qid int64 1 74.7M | question stringlengths 12 33.8k | date stringlengths 10 10 | metadata list | response_j stringlengths 0 115k | response_k stringlengths 2 98.3k |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
46,459,180 | I am trying to add a splash screen to an xcode project?
It may potentially be an animation with sound effects.
Can anyone help?
Thank you guys. | 2017/09/28 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/46459180",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/8634577/"
] | According to apple's guideline it is not possible to use gif as splash screen or launch image.
If you are using story board for launch screen (> ios 7) then you can use jpg but below or equal version to ios 7, you have only option is png.
You can achieve animation kind of startup by making your first view controller animated and make it work as splash scree. In this case you should not set any splash image of launch screen storyboard(or set black background color), so it will show black screen for a second when app will be launching and then your first view controller will be animate and your app will got startup with animation or gif.
Hope this will help :) | You can't make splash screen animated with sound effect.
But it is possible if you make a fake splash screen that you will have full ability to make any animation and sound effect.
For example, add a real splash screen with white background color, and make your fake splash screen appear after with white background color also. So that your entire splash screen will look smooth from real splash screen to fake splash screen. |
3,565,794 | We work with a small development team and a system engineer who deploys the software at certain times.
At the moment we don't have any leading document for database changes. Changes are done in the staging database and added manually to production when the system engineer deploys a new release.
We started to work with DBDesigner Fork to create the design and generate the SQL create script, but we are still not happy with this solution. The solution is incomplete, because it's impossible to create views and stored procedures in DBDesigner Fork for example.
We would like to find a practice/tool to design the database, stored procedures, views, etc. and version the changes in Subversion.
When a new software release is created (tagged in SVN), we should be able to create a patch file for the database (a SQL script for example).
What is the best way to handle the issues described above? | 2010/08/25 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3565794",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/430642/"
] | We are a $2.5B solar manufacturing company that is using Visual Studio Database Edition for all our database management and versioning needs. It has been a very good tool for us. It version controls our databases with TFS integration, does schema and data compares (like Red-Gate), database validations and much more. We couldn't live without it now. | We use source control for versioning. All databases changes must only be made in scripts and placed in source control as part of the branch of the code that goes to production with the rest of the code changes for that version. Since devs don't have any rights to create or alter objects in Prod, this works out well for us as your changes don't get moved up unless they are in a script. |
372,330 | A friend accidentally deleted his forum database. Which wouldn't normally be a huge issue, except for the fact that he neglected to perform backups. 2 years of content is just plain gone. Obviously, he's learned his lesson.
The good news, however, is that Google keeps backups, even if individual site owners are idiots. The bad news is, that traditional crawling robots would choke on the Google Cache version of the website.
Is there anything existing that would help trawl the Google Cache, or how would I go about rolling my own? | 2008/12/16 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/372330",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/28596/"
] | You may want to consider looking at crawling the archive.org cache as well. If you're in there, it's generally better structured. | If the website is small enough that you can crawl it manually, [this userscript](http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/30878) to seamlessly navigate Google's cache is very useful. |
222,216 | I have been world-building a setting where a species of advanced aliens invades Earth, only to be forced off after the humans resort to guerilla tactics. In this setting, biological life is abundant in the universe, so Earth is not unique in that regard. The aliens are advanced, but not to the point where they have outgrown the need for raw materials. In the story I have now, the reason that the aliens have not wiped out Earth yet is because using nuclear/chemical/biological weapons of mass destruction might make the earth uninhabitable for a future harvesting operation. I have not determined what resource would best fit this role. However, I have discerned that it has the following properties:
* It is inorganic
* It actually exists in real life
* It is in reasonable abundance on earth, but is rare throughout the
universe has a whole
* The material cannot be reasonably synthesized under all known laws of
physics
* It is valuable enough for an advanced civilization to fight a war
over it, but not so valuable that the civilization cannot survive without it.
Which material, if any, would best fit the above criteria? | 2022/01/13 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/222216",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/79519/"
] | >
> It is in reasonable abundance on Earth, but is rare throughout the universe has a whole
>
>
>
Let's start with a note on scale. "The universe as a whole" is bigger than we can even see, for various reasons. The bit we *can* see has something like 2 *trillion* galaxies in it. Each galaxy has hundreds of millions of stars in it. The notion that *none* of those stars have this unobtanium except for Earth is so phenomenally implausible that it just sounds like magical interference.
Let's quietly ignore the "universe" bit for now, though. Thing is, stuff produced in stars and supernovae gets spread around and mixed up quite effectively over time. The material the Solar System is made of isn't that special as there are plenty of nearby stars and star systems formed from the same source. Within the Solar System, the stuff that the Earth is made of isn't that exotic either... anything you can find here, you'll find some of in the rest of the inner Solar System (though maybe not so much in the outer Solar System). This means you could mine the Moon, or Mars, or maybe the asteroids or Mercury and find at least *some* of the same stuff, unless it was deliberately and magically placed only on Earth and nowhere else.
>
> The material cannot be reasonably synthesized under all known laws of physics
>
>
>
Thing is, stuff that can't be synthesized under the laws of physics can't reasonably exist in the first place. Where could it have come from, if not from a physical process?
There are potentially some exotic things that could form in the early moments of the universe and be impractical to synthesize since then (such as [cosmic strings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_string)) but they're not really "materials" and they're not really the sorts of things you might find "on" a planet.
>
> the aliens have not wiped out Earth yet is because using nuclear/chemical/biological weapons of mass destruction might make the Earth uninhabitable for a future harvesting operation
>
>
>
It would take remarkably little to render the Earth uninhabitable for humans, but relatively safe for anyone with a little patience or indeed sufficiently high-tech protective equipment or dare I say it robots.
[A few hundred tonnes of the right material wrapped around a few nuclear warheads](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt_bomb) would make a doomsday device that would handily kill most life on the surface of Earth, and leave the survivors without an industrial base to support them. An interstellar civilization could do this pretty easily, and have the wherewithal to detect hidden settlements using a range of techniques to hunt down stragglers.
>
> It is valuable enough for an advance civilization to fight a war over it, but not so valuable that the civilization cannot survive without it.
>
>
>
(Warning: TV Tropes links incoming)
I think it pretty much has to be some kind of [artifact](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AncientArtifact), i.e. a *constructed object* rather than some simple material resource. Presumably it was built by the inevitable [precursors](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Precursors), which is why it is of interest to civilizations which are substantially more powerful than our own but not actually powerful enough to replicate the artifact themselves.
Clearly whatever it is must be very tough (because it has survived probably quite a large span of Earth's history, which have involved a lot of big asteroid impacts and volcanic episodes) and potentially hazardous (because *something* has stopped the aliens cobalt-bombing the Earth into planet-cockroach).
All that remains is for you to think of a type of [macguffin](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MacGuffin) that fits neatly into your setting—an ancient AI; a better superluminal drive; the means for inter-universal travel; the answer to life, the universe and everything—and you're away.
Perhaps also consider that the biggest threat to the aliens trying to obtain the artifact will be *other* aliens. They might also be the biggest threat to the humans, too. | Humans
------
Just like humans collect birds, fish, snakes, and other animals, and are willing to pay large amounts of money for rare specimen, aliens collect species from other planets. The further away it comes from, the more space bucks they're willing to pay! A space ship full of humans will earn the crew a lot of money. |
222,216 | I have been world-building a setting where a species of advanced aliens invades Earth, only to be forced off after the humans resort to guerilla tactics. In this setting, biological life is abundant in the universe, so Earth is not unique in that regard. The aliens are advanced, but not to the point where they have outgrown the need for raw materials. In the story I have now, the reason that the aliens have not wiped out Earth yet is because using nuclear/chemical/biological weapons of mass destruction might make the earth uninhabitable for a future harvesting operation. I have not determined what resource would best fit this role. However, I have discerned that it has the following properties:
* It is inorganic
* It actually exists in real life
* It is in reasonable abundance on earth, but is rare throughout the
universe has a whole
* The material cannot be reasonably synthesized under all known laws of
physics
* It is valuable enough for an advanced civilization to fight a war
over it, but not so valuable that the civilization cannot survive without it.
Which material, if any, would best fit the above criteria? | 2022/01/13 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/222216",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/79519/"
] | The topology of this part of the universe was peculiar immediately after the big bang, and our solar system got more than its fair share of [monopoles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_monopole).
Some of them ended up on Earth.
The aliens have magical technology that can detect them, but not manufacture them. These monopoles are extremely valuable, they can be used to manufacture several different kinds of exotic matter... and you don't even have to dig down into the core of a neutron star to get them. You just have to scrape Ohio down to the upper mantle. Or maybe northern France.
I believe that this fulfills most of your wishlist, except possibly whether they're "real". They're theoretical, we don't have any of the things yet, and are unlikely to get any soon. | A material that doesn't check most of your requirements but could still fit your use case is clean, liquid water:
Water in itself is in abundance in the universe, however not all forms of water are useful for living life.
This material can be synthesized and we can extract clean water from ice which is abundant. However, for a civilization, extracting or synthesizing water for the entire population and on such a massive scale must be incredibly expensive. We're talking about potentially terraforming entire planets for the investment to be worth it. On the other hand, finding a planet that already has large volumes of liquid water is much much more valuable and cheaper to use.
Technically your civilization cannot survive without water. However as mentioned earlier it is in abundance in the universe. What is valuable is the scale and access of liquid water that your civilization has. So a ship crashing in a planet with large ice caps may extract enough water to survive. However your civilization will need huge investments to install a settlement there.
So civilizations will go to war to create their own settlements on planets with liquid water first before getting the ones with ice caps which are more expensive to use. |
222,216 | I have been world-building a setting where a species of advanced aliens invades Earth, only to be forced off after the humans resort to guerilla tactics. In this setting, biological life is abundant in the universe, so Earth is not unique in that regard. The aliens are advanced, but not to the point where they have outgrown the need for raw materials. In the story I have now, the reason that the aliens have not wiped out Earth yet is because using nuclear/chemical/biological weapons of mass destruction might make the earth uninhabitable for a future harvesting operation. I have not determined what resource would best fit this role. However, I have discerned that it has the following properties:
* It is inorganic
* It actually exists in real life
* It is in reasonable abundance on earth, but is rare throughout the
universe has a whole
* The material cannot be reasonably synthesized under all known laws of
physics
* It is valuable enough for an advanced civilization to fight a war
over it, but not so valuable that the civilization cannot survive without it.
Which material, if any, would best fit the above criteria? | 2022/01/13 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/222216",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/79519/"
] | >
> It is in reasonable abundance on Earth, but is rare throughout the universe has a whole
>
>
>
Let's start with a note on scale. "The universe as a whole" is bigger than we can even see, for various reasons. The bit we *can* see has something like 2 *trillion* galaxies in it. Each galaxy has hundreds of millions of stars in it. The notion that *none* of those stars have this unobtanium except for Earth is so phenomenally implausible that it just sounds like magical interference.
Let's quietly ignore the "universe" bit for now, though. Thing is, stuff produced in stars and supernovae gets spread around and mixed up quite effectively over time. The material the Solar System is made of isn't that special as there are plenty of nearby stars and star systems formed from the same source. Within the Solar System, the stuff that the Earth is made of isn't that exotic either... anything you can find here, you'll find some of in the rest of the inner Solar System (though maybe not so much in the outer Solar System). This means you could mine the Moon, or Mars, or maybe the asteroids or Mercury and find at least *some* of the same stuff, unless it was deliberately and magically placed only on Earth and nowhere else.
>
> The material cannot be reasonably synthesized under all known laws of physics
>
>
>
Thing is, stuff that can't be synthesized under the laws of physics can't reasonably exist in the first place. Where could it have come from, if not from a physical process?
There are potentially some exotic things that could form in the early moments of the universe and be impractical to synthesize since then (such as [cosmic strings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_string)) but they're not really "materials" and they're not really the sorts of things you might find "on" a planet.
>
> the aliens have not wiped out Earth yet is because using nuclear/chemical/biological weapons of mass destruction might make the Earth uninhabitable for a future harvesting operation
>
>
>
It would take remarkably little to render the Earth uninhabitable for humans, but relatively safe for anyone with a little patience or indeed sufficiently high-tech protective equipment or dare I say it robots.
[A few hundred tonnes of the right material wrapped around a few nuclear warheads](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt_bomb) would make a doomsday device that would handily kill most life on the surface of Earth, and leave the survivors without an industrial base to support them. An interstellar civilization could do this pretty easily, and have the wherewithal to detect hidden settlements using a range of techniques to hunt down stragglers.
>
> It is valuable enough for an advance civilization to fight a war over it, but not so valuable that the civilization cannot survive without it.
>
>
>
(Warning: TV Tropes links incoming)
I think it pretty much has to be some kind of [artifact](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AncientArtifact), i.e. a *constructed object* rather than some simple material resource. Presumably it was built by the inevitable [precursors](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Precursors), which is why it is of interest to civilizations which are substantially more powerful than our own but not actually powerful enough to replicate the artifact themselves.
Clearly whatever it is must be very tough (because it has survived probably quite a large span of Earth's history, which have involved a lot of big asteroid impacts and volcanic episodes) and potentially hazardous (because *something* has stopped the aliens cobalt-bombing the Earth into planet-cockroach).
All that remains is for you to think of a type of [macguffin](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MacGuffin) that fits neatly into your setting—an ancient AI; a better superluminal drive; the means for inter-universal travel; the answer to life, the universe and everything—and you're away.
Perhaps also consider that the biggest threat to the aliens trying to obtain the artifact will be *other* aliens. They might also be the biggest threat to the humans, too. | Reverse the decision, and consider that where the aliens come from they have a deficiency of a certain element. Though take into account that it would be far easier to mine it from a closer solar system than ours or even ignore us on earth and mine all they would need from Mars or the asteroid belt.
You may perhaps want to reconsider the non-organic exclusion. Since the universe we see is pretty much distributed well from the element producing supernova factories. this dust cloud has more or less the same ratios of that dust cloud. All solar systems are born from dust clouds.
A bad 90's movie with one of the better reasons for coming to earth was ["I come in peace"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Come_in_Peace). The alien was a drug runner, harvesting endorphins. Point being, you don't want to kill off the drug producing inhabitants, and it's far more plausible that organic chemistry has produced something unique on earth. also drugs are bad, ie: not necessary though valuable.
PS: Even a low Kardashev scale II civilization is still incredibly more advanced than we are. We would still have no hope of defending ourselves against them. |
222,216 | I have been world-building a setting where a species of advanced aliens invades Earth, only to be forced off after the humans resort to guerilla tactics. In this setting, biological life is abundant in the universe, so Earth is not unique in that regard. The aliens are advanced, but not to the point where they have outgrown the need for raw materials. In the story I have now, the reason that the aliens have not wiped out Earth yet is because using nuclear/chemical/biological weapons of mass destruction might make the earth uninhabitable for a future harvesting operation. I have not determined what resource would best fit this role. However, I have discerned that it has the following properties:
* It is inorganic
* It actually exists in real life
* It is in reasonable abundance on earth, but is rare throughout the
universe has a whole
* The material cannot be reasonably synthesized under all known laws of
physics
* It is valuable enough for an advanced civilization to fight a war
over it, but not so valuable that the civilization cannot survive without it.
Which material, if any, would best fit the above criteria? | 2022/01/13 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/222216",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/79519/"
] | Reverse the decision, and consider that where the aliens come from they have a deficiency of a certain element. Though take into account that it would be far easier to mine it from a closer solar system than ours or even ignore us on earth and mine all they would need from Mars or the asteroid belt.
You may perhaps want to reconsider the non-organic exclusion. Since the universe we see is pretty much distributed well from the element producing supernova factories. this dust cloud has more or less the same ratios of that dust cloud. All solar systems are born from dust clouds.
A bad 90's movie with one of the better reasons for coming to earth was ["I come in peace"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Come_in_Peace). The alien was a drug runner, harvesting endorphins. Point being, you don't want to kill off the drug producing inhabitants, and it's far more plausible that organic chemistry has produced something unique on earth. also drugs are bad, ie: not necessary though valuable.
PS: Even a low Kardashev scale II civilization is still incredibly more advanced than we are. We would still have no hope of defending ourselves against them. | A huge fraction of the universe is composed of just hydrogen and helium. Something like 98%
Of the remaining elements, they are produced in supernova or for a few the lighter ones, as the end stage of a star running out of fuel.
See: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_the_chemical_elements>
Of the elements it looks like Ta is the least common.
You can go a step further in rarity by going for particular isotopes.
But remember that any element can, with enough energy be made. Doing this efficiently is left to the engineers.
With made materials you have some additional options. Right now probably the most expensive material per pound are semi-conductors. The cute epoxy box is much larger than the actual chip.
You can go for exotic properties too. High temperature super conductors. (We don't know how to make them yet.) Materials with very large electric charges baked in (electrets) Magnetic monopoles (Do they exist?) Perfect crystals.
George Gamow working with an an early theory of nuclear stability found a theoretical nucleus with a mass of several thousand, shaped as a donut. I don't think the theory is current considered credible. But consider if you had a ring shaped nucleus. Now make a chain of these with the rings linked. You have a material that is stronger by the ration of the strong nuclear force to chemical bonds.
Once you can make nuclear thread, you can either weave it to make nuclear cloth, or link to make nuclear plate.
It would have interesting properties. |
222,216 | I have been world-building a setting where a species of advanced aliens invades Earth, only to be forced off after the humans resort to guerilla tactics. In this setting, biological life is abundant in the universe, so Earth is not unique in that regard. The aliens are advanced, but not to the point where they have outgrown the need for raw materials. In the story I have now, the reason that the aliens have not wiped out Earth yet is because using nuclear/chemical/biological weapons of mass destruction might make the earth uninhabitable for a future harvesting operation. I have not determined what resource would best fit this role. However, I have discerned that it has the following properties:
* It is inorganic
* It actually exists in real life
* It is in reasonable abundance on earth, but is rare throughout the
universe has a whole
* The material cannot be reasonably synthesized under all known laws of
physics
* It is valuable enough for an advanced civilization to fight a war
over it, but not so valuable that the civilization cannot survive without it.
Which material, if any, would best fit the above criteria? | 2022/01/13 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/222216",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/79519/"
] | **Anything can be synthesized, but how easy...**
Agree with Harthag's question comment, in principle.. in terms of elements, this question is a no-go when dealing with a really really high tech alien. They'll know it all. But in that case, why would they come harvest things on an inhabited planet ?
**Rare Earths that are not really rare on Earth**
On Earth, the most abundant rare-earth element is Cerium, which is actually the 25th most abundant element in Earth's crust, having 68 parts per million
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare-earth_element>
**Suppose we *invented* it, they didn't**
Creating certain materials could be costly, and sometimes not obvious for aliens. When you'd have e.g. aliens that can't handle *heat* easily, humans could be handier with baking certain ceramics. Maybe the aliens never developed Uranium-based fission, they missed Plutonium. There may be *human forged* materials the aliens did not discover yet, because they e.g. don't have abundant Carbon or Nitrates on their planet. They discover the material when they discover Earth..
* Graphene
* Plutonium
* Glass
* Ceramics
* Gunpowder | A material that doesn't check most of your requirements but could still fit your use case is clean, liquid water:
Water in itself is in abundance in the universe, however not all forms of water are useful for living life.
This material can be synthesized and we can extract clean water from ice which is abundant. However, for a civilization, extracting or synthesizing water for the entire population and on such a massive scale must be incredibly expensive. We're talking about potentially terraforming entire planets for the investment to be worth it. On the other hand, finding a planet that already has large volumes of liquid water is much much more valuable and cheaper to use.
Technically your civilization cannot survive without water. However as mentioned earlier it is in abundance in the universe. What is valuable is the scale and access of liquid water that your civilization has. So a ship crashing in a planet with large ice caps may extract enough water to survive. However your civilization will need huge investments to install a settlement there.
So civilizations will go to war to create their own settlements on planets with liquid water first before getting the ones with ice caps which are more expensive to use. |
222,216 | I have been world-building a setting where a species of advanced aliens invades Earth, only to be forced off after the humans resort to guerilla tactics. In this setting, biological life is abundant in the universe, so Earth is not unique in that regard. The aliens are advanced, but not to the point where they have outgrown the need for raw materials. In the story I have now, the reason that the aliens have not wiped out Earth yet is because using nuclear/chemical/biological weapons of mass destruction might make the earth uninhabitable for a future harvesting operation. I have not determined what resource would best fit this role. However, I have discerned that it has the following properties:
* It is inorganic
* It actually exists in real life
* It is in reasonable abundance on earth, but is rare throughout the
universe has a whole
* The material cannot be reasonably synthesized under all known laws of
physics
* It is valuable enough for an advanced civilization to fight a war
over it, but not so valuable that the civilization cannot survive without it.
Which material, if any, would best fit the above criteria? | 2022/01/13 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/222216",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/79519/"
] | >
> Look at the stunning color variations, the beautiful discontinuity of the impurities, all the gorgeous minute imperfections! *This*, my dear gentlebeings, is a pristine certified-natural carbon crystal, retrieved with blood, eyes and tears from an uncivilized pre-synthesis (of course!) waterworld by the great M'gr!hgk^6 themselves!
>
>
> None of this synthed nonsense you see all over, no no, this is the real deal! Comes complete with a provenance guarantee, a Millennium-class vacuum showcase, *and* a detailed 6D recording of its recovery!
>
>
> Minimum bid set to six thousand credits! Do we have a first bid? Ah, six thousand one hundred credits from the seven-tentacled gentlebeing in the middle pond. Do we have six thousand two hundred? Right, ...
>
>
>
Your aliens are not scavengers or miners, they are high-class *collectors*. The more *pristine* and *untouched* the item, and the more story-worthy its provenance, the more valuable it is.
So, no nuclear weapons ("*Do you have* any *idea what neutrons can* do *to an item?*"), no planetary-scale strikes, and that collection flotilla had better not have a single synther anywhere, lest doubts be cast on the provenance of the items.
And, sure, you can just mine an asteroid somewhere, but that's just *boring*. It's not as if the 'roid would go anywhere. Nothing like saving a precious item, *just before* the barbarians on its homeworld destroy it. | Humans have attained incredible levels of technology without unlocking the secret to FTL travel. By a similar coincidence, these aliens attained incredible levels of technology without unlocking the secret to integrated circuits and powerful computers.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the first stages of the invasion the aliens hit major cities with orbital bombardment, not knowing that computers even existed. As a result, the fabs and most of the humans who know how to create them are dead - Gigahertz class computer chips became a finite resource overnight. However, in the ensuing conflict it became very clear to the aliens how useful computers are in war.
After they won, they incorporated human chips into their weapons, and are now scouring earth for computers, game systems, and phones to repurpose into the new intelligent weapons that they are exporting to the front lines of other conflicts they are fighting in the galaxy. Of course, given another 70 years, they could probably duplicate the tech to make chips by torturing captured scientists and reading our books. However, they don't need chips in 70 years: they need them now to win the war with the Zorblaxians |
222,216 | I have been world-building a setting where a species of advanced aliens invades Earth, only to be forced off after the humans resort to guerilla tactics. In this setting, biological life is abundant in the universe, so Earth is not unique in that regard. The aliens are advanced, but not to the point where they have outgrown the need for raw materials. In the story I have now, the reason that the aliens have not wiped out Earth yet is because using nuclear/chemical/biological weapons of mass destruction might make the earth uninhabitable for a future harvesting operation. I have not determined what resource would best fit this role. However, I have discerned that it has the following properties:
* It is inorganic
* It actually exists in real life
* It is in reasonable abundance on earth, but is rare throughout the
universe has a whole
* The material cannot be reasonably synthesized under all known laws of
physics
* It is valuable enough for an advanced civilization to fight a war
over it, but not so valuable that the civilization cannot survive without it.
Which material, if any, would best fit the above criteria? | 2022/01/13 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/222216",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/79519/"
] | **Space with breathable atmosphere and gravity**
What they need is lots of land with a Oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere. Sure you can make an enclosed space with a pressurized atmosphere, but imagine trying to that for something the size of a large city or bigger.
Everything you could ever want to do, is easier when you don't need a spacesuit, you have effectively infinite space, and gravity is provided for free. Its also quite helpful that a hole in a building or a fire is not a death sentence. You also wouldn't need to worry about things like recycling, just dump your waste in a big hole like those pesky humans are doing already.
So what they want is just the land, whether that's just for land for food, housing, or manufacturing they just need more room to expand. | A material that doesn't check most of your requirements but could still fit your use case is clean, liquid water:
Water in itself is in abundance in the universe, however not all forms of water are useful for living life.
This material can be synthesized and we can extract clean water from ice which is abundant. However, for a civilization, extracting or synthesizing water for the entire population and on such a massive scale must be incredibly expensive. We're talking about potentially terraforming entire planets for the investment to be worth it. On the other hand, finding a planet that already has large volumes of liquid water is much much more valuable and cheaper to use.
Technically your civilization cannot survive without water. However as mentioned earlier it is in abundance in the universe. What is valuable is the scale and access of liquid water that your civilization has. So a ship crashing in a planet with large ice caps may extract enough water to survive. However your civilization will need huge investments to install a settlement there.
So civilizations will go to war to create their own settlements on planets with liquid water first before getting the ones with ice caps which are more expensive to use. |
222,216 | I have been world-building a setting where a species of advanced aliens invades Earth, only to be forced off after the humans resort to guerilla tactics. In this setting, biological life is abundant in the universe, so Earth is not unique in that regard. The aliens are advanced, but not to the point where they have outgrown the need for raw materials. In the story I have now, the reason that the aliens have not wiped out Earth yet is because using nuclear/chemical/biological weapons of mass destruction might make the earth uninhabitable for a future harvesting operation. I have not determined what resource would best fit this role. However, I have discerned that it has the following properties:
* It is inorganic
* It actually exists in real life
* It is in reasonable abundance on earth, but is rare throughout the
universe has a whole
* The material cannot be reasonably synthesized under all known laws of
physics
* It is valuable enough for an advanced civilization to fight a war
over it, but not so valuable that the civilization cannot survive without it.
Which material, if any, would best fit the above criteria? | 2022/01/13 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/222216",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/79519/"
] | ### No FTL? No invasion. No physical trade.
The economics of sending even a trading ship would mean no mission would be sent. Time frames are on the order of tens of thousands of years(or more) and ships would cost trillions of dollars make this an economic non starter. The people who launch the ships would never see the benefits. There descendants might.
Additionally how could they possibly know that a 'natural' rare resource exists? The rational thing would be to assume a mostly uniform universe.
### What resource could aliens want? Earth Culture.
>
> Which material, if any, would best fit the above criteria?
>
>
>
Earth culture. Unique to earth. Not critical for survival of aliens, it exists. It is non organic. Earthlings fight wars over earth culture.
Is this worth Aliens sending non FTL ships to acquire? Not when they can ask/trade for large sections of it via photon based communications. Less risk, drastically higher return on investment, more ethical(from human perspective at least).
### FTL changes everything.
IF FTL exists this changes everything. Then the music, art other intellectual property would be lucrative. Plants that were not toxic might be useful trade goods to provide new food items. | Humans
------
Just like humans collect birds, fish, snakes, and other animals, and are willing to pay large amounts of money for rare specimen, aliens collect species from other planets. The further away it comes from, the more space bucks they're willing to pay! A space ship full of humans will earn the crew a lot of money. |
222,216 | I have been world-building a setting where a species of advanced aliens invades Earth, only to be forced off after the humans resort to guerilla tactics. In this setting, biological life is abundant in the universe, so Earth is not unique in that regard. The aliens are advanced, but not to the point where they have outgrown the need for raw materials. In the story I have now, the reason that the aliens have not wiped out Earth yet is because using nuclear/chemical/biological weapons of mass destruction might make the earth uninhabitable for a future harvesting operation. I have not determined what resource would best fit this role. However, I have discerned that it has the following properties:
* It is inorganic
* It actually exists in real life
* It is in reasonable abundance on earth, but is rare throughout the
universe has a whole
* The material cannot be reasonably synthesized under all known laws of
physics
* It is valuable enough for an advanced civilization to fight a war
over it, but not so valuable that the civilization cannot survive without it.
Which material, if any, would best fit the above criteria? | 2022/01/13 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/222216",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/79519/"
] | A material that doesn't check most of your requirements but could still fit your use case is clean, liquid water:
Water in itself is in abundance in the universe, however not all forms of water are useful for living life.
This material can be synthesized and we can extract clean water from ice which is abundant. However, for a civilization, extracting or synthesizing water for the entire population and on such a massive scale must be incredibly expensive. We're talking about potentially terraforming entire planets for the investment to be worth it. On the other hand, finding a planet that already has large volumes of liquid water is much much more valuable and cheaper to use.
Technically your civilization cannot survive without water. However as mentioned earlier it is in abundance in the universe. What is valuable is the scale and access of liquid water that your civilization has. So a ship crashing in a planet with large ice caps may extract enough water to survive. However your civilization will need huge investments to install a settlement there.
So civilizations will go to war to create their own settlements on planets with liquid water first before getting the ones with ice caps which are more expensive to use. | A huge fraction of the universe is composed of just hydrogen and helium. Something like 98%
Of the remaining elements, they are produced in supernova or for a few the lighter ones, as the end stage of a star running out of fuel.
See: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_the_chemical_elements>
Of the elements it looks like Ta is the least common.
You can go a step further in rarity by going for particular isotopes.
But remember that any element can, with enough energy be made. Doing this efficiently is left to the engineers.
With made materials you have some additional options. Right now probably the most expensive material per pound are semi-conductors. The cute epoxy box is much larger than the actual chip.
You can go for exotic properties too. High temperature super conductors. (We don't know how to make them yet.) Materials with very large electric charges baked in (electrets) Magnetic monopoles (Do they exist?) Perfect crystals.
George Gamow working with an an early theory of nuclear stability found a theoretical nucleus with a mass of several thousand, shaped as a donut. I don't think the theory is current considered credible. But consider if you had a ring shaped nucleus. Now make a chain of these with the rings linked. You have a material that is stronger by the ration of the strong nuclear force to chemical bonds.
Once you can make nuclear thread, you can either weave it to make nuclear cloth, or link to make nuclear plate.
It would have interesting properties. |
222,216 | I have been world-building a setting where a species of advanced aliens invades Earth, only to be forced off after the humans resort to guerilla tactics. In this setting, biological life is abundant in the universe, so Earth is not unique in that regard. The aliens are advanced, but not to the point where they have outgrown the need for raw materials. In the story I have now, the reason that the aliens have not wiped out Earth yet is because using nuclear/chemical/biological weapons of mass destruction might make the earth uninhabitable for a future harvesting operation. I have not determined what resource would best fit this role. However, I have discerned that it has the following properties:
* It is inorganic
* It actually exists in real life
* It is in reasonable abundance on earth, but is rare throughout the
universe has a whole
* The material cannot be reasonably synthesized under all known laws of
physics
* It is valuable enough for an advanced civilization to fight a war
over it, but not so valuable that the civilization cannot survive without it.
Which material, if any, would best fit the above criteria? | 2022/01/13 | [
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/222216",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com",
"https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/79519/"
] | >
> It is in reasonable abundance on Earth, but is rare throughout the universe has a whole
>
>
>
Let's start with a note on scale. "The universe as a whole" is bigger than we can even see, for various reasons. The bit we *can* see has something like 2 *trillion* galaxies in it. Each galaxy has hundreds of millions of stars in it. The notion that *none* of those stars have this unobtanium except for Earth is so phenomenally implausible that it just sounds like magical interference.
Let's quietly ignore the "universe" bit for now, though. Thing is, stuff produced in stars and supernovae gets spread around and mixed up quite effectively over time. The material the Solar System is made of isn't that special as there are plenty of nearby stars and star systems formed from the same source. Within the Solar System, the stuff that the Earth is made of isn't that exotic either... anything you can find here, you'll find some of in the rest of the inner Solar System (though maybe not so much in the outer Solar System). This means you could mine the Moon, or Mars, or maybe the asteroids or Mercury and find at least *some* of the same stuff, unless it was deliberately and magically placed only on Earth and nowhere else.
>
> The material cannot be reasonably synthesized under all known laws of physics
>
>
>
Thing is, stuff that can't be synthesized under the laws of physics can't reasonably exist in the first place. Where could it have come from, if not from a physical process?
There are potentially some exotic things that could form in the early moments of the universe and be impractical to synthesize since then (such as [cosmic strings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_string)) but they're not really "materials" and they're not really the sorts of things you might find "on" a planet.
>
> the aliens have not wiped out Earth yet is because using nuclear/chemical/biological weapons of mass destruction might make the Earth uninhabitable for a future harvesting operation
>
>
>
It would take remarkably little to render the Earth uninhabitable for humans, but relatively safe for anyone with a little patience or indeed sufficiently high-tech protective equipment or dare I say it robots.
[A few hundred tonnes of the right material wrapped around a few nuclear warheads](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt_bomb) would make a doomsday device that would handily kill most life on the surface of Earth, and leave the survivors without an industrial base to support them. An interstellar civilization could do this pretty easily, and have the wherewithal to detect hidden settlements using a range of techniques to hunt down stragglers.
>
> It is valuable enough for an advance civilization to fight a war over it, but not so valuable that the civilization cannot survive without it.
>
>
>
(Warning: TV Tropes links incoming)
I think it pretty much has to be some kind of [artifact](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AncientArtifact), i.e. a *constructed object* rather than some simple material resource. Presumably it was built by the inevitable [precursors](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Precursors), which is why it is of interest to civilizations which are substantially more powerful than our own but not actually powerful enough to replicate the artifact themselves.
Clearly whatever it is must be very tough (because it has survived probably quite a large span of Earth's history, which have involved a lot of big asteroid impacts and volcanic episodes) and potentially hazardous (because *something* has stopped the aliens cobalt-bombing the Earth into planet-cockroach).
All that remains is for you to think of a type of [macguffin](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MacGuffin) that fits neatly into your setting—an ancient AI; a better superluminal drive; the means for inter-universal travel; the answer to life, the universe and everything—and you're away.
Perhaps also consider that the biggest threat to the aliens trying to obtain the artifact will be *other* aliens. They might also be the biggest threat to the humans, too. | A huge fraction of the universe is composed of just hydrogen and helium. Something like 98%
Of the remaining elements, they are produced in supernova or for a few the lighter ones, as the end stage of a star running out of fuel.
See: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_the_chemical_elements>
Of the elements it looks like Ta is the least common.
You can go a step further in rarity by going for particular isotopes.
But remember that any element can, with enough energy be made. Doing this efficiently is left to the engineers.
With made materials you have some additional options. Right now probably the most expensive material per pound are semi-conductors. The cute epoxy box is much larger than the actual chip.
You can go for exotic properties too. High temperature super conductors. (We don't know how to make them yet.) Materials with very large electric charges baked in (electrets) Magnetic monopoles (Do they exist?) Perfect crystals.
George Gamow working with an an early theory of nuclear stability found a theoretical nucleus with a mass of several thousand, shaped as a donut. I don't think the theory is current considered credible. But consider if you had a ring shaped nucleus. Now make a chain of these with the rings linked. You have a material that is stronger by the ration of the strong nuclear force to chemical bonds.
Once you can make nuclear thread, you can either weave it to make nuclear cloth, or link to make nuclear plate.
It would have interesting properties. |
25,239 | Today we studied about [mechanical stepless drives](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuously_variable_transmission), which appear to be used quite widely in industry machines, such as CNC lathes.
The concept of varying the transmission ratio arbitrary, without fixed steps, seems tempting for a bike. Has it ever been tried commercially? | 2014/10/21 | [
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/25239",
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com",
"https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/users/3927/"
] | There have been designs, but cyclists tend to be picky about increases in weight or losses in efficiency.
Bicycles do not have the problems of large spinning masses or rough clutching at low speed, and we seem to do OK with discrete steps in the gear ratio. | The [NuVinci® N360](http://www.fallbrooktech.com/cycling/n360) is a continuous variable transmission that is roller based. It is marketed and used mainly on hybrid and low maintenance city bikes. They must have had some market success as they have been around since 2006. I recall seeing them at Interbike around that time.
More info in the [internal structure](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NuVinci_Continuously_Variable_Transmission) |
48,651 | I am thinking about this scenario of throwing a satellite to Mars orbit with a high spin, Can we just throw that? one hypothesis can be that high-frequency spinning generates apparent gravity so it might have enough mass to follow mars’ orbit and reach it without using any energy but If anyone has his own expertise on this so it will be great!! | 2020/11/21 | [
"https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/48651",
"https://space.stackexchange.com",
"https://space.stackexchange.com/users/38359/"
] | Your question isn't clear but I think I understand what you're after:
Put your satellite at the end of a rope, spin it around and release it when it's moving at the right velocity. There are a couple of problems with this:
1. Unless your rope is exceedingly long you are going to subject your satellite to tremendous accelerations.
2. Of what is your rope made? You're getting pretty close to the limits of material science by the time you have reasonable acceleration and throwing it to Mars.
Note that I am assuming your rope is already in orbit. Throwing it from the surface of the Earth introduces a bunch more problems:
1. As michael\_goulish points out, keeping your satellite from burning is decidedly non-trivial. This makes the Galileo probe that was dropped into Jupiter look easy by comparison--and half that probe was a heat shield.
2. The acceleration it's going to take while being spun up is incredible--far, far beyond the hundreds of g's it will take as drag slows it in the lower atmosphere.
3. I don't think we have anything we can build it out of but I'm not certain.
4. And even if there is we currently do not know how to build something to survive the shockwaves that will be created by it's passage through the atmosphere while being spun up--the launcher will be destroyed.
As for a consolation prize: I have actually proposed a different form of spin launcher:
No rope, it's built around the lunar equator. There's no need for super strength because you can counter the forces by simply piling mass on top of the launcher and letting the moon's gravity keep it from flying apart. No brutal atmosphere effects, either. 5g in the launcher gives you an ejection velocity anywhere from sundiving to interstellar escape--obviously, if you don't need that radical a trajectory you can launch with less acceleration.
Megaengineering on a scale mankind has never done but all the basic technology already exists--you'll need some R&D to build linear motors and maglev systems for that environment but there's no reason to think it won't scale up. | How about if we just try it for low Earth orbit at first? If we can't do that, we definitely can't get it to Mars.
OK, orbital velocity for low Earth orbit is about 7 km/sec.
But if you are going to hurl something into orbit, it will have to start out with a lot *more* velocity than 7 km/sec, because it's going to lose a lot on the way up.
So now you have a spacecraft shooting out of your spinlaunch facility doing maybe 9 or 10 km/sec right down here in the nice thick air.
It will burn like a torch and make a beautiful bright streak up toward outer space.
But not all the way up, I think. |
8,047 | Both [education](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/education "show questions tagged 'education'") and [murder](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/murder "show questions tagged 'murder'") have > 5 questions, no wiki excerpt, and a poor "tag score".
Should we give them wikis and define a proper use for them, or burninate them?
---
Apparently it was decided to burninate murder. Status completed! | 2016/01/26 | [
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/8047",
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] | I'm not running for mod, so I'll help you out with the more controversial solution:
**Burn both tags.**
Within the context of this Stack, it makes no sense to be an expert in [murder](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/murder "show questions tagged 'murder'") or [education](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/education "show questions tagged 'education'"). They are too broad and to general to be of help for [story-identification](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/story-identification "show questions tagged 'story-identification'"). These tags are meta-tags that should be deleted. | [education](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/education "show questions tagged 'education'") to me looks middle-of-the-road enough that it's not going anywhere soon. It's one of the tags in the "other aspects of a question" category I'm not a fan of, but also not aggressively against. But the questions mostly seem to be about the education system in a fictional work, so that's fine. And that is a topic that people could genuinely be knowledgable about.
I would say that we need to:
* Give it a tag wiki and excerpt (were you volunteering? :) )
* Review the questions tagged with it to make sure it belongs.
+ Bad Use: "What is this story that took place in a school?"
+ Proper Use: "How do OWLs in *Harry Potter* work?"
[murder](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/murder "show questions tagged 'murder'") is more sketchy to me. Only 2 of them seem to be about the concept of murder, the other 4 are about a story where a murder happened to take place. I'd say *at least* remove it from 4 of those 6 questions, and I'm very skeptical about the *Harry Potter* one. That only leaves one question I think it "about [murder](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/murder "show questions tagged 'murder'")". I think we all know that *I* recommend there :) |
395,430 | I've done a fair bit of reading on stepper motors and acceleration.
I had to wade through a lot of different strategies with a lot of calculations, including one which called for several candles, and "A maiden of virtue pure" Which while interesting, seemed impractical (Not enough space on the Arduino)
Basically they all boil down to this:
"Accelerate using some type of ramp, run at speed, then decelerate to stop"
All good. Accelerating will get the load moving, and smooth deceleration will get the load to stop at the (hopefully) correct position.
My issue is this. All of the reading I've done so far seem to have the assumption that the distance to travel will be enough to accommodate all three phases of travel. ie Accel, Coast at speed , Decel.
I've not found much discussion on how to handle very short distance situations.
For example, moving only two steps will not, can not possibly have enough distance to go through all three phases. step - step - done.
While that particular example seems to be simple enough to solve, what are the best ways of determining if deceleration is required, and if so, when?
At what point do I determine that some sort of deceleration profile will be needed to get the stepper to stop at the required position without overshooting.
---
So after a whole bunch more looking, and reading and getting confused I decided on the simplest solution.
I stayed with a trapezoidal/triangle profile.
Essentially I determined the distance a constant acceleration ramp would use to get to speed. If the acceleration distance was greater than half of the total distance to travel, I accelerate for only half the total travel distance and not worry about getting to max speed. Because I decided to use a symmetrical approach, the decel part took care of itself.
The equations I utilised are essentially the ones posted by Chuck, although the addition of different acceleration and deceleration rates he uses gives me food for thought.
Many, many thanks to all who contributed. | 2018/09/11 | [
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/395430",
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com",
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com/users/196596/"
] | Well, for short runs, it should be obvious that you can skip the coast phase.
As for the others, it's pretty simple. Maintain constant acceleration until you are halfway to the target, then decelerate until you reach the target.
However, there's a catch (there always is, isn't there?). If you have misjudged the distance to the target, and it is closer than you think, then accelerating to your (erroneous) half-way point will mean that you will not be able to stop when you reach the real target point. | If you want to roll your own it will be something like this.
* If accel == decel then the number of steps for the accel phase is equal to the total number of steps required / 2.
* Accelerate until you reach the target number of steps or until you reach Vmax.
* Note the step count, c.
* Run at Vmax until you reach target - c.
* Start deceleration.
* Stop at target.
If you have accel != decel then you have some additional work to do to work out the ratios. |
395,430 | I've done a fair bit of reading on stepper motors and acceleration.
I had to wade through a lot of different strategies with a lot of calculations, including one which called for several candles, and "A maiden of virtue pure" Which while interesting, seemed impractical (Not enough space on the Arduino)
Basically they all boil down to this:
"Accelerate using some type of ramp, run at speed, then decelerate to stop"
All good. Accelerating will get the load moving, and smooth deceleration will get the load to stop at the (hopefully) correct position.
My issue is this. All of the reading I've done so far seem to have the assumption that the distance to travel will be enough to accommodate all three phases of travel. ie Accel, Coast at speed , Decel.
I've not found much discussion on how to handle very short distance situations.
For example, moving only two steps will not, can not possibly have enough distance to go through all three phases. step - step - done.
While that particular example seems to be simple enough to solve, what are the best ways of determining if deceleration is required, and if so, when?
At what point do I determine that some sort of deceleration profile will be needed to get the stepper to stop at the required position without overshooting.
---
So after a whole bunch more looking, and reading and getting confused I decided on the simplest solution.
I stayed with a trapezoidal/triangle profile.
Essentially I determined the distance a constant acceleration ramp would use to get to speed. If the acceleration distance was greater than half of the total distance to travel, I accelerate for only half the total travel distance and not worry about getting to max speed. Because I decided to use a symmetrical approach, the decel part took care of itself.
The equations I utilised are essentially the ones posted by Chuck, although the addition of different acceleration and deceleration rates he uses gives me food for thought.
Many, many thanks to all who contributed. | 2018/09/11 | [
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/395430",
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com",
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com/users/196596/"
] | Well, for short runs, it should be obvious that you can skip the coast phase.
As for the others, it's pretty simple. Maintain constant acceleration until you are halfway to the target, then decelerate until you reach the target.
However, there's a catch (there always is, isn't there?). If you have misjudged the distance to the target, and it is closer than you think, then accelerating to your (erroneous) half-way point will mean that you will not be able to stop when you reach the real target point. | When planning a [trapezoidal move profile](https://robotics.stackexchange.com/a/7512/37), if you are not travelling far enough, it devolves into a triangular move. I.e. "accelerate, max velocity, decelerate", becomes "accelerate, decelerate".
I typically calculate cruise distance based on subtracting acceleration & deceleration distances (based on max. acceleration and max. velocity) from the total distance. If this cruise distance is negative, I recalculate acceleration & deceleration distances & velocities based on half the total distance (or the ratio of max acceleration & max deceleration if they are different).
Trapezoidal move profiles are often used because they are simple, and easy to calculate move speed and distance for each waypoint. The problem is, they are not very flexible, as they assume an instantaneous change in acceleration, which as we know is only an approximation to the behaviour of real systems.
Many move controllers have the option of using S-curve motion profiles. You start off by ramping up acceleration at the start of the acceleration phase, and ramping it down at the end, doing the same agasn at the start and end of the deceleration phase.
While it might seem logical that the fastest move you can do would involve accelerating at the highest rate possible, then decelerating at the highest rate possible, that may not always be the case. Reducing jolt (jerk) on a move by starting with a lower initial acceleration can enable you to maintain a higher peak acceleration for longer, resulting in a higher overall acceleration, all at the expense of more complex trajectory planning calculations.
This is especially a problem with stepper motors without encoders. Stepper motors suffer from the problem that if you demand they do something they can only just manage, their behaviour is unpredictable. Push your stepper motor just a little too hard and it will miss steps. If you don't have an encoder to detect these missed steps and correct for them (in your servo loop) then you will have to down-rate your max. acceleration parameter to the point that it can cope with all potential situations.
In general, you want to try to avoid discontinuities in control, so control algorithms should, much like the motors they control, transition smoothly between different modes of operation. |
395,430 | I've done a fair bit of reading on stepper motors and acceleration.
I had to wade through a lot of different strategies with a lot of calculations, including one which called for several candles, and "A maiden of virtue pure" Which while interesting, seemed impractical (Not enough space on the Arduino)
Basically they all boil down to this:
"Accelerate using some type of ramp, run at speed, then decelerate to stop"
All good. Accelerating will get the load moving, and smooth deceleration will get the load to stop at the (hopefully) correct position.
My issue is this. All of the reading I've done so far seem to have the assumption that the distance to travel will be enough to accommodate all three phases of travel. ie Accel, Coast at speed , Decel.
I've not found much discussion on how to handle very short distance situations.
For example, moving only two steps will not, can not possibly have enough distance to go through all three phases. step - step - done.
While that particular example seems to be simple enough to solve, what are the best ways of determining if deceleration is required, and if so, when?
At what point do I determine that some sort of deceleration profile will be needed to get the stepper to stop at the required position without overshooting.
---
So after a whole bunch more looking, and reading and getting confused I decided on the simplest solution.
I stayed with a trapezoidal/triangle profile.
Essentially I determined the distance a constant acceleration ramp would use to get to speed. If the acceleration distance was greater than half of the total distance to travel, I accelerate for only half the total travel distance and not worry about getting to max speed. Because I decided to use a symmetrical approach, the decel part took care of itself.
The equations I utilised are essentially the ones posted by Chuck, although the addition of different acceleration and deceleration rates he uses gives me food for thought.
Many, many thanks to all who contributed. | 2018/09/11 | [
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/395430",
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com",
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com/users/196596/"
] | Well, for short runs, it should be obvious that you can skip the coast phase.
As for the others, it's pretty simple. Maintain constant acceleration until you are halfway to the target, then decelerate until you reach the target.
However, there's a catch (there always is, isn't there?). If you have misjudged the distance to the target, and it is closer than you think, then accelerating to your (erroneous) half-way point will mean that you will not be able to stop when you reach the real target point. | I gave you links of simple traj. planner from linuxnc.org. It has to be noted that is not in use since it has been superseeded by new and better (more complex) one.
[wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Simple\_Tp\_Notes](http://wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Simple_Tp_Notes)
[Source code](https://github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/blob/master/src/emc/motion/simple_tp.c)
So, how it works:
At the beginning you set **pos\_cmd** = **curr\_pos** (actual position), the planner does nothing. Then you set a new **pos\_cmd** (setpoint position) and **vel\_req** (setpoint velocity) with constraints: **max\_acc** , **max\_vel**.
The algorithm computes for each step (recursion) the distance to stop regarding the actual velocity, actual position, max\_acc.
If the position to stop is equal or bigger than actual distance to stop, then it begins to coast.
Else if the current velocity is smaller than vel\_req it ramps up with max\_acc ramp.
Else if the current velocity is equal or grater than vel\_req, then it moves with constant velocity.
It has to be said that this is pure open loop control, no feedback. The planner generates trapezoidal profile and outputs setpoints for position and velocity and the drive has to follow it. As said it may not stop at exact position, see notes.
P.S: IMO the article you have proposed is more specific fo use for stepper motors, in fact it calculates pulses. The linuxcnc is more generalized approach, but you can have a wider look for your problem. There is no flaw using a planner either for small or large movements, all calculations are limited by phyisical constraints that are input as parameters. |
1,412,693 | I am looking for a way to determine the most "different" or "recognizable" N ASCII characters... For example, if N = 10, what would be the most different N characters in the ASCII set from 0x21 to 0x7E? Obviously, the character "X" is very different than "O" (the letter), but "O" (the letter) is very similar to "0" (zero). Assuming a restricted OCR character subset, such that zero and the letter O would be detected as one or the other only, and one didn't have to worry about whether it was a zero or a letter O, what would be the most different N characters that typical OCR engines (for example Tesseract) recognize easily from a poor quality input image? Assumptions. such as "+" and "t" could widely be mistaken for one another. can be made, and thus each input character, whether it's "+" or "t" would only correspond to one or the other.
Thanks,
Ben | 2009/09/11 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/1412693",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/21293/"
] | Unfortunately I don't think there will be a single unique answer for this.
It'll depend on the font: Compare the different ways that 0, f, s are represented and also stylistic flourishes.
It'll depend on the type of damage the characters receive before being scanned, some may be more resilient against smudging, others against cuts, others against over-writing.
If you're looking for a representation that's best at surviving being printed, scanned and OCRed, then maybe a 1D or 2D barcode would be a better choice? | Only one way to answer this question: test it. Create a set of samples for each letter, and run OCR on each sample. The letters that OCR gets right the most often are the most "recognizable"; the letters that OCR gets wrong most often are the most "different". |
18,071 | In the UK does accent count as a "legally protected characteristics"?
For example. If i have a thick Newcastle or Yorkshire accent, could an employer legally turn me down for a job for that reason?
>
> 6. Race
>
>
> The Act continues to protect people against discrimination on the
> grounds of their race, which includes colour, nationality, ethnic or
> national origin.
>
>
>
I'm not sure if it would be classed as something to do with race etc.. | 2017/03/30 | [
"https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/18071",
"https://law.stackexchange.com",
"https://law.stackexchange.com/users/1321/"
] | Discrimination on place of birth is arguably a form of racial discrimination.
But it seems unlikely that you would succeed arguing that you were discriminated against based on your accent. The discrimination would likely have to be about the country you were born in, rather than the regional "culture" you have | Unless and until the Socialist Republic of Yorkshire secedes from the United Kingdom, the fact that you come from Yorkshire is not going to count as 'nationality' or 'national origin' (far less 'race'), so it is not a legally protected characteristic. Employers have as much right to turn you down because of your accent as they do because of the colour of your hair; that is, there is no legal reason why not, though it probably is not something they would want to admit publicly. |
18,071 | In the UK does accent count as a "legally protected characteristics"?
For example. If i have a thick Newcastle or Yorkshire accent, could an employer legally turn me down for a job for that reason?
>
> 6. Race
>
>
> The Act continues to protect people against discrimination on the
> grounds of their race, which includes colour, nationality, ethnic or
> national origin.
>
>
>
I'm not sure if it would be classed as something to do with race etc.. | 2017/03/30 | [
"https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/18071",
"https://law.stackexchange.com",
"https://law.stackexchange.com/users/1321/"
] | Discrimination on place of birth is arguably a form of racial discrimination.
But it seems unlikely that you would succeed arguing that you were discriminated against based on your accent. The discrimination would likely have to be about the country you were born in, rather than the regional "culture" you have | As a counter argument, even if your possession of an accent (and a thick one, by your own admission) was considered a protected element of nationality, the employer could still deny you on those grounds if they meet three criteria:
1. The requirement must be occupational in nature, with a link between the job and the requirement
2. The requirement must be in service to an articulated legitimate aim.
3. The requirement must be proportionate to the articulated aim, so that the restriction must be a reasonable way of achieving it.
(Source:<https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/work/discrimination-at-work/what-doesn-t-count-as-discrimination-at-work/discrimination-at-work-occupational-requirements/>)
So, it depends on the position applied for: if its is, for example, a janitorial job, its probably not legitimate, but if its a bank teller, phone center caller, or other verbal communication position, especially a "customer-facing" one, this may be a legitimate requiriement. |
18,071 | In the UK does accent count as a "legally protected characteristics"?
For example. If i have a thick Newcastle or Yorkshire accent, could an employer legally turn me down for a job for that reason?
>
> 6. Race
>
>
> The Act continues to protect people against discrimination on the
> grounds of their race, which includes colour, nationality, ethnic or
> national origin.
>
>
>
I'm not sure if it would be classed as something to do with race etc.. | 2017/03/30 | [
"https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/18071",
"https://law.stackexchange.com",
"https://law.stackexchange.com/users/1321/"
] | Unless and until the Socialist Republic of Yorkshire secedes from the United Kingdom, the fact that you come from Yorkshire is not going to count as 'nationality' or 'national origin' (far less 'race'), so it is not a legally protected characteristic. Employers have as much right to turn you down because of your accent as they do because of the colour of your hair; that is, there is no legal reason why not, though it probably is not something they would want to admit publicly. | As a counter argument, even if your possession of an accent (and a thick one, by your own admission) was considered a protected element of nationality, the employer could still deny you on those grounds if they meet three criteria:
1. The requirement must be occupational in nature, with a link between the job and the requirement
2. The requirement must be in service to an articulated legitimate aim.
3. The requirement must be proportionate to the articulated aim, so that the restriction must be a reasonable way of achieving it.
(Source:<https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/work/discrimination-at-work/what-doesn-t-count-as-discrimination-at-work/discrimination-at-work-occupational-requirements/>)
So, it depends on the position applied for: if its is, for example, a janitorial job, its probably not legitimate, but if its a bank teller, phone center caller, or other verbal communication position, especially a "customer-facing" one, this may be a legitimate requiriement. |
34,404,728 | I am developing a chat client using Socket.io as a means of communicating with the server. As such, using GCM is not exactly an option.
I want be able to receive chats at any time (even if the application is closed); essentially the socket needs to be listening at all times. I understand that a service can be started when the phone boots and kept running. However, this seems to be a rather bad idea on a mobile device, draining battery and the like.
Researching, it seems that GCM is the most common implementation for this sort of issue. Unfortunately, I cannot replace Socket.io at the moment. I was wondering how I would go about implementing this chat design - having a socket listening in the background. | 2015/12/21 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/34404728",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/5704973/"
] | You should run one service(e.g. ListenerService) when your application start and inside that service you must start one thread(e.g. ListenerThread). And keep that thread and service alives till your application is in onResume()/onPause(). Through that thread connect your client socket to server. and receive all updates on ListenerThread. and if you want send some packets to server then send on another thread/handler(e.g tempThread) and close that thrad after sending request.
When your application close/exit then stop that service(e.g ListenerService). And In that service you must sleep ListenerThread.
Do not try to stop thread for more information about thread you can follow [this](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4756862/how-to-stop-a-thread) link and [this](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5660097/stopping-destroying-a-thread) link. Thread.stop() is deprecated in android from API level 1, please see [document](http://developer.android.com/reference/java/lang/Thread.html#stop%28%29).
Start service(ListenerService) with START\_STICKY. for reference please refer android [documention](http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Service.html) of service | GCM is the correct way to handle this. Send the GCM alert to the device and then the user can click it to open your app. At that time you can re-open your socket and get the data needed.
If you ever plan to deploy your app to iOS this is the route you will be taking there. iOS kills your background tasks after 5 minutes or less if it feels like it. |
133,923 | When a post other than a question is revised (edited or a new answer posted), the "revised" timestamp on the Questions page is a link that takes you right to the post which was edited; useful and logical.
For some reason, when the revised post was the question (like when the question is first posted or an edit has been made but there are no answers yet) the revised link isn't a link anymore. It looks exactly the same but no longer functions.
Here's what the links look like:
The top timestamp isn't a link, because there are no answers. The bottom one *is* a link because the post has answers.
Can the revision timestamp just be made so it's always a link to the revised post, even if the question doesn't have answers? | 2012/05/29 | [
"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/133923",
"https://meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/166936/"
] | This is already the case. The timestamp is only then not a link if there are no answers at all. If you e.g. look at this very question on the homepage, you'll see that the timestamp is indeed a link, and it ends up on the question itself.
But, for the sake of consistency, the timestamp will now be a direct link to the question in the zero answers case. | I hope they assume that when you ask question you are more cleared about it rather than while you are giving answer(You can misunderstood problem sometimes and give answer).
So any changes to answer (Either revise or edit) it will lead you to answer to see the changes so that you get exact solution to your problem and avoid the case misleading(if edited).
But while you are asking question and somebody edit it then we generally change formatting and spelling. The i had seen many edit of questions ,most of them are for spelling mistake, Remove greetings, and formatting.
So i give answer on my own assumption |
221,507 | My question is should I use *was* or *were* in the following sentence:
>
> ...this is one of the messages, which *was*/*were* sent in the space 37 years ago.
>
>
>
Which one I should use? | 2015/01/14 | [
"https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/221507",
"https://english.stackexchange.com",
"https://english.stackexchange.com/users/106166/"
] | It depends on which noun or nouns the phrase "went into space" is modifying.
If a number of messages went into space and this is one of them then the verb belongs to 'messages' and is 'were'. If there were a number of messages and this one alone went into space, then the verb belongs to 'one' and is 'was'. Either your comma is there by mistake, in which case it would be 'messages which were' or the comma is there on purpose which would make it 'one of the messages, which was'. The latter sounds a bit awkward so if that were the case I'd rephrase. | I would normally use the expression **“one of”** with a plural noun.
Reason:
It could be a group of people or things. *“One of”* informs the listener that you are talking about one member *of the group.*
Since you are talking about **one message of the many messages**, you use a singular verb after the plural noun.
>
> "...this is one of the messages, which *was* sent in the space 37 years ago".
>
>
> |
3,048,340 | >
> **Possible Duplicate:**
>
> [Are database triggers evil?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/460316/are-database-triggers-evil)
>
>
>
There is lot of negative information on database triggers, just want to get the community's take on when is it good vs bad. | 2010/06/15 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3048340",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1748769/"
] | I think they're OK when they are used to populate a separate, one-off set of tables for things like logging, aggregation etc. for security or creating metadata for example.
When you start altering your "live" data or "looping back" into your biz info tables, that's when they become evil and unwieldy. They are also utterly unnecessary for this. There is nothing that a trigger does that a stored proc cannot do.
I feel like they are SQL's evil equivalent to GOTOs in programming languages. Legal, but to be avoided unless absolutely necessary, and they are NEVER absolutely necessary. | Because they're "magic". They aren't very visible and they can do lots of work.
I've seen good developers take a lot of time trying to track down issues that are trigger related because they just didn't think to look for them. Also, they are very rarely needed. |
3,048,340 | >
> **Possible Duplicate:**
>
> [Are database triggers evil?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/460316/are-database-triggers-evil)
>
>
>
There is lot of negative information on database triggers, just want to get the community's take on when is it good vs bad. | 2010/06/15 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3048340",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1748769/"
] | Because they're "magic". They aren't very visible and they can do lots of work.
I've seen good developers take a lot of time trying to track down issues that are trigger related because they just didn't think to look for them. Also, they are very rarely needed. | Here are a few articles that should help you figure out by yourself for your needs.
1. [Pros and Cons of Triggers vs. Stored Procedures for Denormalization](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2088905/pros-and-cons-of-triggers-vs-stored-procedures-for-denormalization) (SO question) ;
2. [Choice Between Stored Procedures, Functions, Views, Triggers, Inline SQL](http://www.paragoncorporation.com/ArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=28).
In short, `Triggers` are useful for the processing of massive amount of data, when complex DML has to be conducted. To answer your question, if this is not the case, you got your answer as per when a trigger is bad. |
3,048,340 | >
> **Possible Duplicate:**
>
> [Are database triggers evil?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/460316/are-database-triggers-evil)
>
>
>
There is lot of negative information on database triggers, just want to get the community's take on when is it good vs bad. | 2010/06/15 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3048340",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1748769/"
] | I think they're OK when they are used to populate a separate, one-off set of tables for things like logging, aggregation etc. for security or creating metadata for example.
When you start altering your "live" data or "looping back" into your biz info tables, that's when they become evil and unwieldy. They are also utterly unnecessary for this. There is nothing that a trigger does that a stored proc cannot do.
I feel like they are SQL's evil equivalent to GOTOs in programming languages. Legal, but to be avoided unless absolutely necessary, and they are NEVER absolutely necessary. | Database triggers are bad when they are used when other features are more appropriate.
Features which should be considered before attempting to use triggers:
Check constraints
Foreign key constraints
Unique indexes/constraints
(Persisted) computed columns
(Indexed) Views (if a trigger is attempting something like updating an aggregate, say)
Stored procedures (if direct table access can be prohibited)
After that point, triggers can be appropriately used without being "bad". Triggers should always be designed to have a small footprint. |
3,048,340 | >
> **Possible Duplicate:**
>
> [Are database triggers evil?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/460316/are-database-triggers-evil)
>
>
>
There is lot of negative information on database triggers, just want to get the community's take on when is it good vs bad. | 2010/06/15 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3048340",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1748769/"
] | I think they're OK when they are used to populate a separate, one-off set of tables for things like logging, aggregation etc. for security or creating metadata for example.
When you start altering your "live" data or "looping back" into your biz info tables, that's when they become evil and unwieldy. They are also utterly unnecessary for this. There is nothing that a trigger does that a stored proc cannot do.
I feel like they are SQL's evil equivalent to GOTOs in programming languages. Legal, but to be avoided unless absolutely necessary, and they are NEVER absolutely necessary. | Here are a few articles that should help you figure out by yourself for your needs.
1. [Pros and Cons of Triggers vs. Stored Procedures for Denormalization](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2088905/pros-and-cons-of-triggers-vs-stored-procedures-for-denormalization) (SO question) ;
2. [Choice Between Stored Procedures, Functions, Views, Triggers, Inline SQL](http://www.paragoncorporation.com/ArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=28).
In short, `Triggers` are useful for the processing of massive amount of data, when complex DML has to be conducted. To answer your question, if this is not the case, you got your answer as per when a trigger is bad. |
3,048,340 | >
> **Possible Duplicate:**
>
> [Are database triggers evil?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/460316/are-database-triggers-evil)
>
>
>
There is lot of negative information on database triggers, just want to get the community's take on when is it good vs bad. | 2010/06/15 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3048340",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1748769/"
] | Database triggers are bad when they are used when other features are more appropriate.
Features which should be considered before attempting to use triggers:
Check constraints
Foreign key constraints
Unique indexes/constraints
(Persisted) computed columns
(Indexed) Views (if a trigger is attempting something like updating an aggregate, say)
Stored procedures (if direct table access can be prohibited)
After that point, triggers can be appropriately used without being "bad". Triggers should always be designed to have a small footprint. | Here are a few articles that should help you figure out by yourself for your needs.
1. [Pros and Cons of Triggers vs. Stored Procedures for Denormalization](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2088905/pros-and-cons-of-triggers-vs-stored-procedures-for-denormalization) (SO question) ;
2. [Choice Between Stored Procedures, Functions, Views, Triggers, Inline SQL](http://www.paragoncorporation.com/ArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=28).
In short, `Triggers` are useful for the processing of massive amount of data, when complex DML has to be conducted. To answer your question, if this is not the case, you got your answer as per when a trigger is bad. |
29,159 | Can anyone recommend an iOS email client (Exchange/ActiveSync or IMAP... preferably both) that supports really sweet email signatures? Our company email signature has an official format that has a base64 encoded image and a standardized font/color.
Please, throw me some suggestions! | 2011/10/25 | [
"https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/29159",
"https://apple.stackexchange.com",
"https://apple.stackexchange.com/users/12770/"
] | **[Sparrow](http://sparrowmailapp.com/)** is now available for the iPhone, and it supports IMAP.
The app description does not mention exchange, and it specifically says that there's no POP support, but being that it's such a popular mail client, I figured it's worth mentioning.
Disclaimer: I've never used it either on the Mac or on iOS | [Moxier](http://www.moxier.com/)
--------------------------------
This is an email client which supports Exchange ActiveSync in the AppStore. But I'm not sure it supports sweet email signatures. |
29,159 | Can anyone recommend an iOS email client (Exchange/ActiveSync or IMAP... preferably both) that supports really sweet email signatures? Our company email signature has an official format that has a base64 encoded image and a standardized font/color.
Please, throw me some suggestions! | 2011/10/25 | [
"https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/29159",
"https://apple.stackexchange.com",
"https://apple.stackexchange.com/users/12770/"
] | [Moxier](http://www.moxier.com/)
--------------------------------
This is an email client which supports Exchange ActiveSync in the AppStore. But I'm not sure it supports sweet email signatures. | Outlook Mail is pretty good and supports signatures. The problem I've run into is that it doesn't support saved searches (As far as I can Tell) or unread search. |
29,159 | Can anyone recommend an iOS email client (Exchange/ActiveSync or IMAP... preferably both) that supports really sweet email signatures? Our company email signature has an official format that has a base64 encoded image and a standardized font/color.
Please, throw me some suggestions! | 2011/10/25 | [
"https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/29159",
"https://apple.stackexchange.com",
"https://apple.stackexchange.com/users/12770/"
] | [Moxier](http://www.moxier.com/)
--------------------------------
This is an email client which supports Exchange ActiveSync in the AppStore. But I'm not sure it supports sweet email signatures. | Try "Touchdown" for iOS, available in the App Store. |
29,159 | Can anyone recommend an iOS email client (Exchange/ActiveSync or IMAP... preferably both) that supports really sweet email signatures? Our company email signature has an official format that has a base64 encoded image and a standardized font/color.
Please, throw me some suggestions! | 2011/10/25 | [
"https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/29159",
"https://apple.stackexchange.com",
"https://apple.stackexchange.com/users/12770/"
] | [Moxier](http://www.moxier.com/)
--------------------------------
This is an email client which supports Exchange ActiveSync in the AppStore. But I'm not sure it supports sweet email signatures. | try Mail+ for Outlook by iKonic Apps...best email client out there |
29,159 | Can anyone recommend an iOS email client (Exchange/ActiveSync or IMAP... preferably both) that supports really sweet email signatures? Our company email signature has an official format that has a base64 encoded image and a standardized font/color.
Please, throw me some suggestions! | 2011/10/25 | [
"https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/29159",
"https://apple.stackexchange.com",
"https://apple.stackexchange.com/users/12770/"
] | **[Sparrow](http://sparrowmailapp.com/)** is now available for the iPhone, and it supports IMAP.
The app description does not mention exchange, and it specifically says that there's no POP support, but being that it's such a popular mail client, I figured it's worth mentioning.
Disclaimer: I've never used it either on the Mac or on iOS | Outlook Mail is pretty good and supports signatures. The problem I've run into is that it doesn't support saved searches (As far as I can Tell) or unread search. |
29,159 | Can anyone recommend an iOS email client (Exchange/ActiveSync or IMAP... preferably both) that supports really sweet email signatures? Our company email signature has an official format that has a base64 encoded image and a standardized font/color.
Please, throw me some suggestions! | 2011/10/25 | [
"https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/29159",
"https://apple.stackexchange.com",
"https://apple.stackexchange.com/users/12770/"
] | **[Sparrow](http://sparrowmailapp.com/)** is now available for the iPhone, and it supports IMAP.
The app description does not mention exchange, and it specifically says that there's no POP support, but being that it's such a popular mail client, I figured it's worth mentioning.
Disclaimer: I've never used it either on the Mac or on iOS | Try "Touchdown" for iOS, available in the App Store. |
29,159 | Can anyone recommend an iOS email client (Exchange/ActiveSync or IMAP... preferably both) that supports really sweet email signatures? Our company email signature has an official format that has a base64 encoded image and a standardized font/color.
Please, throw me some suggestions! | 2011/10/25 | [
"https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/29159",
"https://apple.stackexchange.com",
"https://apple.stackexchange.com/users/12770/"
] | **[Sparrow](http://sparrowmailapp.com/)** is now available for the iPhone, and it supports IMAP.
The app description does not mention exchange, and it specifically says that there's no POP support, but being that it's such a popular mail client, I figured it's worth mentioning.
Disclaimer: I've never used it either on the Mac or on iOS | try Mail+ for Outlook by iKonic Apps...best email client out there |
18,783 | I'm moving some files around on the server (Windows Server 2003), and there's a locked file that no one seems to have open. How do I delete this file? | 2009/06/03 | [
"https://serverfault.com/questions/18783",
"https://serverfault.com",
"https://serverfault.com/users/-1/"
] | SysInternals has a tool called MoveFile that will do move or delete the file upon reboot of the machine.
[MoveFile link](http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897556.aspx) | As a last resort you can try booting up in "Safe Mode" or "Command Prompt" mode and deleting the file that way.
We see this a lot with viruses, spyware, etc. Booting up in safe mode usually does the trick.
Good luck! |
18,783 | I'm moving some files around on the server (Windows Server 2003), and there's a locked file that no one seems to have open. How do I delete this file? | 2009/06/03 | [
"https://serverfault.com/questions/18783",
"https://serverfault.com",
"https://serverfault.com/users/-1/"
] | SysInternals has a tool called MoveFile that will do move or delete the file upon reboot of the machine.
[MoveFile link](http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897556.aspx) | A few methods are here:
<http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2007/06/04/how-to-delete-an-undeletable-file/> |
18,783 | I'm moving some files around on the server (Windows Server 2003), and there's a locked file that no one seems to have open. How do I delete this file? | 2009/06/03 | [
"https://serverfault.com/questions/18783",
"https://serverfault.com",
"https://serverfault.com/users/-1/"
] | I see this all the time, you can also run Systernal's Process Explorer to find who has the file, here's a great how-to on using Process Explorer for this purpose: [Unlocking files that are in use](http://blog.shijaz.com/2008/10/unlocking-files-that-are-in-use.html)
I personally like this way since I have this tool on my USB drive and can run it without having to install it. | A few methods are here:
<http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2007/06/04/how-to-delete-an-undeletable-file/> |
5,892,509 | 1) What good software out there already exists that allows one (preferably visually) see what folders and files are taking the most space on one's computer (Windows Vista compatible)
2) Say I wanted to write a this program myself, what opensource tools out there can I use to get started?
Thanks! | 2011/05/05 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/5892509",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/648927/"
] | 1) You can try WinDirStat: <http://windirstat.info/>
2) I don't think you need open source tools, you could write it in Java or .NET just by using what is already provided with the languages. | Yes there are plenty of them. [For example check out these..](http://www.technize.com/5-free-tools-to-list-hard-drive-contents-graphically/) |
5,892,509 | 1) What good software out there already exists that allows one (preferably visually) see what folders and files are taking the most space on one's computer (Windows Vista compatible)
2) Say I wanted to write a this program myself, what opensource tools out there can I use to get started?
Thanks! | 2011/05/05 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/5892509",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/648927/"
] | 1) You can try WinDirStat: <http://windirstat.info/>
2) I don't think you need open source tools, you could write it in Java or .NET just by using what is already provided with the languages. | I use Sequoia View <http://www.snapfiles.com/get/sequoia.html>. As to the second part of your question I don't know sorry. |
5,892,509 | 1) What good software out there already exists that allows one (preferably visually) see what folders and files are taking the most space on one's computer (Windows Vista compatible)
2) Say I wanted to write a this program myself, what opensource tools out there can I use to get started?
Thanks! | 2011/05/05 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/5892509",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/648927/"
] | Yes there are plenty of them. [For example check out these..](http://www.technize.com/5-free-tools-to-list-hard-drive-contents-graphically/) | I use Sequoia View <http://www.snapfiles.com/get/sequoia.html>. As to the second part of your question I don't know sorry. |
184,772 | I want to develop a WordPress theme similar to another theme present on the internet. Shall I use the default WordPress theme to start from or start from scratch?
Please guide me. | 2015/04/20 | [
"https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/184772",
"https://wordpress.stackexchange.com",
"https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] | Go with WordPress TwentyFifteen or any other default theme.
You don't have re-invent the wheel, you will save a lot of time. | For learning & understanding I think you should start from [wordpress blank theme](https://wordpress.org/themes/blankslate/) |
184,772 | I want to develop a WordPress theme similar to another theme present on the internet. Shall I use the default WordPress theme to start from or start from scratch?
Please guide me. | 2015/04/20 | [
"https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/184772",
"https://wordpress.stackexchange.com",
"https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/users/-1/"
] | Use [this](http://underscores.me/) basic theme with default features that should begginer person to know.
* A just right amount of lean, well-commented, modern, HTML5 templates.
* A helpful 404 template.
* An optional sample custom header implementation in inc/custom-header.php
* Custom template tags in inc/template-tags.php that keep your templates clean and neat and prevent code duplication.
* Some small tweaks in inc/extras.php that can improve your theming experience.
* A script at js/navigation.js that makes your menu a toggled dropdown on small screens (like your phone), ready for CSS artistry.
* 2 sample CSS layouts in layouts/: A sidebar on the right side of your content and a sidebar on the left side of your content.
Smartly organized starter CSS in style.css that will help you to quickly get your design off the ground.
* The GPL license in license.txt.
Use it to make something cool. | For learning & understanding I think you should start from [wordpress blank theme](https://wordpress.org/themes/blankslate/) |
49,832 | Here are the [rules](https://www.jaxgames.com/sequence-game-rules/) of Sequence.
>
> Loss of Card
>
>
> Once you have taken your turn and placed your marker chip on the game board, you must take a card from the draw deck. If you fail to take a card before the next player makes a move AND takes his/her card, you lose the right to take a card and you must finish the game with less cards than the other players – a disadvantage.
>
>
>
If a player losses all cards during the course of the game via "Loss of Card", then what should that player do in his/her next turn?
---
*P.S.: I encountered this seemingly unlikely scenario and suggested that the player should draw a card and immediately end his/her turn. The alternative would seem to have that player stop playing altogether.* | 2020/01/03 | [
"https://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/49832",
"https://boardgames.stackexchange.com",
"https://boardgames.stackexchange.com/users/30171/"
] | It does not count as a "pick". From the rulebook, page 3:
>
> IMPORTANT: Some abilities may let you draw a random Energy ( ). **This is
> not a Pick Action.** In those cases, you don’t take from the Energy Row. Instead, you
> draw blindly from the top of the Dispenser
>
>
> | There are two ways to get energy marbles: pick, and draw. Pick is represented by a hand with two fingers making a pinching motion. Draw is represented by a horizontal bar with a question mark in a circle above it. To pick is to take a marble from the Energy Row. You get to take the color of your choice (among the ones available in the Energy Row). To draw is to take one from the hopper. You do not get to know what color you're getting until you draw.
A card will have a symbol that says what triggers it. If it's the hand symbol, it's triggered only by picking. |
421,210 | I have lots of used Li-Ion 18650s. I want to test their capacity.
There are however 2 important parameters that I cannot find anywhere which is **amperage** and **cut off voltage**. Some people use **500mA** some people use **1000mA**. Some discharge to **3.0V** some do that up to **2.8V**.
Depending on which parameters you choose you will get different capacity. Since capacity is defined for cells it's calculation must adhere to some standards for these parameters.
To wrap it up - what is the amperage and ending voltage for capacity measuring for single 18650 cell? | 2019/02/08 | [
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/421210",
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com",
"https://electronics.stackexchange.com/users/212274/"
] | If there's a significant difference in measured capacity between 500mA and 1A discharge currents, you should stick to lower value, i.e. 500mA (or even less). Unless you're interested in *capacity under specific load*, you should aim to measure the *maximum* value, and cells typically have higher capacity at smaller discharge current.
The cut-off voltage cannot be reasonably estimated and should be taken from the datasheet (idem for the full-charge voltage). If the additional capacity between 3.0V and 2.8V is insignificant to you, you can stop at 3.0V for all cells (or even 3.2V, which already correspond to 95-98% discharge; IMO 5% precision is plenty for the purpose of sorting used cells). What you should avoid is discharging cells with 3.0V cut-off down to 2.8V. | >
> Since capacity is defined for cells it's calculation must adhere to
> some standards for these parameters.
>
>
>
It is totally untrue. Batteries are designed for different purposes/uses. There are high-capacity batteries with moderate discharge rates (as for laptops). They have all electrode films thinner, so the active electrochemical surface per unit of volume is bigger, which gives higher overall capacity. But thin electrodes will have higher impedance, so overall battery's ESR is higher, and it can't deliver high currents without damaging itself. So the capacity is always defined at certain discharge rate AND for specified CHARGE conditions, which vary for different cells.
There are batteries designed to deliver high current, for RC models and drones, up to 50x-100x-150x of their "nameplate" capacity. So a cell with 1000mAh capacity can deliver 150A of current for drone motors, for example. But this battery has to have thicker electrodes to have low ESR, and thus they usually have somewhat less capacity per volume of the cell. More, usually these batteries are not expected to survive more than 50-100 recharge cycles, so they are operating under highly stressful conditions.
The recommended discharge cut-off is also determined by manufacturer, by their advertised (targeted) ability to take certain number of re-charge cycles. If the voltage cut-off is higher, and charging current cut-off is higher, the battery would last longer (however at somewhat smaller capacity), 1000 - 2000 - 5000 cycles, which you would want for some equipment and cars.
So no, there couldn't be any standards for discharge current and cut offs, these are individual parameters for individual products optimized for different purposes and manufactured with different technology implementations. |
2,309,208 | I have used Signals and slots in Qt and I want to implement same stuff in GTK+.
I have 2 threads in which I need to pass data. I have done it using signals and slots in Qt but now I have to implement this same stuff in GTK+ and C. How should I do it? | 2010/02/22 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/2309208",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/314247/"
] | [Here](http://zetcode.com/tutorials/gtktutorial/gtkevents/)'s a general tutorial for the signal/event mechanism without threads.
When using threads, you'll have to make sure to
* init the Gtk main loop for threads by calling [g\_thread\_init()](http://library.gnome.org/devel/glib/unstable/glib-Threads.html#g-thread-init) **and** [gdk\_threads\_init()](http://library.gnome.org/devel/gdk/unstable/gdk-Threads.html#gdk-threads-init).
* use [gdk\_threads\_add\_idle()](http://library.gnome.org/devel/gdk/unstable/gdk-Threads.html#gdk-threads-add-idle) **or**
* use [GDK\_THREADS\_ENTER()](http://library.gnome.org/devel/gdk/unstable/gdk-Threads.html#GDK-THREADS-ENTER:CAPS) and [GDK\_THREADS\_LEAVE()](http://library.gnome.org/devel/gdk/unstable/gdk-Threads.html#GDK-THREADS-LEAVE:CAPS) in the callback (= event handler).
There are probably hundreds of tutorials for threading in Gdk out there, so I'll leave it at that. | GTK/GLib has its own [signal mechanism](http://library.gnome.org/devel/gtk-tutorial/2.17/x159.html). |
2,309,208 | I have used Signals and slots in Qt and I want to implement same stuff in GTK+.
I have 2 threads in which I need to pass data. I have done it using signals and slots in Qt but now I have to implement this same stuff in GTK+ and C. How should I do it? | 2010/02/22 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/2309208",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/314247/"
] | [Here](http://zetcode.com/tutorials/gtktutorial/gtkevents/)'s a general tutorial for the signal/event mechanism without threads.
When using threads, you'll have to make sure to
* init the Gtk main loop for threads by calling [g\_thread\_init()](http://library.gnome.org/devel/glib/unstable/glib-Threads.html#g-thread-init) **and** [gdk\_threads\_init()](http://library.gnome.org/devel/gdk/unstable/gdk-Threads.html#gdk-threads-init).
* use [gdk\_threads\_add\_idle()](http://library.gnome.org/devel/gdk/unstable/gdk-Threads.html#gdk-threads-add-idle) **or**
* use [GDK\_THREADS\_ENTER()](http://library.gnome.org/devel/gdk/unstable/gdk-Threads.html#GDK-THREADS-ENTER:CAPS) and [GDK\_THREADS\_LEAVE()](http://library.gnome.org/devel/gdk/unstable/gdk-Threads.html#GDK-THREADS-LEAVE:CAPS) in the callback (= event handler).
There are probably hundreds of tutorials for threading in Gdk out there, so I'll leave it at that. | Qt does some of its own stuff behind the scenes to make signal/slot connections threadsafe. The last I was working with GTKmm, that wasn't the case for GTK. That being the case, you'd probably have to do up your own, or (my recommendation) use boost if you can. If you do have to roll your own, you'll want to have an event posting/polling mechanism. They aren't overly complex, but are enough of a pain you should definitely prefer pre-built solutions. |
4,412,979 | Our connectivity to EMS code was initially ill-designed and created one TopicConnection object per topic that we listened to. So, in effect, whenever we subscribed to a topic, we create a new connection, a new session and, lastly, a new listener.
We would like to switch to a single connection model. Although I am able to do this easily in our code by sharing one connection object and creating a new session object per topic, we are unsure whether this is going to cause any issues without code.
My understanding is that the Tibco EMS client library is thread safe with regards to sharing a connection. In effect, a connection is just a pipe and the sessions can resuse the this pipe in a thread safe manner.
Is this assumption correct or is there more to this? | 2010/12/10 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/4412979",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/7583/"
] | The .NET EMS API is based on [JMS](http://dlc.sun.com/pdf/816-5904-10/816-5904-10.pdf). In JMS, the Connection and Session objects are specified to be thread-safe and can be reused within the program. You are quite correct in that the Connection object simply represent a network pipe to the EMS server. The EMS User's Guide states:
>
> A connection is a fairly heavyweight object, so most clients will create a connection once and keep it open until the client exits. Your application can create multiple connections, if necessary.
>
>
>
And regarding sessions:
>
> A Session is a single-threaded context for producing or consuming messages. You create Message Producers or Message Consumers using Session objects.
>
>
>
Essentially, unless you need very large volumes and are bumping into performance limitations, it's perfectly safe to use just one connection in your application. The session controls the transaction/acknowledgement semantics of any producers or consumers created within, but is again safe to reuse. I would probably use separate sessions for modules exist within the application with distinct life cycles (think separate deployment units within an application server).
Your EMS server installation will contain a samples directory with various code (something like *C:\tibco\ems\5.0\samples\cs*). The code in *csTopicSubscriber.cs* shows how to write a single-threaded topic consumer. There is no multi-threaded topic consumer example but *csMsgConsumerPerf.cs* demonstrates how to do it with queues.
Be sure to clean up any objects you create after you're done with them - e.g. close the topic consumer object, the session, and the connection when you're finished. Leaking handles without closing them can result in unpredictable behaviour when combined with prefetch and fault-tolerant reconnect settings. | I think yes as long as sharing is within the same application (exe, binary).
We have shared same connection object, and used it as a singleton in our code. |
4,412,979 | Our connectivity to EMS code was initially ill-designed and created one TopicConnection object per topic that we listened to. So, in effect, whenever we subscribed to a topic, we create a new connection, a new session and, lastly, a new listener.
We would like to switch to a single connection model. Although I am able to do this easily in our code by sharing one connection object and creating a new session object per topic, we are unsure whether this is going to cause any issues without code.
My understanding is that the Tibco EMS client library is thread safe with regards to sharing a connection. In effect, a connection is just a pipe and the sessions can resuse the this pipe in a thread safe manner.
Is this assumption correct or is there more to this? | 2010/12/10 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/4412979",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/7583/"
] | The .NET EMS API is based on [JMS](http://dlc.sun.com/pdf/816-5904-10/816-5904-10.pdf). In JMS, the Connection and Session objects are specified to be thread-safe and can be reused within the program. You are quite correct in that the Connection object simply represent a network pipe to the EMS server. The EMS User's Guide states:
>
> A connection is a fairly heavyweight object, so most clients will create a connection once and keep it open until the client exits. Your application can create multiple connections, if necessary.
>
>
>
And regarding sessions:
>
> A Session is a single-threaded context for producing or consuming messages. You create Message Producers or Message Consumers using Session objects.
>
>
>
Essentially, unless you need very large volumes and are bumping into performance limitations, it's perfectly safe to use just one connection in your application. The session controls the transaction/acknowledgement semantics of any producers or consumers created within, but is again safe to reuse. I would probably use separate sessions for modules exist within the application with distinct life cycles (think separate deployment units within an application server).
Your EMS server installation will contain a samples directory with various code (something like *C:\tibco\ems\5.0\samples\cs*). The code in *csTopicSubscriber.cs* shows how to write a single-threaded topic consumer. There is no multi-threaded topic consumer example but *csMsgConsumerPerf.cs* demonstrates how to do it with queues.
Be sure to clean up any objects you create after you're done with them - e.g. close the topic consumer object, the session, and the connection when you're finished. Leaking handles without closing them can result in unpredictable behaviour when combined with prefetch and fault-tolerant reconnect settings. | Agree with an earlier answer: the JMS Session must not be shared between threads, but the Connection can/should be. So one connection per application is ok (make sure you start/close it only once - best before/after the individual threads creation).
And then create and use one Session per thread. Remember that when you close() a Session, it will block until all receive callbacks have really returned. So do NOT call close() from within a callback's onMessage(). |
57,686 | I would like to import my File Geodatabase from ArcGIS 10.1 into MS SQL Server 2012.
I have never done it before, so I expect to do the import the same way as import data from excel table.
Problem is when I open MS SQL Server Import wizard and as a data source I choose Esri geodatabse OLE DB provider - an error occured:
*ClassFactory cannot get required class. (Microsoft OLE DB Service Components)*
Please does anybody know what I´m doing wrong, or is there some easiest way, for example with ArcSDE? | 2013/04/10 | [
"https://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/57686",
"https://gis.stackexchange.com",
"https://gis.stackexchange.com/users/9486/"
] | [ArcSDE](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArcSDE) is the best option to Import and Manage your Geodatabase in Database servers ( SQL server,Oracle ,...) . You can't import File Geodatabase or Personal Geodatabase directly in SQL server . you should use ArcSDE software . The Geodatabase type of ArcSDE is SDE Geodatabase not File Geodatabse. I think you should use ArcSDE to Import And Manage your Geodatabase. Don't doubt to change of Geodatabase type from File to SDE Geodatabase.
maybe you'd like to use Permissions,Versioning,History,syncronizing and another capabilities of SDE Geodatabase. | You could also go via shape file (not the most elegant but gets the job done):
FileGeodatabase -> Export to ShapeFile - then use [Shape2SQL](http://www.sharpgis.net/page/SQL-Server-2008-Spatial-Tools.aspx) tool to import shape into Sql Server. |
892,936 | If I want to setup a few Windows 7 or 8 PCs to only permit logins using domain accounts, must I fork out the cash to purchase a Windows Server for this? Or a LDAP server such as the Apache DS or even the LDAP server built in my QNAP NAS would do?
If I further want to apply policies on the PCs such as disabling users from changing the IPv4 Properties settings, can this be applied locally on each PC without using a Windows Server? | 2015/03/23 | [
"https://superuser.com/questions/892936",
"https://superuser.com",
"https://superuser.com/users/430734/"
] | You can set up Linux to act as a domain controller using the SAMBA software. So no, you do not need to buy licenses for Windows Server simply for domain logins.
An ordinary LDAP server however, is not enough.
AFIK, you can even apply group policies using free software, SAMBA v4 certainly supports group policies though I'm not clear whether you should actually still license Client Access Licenses. Tools such as Likewise Open and Centrify Express I think claimed to do this though both sites seem to have moved on or closed since my last references. I've not actually done this so I can't be sure how easy it is. [Likewise Open](http://www.beyondtrust.com/Resources/OpenSourceDocumentation/) is now part of BeyondTrust.
The [SAMBA WIKI](https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Implementing_System_Policies_with_Samba) has some basic instructions too though they appear a little dated & it looks like you can do most things purely with SAMBA as long as you are using v4.
UPDATE:
To answer the question about why LDAP alone is not enough. While Active Directory is indeed partially based on the LDAP standards, it has quite a lot of proprietary additions specific to Windows. You have to have non-LDAP services that will respond to client logins, deals with groups, licenses, group policies and tons more.
LDAP on the other hand is a standard and protocol that came out of X.500 which was designed to provide an enterprise (indeed global) grade directory of users and related resources to X.400 based email systems. X.500 was overkill for most things and required a very complex client that was too heavy for most PC's of the time. So LDAP (**Lightweight** Directory Access Protocol) was born. In essence though, it is still just a mechanism for looking up user and similar data from a very large directory of items. All it does is take standard queries and return results in a standard way. There's a bit more to it of course but that is the essence. | A Samba 4 Domain Controller should provide all the functions you described. In particular it supports group policies and authentication you mentioned out of the box as long as you stick to a single server. Setup isn't too hard as long as you stick to the documentation.
As was already mentioned a standard LDAP server however won't do the trick. Windows is rather picky about the combination of LDAP, Kerberos and file services on the Domain Controller and all of them are a tiny bit different then what was standardized.
The limitations people are often talking about are mostly more setup complications then real limitations and all of them only come into play, if you are looking into anything more then a single server. In that case Samba 4 is lacking parts of the inbuild policy replication replication, so you'll need a script to work around that. The other issue that then comes into play is that NTP and Kerberos authentication are seperate services and need to be configured to match your first server. I would say once you have the first two servers running it isn't too much of a trouble to manage it, but the initial curve for setting up a multi server Samba 4 environment can be rather high.
Of course commercial distributions, such as our UCS, can make it easier to get Samba 4 running and administer it, but underneath it's the same software we have running in 10000 user environments. |
1,627 | I was intrigued by this statement by [@DanWilson](http://twitter.com/DanWIlson) on Twitter:
>
> All Web Developers: Never Ever Ever
> put anything after the password box
> and before submit button on a form.
> Tab MUST go directly to submit.
>
>
>
When I asked for clarification, he added:
>
> because the UI pattern is Username TAB Password TAB Enter Key.
>
>
>
Can anyone point me to evidence that corroborates or contradicts that claim, even if it's anecdotal? | 2010/09/23 | [
"https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/1627",
"https://ux.stackexchange.com",
"https://ux.stackexchange.com/users/61/"
] | The best tab situation and common situations is:
* input: **email**
* input: **password**
* checkbox: keep me **logged** in *(sometimes this is omitted)*
* button: **submit** (note how you can use the spacebar, faster than enter in some situations)
Proofs:
* Google (unified login)
* Yahoo (unified login, includes Flickr, Delicious)
* Twitter (note also how the visual flow differs from the tab flow to be consistent!)
* Facebook (ibidem)
* Baidu
* Wikipedia
* LinkedIn
* Craiglist
* MySpace
* IMDB
Notable breakers:
* MSN
* eBay
So, with those sites we are including probably most of the world's web users and they are all aligned in the behaviour I've described. | It is irrelevant to respond "I don't use this pattern". Whether or not the pattern is THE dominant one (and your sample-size-one doesn't show this), if it's a significant pattern then it should be respected. Maybe only 10% of users press a tab before enter, but you don't want to piss off 10% of your users for something as simple to fix as this. |
1,627 | I was intrigued by this statement by [@DanWilson](http://twitter.com/DanWIlson) on Twitter:
>
> All Web Developers: Never Ever Ever
> put anything after the password box
> and before submit button on a form.
> Tab MUST go directly to submit.
>
>
>
When I asked for clarification, he added:
>
> because the UI pattern is Username TAB Password TAB Enter Key.
>
>
>
Can anyone point me to evidence that corroborates or contradicts that claim, even if it's anecdotal? | 2010/09/23 | [
"https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/1627",
"https://ux.stackexchange.com",
"https://ux.stackexchange.com/users/61/"
] | Just think about your own experiences - when you log in to a site, what do you expect to do? Me, I expect to do exactly what Dan said - Username TAB Password TAB enter. I've even seen placed that have "Remember me" functionality maintain this basic concept - On chase.com, to tab to the "remember my username" checkbox, you actually have to tab PAST the submit button to focus on the checkbox. I don't know that I really like that, but it does make the general login much quicker.
One addition I would have to his statement is that on a login page, the initial focus MUST be on the username field. I can't count the number of websites that I go to where focus is improperly set (or not set at all) when a page is first loaded. | It is irrelevant to respond "I don't use this pattern". Whether or not the pattern is THE dominant one (and your sample-size-one doesn't show this), if it's a significant pattern then it should be respected. Maybe only 10% of users press a tab before enter, but you don't want to piss off 10% of your users for something as simple to fix as this. |
1,627 | I was intrigued by this statement by [@DanWilson](http://twitter.com/DanWIlson) on Twitter:
>
> All Web Developers: Never Ever Ever
> put anything after the password box
> and before submit button on a form.
> Tab MUST go directly to submit.
>
>
>
When I asked for clarification, he added:
>
> because the UI pattern is Username TAB Password TAB Enter Key.
>
>
>
Can anyone point me to evidence that corroborates or contradicts that claim, even if it's anecdotal? | 2010/09/23 | [
"https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/1627",
"https://ux.stackexchange.com",
"https://ux.stackexchange.com/users/61/"
] | Just think about your own experiences - when you log in to a site, what do you expect to do? Me, I expect to do exactly what Dan said - Username TAB Password TAB enter. I've even seen placed that have "Remember me" functionality maintain this basic concept - On chase.com, to tab to the "remember my username" checkbox, you actually have to tab PAST the submit button to focus on the checkbox. I don't know that I really like that, but it does make the general login much quicker.
One addition I would have to his statement is that on a login page, the initial focus MUST be on the username field. I can't count the number of websites that I go to where focus is improperly set (or not set at all) when a page is first loaded. | I agree with John. I think that most people press Enter while in the password field (I do), or will click/tap on the Enter button.
However, for the few Windows users that press Tab and then Enter, Dan is right: there shouldn't be anything between the password's edit field and the Enter button.
I singled out Windows users because on the Mac, the default is that pressing Tab takes you to the next edit field or listbox. It will never take you to a button. My apologies to Linux users; I'm not sure about the details there. |
1,627 | I was intrigued by this statement by [@DanWilson](http://twitter.com/DanWIlson) on Twitter:
>
> All Web Developers: Never Ever Ever
> put anything after the password box
> and before submit button on a form.
> Tab MUST go directly to submit.
>
>
>
When I asked for clarification, he added:
>
> because the UI pattern is Username TAB Password TAB Enter Key.
>
>
>
Can anyone point me to evidence that corroborates or contradicts that claim, even if it's anecdotal? | 2010/09/23 | [
"https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/1627",
"https://ux.stackexchange.com",
"https://ux.stackexchange.com/users/61/"
] | Just think about your own experiences - when you log in to a site, what do you expect to do? Me, I expect to do exactly what Dan said - Username TAB Password TAB enter. I've even seen placed that have "Remember me" functionality maintain this basic concept - On chase.com, to tab to the "remember my username" checkbox, you actually have to tab PAST the submit button to focus on the checkbox. I don't know that I really like that, but it does make the general login much quicker.
One addition I would have to his statement is that on a login page, the initial focus MUST be on the username field. I can't count the number of websites that I go to where focus is improperly set (or not set at all) when a page is first loaded. | I don't believe the dominant UX pattern is Username TAB Password TAB Enter. Why the extra TAB+Enter after typing in the password? Save yourself a keystroke and hit Enter after entering the password to submit the form. As Chase mentions, for login forms: Username TAB Password Enter.
I consider forms having false submit buttons by using input type='button' instead of type='submit' a more offensive UX penalty. This reinforces the TAB+Enter habit to submit a form when it should just be Enter. |
1,627 | I was intrigued by this statement by [@DanWilson](http://twitter.com/DanWIlson) on Twitter:
>
> All Web Developers: Never Ever Ever
> put anything after the password box
> and before submit button on a form.
> Tab MUST go directly to submit.
>
>
>
When I asked for clarification, he added:
>
> because the UI pattern is Username TAB Password TAB Enter Key.
>
>
>
Can anyone point me to evidence that corroborates or contradicts that claim, even if it's anecdotal? | 2010/09/23 | [
"https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/1627",
"https://ux.stackexchange.com",
"https://ux.stackexchange.com/users/61/"
] | Egregious breaks in this pattern are when helpful form designers put the Forgot Password link on the tab stop after password and before the submit button. This inevitably results in the page refreshing, a new form loading. Then, when going back, as per good security practices, the password field (which I typed in the first time) is blank.
While I totally respect the aesthetic freedom of designers and developers and I do not want the web to LOOK homogeneous, the behavior of the web should be.
Dan Wilson | It is irrelevant to respond "I don't use this pattern". Whether or not the pattern is THE dominant one (and your sample-size-one doesn't show this), if it's a significant pattern then it should be respected. Maybe only 10% of users press a tab before enter, but you don't want to piss off 10% of your users for something as simple to fix as this. |
1,627 | I was intrigued by this statement by [@DanWilson](http://twitter.com/DanWIlson) on Twitter:
>
> All Web Developers: Never Ever Ever
> put anything after the password box
> and before submit button on a form.
> Tab MUST go directly to submit.
>
>
>
When I asked for clarification, he added:
>
> because the UI pattern is Username TAB Password TAB Enter Key.
>
>
>
Can anyone point me to evidence that corroborates or contradicts that claim, even if it's anecdotal? | 2010/09/23 | [
"https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/1627",
"https://ux.stackexchange.com",
"https://ux.stackexchange.com/users/61/"
] | Egregious breaks in this pattern are when helpful form designers put the Forgot Password link on the tab stop after password and before the submit button. This inevitably results in the page refreshing, a new form loading. Then, when going back, as per good security practices, the password field (which I typed in the first time) is blank.
While I totally respect the aesthetic freedom of designers and developers and I do not want the web to LOOK homogeneous, the behavior of the web should be.
Dan Wilson | I don't believe the dominant UX pattern is Username TAB Password TAB Enter. Why the extra TAB+Enter after typing in the password? Save yourself a keystroke and hit Enter after entering the password to submit the form. As Chase mentions, for login forms: Username TAB Password Enter.
I consider forms having false submit buttons by using input type='button' instead of type='submit' a more offensive UX penalty. This reinforces the TAB+Enter habit to submit a form when it should just be Enter. |
1,627 | I was intrigued by this statement by [@DanWilson](http://twitter.com/DanWIlson) on Twitter:
>
> All Web Developers: Never Ever Ever
> put anything after the password box
> and before submit button on a form.
> Tab MUST go directly to submit.
>
>
>
When I asked for clarification, he added:
>
> because the UI pattern is Username TAB Password TAB Enter Key.
>
>
>
Can anyone point me to evidence that corroborates or contradicts that claim, even if it's anecdotal? | 2010/09/23 | [
"https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/1627",
"https://ux.stackexchange.com",
"https://ux.stackexchange.com/users/61/"
] | The best tab situation and common situations is:
* input: **email**
* input: **password**
* checkbox: keep me **logged** in *(sometimes this is omitted)*
* button: **submit** (note how you can use the spacebar, faster than enter in some situations)
Proofs:
* Google (unified login)
* Yahoo (unified login, includes Flickr, Delicious)
* Twitter (note also how the visual flow differs from the tab flow to be consistent!)
* Facebook (ibidem)
* Baidu
* Wikipedia
* LinkedIn
* Craiglist
* MySpace
* IMDB
Notable breakers:
* MSN
* eBay
So, with those sites we are including probably most of the world's web users and they are all aligned in the behaviour I've described. | For login forms if the design requires something between password and submit, you can still change the tab order so that it skips the bad experience elements when tabbing. See <https://www.bankofamerica.com/> which is somewhat similar. Tabbing goes user/area/submit, continue tabbing to get the link for the checkbox and link.
I think the broader issue (for me) is placing an anti-action element where the action should be. cancel/reset buttons where submit buttons normally are, etc. We are rather automated creatures and rarely read/pay attention to slight changes. |
1,627 | I was intrigued by this statement by [@DanWilson](http://twitter.com/DanWIlson) on Twitter:
>
> All Web Developers: Never Ever Ever
> put anything after the password box
> and before submit button on a form.
> Tab MUST go directly to submit.
>
>
>
When I asked for clarification, he added:
>
> because the UI pattern is Username TAB Password TAB Enter Key.
>
>
>
Can anyone point me to evidence that corroborates or contradicts that claim, even if it's anecdotal? | 2010/09/23 | [
"https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/1627",
"https://ux.stackexchange.com",
"https://ux.stackexchange.com/users/61/"
] | Egregious breaks in this pattern are when helpful form designers put the Forgot Password link on the tab stop after password and before the submit button. This inevitably results in the page refreshing, a new form loading. Then, when going back, as per good security practices, the password field (which I typed in the first time) is blank.
While I totally respect the aesthetic freedom of designers and developers and I do not want the web to LOOK homogeneous, the behavior of the web should be.
Dan Wilson | I agree with John. I think that most people press Enter while in the password field (I do), or will click/tap on the Enter button.
However, for the few Windows users that press Tab and then Enter, Dan is right: there shouldn't be anything between the password's edit field and the Enter button.
I singled out Windows users because on the Mac, the default is that pressing Tab takes you to the next edit field or listbox. It will never take you to a button. My apologies to Linux users; I'm not sure about the details there. |
1,627 | I was intrigued by this statement by [@DanWilson](http://twitter.com/DanWIlson) on Twitter:
>
> All Web Developers: Never Ever Ever
> put anything after the password box
> and before submit button on a form.
> Tab MUST go directly to submit.
>
>
>
When I asked for clarification, he added:
>
> because the UI pattern is Username TAB Password TAB Enter Key.
>
>
>
Can anyone point me to evidence that corroborates or contradicts that claim, even if it's anecdotal? | 2010/09/23 | [
"https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/1627",
"https://ux.stackexchange.com",
"https://ux.stackexchange.com/users/61/"
] | Just think about your own experiences - when you log in to a site, what do you expect to do? Me, I expect to do exactly what Dan said - Username TAB Password TAB enter. I've even seen placed that have "Remember me" functionality maintain this basic concept - On chase.com, to tab to the "remember my username" checkbox, you actually have to tab PAST the submit button to focus on the checkbox. I don't know that I really like that, but it does make the general login much quicker.
One addition I would have to his statement is that on a login page, the initial focus MUST be on the username field. I can't count the number of websites that I go to where focus is improperly set (or not set at all) when a page is first loaded. | For login forms if the design requires something between password and submit, you can still change the tab order so that it skips the bad experience elements when tabbing. See <https://www.bankofamerica.com/> which is somewhat similar. Tabbing goes user/area/submit, continue tabbing to get the link for the checkbox and link.
I think the broader issue (for me) is placing an anti-action element where the action should be. cancel/reset buttons where submit buttons normally are, etc. We are rather automated creatures and rarely read/pay attention to slight changes. |
1,627 | I was intrigued by this statement by [@DanWilson](http://twitter.com/DanWIlson) on Twitter:
>
> All Web Developers: Never Ever Ever
> put anything after the password box
> and before submit button on a form.
> Tab MUST go directly to submit.
>
>
>
When I asked for clarification, he added:
>
> because the UI pattern is Username TAB Password TAB Enter Key.
>
>
>
Can anyone point me to evidence that corroborates or contradicts that claim, even if it's anecdotal? | 2010/09/23 | [
"https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/1627",
"https://ux.stackexchange.com",
"https://ux.stackexchange.com/users/61/"
] | The best tab situation and common situations is:
* input: **email**
* input: **password**
* checkbox: keep me **logged** in *(sometimes this is omitted)*
* button: **submit** (note how you can use the spacebar, faster than enter in some situations)
Proofs:
* Google (unified login)
* Yahoo (unified login, includes Flickr, Delicious)
* Twitter (note also how the visual flow differs from the tab flow to be consistent!)
* Facebook (ibidem)
* Baidu
* Wikipedia
* LinkedIn
* Craiglist
* MySpace
* IMDB
Notable breakers:
* MSN
* eBay
So, with those sites we are including probably most of the world's web users and they are all aligned in the behaviour I've described. | I agree with John. I think that most people press Enter while in the password field (I do), or will click/tap on the Enter button.
However, for the few Windows users that press Tab and then Enter, Dan is right: there shouldn't be anything between the password's edit field and the Enter button.
I singled out Windows users because on the Mac, the default is that pressing Tab takes you to the next edit field or listbox. It will never take you to a button. My apologies to Linux users; I'm not sure about the details there. |
3,116,717 | I'd like to program a .NET app that provides a 3D render of an animated world. I'm coding on a Windows PC, but many of my target audience will be on Linux.
There are a bunch of frameworks out there that look useful, categorised into high and low level as best I can:
*Low Level Graphics*
* [OpenTK](https://web.archive.org/web/20170325033253/http://www.opentk.com/)
* [Tao Framework](http://ww38.taoframework.com/) seems to have been superseded by OpenTK, and the website is offline nowadays though [the Mono site](https://www.mono-project.com/Tao/) has some info
* [SDL](https://www.libsdl.org/)
*Game Development Frameworks*
* [Axiom3D](https://sourceforge.net/projects/axiomengine/)
* [Mono.XNA](https://monoxna.org/)
* [Horde3D](http://www.horde3d.org/)
* [AgateLib](https://wizard.vermiliontower.com/devel/agatelib)
* [OgreDotNet](https://wiki.ogre3d.org/OgreDotNet) seems to have been superseded by Axiom3D
* [irrlicht](https://irrlicht.sourceforge.io/) sounds good but the [.NET port](https://sourceforge.net/projects/irrlichtnetcp/) hasn't had any commits in over two years
Are any of these non-contenders? What have you found to be the best option and why? I'm looking for any insightful comparisons, and recommendations for/against. Some of these claim to work as XNA substitutes. Does this literally mean you can deploy to Win/Mac/Linux as well as Xbox? Is there a catch?
I'm not yet familiar with OpenGL/DirectX/XNA APIs for 3D graphics. Are any of these easier than others to work with? Do you lose any flexibility/power/performance due to higher abstraction levels?
Note that I won't have access to a Linux machine for a month or so, so I won't be able to test my development on Linux (hence this question).
**EDIT** I found [this table](https://web.archive.org/web/20210210044138/https://git.freegamedev.net/FreeGameDev.net/Wiki/wiki/_pages) which adds a few more to the list. I've merged them above.
**EDIT 2** I'm leaning towards Axiom. It gives a pretty rough landing, but shows real promise in terms of features. [Here is a great summary article with user reviews](https://web.archive.org/web/20110807235009/http://www.devmaster.net/engines/engine_details.php?id=81). But so far the beginner documentation and sample projects are pretty hard to make use of. Tutorials all reference different versions of the API, and they all recommend you use different base classes (not included in the API) to get started. Certainly not designed with the [Pit Of Success](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/brada/the-pit-of-success) in mind, but still promising. | 2010/06/25 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3116717",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/24874/"
] | Maybe not quite what you're looking for but, Unity3D is a cross platform 3D gaming environment which is based on Mono, which means that you can code the bits you need to in C#. There are indie and pro versions with the indie version being free.
<http://unity3d.com/> | I'd second the idea to look at Unity, which if I remember rightly uses C# as a scripting language to let you write the game code (using Mono), allowing the actual rendering engine and so on to use native code (presumably C++).
Otherwise, I'd be wary of using Mono for anything like 3D graphics or other 'hard core' uses... anything involving GUI or rendering I'd be nervous. But that's my personal choice, if you've time to spend researching it might be worth throwing a prototype together... but i would not write a lot of C# code without the ability to test it on Linux very early in case there are big issues. |
3,116,717 | I'd like to program a .NET app that provides a 3D render of an animated world. I'm coding on a Windows PC, but many of my target audience will be on Linux.
There are a bunch of frameworks out there that look useful, categorised into high and low level as best I can:
*Low Level Graphics*
* [OpenTK](https://web.archive.org/web/20170325033253/http://www.opentk.com/)
* [Tao Framework](http://ww38.taoframework.com/) seems to have been superseded by OpenTK, and the website is offline nowadays though [the Mono site](https://www.mono-project.com/Tao/) has some info
* [SDL](https://www.libsdl.org/)
*Game Development Frameworks*
* [Axiom3D](https://sourceforge.net/projects/axiomengine/)
* [Mono.XNA](https://monoxna.org/)
* [Horde3D](http://www.horde3d.org/)
* [AgateLib](https://wizard.vermiliontower.com/devel/agatelib)
* [OgreDotNet](https://wiki.ogre3d.org/OgreDotNet) seems to have been superseded by Axiom3D
* [irrlicht](https://irrlicht.sourceforge.io/) sounds good but the [.NET port](https://sourceforge.net/projects/irrlichtnetcp/) hasn't had any commits in over two years
Are any of these non-contenders? What have you found to be the best option and why? I'm looking for any insightful comparisons, and recommendations for/against. Some of these claim to work as XNA substitutes. Does this literally mean you can deploy to Win/Mac/Linux as well as Xbox? Is there a catch?
I'm not yet familiar with OpenGL/DirectX/XNA APIs for 3D graphics. Are any of these easier than others to work with? Do you lose any flexibility/power/performance due to higher abstraction levels?
Note that I won't have access to a Linux machine for a month or so, so I won't be able to test my development on Linux (hence this question).
**EDIT** I found [this table](https://web.archive.org/web/20210210044138/https://git.freegamedev.net/FreeGameDev.net/Wiki/wiki/_pages) which adds a few more to the list. I've merged them above.
**EDIT 2** I'm leaning towards Axiom. It gives a pretty rough landing, but shows real promise in terms of features. [Here is a great summary article with user reviews](https://web.archive.org/web/20110807235009/http://www.devmaster.net/engines/engine_details.php?id=81). But so far the beginner documentation and sample projects are pretty hard to make use of. Tutorials all reference different versions of the API, and they all recommend you use different base classes (not included in the API) to get started. Certainly not designed with the [Pit Of Success](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/brada/the-pit-of-success) in mind, but still promising. | 2010/06/25 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3116717",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/24874/"
] | Maybe not quite what you're looking for but, Unity3D is a cross platform 3D gaming environment which is based on Mono, which means that you can code the bits you need to in C#. There are indie and pro versions with the indie version being free.
<http://unity3d.com/> | You might look into using Qt and OpenGL. I imagine, however, that OpenGL is probably too low-level (read: "needlessly complex") for your particular needs. |
3,116,717 | I'd like to program a .NET app that provides a 3D render of an animated world. I'm coding on a Windows PC, but many of my target audience will be on Linux.
There are a bunch of frameworks out there that look useful, categorised into high and low level as best I can:
*Low Level Graphics*
* [OpenTK](https://web.archive.org/web/20170325033253/http://www.opentk.com/)
* [Tao Framework](http://ww38.taoframework.com/) seems to have been superseded by OpenTK, and the website is offline nowadays though [the Mono site](https://www.mono-project.com/Tao/) has some info
* [SDL](https://www.libsdl.org/)
*Game Development Frameworks*
* [Axiom3D](https://sourceforge.net/projects/axiomengine/)
* [Mono.XNA](https://monoxna.org/)
* [Horde3D](http://www.horde3d.org/)
* [AgateLib](https://wizard.vermiliontower.com/devel/agatelib)
* [OgreDotNet](https://wiki.ogre3d.org/OgreDotNet) seems to have been superseded by Axiom3D
* [irrlicht](https://irrlicht.sourceforge.io/) sounds good but the [.NET port](https://sourceforge.net/projects/irrlichtnetcp/) hasn't had any commits in over two years
Are any of these non-contenders? What have you found to be the best option and why? I'm looking for any insightful comparisons, and recommendations for/against. Some of these claim to work as XNA substitutes. Does this literally mean you can deploy to Win/Mac/Linux as well as Xbox? Is there a catch?
I'm not yet familiar with OpenGL/DirectX/XNA APIs for 3D graphics. Are any of these easier than others to work with? Do you lose any flexibility/power/performance due to higher abstraction levels?
Note that I won't have access to a Linux machine for a month or so, so I won't be able to test my development on Linux (hence this question).
**EDIT** I found [this table](https://web.archive.org/web/20210210044138/https://git.freegamedev.net/FreeGameDev.net/Wiki/wiki/_pages) which adds a few more to the list. I've merged them above.
**EDIT 2** I'm leaning towards Axiom. It gives a pretty rough landing, but shows real promise in terms of features. [Here is a great summary article with user reviews](https://web.archive.org/web/20110807235009/http://www.devmaster.net/engines/engine_details.php?id=81). But so far the beginner documentation and sample projects are pretty hard to make use of. Tutorials all reference different versions of the API, and they all recommend you use different base classes (not included in the API) to get started. Certainly not designed with the [Pit Of Success](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/brada/the-pit-of-success) in mind, but still promising. | 2010/06/25 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3116717",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/24874/"
] | Maybe not quite what you're looking for but, Unity3D is a cross platform 3D gaming environment which is based on Mono, which means that you can code the bits you need to in C#. There are indie and pro versions with the indie version being free.
<http://unity3d.com/> | Use OpenTK
* It's OpenGL
It's platform
independent. It's strongly typed |
3,116,717 | I'd like to program a .NET app that provides a 3D render of an animated world. I'm coding on a Windows PC, but many of my target audience will be on Linux.
There are a bunch of frameworks out there that look useful, categorised into high and low level as best I can:
*Low Level Graphics*
* [OpenTK](https://web.archive.org/web/20170325033253/http://www.opentk.com/)
* [Tao Framework](http://ww38.taoframework.com/) seems to have been superseded by OpenTK, and the website is offline nowadays though [the Mono site](https://www.mono-project.com/Tao/) has some info
* [SDL](https://www.libsdl.org/)
*Game Development Frameworks*
* [Axiom3D](https://sourceforge.net/projects/axiomengine/)
* [Mono.XNA](https://monoxna.org/)
* [Horde3D](http://www.horde3d.org/)
* [AgateLib](https://wizard.vermiliontower.com/devel/agatelib)
* [OgreDotNet](https://wiki.ogre3d.org/OgreDotNet) seems to have been superseded by Axiom3D
* [irrlicht](https://irrlicht.sourceforge.io/) sounds good but the [.NET port](https://sourceforge.net/projects/irrlichtnetcp/) hasn't had any commits in over two years
Are any of these non-contenders? What have you found to be the best option and why? I'm looking for any insightful comparisons, and recommendations for/against. Some of these claim to work as XNA substitutes. Does this literally mean you can deploy to Win/Mac/Linux as well as Xbox? Is there a catch?
I'm not yet familiar with OpenGL/DirectX/XNA APIs for 3D graphics. Are any of these easier than others to work with? Do you lose any flexibility/power/performance due to higher abstraction levels?
Note that I won't have access to a Linux machine for a month or so, so I won't be able to test my development on Linux (hence this question).
**EDIT** I found [this table](https://web.archive.org/web/20210210044138/https://git.freegamedev.net/FreeGameDev.net/Wiki/wiki/_pages) which adds a few more to the list. I've merged them above.
**EDIT 2** I'm leaning towards Axiom. It gives a pretty rough landing, but shows real promise in terms of features. [Here is a great summary article with user reviews](https://web.archive.org/web/20110807235009/http://www.devmaster.net/engines/engine_details.php?id=81). But so far the beginner documentation and sample projects are pretty hard to make use of. Tutorials all reference different versions of the API, and they all recommend you use different base classes (not included in the API) to get started. Certainly not designed with the [Pit Of Success](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/brada/the-pit-of-success) in mind, but still promising. | 2010/06/25 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3116717",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/24874/"
] | I'd second the idea to look at Unity, which if I remember rightly uses C# as a scripting language to let you write the game code (using Mono), allowing the actual rendering engine and so on to use native code (presumably C++).
Otherwise, I'd be wary of using Mono for anything like 3D graphics or other 'hard core' uses... anything involving GUI or rendering I'd be nervous. But that's my personal choice, if you've time to spend researching it might be worth throwing a prototype together... but i would not write a lot of C# code without the ability to test it on Linux very early in case there are big issues. | You might look into using Qt and OpenGL. I imagine, however, that OpenGL is probably too low-level (read: "needlessly complex") for your particular needs. |
3,116,717 | I'd like to program a .NET app that provides a 3D render of an animated world. I'm coding on a Windows PC, but many of my target audience will be on Linux.
There are a bunch of frameworks out there that look useful, categorised into high and low level as best I can:
*Low Level Graphics*
* [OpenTK](https://web.archive.org/web/20170325033253/http://www.opentk.com/)
* [Tao Framework](http://ww38.taoframework.com/) seems to have been superseded by OpenTK, and the website is offline nowadays though [the Mono site](https://www.mono-project.com/Tao/) has some info
* [SDL](https://www.libsdl.org/)
*Game Development Frameworks*
* [Axiom3D](https://sourceforge.net/projects/axiomengine/)
* [Mono.XNA](https://monoxna.org/)
* [Horde3D](http://www.horde3d.org/)
* [AgateLib](https://wizard.vermiliontower.com/devel/agatelib)
* [OgreDotNet](https://wiki.ogre3d.org/OgreDotNet) seems to have been superseded by Axiom3D
* [irrlicht](https://irrlicht.sourceforge.io/) sounds good but the [.NET port](https://sourceforge.net/projects/irrlichtnetcp/) hasn't had any commits in over two years
Are any of these non-contenders? What have you found to be the best option and why? I'm looking for any insightful comparisons, and recommendations for/against. Some of these claim to work as XNA substitutes. Does this literally mean you can deploy to Win/Mac/Linux as well as Xbox? Is there a catch?
I'm not yet familiar with OpenGL/DirectX/XNA APIs for 3D graphics. Are any of these easier than others to work with? Do you lose any flexibility/power/performance due to higher abstraction levels?
Note that I won't have access to a Linux machine for a month or so, so I won't be able to test my development on Linux (hence this question).
**EDIT** I found [this table](https://web.archive.org/web/20210210044138/https://git.freegamedev.net/FreeGameDev.net/Wiki/wiki/_pages) which adds a few more to the list. I've merged them above.
**EDIT 2** I'm leaning towards Axiom. It gives a pretty rough landing, but shows real promise in terms of features. [Here is a great summary article with user reviews](https://web.archive.org/web/20110807235009/http://www.devmaster.net/engines/engine_details.php?id=81). But so far the beginner documentation and sample projects are pretty hard to make use of. Tutorials all reference different versions of the API, and they all recommend you use different base classes (not included in the API) to get started. Certainly not designed with the [Pit Of Success](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/brada/the-pit-of-success) in mind, but still promising. | 2010/06/25 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3116717",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/24874/"
] | Use OpenTK
* It's OpenGL
It's platform
independent. It's strongly typed | You might look into using Qt and OpenGL. I imagine, however, that OpenGL is probably too low-level (read: "needlessly complex") for your particular needs. |
31,649 | When I activate BitLocker, I imagine that will make it impossible to read any files on my Windows partition from my Ubuntu installation. Is that correct?
Any way to *not* encrypt certain directories so I can access them from Ubuntu? | 2009/08/28 | [
"https://superuser.com/questions/31649",
"https://superuser.com",
"https://superuser.com/users/3354/"
] | Yes.
Bitlocker is whole drive (partition) encryption, it has its own bootloader from start to finish. It is the easiest solution for encryption.
You may even have a problem booting into Ubuntu all together if your machine has a TPM chip as Bitlocker ties in to that to check integrity.
Your best bet would to be have a partition used just for moving files in between the two systems.
You may also want to take a look at using [Truecrypt](https://i.stack.imgur.com/7vzXY.jpg) as this can achieve what you want very easily. Alternatively, if you want a Microsoft Solution, Microsoft have a option called [EFS (Encrypting File System)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encrypting_File_System) that works very well and can do what you want, if not a little complicated to learn / get into.
AFAIK, EFS cannot be read from any NTFS compatible driver/app in Linux, where as you should have no problem using Truecrypt in a cross platform environment, so you could even encrypt everything and still open it up in Ubuntu. | Neither BitLocker or NTFS encrypted folders are supported under Linux. Only way (that I can think of) that you can have encrypted content accessible from both Windows and Linux is to use [TrueCrypt](http://www.truecrypt.org/). |
31,649 | When I activate BitLocker, I imagine that will make it impossible to read any files on my Windows partition from my Ubuntu installation. Is that correct?
Any way to *not* encrypt certain directories so I can access them from Ubuntu? | 2009/08/28 | [
"https://superuser.com/questions/31649",
"https://superuser.com",
"https://superuser.com/users/3354/"
] | Neither BitLocker or NTFS encrypted folders are supported under Linux. Only way (that I can think of) that you can have encrypted content accessible from both Windows and Linux is to use [TrueCrypt](http://www.truecrypt.org/). | Alternatively you might also try an encrypted EXT 3 filesystem that you can access from windows using FreeOTFE. I tried Truecrypt before, but especially in combination with SVN, which causes a lot of file accesses during an update, truecrypt was very slow. |
31,649 | When I activate BitLocker, I imagine that will make it impossible to read any files on my Windows partition from my Ubuntu installation. Is that correct?
Any way to *not* encrypt certain directories so I can access them from Ubuntu? | 2009/08/28 | [
"https://superuser.com/questions/31649",
"https://superuser.com",
"https://superuser.com/users/3354/"
] | Yes.
Bitlocker is whole drive (partition) encryption, it has its own bootloader from start to finish. It is the easiest solution for encryption.
You may even have a problem booting into Ubuntu all together if your machine has a TPM chip as Bitlocker ties in to that to check integrity.
Your best bet would to be have a partition used just for moving files in between the two systems.
You may also want to take a look at using [Truecrypt](https://i.stack.imgur.com/7vzXY.jpg) as this can achieve what you want very easily. Alternatively, if you want a Microsoft Solution, Microsoft have a option called [EFS (Encrypting File System)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encrypting_File_System) that works very well and can do what you want, if not a little complicated to learn / get into.
AFAIK, EFS cannot be read from any NTFS compatible driver/app in Linux, where as you should have no problem using Truecrypt in a cross platform environment, so you could even encrypt everything and still open it up in Ubuntu. | Alternatively you might also try an encrypted EXT 3 filesystem that you can access from windows using FreeOTFE. I tried Truecrypt before, but especially in combination with SVN, which causes a lot of file accesses during an update, truecrypt was very slow. |
3,100,286 | I'm working on a system that interacts with many external system API:s. Most of them require authentication of some sort. For the sake of usability there is an "application wide reachable" AppConfig that stores configuration info, as well as credentials for the external systems.
My question is if it is a bad idea to store usernames and passwords (in cleartext) to the external systems in the application configuration file. If so, how do you avoid it?
In order to access the configuration file you either have to compromise the server's file system, or the git repository on another server (or, of course any developer's system). I'm been thinking that encrypting the password in the configuration file does not increase the security level, as the encryption key has to be stored somewhere as well. Am I wrong about this?
I would really appreciate answers explaining how you have solved this issue.
**Solution**
Ok, so here is my final solution. I created a simple library using OpenSSL to encrypt and decrypt my sensitive data. The key is retrieved from the user when the configuration is loaded, except on the production servers where it is stored in file. It is still not an optimal solution, but it is way better than the "solution" I previously had.
Thank you for your answers. I will accept Wayne's answer as it was the most informative. | 2010/06/23 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3100286",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/347687/"
] | Good security is hard.
As Bruce Schneier says, "Security is a tradeoff." You have to decide how secure you want this information, and how much time you want to spend securing said information. And you definitely don't want to leave passwords just sitting out there in plain text, that's a no-no. If you're in a situation where that's OK you're in a situation where you shouldn't have user authentication.
Even though security is hard, there are a few things you can do.
1) Use some type of compiled program to do the encryption/decryption. You don't want someone to open up a Python/perl script and say "aha, this is just a simple XYZ encryption", though ideally you don't want a simple encryption.
2) Security through obscurity is not real security, but it can help against the casual snoop. For instance, naming your file "passwords.txt" is not a terribly good idea, but encrypting your passwords and then using steganography to hide the user/pass in some image file is better.
3) Look up strong encryption/decryption algorithms. Some of them are already implemented in most languages and you can just import a library. This can either be bad or good, depending on how secure you think you want this stuff.
But honestly, this system is really bad - security wise. Ideally you have a two-party authentication and then the trusted middleman does all the wheeling and dealing. For instance, when you log onto your computer you're telling the computer that you're an authorized user. From there you get to run all of your programs and they don't ask or care about your user/pass combination - just that you're an authorized user. They get this information from the OS (the middle-man). Heck, even SO uses openID to decide that you're a trusted user - they don't care what your credentials are on the other sites, only that the other sites say "Yes yes, this is a valid user."
If you have the option, I would seriously consider switching your authentication model. If not, good luck. | Regarding real live examples, web servers store database login details on the server, in plain text. If someone gains access to your server, you are screwed anyway. But protecting those passwords from the unwanted opportunistic intruder, well personally I like the extra layer to feel safer. Better safe than sorry, right?
Since these passwords are for external systems, it would be prudent to secure those with another layer: encryption. Yes security through obscurity is bad, but don't you think it acts as an excellent deterrent *if* someone had to stumble onto them - Plain text passwords just beg to be taken.
I recommend using 1024 bit encryption, there's [a couple good algorhytms](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/30946/simple-password-encryption). I also recommend using a 64/128 bit [random salt](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1745114/comprehensive-information-about-hash-salts) for every entry you encrypt, so that even if the password for one entry is brute-forced, the solution won't work on other entries. Random Salting prevents Rainbow table attacks, which forces your cracker to use brute force, much more time consuming.
Yes these precautions seem paranoid, but if I try and crack my own passwords (for research interest, of course) I can imagine what some malicious minded person might try.
**Edit:** [An example of how the salt makes encryption more secure, even if the encryption key is known.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_(cryptography)#Examples) |
3,100,286 | I'm working on a system that interacts with many external system API:s. Most of them require authentication of some sort. For the sake of usability there is an "application wide reachable" AppConfig that stores configuration info, as well as credentials for the external systems.
My question is if it is a bad idea to store usernames and passwords (in cleartext) to the external systems in the application configuration file. If so, how do you avoid it?
In order to access the configuration file you either have to compromise the server's file system, or the git repository on another server (or, of course any developer's system). I'm been thinking that encrypting the password in the configuration file does not increase the security level, as the encryption key has to be stored somewhere as well. Am I wrong about this?
I would really appreciate answers explaining how you have solved this issue.
**Solution**
Ok, so here is my final solution. I created a simple library using OpenSSL to encrypt and decrypt my sensitive data. The key is retrieved from the user when the configuration is loaded, except on the production servers where it is stored in file. It is still not an optimal solution, but it is way better than the "solution" I previously had.
Thank you for your answers. I will accept Wayne's answer as it was the most informative. | 2010/06/23 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3100286",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/347687/"
] | Good security is hard.
As Bruce Schneier says, "Security is a tradeoff." You have to decide how secure you want this information, and how much time you want to spend securing said information. And you definitely don't want to leave passwords just sitting out there in plain text, that's a no-no. If you're in a situation where that's OK you're in a situation where you shouldn't have user authentication.
Even though security is hard, there are a few things you can do.
1) Use some type of compiled program to do the encryption/decryption. You don't want someone to open up a Python/perl script and say "aha, this is just a simple XYZ encryption", though ideally you don't want a simple encryption.
2) Security through obscurity is not real security, but it can help against the casual snoop. For instance, naming your file "passwords.txt" is not a terribly good idea, but encrypting your passwords and then using steganography to hide the user/pass in some image file is better.
3) Look up strong encryption/decryption algorithms. Some of them are already implemented in most languages and you can just import a library. This can either be bad or good, depending on how secure you think you want this stuff.
But honestly, this system is really bad - security wise. Ideally you have a two-party authentication and then the trusted middleman does all the wheeling and dealing. For instance, when you log onto your computer you're telling the computer that you're an authorized user. From there you get to run all of your programs and they don't ask or care about your user/pass combination - just that you're an authorized user. They get this information from the OS (the middle-man). Heck, even SO uses openID to decide that you're a trusted user - they don't care what your credentials are on the other sites, only that the other sites say "Yes yes, this is a valid user."
If you have the option, I would seriously consider switching your authentication model. If not, good luck. | Some webbservers need to load symmetrically encrypted certificates on startup. To deal with this, they ask for password input on startup. So that it is only stored in memory.
Pros:
* Master password is never stored on disk.
* Master password cannot be extracted from `ps fax`.
Cons:
* Master password can still be extracted by memory dump (by the user running the webbserver and root).
* Your process cannot automatically be restarted without user intervention. This is probably the biggest reason why not more people go with this option. Luckily, webservers rarely crash. |
3,100,286 | I'm working on a system that interacts with many external system API:s. Most of them require authentication of some sort. For the sake of usability there is an "application wide reachable" AppConfig that stores configuration info, as well as credentials for the external systems.
My question is if it is a bad idea to store usernames and passwords (in cleartext) to the external systems in the application configuration file. If so, how do you avoid it?
In order to access the configuration file you either have to compromise the server's file system, or the git repository on another server (or, of course any developer's system). I'm been thinking that encrypting the password in the configuration file does not increase the security level, as the encryption key has to be stored somewhere as well. Am I wrong about this?
I would really appreciate answers explaining how you have solved this issue.
**Solution**
Ok, so here is my final solution. I created a simple library using OpenSSL to encrypt and decrypt my sensitive data. The key is retrieved from the user when the configuration is loaded, except on the production servers where it is stored in file. It is still not an optimal solution, but it is way better than the "solution" I previously had.
Thank you for your answers. I will accept Wayne's answer as it was the most informative. | 2010/06/23 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/3100286",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/347687/"
] | Regarding real live examples, web servers store database login details on the server, in plain text. If someone gains access to your server, you are screwed anyway. But protecting those passwords from the unwanted opportunistic intruder, well personally I like the extra layer to feel safer. Better safe than sorry, right?
Since these passwords are for external systems, it would be prudent to secure those with another layer: encryption. Yes security through obscurity is bad, but don't you think it acts as an excellent deterrent *if* someone had to stumble onto them - Plain text passwords just beg to be taken.
I recommend using 1024 bit encryption, there's [a couple good algorhytms](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/30946/simple-password-encryption). I also recommend using a 64/128 bit [random salt](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1745114/comprehensive-information-about-hash-salts) for every entry you encrypt, so that even if the password for one entry is brute-forced, the solution won't work on other entries. Random Salting prevents Rainbow table attacks, which forces your cracker to use brute force, much more time consuming.
Yes these precautions seem paranoid, but if I try and crack my own passwords (for research interest, of course) I can imagine what some malicious minded person might try.
**Edit:** [An example of how the salt makes encryption more secure, even if the encryption key is known.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_(cryptography)#Examples) | Some webbservers need to load symmetrically encrypted certificates on startup. To deal with this, they ask for password input on startup. So that it is only stored in memory.
Pros:
* Master password is never stored on disk.
* Master password cannot be extracted from `ps fax`.
Cons:
* Master password can still be extracted by memory dump (by the user running the webbserver and root).
* Your process cannot automatically be restarted without user intervention. This is probably the biggest reason why not more people go with this option. Luckily, webservers rarely crash. |
90,030 | If a Wild Magic Sorcerer were to multiclass into a level 2 Wizard of Evocation, and a fireball were to occur on a surge, would they be able to exempt themselves and 3 of their friends from the effect?
Argument for: A smart sorcerer would know what's happening, and his knowledge of Evocation magic would allow him to control the effect, if only slightly.
Argument against: Regardless of the sorcerer's skill, the surge of power from his veins is too wild to even shape, not just contain.
As far as I know, the errata doesn't cover this quandary by any means except for a mention of applying metamagic to a wild surge (you can't). Would this be a question for each DM to answer themselves or a question that has a definitive answer for all? | 2016/11/04 | [
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/90030",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com",
"https://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/32251/"
] | No, you can't sculpt it.
------------------------
A spell is defined on PHB 201 as
>
> A spell is a discrete magical effect, a single shaping of the magical energies that suffuse the multiverse into a specific, limited expression. In casting a spell, a character carefully plucks at the invisible strands of raw magic suffusing the world, pins them in place in a particular pattern, sets them vibrating in a specific way, and releases them to unleash the desired effect
>
>
>
Thus, a spell is a deliberate creation by a character or other entity.
The Evocation ability Sculpt Spells reads (emphasis mine)
>
> [Y]ou can create pockets of relative safety within the effects of **your evocation spells**.
>
>
>
So, the effect comes into play when you *cast a spell*.
Wild Magic Surge reads (again emphasis mine)
>
> [Y]our spellcasting can unleash surges of *untamed magic*. Immediately after you cast a sorcerer spell of 1st level or higher ... create a *random magical effect*.
>
>
>
And the 5e Errata (page 1) on Wild Magic Surge states
>
> If a Wild Magic effect is a spell, it’s too wild to be affected by Metamagic.
>
>
>
Wild surges are thus random effects, not deliberately created spells. As such, they aren't under the caster's control and aren't eligible for things like Sculpt Spell (or metamagic, for that matter). | I am going to disagree with the above statement in regards to RAW.
Yes, the Wild Magic does state that spells casted from the Wild Surge Magic table is not affected by metamagic. However, Sculpt Spell is not a metamagic ability but a wizard ability.
Also when reading spells from the Wild Magic Surge table for many of the entries it does state for many of them "You cast" and logically that certainly seems to indicate that they are your spells even if you do not have direct control over them. |
2,423 | I have read that the black belt Taekwondo forms are each associated with an I Ching trigram. Are these correspondences emphasized in any dojangs? What can I take away from these associations?
The correspondences between the trigrams and the eight changing palms of bagua are fairly well documented, but it seems like the associations in Taekwondo are incidental and not particularly focused on. If your dojang *does* focus on I Ching, can you tell me how extensive this study is and what, if anything, you've learned from it? | 2013/11/25 | [
"https://martialarts.stackexchange.com/questions/2423",
"https://martialarts.stackexchange.com",
"https://martialarts.stackexchange.com/users/1462/"
] | For WTF/Kukkiwon taekwondo the black belt forms: koryo (virtueous man), keumgueng (diamond and mountain), taebaek (bright mountain), pyongwan (a vast plain), sipjin (life and longevity), jitae (struggle and aspiration), chonkwon (heaven), hanseu (water) seem to be paths towards Ilyeo (Buddhist enlightenment). There may be some incidental references to water, earth, mountain, and heaven as those are essential trigrams of the i-ching, but the path of the poomse suggests to use the gifts of the Earth to go beyond the struggle of man towards Buddhist enlightenment especially as the symbolic references of the latter forms are of softer elements and embracing of the spirit of Heaven and selflessness. So in a way they follow the course of change (e.g. I ching) You also have to remember that I Ching is a Chinese /Confucius philosophy and the Koreans have adopted some of these, but it seems that the taekwondo forms (specifically, the Kukkiwon standard ones) are less about I Ching than a path towards selflessness and enlightenment (other than change, in of itself).
The I Ching is a deep discussion of all changes in and around the Earth and can represent the boundless opportunities and chances that are here. It would be neat to see the forms try to encompass this vast philosophy, but I do not think the current set of black belt (or even taeguek or palgwe series) would yield as much meaning as the I Ching. | In Kukkiwon/WTF Taekwondo, the *poomsae* (forms), required for *geup* (below *dan* black belt) grades are associated with I Ching symbols.
In the "Complete Taekwondo Poomsae: The Official Taegeuk, Palgawe and Black Belt Forms" book, page 24, states that the "Poomsae reflect the characteristics of Korean culture", including the "eight trigrams, wich originate from the Tegeukki (Korean flag)".
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6fuf7.png)
The [Taekwondo Wikia](http://taekwondo.wikia.com/wiki/Taegeuk_Poomsae) website provides more in depth explanation of this relation:
* Taegeuk Il Jang: ☰ "Keon" The Sky, the Heavens
* Taegeuk Ee Jang: ☱ "Tae" Lake
* Taegeuk Sam Jang: ☲ "Ree" Fire
* Taegeuk Sa Jang: ☳ "Jin" Thunder
* Taegeuk Oh Jang: ☴ "Seon" Wind
* Taegeuk Yook Jang: ☵ "Kam" Water
* Taegeuk Chil Jang: ☶ "Kan" Mountain
* Taegeuk Pal Jang: ☷ "Gon" The Earth, the Ground
The 1st, 3rd, 6th and 8th are the four symbols in the Korean flag: Sky, Fire, Water and Earth.
The movements in each form are inspired by what it represents. For example, in the Chil Jang, associated with the Mountain, introduces the Tiger stance, known to live near mountains; in the Yook Jang the movements are similar to a water flow.
Additionally, the floor pattern of each form draws the three lines of the corresponding I Ching symbol. When performing the "lines" with movements to the side, turning with your front foot represents a solid line, pivoting in place represents a broken line.
For example, on the Taegeuk Ee Jang, the ☱ three lines are represented like this (from the bottom to the top line):
* you first move left, and then turn back, to the right with your front foot, performing a solid line
* you then advance to the second line, and repeat a solid line
* on the third line you turn back pivoting in place, representing a broken line. |
2,423 | I have read that the black belt Taekwondo forms are each associated with an I Ching trigram. Are these correspondences emphasized in any dojangs? What can I take away from these associations?
The correspondences between the trigrams and the eight changing palms of bagua are fairly well documented, but it seems like the associations in Taekwondo are incidental and not particularly focused on. If your dojang *does* focus on I Ching, can you tell me how extensive this study is and what, if anything, you've learned from it? | 2013/11/25 | [
"https://martialarts.stackexchange.com/questions/2423",
"https://martialarts.stackexchange.com",
"https://martialarts.stackexchange.com/users/1462/"
] | For WTF/Kukkiwon taekwondo the black belt forms: koryo (virtueous man), keumgueng (diamond and mountain), taebaek (bright mountain), pyongwan (a vast plain), sipjin (life and longevity), jitae (struggle and aspiration), chonkwon (heaven), hanseu (water) seem to be paths towards Ilyeo (Buddhist enlightenment). There may be some incidental references to water, earth, mountain, and heaven as those are essential trigrams of the i-ching, but the path of the poomse suggests to use the gifts of the Earth to go beyond the struggle of man towards Buddhist enlightenment especially as the symbolic references of the latter forms are of softer elements and embracing of the spirit of Heaven and selflessness. So in a way they follow the course of change (e.g. I ching) You also have to remember that I Ching is a Chinese /Confucius philosophy and the Koreans have adopted some of these, but it seems that the taekwondo forms (specifically, the Kukkiwon standard ones) are less about I Ching than a path towards selflessness and enlightenment (other than change, in of itself).
The I Ching is a deep discussion of all changes in and around the Earth and can represent the boundless opportunities and chances that are here. It would be neat to see the forms try to encompass this vast philosophy, but I do not think the current set of black belt (or even taeguek or palgwe series) would yield as much meaning as the I Ching. | I have been in several KKW schools, some of which are, shall we say, "militant" about their teachings of the I Ching and of the relationship to the Taeguek forms. They state that the movements in the form are representative of the I Ching elements.
Ok...
So let's see if I got that right: Taeguek 1 represents the "greatness of heaven", and should be performed "as such". Go ahead: tell me how to perform a low block, step, and punch "with the greatness of heaven". Or better yet, you have a new student to your taekwondo classes, and you try to convince him to perform his movements - his very first form - "with the greatness of heaven".
Seriously?
Some idiot came up with the idea of how to stitch concepts of the I Ching with some crap that they do in the dojang, and decided to use poomsae to do this.
I can think of no greater way to befuddle a new student being told to perform his form "with the greatness of heaven". Like, what's in store for the next form? What could be greater than heaven? (That would be a lake...)
You see the fallacy?
I think the forms were retrofitted to make them work with the I Ching. Oddly, there are only 8 forms - not 9, a revered number in Asian culture. Why are there 8 basic forms meant to tackle the meanings of the I Ching, and there are 10 yudanja forms which again separately re-capture again the I Ching elements again? [repetition intended]
I think what was meant instead is that we Taekwondo students should live the tenets espoused by the I Ching. We introduce a new I Ching philosophical concept at each level (the 8 in the Taeguek/Palgwe series, then again in the yudanja series). Ultimately, this is how we are supposed to live our lives.
What I found in the more I Ching heavy schools was a closeness toward Buddhism, and that was a turn off for students of other faiths. Also, that there is some tie-in to the I Ching philosophy and the specific techniques introduced therein, and not having anything to do with the more practical (and intended) function of a form, which is self-defense, none of this made sense to me. If I were journeying onto a path of enlightenment and following the principles espoused by the I Ching, I'm not sure I would find a Taekwondo school which would help me on that journey - even if I wanted to.
Such did not happen for me. I never sought, nor found, enlightenment. I don't even know what that means. The teachings of Buddhism, and the I Ching, and the relationship to techniques within Taekwondo all became a distraction for me. I was in it for self-defense, not enlightenment. If I wanted enlightenment, I wasn't going to find it in a strip mall dojang, it was going to be in a Tibetan mountaintop temple. (Or maybe that temple in downtown Newark...)
Bottom line, I was part of these schools which focused more on the I Ching, but I realized I lost out on what Taekwondo was really about. I dismiss the concept altogether, except as a cultural relationship to the Korean people. Is it useless? Not really, but it depends on how it is taught. Either, it is all-out and everything about the I Ching, or stay away from it. And either way, don't try to tell a white belt that his first form has to be performed with "the greatness of heaven".
And yes - seriously, that is how my schools wanted me to perform Taeguek 1 - with the "greatness of heaven". I earned my yellow belt, ostensibly after performing my form with the greatness of heaven (or living my life with the greatness of heaven). |
2,423 | I have read that the black belt Taekwondo forms are each associated with an I Ching trigram. Are these correspondences emphasized in any dojangs? What can I take away from these associations?
The correspondences between the trigrams and the eight changing palms of bagua are fairly well documented, but it seems like the associations in Taekwondo are incidental and not particularly focused on. If your dojang *does* focus on I Ching, can you tell me how extensive this study is and what, if anything, you've learned from it? | 2013/11/25 | [
"https://martialarts.stackexchange.com/questions/2423",
"https://martialarts.stackexchange.com",
"https://martialarts.stackexchange.com/users/1462/"
] | In Kukkiwon/WTF Taekwondo, the *poomsae* (forms), required for *geup* (below *dan* black belt) grades are associated with I Ching symbols.
In the "Complete Taekwondo Poomsae: The Official Taegeuk, Palgawe and Black Belt Forms" book, page 24, states that the "Poomsae reflect the characteristics of Korean culture", including the "eight trigrams, wich originate from the Tegeukki (Korean flag)".
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6fuf7.png)
The [Taekwondo Wikia](http://taekwondo.wikia.com/wiki/Taegeuk_Poomsae) website provides more in depth explanation of this relation:
* Taegeuk Il Jang: ☰ "Keon" The Sky, the Heavens
* Taegeuk Ee Jang: ☱ "Tae" Lake
* Taegeuk Sam Jang: ☲ "Ree" Fire
* Taegeuk Sa Jang: ☳ "Jin" Thunder
* Taegeuk Oh Jang: ☴ "Seon" Wind
* Taegeuk Yook Jang: ☵ "Kam" Water
* Taegeuk Chil Jang: ☶ "Kan" Mountain
* Taegeuk Pal Jang: ☷ "Gon" The Earth, the Ground
The 1st, 3rd, 6th and 8th are the four symbols in the Korean flag: Sky, Fire, Water and Earth.
The movements in each form are inspired by what it represents. For example, in the Chil Jang, associated with the Mountain, introduces the Tiger stance, known to live near mountains; in the Yook Jang the movements are similar to a water flow.
Additionally, the floor pattern of each form draws the three lines of the corresponding I Ching symbol. When performing the "lines" with movements to the side, turning with your front foot represents a solid line, pivoting in place represents a broken line.
For example, on the Taegeuk Ee Jang, the ☱ three lines are represented like this (from the bottom to the top line):
* you first move left, and then turn back, to the right with your front foot, performing a solid line
* you then advance to the second line, and repeat a solid line
* on the third line you turn back pivoting in place, representing a broken line. | I have been in several KKW schools, some of which are, shall we say, "militant" about their teachings of the I Ching and of the relationship to the Taeguek forms. They state that the movements in the form are representative of the I Ching elements.
Ok...
So let's see if I got that right: Taeguek 1 represents the "greatness of heaven", and should be performed "as such". Go ahead: tell me how to perform a low block, step, and punch "with the greatness of heaven". Or better yet, you have a new student to your taekwondo classes, and you try to convince him to perform his movements - his very first form - "with the greatness of heaven".
Seriously?
Some idiot came up with the idea of how to stitch concepts of the I Ching with some crap that they do in the dojang, and decided to use poomsae to do this.
I can think of no greater way to befuddle a new student being told to perform his form "with the greatness of heaven". Like, what's in store for the next form? What could be greater than heaven? (That would be a lake...)
You see the fallacy?
I think the forms were retrofitted to make them work with the I Ching. Oddly, there are only 8 forms - not 9, a revered number in Asian culture. Why are there 8 basic forms meant to tackle the meanings of the I Ching, and there are 10 yudanja forms which again separately re-capture again the I Ching elements again? [repetition intended]
I think what was meant instead is that we Taekwondo students should live the tenets espoused by the I Ching. We introduce a new I Ching philosophical concept at each level (the 8 in the Taeguek/Palgwe series, then again in the yudanja series). Ultimately, this is how we are supposed to live our lives.
What I found in the more I Ching heavy schools was a closeness toward Buddhism, and that was a turn off for students of other faiths. Also, that there is some tie-in to the I Ching philosophy and the specific techniques introduced therein, and not having anything to do with the more practical (and intended) function of a form, which is self-defense, none of this made sense to me. If I were journeying onto a path of enlightenment and following the principles espoused by the I Ching, I'm not sure I would find a Taekwondo school which would help me on that journey - even if I wanted to.
Such did not happen for me. I never sought, nor found, enlightenment. I don't even know what that means. The teachings of Buddhism, and the I Ching, and the relationship to techniques within Taekwondo all became a distraction for me. I was in it for self-defense, not enlightenment. If I wanted enlightenment, I wasn't going to find it in a strip mall dojang, it was going to be in a Tibetan mountaintop temple. (Or maybe that temple in downtown Newark...)
Bottom line, I was part of these schools which focused more on the I Ching, but I realized I lost out on what Taekwondo was really about. I dismiss the concept altogether, except as a cultural relationship to the Korean people. Is it useless? Not really, but it depends on how it is taught. Either, it is all-out and everything about the I Ching, or stay away from it. And either way, don't try to tell a white belt that his first form has to be performed with "the greatness of heaven".
And yes - seriously, that is how my schools wanted me to perform Taeguek 1 - with the "greatness of heaven". I earned my yellow belt, ostensibly after performing my form with the greatness of heaven (or living my life with the greatness of heaven). |
7,503 | I'm installing lights in my buildings (I'm using [Neopixel strips](https://www.adafruit.com/products/1507), which have a flat back), and I'm trying to tape the lights to the ceiling. Of course, bricks and plates aren't smooth on the bottom, so double sided tape isn't working out too well.
Can you recommend either:
* A plate or similar part with a smooth bottom (I'm familiar with the 2x2 round plate that has a rounded bottom, but I can't think of anything flat)
* An alternate method of affixing small parts to the bottom of bricks and plates | 2016/04/03 | [
"https://bricks.stackexchange.com/questions/7503",
"https://bricks.stackexchange.com",
"https://bricks.stackexchange.com/users/7063/"
] | Take a look at [11203 - Tile, Modified 2 x 2 Inverted](http://alpha.bricklink.com/pages/clone/catalogitem.page?P=11203#T=S&O=%7B%22ss%22:%22US%22,%22rpp%22:%22500%22%7D). Works like your 2x2 round plate but is flat at the bottom.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/0hGbS.jpg) | >
> An alternate method of affixing small parts to the bottom of bricks and plates:
>
>
>
Check out sticky-tack! It has a ridiculous amount of brand names, but it's basically a safely removable, free-form version of duct-tape. It will stick to anything, and increases its own surface area by spreading all throughout something like, say, the little pins and circles on the bottoms of a brick or plate. Instead of being less effective in this scenario, it actually has more grip, and will stay on.
Another benefit is that it all comes out in one piece, so no tooth-pickery.
Sticky tack sticks to itself as well, so it's perfect for affixing electrical components, especially LEDs and other bits with pins. For a NeoPixel strip, it's still light enough that with a decent amount (which isn't much- you buy by the pound for like 3 bucks,) you can affix as many as you could possibly dream of and have plenty left over. The flat back is no problem, remember, it sticks to everything.
Alternatively: There is also a far more common piece than the 11203...
You know those 2x2 plate bottoms with a round bottom surface? However you intend to affix your strips to your piece, they should work fine, and the plus is how cheap they are.
And, since I've only seen a couple of those strips, (maybe they already have a sticky surface?) it's possible that sticky tack won't work. But even if the strips *do* have sticky backs, the tack will still hold them. Maybe even better than just regularly against a flat bottom. It's a good bet. For cheap. |
176,924 | According to Jeff Atwood, ["Expletives are not acceptable behavior on meta or any other Stack Overflow site."](https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/22233/166851)
My question is: to what degree (if any) does this apply in chat as well as on meta or main? | 2013/04/17 | [
"https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/176924",
"https://meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/166851/"
] | If we're going for a general rule here, I would say that Jeff's statement holds equally well in chat as it does on any site within the network. Swearing is not okay. I think of the network as a (largely) professional environment. And swearing has no place in it.
There are admittedly chat rooms in which language is somewhat more colourful than on the main site. And context is sometimes important as well. But even in those situations keep it to an absolute minimum and, as the user who swore, don't come complaining if your messages get flagged or if you end up being suspended from the room. | Since the MPAA doesn't publish guidelines around what words will make ears bleed, I feel the best method for determining what words are appropriate is by deciding the age rating for each room. Let's say that **The Heap** has an R rating. These words would be censored in the transcript, but visible to anyone who enters (after clicking some box saying that they understand there may adult language). Perhaps we can use a calculated formula for how many f-bombs or s-bombs can be used in a 24 hour period.
What I think the real issue is if the expletive is used towards another person. If I say
>
> @JackDouglas You're a piece of poop\*
>
>
>
This would be considered inappropriate and should be flagged. But if I say
>
> @JackDouglas I've had a poopy\* day
>
>
>
This should be allowed since the audience of the room is adult.
\*Poop is a synonym |
98,023 | We have a small business website that has been compromised. They are somehow getting customers order details and contacting them requesting their credit card details. We have had our web team and a third party IT company looking into it and we can't find out where the breach is.
There seems to be no suspicious access on the database, and none of the website code seems to have been altered.
There are also no new admin users and no unexpected logins from existing user profiles in the logs. We have changed all passwords we can think of but they still seem to be able to get the order details. This guy had the same problem back in April (exactly the same, even the same name used Lucy Whetton) but he hasn't posted what the solution was.
[Email phishing scam asking customers for card details](https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/85999/email-phishing-scam-asking-customers-for-card-details)
Does anyone have any ideas?
By the way, we have and are contacting all customers immediately to tell them not to respond to these phishing emails. | 2015/08/28 | [
"https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/98023",
"https://security.stackexchange.com",
"https://security.stackexchange.com/users/84574/"
] | If you can't find the entry point of the hackers, and a "third party IT company" can't find it either, consider hiring a professional security firm to investigate the attack.
This is not an appropriate forum for product or company recommendations, so please don't ask specifically "who" to hire.
I have found that people who present at security conferences often work for reputable security firms, so you could start your searches there. Many places have regional conferences which might be better suited to offer you local assistance; there are national conferences, and even international conferences, all of which would provide access to many professionals.
Another approach is to contact your local law enforcement. While they likely won't have the resources or ability to investigate the hack directly, they may put you in contact with a national law enforcement agency who might have more resources; they might also offer the names of reputable security investigators you could hire. | One of the things left to do would be too lookup for known security flaws on the XCart version you currently have. You mentioned that that is the e-commerce manager you are using and that you didn't update it to the latest version. Now, I am not sure which version you still use, but try to make a Google search to see if there are any disclosed exploits for it. By having a look myself I found, for instance, an [SQL Injection vulnerability](https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/11404/) that could well be the cause of the problem. In those cases you wouldn't see new users, malicious code and so on, but simply "legitimate" SQL queries to you DB. |
98,023 | We have a small business website that has been compromised. They are somehow getting customers order details and contacting them requesting their credit card details. We have had our web team and a third party IT company looking into it and we can't find out where the breach is.
There seems to be no suspicious access on the database, and none of the website code seems to have been altered.
There are also no new admin users and no unexpected logins from existing user profiles in the logs. We have changed all passwords we can think of but they still seem to be able to get the order details. This guy had the same problem back in April (exactly the same, even the same name used Lucy Whetton) but he hasn't posted what the solution was.
[Email phishing scam asking customers for card details](https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/85999/email-phishing-scam-asking-customers-for-card-details)
Does anyone have any ideas?
By the way, we have and are contacting all customers immediately to tell them not to respond to these phishing emails. | 2015/08/28 | [
"https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/98023",
"https://security.stackexchange.com",
"https://security.stackexchange.com/users/84574/"
] | What troubles me is that you mention there was [another user](https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/85999/email-phishing-scam-asking-customers-for-card-details) affected by an attacker using the very same name "*Lucy Whetton*".
Are you by any chance using some standard well-known eCommerce website solution (or a custom one relying on some common framework)? Have you applied the latest available updates?
My guess is that the group behind this pseudonym knows of a security flaw affecting the web application you are using, and is scanning the web to find websites still using a vulnerable version.
In case of doubt, if you already had the latest updates available applied, you should get in touch with the software editor. | One of the things left to do would be too lookup for known security flaws on the XCart version you currently have. You mentioned that that is the e-commerce manager you are using and that you didn't update it to the latest version. Now, I am not sure which version you still use, but try to make a Google search to see if there are any disclosed exploits for it. By having a look myself I found, for instance, an [SQL Injection vulnerability](https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/11404/) that could well be the cause of the problem. In those cases you wouldn't see new users, malicious code and so on, but simply "legitimate" SQL queries to you DB. |
7,477,979 | I have a decent programming practice with languages such as ASM, C, C++, PHP, JS, even ActionScript for Flash, and now I feel a strong need to learn Java. But I prefer to explore new languages in practise, and it seems like, if you want to write something worthwile in Java, you have to know this, and this, and that, and so on... So, I don't event know where to start at.
**Edit**: I'll try to concretize. As far as I'm concerned (at my point of view) Java is all about technologies and frameworks, lots of words: JSP, JSF, Spring, Hibernate, Swing, etc. I would like to move to a new platform corporate website (CRM-like system) I'm in charge of. Choise fell on Java, but I can't figure out how to implement it. What technologies, frameworks, other resources I'd have to use for my purposes to shorten the "study part" as much as possible, and begin the "developing part" as soon as possible. | 2011/09/19 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/7477979",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/942817/"
] | Try [the official *Java Tutorials*](http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/). They are actually quite good. | Most of the languages you have learned are Imperative programming languages. Make sure you divide your task into two; learning object oriented thinking and learning the Java language.
I've heard good things about [Object Oriented software Construction, 2nd Edition](http://docs.eiffel.com/book/method/object-oriented-software-construction-2nd-edition); but, as a disclaimer, I read "Learning Java" from O'Reilly. I'm not sure if the O'Reilly resource would be as good for you, as I didn't have to worry about the Object-Oriented aspects when I approached Java.
Good luck. |
7,477,979 | I have a decent programming practice with languages such as ASM, C, C++, PHP, JS, even ActionScript for Flash, and now I feel a strong need to learn Java. But I prefer to explore new languages in practise, and it seems like, if you want to write something worthwile in Java, you have to know this, and this, and that, and so on... So, I don't event know where to start at.
**Edit**: I'll try to concretize. As far as I'm concerned (at my point of view) Java is all about technologies and frameworks, lots of words: JSP, JSF, Spring, Hibernate, Swing, etc. I would like to move to a new platform corporate website (CRM-like system) I'm in charge of. Choise fell on Java, but I can't figure out how to implement it. What technologies, frameworks, other resources I'd have to use for my purposes to shorten the "study part" as much as possible, and begin the "developing part" as soon as possible. | 2011/09/19 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/7477979",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/942817/"
] | Try [the official *Java Tutorials*](http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/). They are actually quite good. | Try this book : Its on point
>
> Deitel : How to Program Java : [Book](http://www.deitel.com/Books/Java/JavaHowtoProgram7e/tabid/1191/Default.aspx)
>
>
> |
110,122 | I previously installed Ubuntu on a USB drive. I have since lost it or deleted the data and when I go to try to install it says it is already installed on the usb drive letter. How can I fix this?
This is the error that I'm getting. I do not have the USB drive or it is deleted. I have 10-15 usb drives and have no clue which one it would be. I am using Wubi to try to install.
 | 2012/03/05 | [
"https://askubuntu.com/questions/110122",
"https://askubuntu.com",
"https://askubuntu.com/users/49252/"
] | >
> Its look like you have a grub entry which is created using bcdedit ?!
> Go to Windows control panel and check whether there is "Wubi
> uninstaller" menu or not. If it is there then use it to completely
> uninstall previous Ubuntu. Use CCleaner to clean the registry
> afterwards.
>
>
>
– [Curious Apprentice](/users/53649/curious-apprentice "81. reputation") May 4 at 2:37 | Just do a low-level format on that USB drive. |
58,306 | I am making chocolate brownies without sugar using the following ingredients:
* cocoa nibs, 1 & 1/4 cups
* carob powder, 1/4 cup
* margarine, 125 g
* flour, 50 g
* stevia, 1 tablespoon
* vanilla essence, 2 teaspoon
* baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon
* 2 eggs
How can I make the brownie less dry and have more flavor? I don't want to add sugar as it aggravates my skin. | 2015/06/16 | [
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/58306",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/36231/"
] | That 1/4th cup margarine and the 2 eggs are not enough to give those brownies the moisture they need.
I suspect you want something low in sugar and fat. Evelyn Tribole, MS, RD created two books that talk about substitutions for fat and sugar in recipes. One technique to replace fat (like butter) in a recipe is to use *baby food prunes or applesauce*.
Does it work? I made her brownies that substituted baby food prunes for traditional butter. The brownies were super moist and I couldn't taste anything "prunes". This recipe is in her first [Healthy Homestyle Cooking](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0875963617) cookbook.
**For right now, substitute cup for cup baby food prunes or applesauce for the butter/margarine.** I suggest half margarine and half the chosen substitute. That way you get the flavor of margarine but without the fat.
**Or, if you don't mind the fat just add more margarine.** The average brownie recipe usually calls for nearly a full stick (or more) of butter or margarine. It's the margarine that adds moisture to brownie crumb. Or oil, or any kind of fat you prefer. | First, I agree with Tarak'ha's suggestions because it looks like you're trying to keep things somewhat healthy.
Since it looks like you're trying to make healthier brownies, I just wanted to mention yet another less heard of healthy fat replacement in baking: *Finely shredded / pureed beetroot*. I learned this trick from a show called "Cook Yourself Thin" for their [chocolate cake](http://www.food.com/recipe/beetroot-chocolate-fudge-cake-from-cook-yourself-thin-255558). In the show they talk about how the moisture from the beetroot replaces most of the moisture and fat that is usually added by vegetable oil. It's just another alternative to consider.
Here is a brownie recipe that uses *beets & coconut oil* for the "fat" component. It uses coconut sugar, but you can substitute for your stevia if you'd like.
<http://www.theroastedroot.net/fudgy-paleo-beetroot-brownies/> |
58,306 | I am making chocolate brownies without sugar using the following ingredients:
* cocoa nibs, 1 & 1/4 cups
* carob powder, 1/4 cup
* margarine, 125 g
* flour, 50 g
* stevia, 1 tablespoon
* vanilla essence, 2 teaspoon
* baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon
* 2 eggs
How can I make the brownie less dry and have more flavor? I don't want to add sugar as it aggravates my skin. | 2015/06/16 | [
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/58306",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/36231/"
] | That 1/4th cup margarine and the 2 eggs are not enough to give those brownies the moisture they need.
I suspect you want something low in sugar and fat. Evelyn Tribole, MS, RD created two books that talk about substitutions for fat and sugar in recipes. One technique to replace fat (like butter) in a recipe is to use *baby food prunes or applesauce*.
Does it work? I made her brownies that substituted baby food prunes for traditional butter. The brownies were super moist and I couldn't taste anything "prunes". This recipe is in her first [Healthy Homestyle Cooking](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0875963617) cookbook.
**For right now, substitute cup for cup baby food prunes or applesauce for the butter/margarine.** I suggest half margarine and half the chosen substitute. That way you get the flavor of margarine but without the fat.
**Or, if you don't mind the fat just add more margarine.** The average brownie recipe usually calls for nearly a full stick (or more) of butter or margarine. It's the margarine that adds moisture to brownie crumb. Or oil, or any kind of fat you prefer. | Hi I use dates for sugar. I use only 4 ingredients and they are bakeless. You put the ingredients in the food processor and then just press into pan and cut into squares. They are really good and you don't get that sugar rush feeling. I think I found the recipe on Pinterest. |
58,306 | I am making chocolate brownies without sugar using the following ingredients:
* cocoa nibs, 1 & 1/4 cups
* carob powder, 1/4 cup
* margarine, 125 g
* flour, 50 g
* stevia, 1 tablespoon
* vanilla essence, 2 teaspoon
* baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon
* 2 eggs
How can I make the brownie less dry and have more flavor? I don't want to add sugar as it aggravates my skin. | 2015/06/16 | [
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/58306",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/36231/"
] | That 1/4th cup margarine and the 2 eggs are not enough to give those brownies the moisture they need.
I suspect you want something low in sugar and fat. Evelyn Tribole, MS, RD created two books that talk about substitutions for fat and sugar in recipes. One technique to replace fat (like butter) in a recipe is to use *baby food prunes or applesauce*.
Does it work? I made her brownies that substituted baby food prunes for traditional butter. The brownies were super moist and I couldn't taste anything "prunes". This recipe is in her first [Healthy Homestyle Cooking](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0875963617) cookbook.
**For right now, substitute cup for cup baby food prunes or applesauce for the butter/margarine.** I suggest half margarine and half the chosen substitute. That way you get the flavor of margarine but without the fat.
**Or, if you don't mind the fat just add more margarine.** The average brownie recipe usually calls for nearly a full stick (or more) of butter or margarine. It's the margarine that adds moisture to brownie crumb. Or oil, or any kind of fat you prefer. | you could use shredded zucchini, about a 1/4 cup---you will never taste any of it, but it will add moistness to your brownies and not the sugar. |
58,306 | I am making chocolate brownies without sugar using the following ingredients:
* cocoa nibs, 1 & 1/4 cups
* carob powder, 1/4 cup
* margarine, 125 g
* flour, 50 g
* stevia, 1 tablespoon
* vanilla essence, 2 teaspoon
* baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon
* 2 eggs
How can I make the brownie less dry and have more flavor? I don't want to add sugar as it aggravates my skin. | 2015/06/16 | [
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/58306",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/36231/"
] | First, I agree with Tarak'ha's suggestions because it looks like you're trying to keep things somewhat healthy.
Since it looks like you're trying to make healthier brownies, I just wanted to mention yet another less heard of healthy fat replacement in baking: *Finely shredded / pureed beetroot*. I learned this trick from a show called "Cook Yourself Thin" for their [chocolate cake](http://www.food.com/recipe/beetroot-chocolate-fudge-cake-from-cook-yourself-thin-255558). In the show they talk about how the moisture from the beetroot replaces most of the moisture and fat that is usually added by vegetable oil. It's just another alternative to consider.
Here is a brownie recipe that uses *beets & coconut oil* for the "fat" component. It uses coconut sugar, but you can substitute for your stevia if you'd like.
<http://www.theroastedroot.net/fudgy-paleo-beetroot-brownies/> | Hi I use dates for sugar. I use only 4 ingredients and they are bakeless. You put the ingredients in the food processor and then just press into pan and cut into squares. They are really good and you don't get that sugar rush feeling. I think I found the recipe on Pinterest. |
58,306 | I am making chocolate brownies without sugar using the following ingredients:
* cocoa nibs, 1 & 1/4 cups
* carob powder, 1/4 cup
* margarine, 125 g
* flour, 50 g
* stevia, 1 tablespoon
* vanilla essence, 2 teaspoon
* baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon
* 2 eggs
How can I make the brownie less dry and have more flavor? I don't want to add sugar as it aggravates my skin. | 2015/06/16 | [
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/58306",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com",
"https://cooking.stackexchange.com/users/36231/"
] | First, I agree with Tarak'ha's suggestions because it looks like you're trying to keep things somewhat healthy.
Since it looks like you're trying to make healthier brownies, I just wanted to mention yet another less heard of healthy fat replacement in baking: *Finely shredded / pureed beetroot*. I learned this trick from a show called "Cook Yourself Thin" for their [chocolate cake](http://www.food.com/recipe/beetroot-chocolate-fudge-cake-from-cook-yourself-thin-255558). In the show they talk about how the moisture from the beetroot replaces most of the moisture and fat that is usually added by vegetable oil. It's just another alternative to consider.
Here is a brownie recipe that uses *beets & coconut oil* for the "fat" component. It uses coconut sugar, but you can substitute for your stevia if you'd like.
<http://www.theroastedroot.net/fudgy-paleo-beetroot-brownies/> | you could use shredded zucchini, about a 1/4 cup---you will never taste any of it, but it will add moistness to your brownies and not the sugar. |
2,925,555 | I need to develop a tool for web log data mining.
Having many sequences of urls, requested in a particular user session (retrieved from web-application logs), I need to figure out the patterns of usage and groups (clusters) of users of the website.
I am new to Data Mining, and now examining Google a lot.
Found some useful info, i.e. querying [Frequent Pattern Mining in Web Log Data](http://www.google.ru/search?hl=en&newwindow=1&q=Frequent+Pattern+Mining+in+Web+Log+Data&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=) seems to point to almost exactly similar studies.
So my questions are:
1. Are there any python-based tools that do what I need or at least smth similar?
2. Can [Orange toolkit](http://www.ailab.si/orange/) be of any help?
3. Can reading the book [Programming Collective Intelligence](http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596529321) be of any help?
4. What to Google for, what to read, which relatively simple algorithms to use best?
I am very limited in time (to around a week), so any help would be extremely precious. What I need is to point me into the right direction and the advice of how to accomplish the task in the shortest time.
Thanks in advance! | 2010/05/27 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/2925555",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/37511/"
] | 1&2: Orange has a frequent pattern mining module. It also supports clustering.
3.I have just check the content of the book. There is not a chapter for frequent pattern mining. Anyway, it is generally a good book for beginners in data mining. You will find it very useful to help you define your problem precisely.
4.You need to understand the input and output of clustering, frequent pattern mining/association rule mining. So google these algorithms, or find a good data mining text book to read. | The Pattern module might be what you are looking for.
<http://www.clips.ua.ac.be/pages/pattern> |
2,424 | When looking through the questions I saw one which was edited by community, I read somewhere that community bot does this to bring attention to old unanswered questions I always thought it was bad to answer questions that aren't that recent.
Is there a cutoff point where you shouldn't answer a question? Or is it still good to answer a year old question? | 2015/02/19 | [
"https://graphicdesign.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2424",
"https://graphicdesign.meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://graphicdesign.meta.stackexchange.com/users/38462/"
] | By all means.. answer **anything and everything** if you can. Don't even look at dates :)
Questions get bumped for a number of reasons. I think the only "annoying" reason is when some random person posts a "thank you" as an answer. Other than that... I wouldn't worry about bumping anything.
While old questions have a far greater chance that the user will *never* return to mark something correct.... Google still finds the question and answers could still benefit any number of people searching for a solution. | If you have an answer to a question that adds quality to the question by all means provide an answer. There is no time length on answering questions. We do frown upon reviving old questions with a crappy answer and usually people adding answers to an old question are either new, one line answers, or spam aka link only answers.
Community will bump a question that has answers if the answer have no up votes or if the question only has one answer that is not accepted. |
12,296,605 | could anyone tell me what's the background theories in The Definition of Standard ML, found very interesting and beautiful, i did learn some sml a little, but i want more while don't know how to start (to understand TDSML)
3x in advance | 2012/09/06 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/12296605",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1650725/"
] | For the old version of the Definition (SML'90) there actually was a separate book called "Commentary on Standard ML", which explained how to interpret the Definition. Both the SML'90 Definition and the Commentary are long out of print, but fortunately, are available as [free PDFs](http://www.itu.dk/people/tofte/publ/1990sml/1990sml.html).
The SML'90 Definition had some differences to SML'97, in particular regarding the module system. Overall, it was more complicated. But much of the Commentary should still apply, and if you have both versions side by side, it shouldn't be hard to figure out what's still relevant. | This is off the top of my head: In order to understand the methods employed in The Definition of Standard ML, you should some basic understanding of:
* [set theory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_theory)
* [functions](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Function_%28mathematics%29)
* [first-order logic](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-order_logic)
* [type theory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_theory)
Additionally, you should be able to read and understand [inference rules](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inference_rules) of which the book makes extensive use. |
2,862,994 | I want to develop a web Application to manage school administration. But I am not clear, which technology should I use to create Rich Internet Application. At present, develeopment company is going with ASP.net tools and say this is a web app.
However, there is page refresh on every click. Which I don't like. Please suggest, where to proceed.
Regards
Piyush | 2010/05/19 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/2862994",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/344741/"
] | In a plain ol ASP.NET application, the screen refresh can be eliminated by using update panels in webforms, or by using more of the AJAX capabilities of the MVC Framework. (Wikiplex on Codeplex has a crazy simple example of this that I love in their example application).
Between Silverlight and Flash, however, Silverlight is designed to be a Web Application, or (at times) a desktop application in a Browser, while Flash is more of a multimedia framework.
Since it is school administration, which doesn't require random people to have Silverlight installed, Silverlight and JS/AJAX are both good options. Both are built into the ASP.NET set of libraries, and have good support in Visual Studio. Flash is a bit of an outsider in this regard.
So to sum up:
In general JavaScript/AJAX > Silverlight but either would be great.
If you are totally against any screen refresh, I'd lean more towards Silverlight.
If the developers are very familiar with Flash and communicating with the server with Flash, then I'd say it is also an option, but with no knowledge on all three and I'd not pick Flash first. | ASP.NET does provide some special sauce for AJAX, so it's entirely possible to eliminate the page load without leaving ASP.NET. If you leave ASP.NET, the options are endless: Java, Silverlight, JQuery, Flash, etc. ad infinitum. |
2,862,994 | I want to develop a web Application to manage school administration. But I am not clear, which technology should I use to create Rich Internet Application. At present, develeopment company is going with ASP.net tools and say this is a web app.
However, there is page refresh on every click. Which I don't like. Please suggest, where to proceed.
Regards
Piyush | 2010/05/19 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/2862994",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/344741/"
] | It's a little late for a response to the initiator. But I didn't agree with some of the answers I read here, and since google is popping this up in the search returns I felt compelled to align my answer on this board.
First off, a lot of developers create applications in ASP.NET and AJAX because they are comfortable with it not because the technology is better. For years, what it took one person to develop in the Adobe Flex framework, took many developers to create in AJAX. There is no more AJAX versus Flex, there's just Flex. Who wants to write a hundred lines of code in AJAX to do the same thing it takes 1 line of code in Flex. That's why the cost with an AJAX deployment was always more expensive.
On ASP.NET, you're right. Who wants to see the page refresh every time you perform an action? Not to mention, no browser follows the HTML implementations exactly, so how .NET app looks in 1 browser would look different in another browser, in addition to differences witnessed with the various browser versions.
Most ASP.NET, heck even Coldfusion Applications are clunky in HTML. So with that in mind all of my gui development is done in Adobe Flex. When a flash file is created, it compatible with 99% of the browsers (safari on mobile devices excluded), and all of the Operating Systems are supported. I'll tell you what, you can get silverlight to work in linux but have fun while it loads 50MB of MS software on your Linux OS. Not to mention Flash has a 99% market penetration. So it's already preloaded on machines and browsers.
Plus flash supports most picture formats and SVG natively. Did you know Silverlight became notorious because they don't support even a GIF/BMP formats? Forget SVG if you're using Silverlight because it doesn't support it. What's SVG? Look it up! It's only the most useful way to create any image you want right in a flex app. For instance maps are useful in SVG. AND its just a small file. Not a horrendous large file.
Language, Flex is just easier to program in and there's a lot of support for it. Think I'm kidding, try for yourself. You can download a Free version of flex for 30 days. Forgive my ignorance but I don't even know where to begin on loading Silverlight. I've got visual studio and all that but I gave up after trying. But that was 1 year after it's release so it may have changed.
And frankly, if you or a developer can't afford flex, DON'T BUY IT. Instead, download eclipse, which is free forever. Adobe Flex is only a special iteration customized by Adobe anyway. So you probably won't get charting and some other components in eclipse, but most of the GUI components are built right into Eclipse.
Programming ASP.NET is just old hat. It's clunky, difficult to work with and it's possible to corrupt the files. It's not possible at all to corrupt your project files in Flex/Eclipse because they are just TEXT files. How cool is that?
Don't get me wrong, I program in ASP.NET too. But I like it for Application server processes; you know like the middleman between database and client. SQL server feeds ASP, and ASP feeds my Flex GUI using SOAP. Big plus is even though I hate Visual studio crystal reports, it's still way better than nothing. Believe me you want to have some reporting possibilities like CF Report Builder or crystal reports. Some people just like a nicely formatted PDF and that's all there is to it.
I've released hundreds of applications using various technologies. Right now this is my favorite. But frankly, a good GUI can be done anywhere if you are a 'kung fu' master. I'm saying that although it's easier out of the gates to program in Flex compared to .NET/Silverlight, someone with some mad .NET skills can put a Flex app to shame. But as it stands right now, there is no argument that Flex is the stronger candidate with the most market penetration, flexibility, and ease of use.
Good luck all... | ASP.NET does provide some special sauce for AJAX, so it's entirely possible to eliminate the page load without leaving ASP.NET. If you leave ASP.NET, the options are endless: Java, Silverlight, JQuery, Flash, etc. ad infinitum. |
2,862,994 | I want to develop a web Application to manage school administration. But I am not clear, which technology should I use to create Rich Internet Application. At present, develeopment company is going with ASP.net tools and say this is a web app.
However, there is page refresh on every click. Which I don't like. Please suggest, where to proceed.
Regards
Piyush | 2010/05/19 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/2862994",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/344741/"
] | In a plain ol ASP.NET application, the screen refresh can be eliminated by using update panels in webforms, or by using more of the AJAX capabilities of the MVC Framework. (Wikiplex on Codeplex has a crazy simple example of this that I love in their example application).
Between Silverlight and Flash, however, Silverlight is designed to be a Web Application, or (at times) a desktop application in a Browser, while Flash is more of a multimedia framework.
Since it is school administration, which doesn't require random people to have Silverlight installed, Silverlight and JS/AJAX are both good options. Both are built into the ASP.NET set of libraries, and have good support in Visual Studio. Flash is a bit of an outsider in this regard.
So to sum up:
In general JavaScript/AJAX > Silverlight but either would be great.
If you are totally against any screen refresh, I'd lean more towards Silverlight.
If the developers are very familiar with Flash and communicating with the server with Flash, then I'd say it is also an option, but with no knowledge on all three and I'd not pick Flash first. | Silverlight and Flash are great for richer user interfaces, however I dont think they should be used for the "whole" interface or application. Its best to narrow down these parts and decide how rich these need to be, then evaluate which technology to use. If you just want to prevent full round trips to the server on a page, AJAX is a good option. I would also recommend Silverlight over Flex, since you probably/already have the tools. |
2,862,994 | I want to develop a web Application to manage school administration. But I am not clear, which technology should I use to create Rich Internet Application. At present, develeopment company is going with ASP.net tools and say this is a web app.
However, there is page refresh on every click. Which I don't like. Please suggest, where to proceed.
Regards
Piyush | 2010/05/19 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/2862994",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/344741/"
] | In a plain ol ASP.NET application, the screen refresh can be eliminated by using update panels in webforms, or by using more of the AJAX capabilities of the MVC Framework. (Wikiplex on Codeplex has a crazy simple example of this that I love in their example application).
Between Silverlight and Flash, however, Silverlight is designed to be a Web Application, or (at times) a desktop application in a Browser, while Flash is more of a multimedia framework.
Since it is school administration, which doesn't require random people to have Silverlight installed, Silverlight and JS/AJAX are both good options. Both are built into the ASP.NET set of libraries, and have good support in Visual Studio. Flash is a bit of an outsider in this regard.
So to sum up:
In general JavaScript/AJAX > Silverlight but either would be great.
If you are totally against any screen refresh, I'd lean more towards Silverlight.
If the developers are very familiar with Flash and communicating with the server with Flash, then I'd say it is also an option, but with no knowledge on all three and I'd not pick Flash first. | It's a little late for a response to the initiator. But I didn't agree with some of the answers I read here, and since google is popping this up in the search returns I felt compelled to align my answer on this board.
First off, a lot of developers create applications in ASP.NET and AJAX because they are comfortable with it not because the technology is better. For years, what it took one person to develop in the Adobe Flex framework, took many developers to create in AJAX. There is no more AJAX versus Flex, there's just Flex. Who wants to write a hundred lines of code in AJAX to do the same thing it takes 1 line of code in Flex. That's why the cost with an AJAX deployment was always more expensive.
On ASP.NET, you're right. Who wants to see the page refresh every time you perform an action? Not to mention, no browser follows the HTML implementations exactly, so how .NET app looks in 1 browser would look different in another browser, in addition to differences witnessed with the various browser versions.
Most ASP.NET, heck even Coldfusion Applications are clunky in HTML. So with that in mind all of my gui development is done in Adobe Flex. When a flash file is created, it compatible with 99% of the browsers (safari on mobile devices excluded), and all of the Operating Systems are supported. I'll tell you what, you can get silverlight to work in linux but have fun while it loads 50MB of MS software on your Linux OS. Not to mention Flash has a 99% market penetration. So it's already preloaded on machines and browsers.
Plus flash supports most picture formats and SVG natively. Did you know Silverlight became notorious because they don't support even a GIF/BMP formats? Forget SVG if you're using Silverlight because it doesn't support it. What's SVG? Look it up! It's only the most useful way to create any image you want right in a flex app. For instance maps are useful in SVG. AND its just a small file. Not a horrendous large file.
Language, Flex is just easier to program in and there's a lot of support for it. Think I'm kidding, try for yourself. You can download a Free version of flex for 30 days. Forgive my ignorance but I don't even know where to begin on loading Silverlight. I've got visual studio and all that but I gave up after trying. But that was 1 year after it's release so it may have changed.
And frankly, if you or a developer can't afford flex, DON'T BUY IT. Instead, download eclipse, which is free forever. Adobe Flex is only a special iteration customized by Adobe anyway. So you probably won't get charting and some other components in eclipse, but most of the GUI components are built right into Eclipse.
Programming ASP.NET is just old hat. It's clunky, difficult to work with and it's possible to corrupt the files. It's not possible at all to corrupt your project files in Flex/Eclipse because they are just TEXT files. How cool is that?
Don't get me wrong, I program in ASP.NET too. But I like it for Application server processes; you know like the middleman between database and client. SQL server feeds ASP, and ASP feeds my Flex GUI using SOAP. Big plus is even though I hate Visual studio crystal reports, it's still way better than nothing. Believe me you want to have some reporting possibilities like CF Report Builder or crystal reports. Some people just like a nicely formatted PDF and that's all there is to it.
I've released hundreds of applications using various technologies. Right now this is my favorite. But frankly, a good GUI can be done anywhere if you are a 'kung fu' master. I'm saying that although it's easier out of the gates to program in Flex compared to .NET/Silverlight, someone with some mad .NET skills can put a Flex app to shame. But as it stands right now, there is no argument that Flex is the stronger candidate with the most market penetration, flexibility, and ease of use.
Good luck all... |
2,862,994 | I want to develop a web Application to manage school administration. But I am not clear, which technology should I use to create Rich Internet Application. At present, develeopment company is going with ASP.net tools and say this is a web app.
However, there is page refresh on every click. Which I don't like. Please suggest, where to proceed.
Regards
Piyush | 2010/05/19 | [
"https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/2862994",
"https://Stackoverflow.com",
"https://Stackoverflow.com/users/344741/"
] | It's a little late for a response to the initiator. But I didn't agree with some of the answers I read here, and since google is popping this up in the search returns I felt compelled to align my answer on this board.
First off, a lot of developers create applications in ASP.NET and AJAX because they are comfortable with it not because the technology is better. For years, what it took one person to develop in the Adobe Flex framework, took many developers to create in AJAX. There is no more AJAX versus Flex, there's just Flex. Who wants to write a hundred lines of code in AJAX to do the same thing it takes 1 line of code in Flex. That's why the cost with an AJAX deployment was always more expensive.
On ASP.NET, you're right. Who wants to see the page refresh every time you perform an action? Not to mention, no browser follows the HTML implementations exactly, so how .NET app looks in 1 browser would look different in another browser, in addition to differences witnessed with the various browser versions.
Most ASP.NET, heck even Coldfusion Applications are clunky in HTML. So with that in mind all of my gui development is done in Adobe Flex. When a flash file is created, it compatible with 99% of the browsers (safari on mobile devices excluded), and all of the Operating Systems are supported. I'll tell you what, you can get silverlight to work in linux but have fun while it loads 50MB of MS software on your Linux OS. Not to mention Flash has a 99% market penetration. So it's already preloaded on machines and browsers.
Plus flash supports most picture formats and SVG natively. Did you know Silverlight became notorious because they don't support even a GIF/BMP formats? Forget SVG if you're using Silverlight because it doesn't support it. What's SVG? Look it up! It's only the most useful way to create any image you want right in a flex app. For instance maps are useful in SVG. AND its just a small file. Not a horrendous large file.
Language, Flex is just easier to program in and there's a lot of support for it. Think I'm kidding, try for yourself. You can download a Free version of flex for 30 days. Forgive my ignorance but I don't even know where to begin on loading Silverlight. I've got visual studio and all that but I gave up after trying. But that was 1 year after it's release so it may have changed.
And frankly, if you or a developer can't afford flex, DON'T BUY IT. Instead, download eclipse, which is free forever. Adobe Flex is only a special iteration customized by Adobe anyway. So you probably won't get charting and some other components in eclipse, but most of the GUI components are built right into Eclipse.
Programming ASP.NET is just old hat. It's clunky, difficult to work with and it's possible to corrupt the files. It's not possible at all to corrupt your project files in Flex/Eclipse because they are just TEXT files. How cool is that?
Don't get me wrong, I program in ASP.NET too. But I like it for Application server processes; you know like the middleman between database and client. SQL server feeds ASP, and ASP feeds my Flex GUI using SOAP. Big plus is even though I hate Visual studio crystal reports, it's still way better than nothing. Believe me you want to have some reporting possibilities like CF Report Builder or crystal reports. Some people just like a nicely formatted PDF and that's all there is to it.
I've released hundreds of applications using various technologies. Right now this is my favorite. But frankly, a good GUI can be done anywhere if you are a 'kung fu' master. I'm saying that although it's easier out of the gates to program in Flex compared to .NET/Silverlight, someone with some mad .NET skills can put a Flex app to shame. But as it stands right now, there is no argument that Flex is the stronger candidate with the most market penetration, flexibility, and ease of use.
Good luck all... | Silverlight and Flash are great for richer user interfaces, however I dont think they should be used for the "whole" interface or application. Its best to narrow down these parts and decide how rich these need to be, then evaluate which technology to use. If you just want to prevent full round trips to the server on a page, AJAX is a good option. I would also recommend Silverlight over Flex, since you probably/already have the tools. |
14,675 | I'm flying soon to Mongolia for a few weeks and I'm still somewhat of a beginner to photography, at least equipment-wise! So, I'm looking for equipment advice mostly. I currently have a Canon EOS 400D with an 18-55mm lens, and I recently purchased a 50mm F/1.8 prime (can't wait for it to arrive!), but I realize that to properly capture the open plains and skies of Mongolia, I'm going to need a wide angle.
I don't have a massive budget to spend, and to be honest, I've been a bit rough on my camera in the past and don't want to bring a long an expensive lens while I'm backpacking. Is my 18-55 going to be good enough? I'm definitely willing to purchase a new lens to take with me, and I would prefer something that would stay useful to me after Mongolia when I move to a city for a bit (heading to Sydney, Australia!).
Also, what would be the right filter to bring along? I don't know much about those and only have a UV filter at the moment. | 2011/08/08 | [
"https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/14675",
"https://photo.stackexchange.com",
"https://photo.stackexchange.com/users/6225/"
] | I spent a while in Mongolia and frankly I think that what you (will) have is fine, with some minor tweaks.
I'd add a good quality circular polarising filter for your kit lens as well (cheap ones have weird colour casts, good ones are colour-neutral at all angles).
For super-wide shots, I was quite happy with stitched 17mm shots. I don't think wide lens is a must. MS has a free stitcher that does a fair job if you make an effort to rotate your camera sensibly close to the lens' nodal point.
Night-time photography is also possible and with the crystal-clear skies I'd heartily recommend it. Watch out for the sharp temperature changes to night-time and the resulting condensation on your equipment. Also bear in mind that your batteries will have a significantly lower charge at low temperatures so it's worth keeping your spares close to body heat. A tripod isn't absolutely necessary if you find convenient resting places for your camera.
Unless you're in Ulaanbataar you might not find convenient charging points, so battery-saving measures make sense (disable review, lower lcd brightness, keep batteries out of camera unless shooting...) and I'd consider packing some spare memory cards too.
If you've got a point+shoot camera, bring it with you - you won't always have the time to whip out your dSLR ;-)
Lastly, I'd strongly recommend lots of practice of the various shots you'll be taking so you can spend more time enjoying the experience and less time setting up shots; having a list to hand of the shots you *know* you want is also quite helpful.
Oh yes, and expect your gear to get fairly dusty, no matter how much care you take to keep it clean. Dust spots can be removed after the fact fairly easily in any case. | what about fish-eye lens? I have Samyang 8 mm for few weeks and found it absolutely fantastic for stitched panoramas and also for those "planet" panoramas.
Ken Rockwell wrote a nice review about this lens here:
<http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/8mm-f35.htm>
the lens is not so expensive, costs about 360 USD. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.