I posted a question a few days ago which I assigned a bounty to. One of the answerers didn't seem to have basically any idea what he was talking about and the other misread the question, so neither of them was any help. But I have to award the bounty, even though I feel that neither of the answers posted by other people (I solved the problem myself) are useful.  Is there any way that I can choose to not award the bounty?
Shouldn't there be a way to prevent automatic awarding of a bounty? For example, if someone provides an answer that sounds good but is totally wrong, it may happen that it gets a score of +2, but doesn't deserve the bounty. If no one else answers, half the bounty will automatically go to this person. Automatic awarding is good if an inactive user offers a bounty, but I think there should be a button that basically means "I know the bounty should now be awarded, but I have read the answers and none of them deserve the bounty".  The button should obviously not refund the bounty, just let it go to /dev/null instead of awarding it to someone who doesn't deserve it.
Order of some quotient ring of Gaussian integers Getting started with ArcObjects? What is the best route or place to get started with ArcObjects if one is not a developer and not aiming to become a developer?  I've been using gis professionally for a long time, almost two decades, arcinfo/arcgis for most of that; I'm pretty good. I'm learning software development, and even have a modestly successful small python application used in a public project; I'm not good! I don't want to become a full fledged software developer but I keep running into things I just can't do without programming (). In the arcgis world this puts me pretty squarely in the python camp, which is fine by me since I like python, however python does not have straightforward access to ArcObjects. (Python and ArcObjects , but it's an unsupported route. This question is about following a beaten path.)  I need to get started, but where?  to get started with the  but $1500/yr is definitely not in my budget, and sounds like using a sledge hammer to swat mosquitos. And which language .NET, Visual Basic, or Visual C++?    UPDATE: Thank you everyone for the wonderful answers. In light of them I realise  I unecessarily narrowed the scope of my question be pre-supposing "ArcObjects" is the direction I need to go in. A more open ended formulation is more along the lines of:     I keep running into problems I just   can't solve with arcgis and python   alone. What else can I learn/use to   solve problems like X? I've no   interest or intention of becoming a   software developer. I just need to do   a couple things which aren't exposed   to the arcgis python modules. Is it a good practice to refer to countries, ships etc using the feminine form? While talking about ships and countries, is it a good practice to use the feminine form?  For example:  "Her economy" - while referring to a country's economy "Her flag (or deck etc)" - while referring to a ship  Is this practice common? Is it used today? I keep reading articles about CCD vs CMOS image sensors. What is the difference between these two types? What exactly do these sensors do in terms of photography?  Is a CCD-based camera going to be able to compete in the future? If I buy one, can I count on using it for some years or would it be better to upgrade to a camera with a CMOS based sensor? Common lines between two files Database synchronization between dev/staging and production The usual Schrodinger Lagrangian is $$ \tag 1 i(\psi^{*}\partial_{t}\psi ) + \frac{1}{2m} \psi^{*}(\nabla^2)\psi, $$ which gives the correct equations of motion, with conjugate momentum for $\psi^{*}$ vanishing. This Lagrangian density is not real but differs from a real Lagrangian density  $$ \tag 2 \frac{i}{2}(\psi^{*}\partial_{t}\psi -\psi \partial_{t}\psi^{*} ) + \frac{1}{2m} \psi^{*}(\nabla^2)\psi $$ by a total derivative.  My trouble is that these two lagrangian densities lead to different conjugate momenta and hence when setting equal time commutation relations, I am getting different results (a factor of 2 is causing the problem). I can rescale the fields but then my Hamiltonian also changes. Then applying Heisenberg equation of motion, I don't get the operator Schrodinger equation.   Is it possible to work with the real Lagrangian density and somehow get the correct commutation relations? I would have expected two Lagrangians differing by total derivative terms to give identical commutation relations (since canonical transformations preserve them). But perhaps I am making some very simple error. Unless all conjugate momenta are equivalent for two Lagrangians differing by total derivatives, how does one choose the correct one?   I guess the same thing happens for other first order systems like Dirac Lagrangian also. How can I record sound from the windows command line? Is there an application capable of recording sound that I can run from the command line on XP?  Ideally I'd start it with one command and stop it with another. Or I could specify a duration with the starting command. I just asked my first question on stackoverflow and I'm really impressed that my question seems to be answered sufficiently already! See:    The issue I have is that the last two answers combined would provide the most complete answer. What's the proper way to go about combining them, marking the question answered, and giving credit where credit is due?  Thanks big time guys for saving us all from experts exchange hell!  Edit: Wow, 5 responses in 5 minutes. I think what makes the most sense is that I create my own answer out of the two. I don't think the second part of my question was answered though.  What is the proper way to give credit to the 2 answers that I'm combining? Is an upvote for each sufficient? After a lot of messing around today I curiously observed that $a^2+b^2$ is only divisible by 3 when both $a$ and $b$ contain factors of 3.  I am trying to prove it without using modular arithmetic (because that would be way too easy), but finding it very difficult to do so.  Is there an easy way to prove this without using modular arithmetic?  I am also interested in a more general statement.  Namely, I want to find the values of $Z$ for which $Z \mid \left( a^2+b^2 \right)$ necessarily implies that $Z \mid \gcd \left( a,b\right)$.  We know that $Z$ cannot be 5, because $3^2+4^2=5^2$.  More generally, if $Z$ is the largest element of a pythagorean triple then the above implication does not hold. Problems with Groups in Traminer I'm having a problem using the group function in TraMineR. I have a data set that contains SPELL data, so multiple rows per case. I also have demographic data per case, at one row per case. I merge these together and end up with data that has a demographic covariate per row, so multiple rows per case. An example of this data would be:  id startmin stopmin activity educ4 4      1      20       work    HS 4      20     40       play    HS 8      1      15       sleep   College 8      15     40       work    College   I can make sequence data from this, but when I try to run a plot using the group command        seqiplot(atus.seq, group = atus.seqdata$educ4, border=NA,                 withlegend="right",  cex.plot=.55)   it tells me:       &gt;"Error: group must contain one value for each row in the sequence object".   I have gotten this to work with the example of the mvad data in the training manual, but I can't seem to get it to work with the groups, whether I link to the original demographic data, the merged data, or try to pass the covariates by seqformat and seqdef. Ideas? Iterating through a Collection, avoiding ConcurrentModificationException when removing objects in a loop Converting numpy dtypes to native python types I want to start using the terminal more often, but I don't know what are the different commands available to me. Is there a way to list all the different commands that I can make use of? Show that $f$ is differentiable on $(−1, 1)$. Let $f$ be a function defined on the interval $(−1, 1)$ such that for all $x, y \in (−1, 1)$, $$f(x + y) = \frac{{f(x) + f(y)}}{{1 - f(x)f(y)}}.$$ Suppose that $f$ is differentiable at $x = 0$, show that $f$ is differentiable on $(−1, 1)$.  Need your kind guidance and help. Thanks in advance! I'm currently developing a fake filesystem for a browsergame. I recently implemented ".." and "." folders so every folder has a reference to its parent. Then I checked in my terminal if "/" also has these folders.  Actually I was very surprised that it has a directory ".." which obviously is a reference to itself.  Is the reason for this consistency or is there a better explanation?  Edit: I'm basically looking for the document where this is documented. Should I wait for a recession to buy a home? I am currently renting, but am considering buying a house in the future (1-3 years). I want to know if I should even consider waiting for a future recession to buy a home at a better price. Some would argue that we are due for a recession (seems common enough to not need a reference), though none of us can know this is imminent with certainty.   I would not mind waiting to buy if it means my money would go further. However, if I wait and the market does not come down, I risk the inverse as the cost of homes in my area is rising faster than inflation.  All other considerations aside, should I wait for a recession to buy a home and what other risks does this carry? The X button stopped working on one of my PS3 controllers. It's hardly through abuse, the controller isn't a year old and I don't play a lot.  The button doesn't stick, it presses like the others, only the system isn't aware that I'm using it. I tried resetting it with the tiny reset button in the back, to no avail.  What can I do? If my data is overdispersed when binomial but not when Poisson does that alone mean I should use Poisson GLM? Top is Poisson, bottom is Binomial Source of variation is different people observed over a week long period. 118 people to be exact.  want to make predictions about the proportion of days/week one exercises if they wake up at a given time.  &gt; summary(FMR7)  Call: glm(formula = No.Days.Ex ~ WaketimeStand, family = poisson, data = PSD)  Deviance Residuals:       Min        1Q    Median        3Q       Max   -2.99043  -0.64677  -0.03492   0.67393   1.51943    Coefficients:               Estimate Std. Error z value Pr(&gt;|z|)     (Intercept)    1.36991    0.04689  29.218   &lt;2e-16 *** WaketimeStand -0.08309    0.04806  -1.729   0.0839 .   --- Signif. codes:  0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1  (Dispersion parameter for poisson family taken to be 1)      Null deviance: 124.55  on 115  degrees of freedom Residual deviance: 121.51  on 114  degrees of freedom AIC: 479.71  Number of Fisher Scoring iterations: 4  &gt; summary(FMR6)  Call: glm(formula = cbind(No.Days.Ex, No.Days.NotEx) ~ WaketimeStand,      family = quasibinomial(link = logit), data = PSD)  Deviance Residuals:      Min       1Q   Median       3Q      Max   -3.7483  -0.9585  -0.0625   1.0428   2.9739    Coefficients:               Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(&gt;|t|)   (Intercept)     0.2595     0.1009   2.571   0.0114 * WaketimeStand  -0.1869     0.1020  -1.832   0.0695 . --- Signif. codes:  0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1  (Dispersion parameter for quasibinomial family taken to be 2.015388)      Null deviance: 288.42  on 115  degrees of freedom Residual deviance: 281.57  on 114  degrees of freedom AIC: NA  Number of Fisher Scoring iterations: 4  Quite clear that there is much more overdispersion on the quasibinomial than the poisson. The response variable is no.days exercise per week and so my original thought was to analyse with binomial GLM as it is the proportion of days in a week someone exercises. However, when modelled with a Poisson GLM it is much less overdispersed. Is this a sign I am using the wrong distribution. The muffins were rock hard, what did I do wrong? Here is the recipe I used, I did not mix it for long, as that make the muffins very hard.   The muffins were very hard, and had a bad after taste and smell. I missed adding some oil, but what else could be the reason ?   Red Millet Flour, 50 g Whole Wheat flour, 50 g Toasted Oat Bran, 40g Whole Green Mung Beans - Sprouted, 100 g Domino - Light Brown Sugar 50g Baking Soda, 2 tsp Salt, 1 Tablespoon Liquid Egg White, 4 eggs 100% Whey (Vanilla), 75g Chobani - Greek Yogurt - 0% Vanilla, 5.3 oz (small packet) Carrots - Raw, 1 cup, grated Bananas - Raw, 1 cup, mashed White, all-purpose, enriched, bleached, 40 g   Also I wanted to try yeast instead of baking soda, but due to eggs and other veggies I cannot let is rise overnight (any ideas ?). I was trying to make good protein muffins which are an ideal breakfast, grab one with a glass of milk and done!   They run approximately 160 calories per muffin 25g carbs, 1g fat, 12g protein.