What do i use to hold the server documentation?

Question: I had to document the servers i use and i don't know what to use to hold the data. Could you sugest the best way to keep the server documentation? Do i create a data base that holds the harware and software documentation, or do i use wiki pages or SVN? Or if ther is a tool that holds the documentation could you please provide the link.
Comment: A notebook? A file folder? A floppy drive? A USB stick? You can store the documentation any way you like. Find something the fits your needs and use that.
Comment: There's no single tool that's perfect for everyone, and although there are some good new answers here, *concepts* and examples of managing sys admin documents are covered very well in the [documentation] tag.
Answer: There really is no single best way to do this.  It depends heavily on the environment, the people, the systems, the budget, and individual preferences.
Before you can pick what the "best" option is, you need to understand your requirements.  Specific requirements, not just "where do I put my documentation?".  What hardware/software do you have available now?  How many people will be using this?  What budget do I have for hardware and/or software?  Is this just for server documentation, or will other technical documentation be included?  Will other groups need access to the documentation?  How secure does the documentation need to be?  Once you've answered some of these, you can check out your options.
If you're a Microsoft shop, you're likely going to trend towards their tools.  If you're an Open Source tools shop, you'll probably tend towards something Open Source.  If you like the ability to make quick changes, a Wiki is a great way to go.  If you like your documentation separated out in sets of files, then a file share or SharePoint might be the right solution.  If you like lots of screen shots to go with your documentation, OneNote might be the right answer.  If you want something Wiki-like but self-contained (Wiki-in-a-file), then TiddlyWiki is a great tool.
Among your many options (not a comprehensive list):

Wiki

DokuWiki
TiddlyWiki
Foswiki
MediaWiki
Confluence
Hundreds of others (free and commercial)

Microsoft Shop

SharePoint
OneNote

File Share
Various other Knowledge Base tools

The most important thing is that you use something.  Documentation is key.  Also, make sure you keep it fairly simple and low-overhead.  It's just as important to keep the documentation up to date as it is to write it up front.  If updating your documentation isn't as easy as possible (and wrapped in policies to help ensure it says updated), people won't do it.  You don't want people skipping documentation updates because it's a pain in the ass to update.
Answer: I personally use a little program called The Guide, which I find a lot faster than using a wiki (which I also use).  You can even embed Excel files right into the pages, as well as many other file types.
There is a portable version, so you can take it everywhere you go on a USB flash drive.  I just wish there was a Linux client which could read the same files.
A wiki or Google Docs is better for collaboration though.
Answer: Well, I don't know what your specific requirements are in detail, but I can advice you what to avoid (based on my personal experience).
Don't use office suits for documentation, such as OpenOffice or Word since they store their data in their own formats, such as .doc or .odt. This can be very painful when you switch to another documentation system later.
I can also advice you not to store your documentation in .txt files. Although they are easy to handle (can be moved without high efforts, can be searched etc), this is a very inefficient way to organize your stuff. Especially when you want to embed images or videos into your documents.
SVN is not a bad way for holding your data, but has disadvantages when you want to allow other users to access your data. Furthermore you need to do svn updates, checkouts etc. all the time. This can be annoying (I have SVN documentation repositories myself..).
The best way I have seen so far is either using a Wiki or a combination of a CRM (we use Sugar CRM) and the file system. I prefer Wiki systems when they have a versioning and user management system. This allows easy collaboration, you can do almost everything and you are free in the way you organize yourself.
Answer: We have been using Device42 for server and data center documentation. Great tool and those guys are constantly adding features. Not very expensive either, around $250 for 100 devices.
Answer: I will give my personal recommendation for OneNote. It's ability to quickly screenshot installation processes and changes (and then actually be able to search the text IN THE IMAGES) with win-S is a killer feature.
Comment: I inherited a lot of documentation written in OneNote, and I found it terribly awkward. To each their own, I guess.
Answer: We use Wiki over here. Great tool especially if you're sharing documents for editing internally
Answer: Folders with spreadsheets with info on each server, docs/pdfs of user manuals, contact info for OEMs/VARs/Support, etc.
Then get something like dropbox/sugarsync/etc. and make sure you are syncing it all to the web so that anything you update gets replicated.  You'll like this in a DR situation.
Answer: What I have done is :
Documented each server in MS Word:
Documentation includes :
a) Server Hardware details (Number of NICs, Raid Controllers, firmware versions of each card, bios version, number of physical disks and firmware versions.
b) Raid Layout : Type of Raid Level(s), Physical Disk Memberships in Virtual Disks, Windows Disk numbers (This helps me identify which Windows Disk is what on my server and raid level).
c) Network Configuration : IP Settings, Firewall Settings, incoming ports allowed, outbound allowed /disallowed.
d) Operating System installed : Version, Key used, Installation date, Page file location, any other driver dumps or applications I have kept on it, installed applications and there websites (if need be).
e) Server Support / Vendor Support : Type of Support, Contact Number, Service Tag.
I have used AD Topology Diagram to visualize our AD infrastructure and saved as PDF.
I then have a script installed called "Racktables" which is opensource, uses a mysql database - very easy to setup.
Which I use to Plot my Server Room RACKS and there servers, I then convert the MS Word files to PDF and attach to those racks.
You can also use SYDI Documentation project script to document your servers:
http://ogenstad.net/2006/10/18/how-to-document-servers-with-sydi-part-1-of-3/
Hope that Helps
Rihatum
Answer: On the open source side of things, dedicated for keeping documentation on computers, software, printers (and how did it change with time) is GLPI.
For additional features, there's also a knowledge base, system to track which computers are connected where (on the network level). It has included ticket system for reporting/solving problems and help desk.
Answer: NodeSystems is designed to hold Server Documentation.  As a side effect, it also generates an interactive diagram.
Check out the online Demo Here:
http://www.nodesystems.org/demo/
Answer: Check out SCC (Server configuration collector) http://scc.qnh.eu/ that have clients for Win32, most Linux and other Un*x to get configuration information and keeps it updated with versioning for audits etc.
A previous company we've added a text file based on this to the server which is then parsed to help in "documenting" the specific server's function/owner etc.
But yes, there is still a need for a wiki/document share for the things like how-to add/remove disks on this or that system for the operators and support staff.


Slices in MS Expression Design have wrong dimensions

Question: I'm trying to do some basic design in Microsoft Expression Design 4 (this is the best design tool I have available to me; suggestions welcome), and I'm trying to export slices by selecting a bunch of objects and using the right-click context menu to create a slice from the selection.  Slices created like this always have 2px of transparency at the extremes of the vertical axis.  How do I get my slices to have the exact dimensions of the selections used to create them?
Comment: I would suggest using a different tool. GIMP is a great open-source, free image editing tool. Otherwise, I'm not familiar enough with this software to be of any help.
Answer: Looks like there was an element in my design that was causing the slice to seem to be wrong.  I had a vertical stroke, 6 pixels wide, with a horizontal gradient fill.  The stroke itself was only 77 pixels long, but it was causing the slices to be 82 pixels high.  I don't know why, but when I resized this stroke to 74 pixels, the slice dimensions were correct.
I discovered this by moving the slice bounds around and seeing the dimensions change as certain elements moved out of the bounds.


Delete photos of a non-member in a Facebook group

Question: Artists of Texas has resurrected a neglected group and have found about 30 photos of a non-member that no admin can delete. When clicked on, they take you to this person's Facebook account; when you go to options below the photo, the delete option is not there. We would love to have anyone's suggestion on how to remove these unwanted photos and they are not in an album.
Comment: Was the photo posted directly on the group wall or is the group just tagged/@mentioned in a photo that is posted somewhere else?  It sounds like the group is just tagged if clicking on it takes you elsewhere.
Answer: Is the administrator to the account using Facebook as the account admin (i.e. not their personal account)? I ask because sometimes I don't realize whether I'm still using my personal account when dealing with a page I'm an admin to. It might not be giving permissions to delete the picture/post.
Another suggestion:
Go to your page (make sure you are using Facebook as the page admin via the top right).

Then click where it says "See All" under "Recent Posts by Others on [pagename]" (above). A screen like this should pop up (only with your posts on your page).

My mouse was hovered over the "X" when I took the screenshot, but you can remove the post via this button.
I'm not 100% sure this is what you're looking for, but I can surely tweak my answer if you have any other problems with it.


How to resolve paypal pending balance for subscription type?

Question: Pending balance rule seems to be only for ebay sellers and to get away from it is to make buyers drop a feedback about the seller. How about for subscription type only? I cannot let users view my posts if their payment has not cleared yet. Technically, the IPN should have payment_status var sent after the buyer has paid for subscription but in my case, I only get it on the first IPN message which has a "Pending" value and nothing on the second. This causes my handler to throw out an "Unknown payment status" error.
Answer: Actually paypal does have a pending payment type for subscriptions.  One more reason not to deal with Paypal.
The trouble you run into is that some transactions will not clear, sometimes a paypal account is new, foreign transactions also fall under pending.
The worst part about paypal subscriptions is that there is no real upgrade path, you could use recurring payment profiles instead of subscriptions, but those also have a limit for upgrades and downgrades.
If you can afford to get a real merchant account, do so.
Comment: I discovered the buyer needs to "Accept" the transaction before IPN sends a "Completed" payment status message.


How to install Aurora (Firefox) on Debian?

Question: How to install the latest Firefox build (called Aurora) on Debian unstable? Are there any packages or repositories?
Answer: To install the latest build of Firefox (Aurora), or one of the release, beta, extended support release (ESR) versions, use instructions from http://mozilla.debian.net. Basically you choose your distribution (stable, testing, unstable), choose Firefox, choose the version, then add a string in /etc/apt/sources.list, then update the packages list. Then run
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -t experimental firefox

You would also possibly need to install package pkg-mozilla-archive-keyring for APT not to complain about untrusted sources.
Answer: You should be able to enter http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/aurora/ and simply download, unpack and run Aurora from there. This will give you the absolutely latest version, however it is for Firefox and not for the Iceweasel fork, and it won't use a repo (or Debian package).


Level control on 2008 Chevy uplander stuck on

Question: Our 2008 Chevy Uplander has an auto levelling system, where if a certain amount of weight is placed in the rear, it will pump air in, or take it out of the rear suspension to keep the vehicle level. My wife recently hit a BIG pothole, and it seems since then the sensor has gotten stuck in the position where it thinks the vehicle is weighted down in the rear, and is pumping a bit more air into it each time we start the vehicle.
At first it wasnt too bad, we could feel the rear suspension was a bit stiffer than usual but it was driveable. After troubleshooting it a bit more ourselves, the suspension has been pumped up to the max. I can hear the compressor kick on for a few seconds each time i start the vehicle. The compressor does not run constantly, just those few seconds (like is usually would to level the vehicle before driving). There is so much air in it now that the rear will not move down at all, making for a very rough ride. you can also see how high the rear end is in the air when looking at the van.
We have it scheduled to go into the dealer to have it looked at, but before it goes in I wanted to see if anybody has had any experience with this sort of issue. To me it just sounds like a sensor needs to be reset/unstuck. Is there something i can check underneath without having to dig out too many tools and start taking things apart, or is this a fairly complex mechanism? Short term it would be nice to drain a bit of the air that is trapped in the system for a little relief while we are driving it in the meantime. I have already removed the fuse for the level control and replaced it to see if that would reset the system, but didn't seem to have an impact. I am pretty sure there is a mechanism that attaches to the body and the suspension that controls this and its likely gotten itself stuck.
Any pointers on this one would be a big help!!
Answer: I would imagine there is a mechanical linkage attached to the axle and bodywork with a sensor to measure the angle between them. Chances are, as you suggest, either it has got stuck or damaged, or something is wedged in it stopping it from moving correctly. Can you get under the back of the vehicle? If so, you may be able to identify the mechanism and there is a good chance that any damage or obstruction will be visible, and you may be able to rectify it.
Alternatively, you might be able to disconnect the sensor and fool it into thinking the system is unloaded. With an older vehicle, this would be quite easy (either short or open-circuit the connector), but I suspect yours will be too new for that to work, as most modern vehicles run such sensors off the central computer.


Can a computer behind a NAT-router receive realtime-updates from facebook?

Question: I'm currently writing a desktop application that integrates facebook using the graph API. I'd like to implement real-time updates (http://developers.facebook.com/docs/api/realtime/), but in the doc it say's that you have to establish a http server that facebook will address to send the updates to. My problem is now that my box is sitting behind a router with only one IP-address (so the router uses NAT).
Will it still be possible for facebook to contact my webserver for sending me updates?
Answer: @kohlehydrat: Every webserver needs to have an IP address that can be reached from "anywhere" on the internet. Since your webserver is sitting behind a NAT with only one IP, I seriously doubt Facebook can reach your webserver.
However, see if you can configure the NAT in such a way to reserve a dedicated port for your application.
For example:
<code>        10.122.48.222:4231
traffic to port 4231 is directed towards your application.
10.122.48.222 is outward facing NAT IP address.
</code>
I am not sure if we can do this, but its an idea.
Answer: The router should catch port 80 requests (or whatever port your webserver is supposed to listen on) and forward it to your internal computer port 80, preferably in a consistent NAT style.
Basically, IP based communication with proper routing should not be an issue if both parties can find each other.
Comment: So I can simply create (with java) a webserver, and I won't have to worry whether facebook will be able to reach it? / It is handled completely transparent?
Comment: @kohlehydrat:  If your router has a static IP address, yes.  If your router has a dynamic IP address, because your Internet service provider uses a group of IP adresses, then no.
Answer: You Need to Do what is called as "PORT FORWARDING".
I had a similar issue initially, Then I forwarded my port where in my IP was Made Public from being local only to the company.
And now my issue is solved.
hope this helps.
Answer: this question is already closed, but since you have not received this particular answer (which is what I believe most facebook developers do in order to develop behind firewalls) I will post it here:
You can reverse tunnel your machine to any machine with a publically available ip.
see blog post on this topic
in a lot of facebook sdks, this functionality is even included ( for instance, facebooker, a ruby gem provides the functionality to rake facebooker:tunnel:start after you setup the appropriate settings)


Determining flow amount along stream using ArcGIS Desktop?

Question: I have DEM with resolution 20m and also stream network map in shape format, isohyetal map in shape format. I have also historic numerical data for rainfall, runoff and temperature from 1970-2000 for just one gauging station in the area 10x14 km = 140 sqm.
Can anybody give me idea how can I calculate the stream flow amount(Q) for entire area and especially along the main stream, using ArcGIS 9.2?
Answer: Give this script a try: http://arcscripts.esri.com/details.asp?dbid=14481
If I recall correctly, you select stream segments, run this macro (tie the macro to a button on a custom toolbar) and it calculates the flow accumulation for the selected segments. I remember that we had to make a few tweaks to get it to work with our data.
Answer: You probably are talking about hydrologic problem, and you need ArcHydro for that, I believe (or something similar if they exists).   There is a link to file for version ArcGIS 9.2 in http://support.esri.com/en/downloads/datamodel/detail/15, and it includes documentations and tutorials in pdf.


Do you prefer to administer servers through a GUI or CLI?

Question: Do you prefer to administer servers through a GUI or CLI?
Please state which system OS's you are answering for.
Comment: Since this question is more of a poll, then a question it probably should be set as community wiki - See: http://serverfault.com/questions/4035/
Comment: From the serverfault FAQ: "Avoid asking questions that are subjective, argumentative, or require extended discussion. This is not a discussion board, this is a place for questions that can be answered!"
Answer: GUIs can be beginner-friendly, but after that - they're more hostile than helpful.
They place a layer between you and the problem that you're trying to fix - and that "proxy" rarely addresses all the functionality that you are after.  The developer who wrote it at the time thought of "what would be required", and after then sealed off your freedom with choices he made at that time.  It's not even reasonable to expect a developer to think of every possible problem that may or may not happen.
Having said that - I'll also add that a GUI can be useful too, and when written well, can save time and effort, even provides some enjoyment in use - no arguments there.  But when you do eventually need to do something other than "use" the product under "normal circumstances", you should not be forced to go through the GUI - that would be a handicap.
(My view is not based on any particular OS).
Answer: I prefer CLI because of piping and stdin/stdout. I prefer this on a all systems.
I also prefer when there is a configuration file rather than registry settings.
Answer: CLI all the way, for the simple reason that audit is much easier. When I'm making a change, I simply log my terminal session and then I have a record of exactly what I did, should I ever have to go back and validate it.
Text based configuration also lends itself to automation; it's trivial to throw together some scripts that automatically save configuration off network devices and check them into a version control system, giving you a history of what's changed in your network over time.
Answer: Besides that many good answers people have given to the advantages of CLI, another plus for CLI that I didn't see is that in my experience CLI is much less likely to fail.  This can be a huge time saver if you administer servers remotely.  Also, if the machine starts to experience heavy load, CLI is usually more response.
Answer: OS Linux.
Preference CLI.
Why? Its fast, succint and you can get to all of the options and you understand what is happening. And it is scriptable which is important when you are deploying/maintaining many systems or even just a few systems which must be kept in a consistent, known state (e.g. dev boxs which might need to be redeployed/ have their state "reset" frequently)
If you use a GUI you may be able to get the same effect, but you may never understand what was done.
OS Windows
I very occaisonally have to do windows stuff, often to test windows against linux servers.
And then I prefer the CLI, even though I don't know it. The reason? It seems that a lot of times the windows GUI won't do stuff. I.e. you performt he operation in the GUI, but it does not actually seem to trigger the operation in the OS. I've found that usually the CLI gives you  a better idea of the current state of a windows machine and often you can get things to work, which don't actually work (every time) in the GUI, even though it some times looks like they do.
Admitedly I use the GUI more on windows, basically because I am ignorant of windows and simply don't know the command line tools as well.
Answer: I personally think that a successful change control system is next to impossible to achive in a GUI only world.
If the change is to be implemented via a cli the steps can be bundled up into a script which is then submitted to change management for approval.
Once approved the very same script can be run in the live environment.
As a previous poster mentions text based configuration files make things even better. I won't go into the benefits of using CVS ( or substitute your favorite revison control system) for maintaining your configuration environment but I will just leave this one (slightly made up) example of a configuration file (from tinyproxy):

#  20090527 MJH -- Request for change 564
Allow 192.168.1.100

I know that some GUIs now have a (poorly implemented) comments field and a lot of what I describe above could be implemented in a GUI. But at the moment it is not.
Answer: Horses for Courses.  Jeff Snover developed PowerShell for Windows because certain key operations in Exchange were three windows deep and difficult in a GUI.  No doubt I'd rather have a CLI to do one operation that does something in bulk, rather than twiddle with a GUI.
OTOH, even PowerShell--the best CLI I've ever used--is prone to the endless parameters problem and it's difficult to scale unless the script or cmdlet writer picks defaults very carefully.
I have GUI windows open but I always have a PowerShell window open too.  I would suspect most admins do the same, even the hard-core bearded Unix ones.
Answer: CLI is the only way to go - especially if you're on call and don't want to be tied to your house. Being able to login to a box over a mobile/cell phone, without 3G being available, and  being able to troubleshoot is invaluable, you'll get nowhere fast with a GUI.
There are plenty of reasons stated above that are also valid. Scripting a gui is fairly tricky.
Answer: I learned my linux on Slackware, where there was (in the default install) nothing more than a command-line interface. The same is true for many server-edition flavours (like Ubuntu). Maybe I'm set in my ways at an early age, but I still much prefer the CLI, for a two major reasons:

The only pre-requisite to remote administration is an SSH client. If you realise that your server is down for some reason, and you happen to be at a friend's place running whatever-OS, grab a freeware ssh client, log in, and you're presented with what you're accustomed to. No need to install VNC, an X11 client, etc...
Lower-to-negligible overhead. I like the idea that I'm not wasting resources drawing a pretty window, and you can't beat the bandwidth used by ssh.

Besides, front-ends are just that: front ends, as in, front end to the command-line. Cut out the middle man :)
Comment: There's ClusterSSH and others.
Comment: I should add, though, that one time that a GUI makes a lot of sense is in the case of cluster management, where you can execute one command on 500 machines with a few clicks. This might be difficult, or too time-consuming to script...
Answer: Depends entirely on the job at hand but I find I use the GUI more often than the CLI on Windows. About 50/50 on our only Mac server or my MacBook. Our Linux machines don't have a GUI, so obviously it's the CLI all the time and I prefer it that way.
Answer: Definitely CLI.
It's so much easier to follow / give instructions as a series of CLI commands than with click here, open this dialog, click there, ...
Also, any CLI command can, by definition, be automated in a script.
Answer: Depends on the task and the administrator's familiarity with the ins and outs of the product being administered.
With greater familiarity, the CLI is usually the preferred modality - particularly if that CLI is readily scriptable for common tasks.
A well designed GUI with task-orientated workflows accompanied by helpful prompting and at-point-of-need documentation is often the best way of gaining familiarity, or for completing complex task workflows where using the CLI might lead to steps being missed, etc.
This is particularly true in my experience with specialist appliance products that deviate from the typical mould of a Solaris box or a Windows desktop.
Mostly, though, it comes down to how well the product being used has been designed and usability tested across the spectrum of intended users/administrators.
Answer: Windows / Unix:
Because of automation ability I prefer CLI. Windows has always been lacking in this regard but with Powershell it's becoming easier.
Answer: Win
I am still learning everyday, but I definitely prefer CLI.  It wasnt that long ago though that I would have said GUI.  As I have grown into my job it seems that there are many more things that you can do with CLI....especially after installing tools such as pstools (and others that I cant think of just this sec).
Although my company doesnt have any Linux/Unix machines, I do have a couple at home and it seems that EVERYTHING is easier (and believe it or not FASTER) with the CLI if you take the time to learn.  You can definitely do more with CLI than GUI.
Answer: CLI - transparency is everything.
Answer: I tend to view GUI and CLI as just being tools to get a job done, and will use whichever is most appropriate for the job I'm doing, with no absolute preference either way.
This I believe is as it should be.
Answer: Debian/OSX. CLI/SSH/SFTP/Cyberduck/TextMate. I'm learning all the time. I think really getting used to some scripting language and to be methodical, structured and to document is key. Although I like GUI when it comes to graphs of CPU load and such :) I use SFTP a lot since Cyberduck lets you edit files "in-place". Very convenient. I like 'graphical' console tools too, like top. I'm gonna try Webmin soon. We'll see.
Answer: UNIX/Linux/OSX
Having had to use quite a few different distro's in different versions I'm never quite sure which tool is the current front-end of choice, or how well it interacts with the underlying config files. In quite a few cases I've had to remove the GUI-created file and rewrite a new one by hand.
I know how the CLI tools work, largely the same across linux/unix systems, and the syntax of the files they are using. That doesn't change between systems.
Also, working as a vendor for a while I got used to being told to sit down at a machine and use it, never knowing which OS it was, or which version. I've even been told completely the wrong OS from time to time (Solaris not Linux; HP-UX not Solaris, etc). Knowing the standard CLI tools means I can work on any Unix machine. Sadly that often means vi not Emacs for those wanting a religious war, but vi has been on every unix/linux machine I've ever used.
Answer: Unix and Linux platforms of various flavors (OSX, BSD, Solaris, AIX, Ubuntu, Debian, Red Hat, SUSE, etc).
I prefer to administer systems with a configuration management system like Chef. Rather than running commands to manage systems, I write code. Each service or other entity is treated like an object. It's literally programming infrastructure, and its a lot more scalable, easy, and fun than logging into machines and running commands. I write a recipe to manage Apache once, and then any time I need a web server, I add the recipe. Same with any service. I can rebuild systems and reconfigure them on a whim.
Anyone who is manually managing systems as their routine daily work is working too hard.
Now, historically speaking, I have preferred command-line interfaces, because of the power in using scripting languages like Bash, Ksh, Perl, Ruby and Python to glue commands together.


Would using Lua scripts to define game logic for an MMO server be a lot slower than compiled in C++?

Question: I am using an entity system for my MMO server and I was thinking about defining the behavior of "actions" using Lua scripts. The server is written in C++. I am not very familiar with the speed/memory usage of Lua in C++ but I have used it for scripting the GUI of the client. Would using Lua to define the game logic on the server side cut the performance by a lot?
Comment: Related question: http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/2913/why-we-heavily-use-scripts-in-game-developing
Answer: TL;DR: Lua does have overhead, but if used properly it is negligible and easily mitigated. Don't use it for heavy math operations or transforming geometry. You will probably not see any performance problems at all using it to script a GUI.
I've done some basic benchmarks regarding Lua's performance as a game scripting language, and it's pretty damn fast. Using tolua++ to bind LuaJIT to my game engine, I spawned 2,000  actors, each actor controlled by a Lua script called every game loop (with a time-delta argument). Half of the actors had a flocking script and the other half were doing a sort of random walk (and were avoided by the flock).
Turning off the rendering component gave me a bit over 400 ticks per second on my Opteron 170 (2x2.0GHz, though my engine was single threaded at the time). I imagine I could have squeezed out quite a bit more than that if I dug in and optimized, perhaps moving some of the heavy work back into C++. Updating 2000 actors 400 times per second was still pretty impressive, and far exceeded my expectations at the time.
I now use Lua in all of my projects, and it actually constitues quite a large portion of the actual game code (AI, GUI layout/logic, Events/Messages). Making games is MUCH more fun when you can quickly change something and test it without having to exit, recompile, and reinitialize. I've run into some performance issues from time to time, but those are easily solved by reimplementing the offending code in C++ (and then calling it from Lua).
While slightly off-topic, EVE Online's servers are written almost completely in Stackless Python (I believe they defer most of their math operations to a C++ lib), which is considerably heavier than Lua, and, based on my own personal research and several available benchmarks, far less performant than LuaJIT. They manage to handle 30k+ concurrent players without too many issues. Granted, they do have a ton of expensive hardware running all of that, but I believe the majority of the cost is in their database cluster...
Apologies for the wall of text.
Comment: The biggest hit in these kinds of systems is usually parsing the scripts, so make sure to frontload that at startup.
Comment: Great answer! No need for apologies for such a well detailed answer. I think I will take the time to develop component "actions" defined in Lua and do some benchmarking. Thanks!
Comment: This is a good point. I actually compile my Lua into bytecode before packaging for release, which may reduce loading time even more, though I haven't done any measurements.
Comment: I tend to disagree. Whereas in a normal game game logic is a minor part of the execution time (rendering is a beast), in an MMO server it's a much larger part, so the impact would be far more substantial. I have experience with LUAJit and C++ and while LUAJit is substantionally faster than LUA it's still a lot slower than C++ (assuming you code C++ properly). I admit the workflow with LUAJit is awesome but speedwise it does take a hit. No matter how you twist it, variables in tables with string lookups, dynamic types and garbage collection come at a price. LUAJit is slower than .NET, nuff said
Answer: Short answer: Yes, yes it would.
Long answer: It depends how much game logic, how much it is run, and how complex it is, and if you need to run it for every player. If it is very simple and is not repeated a lot, you might be fine with it. But for most cases using LUA instead of C++ will give you much lower performance and will scale badly, assuming of course that the code is well designed and optimized.


OMF file size for Mac to PC transfer

Question: Pretty soon I'll be starting audio post production on another feature film.  The video editor will be using FCP on a Mac and I use Nuendo on a PC.  Most of my work is for commercials and other short films/videos so when I get the OMF the file size is under 4gb.  In order to have a hard drive that can be read on both the Mac and PC it would have to be formatted in FAT32 (unless I'm wrong?).  But, the OMF will definitely be larger than 4gb with all of the audio info.  So, any suggestions on how to transfer this file between a Mac and PC?  Is there a different hard drive format that may work?  Any other suggestions?
Answer: Hey Matthew,
If I'm not mistaken the file size limit for a single OMF is 2 gigs.
This presents problems for people in production, but the easiest way to get around it is for the video editor to create multiple OMFs.
Nuendo is a champ at opening many OMF's in the same project.
I've worked with editors who have given me one OMF for each track of audio, and it works well.
On the question of hard-drive compatibility, the easiest way for PC users to access mac hard-drives is to run a program called mac drive (http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/)
This of course requires a mac formatted hard-drive. So if you're investing in a new external hard-drive I'd suggest you partition your drive into two and have one half formatted on a mac computer.
Then you can pull the OMF's off the mac editing computer, with out any problem.
Then use mac drive to allow your pc to access the files on the mac partition.
Hope that helps!
-Kevin
Answer: Hey Matt,
Regarding hard drive formatting, check this question. You definitally don't want to be formatting at FAT32 only, cause you can't transfer files larger than 4GB, and your video will be more than likely a lot bigger.
Yes, the limit for an OMF with consolidated media is 2GB. So you will need multiple ones. As @zenandtheart says, your editor can give them in sections and Nuendo will just bring all the separate OMFs into the same project.
Answer: I use NTFS 3G (google it) to read b/w HFS+ on my macbook pro and my external NTFS. It's slow but it does the job. I like Kevin's idea of the dual partition however and I think that would be your best bet long term. Incidentally I've dual partitioned my macbook pro and installed Windows 7 on it and moving files between the 2 is easy as.
Answer: hope the other post helped. Gd luck.
Answer: You can now buy drives that are formatted to work with both MAC and PC.  They are more expensive, but in retrospect, I would have loved to spend the extra cash and have it be "plug-n-play" right out of the box.  I had PC, just like you, but had to format my drive on a MAC first.....which seemed backwards but, it was the only way it worked.  Even then, you still have to buy a program to allow both of the partitions of your drive to be readable by your PC.  Just my experience.

OMF file size for Mac to PC transfer


Finding the slope of a function

Question: How do I find the slope of this function:
$px + (2p-1)y + 4 = 0$
I need to know how to answer a previous question of mine (also posted on this forum)
Answer: I think that how this a line, is only,
\begin{eqnarray}
px + (2p-1)y+4=0 &\Leftrightarrow& y = \dfrac{-p}{(2p-1)}x + \dfrac{4}{(2p-1)}.
\end{eqnarray}
Then the slop is $ \dfrac{-p}{(2p-1)}$, isn't it?
Comment: seems so, I would mention $p\neq 0.5$
Comment: change 4 to -4 ;)
Answer: You should first rearrange so that $y$ is on the left hand side:
$$(2p-1)y = px - 4$$
Then divide through by $2p-1$:
$$y = \frac{-p}{2p-1} x - \frac{4}{2p-1}$$
The slope of the line is the coefficient of $x$ in this equation.
Note that this only works if $2p-1\neq 0$ (because you can't divide by zero), which means that you need $p\neq 1/2$.
Answer: For a straight line given by equation $Ax+By+C=0$ the slope coefficient equals $-\frac{A}{B}$
Answer: Do you know scalar- or inner product?
The equation is $\langle (p,2p-1); (x,y)\rangle = -4$, and this is parallel to the plain containing the origo $\{(x,y)\in\mathbb R^2 \mid \langle (p,2p-1); (x,y)\rangle = 0\}$.
And satisfying this equation means that the vector with coordinates $(x,y)$ is perpendicular to $(p,2p-1)$, so this latter is the normalvector of the line..
Answer: you could differentiate it:
$$px + (2p-1)y + 4 = 0$$
$$p + (2p-1)\frac{dy}{dx} = 0$$
giving:
$$\frac{dy}{dx}=-\frac{p}{2p-1}$$
Answer: By the definition of slope,you need to find the value of $\frac{dy}{dx}$ for your curve.To find that out,just differentiate both sides with respect to $x$,then we'll get:
$p+(2p-1)y'=0$
It can be solved for $y'$.
Important thing though is if $p$ is a function rather than a constant,then while differentiating,we'll have to use chain rules,etc, and proceed similarly.

Finding the slope of a function


What's the difference between Finder and Keeper?

Question: What's the difference between the Merchant Crown's Finder and Keeper abilities?  Also, how can I increase the success rate of these abilities?
Answer: According to Gamefaqs the keeper ability is just a more effective version of the finder ability.
While there doesn't seem to be a way to increase the success rate, there is a trick for point farming which can be combined with finder/keeper to farm gems too. By using two wayfarers and auto-battle you can immediately escape from any battle you enter and earn 5 points. If you have a merchant wearing Hermes Sandals set to use finder/keeper it will harvest a gem before you escape from battle. Go to somewhere with enemies, and tape down the d-pad so you're running into the wall. Come back later for free stuff. Source (Ctrl+F Point Harvesting Trick)
Answer: Both Finder and Keeper will attempt to find Gems during the battle.  Keeper has a higher success rate than Finder, but Keeper costs 2AP whereas Finder costs 1AP.
In each battle, both Finder and Keeper can be successful once (with enough attempts).  Each Merchant in the party can also be successful at both Finder and Keeper.  Therefore, you can get 8 gems per battle with 4 Merchants.
If one party member is a Merchant, then there is a higher chance of gems dropping at the end of battle.  More than one Merchant does not increase this chance.


Unix Performance testing - training content

Question: My company is involved with performing performance testing and now they want to perform couple of training related with executing those tests on the servers based on Unix systems.
We will test aplications that are set on the unix server so this training should provide for us information that will be useful for carry on those tests, how to set up monitoring (sar, vmstat...) how to grather data, how to get remote access and so on.
(This training should not have information about performance testing itself - what kind of test, for what is this test etc. only information about carry on those test on Unix servers)
I have to provide them draft of the content for those trainings. In my opinion those trainings should cover:

Set up monitoring on the unix servers for main resources:
CPU Utilization
Interrupts
Context Switching
Memory
Paging
Swapping
Disk I/O
Network I/O
Collecting the Data
Remote access to Unix server (put/get data, which application use and so one...)

Is there anything else what we can add to this training that will be useful for us?
Answer: How about making sure everyone understands the impact of each item, for example how would it affect performance if there are "too many" interrupts, and how many is too many?, I know swapping is bad, but how much swapping is bad? maybe set up some marks at company level or ranges would help


Closed form expression of infinite summation

Question: What is the idea behind a closed form expression and what is the general way of finding the closed form solution of an infinite summation?
context: closed form solution of $\sum^\infty_{i=1}ia^i$.
Comment: It really depends on the form of the expression. What close form do you know?
Comment: A closed-form expression doesn't contain $\infty$. See my answer at https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1743544/are-there-some-techniques-which-can-be-used-to-show-that-a-sum-does-not-have-a/2329022#2329022
Answer: In general, finding the closed-form of a series or a finite summation is a difficult problem without a general way of attack. For your particular series, if I am correct in assuming that your $a$ is a constant, then let's begin with a geometric series
$$\frac{1}{1-x} = \sum_{i=0}^\infty x^i$$
Let us now differentiate this series term by term to get
$$\frac{d}{dx}\left(\frac{1}{1-x}\right)= \frac{1}{(1-x)^2}=\sum_{i=1}^\infty ix^{i-1}$$
Multiplying by $x$ now gives
$$\frac{x}{(1-x)^2} = \sum_{i=1}^\infty ix^i$$
The above series will converge for $|x| < 1$, so simply substitute your desired value for $a$ to get the value of the series.
Answer: Just for fun, I'll note that a closed form for the summation $\sum_{k\ge1}kx^k$ can also be found without differentiation:
$$\begin{align*}
\sum_{k\ge 1}kx^k&=\sum_{k\ge 1}\sum_{i=1}^kx^k\\\\
&=\sum_{i\ge 1}\sum_{k\ge i}x^k&&\text{reversing the order of summation}\\
&=\sum_{i\ge 1}\frac{x^i}{1-x}&&\text{sum of a geometric series}\\
&=\frac1{1-x}\sum_{i\ge 1}x^i\\
&=\frac1{1-x}\cdot\frac{x}{1-x}\\\\
&=\frac{x}{(1-x)^2}\;.
\end{align*}$$
Answer: Lets see:
$\begin{align}
\sum_1^{\infty} ia^i &= a + a^2 + a^2 + a^3 + a^3 + a^3 + ......\\
           &=  \sum_1^{\infty} a^i +  (\sum_2^{\infty} a^i) +  (\sum_3^{\infty} a^i) + ..+  (\sum_{k+1}^{\infty} a^i)+.... \\
          &=  \sum_1^{\infty} a^i + a (\sum_1^{\infty} a^i) + a^2 (\sum_1^{\infty} a^i) + ..+ a^k (\sum_1^{\infty} a^i)+.... \\
           &= \sum_1^{\infty} a^i (1+ a+a^2+....)\\
           &= \sum_1^{\infty} a^i (1+\sum_1^{\infty} a^i)   \\
&= \frac{a}{1-a}(\frac{1}{1-a}) \; \text{if a <1}
\end{align}$
The trick is to look for patterns that repeat themselves.
Answer: The closed form in general will be difficult to obtain and how to obtain it will vary from problems to problems. In your case, for $a\in (-1,1)$, the geometric series is given by
$$
\sum_{i=0}^\infty a^i=\frac{1}{1-a},
$$
series being $1$ if $a=0$.
Knowing this, you can see that $ia^{i-1}$ is the derivative of that series, so $\sum_{i=1}^\infty ia^{i-1}$ should be the derivative of $\frac{1}{1-a}$ with respect to $a$. From this, we get
$$
\sum_{i=0}^{\infty}ia^i=a\sum_{i=0}^\infty ia^{i-1}=a\left(\frac{1}{1-a}\right)^{'}=\frac{a}{(1-a)^2}
$$
Since our geometric series was valid for $a\in (-1,1)$, this one is also valid for that interval.
Comment: What is wrong with $a=0$? $0^0$?
Comment: meh, good question, I guess i only wanted to avoid $0^0$ issues
Comment: Convention is your friend :-).
Answer: I don't think there is a general procedure. However, analytic functions and their power series representations provide many useful equivalences.
Consider $f(x) = \frac{1}{1-x} = \sum_{k=0}^\infty x^k$, with $|x|<1$. This is analytic, so you can interchange differentiation and summation to get
$f'(x) = \frac{1}{(1-x)^2} = \sum_{k=1}^\infty kx^{k-1}$ (again for $|x|<1$), and finally $xf(x) = \frac{x}{(1-x)^2} = \sum_{k=1}^\infty kx^{k-1}$.
However. I know this because someone showed to me (hundreds of years ago, or so). In general, some guesswork is required.


12c Grid Agent installation issues - Shell path is incorrect or not defined

Question: I am installing 12c Grid Control agent on my server via Enterprise manager.
The targer server is a UNIX server with AIX OS on it. I add target host manually, enter authentication information, host name, installation directory, etc. and all goes well untill I click "Deploy Agent" button, then I get the following error:
"Shell path is incorrect or not defined.:/bin/bash(SH_PATH),-c(SH_ARGS) on host MyHostName"
and details are :
"Check the property values in the following files in this order, ssPaths_.properties or sPaths.properties or Paths.properties, in "/u02/app/oracle/middleware/oms/oui/prov/resources"
There isn't /u02/app" directory on my target server, only /u01/app/oracle" so I assume the above directory is on the same server as Enterprise manager.
Although I did find a directory where I have files of the format  ssPaths_.properties  - /u01/app/oracle/product/220.127.116.11/oui/prov/resources
Since my platform ia AIX, I used file   ssPaths_aix.properties
On my target server if I run which bash I get /usr/bin/bash and which ssh returns /usr/bin/ssh ahd which sh returns /usr/bin/sh
So I edited the ssPaths_aix.properties file so that SH_PATH=/usr/bin/sh  but still getting the same error. I have also tried setting to SH_PATH=/usr/bin/bash but nothing seems to make any difference. I am thinking one possibility would be I am editing wrong file.
Can anyone help?
Comment: If you've got root access, symbolic link your bash binary so there's a link at /bin/bash
Answer: try the following doc
EM 12c Agent Push Fails With Shell Path is Incorrect or Not Defined : /bin/bash(SH_PATH),-c(SH_ARGS) (Doc ID 1489437.1)
Comment: Please tell us the contents of that document.


Extract addition

Question: Would 4oz of watermelon extract be the right amount to add to the secondary or bottling bucket for a 5 gallon batch?
 I am in a wort transformation contest with a 5 gallon wheat.
Answer: 4oz in 5 gallons for a what I imagine to be a fairly bland fruit extract doesn't sound like any problem. I've not tasted watermelon extract, but I do eat watermelon, and easily 4oz per serving. Watermelon has a subtle flavour.
With a wheat beer, the character is dominated by the esters produced by the yeast. Even though this is a competition with wort plus extras, don't underestimate how much you can do with just decent fermentation to get a balanced flavour profile. With a clean ferment, even a subtle addition will show through, but it's not going to be the entire definition of your beer - the clean ferment will do that.
So, even though you're in a competition with everyone brewing from the same malt, your beer isn't just a result of what you add - your process is what will make you stand out. It could be that many of your competitors ferment too cold or too warm and produce a beer that tastes very different.
To sum up, sure 4oz sounds fine, but be sure you reduce your water addition by 4oz if the extract is watery.

Extract addition


How do I interpret 铁饭碗 concisely?

Question: How am I supposed to put "铁饭碗" in simple words, and not a paragraph worth of explanation? I can't seem to find suitable adjectives or nouns to concisely interpret the implication of "铁饭碗" (Suppose to refer to jobs that "won't get laid off")。
Answer: I think translating 铁饭碗 as "guaranteed lifetime employment" gets the point across quite well. There's also a phrase, "cradle-to-grave socialism" -- it's a little more political than guaranteed lifetime employment, but it accurately reflects the use of the word in Chinese history.
Neither phrase has the English resonance of the Chinese original, but I think both are acceptable choices if you are seeking a short explanation.
Answer: Your best bet is to use the translation "Iron Rice Bowl".  There is no direct English equivalent, and (according to Wikipedia) there is a precedent for using the phrase in English.
Plus it's always great to expand English :)
Answer: In the Mafia we'd say you are a "Made Man", in other words, "Set for life".
Answer: Guarantees in terms of job-security, or residency are usually referred to as tenure so I'm going to suggest "Life tenure". Source

How do I interpret 铁饭碗 concisely?


Merging InputProcessor and GestureDetector

Question: I'm planning to make a simple soccerball app. When I attempt to drag the ball, I use the touchDragged() from InputProcessor to move the ball left or right. Next, while holding before releasing, I use the fling() from the GestureDetector to set the power. However, when I'm trying to set the input processor of both the implementing InputProcessor and the GestureDetector, it didn't work.  Moreover, whenever the last time you set the input processor and that would be either the two of them. Why?
Answer: To be clear, you're calling:
Gdx.input.setInputProcessor(processorX);

twice?  It just sets a global variable, so that's why only one sticks.
To support multiple input processors simultaneously, you want an InputMultiplexer.  You can add multiple InputProcessor instances to the multiplexer and it will pass events to them in the order the processors were registered.
However, I think you'll still run into problems because both of your input processors are trying to "eat" the same input events (touch events).  One of them will consume the events, leaving the other with nothing.  Unless you can separate where on the screen each input processor owns (e.g., if the power-setting is a separate area of the screen from the soccer ball).  Or, you could build your own multiplexer that knows which "mode" the game is in, and forwards events to the appropriate input processor.  Its hard to say without more concrete information about your system.
Comment: It's either to set a flag or in one of the methods under _InputProcessor_, it has to be set to _false_.


Are finishing bits sold as such?

Question: One of the answers for another question of mine recommended using a finishing bit in my router to leave about 1/16" protrusion remaining to be sanded. When I search for "finishing bit" though I can't seem to find anything labeled like that for sale. Is there another term I could look for, or does "finishing bit" just refer to a particular configuration of another bit?
Answer: Not sure.  We get our flush bits sharpened which takes down the blades which doesn't cut flush anymore.
What you can do is change the bearing to a different diameter.
Answer: There are dozens of types of router bits.  You are probably looking for a flush cutting or chamfer bit.  If you look at a site like Rockler woodworking  or just google "types of router bits" you will find many sites with large selections. Even the box stores like Lowes and HD have a decent selection of basic bits.

Are finishing bits sold as such?


What is the Gray Order?

Question: I've read Annie's lore and it says she's from the Gray Order. What is that? Are there any other champions from the Gray Order, or any place I can read more about the Order?
Answer: The Gray Order is a sort of rebel group formed by Gregori Hastur, a warlock, and his wife Amoline, who is a witch. Because of several attempted coups against their leadership, the immortal General Boram Darkwill, any political groups or politically motivated citizens of Noxus that are not the same as the governments are violently put down. Because Hastur and Amoline believe in practising and learning the Dark Arts/Black Magic while leaving their neighbors and other countries in peace (Pretty much heresay in militaristic Noxus) they were cast out of the country. Since I can't imagine they'd be welcome anywhere else, Hastur and Amoline (Annie's parents) left the country in an exodus, bringing with them other intellectuals and magicians of the dark arcane arts in order to study it and learn its secrets in relative peace.
They've made a colony beyond the Great Barrier (Inhospitiable lands destroyed by the Rune Wars that used to be fought all over the continent. Which is why there are so few counties left I suppose) in what are called the "Voodoo Lands", which are especially hostile lands north of the Great Barrier. Annie's bear, Tibbers, is an example of the wild life that can be found in the Voodoo Lands. This means several strong, deadly bears just as bad as Tibbers, or worse, are constantly near the colony. Since the colony still survives with those things nearby and in such a harsh place it can be said that the Gray Order is somewhat powerful in that its members are adept with their knowledge of the dark arcane. Annie's parents have some sort of reputation for being powerful wizards as well, which adds to the supposed strength of the Gray Order, as they are known as the Gray Warlocke and the Shadow Witch, respectively.
This is all from Annie's Lore, so far no other mention of the Gray Order can be found (By me anyway. There might be small tidbits in the Journal of Justice that I havent found yet.)
Speaking of which, the only place where you could find more information on the Gray Order would be the Journals of Justice avaliable under the lore section in the LoL game client lobby. However, I don't recall anything being said about them, but feel free to look here: http://na.leagueoflegends.com/story/issue-1-13-july-20-cle
From that page (The first issue) you can access all the other and see if there's any more lore about the Gray Order.
Comment: this is exactly what I was looking for thank you for your amazing answer and the effort you put into my question I hope you like the bounty :)
Answer: At this current time, Riot has yet to expand its' lore about the Gray Order. Sorry =/
Answer: The Gray Order is a group founded by Annie's parents, although the number of members is yet unknown. Their cause is to take back Noxus, their home.
Answer: Sorry, but the Gray Order hasn't developed much. You could always make a post on the League of Legends forums and the Reds (Riot Employees) will usually take notice when they can. Short of that, you should try looking on Fanfiction.net to see if there is anything you can read about it, created by fans of the game.
Answer: The Voodoo lands were colonized by Noxus outcasts - The Gray Order. They left their homes to pursue dark magic. The leaders were a Warlock and a Shadow Witch whose daughter was Annie (The Dark Child - possibly a play on her parents names as well as their magic)
Tibbers is a Shadow bear that used to attack the Gray Order constantly. Annie turned him into her pet - usually keeping him bound by magic as her stuffed bear.
http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Voodoo_Lands

What is the Gray Order?


Is bribing children with cash incentives a good idea?

Question: I pay my 5.5-year-old $1 if she sleeps in her own bed and take $1 in rent when she sleeps in our bed.
I've also taken to offering her $1 to pick up her 2.5-year-old brother's Lego messes.
Good or bad?  When should I stop?
Comment: hm, wonder why someone downvoted. Good question! +1
Comment: Is there any reason the 2.5 year old can't pick up his own Lego messes?
Comment: good question but like many I avoid the bribery for things the kids should be doing anyway, I think it sets a bad example
Comment: Change the rewards to some attention, a hug some laughing playing when they get up and drop the money.
Comment: Seems to me like the reverse of punishment :)
Comment: Only if you are a free market capitalist
Answer: Bribery is a bad thing
The problem with bribing them to do things is that it establishes pattern of rewarding good behaviour with money/treats/snacks. As soon as the child is old enough to realize it, they'll refuse to do anything unless it is rewarded somehow. This situation is incredibly hard to break, so it's best not to get there in the first place.
Good behaviour should be established as the norm. Yes, all children have difficult days and that is what the naughty-step, no-dessert, removal-of-privileges, bedtime-with-no-stories scale of disincentives is for. When they've had a day of good behaviour, then that's the time to reward them with a small reward to enforce that a whole day of good behaviour gets results. The small reward is: they get to choose what's for breakfast/lunch/dinner, which DVD to watch, where to go at the weekend, etc. Nothing monetary nor snack/treat/toy.
The big rewards - trip to the theme park/play center/farm/toyshop - should be kept back for major achievements such as being fully potty-trained, dry at night, first write their name, etc. Now, these rewards aren't offered up-front - they are given as a result of the exceptional behaviour. We use a chart which fills up with stickers to track the steps leading up to a big event (e.g. each dry night of 7) and explain to the children that when they reach the end of the chart, we'll do something nice such as go feed the ducks at the pond, which is different to a normal day. We find that they take to this and are suitably surprised when we 'upgrade' them to a trip to the play centre, etc.
UPDATE
So our children are now 9 and 6 and we still use the chart. They get several stickers/ticks each day for good effort, good results, exceptional behaviour (good behaviour is the expected norm now), doing something without us asking/nagging, etc. They've responded really well to this - on an average day, they get between 3 and 5 stickers/ticks for good effort on homework, good music practice, tidying their room before we asked, when a parent comments on their kind/good behaviour to others, etc.
They also fully understand that we don't disclose what might happen when they complete their chart. Indeed, one time, we just tied some rope to the apple tree to make a swing but this was such fun that they told all their friends.
We scale the chart for their age - 7 x age in years; we have higher expectations of the 9 year old and he has more responsibilities than his younger sister at this stage.
We have also removed stickers/ticks for when they've done something bad/poor behaviour that needed reinforcing - e.g. getting under mummy's feet causing her to miss the train three days in a row, telling grandma the wrong medicine to give to the 6 year old (she didn't, phew!). We are very clear on the consequences of the bad behaviour and we remove stickers/ticks from the top of the chart so they can see the impact.
Every parent thinks highly of their child but we've had feedback from other parents, teachers, scout leaders, camp organisers, etc., that our children understand how their behaviour can influence outcomes and that they make good choices based on this knowledge.
Comment: +1: pay for special achievements, don't pay for what must be a norm.
Comment: @Koert - gving money for what is the norm is usually called "salary". Giving extra for extra achievements is "bonus".
Comment: "Bribery is a bad thing" -- but, it *is* how the world operates. So, I have to agree it's a bad thing to teach children, but am a bit torn over the reality that the world pretty much works that way. :)
Comment: @DA01, there might be a confusion of definitions, though this might also have cultural aspect to it. Giving someone money for doing what is the norm is bribery (e.g. paying for not getting beaten up, or giving money to be treated fairly), whereas giving money for doing what is more than the norm is called trade (e.g. asking someone to wash your car in exchange for some cash).
I can't remember ever having bribed someone, or being offered a bribe. I, like everyone else, have however traded quite a bit.
Comment: I'm surprised no one challenges ""Bribery is a bad thing". At least provide some sort of reference data or research for this. The current answer just appears to retell the age old assumptions.
Comment: I'm challenging. Maybe it depends on the age, how bribery affects the behavioral patterns of children. I was 'bribed' in middle school with $10 for each A I got on my report card, $5 for a B, $0 for C, etc. I wasn't doing very well in school before that, but as soon as I was able to get something for some kind of effort, I started getting straight A's. I continued that throughout high school and graduated with Honors, now in the Honors program at my university. I don't get that money anymore, but I still get straight A's. It influenced my behavior for the better. I may be a corner case though.
Comment: And giving money to obtain a benefit or avoid punishment (bribing a police officer for example) is called "mordida" (bite), at least in México.
Comment: Exam results are long-term major achievements, effectively a measure of consistent effort along the way - analogous to filling up the reward chart incrementally. By this age, you'd understand the `Long-Term Incentive Plan` of cash-for-results. Bribing children to pick up their toys, tidy their room, etc, on a *daily basis* is what we're discussing here - the things that should be done as normal everyday routine.
Comment: To the point of not telling them the reward in advance: If you tell them what happens in advance, their goal is to please the simple tidy system that you created for them and wrote on a piece of paper.  If you don't tell them in advance, then their goal is to please you.  The piece of paper can be a powerful tool for getting the ball rolling, but I believe it is always eventually better to teach children how to make people happy rather than how to fit into the rules on a piece of paper.
Answer: Punishment, threats, bribes, and rewards are two, err, four sides of the same coin.
Our grandparents knew what to do. When a child misbehaved, you beat them. When a child made a mistake, you beat them. If you want a child to remember something important, you beat them. If you were too nice to a child, gave them praise, or gave too many gifts, you would "spoil" the child.
Our parents' generation decided to make a change. Instead of putting children down, we should lift them up. Praise, bribes, and rewards would help them focus on positive behavior, on being good people, and seeing themselves in a positive light.
Today, we are starting to realize that rewards and bribes have the same problems as punishments and threats. The problems include:

you only get the desired behavior when you are around
you are signing up to punish/threat/bribe/reward from now on, whenever you want your child to do something
the appearance of behaving correctly is held higher than the act of doing so
you assume, and demonstrate, that you don't trust the child to follow their own intrinsic motivation. They will learn that the only way to get someone to do do something is by "making it worth their while."

This last one is the most troubling. Would you steal your buddy's wallet if you could get away with it? Do you need the threat of punishment (external or internal) to stop yourself? Or do you refrain because you care about your friend and want to be good to them?
I'd rather show my children that I trust them and believe in their ability to empathize with the needs of others.
The hardest part is figuring out how to do this. We have lots of examples and encouragement to work through punishment, threats, bribes and rewards. Systems of control and domination are built deeply in to our language and are hard to overcome*. Where do we go for guidance on how to act otherwise? It's hard to find.
*do you see how natural that sounds? Do you see how "hard to overcome" assumes the need for control and domination of self and speech?
Comment: Have you encountered the Mechams.  Their website is schooleffectivelyathome.com and although they are specialists in home education, this is basically their philosophy too and they have answers for some of the questions you raise in your Answer.  Even if you aren't homeschooling you might like to check them out.
Comment: An interesting perspective here.  Much to think on and no easy answers.
Answer: Transactions don't have to use real money.  An alternative to real money is to use some sort of tokens (this is often called the "token system") - poker chips work well for this (they have denominations, are colourful, cheap, and look roughly like coins), but you can use anything really.
Advantages over real money are that you control the price of rewards, and what rewards are possible.
Rather than having real money to spend on things, you can spend tokens on things that money can't buy: an extra story at bedtime, a walk to the park, and so on.  Young kids are happy with these rewards, and they don't really cost you anything (the extra story or walk is probably as enjoyable for you as the kid).  Things that really cost money generally require a lot of tokens.
A good practice for the tokens may be to only give tokens for chores or behavior that helps the household, not personal tasks or behavior such as cleaning their own room or sleeping in their own bed.  The tokens should never have a cash value.  They should only be for extra privileges (sleeping in parents bed) other non-tangibles.
As the sleeping-in-own-bed issue is resolved, the number of tokens gained can be reduced (or the cost of rewards can be increased) until the token doesn't really gain anything.  (In real life, prices do increase, so this doesn't teach false financial lessons).  This makes it easier to wean the kid off rewards for each behaviour.
Alternatively, something that I do is to require increasingly good behaviour for the same number of tokens.  For example, when toilet training if there were no accidents for one day, that was one token.  Once that was achieved, no accidents for two days in a row gained one token; then three days in a row, and so forth.
(I used the Fibonacci sequence: 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21... so that fairly quickly so many days are required that it's just normal behaviour and no-one remembers about the reward, plus we get to learn about interesting sequences of numbers).
Comment: @JBRWilkinson Any reward by this measure, include those that you suggested, are bribery.
Comment: +another just for fibonacci :)
Comment: Can't wait until your kid(s) start explaining Fibonacci numbers to their friends in kindergarten!
Comment: Using tokens as a substitute for money is still bribery but the value is determined when the "child cashes in their chips". I'm not sure poker chips are a good thing to introduce to children, either - gambling is an adult activity.
Answer: Bribery (incentives, payment for performance, rewards for obedience) destroys intrinsic motivation in children (and adults).  It can gain temporary cooperation, but it fails in the long run as your child will ultimately expect some incentive to do anything.  To become dependent on external motivations is an awful psychological result that you certainly do not want for your child.
I recommend:

Unconditional Parenting (Alfie Kohn)
Punished By Rewards (Alfie Kohn)
NutureShock (Po Bronson & Ashley Merriman)
Drive (Daniel Pink)

These authors have summarized a lot of scientific studies in human and child psychology and basically annihilate the pervasive modern parenting paradigm of rewards and praise (and/or the withholding of the same).  That kind of parenting is called "behaviourism" and is based on studies of rats, dogs and chimps.  According to the science, behavioural parenting can get you some level of obedience (mostly in the short term), but it has a lot of potential for damaging your relationship with your child and your child's character.
Although it is much easier to follow some variation of reward/punishment parenting strategy to try to obtain obedience from your children (and I fall back into it all the time, even knowing how crappy it is), the best way to parent is to treat your kid like a person.  Use reasoning, talk it out, work it out, brainstorm together, work together.  Even with a 2-year-old (OK, things do break down when she starts screaming and punching...)  This teaches the child how to handle conflict.  When you do resort to rewards or punishments, realize that it is not good parenting, apologize for it, and try to do better next time.
Comment: http://blogs.britannica.com/2009/02/alfie-kohn-is-bad-for-you-and-dangerous-for-your-children/
Comment: @rofrol: http://blogs.britannica.com/2009/02/alfie-kohns-reply-to-daniel-willingham/
Answer: Disclaimer: I'm a future parent myself; but my wife is a part-time nanny for 4 different families (like 7 or 8 kids total), and I hear about this all the time.
She tends to bribe the kids with privileges (it wouldn't make sense to give them money, you know, since it is her job). Lately, she says the kids have begun turning it around on her and are now trying to bribe her. Everything is turning into a negotiation:

Wife: "Eat 5 more bites of veggies and you can go play"
4 y/o: "Okay, but only if you'll let me play X"

And of course there is the very knowledgeable Dave Ramsey...he says: (source)

Start paying them a commission for chores they do around the house.
Do not give them an allowance.
Send them off to work.

I've always loved the idea that a child should work for their money...but the flip side is the possible conditioning of them to only do things for money...or to start bribing and negotiating with you.
Comment: Syboogu raises a good point.  Be *very* careful about how you bribe your child or it will backfire big time (in my experience).
Comment: Negotiation is an important life skill... I personally am a truly awful negotiator and as a result i'm always getting stiffed in life. early fostering of this should perhaps be promoted, unfortunately it means more negotiating work from us. fortunately my wife is a better negotiator than me
Comment: Oh yes, Syd has started to figure out she can bargain for things and negotiate.  I don't think it's unhealthy (yet).
Comment: I'd like to see what that child will behave when its a grown up. I seriously don't know if its good not not.
Comment: @DerMike You can check out how Dave ramsey's kids turned out - Rachel Cruze is a public figure, and the generosity of his son (who is not a public figure) has been expounded upon many times.  How many 16 year olds will have earned $15,000 towards a first car, then turn around and give $10,000 of it to a disaster relief effort, and on top of that go in person to work in said disaster relief effort?
Answer: It sounds like you have set clear, realistic expectations up front, which would mean you're dealing with rewards and penalties and not bribery. However, if you're bribing her in the middle of an argument, she can easily perceive that as rewarding her bad behavior which encourages her to start the argument again night after night.
Rewarding good behavior is generally the most effective approach. It doesn't even have to be money. Exuberant praise actually works better than tangible rewards with my daughter. Make it clear exactly what the praise is for and why it's such a big deal. This is so powerful because it makes her feel good about herself to know she accomplished something great. Bonus self-esteem boost! The hard part for me is remembering to give the praise on a consistent basis.
If using tangible rewards, it might be difficult to stop as she'll certainly notice the lack of coin in her palm. If the dollar is the only reason she's sleeping in her own bed, not having the dollar is going to be a big problem. If she's in her own bed because she's proud to be a big girl, she's not going to miss the money. Keep up with the money for a while, and introduce lots of praise. I'd even talk about how well she's doing throughout the day. Just as when you introduced the reward, setting expectations up front is going to be very helpful when phasing it out. Make it clear that you're very proud of her for sleeping in her own bed. Explain that she's a big girl now, and it's one of the things that big girls do, so soon she won't be getting paid for it.
You may find that you don't even need any penalty. I haven't found them very effective, anyway (my daughter would gladly pay a dollar to get out of something she doesn't want to do). If your daughter responds well to penalties, then it's another great tool to use. The best part: phasing out penalties is probably not going to be a problem!
Answer: David Murdoch brings up a good point about the kids starting to flip it around to make everything a negotiation. I can't cite a source on the exact technique we've adopted to avoid this (probably because the wife is the one to read most of the books on these topics), but I can share the general idea:
Don't make the bribery a regular thing. And don't ever offer a bribe for good behavior once the bad behavior has already begun - then you are rewarding not just the good behavior but the entire bad behavior / good behavior cycle. An example of an acceptable bribe:
Your child has been on good behavior all day, but it is getting late, they are getting exhausted and you have one more errand to run. In that case, offering a small bribe (let them choose a toy under X amount for instance) as long as they are good in the store is a good way to encourage and reward good behavior.
Bribes don't need to be much of anything, really - you'd be amazed at the lengths a boy will go to to keep that $0.97 Hot Wheels car they picked out.
Comment: I have also found that letting the child pick the toy before you do the rest of your shopping helps. He has a physical reminder and if he starts to act up in the store you can take the toy. He always response better if he already has the toy "it is his".
Answer: Hear this amusing podcast from Planet Money:
Joshua Gans, an economist from Australia who wrote a book called Parentonomics, "tried to create a toilet-training economy for his young children. He rewarded them with candy for sitting on the toilet — and the older ones got candy if they helped the younger ones."
However, the kids quickly learned how to manipulate the system:

But, like tiny Wall-Street bankers, the kids figured out how to work the system for maximum advantage.
His daughter managed to go to the bathroom every 20 minutes, all day long. For a while, she got a treat every time.
She also wrung everything she could out of her brother:

I realized that if I helped my brother go to the toilet, I would get rewarded, too. And I realized that the more that goes in, the more comes out. So I was just feeding my brother buckets and buckets of water.
Comment: Basically, the schemes devised by the economist father backfired because the kid learned how to manipulate them. I added a couple of examples to the answer.
Comment: For the last 4 months I've been telling Evan he could get Legos when he went #2 on the the potty.  He finally did on Saturday.  Then he went again and again, just to get more Legos - completely at will and whenever he wanted to open a new minifig.  The rule is now revised, to a Lego for a whole day with no accidents.
Comment: Can you please add a short summary of the podcast, especially about the outcome? I can't vote for this without more information.
Answer: I have struggled with this question, too, and have tried to balance the immediate effectiveness of "bribing" my children with the long-term lessons they're learning from my own behavior.
Currently, what seems to work best for me, is to identify real, tangible costs that are associated with whatever behavior I'm trying to guide. For instance, our boys (8 and 11) spend way too much time playing video games on their computers. I don't want them to learn there's anything wrong with playing video games, but I want them to get used to maintaining a balance of varied activities, so I felt that making arbitrary restrictions on the amount of time would be the wrong approach.
So, we assigned a rental price to the PC of $5/hour. They get paid minimum wage ($7.25/hour) for the work they do around the house, so now they get to decide how much time they spend on the computer, but there are tangible constraints to keep them in balance.
We've been doing this for about a year now, and it seems to be working well enough.
Answer: I agree with other people that bribery is bad, but you have to know when it's bribery and when it isn't. Picking up the Lego mess isn't a bribe, because its not her mess. You're paying her to perform a service. It's an even exchange of labor for compensation. This can be a good opportunity to teach a child about money and finances if played right. If she had made the Lego mess, I wouldn't offer to pay her. The thing with this particular situation is that you may be missing an opportunity to teach your younger child about picking up his own mess.
Things that are rules, you don't want to negotiate on with bribes. You want to clearly establish that you're the boss and that you don't have to pay your child to follow the rules.
Comment: +1 for not negotiating rules, and for the idea of performing services.
Answer: I say good.
Many children grow up taking money for granted, and associating money with effort is a good lesson to teach when your kids are young.  I would add that you should also take the opportunity to help your daughter put a portion of her money aside to save, and maybe a portion to give to charity.
Answer: In my opinion it varies with age. We provide punishment and reward, and money comes into that along with treats. Here's what we have done with our three:
They all get pocket money of £1 per week from granny as standard

If my eldest two help me wash the car they get an extra pound. If they
are really naughty they may get no pocket money in a particular week.
Granny keeps the money, but every time she visits the kids get to
decide whether they want to spend the savings so far, or keep them.
When they want a new toy, or to go quad biking - they pay out of their
own savings. They rapidly learn the value of money.

In addition to the monetary side of things, we use treats:

If they are naughty they might get sent to bed with no dinner - If
they are good they might get dessert.
When little, toilet training success was rewarded with a treat at each milestone
When they get a very good school report they get to choose a new book as a gift

I think rewards are extremely valuable, and including monetary rewards helps them prepare for later life
Answer: It's important to distinguish between Intrinsic (natural) consequences and extrinsic (artificial) reward/punishment. And it's important to understand why they aren't complying. Imagine if you said "OK fly!" and they didn't so you said "here's a bunch of candy, OK? Now ...Fly!". It's often more productive to figure out why they aren't complying and address that root cause, rather than trying to "motivate" them.
Extrinsic Rewards/Punishments are often viewed as coercive. And resisted
In the real world if they are late for the bus, there's a consequence: they miss it and must walk to school. If they study really hard, are organized and take good notes, they'll get better grades. If they practice for the speech they have to give, they'll do better. Those are natural consequences. An emotionally adjusted person won't "fight" this or complain about it. They realize "you can't argue with gravity".
But... if you try to coerce them with punishments and rewards, a typical person will see this as a battle. They see that you're trying to coerce them. And they will often resist. Or (worse) become more interested in the extrinsic reward/punishment as it extinguishes the internal motivation. So, now instead of practicing soccer for the natural consequence (getting better, winning, etc.) they do it for the $10 you offered them. And pretty soon they're more interested in the $10 than the soccer practice.
The solution is not easy: you have to find the natural consequences of their actions and merely highlight them. And you may often find it easier to facilitate rather than coerce. For example, if you're trying to get them to go potty the first time rather than trying to bribe them (although I think it would be OK to bribe that first time) instead find out what the issue is. I mean, do they really like the feel of pooping their pants? They may need to sit on the potty for 30 minutes before having success. That's boring. They don't like it. So address that issue and facilitate the potty training by finding something fun for them to do (my wife had our kids listen to books on tape). The beauty here is that this is a natural reward: you're not "bribing them" you're addressing the fact that sit'n on the pot is boring.
For more on this I highly recommend Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn.
Answer: I took a roll of pennies and spray painted them gold so they couldn't get mixed up/mistaken for normal money. These were "pirate coins" or "treasure". I used them to reward extra good behavior and routine tasks that they needed some motivation for (1 penny for doing a good job brushing teeth, 1 penny for sorting laundry, etc.).
There were several benefits from doing rewards this way. First is that since there was no intrinsic value to them, I could decide what they were worth. My children would ask me "how many gold pennies would this cost?" If it was something I wanted them to "buy" (healthy food that they liked at the supermarket, the right to choose where we went to dinner on our night out, chapter books, etc.) I set the price fairly low, and if it was something I didn't want them to have (candy, comic books, etc.) the price was high. That way they always knew they could get something if they absolutely wanted it but I stacked the deck in the favor of the healthy choices.
A secondary benefit: no more "mommy mommy buy me this please mommy..." when we are at the store. I just ask them if they have enough gold pennies to buy what they want. If they do and they are willing to pay, they get what they want.  No arguments.  And no credit. If they want something and don't have enough to earn it, give them a task and say "as soon as you have enough earned I'll bring you back here and we'll buy it." Inevitably by the time they have enough, they've decided they want something else instead.
Interestingly, my son and my daughter have developed extremely different spending patterns according to their personalities. Money burns a hole in my son's pocket. If he has any money at all he spends it on the first impulse item he sees and wants. This has carried over into his early teen years, unfortunately. I think it is a product of his early life in an extremely poor rural Chinese orphanage (he was 4-1/2 when we adopted him).
My daughter is a hoarder. She once saved 200 pennies (averaging a little over 1 per day) and decided she wanted to spend it on a vacation to Disneyland for the whole family. Eventually her hoard got so large I was spray painting nickels, dimes and quarters, but it was a great way to encourage her to learn about money. Her habits were also due to her early childhood (she was a "good" child according to the orphanage -> translate -> she didn't cry so we could leave her in her crib by herself and she taught herself not to want anything).
I suppose I could have used real money but I think that would have been a very bad idea in my son's case. Offered the choice between ten dollars worth of fruit (which he loves) and a candy bar (which he loves even more) I could never predict which way he'd fall. If he'd had a dollar and been given the choice between $1 worth of fruit and $1 worth of candy he'd have gone for the candy every time.
Comment: +1 Very reasonable. " She once saved 200 pennies (at 1 per day) and decided she wanted to spend it on a vacation to Disneyland for the whole family." Wow! Did you do it? How was she with the result?
Comment: Absolutely :)  She asked me how many pennies it would cost to go to Disneyland and (thinking that it was a sufficiently out-of-reach sum) I said 200.  After that she never spent a single penny until she had reached her goal.  So we all went to Disneyland that summer.  It turned out what she really wanted to do was visit Grandma and Grandpa in Pasadena, but she thought she'd throw Disneyland in there so everyone would have fun ;)
Answer: In "How to Behave so Your Children Will too" they say "never give away ice cream". By that they mean use treats and fun things as a way to remind yourself to focus on their good behaviour.
I try to consider the value proposition of my children doing things that they don't want to do and what they get out of it. David Murdoch mentioned that his wife's charges are demanding things from her in return for doing stuff. I want to encourage this kind of negotiation. Sometimes I ask my kids (boys, 7&9) what will make this worth their while. Their answers often surprise me: more time in the park, a bike ride, a friend over, pizza for dinner. This ties in nicely with Tony Meyer's token system. We used paper paint sample cards and wrote reminders on them.
As for sleeping with parents, we enjoy morning cuddles with our children. We got to this point by putting limits on when this would happen. First, they must knock on the door. Entering without being invited = no. There was an alarm clock before they could tell time. After it rang, they could join us. Sometimes we would come to their bed for a bit if they needed reassurance. Back rubs and a teddy would help ("It's important to stay in bed so teddy doesn't get lonely"). Very important to know why they are coming into your bed so you can deal with the cause if it is nightmares. Bribery with money is not recommended.
Answer: I personally prefer rewards over money payment. Especially, I don't like the idea of paying the children for chores they do around the house. We all live in it together, and all have responsibilities within the house. And they have their part to do with it. To reach this goal, you have to teach them by experience and let them get used to it.
We established a system with our 2 eldest sons (ages 8 and 5) that each day one of them is "on duty". This means that he needs to do some very simple chores around the house, like pick up the toys and things like that. He can get his brother to help, but it's his responsibility. By doing it every other day, they don't feel that "they have to do these things all the time", and they do it quite happily. Of course, we encourage them with praise on their good work, and teach them how to do it correctly as we go. It got to a point that we could drop the whole "on duty" thing altogether, as they have grown used to doing these things.
On other things, where we had problems, like taking a shower, we took a slightly different reward approach. My second son would always fight and not want to take a shower. We established a reward system (after a few trails) for both of them so that the big one will not feel left out. It went like this: When we call them to the shower, if they come promptly and get into the shower without a fight, each gets a point. They collect points, and at the end of the week we check, if they got full points, they get a reward. The rewards is a "note" (like a coupon) and each week it is different. It could be an extra 1/2 hour of TV or computer time, a snack, an extra story at bedtime, etc. The idea is that they could use the coupon at any time they want. This worked really well, and after about 3 months we were able to drop the system gradually, as all shower issues have ceased.


What Conditions must Drugs satisfy for them to be Deliverable via the Transdermal route?

Question: What Conditions must Drugs satisfy for them to be Deliverable via the Transdermal route? I assume a high $\log{P}$ (lipophilicity) would be one, are there any others?
Answer: Whether a drug can be delivered transdermally?  I think that carriers can be formulated to carry a small molecule through the skin into circulation, so I don't even know about lipophilicity. I believe if you spend enough money, you can overcome many of these problems.  I think that pharmacology might be just as important.
I think the first condition of a transdermal administration is that the drug cannot be effectively administered orally.  This is the most cost effective route go get a pharma compound into the body. It requires no devices, no fancy coatings or vaporizors.
Reasons that a pill (or its less popular cousins the suppository and sublingual tablet) cannot be used as the delivery system for a drug include effect of pH and other degradation of the compound in the GI tract, absorption rate from the GI tract and other factors such as effect of food in the system, other drugs which might interact in the system.
Another advantage of absorption through the GI tract is that this is the physiological system which is meant to be ingested and introduced into the body - its relatively fault tolerant, even if less of the drug actually reaches the blood stream.  There's more, but that's not a bad outline.
After pills and the like, the second choice is intravenous administration, which puts 100% of the drug into the circulatory system.   This has its own disadvantages, requires a clinical setting and the needle and breaking of the skin are not ideal in many cases.
If the drug needs continuous and non clinical administration there are many other means of drug delivery, including transdermal administration.  Differentiating these methods often includes making sure the drug is available specifically to the part of the body that needs it.  E.g. topical administration; putting on a medicated cream for a skin condition or use of an inhaler which delivers the drug directly to the lung for an asthmatic condition.
Transdermal administration has its own specific advantages; continuous distribution of the compound over long periods of time.  Disadvantages include: poor ADME properties for biologicals like antibodies and other proteins, low delivery concentrations where you need a large amount added (epinephrine, and maybe antibiotics come to mind).
Examples of successful transdermal delivery are testosterone gels and the nicotine patch.  Both of which apply continuous controlled low dosage that is important there.
There are three typical routes of drug absorption in transdermal delivery.  The drugs can diffuse through the membranes of dead cells of the stratum corneum, which works if the drugs are lipophilic enough.  They can diffuse around these cells, through the intercellular spaces, which can work for more polar drugs although this path is not usually as efficient.  The most extreme means are patches which contain tiny needles that can deliver straight through the protective layer of the skin.  With enough economic investment probably any sort of compound could be introduced through a patch.
Most of this is just cribbing off the notes from this lecture on coursera: Fundamentals of Pharmacology.  Its probably outlined on any pharmacology text.
Comment: What about fentanyl? Fentanyl can be delivered orally yet it is also available in transdermal patches. Nicotine is water soluble but it is also lipophilic which is how it manages to cross the BBB so easily.
Comment: I tried to address this in edits.  I don't claim to cover all transdermal delivery, just trying to answer the question at the fairly general level it was being asked.  I would have to do some digging re: fentenyl.  I might have time tonight.


What is the best defense when playing against Miami online?

Question: What is the best defense when playing against Miami online? It seems there is no way to stop Lebron from dunking.
Answer: Run a 2-3 Zone defense. In NBA 2k12, Lebron has 2 hot spots behind the arc, and those are both to the right of the free throw line.
With that said, Lebron shoots a very low percentage anywhere else behind the arc, as well as when taking a fadeaway jumper inside the arc. If you can force him to do either of these, you will have a much easier time defending him.
The 2-3 zone will put your three biggest guys around the hoop. This will make your life much easier when defending anybody who is driving.
In the way of teams, I would have to go with the Indiana Pacers. Roy Hibbert is a monster inside and will give your team the edge.
Have fun and I hope this helps!
Answer: I would pick the mavericks and run a zone that forces him to go to the arc instead of pushing foward


Kids listening to music in sefira: what age

Question: At which age should children be trained not to listen to music during sefira.
Answer: Rabbi Simchah Bunim Cohen in "Children in Halachah" (Artscroll, page 186) places the age at seven or eight, although he is technically speaking about the three weeks (I don't think there is any reason which would make these two periods different).
ספר שמע בני by Rabbi Dovid Weinberger, also speaking about the three weeks, says that children who have reached chinuch should not listen to music during the three weeks (page 69).
Indeed Rabbi Cohen above also said that the age was "chinuch but gave a more specific age while Rabbi Weinberger discusses the difference of opinions about the age of "chinuch in the beggining of his sefer (page 10-11).
Incidentally Rabbi Cohen cites the Igros Moshe O.C. 4:24d while Rabbi Weinberger cites Igros Moshe O.C. 4:21d. It seems likely that one of these is a typographical error and when/if I have a chance to look further I will, bli neder, try to clarify.
Answer: I have heard in the name of Rabbi Yitzchok Breitowitz that you may listen to kids music with your small children during sefira if you wouldn't listen to it by yourself (the vast majority of the stuff little kids seem to like). Perhaps a corollary is that by the time they start listening to decent music, it is time for them to stop during sefira.


Value of $\limsup$ of $x_n=\sup\{x\in [0,x_{n-1}):\sin(1/x)=0\},n\ge 2$

Question:
A sequence is defined like the following $$x_1=1,$$ $$x_n=\sup\{x\in [0,x_{n-1}):\sin(1/x)=0\},n\ge 2$$ What is $\limsup x_n$?

I shall be highly obliged to those who will write the solution for me in detail.
Thank you, I am very weak in $\limsup$
Comment: Well, I would write a quite explicit formula for $x_n$ if I were you: surely you know the zeroes of the sine function, hence...
Comment: I haven't written anything down, but if I calculated this right in my head it seems the sequence $x_n$ converges, so lim sup is the limit.
Answer: Note that $\sin(\frac{1}{x}) = 0 $ iff $x = \frac{1}{n \pi}$ for some $n \geq 1$.
Now consider the problem $\alpha_T = \sup \{x \in [0,T)\, | \  x \in \{ \frac{1}{n \pi} \}_n \} = \sup \{ \frac{1}{n \pi} \}_n \cap [0,T)$. Then we want to find the smallest $n\geq 1$ such that $\frac{1}{n \pi} < T \leq \frac{1}{(n-1) \pi}$ (ignoring the right hand upper bound if $n=1$). A small amount of work shows that $n = \lfloor \frac{1}{\pi T} \rfloor +1$. This gives $\alpha_T = \frac{1}{(\lfloor \frac{1}{\pi T} \rfloor +1)\pi}$. So, we have $x_2 = \alpha_1$, and $x_{n+1} = \alpha_{x_n}$.
It is easy to see that $x_2 = \alpha_1 = \frac{1}{\pi}$, and that if we assume $x_n = \frac{1}{n \pi}$, then  $x_{n+1} = \alpha_{x_n} = \alpha_{\frac{1}{n \pi}} = \frac{1}{(n+1) \pi}$.
Consequently, we have $x_n = \frac{1}{n \pi}$. Hence $\limsup_n x_n = \lim_n x_n = 0$.
Answer: So
$$x_1=1\,\,,\,\,x_2=\sup\{x\in [0,1)\;:\;\sin 1/x=0\}$$
But
$$\sin 1/x=0\Longleftrightarrow \frac{1}{x}=k\pi\,\,,\,k\in\Bbb Z\Longleftrightarrow x=\frac{1}{k \pi}\,\,,\,k\in\Bbb N$$
since we're working with positive $\,x'\,$s , and thus the supremum in this  case is a maximum:
$$\,x_2=\frac{1}{\pi}$$
Mimic the above to obtain
$$x_3=\frac{1}{2\pi}$$
And now develope this into a pattern...