I came across a question while buidling schema for my application.  When to use varchar(max) and nvarchar(max). I mean the exact use cases where it should be applied. I have surfed in net too but I was able to get the exact answer.  Could anyone suggest some exact usecase.
Is it just that nvarchar supports multibyte characters? If that is the case, is there really any point, other than storage concerns, to using varchars?
Rice with worm and possibly their eggs I bought a bag of brown rice from a store. After having opened and used for a while, I found there were moths flying in the house. At the same time, I found worms in the rice. I suspect that the moths are from the worms(rice-size, white body, dark head). I guess but am not sure if they are called rice moths. There were also many little sand-like things in the rice bag, are they the eggs of the rice moths?  Will eating this infested rice pose a health risk? Why wget doesn't verify SSL certificates? I have a problem with my Fedora 8 installation. It looks that wget doesn't know how to verify SSL certificates any more. It's strange because I have another Fedora 8 box which I believe has the same configuration and it works!   How can I make it work without using --no-check-certificate switch?  This is a sample output:  wget https://www.google.com --2011-09-23 00:11:13--  https://www.google.com/ Resolving www.google.com... 74.125.230.146, 74.125.230.147, 74.125.230.148, ... Connecting to www.google.com|74.125.230.146|:443... connected. ERROR: cannot verify www.google.com's certificate, issued by `/C=ZA/O=Thawte Consulting (Pty) Ltd./CN=Thawte SGC CA':   Unable to locally verify the issuer's authority. To connect to www.google.com insecurely, use `--no-check-certificate'. Unable to establish SSL connection.   EDIT  I have this file /etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-bundle.crt file and when I run wget with --ca-certificate switch pointing to this file everything goes fine. Where should this file be placed so that I don't need to use the switch?  BTW: curl and links work fine, but lynx also complains: "SSL error:unable to get local issuer certificate" so this is not only wget's issue... How to set selected Dialog values to TextViews in Fragment I got this problem from my teacher as a optional challenge. I am open about this being a given problem, however it is not homework. The problem is stated as follows. Assume we have an infinite tetration as follows $$x^{x^{x^{.^{.^.}}}} \, = \, a$$ With a given $a$ find $x$. The next part of the problem was to discuss the convergence radius of a. If a is too big or too small the tetration does not converge. Below is my humble stab at the problem.  My friend said you would have to treat the tetration as a infinite series, and therefore could not perform algebraic manipulations on it before it is know whether it converges or diverges. However my attempt is to first do some algebraic steps, then discuss the convergence radius. I) Initial discussion At the start it is obvious that the tetration converges when $a=1$ (just set $x=1$) Now after some computer hardwork it seems that the tetration fails to converge when a is roughly larger than 3. II) Algebraic manipulation $$ x^{x^{x^{.^{.^.}}}} \, = \, a$$ This is the same as $$ x^a \, = \, a$$ $$ \log_a(x^a) \, = \, \log_a(a)$$ $$ \log_a(x) \, = \, \frac{1}{a}$$ $$ x \, = \, a^{\frac{1}{a}}$$ Now, if we let $a=2$ then $x = \sqrt{2}$. After some more computational work, this seems to be correct, which makes me believe this formula is correct. III) Discsussion about convergence By looking at the derivative of $ \displaystyle \large a^{\frac{1}{a}} $ we see that the maxima occurs when $a=e$, which also seems to correspond to the inital computational work. Now I think, that the minima of $\displaystyle \large a^{1/a}$ is zero by looking at its graph, studying its derivative and the endpoints. So that my &quot;guess&quot; or work shows that it converges when $$ a \in [0 \, , \,  1/e] $$ VI) My questions Can my algebraic manipulations be justified? They seem rather sketchy taking the a`th logarithm and so on . (Although they seem to &quot;magically&quot; give out the right answer) By looking at Wikipedia it seems that the tetration converge when $$ a \in \left[ 1/e \, , \, e \right] $$ This is almost what I have, why is my lower bound wrong? How can  I find the correct lower bound? How fast is Earth moving through the universe? As the galaxy is moving and the solar system orbiting the galaxy and the Earth orbiting the sun. So how fast is each object moving and what is the fastest we move at?  Do we even know how fast the galaxy is moving that is not relative to another galaxy (although I guess velocity has to be measured relative to something). If you have a java.io.InputStream object, how should you process that object and produce a String?    Suppose I have an InputStream that contains text data, and I want to convert it to a String, so for example I can write that to a log file.  What is the easiest way to take the InputStream and convert it to a String?  public String convertStreamToString(InputStream is) {     // ??? } Why do some tag info pages show who created them and others don't? Some  show who created the tag:    while  don't. I'm pretty sure I created that one as well, if you hover over the timestamp you can see when it was created:    which more or less matches with  where I created the tag:    I understand that some tags like  were probably created by the Community user while the site itself was created (so it ), but some newer tags like   even though  still has an account here.  What's going on here? Would this also mean I wouldn't get a  for  if I ? "States Party to" or "State Parties to" or "States parties to"? When discussing a treaty or international agreement, which is correct?  "There are 100 states party to the treaty." (for example, as used )  Or:  "There are 100 state parties to the treaty." (for example, as used )   Or: "There are 100 states parties to the treaty."  (for example, as used ) Hi I'm solving some exercise problems in my text : "A Course in Mathematical Statistics".  I'm in the chapter "Point estimation" now, and I want to find a UMVUE of $\theta$ where $X_1 ,...,X_n$ are i.i.d random variables with the p.d.f $f(x; \theta)=\theta e^{-\theta x}, x\gt0$.   I know that $E(X_i)=1/\theta,$ for each $i$, and also have that $\bar{X}$ (or equivalently $\sum_1^n X_i$) is a complete sufficient statistic for $\theta$. But I cannot go any further here. Somebody can help me? When should I use mmap for file access? POSIX environments provide at least two ways of accessing files.  There's the standard system calls open(), read(), write(), and friends, but there's also the option of using mmap() to map the file into virtual memory.  When is it preferable to use one over the other?  What're their individual advantages that merit including two interfaces? I plan on building a computer with  which has no GPU:     Graphics Specifications      Processor Graphics:   None   on a  motherboard which has an onboard integrated graphics processor:     Integrated Graphics Processor:         1 x D-Sub port, supporting a maximum resolution of 1920x1200@60Hz   1 x DVI-D port, supporting a maximum resolution of 1920x1200@60Hz   1 x HDMI port, supporting a maximum resolution of 4096x2160@24Hz or 2560x1600@60Hz   Support for up to 3 displays at the same time   Maximum shared memory of 512 MB      I have asked  and know that even if the CPU has no GPU, I can still get video as long as the motherboard has onboard graphics. However, when I went to buy the parts at a computer center yesterday, the technician said motherboards nowadays use CPU's GPU to display, including this Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD5H motherboard (which he meant this board has no real onboard graphics).  So for Xeon E3 1231v3 + Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD5H to display, do I need a video card or not?  (I don't really care about the graphics quality. I use the computer mostly to write programs, web browsing, and Photoshop, and seldom play games or watch videos.) I am typing to get a sale amount (by input) to be multiplied by a defined sales tax (0.08) and then have it print the total amount (sales tax times sale amount).  I run into this error. Anyone know what could be wrong or have any suggestions?   salesAmount = raw_input (["Insert sale amount here \n"]) ['Insert sale amount here \n']20.99 &gt;&gt;&gt; salesTax = 0.08 &gt;&gt;&gt; totalAmount = salesAmount * salesTax  Traceback (most recent call last):   File "&lt;pyshell#57&gt;", line 1, in &lt;module&gt;     totalAmount = salesAmount * salesTax TypeError: can't multiply sequence by non-int of type 'float' Why was the MCU Super Soldier program considered a failure? In Marvel Cinematic Universe, military tried to create super soldiers like Hulk, but they failed. So, the program was shut down.  Where did they fail? Didn't Blonsky get Wolverine-type super healing capability? Why couldn't it make the military stronger? Other than this, wasn't Abomination a success (despite the fact that it wasn't an original work of the military)? He was defeated by Hulk, but enemy forces don't have a Hulk. When it comes to anger, who cares as long as you are focused on the target? Abomination was indeed in full control and he was always after Hulk. I am trying to get a better feel for the topology of ordinals and just received a great answer to this  where the Cantor-Bendixson rank and degree turn out to be a complete homeomorphism invariant of countable compact spaces. Now I am curious about what is going on within homeomorphism classes of ordinals. In particular, I want to know how to characterize countable ordinals $\alpha$ which are minimal among all ordinals homeomorphic to $\alpha$.   Certainly finite ordinals and $\omega$ are easy. Next, if $\alpha\cong \omega+1$, then it seems like we would have to have $\omega+1\leq \alpha&lt;\omega +\omega$ since there can only be one limit point in $\alpha$. Things become a little fuzzier for me with ordinals that have infinitely many limit points.  For instance, suppose $\alpha$ is an ordinal homeomorphic to $\omega^{\omega}$. Is it necessarily true that $\alpha\geq \omega^{\omega}$? Is there a general rule for knowing when an ordinal is the smallest among all ordinals homeomorphic to it? Difference between “with”, “at” and “for” with a business title and a company name Should a "thank you" comment, for instance Thanks for your answer, be flagged as non-constructive?  If a "thank you" comment is flagged as non-constructive what would the moderator reaction to this flag be? Would it be marked as helpful, or not? What component to use for audio signal switching? I'm looking to build a guitar pedal switcher based on a Raspberry Pi or Arduino (have not yet decided, but I have an unused Raspberry around and I lean towards that). Anyway, digital logic.  Now, I need to switch audio signal obviously and I need to do it quietly (both physical silence and electrical silence). Please note that the signal is line level throughout most of the build, except for the input which is much lower. I will probably have 2 or 3 loops before the preamp so those may not encounter line level signal.  From what I read and know, so far, mechanical relays are not really an option due to the clicking noise they make. I also read something about FETs, but that's a bit out of my league and I would appreciate any info on these.  PS: I will probably use different power rails for the digital and analog paths.  PS2: The whole thing will be mounted in a 1U rack enclosure, so please tell me if I should take into consideration any thermal issues. Can "Wow!" be a sentence? Take the following script:  #!/bin/sh sed 's/(127\.0\.1\.1)\s/\1/' [some file]   If I try to run this in sh (dash here), it'll fail because of the parentheses, which need to be escaped. But I don't need to escape the backslashes themselves (between the octets, or in the \s or \1). What's the rule here? What about when I need to use {...} or [...]? Is there a list of what I do and don't need to escape? Seeking open raw LiDAR or laser scanner data?