosure will be deployed in a residential area where there are no large machineries around.
Thanks in advance!
Dave
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/3yuLW.jpg)
**UPDATES:**
Following some of your answers, I update the question as follows:
Below is the old design, which uses 3 separate antenna connectors for the 3 GSM modules. However, these 3 antenna cables are combined (soldered) into one (with seal) outside the PCB and go to the external antenna.
The 3 GSM modules are supposed to be sending signal one at a time.
This old design has been tested and worked (though I suspect that signal strength are just around 8/10 of what it should be - good enough for the application though)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9rny1.jpg) | 2016/10/14 | [
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/263449",
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com",
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com/users/58335/"
] | I think a more reasonable way would be to use an [external three way splitter](http://www.instockwireless.com/power_divider_3way.htm) and the old design to connect your three GSM modules to one antenna.
You don't seem to have the knowledge to do RF PCB designs (not knocking you, I don't either) so it would be safer for you to use an external device that "Just Works."
Three-way splitter:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/q8uEZ.jpg)
---
The old design may have been more advanced than you think - proper lengths of coax joined correctly can form an RF splitter. [See "Wilkinson power divider" on the Wikipedia power divider page.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_dividers_and_directional_couplers) For the uninformed eye, this would look like somebody just lashed a bunch of coax cables in parallel and hoped for the best - when in reality the lengths and connections were carefully selected to make a proper splitter that isolates the three sources from each other.
Wilkinson divider:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/4BSbd.png)
You can also make a [Wilkinson divider on your circuit board,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilkinson_power_divider) though that may take too much space.
Microstrip Wilkinson divider:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/1ff0I.png) | How do you intend to use it? Do you want to use three SIM800 modules at the same time with one antenna? This will not work. First of all, due to impedance split. Secondly, the modules output will affect each other which will disrupt the communication. Just add two additional connections for the antennas. Remember that the antenna trace should be as short as possible.
You are aware of the fact that with an antenna on a PCB you need to certify your device?
One tip: Add a via shielding around the antenna trace. Google -> via shielding. |
263,449 | I am designing a PCB in which there are 3 SIM800 GSM modules sharing a (commercial) external antenna. The external antenna is connected to the PCB via an antenna connector, and from that connector, the antenna signal is “shared” via PCB traces running to the GSM\_ANT port of the GSM modules (please see photo)
The reason I prefer this design is that it is both cheap and convenient.
But without in-depth knowledge on antenna design and EMI, my question is Could this be a bad design? Or should there be scenarios that this design does not work reliably?
Just to provide more info, the PCB will be housed inside a steel enclosure, and its main PSU is an AC-DC adapter (good brand) which is already sealed for EMI. The adapter is also inside the steel enclosure. The steel enclosure will be deployed in a residential area where there are no large machineries around.
Thanks in advance!
Dave
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/3yuLW.jpg)
**UPDATES:**
Following some of your answers, I update the question as follows:
Below is the old design, which uses 3 separate antenna connectors for the 3 GSM modules. However, these 3 antenna cables are combined (soldered) into one (with seal) outside the PCB and go to the external antenna.
The 3 GSM modules are supposed to be sending signal one at a time.
This old design has been tested and worked (though I suspect that signal strength are just around 8/10 of what it should be - good enough for the application though)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9rny1.jpg) | 2016/10/14 | [
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/263449",
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com",
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com/users/58335/"
] | I think a more reasonable way would be to use an [external three way splitter](http://www.instockwireless.com/power_divider_3way.htm) and the old design to connect your three GSM modules to one antenna.
You don't seem to have the knowledge to do RF PCB designs (not knocking you, I don't either) so it would be safer for you to use an external device that "Just Works."
Three-way splitter:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/q8uEZ.jpg)
---
The old design may have been more advanced than you think - proper lengths of coax joined correctly can form an RF splitter. [See "Wilkinson power divider" on the Wikipedia power divider page.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_dividers_and_directional_couplers) For the uninformed eye, this would look like somebody just lashed a bunch of coax cables in parallel and hoped for the best - when in reality the lengths and connections were carefully selected to make a proper splitter that isolates the three sources from each other.
Wilkinson divider:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/4BSbd.png)
You can also make a [Wilkinson divider on your circuit board,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilkinson_power_divider) though that may take too much space.
Microstrip Wilkinson divider:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/1ff0I.png) | First of: all of the combiners from the other answers can only work on a single band. You can't use the same combiner for GSM900 as for GSM1900. That is physically impossible.
The fact that GSM devices can use the same antenna for transmit and receive at all is due to the fact that up- age downlink in GSM are on different frequencies, so that you can use a frequency-selective device, called a *diplexer* to avoid TX signal going into the receiver (and destroying it).
Now, the way a diplexer works is that you basically have at least one filter in the RX branch that blocks out the uplink frequencies and only lets through the downlink. Together with the same principle and a splitter, the TX branch is connected to the antenna. Since this is very cost-, space- and energy-efficient microwave technology, the two filters and the splitter are basically combined into one device.
The problem with that is that it's very hard to achieve perfect impedance matching on both RX and TX at the same time over all frequency bands that GSM exists on (800,900,1800,1900,...).
Since receiving successfully is more important than transmitting at perfect efficiency, typically a mismatch of the TX branch's impedance compared to the nominal antenna impedance is accepted. In the single-transmitter-per-antenna case, that's OK.
This means that quite a bit of the TX energy gets reflected back into the TX amplifier in the single antenna case.
Now, imagine you have two TXing senders A and B connected to a splitter. Not only will a bit of transmitter A's energy be reflected back into A at the diplexer, the remainder that actually goes into the splitter will inevitably at least partially be seen by B's diplexer, where it's going to be partially reflected back, and by the way all directive couplers work, destructively interfere with A's signal at the antenna port.
So, you'd need to build three diplexers, one for each GSM module, build an impedance matching network for the TXes, a three-way splitter (or, while you're at it and have singled out the RX signal, anyway, add an LNA) for RX, and then you'd have a truely better system. |
263,449 | I am designing a PCB in which there are 3 SIM800 GSM modules sharing a (commercial) external antenna. The external antenna is connected to the PCB via an antenna connector, and from that connector, the antenna signal is “shared” via PCB traces running to the GSM\_ANT port of the GSM modules (please see photo)
The reason I prefer this design is that it is both cheap and convenient.
But without in-depth knowledge on antenna design and EMI, my question is Could this be a bad design? Or should there be scenarios that this design does not work reliably?
Just to provide more info, the PCB will be housed inside a steel enclosure, and its main PSU is an AC-DC adapter (good brand) which is already sealed for EMI. The adapter is also inside the steel enclosure. The steel enclosure will be deployed in a residential area where there are no large machineries around.
Thanks in advance!
Dave
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/3yuLW.jpg)
**UPDATES:**
Following some of your answers, I update the question as follows:
Below is the old design, which uses 3 separate antenna connectors for the 3 GSM modules. However, these 3 antenna cables are combined (soldered) into one (with seal) outside the PCB and go to the external antenna.
The 3 GSM modules are supposed to be sending signal one at a time.
This old design has been tested and worked (though I suspect that signal strength are just around 8/10 of what it should be - good enough for the application though)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9rny1.jpg) | 2016/10/14 | [
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/263449",
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com",
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com/users/58335/"
] | At the risk of giving a product recommendation you may want to look at an RF power splitter/combiner IC from someone like mini-circuits. [Mini-circuits splitters](http://194.75.38.69/products/Splitters.shtml)
These will allow you to combine the 3 outputs (and split the returning signal) on the PCB without the impedance mismatches and other nasties caused by your current design. | A has been mentioned before, this is an 'interesting' way to combine the signals. Certainly it is not good, but really I think you're asking if its any worse than your old bodged solution of paralelling the coax.
With the coax, you have a more symetrical circuit (each RF path looks similar, and has the same parasitic connections). You also have a longer transmission line providing a hint of isolation from the joining point (maybe only 0.1-0.2 dB, but it goes both ways, so is not nothing). I feel this design is inferior, but can't quantify it. You will for example be pushing more transmit power directly into the other two modules (but they need isolation for their own Tx, so this should be OK).
I would be tempted to try and lay this out as more of a star, and experiment with series resistors to improve the matching (you have certain losses here, but also better matching, so overall it will probably be better). Mis-matching the antenna pot on the modules might affect the tuning of filters, etc. About 25\$\Omega \$ should be right, I think.
Clearly this is the cheap and ugly option, a proper low loss spliter would be nicer. |
263,449 | I am designing a PCB in which there are 3 SIM800 GSM modules sharing a (commercial) external antenna. The external antenna is connected to the PCB via an antenna connector, and from that connector, the antenna signal is “shared” via PCB traces running to the GSM\_ANT port of the GSM modules (please see photo)
The reason I prefer this design is that it is both cheap and convenient.
But without in-depth knowledge on antenna design and EMI, my question is Could this be a bad design? Or should there be scenarios that this design does not work reliably?
Just to provide more info, the PCB will be housed inside a steel enclosure, and its main PSU is an AC-DC adapter (good brand) which is already sealed for EMI. The adapter is also inside the steel enclosure. The steel enclosure will be deployed in a residential area where there are no large machineries around.
Thanks in advance!
Dave
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/3yuLW.jpg)
**UPDATES:**
Following some of your answers, I update the question as follows:
Below is the old design, which uses 3 separate antenna connectors for the 3 GSM modules. However, these 3 antenna cables are combined (soldered) into one (with seal) outside the PCB and go to the external antenna.
The 3 GSM modules are supposed to be sending signal one at a time.
This old design has been tested and worked (though I suspect that signal strength are just around 8/10 of what it should be - good enough for the application though)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9rny1.jpg) | 2016/10/14 | [
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/263449",
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com",
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com/users/58335/"
] | At the risk of giving a product recommendation you may want to look at an RF power splitter/combiner IC from someone like mini-circuits. [Mini-circuits splitters](http://194.75.38.69/products/Splitters.shtml)
These will allow you to combine the 3 outputs (and split the returning signal) on the PCB without the impedance mismatches and other nasties caused by your current design. | First of: all of the combiners from the other answers can only work on a single band. You can't use the same combiner for GSM900 as for GSM1900. That is physically impossible.
The fact that GSM devices can use the same antenna for transmit and receive at all is due to the fact that up- age downlink in GSM are on different frequencies, so that you can use a frequency-selective device, called a *diplexer* to avoid TX signal going into the receiver (and destroying it).
Now, the way a diplexer works is that you basically have at least one filter in the RX branch that blocks out the uplink frequencies and only lets through the downlink. Together with the same principle and a splitter, the TX branch is connected to the antenna. Since this is very cost-, space- and energy-efficient microwave technology, the two filters and the splitter are basically combined into one device.
The problem with that is that it's very hard to achieve perfect impedance matching on both RX and TX at the same time over all frequency bands that GSM exists on (800,900,1800,1900,...).
Since receiving successfully is more important than transmitting at perfect efficiency, typically a mismatch of the TX branch's impedance compared to the nominal antenna impedance is accepted. In the single-transmitter-per-antenna case, that's OK.
This means that quite a bit of the TX energy gets reflected back into the TX amplifier in the single antenna case.
Now, imagine you have two TXing senders A and B connected to a splitter. Not only will a bit of transmitter A's energy be reflected back into A at the diplexer, the remainder that actually goes into the splitter will inevitably at least partially be seen by B's diplexer, where it's going to be partially reflected back, and by the way all directive couplers work, destructively interfere with A's signal at the antenna port.
So, you'd need to build three diplexers, one for each GSM module, build an impedance matching network for the TXes, a three-way splitter (or, while you're at it and have singled out the RX signal, anyway, add an LNA) for RX, and then you'd have a truely better system. |
263,449 | I am designing a PCB in which there are 3 SIM800 GSM modules sharing a (commercial) external antenna. The external antenna is connected to the PCB via an antenna connector, and from that connector, the antenna signal is “shared” via PCB traces running to the GSM\_ANT port of the GSM modules (please see photo)
The reason I prefer this design is that it is both cheap and convenient.
But without in-depth knowledge on antenna design and EMI, my question is Could this be a bad design? Or should there be scenarios that this design does not work reliably?
Just to provide more info, the PCB will be housed inside a steel enclosure, and its main PSU is an AC-DC adapter (good brand) which is already sealed for EMI. The adapter is also inside the steel enclosure. The steel enclosure will be deployed in a residential area where there are no large machineries around.
Thanks in advance!
Dave
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/3yuLW.jpg)
**UPDATES:**
Following some of your answers, I update the question as follows:
Below is the old design, which uses 3 separate antenna connectors for the 3 GSM modules. However, these 3 antenna cables are combined (soldered) into one (with seal) outside the PCB and go to the external antenna.
The 3 GSM modules are supposed to be sending signal one at a time.
This old design has been tested and worked (though I suspect that signal strength are just around 8/10 of what it should be - good enough for the application though)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9rny1.jpg) | 2016/10/14 | [
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/263449",
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com",
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com/users/58335/"
] | I think a more reasonable way would be to use an [external three way splitter](http://www.instockwireless.com/power_divider_3way.htm) and the old design to connect your three GSM modules to one antenna.
You don't seem to have the knowledge to do RF PCB designs (not knocking you, I don't either) so it would be safer for you to use an external device that "Just Works."
Three-way splitter:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/q8uEZ.jpg)
---
The old design may have been more advanced than you think - proper lengths of coax joined correctly can form an RF splitter. [See "Wilkinson power divider" on the Wikipedia power divider page.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_dividers_and_directional_couplers) For the uninformed eye, this would look like somebody just lashed a bunch of coax cables in parallel and hoped for the best - when in reality the lengths and connections were carefully selected to make a proper splitter that isolates the three sources from each other.
Wilkinson divider:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/4BSbd.png)
You can also make a [Wilkinson divider on your circuit board,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilkinson_power_divider) though that may take too much space.
Microstrip Wilkinson divider:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/1ff0I.png) | A has been mentioned before, this is an 'interesting' way to combine the signals. Certainly it is not good, but really I think you're asking if its any worse than your old bodged solution of paralelling the coax.
With the coax, you have a more symetrical circuit (each RF path looks similar, and has the same parasitic connections). You also have a longer transmission line providing a hint of isolation from the joining point (maybe only 0.1-0.2 dB, but it goes both ways, so is not nothing). I feel this design is inferior, but can't quantify it. You will for example be pushing more transmit power directly into the other two modules (but they need isolation for their own Tx, so this should be OK).
I would be tempted to try and lay this out as more of a star, and experiment with series resistors to improve the matching (you have certain losses here, but also better matching, so overall it will probably be better). Mis-matching the antenna pot on the modules might affect the tuning of filters, etc. About 25\$\Omega \$ should be right, I think.
Clearly this is the cheap and ugly option, a proper low loss spliter would be nicer. |
263,449 | I am designing a PCB in which there are 3 SIM800 GSM modules sharing a (commercial) external antenna. The external antenna is connected to the PCB via an antenna connector, and from that connector, the antenna signal is “shared” via PCB traces running to the GSM\_ANT port of the GSM modules (please see photo)
The reason I prefer this design is that it is both cheap and convenient.
But without in-depth knowledge on antenna design and EMI, my question is Could this be a bad design? Or should there be scenarios that this design does not work reliably?
Just to provide more info, the PCB will be housed inside a steel enclosure, and its main PSU is an AC-DC adapter (good brand) which is already sealed for EMI. The adapter is also inside the steel enclosure. The steel enclosure will be deployed in a residential area where there are no large machineries around.
Thanks in advance!
Dave
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/3yuLW.jpg)
**UPDATES:**
Following some of your answers, I update the question as follows:
Below is the old design, which uses 3 separate antenna connectors for the 3 GSM modules. However, these 3 antenna cables are combined (soldered) into one (with seal) outside the PCB and go to the external antenna.
The 3 GSM modules are supposed to be sending signal one at a time.
This old design has been tested and worked (though I suspect that signal strength are just around 8/10 of what it should be - good enough for the application though)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9rny1.jpg) | 2016/10/14 | [
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/263449",
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com",
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com/users/58335/"
] | A has been mentioned before, this is an 'interesting' way to combine the signals. Certainly it is not good, but really I think you're asking if its any worse than your old bodged solution of paralelling the coax.
With the coax, you have a more symetrical circuit (each RF path looks similar, and has the same parasitic connections). You also have a longer transmission line providing a hint of isolation from the joining point (maybe only 0.1-0.2 dB, but it goes both ways, so is not nothing). I feel this design is inferior, but can't quantify it. You will for example be pushing more transmit power directly into the other two modules (but they need isolation for their own Tx, so this should be OK).
I would be tempted to try and lay this out as more of a star, and experiment with series resistors to improve the matching (you have certain losses here, but also better matching, so overall it will probably be better). Mis-matching the antenna pot on the modules might affect the tuning of filters, etc. About 25\$\Omega \$ should be right, I think.
Clearly this is the cheap and ugly option, a proper low loss spliter would be nicer. | How do you intend to use it? Do you want to use three SIM800 modules at the same time with one antenna? This will not work. First of all, due to impedance split. Secondly, the modules output will affect each other which will disrupt the communication. Just add two additional connections for the antennas. Remember that the antenna trace should be as short as possible.
You are aware of the fact that with an antenna on a PCB you need to certify your device?
One tip: Add a via shielding around the antenna trace. Google -> via shielding. |
3,475 | Ok, I have one uart interface (TXD GPIO 14, RXD GPIO 15). I want at least one more uart interface.
Possible solutions:
* Bit banging:
Use two unrelated spare GPIOs. I understand that timing is a problem on a standard linux. Would it be reliable with very low baudrate?
* Switching:
RPI decides when to talk to which device. Using e.g. [CD4066BC](http://www.fairchildsemi.com/ds/CD/CD4066BC.pdf).
* spi to 2 x uart bridge:
Didn't find a suitable part (availability, price, dil package)
* usb to uart:
Expensive
Are there other options? I'm inclined to switching, if it can be done. What would you advise? | 2012/11/04 | [
"https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/3475",
"https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com",
"https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/users/3109/"
] | I had the same problem. I need connect to 2-4 GSM modules and I found hardware solution: <http://www.instructables.com/id/SPI-to-4-x-UART-Bridge-MULTIUART/>
This solution are base on PIC24FJ64GA306. You can replace PIC with Atmel mcu, but You must create new PCB :) | Another solution is to move up to a PI4 apparently you can enable multiple uart pins on that one (did it myself)
You can google the info up, it is mostly a config setting to enable the additional uart pins.
<https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=244827>
This explains it.
Apparently the new gpio pins in the pi4 basically allow to add 3 additional uart ports via the config.txt, for further details on how to set it up, check the link. |
50,262 | What is the latest procedure of BS IV (Euro IV) petrol-engined cars in PUC Centres?
As far as I know in Petrol Cars the car is kept idling without the Accelerator pressed, while in Diesel Cars the Accelerator is fully pressed.
But recently PUC Centres wanted to raise the engine speed for measuring petrol cars to 2500 rpm.
What is this aiming to measure and why would there be a change to to this new High Idle Emission Test procedure? | 2017/12/12 | [
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/questions/50262",
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com",
"https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/users/34255/"
] | I can only give an answer for the part of the world where I live, which is Finland.
As default, in all cars with three-way catalyst, the vehicle is measured at idle and at >2000 RPM. Lambda value however is not measured at idle, only at >2000 RPM.
However, for Euro3 and Euro4 cars and newer, and also for cars sold after 1.7.2002, the idle check is replaced with an OBD check. The computer continuously monitors the emissions on the car, and thus, the amount of checks done manually is reduced. The measurements at >2000 RPM are still however done, and this includes lambda.
Lambda value not within 0.03 of 1.00 would be considered failed. However, if there's secondary air injection or lean burn, there may be exceptions. | **NB:** From the mention of PUC Centres I'm guessing you are located in India?
"Lambda" is, in simple terms a measure of how efficiently the engine is burning based on the air/fuel ratio in the exhaust gases emitted by the engine. How it's calculated is a bit more complicated than is appropriate to cover in a post here but there's a good explanation in [this](https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiRrtebqofYAhUQEVAKHSj5DEIQFgguMAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcpcb.nic.in%2Fdivisionsofheadoffice%2Fpci3%2FLambda_report_No_14.doc&usg=AOvVaw2miT2-bGY5dQxjSDPXmPmt) document which also covers some of the motivations behind the tests being introduced in India.
As to why they would implement a high-idle test - I can't speak to their exact motivations but picking a standardized RPM value would eliminate the natural variance you see in "true idle" RPMs due to differences in cars and temperature conditions and make comparisons more effective. Additionally high-idle (or "loaded") emissions tests provide more useful information for checking for levels of NOx emissions, which given their public health implications are something of a hot topic at the moment. |
187,157 | I'm trying to figure out continuous "Unable to write SPDistributedCache call usage entry." error in ULS and some instructions like [this](http://www.sharepointfire.com/2013/11/the-specified-user-or-domain-group-was-not-found/) suggests that issue might be with super accounts having incorrect username.
The user accounts used for superreader and superuser accounts are currently set in domain\superuser and domain\superreader format to web app's portalsuperreaderaccount and portalsuperuseraccount properties.
But I'm wondering if they would need to be updated into i:0#.w|domain\username format instead to fix issues?
As far as I know these both formats should resolve fine but thinking if this still could be an issue. | 2016/07/20 | [
"https://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/187157",
"https://sharepoint.stackexchange.com",
"https://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/users/52396/"
] | I tried contacting Microsoft for the same requirement but I found this question is already answered by Microsoft support team.
The reply from Microsoft Team was like
>
> Currently, the sub site limit is 2,000 for Office 365 subscriptions.
> We can see the limit here: [SharePoint Online software boundaries and
> limits](https://support.office.com/en-us/article/SharePoint-Online-software-boundaries-and-limits-8f34ff47-b749-408b-abc0-b605e1f6d498?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US). For any changes, we will update the News in our [Office
> 365 roadmap](http://fasttrack.microsoft.com/roadmap).
>
>
>
You can find this thread [here](http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_o365admin-mso_dep365/actual-sub-site-limit-per-site-collection/92bce614-6bc7-480f-828c-807ea850fc6f).
Now the actual point. The [article](http://www.metalogix.com/Blog/Blog-Article/metalogix-software-blog/2014/09/17/sharepoint-online-ups-site-collection-sub-sites-storage-and-file-sizes-beyond-sharepoint-on-premises) which says that the sub site limit is 100,000 is written on **Sep 17,2014** and they say that Microsoft has increased the limit in last 6 month while the Microsoft says its still 2000 on **November 20,2015**.
So we can't say anything until we personally don't try. The procedure used in [this](http://geekswithblogs.net/ThorvaldBoe/archive/2015/12/18/finding-the-maximum-number-of-sub-sites-in-sharepoint-online.aspx) can be used to try and find actual limit. The variation may be due to subscription plan or available storage. | I think 2000 subsite per site collection is just a threshold value.
There will be impact on performance if your subsite count is more than 2000.
Thats why Microsoft recommends upto 2000 subsites per site collection.
<https://support.office.com/en-us/article/SharePoint-Online-software-boundaries-and-limits-8f34ff47-b749-408b-abc0-b605e1f6d498> |
187,157 | I'm trying to figure out continuous "Unable to write SPDistributedCache call usage entry." error in ULS and some instructions like [this](http://www.sharepointfire.com/2013/11/the-specified-user-or-domain-group-was-not-found/) suggests that issue might be with super accounts having incorrect username.
The user accounts used for superreader and superuser accounts are currently set in domain\superuser and domain\superreader format to web app's portalsuperreaderaccount and portalsuperuseraccount properties.
But I'm wondering if they would need to be updated into i:0#.w|domain\username format instead to fix issues?
As far as I know these both formats should resolve fine but thinking if this still could be an issue. | 2016/07/20 | [
"https://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/187157",
"https://sharepoint.stackexchange.com",
"https://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/users/52396/"
] | I think 2000 subsite per site collection is just a threshold value.
There will be impact on performance if your subsite count is more than 2000.
Thats why Microsoft recommends upto 2000 subsites per site collection.
<https://support.office.com/en-us/article/SharePoint-Online-software-boundaries-and-limits-8f34ff47-b749-408b-abc0-b605e1f6d498> | There is no exact number. These are the relevant figures:
2000 - recommended maximum, after which there may be a performance decrease (Both [On-Premise](https://technet.microsoft.com/en-GB/library/cc262787.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396#SiteCollection) and [SPOnline](https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/SharePoint-Online-software-boundaries-and-limits-8f34ff47-b749-408b-abc0-b605e1f6d498)). This figure in reality depends on hardware/subscription level.
250000 - hard limit for [On-Premise 2013](https://technet.microsoft.com/en-GB/library/cc262787.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396#SiteCollection) (There does not appear to be a published hard limit for SP Online)
100000 - hard limit for SharePoint Online as quoted by [Metalogix](http://www.metalogix.com/Blog/Blog-Article/metalogix-software-blog/2014/09/17/sharepoint-online-ups-site-collection-sub-sites-storage-and-file-sizes-beyond-sharepoint-on-premises), but there is no other evidence. |
187,157 | I'm trying to figure out continuous "Unable to write SPDistributedCache call usage entry." error in ULS and some instructions like [this](http://www.sharepointfire.com/2013/11/the-specified-user-or-domain-group-was-not-found/) suggests that issue might be with super accounts having incorrect username.
The user accounts used for superreader and superuser accounts are currently set in domain\superuser and domain\superreader format to web app's portalsuperreaderaccount and portalsuperuseraccount properties.
But I'm wondering if they would need to be updated into i:0#.w|domain\username format instead to fix issues?
As far as I know these both formats should resolve fine but thinking if this still could be an issue. | 2016/07/20 | [
"https://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/187157",
"https://sharepoint.stackexchange.com",
"https://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/users/52396/"
] | I think 2000 subsite per site collection is just a threshold value.
There will be impact on performance if your subsite count is more than 2000.
Thats why Microsoft recommends upto 2000 subsites per site collection.
<https://support.office.com/en-us/article/SharePoint-Online-software-boundaries-and-limits-8f34ff47-b749-408b-abc0-b605e1f6d498> | I think that the official source is <https://support.office.com/en-us/article/sharepoint-online-limits-8f34ff47-b749-408b-abc0-b605e1f6d498>
and the last updates (August 2018) confirming that the Subsites limit for a single SPO Site Collection is 2000. |
187,157 | I'm trying to figure out continuous "Unable to write SPDistributedCache call usage entry." error in ULS and some instructions like [this](http://www.sharepointfire.com/2013/11/the-specified-user-or-domain-group-was-not-found/) suggests that issue might be with super accounts having incorrect username.
The user accounts used for superreader and superuser accounts are currently set in domain\superuser and domain\superreader format to web app's portalsuperreaderaccount and portalsuperuseraccount properties.
But I'm wondering if they would need to be updated into i:0#.w|domain\username format instead to fix issues?
As far as I know these both formats should resolve fine but thinking if this still could be an issue. | 2016/07/20 | [
"https://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/187157",
"https://sharepoint.stackexchange.com",
"https://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/users/52396/"
] | I tried contacting Microsoft for the same requirement but I found this question is already answered by Microsoft support team.
The reply from Microsoft Team was like
>
> Currently, the sub site limit is 2,000 for Office 365 subscriptions.
> We can see the limit here: [SharePoint Online software boundaries and
> limits](https://support.office.com/en-us/article/SharePoint-Online-software-boundaries-and-limits-8f34ff47-b749-408b-abc0-b605e1f6d498?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US). For any changes, we will update the News in our [Office
> 365 roadmap](http://fasttrack.microsoft.com/roadmap).
>
>
>
You can find this thread [here](http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_o365admin-mso_dep365/actual-sub-site-limit-per-site-collection/92bce614-6bc7-480f-828c-807ea850fc6f).
Now the actual point. The [article](http://www.metalogix.com/Blog/Blog-Article/metalogix-software-blog/2014/09/17/sharepoint-online-ups-site-collection-sub-sites-storage-and-file-sizes-beyond-sharepoint-on-premises) which says that the sub site limit is 100,000 is written on **Sep 17,2014** and they say that Microsoft has increased the limit in last 6 month while the Microsoft says its still 2000 on **November 20,2015**.
So we can't say anything until we personally don't try. The procedure used in [this](http://geekswithblogs.net/ThorvaldBoe/archive/2015/12/18/finding-the-maximum-number-of-sub-sites-in-sharepoint-online.aspx) can be used to try and find actual limit. The variation may be due to subscription plan or available storage. | There is no exact number. These are the relevant figures:
2000 - recommended maximum, after which there may be a performance decrease (Both [On-Premise](https://technet.microsoft.com/en-GB/library/cc262787.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396#SiteCollection) and [SPOnline](https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/SharePoint-Online-software-boundaries-and-limits-8f34ff47-b749-408b-abc0-b605e1f6d498)). This figure in reality depends on hardware/subscription level.
250000 - hard limit for [On-Premise 2013](https://technet.microsoft.com/en-GB/library/cc262787.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396#SiteCollection) (There does not appear to be a published hard limit for SP Online)
100000 - hard limit for SharePoint Online as quoted by [Metalogix](http://www.metalogix.com/Blog/Blog-Article/metalogix-software-blog/2014/09/17/sharepoint-online-ups-site-collection-sub-sites-storage-and-file-sizes-beyond-sharepoint-on-premises), but there is no other evidence. |
187,157 | I'm trying to figure out continuous "Unable to write SPDistributedCache call usage entry." error in ULS and some instructions like [this](http://www.sharepointfire.com/2013/11/the-specified-user-or-domain-group-was-not-found/) suggests that issue might be with super accounts having incorrect username.
The user accounts used for superreader and superuser accounts are currently set in domain\superuser and domain\superreader format to web app's portalsuperreaderaccount and portalsuperuseraccount properties.
But I'm wondering if they would need to be updated into i:0#.w|domain\username format instead to fix issues?
As far as I know these both formats should resolve fine but thinking if this still could be an issue. | 2016/07/20 | [
"https://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/187157",
"https://sharepoint.stackexchange.com",
"https://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/users/52396/"
] | I tried contacting Microsoft for the same requirement but I found this question is already answered by Microsoft support team.
The reply from Microsoft Team was like
>
> Currently, the sub site limit is 2,000 for Office 365 subscriptions.
> We can see the limit here: [SharePoint Online software boundaries and
> limits](https://support.office.com/en-us/article/SharePoint-Online-software-boundaries-and-limits-8f34ff47-b749-408b-abc0-b605e1f6d498?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US). For any changes, we will update the News in our [Office
> 365 roadmap](http://fasttrack.microsoft.com/roadmap).
>
>
>
You can find this thread [here](http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_o365admin-mso_dep365/actual-sub-site-limit-per-site-collection/92bce614-6bc7-480f-828c-807ea850fc6f).
Now the actual point. The [article](http://www.metalogix.com/Blog/Blog-Article/metalogix-software-blog/2014/09/17/sharepoint-online-ups-site-collection-sub-sites-storage-and-file-sizes-beyond-sharepoint-on-premises) which says that the sub site limit is 100,000 is written on **Sep 17,2014** and they say that Microsoft has increased the limit in last 6 month while the Microsoft says its still 2000 on **November 20,2015**.
So we can't say anything until we personally don't try. The procedure used in [this](http://geekswithblogs.net/ThorvaldBoe/archive/2015/12/18/finding-the-maximum-number-of-sub-sites-in-sharepoint-online.aspx) can be used to try and find actual limit. The variation may be due to subscription plan or available storage. | I think that the official source is <https://support.office.com/en-us/article/sharepoint-online-limits-8f34ff47-b749-408b-abc0-b605e1f6d498>
and the last updates (August 2018) confirming that the Subsites limit for a single SPO Site Collection is 2000. |
187,157 | I'm trying to figure out continuous "Unable to write SPDistributedCache call usage entry." error in ULS and some instructions like [this](http://www.sharepointfire.com/2013/11/the-specified-user-or-domain-group-was-not-found/) suggests that issue might be with super accounts having incorrect username.
The user accounts used for superreader and superuser accounts are currently set in domain\superuser and domain\superreader format to web app's portalsuperreaderaccount and portalsuperuseraccount properties.
But I'm wondering if they would need to be updated into i:0#.w|domain\username format instead to fix issues?
As far as I know these both formats should resolve fine but thinking if this still could be an issue. | 2016/07/20 | [
"https://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/187157",
"https://sharepoint.stackexchange.com",
"https://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/users/52396/"
] | There is no exact number. These are the relevant figures:
2000 - recommended maximum, after which there may be a performance decrease (Both [On-Premise](https://technet.microsoft.com/en-GB/library/cc262787.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396#SiteCollection) and [SPOnline](https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/SharePoint-Online-software-boundaries-and-limits-8f34ff47-b749-408b-abc0-b605e1f6d498)). This figure in reality depends on hardware/subscription level.
250000 - hard limit for [On-Premise 2013](https://technet.microsoft.com/en-GB/library/cc262787.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396#SiteCollection) (There does not appear to be a published hard limit for SP Online)
100000 - hard limit for SharePoint Online as quoted by [Metalogix](http://www.metalogix.com/Blog/Blog-Article/metalogix-software-blog/2014/09/17/sharepoint-online-ups-site-collection-sub-sites-storage-and-file-sizes-beyond-sharepoint-on-premises), but there is no other evidence. | I think that the official source is <https://support.office.com/en-us/article/sharepoint-online-limits-8f34ff47-b749-408b-abc0-b605e1f6d498>
and the last updates (August 2018) confirming that the Subsites limit for a single SPO Site Collection is 2000. |
13,091 | The EPO has so many publication dates for each patent: A1, A2, A3, A4. . . B1, B2, etc.
Which should I use as publication date? | 2015/06/24 | [
"https://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/13091",
"https://patents.stackexchange.com",
"https://patents.stackexchange.com/users/14308/"
] | You should use the date of the A1 or A2 publication for the earliest publication date of the subject-matter (of the application).
(If you want to know about the granted patent please clarify.)
A1 is a publication of the application with search report (SR).
A2 is the publication without SR.
There will be always only one or the other.
An A3 is published later in case of an A2 as soon as the search has been carried out. See here for more details on the so called kind codes:
<https://register.epo.org/helphttps://register.epo.org/help?lng=en&topic=kindcodes>
18 months after the filing date, an application is published by the EPO according to Article 93(1)(a) EPC:
>
> "The European Patent Office shall publish the European patent application as soon as possible
>
>
> (a) after the expiry of a period of eighteen months from the date of filing or, if priority has been claimed, from the date of priority"
>
>
>
, if not requested earlier. | Always the first one. The follow-ups are for some administrative and/or legal backlogs. |
26,632 | There are a lot of system apps in my mobile that I do not use, and have no intention of ever using. I know that is is possible to [uninstall system apps and bloatware with root](https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/6851/how-can-i-uninstall-applications-that-are-locked-by-phone-vendor), but is it possible without root?
Are there any non-root options that will help me to deal with unwanted system applications? | 2012/07/29 | [
"https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/26632",
"https://android.stackexchange.com",
"https://android.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] | No, that is impossible -- as only root can make the system partition writable (which is required to delete a system app, which is stored there). However, using ICS (Android 4.0) or above, you can at least "freeze" them (make it "invisible and unusable") -- and, if you later decide otherwise, also unfreeze them again (see e.g. [How to Remove / Disable the Bloatware Apps in the HTC One X](http://androidadvices.com/remove-disable-bloatware-apps-htc/) or [Bye-bye, bloatware: Disable system apps in Android Ice Cream Sandwich](https://blogs.computerworld.com/article/2471733/mobile-apps/bye-bye--bloatware--disable-system-apps-in-android-ice-cream-sandwich.html)). | I agree with Izzy's answer mostly, however *technically* it is possible to do so without.
Background:
* System apps reside at /system/app/\*
* /system is a separate partition that is mounted read-only during normal use
* Some phones (HTC) even lock the flash partition to disallow any write
* Normally one gains root on the normal system to make /system writeable and remove stuff with root rights there
* Rooting is the process of becoming root on the normal Android system and make this persistent by installing some file (/usr/xbin/su and such)
To remove apps without rooting one would have to not root his phone but find another means to remove unneeded apps from /system
* On Google Nexus devices one would unlock and boot a temporary custom recovery to do that (no rooting of the normal Android instance)
* With Samsung devices one could use the same approach like CF-Root does (download partition, modify, write back)
* Or just run an exploit withouth the rooting procedure afterwards and use that temporary root to do all needed cleanup
Bottom line: Rooting and then doing it is far easier. I just wanted to explain that it is indeed possible technically |
49,223 | One of the rear rack holes on my aluminum frame have become stripped after a year of taking the rear rack off at least once a week. I've been using this bike for commuting and weekend riding, so I like to remove the rack when I'm not carrying panniers.
I've asked a few bike shops about rethreading the hole and have gotten multiple responses. One shop there is a tool that some shops have that can rethread it. Another said I was out of luck. One criticized me for taking the rack off often. The last one I asked said some shops could do it but you'd have to go up a screw size.
What's the consensus here on this type of frame repair? At the moment I can still use the rack since it's still secure with the one loose screw. I intend on getting a new bike at the end of the year for non-commuting, so I will make this a dedicated commuter bike where I can leave the rack on it when that happens. | 2017/07/26 | [
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/49223",
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com",
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/users/31043/"
] | A few ideas:
* Buy a [seatpost-mounted rack](http://www.wiggle.co.uk/topeak-qr-beam-rack-mtx/) (this would be a good solution for the long term if you want to keep taking your rack on and off, but check the weight limits).
* If you're going to keep doing this, when you've solved the immediate problem, put some stainless studs in the holes with threadlocker and use a nut on the outside. You should probably use a dome (acorn) nut to avoid hard edges.
* If there's a rubbish thread but just enough to get a bite, degrease the hole, cover the first few turns of a stud in epoxy and screw it in. Leave overnight before fitting the rack.
* [P-clips](http://www.ebay.co.uk/bhp/rubber-lined-p-clips) onto the seat/chain stays can replace the mounting bosses for all but the heaviest racks.
* You could probably tap it out. I'm used to M5 rack mounts so you'd need to go to M6. I'll the hole out with a 5mm drill then use an M6 tap. You'll probably need to start with a taper tap then change to a bottoming tap. You'll also need to open the hole on the rack to a little over 6mm (if you can't get a 6.2mm drill, use 1/4"). I reckon a [metric tap set](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Draper-40891-28-Piece-Tap-Drill/dp/B000PJCEYQ) is worth having, but be sure to get one with pilot drills as these are otherwise uncommon sizes.
On my bikes I'd go for (1) P-clips (or tap if high loads and plenty of material); (2) tap it out (3) seatpost rack; (4) epoxy and only on my old bike. But I already have all the tools/materials for all these options.
All links are examples rather than recommendations.
It should probably go without saying but if you've got a child seat mounted on the rack, you should probably forget about the repair, or using the rack in its current state. But you can get a seat that fits to the seat post. | Going up a size (to M6) or installing a Helicoil are both good options if there's a reasonable amount of material surrounding the eyelet, which is true for all but the daintiest. If you want to keep taking it off regularly, the Helicoil is a little better option in terms of preventing similar issues in the future, since now you'll be doing it with steel threads. But either approach is sound and any real shop can do either as needed.
The simple, non-shop fix is use a longer bolt plus a nut. If clearance is tight, use a buttonhead M5 bolt run from the inside out, so the nut is outside. |
49,223 | One of the rear rack holes on my aluminum frame have become stripped after a year of taking the rear rack off at least once a week. I've been using this bike for commuting and weekend riding, so I like to remove the rack when I'm not carrying panniers.
I've asked a few bike shops about rethreading the hole and have gotten multiple responses. One shop there is a tool that some shops have that can rethread it. Another said I was out of luck. One criticized me for taking the rack off often. The last one I asked said some shops could do it but you'd have to go up a screw size.
What's the consensus here on this type of frame repair? At the moment I can still use the rack since it's still secure with the one loose screw. I intend on getting a new bike at the end of the year for non-commuting, so I will make this a dedicated commuter bike where I can leave the rack on it when that happens. | 2017/07/26 | [
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/49223",
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com",
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/users/31043/"
] | Most anchor points in aluminum frames are not an actual tapped holes in the frame. It is a threaded inset that attaches to the frame similar to the way a pop rivet works. On older frames they were sometimes referred to as braze-ons. If you search for Nutsert or rivet nut they may be available at your local home center. While the individual inserts are not expensive the insertion tool can be close to $80. The inserts can also be troublesome to remove. Attempting to drill them out usually results in the insert spinning in the mounting hole. A local custom frame builder may be able to help you as they likely have the tool to install bottle cage mounts and such. | Going up a size (to M6) or installing a Helicoil are both good options if there's a reasonable amount of material surrounding the eyelet, which is true for all but the daintiest. If you want to keep taking it off regularly, the Helicoil is a little better option in terms of preventing similar issues in the future, since now you'll be doing it with steel threads. But either approach is sound and any real shop can do either as needed.
The simple, non-shop fix is use a longer bolt plus a nut. If clearance is tight, use a buttonhead M5 bolt run from the inside out, so the nut is outside. |
28,387 | Is there a way which will encourage babies to try and talk words?
I have tried talking to my baby girl a lot of times, but that doesn't seem to help
She is 1 year old
I just want to check if I can get some tips | 2016/12/29 | [
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com/questions/28387",
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com",
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com/users/25919/"
] | I would say that there are a few things you can do that might help. Many children at one are not yet talkers, so please try not to worry. It never hurts to ask your child's doctor or nurse if everything seems okay. I will assume that you know your baby can hear well enough.
* I would say that baby babble from adults doesn't help a lot. I doubt that it does real harm -- millions of babies have done well in spite of baby talk from adults.
* Use the correct word for objects/things. "Milk. Here is your milk." "Bread. Here is your bread."
* Teach some sign language. It takes the pressure off of speaking, and taking the pressure off seems to encourage speech.[link to signs](http://www.parenting.com/gallery/baby-sign-language-words-to-know)
* It is fine to model speech, but be happy about **any** attempts. "Baba" for 'bottle' is perfectly acceptable. You say, "Yes, this is you bottle. Good for you!" Or, "Yes, you may have a bottle. You said bottle!"
If you honestly think your child is not getting the interaction part of speech, model it with another child or adult. Hold up a cookie. Say, "Cookie." Then the partner repeats it. Music is also a fabulous way to have fun during a language lesson. Sing songs you know, or make them up.
I had an autistic student who was a reluctant speaker as well as afraid of the toilet. I made up the pee song: "Everybody has to go pee. Another kid's name, Willow and me. Everybody has to go P-E -E. Another kid's name, Willow and me." Years later the student returned and sang the song to me and said it had helped her daughter, too. So as silly as a made-up song might be, it makes language more fun.
Best of luck! | Typically, babies will try to copy simple noises - they are natural imitators. In the English-speaking world, parents use sounds like Mama or Dada (Mama being the simplest of these, as baby can see clearly what you are doing) but talking to your baby while holding them as you normally would is often all the encouragement they need.
Opinion is divided as to whether you should focus more on baby-talk, to give them simple sounds to copy, or talking as you would to an adult - to help them be familiar with how speech sounds as a whole. I tend to think a bit of both, and moving away from baby-talk as they pick up words.
The Related sidebar to the right has a range of questions around specifics on this topic, so have a look at them. |
28,387 | Is there a way which will encourage babies to try and talk words?
I have tried talking to my baby girl a lot of times, but that doesn't seem to help
She is 1 year old
I just want to check if I can get some tips | 2016/12/29 | [
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com/questions/28387",
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com",
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com/users/25919/"
] | Typically, babies will try to copy simple noises - they are natural imitators. In the English-speaking world, parents use sounds like Mama or Dada (Mama being the simplest of these, as baby can see clearly what you are doing) but talking to your baby while holding them as you normally would is often all the encouragement they need.
Opinion is divided as to whether you should focus more on baby-talk, to give them simple sounds to copy, or talking as you would to an adult - to help them be familiar with how speech sounds as a whole. I tend to think a bit of both, and moving away from baby-talk as they pick up words.
The Related sidebar to the right has a range of questions around specifics on this topic, so have a look at them. | In my experience, repeating what the baby is babbling helps them to know communication. Try to imitate the sounds they are making, and soon they will begin to imitate the sounds/words you are making. Although you may not understand what they are trying to say, it is a process for them as muscles are developing for speech. They may very well be repeating what you are saying, it just isn't coming out right. |
28,387 | Is there a way which will encourage babies to try and talk words?
I have tried talking to my baby girl a lot of times, but that doesn't seem to help
She is 1 year old
I just want to check if I can get some tips | 2016/12/29 | [
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com/questions/28387",
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com",
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com/users/25919/"
] | I would say that there are a few things you can do that might help. Many children at one are not yet talkers, so please try not to worry. It never hurts to ask your child's doctor or nurse if everything seems okay. I will assume that you know your baby can hear well enough.
* I would say that baby babble from adults doesn't help a lot. I doubt that it does real harm -- millions of babies have done well in spite of baby talk from adults.
* Use the correct word for objects/things. "Milk. Here is your milk." "Bread. Here is your bread."
* Teach some sign language. It takes the pressure off of speaking, and taking the pressure off seems to encourage speech.[link to signs](http://www.parenting.com/gallery/baby-sign-language-words-to-know)
* It is fine to model speech, but be happy about **any** attempts. "Baba" for 'bottle' is perfectly acceptable. You say, "Yes, this is you bottle. Good for you!" Or, "Yes, you may have a bottle. You said bottle!"
If you honestly think your child is not getting the interaction part of speech, model it with another child or adult. Hold up a cookie. Say, "Cookie." Then the partner repeats it. Music is also a fabulous way to have fun during a language lesson. Sing songs you know, or make them up.
I had an autistic student who was a reluctant speaker as well as afraid of the toilet. I made up the pee song: "Everybody has to go pee. Another kid's name, Willow and me. Everybody has to go P-E -E. Another kid's name, Willow and me." Years later the student returned and sang the song to me and said it had helped her daughter, too. So as silly as a made-up song might be, it makes language more fun.
Best of luck! | In my experience, repeating what the baby is babbling helps them to know communication. Try to imitate the sounds they are making, and soon they will begin to imitate the sounds/words you are making. Although you may not understand what they are trying to say, it is a process for them as muscles are developing for speech. They may very well be repeating what you are saying, it just isn't coming out right. |
28,387 | Is there a way which will encourage babies to try and talk words?
I have tried talking to my baby girl a lot of times, but that doesn't seem to help
She is 1 year old
I just want to check if I can get some tips | 2016/12/29 | [
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com/questions/28387",
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com",
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com/users/25919/"
] | I would say that there are a few things you can do that might help. Many children at one are not yet talkers, so please try not to worry. It never hurts to ask your child's doctor or nurse if everything seems okay. I will assume that you know your baby can hear well enough.
* I would say that baby babble from adults doesn't help a lot. I doubt that it does real harm -- millions of babies have done well in spite of baby talk from adults.
* Use the correct word for objects/things. "Milk. Here is your milk." "Bread. Here is your bread."
* Teach some sign language. It takes the pressure off of speaking, and taking the pressure off seems to encourage speech.[link to signs](http://www.parenting.com/gallery/baby-sign-language-words-to-know)
* It is fine to model speech, but be happy about **any** attempts. "Baba" for 'bottle' is perfectly acceptable. You say, "Yes, this is you bottle. Good for you!" Or, "Yes, you may have a bottle. You said bottle!"
If you honestly think your child is not getting the interaction part of speech, model it with another child or adult. Hold up a cookie. Say, "Cookie." Then the partner repeats it. Music is also a fabulous way to have fun during a language lesson. Sing songs you know, or make them up.
I had an autistic student who was a reluctant speaker as well as afraid of the toilet. I made up the pee song: "Everybody has to go pee. Another kid's name, Willow and me. Everybody has to go P-E -E. Another kid's name, Willow and me." Years later the student returned and sang the song to me and said it had helped her daughter, too. So as silly as a made-up song might be, it makes language more fun.
Best of luck! | Firstly, don't worry. 1 year is too early to truly be worried about a child's speech, it's perfectly normal for her not to be talking yet.
Secondly, talk to her. A lot. Constantly. My favourite was always when I took my boys shopping - put them in the seat of the shopping trolley where they can see me, then narrate everything I do.
>
> Here we are, in through the doors - swoosh! I love the way they do that. Left turn coming up here, hold tight! Now, we're in the fruit and veg...what do we need? Well, you like strawberry, don't you, so we'll get some of those, and then...
>
>
>
Keep that up through the whole trip. Even if she's not repeating it yet, it's all going into that fuzzing tangle of neurons she's got firing away between her ears.
During the first years of a baby's development, her brain is busy training itself to recognise everything that's going on around her. Specifically, she's learning what sounds are important and part of language, and what sounds are not. You need to train her ears to hear your language clearly, as well as training her brain to correctly interpret the sounds as words. For this, she needs a lot of input. |
28,387 | Is there a way which will encourage babies to try and talk words?
I have tried talking to my baby girl a lot of times, but that doesn't seem to help
She is 1 year old
I just want to check if I can get some tips | 2016/12/29 | [
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com/questions/28387",
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com",
"https://parenting.stackexchange.com/users/25919/"
] | Firstly, don't worry. 1 year is too early to truly be worried about a child's speech, it's perfectly normal for her not to be talking yet.
Secondly, talk to her. A lot. Constantly. My favourite was always when I took my boys shopping - put them in the seat of the shopping trolley where they can see me, then narrate everything I do.
>
> Here we are, in through the doors - swoosh! I love the way they do that. Left turn coming up here, hold tight! Now, we're in the fruit and veg...what do we need? Well, you like strawberry, don't you, so we'll get some of those, and then...
>
>
>
Keep that up through the whole trip. Even if she's not repeating it yet, it's all going into that fuzzing tangle of neurons she's got firing away between her ears.
During the first years of a baby's development, her brain is busy training itself to recognise everything that's going on around her. Specifically, she's learning what sounds are important and part of language, and what sounds are not. You need to train her ears to hear your language clearly, as well as training her brain to correctly interpret the sounds as words. For this, she needs a lot of input. | In my experience, repeating what the baby is babbling helps them to know communication. Try to imitate the sounds they are making, and soon they will begin to imitate the sounds/words you are making. Although you may not understand what they are trying to say, it is a process for them as muscles are developing for speech. They may very well be repeating what you are saying, it just isn't coming out right. |
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