What is done to worn out balls? Are they recycled, reused or do they end up in the landfill?
When umpire change the cricket ball, was the old ball thrown as waste or keep for reuse?
How do I turn off equation auto numbering How to interpret the margin of error in a poll? Recently the media reported on a political poll that stated that "46% of Republican voters in Mississippi think that interracial marriage should be illegal".  One example story (of many around the 'net) is this one from the NY Daily News: .  From that article:     A survey conducted last month shows 46% of GOP voters in the state   believe interracial marriage should be illegal - a plurality of the   people questioned   Given that I know many people in interracial marriages (including in my own family) I was motivated to track down the full story rather than fall to the obvious hysteria.  I located the press release on the poll from Public Policy Polling  (PDF)  which has:     46% of these hardcore Republican voters believe interracial marriage   should be illegal, while 40% think it should be legal. With Barbour   included, Huckabee gets more support (22%) from the former than the   latter (15%), as does Palin (13-6). The support for Bachmann (10-2),   Gingrich (13-8), and Pawlenty (4-1) works the opposite way.   And at the end of the first page they state:     PPP surveyed 400 usual Mississippi Republican primary voters from   March 24th to 27th. The survey’s margin of error is +/-4.9%.   Now what I don't understand is how to interpret the results especially the margin of error value.    From the raw numbers, 46% (~50%) of 400 voters is 200 voters who responded who think that interracial marriages should be illegal.  But from stats of Mississippi in the 2008 Federal election, McCain polled about 725,000 Republican votes (to Obamas 556,000). My gut feeling is that you can't extrapolate that 46% number to the other 724,600 Republican voters and still retain a 5% margin of error.  So is the media misrepresenting the numbers (really? the media would do that?!?!?!) Or are there statistics at work that I don't understand?  Thanks for your help! Non-EU spouse of UK citizen Schengen visa requirements I'm a British citizen and my wife is in the UK on a spouse visa. She holds a BRP card. We're planning to visit Germany and some other Schengen countries, and I've got a question around visa requirements/supporting documents.  I've read in few places (i.e ) that the visa requirements are more relaxed if the applicant is a spouse of a UK citizen, and is travelling with the UK citizen.  How relaxed are the requirements? Does my wife need to submit supporting documents for accommodation, finances, flight booking, etc.? Or is it simply submitting the application form alongside the passports and BRP? (i.e standard documentation for Schengen visa application section from ) Why does the following behave unexpectedly in Python?  &gt;&gt;&gt; a = 256 &gt;&gt;&gt; b = 256 &gt;&gt;&gt; a is b True           # This is an expected result &gt;&gt;&gt; a = 257 &gt;&gt;&gt; b = 257 &gt;&gt;&gt; a is b False          # What happened here? Why is this False? &gt;&gt;&gt; 257 is 257 True           # Yet the literal numbers compare properly   I am using Python 2.5.2. Trying some different versions of Python, it appears that Python 2.3.3 shows the above behaviour between 99 and 100.  Based on the above, I can hypothesize that Python is internally implemented such that "small" integers are stored in a different way than larger integers and the is operator can tell the difference. Why the leaky abstraction? What is a better way of comparing two arbitrary objects to see whether they are the same when I don't know in advance whether they are numbers or not? Temporary locks on answers not showing lock duration Tested on Stack Overflow, Stack Overflow Meta and Pets.  Questions  Temporary locks on questions are showing the duration (mod only).  Stack Overflow.   Meta Stack Overflow.   Pets.   Answers  On answers they are not and there's no way to find the lock duration when we use timeline tools to examine the post.  Pets.   Stack Overflow.   Meta Stack Overflow.   Is this something that hasn't been implemented or is it a bug?  If it hasn't been implemented can we please have it implemented? Someone told me I need a ticket out of Thailand in order to enter.  I am traveling to Thailand, on March 18th. I have a Ticket from Bangkok to Sweden booked for June 4th.   I will be staying in Thailand for 2 weeks when I arrive there, then traveling around Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam until June 4th when I leave.   With that ticket out of Thailand, will I be able to get in and get a (30 day) Visa-On-Arrival (or not because the ticket out is not within the first 30 days). Or do I need to show proof that I am leaving within 2 weeks of being there at first? $\mathbb Z[i]/ \langle 1+2i \rangle \cong \mathbb Z_5$ TikZ: multiple decorations on a path. Asymptotic distribution of maximum order statistic of IID random normals Is there a nice limiting distribution of $\max( X_1,X_2,...,X_n) $ as $n$ goes to $\infty$, assuming that they are iid normal distributions with variance $\sigma^2$.   This is almost certainly a well known problem with a clever proof and nice solution, but I've been digging around and haven't found anything. Maximum value of $\sin A+\sin B+\sin C$? What is the maximum value of $\sin A+\sin B+\sin C$ in a triangle $ABC$. My book says its $3\sqrt3/2$ but I have no idea how to prove it.   I can see that if $A=B=C=\frac\pi3$ then I get $\sin A+\sin B+\sin C=\frac{3\sqrt3}2$. And also  maximum is attained for $a=b=c$. But this does not give me any idea for the proof.  Can anyone help? Add new user and add meta at once In C#, I want to initialize a string value with an empty string.  How should I do this?  What is the right way, and why?  string willi = string.Empty;   or  string willi = String.Empty;   or  string willi = "";   or what? How to Remove URLs from Google Search Engine Why does my front derailleur not work when it is cold? When it is warm outside my front derailleur works just fine. But when it gets colder (40F) the lever on the handle bar does not catch and I can move it without any resistance the whole way without the derailleur shifting.  Update: The wire is not moving and the shifter is a Shimano Deore.  Any idea what can cause that and how to fix it? Let $f$ be increasing on $[a,b]$ and $a < x_1 < \dotsb < x_n < b$. Show that $\sum_{k = 1}^n [f(x_k^+) - f(x_k^-)]\leq f(b^-) - f(a^+)$. Is there a website that summarizes the luggage and check-in requirements for each airplane company? I don't travel much by plane but I use a wide variety of companies. Since there is not much harmonization, specially with LCC, each one has its own requirements about luggage size, weight, extra luggage price, need for on-line check-in and printed ticket.  Each time I fly I ask my self what are the requirements, and although I can check them online at the official website this can't be quick, sometimes I leave it for last or, with so many, I just confuse airline requirements.  Is there a website or resource that lists this information? This would be very useful to quickly check or just compare requirements. How can I prevent iTunes from auto starting when I plug in an iOS device? I am looking for a novel that I'd love to re-read it with my wife (my 13-year old self must be proud of me I guess). Key Plot points The plot was about humanity finding an alien station on an orbit of Earth. (I'm not sure if it wasn't Moon itself). On this station there were thousands of ships ready to travel so there rose a company that paid people to get on those ships and explore the galaxy. The problem was humans didn't understand how to steer those ships so they had to rely on preset targets. Of course there was no telling where particular ship was to go and fair amount of them never returned. Chronology and other relevant information I read it as an early teenager back in early 2000s. It was Polish translation of a foreign (possibly English) story. I think (not sure) that the book wasn't new at the time. It was just one of those books you dig out in a library and take to see if it's good. I don't recall cover either and even if I did it'd be of the Polish version. Additional information could be that the narration was led along the psychoanalytics of the main protagonists where he relives his memories from inside the station and his journeys. How can I best describe "making a new discovery"? When I format a drive to NTFS under Windows and plug it into the Ubuntu machine it is perfectly usable, but when I format it under Ubuntu using Disks (delete all partitions and create one single partition with NTFS) it does not show up when plugged into the Windows machine. Please note that in both cases the USB drive contains only one, primary partition formatted to NTFS, for example: /dev/sdb - the actual device /dev/sdb1 - the only, primary partition I've observed this behaviour both with a solid state USB pen-drive as well as an external USB magnetic HDD. How to (re)format a USB HDD or a stick to NTFS under Ubuntu so it is usable under Windows?