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what distinguishes rock-n-roll from rhythm-n-blues? | can one make an objective, quantifiable distinction between rock-n-roll and rhythm-n-blues? short answer: no. long answer: alan freed's use of the term rock-n-roll in the 1950s is often considered definitive. he used the term to refer to r&b combos, black vocal groups, saxophonists, black blues singers, and white artists playing in the authentic r&b style. rhythm-n-blues was early rock-n-roll. early rock-n-roll was the popular, and commercial (and often "white") face of rhythm-n-blues. first, try to define rock and roll. i thought it was that driving back beat, until i heard an egyptian band that could give bo diddley lessons. - harry hepcat whilst wikipedia says... "the fat man" is a rhythm and blues song co-written by fats domino and dave bartholomew and recorded by fats domino. it is considered to be one of the first rock and roll records. once you get towards the end of the 1950s however both terms have started to evolve along interweaving paths into rnb and the all encompassing umbrella term of rock music. | comparison |
what's the difference between light rosin and dark rosin? | the answer may surprise you: colour really, it gives you the option to avoid light coloured rosin dust on your instrument. useful if you have a very dark instrument. | comparison |
do you prefer conciseness or readability in your code? | both. your first example is certainly more verbose, and arguably more explicit... but it also requires me to scan five lines instead of one. worse, it deemphasizes its purpose - assigning a value to newguy.boss. your second example may cost me a second if i'm unfamiliar with the null coalescing operator, but there can be no doubt as to its purpose, and if i'm scanning through a larger routine looking for the source of a value, it will be much easier for me to pick this one out. now, contrast this: if (boss == null) { newguy.boss = getdefaultboss(); newguy.istemp = true; newguy.addtask("orientation"); } else { newguy.boss = boss; newguy.istemp = false; } ...with: newguy.boss = boss ?? getdefaultboss(); newguy.istemp = boss == null; if ( boss == null ) newguy.addtask("orientation"); the latter example is again much shorter, but now it obscures its purpose by making tasks triggered by the same test appear to be distinct. here, i feel the verbosity of the former is justified. | comparison |
which is best for learning how to do a certain thing: writing your own or looking at someone else's? | first try to write your own. then look at someone else's solution. | comparison |
what do you look at first: the code or the design? | i start with code. separate design documents, if there are any, are as likely to be wrong or misconceived as not. so, i start by trying to trace some simple flow through the code; if it's a webapp, it could be a request or a sequence of requests, for instance. once i've done that, i have a sort of skeleton to hang more understanding on. then, i might go back and read designs or other documentation, but at that point, i have something concrete to relate them to, and to validate them with, so i can detect duff information. or i might just carry on reading code, or test cases, etc. | comparison |
java or c++ for university cs courses? | i'd personally go with c++ as it will give you insights into how parts of java work under the hood (pointers for example). moving to java from c++ is fairly trivial, whereas moving the other way around is arguably more difficult. the truly difficult thing about the java eco-system is it's vast number of frameworks, libraries etc - they're unlikely to cover all of that at university anyhow. at the end of the day it's not going to matter that much what language you choose, as long as you learn the principles. my jug is going to kill me for endorsing c++ ;-) | comparison |
what keymap do you prefer in resharper? | i think it's mostly going to depend on what background you're from. personally i found going from visual studio to visual studio + resharper very easy using the visual studio key map (not suprisingly). someone coming from an intellij background is going to find the intellij mapping easier. if you're new to both visual studio and intellij i would suggest going with the visual studio mappings in case you find yourself in the horrible, horrible situation of having to use vs without r#er in the future. most people will supplement the default bindings with a few of their too - so if you're really missing something from one the just add it to the other. | comparison |
how is agile different from xp? | you are confusing the issue. being agile means that you are following a bunch of values and practices from the agile manifesto. thats it. xp and scrum are development processes that follows those values. both are "just as agile". the big difference between scrum and xp is that scrum does not contain practices specifically for programming, whereas xp has lots of them (tdd, continuous integration, pair programming). | comparison |
what are the main advantages and disadvantages of ll and lr parsing? | i'll contrast ll and lr parsing for a number of criteria: complexity ll wins here, hands down. you can easily hand-write an ll parser. in fact, this is commonly done: the microsoft c# compiler is a hand-written recursive descent parser (source here, look for a comment made by patrick kristiansen - the blog post is very interesting as well). lr parsing uses a rather counter-intuitive method to parse a text. it works, but it took me some time to wrap my head around how it works exactly. writing such a parser by hand is therefore hard: you'd be more or less implementing an lr parser-generator. generality lr wins here: all ll languages are lr languages, but there are more lr languages than ll languages (a language is an ll language if it can be parsed with an ll parser, and a language is an lr language if it can be parsed with an lr parser). ll has quite a few nuisances that will bother you when implementing just about any programming language. see here for an overview. there are unambiguous languages that are not lr languages, but those are pretty rare. you almost never encounter such languages. however, lalr does have a few issues. lalr is more or less a hack for lr parsers to make the tables smaller. the tables for an lr parser can typically grow enormous. lalr parsers give up the ability to parse all lr languages in exchange for smaller tables. most lr parsers actually use lalr (not secretively though, you can usually find exactly what it implements). lalr can complain about shift-reduce and reduce-reduce conflicts. this is caused by the table hack: it 'folds' similar entries together, which works because most entries are empty, but when they are not empty it generates a conflict. these kinds of errors are not natural, hard to understand and the fixes are usually fairly weird. compiler errors and error recovery ll wins here. in an ll parse, it's usually pretty easy to emit useful compiler errors, in particular in hand-written parsers. you know what you're expecting next, so if it doesn't turn up, you usually know what went wrong and what the most sensible error would be. also, in ll parsing, error recovery is a lot easier. if an input doesn't parse correctly, you can try to skip ahead a bit and figure out if the rest of the input does parse correctly. if for instance some programming statement is malformed, you can skip ahead and parse the next statement, so you can catch more than one error. using an lr parser this is a lot more difficult. you can try to augment your grammar so that it accepts erroneous input and prints errors in the areas where things went wrong, but this is usually pretty hard to do. the chance you end up with a non-lr (or non-lalr) grammar also goes up. speed speed is not really an issue with the manner in which you parse your input (ll or lr), but rather the quality of the resulting code and the use of tables (you can use tables for both ll and lr). ll and lr are therefore comparable in this respect. links here is a link to a site also contrasting ll and lr. look for the section near the bottom. here you can find a conversation regarding the differences. it's not a bad idea to critically look at the opinions voiced there though, there is a bit of a holy war going on there. for more info, here and here are two of my own posts about parsers, though they are not strictly about the contrast between ll and lr. | comparison |
asp.net or wpf(c#)? | it certainly sounds to me like a wpf app, with lot's of user interaction and potentially interacting with hardware. you can deliver the app via click-once so deployment is mostly a non-issue. your wpf app can access a wcf service and deliver the data as binary so the performace will be excellent. i would start reading up on wpf and getting familiar with it as soon as possible. | comparison |
developing with ruby/rails easier, faster than developing with php/cakephp? | either would be perfectly fine for developing web applications. if your stronger in php than ruby, then likely cake would be "faster" because you wouldn't have to spend the extra time familiarising yourself with ruby syntax. obviously the converse is true. i don't have a huge amount of experience of either but i'd say i prefer ruby because i find the libraries easier to use and install (rvm/gems etc) and i like having a local development server rather than using apache and the large and vocal open-source community on github/blogs/twitter is mostly a good thing. really, who cares, they're basically the same: dynamic scripting language, mvc framework... if you're looking to expand your knowledge you might as well look at something very different like node.js or haskell and snap. | comparison |
is embedded programming closer to electrical engineering or software development? | if you want to be good at working on embedded systems, then yes, you need to think like a ee some of the time. that is generally when you are writing code to interface with the various peripherals (serial busses like uart, spi, i2c or usb), 8 and 16-bit timers, clock generators, and adcs and dacs. "datasheets" for microcontrollers often run into the hundreds of pages as they describe every bit of every register. it helps to be able to read a schematic so you can probe a board with an oscilloscope or logic analyzer. at other times, it is just writing software. but under tight constraints: often you won't have a formal os or other framework, and you might have only a few kb of ram, and maybe 64 kb of program memory. (these limits are assuming you are programming on smaller 8 or 16-bit micros; if you are working with embedded linux on a 32-bit processor, you won't have the same memory constraints but you will still have to deal with any custom peripheral hardware that your linux distro doesn't provide drivers for.) i have a background in both ee and cs so i enjoy both sides of the coin. i also do some web programming (mostly php), and desktop apps (c# and delphi), but i've always enjoyed working on embedded projects the most. | comparison |
should i use a single platform for common services or modularize them? | platform i like the idea of the platform approach, but there are a couple of points you mention that give me cause for concern. why not make the back-end entirely stateless and restful? you know, have a bunch of web services that provide the necessary json or xml to drive the front end clients. these clients could be written in any language you like, so long as they can consume/produce the necessary intermediate representation. implementing restful web services these days is trivial with jax-rs implementations like resteasy just a maven dependency away. having the platform abstract the database away is good practice simply because you want your client and your services to be as independent of each other as possible. you mention that updates to the platform would mean taking down the whole system. why? if you're serious about it, you'll have your live and fail-over clusters running in parallel. you upgrade your fail-over cluster and run your verification test suite on it to ensure it's up to scratch. then you switch your load balancer to use the fail-over cluster instead of the live one (the live becoming fail-over). if your platform is truly stateless your clients operations will be uninterrupted since the dns of your services remains the same. i'd caution against using java object serialization (e.g. rmi) just because of the binary api restrictions you may encounter if you decide to update the objects. modules sharing common code between modules is trivial with a build system like maven (or ivy if you can't leave ant). having a common back-end language will also reduce the learning curve for new developers. also you'd doubtless have a large collection of template base classes to support common functions in the different back-end layers (daos, dtos, bos etc). (this is also true of the platform approach). given that each module is separate and independent of each other you may find that if developers don't communicate effectively, code duplication will likely occur within modules. also, bugs will be fixed in one module, but missed in another. this is especially true if you're creating multiple variations of a module to look after different clients. obviously, dependency injection and good design will go a long way to mitigate this, but you may find the solution more complex than if you go the platform route. | comparison |
what is the difference between wcf service and a simple web service in developing using .net framework? | here is the basic difference between the two - 1 file format/extension : i) asp.net service - '.asmx' ii) wcf service - '.svc' 2 hosting : i) asp.net service - can be hosted in iis also can be hosted in a windows service. ii) wcf service - very flexible, can be hosted in iis, windows activation services(was), managed windows services and it also supports self-hosting. 3 transport protocols/binding : i) asp.net service - it supports http & tcp protocols along with custom binding. ii) wcf service - supports http, ws-http, tcp, custom, named pipes, msmq & p2p(point to point) etc. 4 data transformation : i) asp.net service - xml serializer for data transformation. ii) wcf service - datacontractserializer for data transformation. 5 serialization namespace : i) asp.net service - system.xml.serialization ii) wcf service - system.runtime.serialization 6 supported operations : i) asp.net service - only one-way and request-response type. ii) wcf service - includes one-way, request-response and duplex. 7 encoding : i) asp.net service - it uses following encoding mechanisms - xml1.0, mtom (message transmission optimization mechanism), dime (direct internet message encapsulation) ii) wcf service - it uses following encoding mechanisms - xml1.0, mtom, binary read more differences - [ref] | comparison |
should apis be in en_us or en_gb or both? | international apis apis which are intended to be international use en-us. so if your intent is to provide your api to the developers worldwide (or at least several countries where british english is not commonly used), you should use en-us. local apis of course, small apis which are targeting precise country can be in the language of this country. but think twice about using en-gb even in this case: living in france, i would personally not appreciate an api en french; english is just easier to use when it comes to development. locale settings make it just weird to write in local language. if you've seen source code with chinese, german or russian names of methods, you'll understand why. what i currently see here too often is the source code which mix french names with accents (é, ê, à, etc.), french names without accents (which is completely wrong and can be misleading), english names, and misspelled english). using en-gb can make it more difficult to use the api even for british developers. it's difficult to remember that we must write color in c# or in php, but colour in a specific api. when creating a local api, can you be sure that it will not be famous on international level in one, two or ten years? | comparison |
when is it more productive to build your own framework than to use an existing one? | answer to why: license issues company specific requirements that didn’t exist in current frameworks the company wants to have control over support and maintenance of the framework the architect didn't know better! he/she didn't know about that specific framework existed, so they decided to reinvent the wheel. update: enterprises prefer to reinvent the wheel rather than using "small" frameworks. by small i refer to framework that may have uncertain future. for example.net framework is more secure choose for enterprises than a framework created by a small community. enterprises need security because many of their application are business critical and also long lived. the cost of reinventing the wheel may be more in short terms. but the cost may be more if framework used in company application is deprecated and no longer supported, or licenses are changed. here the company may have to throw out the current framework and put in another one. visual basic is a good example of a language that is no longer support by microsoft. and this cost companies billions since they have to start over with new development. | comparison |
windows phone 7 dev: c# or silverlight for a simple app? | ok, you're confusing technologies. c# is a programming language silverlight is a framework and a runtime - you write silverlight applications using c# (or vb or, possibly, other things - though you have to get creative). if you want to write applications (apps) to run on a windows phone 7 device you almost certainly will write in c#, your choice is between silverlight or xna for the framework and from your description i'd guess that silverlight would be the sensible choice. there are no other options for apps, though you could write a web based application tailored to the screen size. silverlight's ui is created using xaml and is a subset of wpf. to answer the question, if you've got c# devs familiar with the .net framework then you're at least halfway there. yes, silverlight is the right solution. silverlight developers are, for the most part, c# developers - but c# devs familiar with xaml and ui development - though you can put expression blend in the hands of a suitable designer and have them to the ui. i'd suggest that you want to have your team understanding and taking advantage of mvvm as defined by microsoft because that's how they feel that silverlight dev should be doen and therefore they've put things in place to make that possible. | comparison |
programming skills, problem solving genius or language guru? | you see, people usually experience feelings, and sometimes those feelings are a barrier to do the most important thing: team work. there are those who have excellent problem solving skills, and those who manage to remember all the tiny little deatails of every language. and over the years i've met people having one and lacking the other, and vice versa. i once worked with someone having superior problem solving skills. he'd participate in programming contests acheiving excellent results. he was a star programmer. but then, working with him on a team as a partner on daily basis was more than just complicated. his "team work" skills were something like "the rest of the team cheering him to do all the work". then i moved jobs and met the architect. he knew all the desing patterns by memory, creating tons of layers of abstraction just because "it makes sense to keep things separarted", leading to an over engineered solution twice the size of a more simpler one. and again, instead of communicating his "solution" to the rest, he'd open eclipse and write all the code by himself, just because it was "easier". finally i met q. he wasn't as smart as the first one, nor he knew all the desing patters like the architect. but he'd code like a machine, creating elegant and simple solutions. his most notorius skill was explaining things, a skill the other two completely lacked. | comparison |
need advice: staying techie or going the mba way? | my personal experience is 25 years being a developer or technical things over a wide range (my experience is s/w + h/w + all sorts). i've done bits of project management and so on along the way as well. there are a few points i can make: if you have the technical skills and ability and like what you do then your challenge is to stay current and relevant, technically. if you move off to something else where you chase the $ but don't like it, you will be filled with regret, and hate what you are doing. its common to live the lifestyle that comes with a bigger paycheck and so you struggle to go back to what you like that pays less. in all my years in technology i've come across only 1 person who benefited from doing an mba. they didn't finish but learned enough about project cost accounting and tracking to spot the early signs of a project running off the rails. this part of an mba is about 3 months or less of the total. [and everyone else who had done an mba was a dangerous fool.] some of the most switched on, savvy business people i know have never done an mba. and i know one who started and gave up in disgust, his view was summed up as "if i did this crap in my business i'd go broke". except he was a lot blunter. i've been pushed to do an mba on and off over the last 15 years, and procrastination was the best thing i ever did. if you really want to broaden your horizons then pick off some courses on project management and project cost tracking. put your peril-sensitive sunglasses on and have your bullshit detector finely tuned. listen and think and pick out the good bits rather than slavishly following the advice. and then go buy the following books: "slack" and "peopleware" and "the deadline" - all by de marco. you will find good prices from the book depository or amazon. "the goal" by eli goldratt. read these and have a huge big think (especially about the differences between them, and how the principles from "the goal" might apply to s/w development - its not what you might first think). you'll probably learn more from these than any mba will ever teach you. unfortunately many mba people have no other experience, or no real-world experience in what they try to manage. they exemplify a modern belief that to manage something you don't need to know the work, even the technical domain. all you are doing after all is managing. sadly, nothing could be further from the truth. managers with this view, puffed up by an mba, are dangerous. check out what urban dictionary has to say about lombard and you'll know what i mean. | comparison |
what should be first - functionality or design? | functionality design can come later, core functionality is key to a deliverable product. disregarding design, the key is to get a deliverable functioning product out the door sooner rather then later. design is a secondary objective. if you can't make it work, then all the flowers and pretty colors won't save you. having a working product, with minimal design work will. perfectly adhering to a pattern or oop principals are great, but often you will find that for the sake of producing something that works they will have to be ignored in some cases. | comparison |
what differentiates the exceptional programmers from the really good ones? | humble: an exceptional programmer will never claim their code is the best, in fact they will always be looking for a better way (every chance they get.). patient: an exceptional programmer will have boundless patience (this does not mean they will waste days on a problem. see: troubleshooter). troubleshooter: an exceptional programmer will be able to solve a problem in minutes that may take days for your average programmer. curious: an exceptional programmer will be unable to resist trying to figure out why something occurs. engineer: an exceptional programmer will engineer systems rather than hobble together a mishmash of frameworks (this does not mean they won't use frameworks.). | comparison |
what should come first: testing or code review? | developer unit testing first, then code review, then qa testing is how i do it. sometimes the code review happens before the unit testing but usually only when the code reviewer is really swamped and that's the only time he or she can do it. | comparison |
is flash really superior to java applets? | flash provides a more seamless experience for the user. java applets are pretty slow, since the java vm needs to be fired up before they can run. as a website visitor, i hate it when things freeze for a few moments while the java vm figures itself out. if i'm not mistaken, it also doesn't unload once i navigate away from the website that used it, leaving it hanging around when i didn't really want it to run in the first place. my (admittedly limited) experience with flash and applet development also tells me that developing an animation in flash is easier. and then there's history. microsoft didn't do java applets any favours by developing their own jvm and making it behave differently from sun's. as a result, the same applet could work in one browser and not another, which made creating java applets less viable. java does have free tools that can be used as opposed to proprietary flash editors required to make flash videos, but ultimately its heavy-handed approach makes it inferior. | comparison |
how to differentiate between trivial and non-trivial software? | i'm going to go out on a limb here and say: a trivial program is one that does not directly impact the business. a manufacturing firm would consider its accounting software trivial, but the software that controls the robotic arm that moves boiling steel is critical. they can deal with bugs and low support turnaround in the former, but not it the latter. if there's an issue, they need it fixed now. | comparison |
why should we not do frequent deployment in prod or to test server? | if you are talking about a hosted web application, the users don't get a say-so in when they get upgrades. that is, they are forced to upgrade each time you do a push to production. if your changes dramatically change the system rules or ui, you should definitely consider bundling your releases and doing it less frequently. it is very frustrating to users to have to continually re-learn how to use the tools they rely on and violates the ui principle of making them feel they are in control of their computer/software. | comparison |
what are the advantages and disadvantages to using your real name online? | the biggest thing i can think of is both an advantage and a disadvantage: everything you put online under your real name will follow you. this is good when you are posting good, constructive things. it's bad when you post a picture of you from that night or when you say something offensive or just plain stupid. i find that using my real name helps keep me in check -- i think more about what i say and how i say it. but it has on occasion been inconvenient when using my name invited personal attacks for various reasons. all in all, my approach is to use my real name when dealing with professional-ish stuff and to use a handle for personal interests and things i might not want to be as easily searchable. | comparison |
does eclipse or netbeans offer better support for javafx development? | eclipse will be better than netbeans, but netbeans is not bad though. both of the ides provide good assistance. both of them have auto completion feature. in eclipse ctrl+space does it. netbeans also has a key combination to do it, i forgot it. both support code generation (unimplemented methods are implemented automatically). scene builder is a little better in eclipse than netbeans, in my opinion. both the ides are good and provide user support very well. we can find many tutorials using these 2 than any other ide. both have many things in common and operating them is almost same. finally, i support eclipse a bit more than netbeans. | comparison |
advantages of ubuntu lts versions over regular ubuntu? | from the releases page on the wiki: ubuntu releases are supported for 18 months. ubuntu lts (long term support) releases are supported for 3 years on the desktop, and 5 years on the server. this means that normal releases are will have bugfix and security updates for 18 months, while lts releases are maintained for 3 or 5 years (depending on the version). in other words: if you don't want to upgrade your system at least every 18 months, you'll want to use a lts release so you'll be able to get security updates for a longer period. as of the 12.04 lts release, there is no distinction between server and desktop releases. lts support is for 5 years despite release type. there is no longer any 3 year support. for a visualization of the support coverage see the ubuntu wiki page about lts: [ref] | comparison |
what are the benefits of a dual-core cpu over a quad-core in a desktop pc? | check out these posts from coding horror: choosing dual core or quad core quad core desktops and diminishing returns | comparison |
what's the difference between x58 and x86 architectures? | you're mixing two things up... x58 is a chipset used on the motherboards for i7 processors, x86 is the family of intel processors that i7 is still a part of. to kind-of answer your question, i7 is still part of the natural progression of intel processors, latest and greatest... and if you want to use it you will likely be using an x58-based motherboard to run it. | comparison |
wireless pci card vs wireless bridge? | i purchased a wireless bridge for my desktop instead of a pci card, since the cards weren't working well with vista and windows 7 (at least the ones i tried.) i have been extremely happy with the wireless bridge and haven't looked back since. a wireless bridge is definitely the way to go for connecting a desktop to wifi. also, you can connect it to your xbox 360 or other networked devices too! | comparison |
what are the feature differences between windows 7 enterprise and ultimate? | [ref] looks like it is just a difference in licensing between enterprise and ultimate. interesting to note that vista ultimate and enterprise did have some actual differences in functionality (namely, no windows media center or ultimate extras in the enterprise edition): [ref] update: and here is a thread with several ms mvps confirming that the only difference between windows 7 ultimate and enterprise is the licensing model. | comparison |
is writing dvd's at a lower speed better for reliability? | it help a little, but i would also be aware that disk rotating at much lower speed is getting burned much more that designed and that can cause problems also. higher speed dvds have also more sensitive layer. best bet would be to leave it on auto since most (if not all) dvd writters test their burn intensity anyhow. i assume that big part of you problem here is not writting speed but batch of bad dvd media. | comparison |
windows 7 + lang pack versus national version? | with vista and above, there is no difference whatsoever. localized national editions are just windows 7 with preinstalled language pack. however, i am not sure whether buying software in us is in accordance with importing laws of your country. | comparison |
is free security software as good as paid security software? | paid security suites can often be more trouble than they are worth, they are bloated and slow and are full of bugs. most of the time open source software is just as good, free, and has a much larger support community. the only problem is that open source software will generally require a more technically savvy user. here is my security suite: update on antivirus on windows: microsoft security essentials is now at a level where it competes well with avg and other antivirus suites. smoothwall (separate computer, linux box, easy install) avg 8.5 (free or paid) clamwin vidalia bundle firefox w/ adblock plus, no scripts, ie tab, avg safe search, tor button; all of these applications are easy to install and use if you do a little bit of research first. | comparison |
what is silverlight and how is different from flash? why should i install it? | wikipedia on silverlight: microsoft silverlight is a web application framework with a scope similar to adobe flash. version 2, released in october 2008, brought additional interactivity features and support for .net languages and development tools. so basicly, it is a competitor to flash that uses .net languages and is more focused on developing interactive web applications, rather than animations and movies. currently, silverlight is only available for windows and os x, but there is an open source implementation being developed by the mono team entitled moonlight. | comparison |
are on-screen keyboards really more secure? | the built-in on-screen keyboard that comes with many operating systems is designed to help people who are unable to use a physical keyboard because of disabilities. due to this, an on-screen keyboard behaves as much like a real keyboard as possible and it's activity will most likely be logged by a keylogger. on-screen keyboards specifically designed for security (on a bank's website, for example) are a different story and are likely more secure against keyloggers. [ref] | comparison |
what are the advantages of symlinks over hard links and viceversa? | this has been discussed in some detail on serverfault. a hard link traditionally shares the same file system structures (inode in unixspeak), while a soft-link is a pathname redirect. hardlinks must be on the same filesystem, softlinks can cross filesystems. hardlinked files stay linked even if you move either of them (unless you move one to another file system triggering the copy-and-delete mechanism). softlinked files break if you move the target (original), and sometimes when you move the link (did you use an absolute or relative path? is it still valid?). hardlinked files are co-equal, while the original is special in softlinks, and deleting the original deletes the data. the data does not go away until all hardlinks are deleted. softlinks can point at any target, but most os/filesystems disallow hardlinking directories to prevent cycles in the filesystem graph (with the exception of the . and .. entries in unix directories which are hard links). softlinks can require special support from filesystem walking tools. read up on readlink (2). (some details brought back to mind by mat1t. thanks.) | comparison |
install software: choose .msi or .exe? | usually msi packages are provided for system administrators who would have the need to deploy the software to several terminals over a network. the results are no different from using an executable, but msi packages sometimes do have additional options such as doing silent or pre-configured installs. if you are not a system administrator, use the executable. | comparison |
noticeable difference between i7 920 and 940 processors in real-life use? | "don't bother, not worth the extra cash". if coming off of anything less than two years old, you will notice that when you start up and run things, it will generally be quicker. anything older than two years and everything will be noticeably quicker. between the 920 - 940, i cannot say that you will see any big performance gains. i use many cpus on a daily basis, and for .5ghz (within same generations) you really cannot tell many differences | comparison |
ssd raid array, should i pick 0 or 5? | advantages of raid 5 in your setup: you can add disks to increase the storage without having to reinstall the operating system or recover data. raid 5 is fault tolerant. you are very very unlikely to have more than one disk fail at the same time (although i did just see this for the first time at a client - gulp), so there is much less chance of having to rebuild your system from scratch if a disk fails with raid 5, you can simply replace the disk and rebuild/resync the array. if a single disk fails with raid 0, bye bye data on both disks. if you were to stick with raid 0 and a daily backup, restoring from the backup would result in data loss between when the last backup was taken and when the disks failed. disadvantages of raid 5 in your setup: there is a performance hit when writing, over a raid 0 striped array. you need at least 3 disks. you effectively lose the capacity of one of the disks (although the parity data is spread across all disks). raid 5 is common for business servers that hold mission critical data and require maximum uptime. otherwise, if speed is the dominating requirement in your setup and a loss of maybe a few hours work is acceptable, then go for raid 0. | comparison |
which should i install first, windows xp or windows 7? | although the recommended method is to install xp and then windows 7, there is no need to reinstall in your case. follow this guide (edited below) using a free tool called easybcd. download and install easybcd. click i agree to the license agreement, click next to install in the default location, and the installation wizard will do the rest. click view settings. change the default os to windows 7. the operating system to associate the settings with should be windows 7 too. select the drive on which windows 7 is installed under drive. type windows 7 in the name box and press save settings. click add/remove entries. under add an entry, choose the windows tab. select the drive on which windows 7 is installed. type windows 7 in the name box and press add entry. under add an entry, choose the windows tab. select the drive on which windows xp is installed. type windows xp in the name box and press add entry. exit easybcd and restart your computer to be presented with a multi-boot option screen for windows xp and windows 7. | comparison |
is it better to dual-boot or run a vm? | dual boot is a waste of time. i describe it to people as "the 5-minute alt-tab". it's a pain to configure, and because you can't run both oses at once, when you need the one you're not running, you have to kill off every app and reboot. i avoid dual boot like the plague. vm all the way. or, just use a single os that does what you want. windows with cygwin provides a lot of the unixy stuff that most people need. | comparison |
what has more impact on performance: readyboost or paging file on a system with 2gb ram? | regarding page files, mark russinovich (pretty much the expert on windows in everyway) wrote an article that can be found here: [ref] he finds that turning the pagefile off is a huge mistake. the key quote is probably: perhaps one of the most commonly asked questions related to virtual memory is, how big should i make the paging file? there’s no end of ridiculous advice out on the web and in the newsstand magazines that cover windows, and even microsoft has published misleading recommendations. almost all the suggestions are based on multiplying ram size by some factor, with common values being 1.2, 1.5 and 2. now that you understand the role that the paging file plays in defining a system’s commit limit and how processes contribute to the commit charge, you’re well positioned to see how useless such formulas truly are. since the commit limit sets an upper bound on how much private and pagefile-backed virtual memory can be allocated concurrently by running processes, the only way to reasonably size the paging file is to know the maximum total commit charge for the programs you like to have running at the same time. if the commit limit is smaller than that number, your programs won’t be able to allocate the virtual memory they want and will fail to run properly. so how do you know how much commit charge your workloads require? you might have noticed in the screenshots that windows tracks that number and process explorer shows it: peak commit charge. to optimally size your paging file you should start all the applications you run at the same time, load typical data sets, and then note the commit charge peak (or look at this value after a period of time where you know maximum load was attained). set the paging file minimum to be that value minus the amount of ram in your system (if the value is negative, pick a minimum size to permit the kind of crash dump you are configured for). if you want to have some breathing room for potentially large commit demands, set the maximum to double that number. | comparison |
what are the differences between lotus symphony and openoffice.org? | the most important difference between lotus symphony and openoffice that really matters, would be the fact that symphony is, while based on openoffice code, still closed-source, whereas oo is entirely open source. engine-wise, it should not differ too much from oo since symphony is a derivative fork from the oo project under ibm's heading. for now, underpinnings should still be the same, however it is not too impossible to expect that symphony will start having major internal differences as time goes by, and ibm starts deviating symphony from oo more in order to suit their own objectives better. you would be right in saying that for now, the main differences between symphony and oo would be the ibm branding and different interface. however, the interface is not just slightly different, and actually constitutes major differences in how you work in the office suite. two chief differences are : tabbed interface in symphony sidebar for quick options access in symphony different toolbar layouts in symphony symphony openoffice that said, the underlying engines are pretty similar, however lotus symphony might provide better integration with ibm products in the future. if you would like to find out more about lotus symphony, you could start off with the general faq here. | comparison |
what is the difference between the always-reloading and not-so-often-reloading websites? | technically, where does the difference lie among the two types i mentioned?? while ajax is the common reason these days, the core of the answer is client-side scripting. after all, ajax is nothing more than client-side scripting and there's plenty of other ways to make changes to and update a webpage without the need of a refresh. (see dom in seanyboy reply). websites that provide scripts that run on the client machine (javascript being a common technology) allow for content to be processed and changed without the need for a server roundtrip. on the other hand, server-side scripting (such as languages like php) are processed on the server, hence the need for a reload. the request is sent to the server, it is processed there and the new page sent back to the client where it is "refreshed". | comparison |
what is the difference between unix and linux? | unix isn't one thing, it's a name for a large family of related operating systems, which share to differing degrees, history and architecture. solaris, dec unix, irix, hp-ux are unix variants. they are to some degree compatible to applications, since they implement posix standards to differing degrees, which means they expose similar commands and apis. their kernels are not the same, though if you look up 'unix family tree' you will see a fascinating history of how these variants have evolved from one another, like organisms. that is, a finch and a swallow aren't the same animal but they have much in common. linux is a re-write, from scratch, of a unix-like operating system. whether programs written for one unix/linux versus another is a complex question, but in some cases yes. | comparison |
should i use numa or smp with vista 64-bit? | last question first: yes, vista does support numa (xp professional already did) in most cases it is beneficial to use the hardwares' native memory mode. 'optimal' memory bandwidth and latentcy is the result. the modes access policies can be descibed as follows: numa: use local memory first (fast), if full use foreign (slow) smp: map every other memory page to the other cpu, this averages out fast and slow memory access there are only rare cases where the application access foreign memory in a way that smp modes averaging out the memory access is beneficial for the overall performance. example: database, that doesn't exceed the memory capabilities of the system but still using significantly more than locally available memory. if you don't care about memory performance you could have saved the money for the expensive i7 and buy a much cheaper (old style) smp system and spend the extra money for a team dinner ;-) | comparison |
intel cpu: core 2 duo vs. xeon dual core. which is faster? | spec is always a good reference for this kind of thing. here are their data for those two cpus. spec's result numbers are a ratio of the performance of the system to that of a sun ultra enterprise 2. roughly, the computer tested is "result" times faster than a ue2. since all computers are referenced from that one benchmark, you can divide the results from two different computers and find their relative performances. the cint benchmark is integer-math based and the cfp benchmark is floating-point based. the "rate" benchmarks test a fully loaded system and the non-"rate", "speed", benchmarks test a single process. that is, how fast can it do one thing versus how fast can it do a bunch of things at once. you can find more data about spec's benchmarks on their web site, including information on the cpu2006 benchmark. the xeon is slightly faster, despite its slower clock speed. this is probably due to the xeon's on-die memory controller, and the fact that it has hyperthreading, as shown by the fact that its "rate" benchmarks show a greater improvement over the core2 than the "speed" benchmarks. | comparison |
what's the difference between /etc/bash.bashrc and ~/.bashrc? which one should i use? | /etc/bash.bashrc applies to all users ~/.bashrc only applies to the user in which home folder it is. | comparison |
vise or installermaker for snow leopard? | use package maker from apple. it's free and is included with the developers kit from apple. i believe it will handle what issues you have, but if not check out lanrev install ease. installvise is a pain for anyone that is trying to create a automated software clone. packagemaker & lanrev install ease will create packages, which can contain multiple versions of your software, for multiple versions of the os. and they can be used in apple's sui, instadmg, and etc for automated os creation... | comparison |
what's better ghost or virtualization? | virtualization is definitely the answer here. if you want multiple oses at once, you have to go the virtualization route. it would be very time consuming to have to continually ghost, or even reboot a machine to boot into a new os. the only drawback i see is machine resources. get a big machine with lots of memory if you plan on using several virtual oses. vmware server is a nice product that will allow you to setup the vms and allow users to access them remotely as well (and its free!). | comparison |
how good is the old nec multisync 2180ux compared to todays panels? | the nec was ips based, however i'd say its aged worse then a consumer grade tn panels from the same era - ips is great, but an ips with a contrast ratio of just 1:500 means that a lot of the color advantage is lost. combined with todays higher quality tns that can produce much better blacks then they could 5 years ago, i'd venture to say that an average consumer would rate a best buy 21" tn as being the "better" monitor when it came to looks (though a synthetic test would show the nec produced more accurate colors). what all this means in terms of the monitors "value" is that you are stuck between todays cheap tns (sub $200), which for the average consumer look a lot better then your ips, and todays ips and pva panels, which have come down in price by a lot. if someone is interested in accurate color, they're likely going to be a lot more interested in a brand new ips like this which costs what a consumer tn used to cost, then paying a premium for someones 5 year old, 500:1 screen. about the only market i see is for people who still want 4:3 aspect ratio on a large monitor - at that point you're competing with this (though at this time its known that dell is playing a lottery with that one - you might get an s-ips, you might get a s-pva). | comparison |
mac os: "minimize" vs "hide" - what's the difference? | "minimize" minimizes the program to the dock where you can see a thumbnail of the program's window. "hide" hides the window without adding the program's thumbnail to the dock. i will minimize a program if i need to get it out of the way for a few moments while i'll hide a program if i need it out of the way for an extended period of time. most of the time i will hide icons. | comparison |
any ideas on which is better? ms one care or spyware doctor? | windows live one care is eol, microsoft security essentials is the new product and i personally love it. i think it is a very good anti virus solution that will serve you well. never heard of spyware doctor, and just because microsoft may be a "jack-of-all-trades" doesn't mean they can't release good products. link to microsoft security essentials | comparison |
is ssd better than superfetch? | i doubt that ram is the bottleneck, unless you are running multiple vms or something like that. read/write speeds are most likely the bottleneck on any modern machine, so getting a faster drive is usually the best solution. | comparison |
which shanghai airport is convenient for city center? hongqiao or pudong? | with the help of google maps, using the public transport option, it seems that hongqiao aiport is closer and needs less time and less subway stops (cheaper?). using subway, hongqiao airport to people's square is 51 minutes away with 11 stops while from pudong airport you will need 1h25m with 17 stops. | comparison |
biathlon world cup in russia: sochi or khanty-mansiysk? | first of all, it's definitely sochi (but sounds more like tch), this is official transliteration of the ч. secondary, as others mentioned, you must do a stop during your flight at moscow - unfortunately, in russia many flights are made with such stop. i suggest you to stop for a day in moscow, just for another sightseeing there. also: flight duration from moscow to sochi - 2 hours flight duration from moscow to khanty-mansiysk - 3 hours, and flight by is made from other airport than you'll land from frankfurt!, if you choose the utair. you can choose the transaero, but it's not as cheap as sochi flight. and most important part: sightseeing and weather. khanty-mansiysk's average temperature is -9,8 °с, and sometimes there is cold weather, down to -40.1 °с (march, 1st, 1966). sochi's average temperature is +15 °с, with sea temperature up to +9 °с. you can try it out - extreme, but quite fun :) there will be a snow machines for biathlon in sochi, but natural snow is in khanty-mansiysk. as for the sightseeing, in khanty-mansiysk is all about the world cup - people there love skiing, and you will be bored there if you are not a fan of it. there are quite small quantity of the sights in khanty-mansiysk (in russian), and even less of them you'll be interested in during cold weather. as for sochi, you'll find much more fun there - because it is a very popular touristic center during long time. and because of preparing for the olympic games, there are much more easier for foreign tourist to get information about city - people started to study languages, and whole touristic situation changed in a good way. so, make your choice, but if i were you, i'd start with sochi (plus 1-2 days stop in moscow) - for start it will be enough. but if you want some extreme - choose the khanty-mansiysk, it will be a journey of the year for you. | comparison |
it is cheaper to buy the whole trip or leg by leg? | it can certainly be less expensive to purchase separate tickets for certain segments as opposed to the complete journey, particularly on a mixed itinerary. i would strongly advise against this unless you are a very experienced international traveler, for a number of reasons: checked baggage - even if the two airlines you are flying have an interlining agreement, the agent may still refuse to check them through if the segments are on separate tickets. thus, you would need to claim your baggage, get processed by customs and immigration, and then stand in line to have them re-checked to your next destination. flight irregularities - since the two tickets are independent of one another, agents from the first airline will be unable to protect you on your connecting flight in the event of weather, mechanical problems, air traffic conditions, labor actions, or any of the other things that can cause your first flight to be delayed or canceled. indeed, airlines adjust their schedules constantly, and you may find that your first flight has been shifted three hours later, making the connection impossible; you would be responsible for contacting the second airline to make arrangements and to pay any associated change fees. this is of particular concern on international flights, where many routes have frequencies of once a day or even less. if the flights are on the same record (pnr), you avoid the above scenarios, as the agent would have no reason to refuse interlining your bags, and in the event of problems with any segment that causes you to misconnect, the airline you purchased with would be responsible for booking you on alternative flights. otherwise, in a worst case scenario, you could be forced to pay thousands of dollars for a walk-up fare to continue your journey. given that, a few hundred dollars seems like cheap insurance. i will say that these risks are not serious when booking your outbound and return trips on separate tickets, unless you have a very short turnaround time. it is not necessarily cheaper to do it this way, and you may lose some benefits. for example, a united airlines round trip award ticket allows both a stopover and an open jaw, but not on two one-way awards, even though each requires the same number of miles. | comparison |
weekend in turin or genova? | both turin and genova are two big cities able to provide you a lot of attractions, the choice of the best one really depends on what you are interested in and what kind of cities you prefer in general. as a personal point of view i consider turin far more elegant than genova: nice streets with elegant buildings, the possibility to climb (by car or by a little old train) on the hill of superga close to the city and have a wonderful view on the city and the alps in the background, a lot of history related mostly with the period of the wars that brought to the formation of italy as a single state (but also big roman ruins), the biggest egyptian museum in the world outside egypt and a vibrant night-life. genova has a strong connection with the sea: the wonderful acquarium is considered its main attraction and its internal streets (carrugi) are quite peculiar too. even genova has a rich history and has been one of the major european cities in term of power, so you can find several nice buildings reflecting this. i don't know about the night-life there but i never heard anybody praising it like i did with the turin one. regarding the food, both have particular regional dishes (pesto from genova for example) but i guess that turin with the wonderful wines from piemonte and the "fassona" meat could be considered better even from this point of view. | comparison |
mexico to tierra de fuego, bus or own car? | the choice is about: freedom of movement vs hassle & costs. the good thing about your own vehicle is that it will take you wherever you want to go, whenever you want to go. even to the places that are not served by public transport. the downside is that crossing borders with a car increases hassle, this will be most notable when shipping your car around the darien gap. the good thing about using public transport is that is easy and (likely) more expensive*. *) although public transport is considerably more expensive per mile traveled, i calculated that the costs for shipping (+handlings and border duties) around the darien gap is a big factor in the overall costs of doing this trip with your own vehicle. so driving your own vehicle may turn out to be more expensive. the more miles you travel, the cheaper driving your own vehicle will be. i did my calculations for 2 people, so i estimate it would turn out to be cheaper to drive your own car, if you do the calculations for 3 people. most travelers i talked to told me that by selling a car in the south that you bought in the north, you will likely not lose too much money, maybe even make a small profit. (selling a car in the north that you bought in the south is going to cost ya). | comparison |
getting to cappadocia: nevsehir or kayseri airport? | your reasoning is correct. kayseri + rental car is the most convenient option. you have much more choice to and from kayseri: better schedules and better prices, through competition. moreover, the car rental facilities tend to be better at kayseri. and it is not that further. anyway, the drive is a quite relaxed one. renting a car is definitely a good idea to explore that region. you will be more flexible. getting from göreme to more remote places like mustafapaşa, ihlara valley or kaymaklı is much easier and quicker with a car than with public transport. and you will be at ease to visit kayseri. indeed, if you have the time, stop by for a couple of hours. it's worth it. an alternative would be to use an airport transfer, pulbic transport when possible and eventually take part in organised trips to the more remote areas or rent a car for that purpose on a daily basis. the organisational effort is however much bigger. you also lose some flexibility and spontaneity. a last word on the airports. check carefully if your flight to kayseri is operated from istanbul atatürk airport (code ist). there is another airport called sabiha gökçen (code saw). the latter is 50 kilometers from what one would call the city center. and transportation to and from this airport is by far not as straightforward as from atatürk airport. | comparison |
market economy: why air is cheaper than train? | your question has more is place on stack exchange economy when it will exist. (and it starts with armchair physics.) still an interesting question. i already asked myself this question, here are some thoughts: travel time is employee's time who need to be paid the plane berlin - genova takes 1 h 45, the train 10 h. during the flight, you are only taking 1 h 45 x the number of crew members. during the train, you use 10 h x the number of crew members, maybe including night fees. infrastructure plus, for the train you need a big rail infrastructure that is expensive to build and to maintain. for the plane you need air, which is still free. (maybe you pay somewhere the persons who designed air routes.) junction fees for the railway you need to pay train stations and junctions, for the plane you need to pay airport fees. for the train if the way is inter-countries, you need to split the bill between two or more companies, for the plane it's only the air company. occupancy rate the only international long distance train i took was almost empty, maybe if there were full there could be cheap tickets (and/or vice-versa). all of the few planes i took were always pretty full. | comparison |
simple phone for us-only use: gsm 850/1900, or cdma/is-95? | there are many available options as far as prepaid services available in the us: simple mobile virgin mobile boost mobile at&t go phone cricket most of these sell gsm phones that are enabled for us and some are even able to be used in europe but you will need to have a tri-band or quad-band to be able to do that. now as far as is-95 commonly known as cdma is that outside the us/canada the coverage is not as common and not as available. edit coverage in mammoth lake depends on the carrier. most major ones are likely to have it covered, smaller ones are likely not to have coverage in more rural areas. credit - it expires. at&t go phone will expire in 6 months to a year. overall costs: phone + service vary by phone and by service. gophone alcatel phone: $15 + 10c/minute | comparison |
is it cheaper to book dutch train tickets online in advance compared to paying on the day? | with regular ns trains (intercity's, sprinter's and stoptrains) booking in advance does not give you any discount. if you would travel with a ns hispeed train this could be the case, but there's no direct hispeed connection between eindhoven and amsterdam, so it's irrelevant to your journey. there's a direct train between eindhoven and amsterdam central station which would cost you €17.90 one way. if you buy the ticket at the counter, instead of at the machine, you'll have to pay an additional €0.5. if you're really tight on money you could look for someone who looks like a student and ask politely if you can travel "together". 90% off all students has a card which gives them and 3 fellow travellers a 40% reduction on any train journey. fellow travellers can make use of this system after 09:00 on weekdays, the whole day during weekends and also the whole day during the months july and august. when i was a student i've had this question asked several times. when a conductor asked the other person why he had a ticket with 40% discount, i would just say that we travelled together, making the discounted ticket valid. | comparison |
car rental with baby seats: is it better to carry seats or rent seats? | generally speaking depending on the age of children you are allowed to bring child safety seats on flights. see question asked here on the subject. so if you're allowed to carry and use the child seat on the flight just bring your own. car rental companies will provide a child seat(s) for you irrespective of whether it's someone large as hertz or someone smaller. edit give kids ages the rules in the us which are in most cases similar to the eu you will need to have a car seat similar this one, so if your seats are similar you more then likely be fine. as far as isofix is concerned i am yet to encounter a seat that was isofix only, so you should not have an issue using it in any car. one more note. we personally always opted for our own seat because one time that we had to rent our son couldn't get comfortable in the seat for a somewhat prolonged journey. | comparison |
with car rental should i pay now or pay later? | i'm not going to try and answer this any better then foxnews article did. the gist of the story is basically that car rental companies are getting at least some money from their fleet even if you cancel or don't show up. from what i just gathered on avis the cancellation fees are $25.00 if you do it more then 6 hours before or $100 if you are a no show or doing it less then 6 hours before the pick-up time. the article also mentions that there are potential discounts that you could be missing out on once you prepay. | comparison |
is it better to ask a question in english or japanese if you are expecting a reply in english? | asking if someone speaks your language has several potential pitfalls, and even more so in japan. there are completely different expectations to assess whether oneself actually speaks a language and a portion of fear what kind of expectations the asking person might have if one confirms. in japan on top of this, people feel the expectations towards them are much higher than in other countries. while an italian might hesitate much less to tell you their life story in italian if you speak only 2-3 words, japanese have a much higher urge for perfection and rather remain silent as to avoid embarrassment for both of you. so the best way is normally to try and make the question itself (where is the station?) easiest understandable for the person instead of unintentionally pushing them to a commitment of understanding and being able to reply to you in a foreign language. so to answer your question, yes they most likely did not want to speak english because, whatever their level of english was, they did not feel that it was enough to confirm that they spoke english. so if your questions are about a location, knowing the word of that place in japanese and having a map where people can point to will lead to much better results than asking if they speak english. asking that in japanese is even more tricky, specially if your japanese is not good enough to understand if they would reply in japanese something along the lines of "i studied it in school but forgot most of it." regarding getting an answer in japan to such a question, there is another dimension: people in japan will not tell you if they do not know the answer. to admit straight away "i do not know" is a no-go on several cultural levels in japan. it would embarrass both of you at the same time from the point of view of the answering person. so unless the person knows the answer, they will most likely start to think silently, tilt their head and make comments like "so desu nee...", "chotto..." and pull in air through their teeth. this should be for you the signal not to insist, say thank you and to continue. if you persist, there is a high chance that the person will feel pressured sending you in whatever direction. please see also my answer here for more details on that topic. | comparison |
is it easier to unlock my phone and have it activated with a local provider in another country or to buy a local pay and talk phone? | things to consider: data roaming is very expensive you're charged for incoming calls in roaming you're charged local cost + roaming surcharge for outgoing if you have a sim-free second phone, your best option is to buy local sim. pay-as-you-go (called pre-paid here) are very popular and inexpensive in poland. you can get them as low as 5pln ($1.60 cad). you can get 1gb data package for 25pln ($8.10 cad). comparison of current offers: columns are different offers from various operators. row groups: first 4 - price per minute to different networks ("bezpłatnie" = free). sms in the same network, different network, mms, data w/o data package validity of the credit in days (outgoing/incoming, depending on the credit you bought, eg. with 5zł "play na kartę" starter you can make calls for 5 days and receive calls for 65 days before you have to recharge more credit, "rok" = "a year") extra packages (most likely not interesting for you, except data packages). | comparison |
is it better to ship bicycle from egypt to leipzig, germany or to buy/rent one? | rental prices are not designed for periods of more than a few days. it might be possible to negotiate a long-term price at a flexible rental business. it's definitely possible to get a decent used bike for 50-100 eur. there's a risk that it could be a stolen one, but almost none of running into problems, even if it is. i'm pretty sure that shipping a bike from germany to egypt and back will cost more than 100 eur. | comparison |
buy alcohol duty-free or in us? | i am told, the problem with them indian customs is, you can read them boys all the rules from the book, but if they see you with more than 2 average sized (750 ml ?) alcoholic bottles, you have had it. by the book, you can carry 2 liters of alcohol : [ref] 3. what are the norms for the import of alcoholic drinks / cigarettes as baggage? following quantities of alcoholic drinks and tobacco products may be included for import within the duty free allowances admissible to various categories of incoming passengers : - alcoholic liquors or wines upto 2 litres - 200 cigarettes or 50 cigars or 250 gms. of tobacco. the rate of duty applicable on these products over and above the above mentioned free allowance is as under : (i) cigarettes bcd @100%+ educational cess @ 3% (ii) whisky bcd @150% + acd @ 4% + education cess nil. (iii) beer bcd @100% + acd nil + 3% education cess the best option in experiences of people i know and as others here have suggested, it's best to buy in us, pack well and put it in the check in luggage. many liquors are way cheaper in the state run package stores than what it is in any other package/beverage store. in case it helps, i think last time i bought a gelnlivet 18 year old 750 ml was 95 bucks. but you have to also keep in mind, the bottle weight of such liquor can get very heavy. there shouldn't be any problem all along the way. just my personal suggestion; you get all the glenlivets and glenfiddichs in india for reasonable price. how about taking something exquisite which isn't available in india at all ? may be a tequila 1800 ? | comparison |
which airport has better connections with the wellcome trust genome campus in hinxton, stansted or cambridge? | as you've probably discovered the wellcome trust genome campus in very much cambridgeshire not cambridge itself. in fact, it's about a third of the way to stansted! cambridge airport is small, so your time from plane to kerb will be very quick. stansted, not so much... by taxi, it's about 12 miles from cambridge airport to hinxton. if you've pre-booked a minicab, it should take about 25 minutes. a metered local taxi would be about £30, but you can probably negotiate a lower fare if you pre-book a minicab. i'm not sure there are taxis waiting at the airport normally, as it's small, so you might need to book anyway. by bus from cambridge airport, you'd need to get a bus into town (11 or 77), then either a citi 7 to nearby, or the park and ride bus to the babraham road park-and-ride then the 7a to hinxton. plan for about 1.5-2 hours from stansted, in a taxi it'll only be about 30 minutes, as it's a motorway almost the whole way. downside is it's 20 miles, with an airport pickup surcharge, so it'll be quite a bit more money than cambridge. my hunch is about £45 for a local taxi, less if you pre-book a minicab and negotiate something. public transport from stansted to hinxton isn't great though. you can ask google maps, but the fact that it often suggests taking a train from stansted to london then train london to cambridge then bus then walk should give you some idea... there doesn't look to be any local buses covering the route, so you're pretty much stuck with train or long distance coach to cambridge (passing hinxton on the motorway without stopping), then basically the same local buses as you'd have got from cambridge airport. if it were me, and the flight costs were about the same, i'd suggest flying to cambridge, bus into town, enjoy a little bit of time in the city centre, then taxi out to hinxton. likely to be much more enjoyable than via stansted, and given the queues you often encounter at stansted it may even be quicker even with an hour's sightseeing / eating / drinking in cambridge! | comparison |
are flights (generally) cheaper on friday the 13th, compared to regular fridays or 13ths? | apparently there seem to be some studies that say that there's a drop in flight inquires (often cited in articles is a study of jetcost.co.uk that says it drops by something between 24 and 27%). another study by kayak.com seems to show that the prices are between 5 and 15% lower. however, i don't know how serious those studies were as i couldn't find the original documents. they might not control for factors like overall drop/increase in flight demand, for instance. also this is probably an effect that would only affect western countries, where the superstition around 13 exists and not so much if you were to travel to asia, for instance. | comparison |
will the traffic and parking be easier in york on a week day or a weekend? | york is a difficult place for the motorist at any time. for the obvious historical reasons the city centre is not geared up for anything but light-to-reasonable traffic but does have a linked series of single-carriageway roads circumnavigating the roman walls to help motorists avoid traversing the city centre itself. a few miles further out you have an outer ring road which is dual carriageway on the south and eastern sides (a64), and single-lane on the west and northern sides. parking is severely restricted in the centre although there are a few small car parks if you wish to gamble on driving to the centre and finding a space. york counteracts this by having 5 or 6 park and rides (info here) dotted around the outer ring road, with judicious use of bus lanes to move visitors and workers into the city centre reasonably efficiently and as york isn't a huge city it's a fairly quick journey. during the week you have office workers and tourists; at weekends you have shoppers and tourists. the differential between traffic levels between the two is minimal, in my experience. york is generally busy traffic-wise whichever day of the week you would choose to go. | comparison |
on a trip to belgium, should i stay in bruges or ghent? | both cities are really interesting destinations. the question to distinct between the two is whether or not you like tourist spots. bruges is the more touristic city of the two. personally i would go ofr ghent and do a day trip to bruges. but the other way around is perfectly possible. however if you really would like to escape the crowds, go to lier or hasselt. no tourists and really pearls to visit. | comparison |
is train or bus cheaper in austria? | it does not cover all the regular buses in the country but postbus.at is the main operator and does operate buses you could use. unfortunately, it's not a part of the national train company (öbb) and the website therefore also includes trains, which is why buses do not show up in the search results for this particular journey… rome2rio is another site that's very nice for intermodal comparisons, and it seems that in this case the price would be approximately the same. (you will notice that the buses suggested by rome2rio can also be found on the postbus website, but only if you look for them one-by-one.) | comparison |
train from budapest to zagreb - buy in advance or at the train station? | if you try to book a ticket with voyages-sncf, you can immediately see if there are free seats in the train. you can even try to place several orders in your shopping cart (for some reason not more than 6 tickets per order) and estimate how many seats are yet available. for the next few days, the ic 200 seem to have at least 20 seats free, so i would assume that within reason, you can expect to get a ticket on short notice. the cheapest tickets for the train seem to be the máv "zagreb special" offer for 8990 huf or about 29€. if i understand the conditions properly, there is no contingent for the tickets and they are available for sale even on the same day. at least i am able too book a ticket now for the ic 200 departing in about six hours. you can order the ticket online and pick it up at a hungarian railway station or buy it at the station. | comparison |
traveling to south korea, should i buy a type c or f plug adapter? | both of them will be ok. however, on my opinion, i would prefer type c, because it has more flexibility in using. also type c can be used in a lot of countries. if you travel a lot it's a big advantage. more information you may find here: [ref] | comparison |
which is more convenient in hong kong ? stroller or baby sling? | no contest: baby sling. wikivoyage has an article about travelling in japan with children, and the bit about travelling in dense japanese cities applies to hong kong as well: in a nutshell, leave your giant stroller at home, as they can be a nightmare to deal with. city sidewalks are busy, temple and shrine paths are nearly invariably gravel, trains are crowded (impossibly so in rush hour), and while elevators are slowly being retrofitted everywhere, there are still many stations where you'll need to use the stairs or take long detours to use the one elevator available. [...] instead, the japanese prefer baby carriers, often for children as old as two, and lightweight collapsible umbrella strollers that fit through normal ticket gates and can be carried up or down a flight of stairs one-handed in a pinch. in my own experience, umbrella strollers are handy, but require two adults to comfortably operate: eg. one climbs up stairs with baby, the other carries stroller, diaper bag, suitcase, etc. a 6-month-old is also a bit borderline to use one for longer periods of time, try it out before you take one along. and yes, september will be hot. if you're feeling uncomfortably hot, the baby will be feeling so as well. fortunately virtually everything in hk is air-conditioned. | comparison |
why is diet coke more expensive than regular coca-cola and other soft drinks in indonesia? | two possibilities spring to mind. coca cola is produced by local partners, [ref] it is possible that the local partner in indonesia does not have the space on its production line to make diet coke, which means that it would have to be imported, hence the higher price. the second thought that i had was to do with size. the screen shot you attached does not show the portion size, if diet coke is only available for example in 500ml, but the others are served as 330ml then that might explain the price difference. hope this helps | comparison |
why are round-trip car rentals much cheaper than one-way car rentals? | there are elements of truth in most of the other answers, but as a 16-year veteran of the rental car industry in the us, i'll toss my take into the mix. most of the time when you're searching, the answer is: "because they can." what i mean by that is that the whole "well, someone has to drive it back to the renting office" is not actually the case. that's because most rental offices in mid-size and larger cities are corporate-owned, and all three of the big-name rental companies that operate the eight major brands (avis, budget, enterprise, alamo, national, hertz, dollar, and thrifty) now use a "floating fleet" model, which means that the companies maintain a nationwide single fleet and any car can be assigned to and rented from any location at any time. so if someone rents a car at avis lax and returns it at avis in austin, the car simply gets washed by the detailing crew at avis austin, placed in a parking stall at avis austin, and assigned to the next avis austin customer who comes in to pick up that size car. the same thing happens if they rent at avis lax and return at avis in downtown los angeles or avis in midtown manhattan or avis at chicago midway airport. that's why a large number of license plates on any corporate-owned rental lot tend to be from out of state. now, of course, for every person who picks up in lax and returns elsewhere, there's usually someone renting elsewhere and returning in lax, so the fleet tends to stay pretty balanced. that's why i say they charge the one-way fee "because they can"--because there really isn't a hard cost to them. cars go out, cars come in, and all is good. but the market (supply, demand, and competition) allows them to charge a premium price for one-way rentals, so even though there's no (or a very minimal) direct expense associated with these kinds of one-way rentals, they do it because they can. of course, sometimes one-way flows do result in an imbalanced fleet. if lax loses too many cars and they have fewer cars than they forecast needing to meet demand, then they do have to arrange for cars to be brought back from somewhere else. so sometimes it is necessary to truck a load or ten of cars in from elsewhere, and that does have a cost, so collecting one-way fees allows them to cover those costs. it's worth mentioning that seasonal demand can have some interesting effects. i've taken advantage of the fall "florida drive-in" specials, where picking a car up in the northeast and dropping it off in florida can net some extremely attractive rates ($5-10 per day or so)--cheaper than a standard round-trip rental! this helps the rental car companies move cars from the colder northern states (where demand slacks off in the winter) to the warmer southern states (where winter is peak season). it's much cheaper to have people drive cars down for you than to pay a car carrier to haul it down by truck or, even worse, to have cars sit idle in the north while offices in the south buy or lease extra cars to meet demand. (there's also the related florida drive-out special that takes place in the spring and some less-lucrative similar offerings out west.) so it's not always true that one-way rentals are more expensive! as well, there are certain places where one-way fees seem to be very reasonable or even not charged. one answer mentioned rentals in germany--that's a place where one-way fees seem not to be part of the local rental culture, unless you try to drop the car off outside of germany. intra-florida rentals are often quite cheap (due to a ton of competition--it's the largest rental car market in the world and there are literally dozens of rental car companies that operate at florida's major airports), and intra-california one-ways are frequently not charged fees, too (that's because the one-way flows between places like los angeles and san francisco are pretty balanced--as many people are interested in driving up highway 1 as are interested in driving down highway 1, i suppose), so that, combined with the high volume and competition, lends itself to reasonably-priced one-way rentals. now, when it comes to franchised locations, one-way fees are based much more in the realities of rental car logistics. if a car owned by a licensee location (typically found at smaller, more rural airports or in some smaller towns) ends up far away from its base, there are hard costs to deal with that situation. the best option is for the receiving location to rent the car back to its owning location on a paid one-way rental, but there's no guarantee of that happening quickly, and the owning location loses the potential revenue of the car they paid for until it gets back into the fleet. failing that, the owning location has to pay to have the car transported back home, either by car carrier or by sending an employee to go retrieve the car--not a small cost. and in a worst case situation, the least-bad solution is for the owning location to simply sell the car to the receiving location, but that's obviously not without its own costs and logistical headaches. in these cases with franchised locations, the one-way fees are actually intended to be punitive and dissuade people from choosing that option, but they also cover the rental agency's costs if someone does require a one-way rental. i should also address a couple of topics with one-way fees. most rental car agencies now don't quote an explicit, broken-out one-way drop fee, instead baking the one-way fee into the rate itself. for example, a standard round-trip rental in portland might run you $40 per day, but if you quote a reservation for a one-way to seattle, it might balloon up to $100 per day. however, some companies, as well as some booking channels (usually prepaid brokers), still break the fee out (for the hypothetical portland rental, both the round-trip and one-way rentals would price out at $40 per day, but the one-way would have a $100 drop fee attached). the former model works best for short rentals, while the latter is more advantageous for longer rentals. in the portland example, if you can do your one-way drive in a single day, the included one-way is cheaper (a net extra charge of $60). but if you're going to take a week to drive the washington coastline, the weekly rate would balloon from a couple hundred bucks to north of $500. with a separately-itemized $100 drop fee, you'd pay the same fee even if you kept the car for a month. in any case, the best thing to do is just plug your dates and locations into a search engine that searches all rental companies at once and choose the one that displays the cheapest total price (ignore the base rate and pay attention instead to the total with all taxes and fees). mileage fees are sometimes charged, but they're more common with franchises. however, sometimes you'll see them applied at major locations depending on what kind of discount code you use. for example, the usaa discount code with hertz returns very attractive rates even on long-distance one-ways until you notice the catch: an almost punitive mileage fee that can total hundreds of dollars. unless you're literally just driving across town, mileage-based one-way fees are rarely the best option. | comparison |
what's the difference in content and focus between "wallpaper*" guidebooks and others? | wallpaper travel guides are an offshoot of wallpaper* magazine, the self-proclaimed "world's number one global design destination, championing the best in architecture, interiors, fashion, art and contemporary lifestyle." or, if you haven't drunk enough of the tyler brûlé kool-aid to suppress your gag reflex when hearing the words "contemporary lifestyle", it's a magazine catering squarely to pretentious yuppies who want to read articles and see pretty pictures about obscenely expensive things they're unlikely to ever buy, and invariably glowing reviews of insufferably hip and obscure shops, restaurants and bars they're unlikely to ever visit. compile enough of these articles about a single place together and, ta-dah, you've got a wallpaper travel guide. so the bulk of the content is, imho, "dumbed-down directories of overpriced shopping and dining for posers"; see the website's travel section for a sampling. i'm particularly impressed by their list of "10 travel essentials", and will definitely take a brass-studded petit dejeuner trunk along next time i hitchhike. but hey, if you just can't make up your mind about which hotel in paris to blow €695/night on and "bespoke lasvit chandeliers made up of 800 individual hand-blown crystal leaves" happen to be your thing, maybe wallpaper is what you're looking for. (and fwiw, i've actually got some respect for tyler, his current mag monocle has interesting stuff every now and then. but he left wallpaper in 2002 and its current owner, time-warner, has been milking the cash cow for every cent they can get ever since.) | comparison |
in london, it is better to do sight-seeing in the morning or the afternoon? | since there is only eight hours of daylight in london in january i would suggest you take the afternoon class. if you take the morning class then most of the daylight hours will taken up studying inside. it is probably safer and more enjoyable to wander around an unfamiliar city during daylight. for typical sunrise / sunset hourse see : sunrise/sunset calendar | comparison |
any (dis)advantages to homestay in ealing as opposed to a zone 2 area in london? | time. i lived in both zone 2 and zone 3 in london (4 years on and off, in putney, southfields and colliers wood). generally (as a guy) i felt safe walking most places in london at night, and on public transport. zone 2 doesn't feel safer than zone 3, or less safe. it's more the certain areas that some people might say to avoid (but that's a different topic). zone 2 is not generally considered walking distance to central london, although it might be, if you're closer to zone 1 - for example, i've walked to parliament from earl's court easily, but from east putney i would not be particularly keen - it's a good 25 min on the tube! from ealing, you've got a decent way on the tube or bus for every trip. district or central line, both will take you into town, and it's convenient for trains out west (overground). but if you're in town and want to 'pop home' to get something for the evening, it's a fair hike. it'll totally depend where in zone 2 the other option is. as seen on the tube map - zone two covers an awful lot of suburbs, stations and possibilities. i'd try and find out where it is. of course, the other advantage of having a zone 3 fare pass (eg buy a zone 1-3 travel card) is that all your other trips to other zone 3 locations would be essentially 'free'. and it's not that much more per week. the other thing to consider is if the tube is down, you'll be taking the bus or overground. so if you know where you're studying (i assume that's why you're there) or where you'll be spending much of your time, play around with the tfl route planner and see how long it might take by bus, train, or tube. one final small benefit i did notice is that the further you were from leceister square (in central london) the cheaper movie tickets seemed to be, so that's a plus ;) | comparison |
why is mumbai - london - dallas - denver more expensive than bangalore - mumbai - london - dallas - denver? | see our question on hidden city ticketing. from priceoftravel, on why it happens: airfare pricing is extremely complicated and often an airline has the choice of running certain segments at a loss by discounting seats, or a bigger loss by flying mostly empty with higher fares. they need to get their planes back into the more profitable positions on their route map, so they discount heavily only when they have to, and they’ll balance that with profits on routes that other airlines aren’t bothering with at all. so perhaps at this time of year, bangalore to mumbai can be easily discounted for a small loss by the airline, and then get more bodies onto the pricier flights, making them always have full planes there, and this works out as less of an issue for them than just making the mumbai->denver routes cheaper. sometimes when the last segment is the pricey one, and you're only going to say, b instead of c, on a a-b-c route, it's sometimes cheaper to buy the longer, cheaper flight and throw away the last ticket. of course, this doesn't work if you need to get to c. we have several questions on this (search throwing away, or not taking tickets). as an example, a friend bought a bolivia->chile return flight, because it was cheaper than the one-way flight. he just threw away the second ticket :) airlines do frown on it, however... i also recommend that priceoftravel article on hidden ticketing for a longish read anyway, it's quite eye-opening. | comparison |
is an open-ended ticket more practical than a one-way ticket for touring china? | even if flexible return tickets are more expensive, it could be cheaper than two one-way tickets, due to the way how airlines calculate their ow fares. you could also try to get a good fare which is not completely restricted (e.g. changing the date for a fee like 100$), which could still be cheaper than flexible ones, even if you add the fee. | comparison |
from brussels to rotterdam: intercity or thalys? | the main advantage of thalys over intercity trains is speed: 1h10 for a thalys vs 2h10 for an intercity on that route. and you have a reserved seat. regarding ticketing, the point goes to the intercity, as you say correctly. on the other hand, if you board the intercity in brussels you will be sure to have a seat. i have traveled several times on that route and never had an issue with seats. trains can be packed in the morning rush hours (into brussels) and in the evening rush hours (out of brussels). traveling in summer (july-august) is an advantage in that respect, as there will be less traffic due to the summer holidays. between rotterdam and amsterdam you can also opt for an intercity direct or a sprinter train. the former is faster and more expensive (+ 2.30 eur) than an ic train, whereas the latter is slower and costs the same as the ic train | comparison |
internal train travel in france - cheaper on day, or when pre-booked from uk? | between paris and tours you can either take a tgv (highspeed train) or an "intercités" (classical train). both are cheaper when booked in advance. the full fare for a 2nd class tgv ticket is 65 eur. booked in advance it can be as cheap as 25 eur. for intercités the range goes from 15 eur to 36.20 eur. you should also know that tgvs can sell out. if you are really unlucky and show up at a very busy day, there may be no more seats available. | comparison |
paying by credit card while overseas cheaper in us dollars or in the local currency? | if you pay by dollar (or home currency) the hotel will add a charge for this, hence you will be paying more. if you pay by local currency the exchange rate will be decided by the credit card company or bank. these exchange rates are much better than the hotel rates. check this visa page for more information regarding this service for visa holders. afaik, other companies have similar services so this applies to all other credit cards. | comparison |
stay at the airport for my 8-hour layover in tocumen, or spend a few hours in panama city? | it is a bit of a drive (probably around 30-45 minutes, as you said), and as far as i know there is no public transport so you have to get a taxi (about $30 one way). however, you have 8 hours, so you are still left with 5 hours in panama city. if i were you, i would definitely go for it. for example, you would manage to see all of the casco viejo and have a nice lunch there. | comparison |
for fear of flying is drinking alcohol a healthier option than pills? | if you have no specific medical condition that would be exacerbated by anti-anxiety drugs, i'd say you should at least try them to see if they work well for you. most of them don't have serious side effects if you don't take too many, or too often. excessive drinking has well-documented negative effects, among them the possibility of violent behaviour that can get you into really bad trouble (as in: gigantic fines/damages, or even jail time) on a plane. | comparison |
should i use lighter or heavier paper for my printed dissertation? | lighter paper is usually slightly cheaper. and your finished book would be also lighter (pretty much by definition); this may or may not make a difference for when you carry it to the various offices/libraries as part of the process of finishing your degree. heavier paper has a better "feel" when you flip pages (think about the difference between a high quality hardcover book versus a cheap paper-back novel). it is a bit more resistant to wear and tear, and if you scan/photocopy pages it will be less likely to have the effect where the "next" page shows through. if the only publicly available copy of your dissertation would be the copy you submit, i would ask you to do would-be readers a favor and use heavier paper. but if you intend to publish your thesis (take chapters and publish them as journal articles, or just put the entire thesis online for the world to see), then the lighter paper will save you a little money, and perhaps be marginally better on the environment. | comparison |
should i host my academic website under my institution domain or under a domain of my own ? | why don't you just do both? by both, i mean use both urls. i "do both", so when i graduate, i'll still have my site for others to see. you can do this in many ways, but i had my university student page auto-redirect to my personal home page. the code for that is like a one-liner. this grants me the opportunity to refer people to different sites depending on the situation. i think myname.com is undoubtedly easier to remember than the nuances in my university student site url: people.school.org/first.last ... on the other hand, if the situation is more institution-based, perhaps it's better to stick with my college's name. you've got options this way. | comparison |
to choose which masters program to attend, should i favor institution or specialization? | if your interest is in "industry," i'd choose a school based on the institution. most employers look at that as the "headline," and often "gloss over" the actual content of the degree. if your interest was in research, i'd go the other way and emphasize "specialization." because that is what research is basically about. | comparison |
are two undergraduate degrees better than one master degree? | disclaimer: the following is my practical experience on research. i have no idea about the opinions of admissions committees and the like, but it probably depends greatly on the country and the relative quality of master's and undergrad education. i am a theoretical physicist by formation (5 years degree). then i did my master's thesis (i had taken enough courses) in bioinformatics, and i am doing a phd in biophysics. when i start a new project (or tackle the next sub-project), there are a bunch of things about biology and chemistry that i don't know, but most of them are actually quite easy. i am sometimes lacking "the bigger picture", being able to my questions into a broader meaning, but that is not so important. for example, my master's project was to improve the number of identified peptides in an experiment using computational techniques, and that is a very clear goal. what to do with this improved results? obviously, we can improve the things we already do. but, are there biological questions it can help answer? i am not sure, but there are experts on that. for the middle picture range, i rely on my advisors. they are also physicists, but they have learned along the way pretty much what they need. and after just a few months, i was surprised of how much i was able to help the new members of the lab. actually, i believe taking another undergrad degree would not help so much. of course, i would be faster at the beginning, because i would know what things like "the $c_\alpha$ residuals" mean, but the actual meat of the project, where we spend months, is probably not covered (or not covered in enough detail) in most undergrad degrees. and the main reason is that these details are known only to those who have actually worked hands on with it. let me give you an example: in physics we talk about spectra all the time, and all the information you can extract from it, with perhaps, the only limitation is the noise of your instrument. the truth is, unless you have a very expensive camera, you are going to find very funny stuff, like two spectra taken right after the other, with exactly the same experimental set up, will not have, on camera, the same intensity; and even the profile of the line. to compensate for this you need to get clever, and it very much depends on the details, so it is very difficult to teach unless your lecturer is an expert in spectra analysis and can tell you how they do it. and still, most people can just rely on the spectra pre-processed by the experts, so they don't need to know this. unless, of course, you want to work with raw spectra yourself (been there). lastly, a master's or a phd has some courses. they are usually quite specialised, targeted for your level and background, and can bring you up to speed in the things you need to know about your field quite nicely. and to add some peace of mind, my former lab hired a postdoc coming from computer vision. his biological knowledge had quite big holes, but nevertheless, in a couple of weeks he was already doing amazing stuff with very good ideas. bottomline, go for the advanced studies. you can always take biology or economy on the side (for example open university or unofficially at coursera). | comparison |
which is considered more valuable for faculty job applications, teaching experience or participation in conferences? | where do you want to work? research universities want people who do research, publish, go to conferences, and can tolerably teach, in that order. small liberal arts colleges want people who can teach and who do enough research to keep up with the field. these are rough generalizations. there's no right answer here. | comparison |
which is preferable, to go to graduate school at same school as undergrad or to go to a lower-ranked school? | i've heard from people that generally, it's a bad idea to go to the same school as your undergrad to get your graduate education. the word "generally" is commonly used in two rather different senses. the first sense is "typically", "most often". the second sense -- perhaps more common in mathematical and scientific writing -- is "always", or "in the largest possible scope which might be applied". the quoted advice is valid if "generally" is construed in the former sense, not the latter. to briefly explain: on the one hand, there are advantages to acquiring a diversity of experience. "great university x" will do its business in a way which is slightly different from "great university y". experiencing this is very valuable, because if you stay in academia you will probably be affiliated with several more universities, different from each of these. if all of your student experience is at a single place, you will have subconsciously internalized the universality of your experience, and you'll be in for a rude awakening when you learn that what is obviously best to you is not the practice in your new environment. then too, by going to different great universities, you meet different great people (many of whom will know each other and will be in transit to/from other great universities), both students and faculty. this is also very valuable. on the other hand, there are situations where it is most advantageous to stay where you are. for instance there are sometimes personal, family or financial considerations. even neglecting these, there are times that the university you attended as an undergraduate is truly the uniquely best option for you to continue your studies, or the best option among those available to you. if you are an undergraduate at ucla, if you want to study analysis, and if you did not get admitted to berkeley, mit, chicago, princeton or stanford, then staying where you are sounds like an excellent (perhaps optimal) choice academically. if you've already done successful research with a top faculty member at your current program and you truly want to continue that research most of all: yes, think seriously about staying right where you are. the other answer says that graduate school rankings is "a little ridiculous". while i don't really disagree, let me try to put a finer point on that: grad school rankings are ridiculous if you take them too seriously, and especially if you regard them as a strict linear ranking. it does not matter that us news and world report currently thinks that mit is the best mathematics department in the us whereas in past years it used to think it was some combination of harvard / princeton / berkeley. it would be more honest and more helpful if they simply recorded that these departments and several others (chicago, stanford,...) are in the uppermost echelon of graduate programs in mathematics. asking whether harvard is better than stanford is ridiculous: it depends upon what you're studying. (if you want to study analysis, don't go to harvard unless you know you want to work with the one faculty member there who does that.) students should be thinking of departments in terms of echelons. within a given echelon, ranking is not helpful. however, barring some truly exceptional circumstances you want to go to a program in the top echelon that accepts you. as a corollary to this: if your undergraduate institution is in the top 10, and every other program you've gotten into isn't in the top 30, then yes, i think you should stay where you are, unless you have a very good reason to go to a lower-ranked department (best reason: there is a superstar there that has agreed to work with you). finally though i have to say that i find it slightly odd that the op has apparently gone to a top department, been admitted as a student to that top department, but not at any other department of comparable quality. that suggests to me that her application is not as strong as it could be, as those who know her in real life apparently value her more highly. | comparison |
what is the benefit of writing lecture notes for an introductory course vs using a textbook? | as someone who's tried to do both, there are some very valid reasons to prepare "formal" lecture notes. the primary reason why you'd want to create your own notes is that for many courses, a single good text is not available, and as a result, the instructor has to cobble together material from a number of different sources to produce a coherent set of lecture notes—or recommend that students work with multiple source texts. (given the out-of-control nature of textbook prices, the latter alternative is unlikely to work out well.) if you have a single-text class, it may not be necessary to provide students an additional set of notes, provided your lectures stick to the main text material. however, if you bring in alternative or additional topics into your lectures, you may want to include notes for those topics, and refer students to the textbook for places where you follow the "standard" outline. | comparison |
which is the better scheme for a poster: “tell a story” or “important first”? | posters are hard to get right. they require design skills and knowing what the core message of your paper is. presenting them requires people skills. aside from this, different areas seem to have different criteria and norms when it comes to this so if you want to fit in you should try to follow those. but in general, most scientific posters i've seen are really terrible in terms of tools for communication: they have far too much text and get into far too much technical detail. for example, on this site posted in the comments on the question, there's some nice visuals but all of the posters have, in my opinion, far too much text. one excuse for a lot of text on a poster i often hear is that people will can read them on their own between sessions or whatever. in my own area and experience, i don't buy this argument: that's what the paper is for and i rarely see anyone reading these literal walls of text in their spare time. the advice you've gotten from the internet seems to follow that thinking: the thinking of printing a full paper on a poster in bullet form. an a0/a1 wall of text is not the best way to sell your work, nor is a boring traditional narrative of introduction, methodology, results, related work, conclusion or whatever. i say this from the perspective of someone who's gone to too many poster sessions and gotten trapped at a poster where someone for some reason decided i would be interested in spending 20 minutes silently listening to them recite the slightly abridged version of the paper that they had for some reason decided to printed on their poster. one guy even seemed to expect me to leave after he was done. after he had finished reading the conclusions at me he had a look on his face that said "who's next?". okay so that's one extreme. for me, the secret to a good poster presentation is two-fold: the poster and the person in front of it. in terms of a poster session, people will probably have some food with them, people might even have some drinks, you should not assume to take more than 5 minutes of their time, they're probably not going to get all the technical details and they're definitely not going to read a wall of text. at least one would hope that they wouldn't read it because that would imply that you'd be talking to yourself since they cannot read text and listen to you at the same time (unless you're reading aloud the text that is). when i was working with students on posters, i would always advise them to dispose of the idea that they can or should communicate the full technical depth of a work on a poster to a passer-by in five minutes. their goal should be to motivate and communicate enough of the core ideas of the work to convince people passing by their poster that the paper would be worth taking the time to read and to teach them something cool. in terms of that goal, i would bring the student to a white-board and tell them to pretend i was a conference-goer who knew nothing of the work but we met at a coffee break and i asked them to tell me about the work. they can use the board or ... if really needed ... they can point to something in the paper. while presenting, they should appear enthusiastic (without overselling) and emphasise why the work is important ... why i should care, and what the main results were. they should also listen to what i say ... it should be a conversation. they should make sure that the person they're talking to is following them ... that they don't just launch into a 10 minute soliloquy at the first person that looks in their direction but that there's an element of interaction. after that exercise whatever they were trying to represent on the board or whatever they needed to point at in the paper: that and pretty much only that is what goes on the poster ... diagrams, examples, main results ... things they can point to help them explain verbally what the work is about. then we'd sketch out a poster and try make it visually appealing ... try to tell a visual story with it ... try to make it attractive for people to come over and ask what it's about. not that the end result is always perfect, but the approach does lead to a better result in terms of a communication tool than the wall-of-text approach that seems so bizarre to me in the world of scientific posters. | comparison |
should i write "we" or "i" in my research statement? | a research statement is a mix of past and future. when you are talking about the past, you should be honest about the fact that you are not working in isolation---in fact, that is a good thing. use "we" or "my collaborators and i" or whatever most accurately describes what actually happened. the other key part of a research statement, however, is your views about the future: what you think is important, what your ambitions are for the future, etc. those are unambiguously your own opinions, and should be "i" statements. | comparison |