Is it possible to be a game artist and not work on character/creature animation?

Question: If I don't want to develop and animate living characters (animals, humans, robots, et cetera) for games, but I do want to develop/animate objects (TVs, phones, cars, et cetera) or levels... is it possible to have a career as an artist in the industry?
Comment: Absolutely viable. For example you can start with car models and terrain objects for racing games, then move into spacecrafts, then change direction into general assets making. In gamedev there are many jobs and it's often animators, modelers, texturers are 3 different people in bigger studios.
Comment: I have a friend who is an "environmental artist", his team makes models for objects like TV, carton boxes, and what not.  However, human modeling and animation is equally important.  Being a versatile artist opens more job, and generally gives the artist a better understanding of different techniques.
Answer: If you work in a big company, there will probably be few 3D artists for specific tasks. One of them might be soft body modeller that will do characters and animals, etc.
You can be level designer, make some fences, houses, rocks, perhaps lightining artist which is really crazy if you are good one.
You can type in your portfolio that you are level designer and show some beatifull landscapes for example. I think level designer is what you search for.
On the other hand, I think you must spend some time trying to build characters, at every try you will get better. Traditional paining and 3D modelling are kinda different.
If you model a TV, you can also model a human, you just need some time to get the feeling of the creation of soft body models.
Also if you model long enough, your brain will get boored and you will start wanting to model something completely different, so in time you might get get interested.
PS: I had no idea coding games requires math knowledge, I'm not good at all in math, but I keep forward becouse I want to create a game :D
Comment: A word on the math knowledge: When it comes down to it, games are really nothing but math and logic. Honestly, can you think of *one* game that you made that didn't have at least some basic form of or math/logic?
Comment: Didn't realize that until I started with 2D stuff, the thing is to keep going.
Answer: It's possible. Perhaps less feasible. Many artists focus purely on modelling machines or architecture, for instance. Or characters. But for game designers, it's a bit different. You tend to need to be less of a brilliant artist and more of a generalist in order to cover different design topics.
It does depend though on the types of games you want to be involved in making. Remember that when potential clients / employers review your portfolio, they are going to be looking specifically for those things they expect to see in their game. For example, awesome medieval arms and armour, contemporary cars, or sci-fi vehicles.
Modelling these specifics are viable skillsets all on their own, because those in the industry know that modelling / animating any one class of thing very well means you will tend not to be quite as practiced in other areas. Artists' specialisations are typically respected if they show good ability in said realm.
This is no different for game programmers. Specialisation is a common aspect of tech industry teams, and especially in a field as complex and multifacted as game development, where teams are often large and every member has a very specific role to play in shipping product.
I'd suggest you maybe spend a couple of months at some point on characters in Max, just so you can say you have a basic grasp, if needed. Your other work will form the centrepiece of your resume.
Answer: It sounds like the job title you should be shooting for is environment artist. Those are artist who specialize in scenery and props. There is generally a bigger demand for environment artists than character artists; if you think about all the open-world games coming out these days it's pretty obvious why.
Answer: Sure,
game artists are either:
 character artists,
 environment artists,
 effects artists
it sounds like you want to be an environment artist.
animating objects often falls under effects (fire, smoke) or level design (doors opening, drawbridge moving) or tech art (all of the above).


Dini condition and integrability condition

Question: Assume that  $A$ is an arbitrary positive integrable function on $[0,1]$. Whether exists a convex function $f_A(x)=x g(x)$ of  $(0,+\infty)$ into itself (depending on $A$) such that $\lim_{x\to +\infty} g(x)=+\infty $ and $$\int_0^1 A(x) g(1/x^2) dx <+\infty.$$ This question is related to membership of $g$ to some Dini class.
Answer: The answer is yes. First define inductively a sequence $x_k>0$ such that $x_{k+1} < x_k/2$, and
$$\int_0^{x_k}A(x)dx<2^{-k}.$$
This is possible because $A$ is integrable.
Then define a continuous function $[0,1]$ by $h(x_k)=k$
and $h$ is linear on each interval $[x_{k+1},x_k]$. It is easy to see that
this function is convex, decreasing and tends to $+\infty$ as $x\to 0+$.
Moreover
$$\int_0^1A(x)h(x)dx\leq\sum (k+1)2^{-k}<\infty.$$
Now set $g(x)=h(1/\sqrt{x})$ and it remains to verity that $xg(x)$
is convex.
This we do by differentiation:
$$(xg(x))^\prime=h(x^{-1/2})-2x^{-1/2}h'(x^{-1/2}).$$
Both summands are increasing, therefore $xg(x)$ is convex.
Comment: Very nice solution.
Answer: Let's change variables: we have:
$$\int_0^1A(x)dx=\frac{1}{2}\int_1^{+\infty} A(x^{-1/2}) x^{-3/2}dx  < +\infty\, .$$
Therefore, by the Dominated Convergence Theorem
$$\int_1^{+\infty} A(x^{-1/2}) x^{-5/2}(x-k) _ +dx=o(1),\qquad  (\mathrm{as }\, k\to+\infty)\, ,$$
and in particular there is a sequence $k _ n\to +\infty$  such that
$$\int_1^{+\infty} A(x^{-1/2}) x^{-5/2}(x-k _ n) _ +dx\le 2^{-n} .$$
The function $f:(0,+\infty)\rightarrow(0,+\infty)$
$$f(x):=x+\sum_{n=1}^\infty(x-k_n) _ +$$
is convex and verifies $g(x):=f(x)/x\to+\infty$; moreover, integrating by series
$$\int_1^{+\infty} A(x^{-1/2}) g(x) x^{-3/2} dx  < +\infty\, ,$$
and by the same change of variable as before, the latter integral is twice
$$\int_0^1A(x)  g(1/x^2)   dx\, .$$


What is the purpose of putting ad/support top?

Question: I often see pro league players switch their top and bot - ad/support going top and bruiser going bot. What is the purpose of this switch? Is it more efficient for ganks and securing objectives? Or is it to counter certain team compositions?
Answer: The reason they do this is to deny Gold/XP to the enemy's Solo Top and AD Carry, getting an advantage vs certain hard team compositions.
For example: Versus an AD Carry Graves+Alistar/Solo Top Talon. Swapping lanes makes the enemy Solo Top and AD Carry lose allot of CS and XP and maybe confusing them in the process, making them prone to mistakes that normally they wouldn't make.
You can do this with a Cho'gath solo top, I believe. Since he can regenerate his HP easily and farm well even vs 2 opponents due to he's AoE spells.
Check out this game CLG.NA Vs MiG.Blaze  from the Korean Azubu LoL The Champions Spring 2012 tournament
Hope this helps :).
Answer: Support/AD is used when the opposing AD/Support is stronger/better skilled players than your own Support/AD. As a result, it allows your own AD/support to 2v1 a lane against a top solo which allows you to farm with ease. However, a strong bruiser with sustain has to be used for your own bot lane to survive 1v2 against enemy AD/support.
It's also used for shutting down their top solo at times if their top lane is extremely weak against AD/support 2v1 lane while your top lane is strong for 1v2 at bot lane.
Answer: This is mostly used to deny enemy solo top hard.
If you're facing a certain champion on top that you cannot counter or you are afraid of for any reason you can put ad + support top to harass him all day long and deny his cs. However, as you do it, your solo (bot) is also facing ad + support, so you need to have some kind of champion there who can farm safely or sustain a lot of damage. That kind of champion could be yorick or morde (who's acually quite famous for owning 2v1 lanes). I also did it with akali (but that was pre-nerf) by just going invisible under turret and farming very safe. This is a very dangerous tactic and you need to trust your teammates a lot.
Assuming you have a good urgot player on your team you can use an alternative, but similiar tactic. Urgot solo bots, while support goes with your normal solo top champion. Urgot is the type of ad carry that can do 2v1 pretty well, however he wouldn't be utilizing his high early-mid damage, so in that case you need to snowball top very hard and have some kind of hypercarry top or mid (like morde for example).
Answer: Lets say my team picks Yorick, Yorick can solo bot pretty easily versus an AD and support, then you put your own AD and support up top to deny their solo top XP and gold, now if they want to swap lanes, so that their solo top goes bot, he loses about 1 minute in doing so, meanwhile my team still gets XP and gold, putting us at an advantage.
When they return to lane my team has more XP thus making laning much easier due to level advantage.
Answer: Short and simple anwer: It's viable to switch your top laner with your bot ad and support when your top is something like yorick or chogath, who can handle a 2v1 and not lose much farm, while the enemy is something like Irelia or some other melee hero who needs to put themselves at risk to farm versus 2 players, and will likely get denied a lot of farm and even exp.
Answer: Most the time a 2v1 AD/Support vs Top lane is to shut down the enemy top and making your AD's time of farming pretty easy. Plus if the champion forced to solo the enemy bot lane doesn't lose turret and/or fall behind then you should be able to easily come out a turret ahead due to the enemy top not being able to do anything in the 2v1 lane.
The downside is that you lack dragon control, if the enemy team pinks or has an oracle on dragon then you are in constant fear of losing it as the enemy team can have 4 at dragon and you can only have 3.


A die is rolled. A coin is flipped four times. Find the probability that the number on the die is twice the number of heads from the coin flips.

Question: I absolutely have no idea how to begin this problem. I am not looking for an exact answer as much as I am a proper solution so I can learn how to handle similar problems.
Answer: You have 1 head with probability ${4\choose 1}\cdot \frac1{2^4}=\frac14$ and a matching die result of two with $\frac16$, thus this gives $\frac1{24}$.
You have 2 heads with probability ${4\choose 2}\cdot \frac1{2^4}=\frac38$ and a matching die result of four with $\frac16$, thus this gives $\frac1{16}$.
You have 3 heads with probability ${4\choose 3}\cdot \frac1{2^4}=\frac14$ and a matching die result of six with $\frac16$, thus this gives $\frac1{24}$.
Woth 0 or 4 heads, the die cannot macth twice this number. Thus the total probability is $\frac1{24}+\frac1{16}+\frac1{24}=\frac{7}{48}$.
Answer: We use the strategy of breaking the problem  up into simpler cases. Our desired event can happen in $3$ different ways: (i) $2$ on die, $1$ head; (ii) $4$ on the die, $2$ heads; (iii) $6$ on the die, $3$ heads.
Let's find the probability of (i). The probability of $2$ on the die is $\dfrac{1}{6}$. The die and coin don't talk to each other, so given we got $2$ on the die, the probability of $1$ head on the coin is, as it always is,  $\dfrac{\binom{4}{1}}{2^4}$. The technical term is that the event $2$ on the die and the event $1$ head are independent.
So the probability of (i) is
$$\frac{1}{6}\cdot\frac{\binom{4}{1}}{2^4}.$$
Do a similar calculation for (ii) and (iii), and add up.


How to go to Manchester from London?

Question: I will travel to Europe this year. I am planning to visit Manchester Old Trafford on the first day. How can I get to Manchester from London? How long does it take, and how much does it cost (preferably by bus/train).
Comment: I think these should be two separate questions each with a more specific title.
Comment: I moved the second question to [here](http://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/5902/is-there-any-3g-data-package-that-works-across-europe). Do moderators have the power to move answers across?
Comment: @Casebash No, answers cannot be moved across. It's cool that you started another question but I'm thinking of reverting the edit here so that the answer thread below makes sense. (I just got six 'not an answer' flags from a helpful community member who thought the answers are off topic.) This should rather have been sorted out when the question was asked, yes it's a mess.
Answer: Tackling the London-Manchester bit, Virgin Trains runs regular services on this route. If you book in advance, tickets should be under £20 each way. There are several fast trains an hour, and it takes about 2 hours for the trip. You can get timetables and book tickets on the virgin trains website (amongst others)
One note about UK advanced train tickets - tickets generally go on sale 3 months in advance. The very cheapest tickets will often sell out that week, but you can normally get some fairly sensibly priced ones for several weeks after. (There are normally advanced tickets at a couple of different price points for most journeys). Finding out exactly when tickets are on sale to does vary in difficulty, First Great Western as an example display their booking dates on their homepage, others don't. Another snag is that tickets aren't released until engineering work is announced. This may mean that weekend tickets go on sale later than weekday ones, and some companies will have their weekend tickets available weeks before others!
Advanced purchase train tickets are almost always for a specific train, and non changeable. They are generally only available on longer journeys, but you can sometimes get a local journey at each end included (depending on the company). I think almost all the train companies offer them, but advanced tickets are generally tied to just that one company. This means that if you want to do a journey that involves two companies, you'll often need to book two advanced tickets...
Finally, if you're booking fairly last minute, expect things to be rather expensive, especially on popular routes. If you're booking on the day / almost on the day, you may be able to save a little bit by taking a slower train. Ask at the ticket office about that, and they'll tell you if it's possible. Another option that may be available is Split Tickets, where you find that splitting your long journey up into lots of local legs can be cheaper!
Oh, and if you're travelling off peak and with a child, then get a Family Railcard. There's an annual fee, but you'll generally save that on any single long journey. You can't start too early, and you must have at least one child in the group, but for family leisure journeys it can save a lot.
Comment: +1 I just did this a little while ago (took a Virgin Train from London to Manchester). It was great! Also check as prices and train frequency seem to vary from station to station from London.
Answer: Regarding the first question, you might want to check Maxroam. They offer several international roaming packages including voice and/or data. Data is charged from about $0.65 per MB.
update : MaxRoam has launched a new service for Europe in this article
Answer: Not exactly an answer, but a word of caution. It is important enough that I didn't want to make it a comment.
Last year I went to Italy and got a data stick from Vodafone to use while I was there (working). Of course, I don't speak italian, so I had to rely on the customer rep to explain the options to me. I selected what seemed to best fit my situation, but I had to sign a contract to do so. I was told that I can simply cancel at the end of the trip, no charges, no problem. It turns out that 8 months later, I am still being charged by Vodafone Italy. I cancelled the credit card, but because of the way they charge, Master Card gave them the new card number. Master Card seems unwilling to deal with the situation and all I have to prove my point is what some customer rep told me 8 months ago. The charges are still in dispute.
Conclusion: don't sign any contract that you can't read and even then, you better read all the fine print.
Answer: You can get a global sim that will work throughout Europe, the prices for data are on the expensive side, you might want to read some of the relevant answers to this question - about avoiding data roaming fees.
As for trains, all British train information, including booking of tickets, can be found at The Trainline. Prices and journey times vary depending on your route, faster more direct travel is usually more expensive, and buying well in advance can save a lot of money.
Answer: Vodafone works in pretty much all european countries; however at 15Euro for 50MB for traffic (Vodafone.de prepaid roaming data rate) you are better of buying a new (local) sim card in each country.
t-mobile uk offers a cheaper rates (up to 1 Pound/500MB per day), and im pretty sure it will also work in all the other countries on your list.
Comment: User may not be able to buy a sim card in each country without a local address. I had some issues in France with respect to this.
Comment: The actual rates for T-mobile roaming are [here](http://support.t-mobile.co.uk/help-and-support/index?page=home&cat=USING_THE_INTERNET_ABROAD&pcateg=HELPANDADVICE).

How to go to Manchester from London?


When should I not use .com as a generic top-level domain? (.com vs .net, .org, etc.)

Question: I've noticed .com is the standard top-level domain, but when should I not use .com? What are the most common alternatives? If someone has foo.com registered, should I choose a different domain or register foo.somethingelse?
Answer: .com is supposed to indicate a website is a company's commercial presence on the web. They may sell stuff on it or they may simply use the site to promote themselves as a company (i.e. marketing).
.net is supposed to be a company's web presence online. A common use of .net was ISPs who used it for email.
.org is supposed to represent an organization, typically a non-profit.
In reality many people use .net when the .com is taken and even .org simply because they are the most recognized TLDs. .com if of course the most recognized and the general rule is to try to get a recognizable/memorable .com first because that will be the easiest for a user to remember. It's not uncommon for someone who types a domain name into their address bar to type .com instead of .net (or others) simply out of habit or forgetfulness. But if you cannot find a suitable .com but can find a suitable .net (or others) then you should use it because a memorable .net is better then a difficult to remember .com (or a .com that doesn't really indicate what the website is about).
Comment: what about a .com which doesn't indicate what the website is about but in return sounds good, is short (6 letters), easy to pronunciate and to write?
Answer: I would buy the .com TLD of your domain no matter what unless you are a not for profit and plan on buying the .org.  Even then I would buy the .com as well just to so no one can squat on it and compete with your site if it becomes popular enough.
Also, if you are in a country outside of the US I would purchase the ccTLD for that country as well.  In that case, if you are specific to one country, it is often times best to point the .com domain to the ccTLD domain because Google does use the domain name for country specific searches and some things with language.
Finally, purchasing domain names, especially for companies, isn't so much about which TLD you should have but about how to strategically purchase all domains and possible TLDs that relate to your company's name, branded products, services, etc.  Since unowned domains cost so little to purchase it is infinitely easier to purchase everything related to your company now than deal with squatters and court cases later on.  In addition it allows you space to grow.  For instance if you buy the .mobi TLD for your domain but don't get around to developing a mobile version of your site for 4 years, what are you out of?  Probably about $40 which is relatively speaking nothing.
As an example to this strategy, the company I currently working for is a small manufacturing and engineering firm but they own over 300 domains.  Many of these are the same name with different TLDs.  Even with that we have had to deal with 1 or 2 squatters on similar names.  So there is a lot of value in just covering yourself to begin with.
Answer: If you are based in a country that has its own ccTLD and/or you are mostly targeting the audience of said country then use that ccTLD (pretty much all my sites are .is).
If you are running a site for a non-profit organization you should use .org (e.g. archive.org).
Otherwise, you should try to use .com. To quote Joel Spolsky

.coms are a million times better than
  other TLDs.

And if example.com is taken and you register example.net instead, you are just asking for trouble if either your site or theirs becomes successful.
Answer:
I've noticed .com is the standard, but when should I NOT use .com?

In the past, .net was used to indicate internet services like ISPs and .org was used to indicate non-commercial interests (i.e. organizations that did not fit the commercial gTLD). These days, both of these gTLDs are unrestricted so there aren't really any hard and fast rules. I think in a lot of cases it comes down to personal preferences, but you should still have the .com for reasons I'll outline below.
You specifically mention using gTLDs, but another reason you might not want the .com to be your primary TLD could be if you're focusing on a specific country. For instance, I'm Canadian, and it's a minor point of pride/distinction for my blog, so I didn't bother registering the .com TLD, choosing instead to use the .ca ccTLD (country-code top level domain) to indicate that the site is Canadian-run.

If someone has the foo.com registered, should I choose a different domain or register foo.somethingelse?

I think the common advice for this situation is to find a different domain name, especially if the .com is owned by a competitor in your space (there could be legal issues in that case as well). The reason being that .com tends to be the "go-to" choice for domains, and is most easily remembered by the general public. Even if you don't own the .com, a lot of people will likely still end up there simply because that's the default TLD for a lot of users. You'll end up diluting your brand at best, or helping a competitor at worst.
When it comes to registering other TLDs, I've always heard it recommended that you also get the .com for security, and just redirect it to your TLD of choice.


Works of literature that are (ostensibly) about the act of writing

Question: A response to this question.
What short stories, poems or other works of the literary art reflect (directly or indirectly) an author's experience as a writer? What messages do these pieces convey? How should/can these works affect my own writing?
Comment: *Misery* was the first thing which sprung to mind.  I'm not sure what that says about me.
Comment: @mootinator: it says you recognise a work about writing. It is, rather specifically, a treatise on the popular genre writer held hostage by psycho fans and feeling forced to write soulless tripe (and incidentally make a bucketload o cash) instead of the great literature their soul yearns after. Cry me a river Stephen.
Comment: @One *The Dark Half* was also about his experiences as a writer, based on a nightmare he had following putting the Bachman pseudonym to rest.
Answer: Art is obsession, and how well (or badly) it's dealt with seems to fascinate artists.
Ernest Hemingway was the focus of Dan Simmons's The Crook Factory, a faux-historical novel set mostly in Cuba; and also Joe Haldeman's The Hemingway Hoax, where the eponymous hoax is interrupted by the ghost of Hemingway itself (maybe, the story isn't all that clear on that). The former book is more about the writer and his effect on the protagonist, an FBI agent, the latter about his writings and he process of writing (even though it's the process of forging prose that will fool experts). Both books are concerned with the effect of Hemingway's strong personality on the viewpoint characters. He was a colorful figure, and I wouldn't be surprised ol' Ernest is a character in many more books.
Three installments of Neil Gaiman's Sandman graphic novel concern William Shakespeare and the act of writing: more specifically, Men of Good Fortune, A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest are three issues that concern The Bard and his deal with Morpheus. This mini-arc echoes throughout the rest of the 75-installment tale and concerns preserving great stories, and the sort of immortality an artist can achieve. My favorite line from the entire work is "The price of getting what you want, is getting what you once wanted." (Typed from memory.)
I'll round this out with a fictional example: Kilgore Trout is perhaps the most well-known hack writer in American literature. Kurt Vonnegut's creation was actually based on Theodore Sturgeon, and the character's most significant appearance is in Breakfast of Champions, where he finds out that he is the creation of another writer, and he meets his maker near the end of the novel. Trout writes what seems would be terrible stories, and has published dozens of them in his life. However, he has his fans, who seek out their idol's work in porn shops and bargain bins. This endlessly fascinating character has written books he's never even seen a copy of, but are published somewhere. The message seems to be that life is a pointless farce, and there is no message except for what we may read into it. Life may be dreary, but let's laugh at it anyway!
I also find that, while I'm reading any story with Kilgore Trout in it, I find myself more conscious that this is a book written by a writer, and that these are words on a page. I somehow still care about the characters, especially the "minor", insignificant bit-parts.

Sooner or later, I think most artists will create a work that's meta to at least some degree. Pete Townshend wrote Psychoderelict, the story of an aging, artistically failing hippie rocker in the modern world; Pink in The Wall nearly dies of a drug overdose before playing a concert; Federico Fellini made the wonderfully confusing 8 1/2, a film about a director creating a film that cannibalizes his own life; and (my favorite), [Title of Show], A broadway musical about two guys writing a musical about writing a musical.
In general, the theme of mining life for artistic inspiration comes up often. In Gaiman's The Tempest, Shakespeare notes that when his son died, he mourned, but was also glad: Now he could write of true tragedy and make the pit weep true tears. In The Crook Factory, Simmons notes that everything in Hemingway's life was secondary to Hemingway. Kilgore Trout is the only writer on this page who did not let his art consume his life, and he's fictional. Similar themes are veined throughout the three non-literary works I mentioned above, and are resolved with varying degrees of healthy outcomes.
Answer: Stranger Than Fiction is a movie that comes to mind.
Answer: The Shining by Stephen King.

What messages do these pieces convey?

The message of The Shining is that if you try to write a story you won't write a story. Instead, you'll go mad and attack your family with an axe.

How should/can these works affect my own writing?

The Shining should affect your own writing by inspiring you to distill all of your thoughts, ideas, emotional insights, and observations into a single sentence.
Answer: Eudora Welty's One Wrtier's Beginnings weaves together in an absolutely lovely way the story of her journey as a writer.  Along the way she shows how her own sensibilities as a writer were shaped.  This book helped me think about my own journey as a writer and also is helpful in directing future journeys.
Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird is ostensibly a non-fiction work on writing, but contains many autobiographical elements.  The autobiographical elements not only keep the work engaging and the reader interested, but also help to make the instruction in the book concrete.
Answer: Two short stories that seem (to me) to be obvious metaphores for the author's relationship with writing:
Albert Camus', "Jonas or the Artist at Work"
Kafka's, "A Hunger Artist"
[Spiolers to follow]
Both stories depict artists who were at one time famous and respected but overtime become forgotten and frail.
Camus' story is about an artist who completely dedicates himself to coming up with the most perfect piece of art and after weeks of ceaseless labor produces an almost completely empty canvass.
Kafka's story describes a "starving artist" whose talent is so innate that it pretty much enslaves him.
Answer: Saul Bellow's Herzog seems to me to be about the identity of a writer: a troubled middle-aged man in the Midwest (of America) who writes letters to people he knows, but also to dead authors and thinkers. His life as reflected in the book is largely lived out in conversation with literary greats through letters he never sends.
Answer: Just read 'Wicked', by Gregory Maguire, which was about imagination and used the Oz books by L. Frank Baum as a jumping off point. Also, 'A Very Long Engagement', which was a novel, set in the Great War (who knew it'd go into sequels?) that was very self-reflective about writing.


WEP or WPA what should I use for my WiFi networks connection

Question: Which protocol should I use and why?
Answer: My understanding of wireless security protocol strength, starting with most secure:

WPA2-AES
WPA2-TKIP
WPA
WEP

Search for WEP cracking and you'll find plenty of tutorials on cracking it in 10 minutes on common PCs.  WPA is significantly more difficult to crack, but each version has its weak points.  WPA2-AES is considered top of the line last I heard and supported by pretty much all modern routers and OS's.
See these Security Now! past episodes for in-depth explanations:

Episode 170, The TKIP Hack
Episode 89, Even More Badly Broken WEP
Comment: AES is very secure. If AES ever becomes unsecure, wireless security will be the least of our problems =)
Answer: WEP if you want to get hacked.
WPA if you don't.
Comment: And WPA2 is significantly better than WPA.
Answer: use WPA2 or WPA
Here is furthere reading on this
Here are a few reasons why use WPA over WEP
WPA vs WEP
Answer: At this point there is no good reason to use WEP outside lessons on hacking.  WPA is easier to use, safer, and standard on all clients that you'll encounter.
Answer: As long as all of your wireless client devices (phones, laptops, PDAs, etc.) support it, use WPA2 with AES encryption instead of WEP.
If you have users with old driver software, operating systems, and wireless cards, you may be limited in what you can do. Most devices that originally supported only WEP can be upgraded via software to support WPA with TKIP, but they may not be able to support WPA with AES or WPA2 with AES.
There are lots of old special-purpose devices out there that may only support WEP. For those legacy devices, you may want to create a separate SSID and VLAN along with super-strict firewall policies.
For personal use, WEP with a "closed network" (where the SSID is not broadcast in beacon frame) is enough to say "this isn't a public network" to keep your honest neighbors from hopping onto your network. It won't keep hackers out, but you are probably more vulnerable to the latest worm/virus than someone trying to hack into your home computer from within a few hundred feet of your house. :)
For office use, you should use WPA2-PSK+AES (pre-shared key) with a strong passphrase at the least. Ideally, you will be able to use "WPA2 Enterprise", which means that you use something more secure and manageable than a shared secret (your domain credentials, a smart card, one-time password, or client certificate) to get onto the network. This will require a RADIUS server and some kind of centralized authentication system.
Answer: It depends on the devices you want to connect to your computer and the standards that they support. If even one of the devices you need uses WEP, you'll need to either set up your router for WEP (and pray that no one preys on you) or buy a new device with the same functionality that supports WPA (which I personally recommend, if you can afford it).
Answer: WPA is also easier to remember your shared secret.  What do you want to try to remember or look up when new people come onto your network.
A key that is 0-9 and a-f or a WPA shared key that can be any phrase you want to create.
Answer: WPA every time... in regards to WEP, in the words of the late, great Bill Hicks, "There's harder sh*t on the streets of New York City!"
Answer: WEP should never be used again - it is so obsolete that it can be cracked in seconds: [link text][1]
[1]: http://www.think-security.com/wireless-wep-insecurity/"WEP insecurity"


Can I transfer my achievements along with my save?

Question: A few days ago I went to a friend's house for a sleepover and he let me play Skyrim. I made a lot of progress. He sent me my saved game via email because I'm buying Skyrim. When I load my saved game, will I get the achievements I should have got if I were playing the game on my computer?
Answer: I don't think you will get the achievements because you played it with his Steam account and not yours. I think you will get all the achievements you earn after that save point, though.
Answer: You will not get any achievements for loading a save, because the save has no information about what achievements have been unlocked. Unlocking an achievement is not recorded anywhere except Steam itself.
Answer: Unfortunately, it does not work that way.  You must do the achievements logged onto your steam account.  Any achievements you get from that save point forward however, will go on the account that is currently logged in (should be yours) while playing.
If you were able to just transfer saves and get the achievements from that saves, people would be trying to sell their 100% achievement saves and people would be out to buy it, making achievements worthless or at least cheapening their value.
Answer: I know it is a 2012 question, and I know what everybody said, but I will add my two cents here, for future reasons.
First thing, you must understand that it is wrong to say this method "does not work at all".
You have to understand how Steam look for achievements, and as far as I know, this implementation may vary from game to game.
Example: I once had a save of Braid on my old Windows which I beaten (including the 8 stars), I lost this save and start again, both without Steam. So, these days I've got Braid  on Steam from a friend and load my save replacing it on AppData, no achievements given. I understood that I would have to do it all again and deleted. However, Steam uploaded that save to SteamCloud and load it again, and now I have all (except speedrun) achievements done on the exact same time.

The same happen with my old Super Meat Boy save, tough it worked right on the first time I replaced it. But because all the achievements were something like, "Had something completed/unlocked", it keeps checking for them every time. What I mean is, you normally  will not get any achievements similar to "Do this without dying" because it checks this at specific moments (except if the game it self has it own way to save that you did it).
I cannot say enough about your case, when I tried to load my save on Skyrim and tryed the same thing I stated on Braid, no achievements were given anyway. But for future people looking to this question with other games in mind, I have to say it is not something totally sure if it will work or not, it is worth a try.


Audio interface sample rate issue

Question: I'm looking at the PreSonus Audiobox 22VSL USB 2.0 and it says it has the option of 44.1kHz, 48kHz, 88.2kHz, and 96kHz sample rates, but it says its digital to analoge and analoge to digital conversion dynamic range sample rates are "114dB, 48kHz sample rate, A-wtd"
I was wondering which sample rate should I be paying attention to and what the difference between the two are.
Answer: "48kHz sample rate, A-wtd" is just telling you under what conditions the "114dB" dynamic range reading was achieved. It doesn't really tell you a-lot in all honesty, however almost all modern audio interfaces (including this one) will be more than cable of a decent quality recording and sound reproduction.
In regards to sample rates it's not something to get to hung-up about, many arguments come about related to sample rates, but in reality 44.1kHz is 'more' than adequate for any regular audio needs, 48kHz is very handy for the purpose of audio for video for compatibility reasons.
To justify my reasoning behind this, first read up on the Nyquist-shannon theorem. This states that a signal can be perfectly reconstructed provided that the maximum frequency (bandlimit) does not exceed half of the sampling rate (i.e. recording at a higher sample rate does not provide more information as the signal can already be 'perfectly' reconstructed, it is not an approximation!).
So given this information a sample rate of 44.1kHz allows a theoretical maximum frequency of 22.05kHz before an effect known as 'aliasing' occurs. One argument is that this would require a very steep low-pass filter to prevent any frequencies exceeding 22.05kHz getting through (and causing aliasing), while allowing all frequencies below 22.05kHz through. However consider that at very best our ears can hear a maximum of about 20kHz, this would have to be quite a high level in comparison to other frequencies as we dont hear all frequencies of equal level (Equal Loudness Contour), and to be honest you will soon find anything above about 17/18kHz isn't really desirable (you may not even be able to hear it!).
If your end medium is going to be a set sample rate (such as CD at 44.1kHz or video at 48kHz), then it may be worth sticking to these rates which reduces possibility of other noises being introduced at the conversion stage (see: src.infinitewave.ca).
I'll add one more point and that's, if you need to capture frequencies outside the audible range or would like to for whatever purpose then of course 88.2kHz or 96kHz or even higher sampling rates are acceptable choices, but remember that few microphones can capture frequencies this high!
For some further reading on the subject should it interest you try these:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun05/articles/qa0605_6.htm
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul12/articles/qanda-0712-1.htm
(some talk here of why you 'might' want to go to 88.2kHz or 96kHz)

also check out Lavry-engineering if you become interested from a more technical point of view.

Audio interface sample rate issue


Are "customizable" programming languages more widely used than not as "customizable" ones?

Question: Are languages which are very customizable, like Python (see for example goto in Python, lightweight Python type-checking) and Javascript (see jQuery for one example of this) more widely used than languages which cannot be customized very much?
Comment: I read the title and thought instantly of C in a monkey suit ;)
Comment: This one time I heard the python interpreter was written in C...does that mean python is just C in a snake suit?
Comment: @SK-Logic What type of animal do you consider a python to be?
Comment: @Pemdas, what's the connection between Python and snakes?
Comment: @glenatron, why do you call Monty Python group an animal?
Comment: @SK-logic: He's calling the python, which is a type of snake, an animal.  (Where do you think the comedians got the word from?)
Comment: I suppose that would make python C in a coconut?
Comment: @back2dos? ...wha?
Answer: These languages are well suited for rapid prototyping and for small projects. So they are popular in web development. But in a large project, the use of such languages only increases the complexity. Because you can never be sure which type you are working with in a given piece of code.
Answer: Are customizable languages widely used, may or may not be. But they sure stay around for a long time.
The thing about survival is a term called 'evolution'. You can never solve problems you can possibly face in the future right 'now'. There are many reasons for that. I think its basically because we can't anticipate what problems we may try to solve in the future. We don't even know what kind of problem those will be. We don't know how complex they will be. Hence the only way to ensure survival over long term is to open the door for 'Extensibility'. There are many languages which open doors for 'extensibility'. How they open doors for extensibility differs.
I think speaking from a purely layman's perspective. Most people confuse libraries and existing syntax tricks as extensibility. Which is not true. Lisp family of languages have macros to deal with this problem, you can easily build a DSL bend and extend the language the way you want it. However the cost you pay for it is to write the language in an homoiconic syntax, which often doesn't go down with a lot of people.
In the scripting languages arena, Perl is emerging as a very extensible and customizable language these days. Modules like Devel::Declare, Moose, Moosex::'sugar' , Try::Tiny et al are making language extensibility very simple. This is what true customization and extensibility will look like. Perl 6 is more customizable in the terms that there the grammar itself is changeable!!! The advantage of these sort of things if after some time you come to know something more powerful and better can be done with more power and alternate syntax you can easily do it without messing up with interpreter core and breaking backwards compatibility. Its only a syntax plugin after all, it will be there as long you need it. Then when the new stuff comes along you can shift to with the only code changes being import statements. These sort of languages will hang on for real long time because they combine power, flexibility and fast pace of development in one umbrella at the same time being extensible and evolvable.
On the other hand you can clearly see what happens when such level of extensibility is absent. The syntax becomes very  brittle, any thing you try to do to change it breaks backwards compatibility and maintaining the grammar and growing it over time takes a lot of time. C++ and Java are standing testimonies to this things. Many other scripting language will soon follow.
Python is a very good language in the sense its simple, very easily readable and maintainable. But its hardly customizable and extensible in the 'true sense'. Its powers lie elsewhere. Its easy to learn and some very good web frameworks are out there to help out folks who are planning to make it big in that area.
So extensible and customizable languages may not be widely used, but they will sure last long.
Answer: I'm not sure that a programming language can be "customizable" in the full sense of that word.  What you're talking about has more to do with what features a language offers and if those features are "powerful" enough to let you emulate things from other languages.  Then to ask if this vague category is more popular than the alternative.
Well, since C++, Java, and the rest of the C/Simula derived ilk are the most popular, I guess the answer is no.  Which isn't to say those languages don't have similar abilities in some regards, but those dynamic languages tend to make it a bit easier to extend with new features.  Likewise while Python, Ruby, and other dynamic languages are pretty popular in the web space, the MOST extensible language, Lisp, continues to carry on at roughly same relative popularity it's always had.
To be clear though, I think a lot of misconceptions are floating about in the other answers though.  A language does not have to be dynamic or unsafe to be extensible. Haskell is probably the most powerful language I'm aware of besides Lisp, and also the most strongly typed language.  Haskell's combination of functional programming with inferred, highly-generic typing means that functions can be very general but also compile time enforced for correct types and safe usage.  Being able to rig up a goto in Python is neat, or to use method-chaining to act like a mini-language in JQuery is really clever, but in a powerful enough language you don't even need those constructs.
Answer: Lisp is probably the most "customizable"(1) mainstream programming language available--using macros, it's possible to entirely change the syntax and add language features.  Just look at Common Lisp--it was standardized in 1984 and has since added an advanced object-oriented system (CLOS) along with countless other major and minor features.  Java, on the other hand, is about as un-"customizable" as you can get--you have no choice but to use its particular form of object-oriented programming, and like it (you don't even get operator overloading).  If you want a language feature, you have to cross your fingers and wait years for the next version of the language to come out.
Now, look at the TIOBE Index.  Java is ranked as the number 1 language, whereas all lisp dialects together rank as number 15.  After Java are C, C++, and C#, all of them highly un-customizable.
So no, customizable languages are not more popular.
(1) I'm assuming you mean something along the lines of support for metaprogramming and other ways of extending the language.  Python isn't especially customizable in this regard.


touring bicycle with roadster frame

Question: I am from India and am planning to get a new bicycle. In India the roadster bicycles are very common, hence are cheap and easy to get. Roadsters have 28.5'' diameter wheels. Is it possible to fit 700c wheels to roadster frame, install drops and new drivetrain (and brakes) to make it perform like a tourer?
Comment: Why to underrate it? The question is clearly explained and actual.
Answer: I'm not sure of the exact size of your rims, as it doesn't appear that a 28.5 inch tire is mentioned anywhere in Sheldon Brown's rim sizing chart. However, there is mention of a 28 inch wheel which is used on "Indian Rod-brake roadsters". The actual measurement for this rim is 635 mm. 700c wheels have a 622mm BSD.  This means that 700c road bike tires are smaller (assuming your bike has 700b tires mentioned on Sheldon's site).  Which means you may be able to fit the 700c rims on your bike, provided your brakes have enough reach.  Check the rim size by reading the numbers off the tires. There should be a number there like 635 or 700b if they do use the 28" tires.
As to the question installing drops and a new drive train and brakes, that might present other problems. If this is the type of roadster you are referring to, there's a couple things you'll have to look out for. Dropbars could be easily installed, but there's a lot of other stuff to consider. Is the rear hub spacing the right size to accommodate a wheel with a standard road cogset.  Are there proper mounts for caliper brakes.  The bike in the provided link has "rod brakes" that use rods instead of cables.  Can the bottom bracket be replaced with one that is compatible with a crankset you like.  It might just be easier to keep your eye out for a used road bike rather than try to convert a roadster into a road bike.  You'll have to buy quite a few new parts, and often the price of the parts far exceeds the price of a bike.
Answer: I actually have done this with a flying pigeon.  I put 700c rims on the bike and it worked fine. Im not sure its worth you investing the money based on one response, but I have definitely had good luck with it.  It needs to be a single speed or an internal hub (that is what I did)
Answer: It's hard for us to speak with any certainty about your particular bike that's halfway around the earth. However, it doesn't sound like you'll be able to do it, 700c wheels are 29" in diameter and your wheels are 28.5" in diameter, so they may or may not be half an inch too big.
Comment: To be more precise, 700c wheels have a 522mm (24.5 inch) bead seat diameter. While the larger mountain bike tires are called 29" and also use the 700c/622mm standard (only with wider rims), the reason they are called 29" is partly because that's roughly the size of the outside of the tire once you put a big mountain bike tire on it, and also partly for marketing as standard mountain bike tires are called 26 inch. Which again, aren't actually 26 inches unless you measure the outside diameter of the tire, which can vary quite a bit depending on the tire.

touring bicycle with roadster frame


Is it a good practice set connection strings in a web config?

Question: Recently I have a discussion with some of my colleagues at my work because they said that it's better have in a .DLL a string connection encrypted. And I said why just don't use the string connection defined in the web.config encrypted? it's the same and it's better because entity framework, for example looks for the name of the connection in the web config of the application, Now i want to know from a security point what's better or what's the best practice??
Comment: Of course, you could just have the application run as a domain user and only allow that user to access the database. Then they need access to LDAP to break into your database.
Comment: @pdr: the connection string will still reveal some info that you would prefer not to be revealed if the webserver was compromised, e.g. the name of the database server and the name of the database.
Answer: There's no substantive difference, except that you'll have to actually build a binary if you wanted to make a configuration change if you put it in a DLL, whereas an admin could just modify the configuration with well-understood off-the-shelf tools if it's in the config. There's already a mechanism for encrypting configuration strings and additional guidance on MSDN. Current versions of Asp.Net may have alternative mechanisms, so do some additional research before committing to an approach.
Just because something is sitting in a DLL, doesn't make it any more secure. A text editor can open binary files just as well, tools like Reflector can provide a nicer interface to navigating a .Net DLL; a DLL won't provide any "extra" encryption.
Comment: Test is binary, binary is numbers, if somebody can read the 1's and 0's your physical and software security has failed.
Answer: It doesn't matter where the encrypted data is stored, it matters how it's encrypted.
Encrypted sections in an web.config are normally encrypted with the Data Protection API, which is extremely difficult to crack without compromising the entire machine. You can also use an RSA key container, which is similar (difficult to get those off the machine).
If you want to store the encrypted string in the DLL, that's fine, I guess, although it's not inherently any more secure than an encrypted web.config (anybody can peek into that DLL with Reflector), and is obviously harder to change (you'd need to recompile).  But again, what's a lot more important is how that encrypted string was generated; presumably you're not using the same providers as you would for an encrypted web.config, so what are you using?
An encryption scheme is only as strong as the private key or shared secret. If that key is also stored in your assembly, then you might as well have no encryption at all. If it's stored in some external database, then it raises the question of how that database's connection string is secured. This can really only lead to weaker security overall.
On the other hand, if you were a service provider and the connection string were encrypted with a user password, then that would be more secure than using a static machine key. Then again, if you're using user passwords to encrypt, it's pretty unlikely that you'd be hard-coding the encrypted data in your assembly, since it needs to be generated and stored in response to user (not developer) action.
Really I can't think of too many situations where hard-coding an (encrypted) connection string in the DLL is any more secure than encrypting the relevant web.config section. At best it's just adding inconvenience, at worst it's relying on some clumsily-written custom security riddled with holes. Do yourself a favour and do what Microsoft recommends - just encrypt your web.config if there's sensitive data in there.
Answer: The best practice for ASP.NET is put all configurations/settings in the web.config file or app.config file (for other project types).
About encryption and the reason to use it on your connection strings have to be a very special case. Because most cases up to 99% you don't need to encrypt your connection strings. Microsoft own enterprise applications have their connection string exposed in the web.config/app.config file. I think you are over complicating security.
One more thing, hard-coding your connection strings is bad practice. For instance, do not put any connection string (aka connectionstring) in a DLL or .aspx/.ascx/.cshtml or code-behind.
Comment: You should never have a password in clear text in a config file.  Just because it is an enterprise application behind firewalls doesn't mean it is safe and you can forget about security.


Why did Russia give up its claims to the Oregon Country?

Question: Originally, everyone in the area claimed the Oregon Country: the British, Americans, Spanish, and Russians.  Why did Russia give up its claim to the region?  What did they get in return?
Answer: The Russo-American Treaty of 1824 established a clear border between American and Russian lands on the West Coast as well as trade. It gave Russian claims south of parallel 54°40′ north to the US.
Russia was inclined to give away this territory, which was in dispute between them, Britain, America and Spain, to insure their undisputed and ongoing ownership over Alaska. They were in no position to enforce their claims militarily and the trade value of territories other than Alaska was limited. They decided to get the best agreement that they could to avoid conflict.
A few years later, even Alaska became difficult for them to manage, and, once again fearing losing the land without compensation to either the US or Britain, they negotiated the Alaska purchase.
Comment: +1 for including a link to the text of the actual treaty.
Answer: Russia (and Spain) had the weaker claims to "Oregon." Russia claimed only a piece of the territory between 54 and 51 degrees parallel (not the whole), basically as an extension of Alaska, into what is now British Columbia. Even this claim had to be backed up by forces coming all the way from European Russia through Siberia. Likewise, Spain claimed basically the modern Oregon, not the whole country, as an extension of California. But when Mexico (which then included California, Texas, and almost everything in between) won its independence, Spain's claims to the Oregon country disappeared.
That left only Britain (via Canada) and the U.S. (via the "Louisiana" Purchase territories), to claim the whole territory that the British called Columbia, and the Americans called Oregon. Since their claims in the region were small and tenuous anyway, Russia made separate treaties with Britain and the United States to relinquish her "Oregon" claims in exchange for their recognizing her ownership of nearby Alaska. Britain and the United States then settled their claims by dividing it along the 49th parallel, with Britain's share taking the name British Columbia, and America's share being divided into Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.
Answer: Oregon was way too remote to be supplied from St.Petersburg and it did not bring much back to the country: it is hard to believe today but North American possessions were drain on Russia's resources at the time.


Was the original Evil Dead meant to be funny?

Question: In The Evil Dead series of Sam Raimi movies, the two sequels are meant to be funny. But was that the intent of the original movie?
Comment: [I think this remake will be comedic](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evil_Dead_(2013_film))
Comment: YES, it was supposed to have comedy elements.
Answer: Yes and no.
Raimi and co wanted to make a film, but felt that going for a comedy wasn't a great idea - and after doing their research at the local drive-in, knew that horror was the way to go.
They made a short horror promo, Within the Woods, and the positive reaction they got from this propelled the development and shooting of Evil Dead.
Even though they were going for a full-on gross out movie, Raimi's camera techniques and love of The Stooges tinged the film - and created  a horror hybrid that has influenced generations of filmmakers since.
Answer: Sam and Ted Raimi already made lots of comedies, I have a rare disc of some old short films he did before Evil Dead. It also has the Original Evil Dead on it, before it was Evil Dead, which is just twenty minutes long, I believe it was called "Within The Woods" or something like that I'm not going to check right now, but I believe that's what it's called. I have also read "If Chins Could Kill" And know Bruce Campbell's side of the story...
So, it was totally meant to be a horror movie. What happened was a local critic reviewed some of their comedy films and said that it was so ridiculous and stupid that the writers could never do anything serious, like a horror film. Sam and Ted Raimi thought they'd prove them wrong by doing the short film Within The Woods. It was meant to be scary, and when they got a lot of good reception from it, they decided to make it a full length movie and started raising money, but they tried to keep it true to the short film, which meant still scary. They WERE NOT trying to make it comedic. They were trying to stray from comedy for this one, and then they brought in the comedy for Evil Dead II.
Answer: NO, well I am not surprised by your question, it sure looks like a comedy when you watch it today but it was supposed to be a horror movie and it really was at the time.  Horror movies were not as realistic in 1981 as they are now. Today horror movies do not show ghost's face  directly they just create an ambiance where you would get sucked into the movie and get scared.
Coming back to your question, Evil Dead 1981 was a horror movie it was the first horror movie I watched as a kid in mid 90's when I was like 5-6 (had trouble sleeping for months). The IMDB mentions only one genere for this movie and that is "Horror".
Answer: No. Evil Dead (1981) not a comedy.
Evil Dead 2, definitely a comedy. And the third one, man, I don't know what that was.
Of course, if you look the first one's "special effects", they look very funny, but that's just because of low budget. They were clearly not ment to be funny.
Comment: But was it *intentional* is what matt_black was asking.


Date cookies are thin and spread out

Question: When I bake my date cookies they spread out and don't get high.  They are very thin.  I follow the recipe but this happens.  There is baking soda and baking powder in the recipe.  Any suggestions?
Comment: This isn't enough information for us to help you. What is the exact recipe, has anybody else been known to get good results with it, did you measure by weight, and what are your baking skills (e.g. some recipes only list ingredients assuming that the baker knows the correct order of mixing, the correct ingredient temperature and which stages are sensitive to overmixing)?
Answer: Presumably, you're following a standard cookie recipe that creams together butter and sugar, mixes with some flour, and adds leavening and other stuff.
In my experience, thin cookies are usually the result of two things: too much liquid, and white sugar. The ratio of dry ingredients to wet ones should be pretty self explanatory: for thicker cookies you might want to try adding less liquid, and/or more flour.
More likely is that you're using too much white sugar. White sugar liquifies at a high enough temperature, and in cookies this translates to a spreading out of the dough while baking. Then when the cookies are cooled and the sugar crystallizes again, the cookies become hard.
To remedy this, start by substituting half of the white sugar in your recipe for brown sugar. You can also try experimenting with other sweeteners such as molasses and honey, which should also help the cookies stay thicker (and likewise more cakey). Just keep adjusting the ratio of white sugar to other sweeteners until you get the texture you like.
Answer: Substituting half of the white sugar for brown sugar should work, but I've found that if I'm making a lot of cookies the temperature of the room rises due to the constant heat leaking from the oven.  The problem with most recipes is that they assume that the dough and oven remain at a constant temperature and don't account for baking multiple trays of cookies with hot baking sheets, hot kitchen, etc.
First, make sure that you're using softened butter and creaming it properly with the sugar.  I use a regular fork and press the butter and sugar together (if you have a pastry blender, even better).  I know too many people that have your problem because they microwaved the butter until it became oil x_x
Second, if the room is a bit warm and the dough has a sort of slimy texture try sticking the dough in the refrigerator for an hour or so.  Make sure that the dough is sealed airtight so that no nasty fridge smells mess up your cookies -- I use cling wrap pressed tightly against the dough in the bowl.
Answer: I have to disagree with the two answers above in regards to the brown sugar. Brown sugar always have more moisture (unless you left it out and its dry as a rock. in which case its not very good brown sugar anymore) than granulated white sugar which makes the problem worse. What I would suggest is to throw the dough into the refrigerator for a hour or two.
Comment: Brown sugar contains slightly more moisture, but it doesn't melt as easily as white sugar in the oven and tends to stay in crystals.

Date cookies are thin and spread out


Can a norm only be defined on vector spaces?

Question: All examples I have come across so far deal with norm defined on a vector space. Can norm only be defined on vector spaces?
Comment: That depends on your definition of "norm."
Answer: For instance, a norm can be defined on an abelian group: see Section 2.4 of these notes.
It is perhaps less commonly done, but one can define a norm on any group: see Exercise 2.17 in the aforelinked lecture notes.
Of course there are many structures throughout mathematics that are called "norms", and you can make more if you want!  But the above example is very closely related to the norm on a vector space: there is an induced metric, and so forth.  In fact a norm on a vector space in the usual sense gives a norm on the underlying additive group $(V,+)$.
Answer: The word "norm" is also used in connection with  Euclidean domains (ring theory), although that Wikipedia page tries to avoid confusion by preferring instead "Euclidean function".  Example:  The degree of a univariate polynomial with coefficients over a field gives a norm for that kind of ring to be a Euclidean domain.
Answer: There are other kinds of norms, like field norms and norms of ideals. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norm#In_mathematics


Why do I want to run Tomato firmware on my router?

Question: What is the most compelling reason to flash your router to the Tomato firmware?
Comment: I was wondering the same thing last week... I ended up using dd-wrt 2.4 on my WRT350N for the time being..
Answer: Things I like about it:

Free
Very stable
Very easy to install on Linksys WRT54G routers
Allows you to increase your wifi signal strength!
UI is simpler and faster than the stock Linksys UI
bandwidth monitor helps me to see how much bandwidth others are using on my network, so I know why hulu is skipping, etc
The wireless survey is a nice, easy way to see what channels your neighbors are using, so you can set your wifi to a clear channel
Simple access restriction

The signal boost was the clincher for me.  The stock firmware on the earlier WRT54G routers wouldn't let me adjust the signal strength, but Tomato lets me do that.  Before I upgraded to Tomato, I couldn't get a clear signal in the back room in my house.  Now, it's as clear as any other room.
Answer: Tomato is pretty much "fire and forget".  The bandwidth graphs are nice, and it's really quite easy to configure.  It lets you ssh in, if you want to fiddle with low level settings, but ever since I set it up, I don't think I've ever went back into the UI.
It just works, and works well.
Answer: It supports wireless bridging (WDS) if you want to set up more than one router to cover a large space.
But the biggest thing is that it's very stable. I don't ever have to reboot the router because of a freeze or a problem.
Answer: I think most people run one of the alternate WRT firmwares (like Tomato, OpenWRT, DD-WRT, Packet Protector, etc) just for the geeky fun of it.
However, there are some extra features that these firmwares have that are not available in the stock firmware.   For example, others here have mentioned the ability to increase your radio output power beyond what's allowed with the vendor firmware.
The big one for me was that the stock Linksys firmware on my WRT54GL wouldn't allow me to setup a static NAT such that a service was available on the outside (internet) on a different port than it was actually running on the internal server.  Specifically, I wanted to allow SSH access to one of my home boxes on several alternate ports (long story), but I didn't want to have to setup SSH on my home box to run on those ports.  The default Linksys firmware would allow that, but Tomato does.
Some of the other alternate WRT firmwares offer even more features.   I'm considering upgrading my router from Tomato to OpenWRT because I'd like to run OpenWRT will let me setup my WRT54GL as an OpenVPN server.
So the shortened answer would be two reasons to run Tomato or otherwise reflash your router:
1) if you want to use features that are in Tomato (or another alternate WRT firmware) that aren't in the vendors stock firmware
2) just for kicks!  :-)
Answer: I think the biggest one for me is the Quality of Service support.  Sure, you can do it on the Linksys firmware, but it's extremely limited.
With Tomato, you can set your BitTorrent traffic to Lowest priority, your HTTP browsing to High and your Skype to Highest.  That means that your HTTP and VOIP traffic will always be serviced before BT, which is nice if you have a lot of downloaders in your house.
I found that, before I switched to Tomato, whenever people used BitTorrent the network would slow to crawl (and be pretty much unusable).  Now with Tomato, the network is smooth as silk.
Answer: For me:
Lots and lots of usage statistics :)
Comment: What are you using the statistics for?
Comment: To see who is using the most amount of bandwidth in the household
Answer: Nice real-time tracking of traffic as seen at http://www.polarcloud.com/img/ssbwm100.png
Answer: Stability and ease of configuration were my two big reasons when comparing it to other open sourced firmware releases but the real gem was a relatively easy to configure qos implementation.
I was easily able to configure several routers in a secure bridge and they're as stable as can be... to my knowledge they've never had to be rebooted.
Answer: Lots of additional features to customize.  My favorite is iptables.  You can filter ports and protocols specificly and not be dependent on the vendor's firmware having exposed a 'checkbox'.  Bandwidth monitoring is also a plus.
Answer: Control.  Tomato gives you a lot of control over your router that you  don't (usually) get with the standard firmware.  To give a few examples:
I mapped IPs to MAC addresses, so my each interface on my network will always have the same local IP.
I enabled passwordless SSH on my router.  Then is used an alias in my .bashrc so I just type "router" and I'm logged into my router via SSH.


How to get rid of cellulite?

Question: What types of workouts or other things need to be done in order get rid of cellulite?
Answer: If you have cellulite, it's going to be the last place your body loses fat because it's the hardest to access for energy.  You have to lose cellulite through diet and exercise just like any other type of fat.
Try taking Yohimbine HCl to help mobilize the fat.  It seems to redistribute the fat and you should lose weight more evenly when taking it.
Even when I am getting ready for a bodybuilding contest, the cellulite on my butt sticks around until only a few weeks out.  I can be ripped everywhere else, and still have a little cellulite texture on my butt.  To some degree it's genetic, and there's not a whole lot you can do about it
Answer: Massaging the targeted area can also help reduce cellulite. For example, when showering, scrub and massage the affected area for several minutes a few times a week. This helps. Some cellulite treatments do actually work - St. Ives makes a couple of good brands of cellulite creams. The other thing that helps is mosturizing the areas - when the outer skin texture is thin, the cellulite shows more. Which is why we see more cellulite as we get older.
Comment: http://www.stives.com/Hand-(and)-Body-Lotion/Flawless-Beauty/Cellulite-Shield-Gel-Cr%C3%A8me/

and this one: http://www.stives.com/Hand-(and)-Body-Lotion/Flawless-Beauty/Cellulite-Shield-Lotion/
Answer: VelaShape is a new treatment that is out that is supposed to contour the body and reduce cellulite. There are also creams that can help reduce the appearance for short periods of time.
Combining cardio and toning exercises when working out will also help to create a leaner look.
Answer: Your best bet is to workout in a way so that you do many reps with relatively low weight. That way, you will start losing weight and getting into a shape. Were you to workout with high weights and few reps, you'd start gaining weight. Other than that, there isn't any treatment for cellulite.
Do some cycling and running and when in the gym, use low weights and go for 5 series of 30 reps, that should be enough to start losing weight where it isn't welcome :)
Answer: You can't "target" fat loss. You'll see a lot of people doing sit-ups to try and burn the belly fat but it just doesn't work. You need to get your body to access that fat. My suggestion is to do morning cardio BEFORE you eat. This is known as "fasted" cardio. What kind of cardio? My favorite is high-volume low impact, ie WALKING. You won't lose muscle doing this but your body will be more likely to access those fat stores. Good luck!

How to get rid of cellulite?


What are the advantages of online photo editors like picnik.com?

Question: Why do you use online photo editors like picnik.com instead of desktop software?
Note: Google have recently announced that as of April 19, 2012, picnik will be discontinued.
Answer: I used Picnik several times when sharing stuff on flickr, mostly just for cropping something that I didn't see before uploading. It also does (reasonably) good white balance correction. Its convenient and easy enough to use.
I'm a SOOC (straight out of camera) type of person, though, so I don't do much post-processing. If I can't fix it with a crop or WB correction, I generally go back and re-shoot it.
Answer: I have used Picnik for some basic edits of pictures I've upload to Flickr.
It is okay for a quick crop or levels correction of the mobile phones I upload.
One things I've noticed about the free version at least is that when you save the image the JPEG compression is quite high, which is good if you want to reduce the file size but bad if you want to keep the quality of the original. So my advice would to always, save it as a new image and keep the unaltered original.
Answer: Picnik is integrated into SmugMug, so I've used them just because it was easily available when I was away from home and my real tools. At home, I'd never dream of using a slow web based service over my native tools on my mac when I have them available.
I've mostly used it to make simple tweaks to images I've uploaded from my phone while away from home. Stuff like cropping a shot tighter to remove someone from the background, or fixing the wild color cast because the iPhone got confused by the neon behind us. I'd love to do that on the phone, but have yet to find a decent tool to do it with.
Answer: I have not seen anything quite like picnik.com. online. Photoshop.com is close enough. But picnik is the best of the lot.
One interesting use of online photo editors is that, you can edit anywhere, from your work or from your computer, or school, or even a library. So that is the greatest thing about that.
Also you can use it kind of a temporary store in cloud. picnik lets you store upto 100 photos in its premium version, all with the history of edits.
Answer: Personally I don't like online photo editors, because I can't save the presets like Ligthroom, the quality is very low in comparation with software for edition like Photoshop or Ligthroom, or for example Gimp (open source).
Personally I preffer quality over quickly or easy of use.
Answer: Ok,
I do not use these tools. Maybe they are good for very quick purposes and in cases you cannot use other SW.
However, for me is much comfortable to carry GIMP Portable with me on a flash disk - with all known tools, plugins and presets. For much easier things like quick conversion and cropping I also use IrfanView, so I do not have any reason to use online tools.


Maxing out your buys in early Dominion

Question: How important is it to always buy the most expensive thing that you can with your first buys in Dominion? I appreciate that in the later stages of the game you often have more money than you can profitably spend, especially since the more expensive cards are often very situational. However, in the first three turns or so, how important is it to always buy the most expensive cards that I can afford with my copper?
Answer: As a rule, not important. Far better to have a strategy that you follow than to buy the most expensive card you can afford.
The value of a card will vary depending on your deck, and knowing when to buy a less expensive card that your deck needs (or nothing at all) is, I think, part of the transition from a beginner to intermediate player. If there's a Chapel, it's almost always worth spending $3 on it in your first turns, as getting it early is more important than waiting for an unlucky draw with only $2. For certain kingdom sets you might not want any $5's at all, so buying one just because you have $5 would be deplorable.
Similarly, as @thesunneversets points out, Silver is often what your deck needs instead of a  $3, $4 or even $5 action if you're not hitting $6 enough for gold. Buy the card your deck most needs that you can afford!
Comment: There are sometimes even sets where you even want to spend an early $6 on a key $5 card - either because it's just that powerful in combination with the set, or because they'll all be gone soon.
Comment: Exactly! If I get a silver first round and $6 after a reshuffle, I'll certainly buy Witch/Mountebank/Wharf/Lab, etc. rather than Gold/Nobles/Harem/Adventurer.
Answer: As a very vague rule of thumb, I like buying a Silver on one of my first two turns, to keep my purchasing power from fizzling as my deck gets clogged up with "cool" action cards.  What this means in practice is that, if my Coppers divide 5 and 2 over my first two draws, I'll seriously consider buying a Silver with the 5; unless there's a 5-cost action card that really suits my style and strategy.  Not doing enough "boring" plays like buying more money is one of the main reasons for people losing Dominion way more often than they should, as far as I can see.
Comment: I agree (and up-voted), but I think a more general rule of thumb than "a silver on at least one of the first two turns" would be something that produces money on the first two turns. Often a Fishing Village, Militia, etc. can replace the Silver successfully.
Answer: The strength difference between $3s and $4s isn't that big.  Underbuying at $5 and $6 should require a lot more thought.
Answer: You need to weigh the cards in play, both on their own value plus the value of any combinations you can use them in.
If other players are buying a lot of attack cards, you may want to pick up a defense card on one of the first two turns (Moat, Lighthouse, or Watchtower).
Also, watch what other players are buying.  For example, in my games at work (we play every day at lunch), Fishing Village gets sold out very quickly.  If you don't buy at least one during the first two turns, there may not be any left to buy.
The value of some cards may depend on what other cards are in play.  The value of Smugglers, for example, goes down if Colony and Platinum are in play.  The value of Village goes down if any of the other +2 action cards are in play.  The value of Horse Traders, Cellar, Witch, Torturer, Sea Hag, Familiar, Montebank, and Young Witch go down if Chapel is in play.
Answer: It depends entirely on the strategy you're going for. In the general case, buying the most expensive cards you can afford earlier will allow you to use on average more powerful abilities sooner. Although in the grand scheme of things, these slightly more powerful cards you purchased early on may not play along with your strategy, and may actually slow you down.
Answer: In general, it's important to buy the most expensive card you can afford that works with your strategy for this set of available cards. Sometimes, this is a point below the coin I have in hand; my strategies generally don't result in lower than that unless I've got multiple buy as well.
If no cards of the available coin total are going to help, it's worth looking one point cheaper.
Silver and Gold, when available, are usually good choices, but targeted action cards should trump them if you already have plenty.
Answer: (Disclaimer: the sets I play are the base Dominion + Intrigue, so things may be different with newer cards.) I usually try to buy two action cards with my first two hands if they combine into a good strategy. If there are no good fours, I would get a silver instead of trying to choose between Thief, Gardens and Feast. If the only five on the table is a Festival, it only works as +2 money in the first five hands or so, and you would still want to intentionally overstock action cards for Festival to make better sense than Silver, which rarely is a good idea (it is kinda embarrassing to play six actions, with everybody looking at you playing the whole deck, gain two more action cards, and only end up with 5 money to buy yourself a Dutchy). If I get two action cards in the first shuffle, and they indeed make up a reasonable strategy, then I make sure to get two or more silvers in the next two hands. With more than two actions in your early deck, chances are you won't be able to use these actions effectively; if you have +actions in them, chances are that the matching action won't come up, and if you have four actions in 14 cards after the second shuffle, chances are you will have too many terminal actions in any given hand. I think my wife always buys a silver with 3 money in the first two hands, even if there's Chapel on the table, and we probably win equally often in our games of three or four with the friends (and more often than the friends do, because the friends rotate, and we stay :) ).
Here's a related, more specific question: with a Coppersmith and four Coppers, should you go for Province in your third hand, or for gold? There was a Coppersmith discussion on SE, although this particular question was only briefly touched upon. (I agree with that discussion that it only makes sense to buy Coppersmith if you can trash it two or three shuffles later, so it must be a pretty peculiar lineup of cards for me to be interested in it as a first buy.)
Comment: Why not ask that as a question rather than putting it in an answer? Seems specific enough to be distinct from the other question you link, and it might generate nice answers.
Comment: Also, I'm very confused when you say that Festival "only works as +2 money in the first five hands or so." And I mildly disagree with "you would still want to intentionally overstock action cards for Festival to make better sense than silver." The +Buy also makes Festival better than Silver, so due to that and it's non-terminal nature, I can't think of a situation where I'd have $5 and buy Silver instead of Festival.

Maxing out your buys in early Dominion


Determining the capacitance of a system with a non-homogenous dielectric

Question: In an experiment we were given non-homogenous dielectric substances described by functions of coordinate. How can capacitance be determined from this?
Answer: You need to use the following equations coming from electrostatic:
$$\nabla\cdot(\epsilon({\bf x}){\bf E})=\rho({\bf x})$$
$${\bf E}=-\nabla\phi$$
with the proper boundary conditions. Then, with the definition of capacitance you will get the result. This is not often feasible analytically and will depend on the problem at hand.
Answer: Here's a (flawed) method on doing it--which works for many cases Otherwise @Jon's method is the way to go.
Break it into infinitesimal thin rods so that you get $\infty$ parallel capacitors of area $\rm dA$. Usually one of the directions will be homogenous, so you can write $\rm dA=z\rm dy$. Otherwise, $\rm dA=dy\cdot dz$
Break each rod into infinitesimal chunks and get $\infty$ series capacitors per slice of thickness $\rm dx$.
For each rod, find the infinitesimal reciprocal of capacitance $\rm d(\frac1C_{chunk})$ (in terms of $(x,y,z)$ Integrate $\int \rm d(\frac1C_{chunk})=\frac1{dC_{rod}}$
Now integrate $\int \rm dC_{rod}=C_{eq}$
The issue here is, when you break them into a set of series capacitors, you use the capacitors-in-series formula. This assumes that charge distribution on each capacitor in series is the same--which is wrong in this case. We can't apply charge conservation on a rod here, as charge can enter and leave from various spots.
Usually, a sufficently symmetric case works.


Data Recovery in Mysql

Question: Let the data have been backed up at time interval of 2 hr and taking backup at time "A" and after 1 hr Database crashes so how can I recover in MySql from Logs.
Comment: As I know that in SQL server there is a mechanism of Tail log backup in recovery mode and to recover the data at the point of failure.
Answer: First You have to restore your backup file which was taken at time A , then
you have to read all MySQL binary logs using mysql utility mysqlbinlog.
For example, if your log files were numbered 1 to 49 before the backup and logs 50 to 52 were written after the backup,you will need to process logs 50 to 52 after restoring the backup. If your binary logs are named with a prefix of bin, the log processing command looks like this:
shell> mysqlbinlog bin.000050 bin.000051 bin.000052 | mysql

All the binary log files that you want to process should be handled in a single mysqlbinlog command. There may be inter-file dependencies that will not be satisfied if you process them separately.
If a given binary log file was in the middle of being written during backup, you must extract from it only the part that was written after the backup, plus all log files written after that. Also, if you accidentally drop a table (or database, or some other act that causes data corruption), then you want to restore your backup and the incremental activity in binary logs.
If you do not want to re-execute the dropped table, you can run everything up to the bad command by capturing the binary log file only up to that point. To handle partial-file extraction, mysqlbinlog supports options that enable you to specify the time or log position at which to begin extracting log contents:
The --start-position option can be used to specify extraction beginning at a given log position.
After restoring a backup file, use the position numbers to process the binary log file. For example, you would use commands something like these:
mysqlbinlog --start-position=23456 binlog.000004 | mysql -uroot -p

Answer: It depends upon what backup method you maintain. How are you maintaining backups? Is it a full mysqldump or using binary logging? In your case I'd prefer opting for binary logging and you may take the the sqls triggered into binary log to construct your DR to the last point of your DB crash even if its too critical and no time eating process to build DR, you can go for Master/Slave still you might require binary logs for it.

Data Recovery in Mysql


How should I put out a campfire while away from civilization?

Question: If I build a campfire, but need to move on before it goes cold, how should I put it out? I wouldn't want to use my drinking water. Should I bring a covering to smother it with?
Comment: Sand works well
Answer: A large part of this falls down to planning as to where you build the fire in the first place. If you have got a natural water source nearby then build close to there which will give you an ample source of water to make sure the fire is doused. As an added measure, it also provides an easy source of water for putting out your fire if it starts to spread beyond where you intended.
If not, then at least try to build your fire on a stony area away from foliage where the fire may spread more easily, or will have more material to spread out of control if it re-ignites.
However, bear in mind these are just things that can help, they're not substitutes for properly ensuring a fire is dead before moving on. I'd feel comfortable smothering on stony ground and then waiting until things had cooled down, but at the end of the day if you haven't got the time to make sure a fire is properly put out and cooled down, you shouldn't have started one in the first place.
In short, you just shouldn't move on before your fire is out and has cooled down, but there are steps you can take for that process to happen faster.
Comment: Just to touch on "out and cooled down" if you can hold all of the flaming logs and coals in your hands without feeling "ouch", then the fire is safe.  If it feels hot, it is not out yet.
Comment: If building fire on stone, please put down a layer of soil first to avoid creating a fire scar. Leave No Trace.
Comment: @Pulsehead Yup, that's a good measure to go by.
Answer: If your fire has been burning for several hours in a stone ring, you need to deal not only with putting out flames and cooling embers, but with cooling the stones, which get very hot and could help an ember reignite. There's really no substitute for a lot of water. We use "washing up bowls" that hold about the same as a household bucket, and pour the water (taken from the lake) over the fire, stir, pour another over, stir, pour another etc until the inside of the ring is sort of ash-mud, then do one more over the stones around the edge to cool them. There's no way you would want to use drinking water in that volume. But when you're camping in a forest at the edge of a lake, that's what you do. (It's also what I do on my own front lawn in the stone circle I have there, except I can use a hose.)
Now if you made a small fire on damp ground, never really got to embers and didn't warm the stones, in theory smothering might be ok. (But not with dirt, grass, or leaves since those are ways to bank a fire and re-ignite it later, something you're presumably trying to avoid.) So might pulling it apart within a fire ring that is much larger than your fire. But why are you even doing that? To me having a fire is something you do when you're going to be at a site for a while (say, the evening) and putting it out is part of going to bed. Don't make a fire at your lunch stop, and don't make a fire if you don't have a source of copious water to put it out. As a canoer, I know that's easy for me to say, but I think it's the safest route. I've camped without fires during burn bans, including one year when we had two diapered babies with us, so I know a fire is purely a luxury. One we have to treat very seriously and that includes thoroughly putting it out.
Answer: A local source of water is obviously easiest - if you are near a stream - but if not, smothering can be really effective.
In planning, having your fire made on stones above damp ground will help, as you can scatter the embers a little without risking the fire spreading, and scattered embers will die down faster than a hot core of a fire.
Covering with damp soil can put out a fire quickly. Sometimes even really damp leaves or grass can be sufficient to put out a fire that is already dying down - but this will depend on your local environment.
Answer: In the absence of water, smothering with soil and thoroughly mixing the embers with the soil will effectively put out a camp fire.
A fire needs: fuel, heat, oxygen. By mixing in soil you remove two of those.
A fire is only out when you can run your hands through the soil and not feel any heat.


Does heavy armour penalize sneaking when I cast Muffle?

Question: In Skyrim, does heavy armour still penalize Sneak when Muffle is cast, or when wearing boots with the Muffle property?
Comment: Related: [Muffle Magnitude Difference](http://gaming.stackexchange.com/q/50130/4797)
Answer: According to this answer from the 'Muffle Magnitude Difference' question, casting the Muffle spell gives 100% armor noise reduction. If you're sneaking, it won't matter if you're using Heavy or Light armor with the Muffle spell.
As to boots with the Muffle spell enchantment, the Nightingale Boots (level 1-18 version) gets 25% noise reduction, while the Nightingale Boots (level 32+ version)  and Predator's Grace provides 100% noise reduction. Everything else gets 50% noise reduction. If you are using boots with < 100% noise reduction, Heavy Armor will still penalize sneaking.
Also (from this answer):

Apparently, any item enchanted by the player with the Muffle effect will have 1.0 [100% armor noise reduction]. This number is not affected by your enchanting level or gem size used on the enchanting process.
Answer: "It is unclear whether or not the magnitude of the Muffle effect is significant. Based on the description of the Muffled Movement perk (Noise from armor is reduced 50%), a magnitude of 0.5 is equivalent to a 50% reduction. However, the magnitude of enchantments and spells is never displayed in-game, suggesting that the magnitude does not matter. If the magnitude is significant, most enchanted items have a magnitude of 0.5, implying they are only 50% effective"
According to this from the UESP, yes Heavy Armour does still penalize sneak when muffle is cast. Muffle only reduces detection by 50%