What is with the ban against Stack Overflow questions concerning preferences? I understand the focus on facts, but information regarding preferences can be very valuable.  Some examples:          These were all closed as "not constructive," except for the last which was closed as "primarily opinion-based." So why the ban?  If Stack Overflow isn't the right place, is there a more appropriate Stack Exchange community for questions about preferences?
My question was closed for being a "shopping list question", even though it was very much related to the topic of the site. Why?
Bash prompt error when pressing up arrow I've written this nice and colorful prompt for my OS X terminal:   parse_git_branch() {     git branch 2&gt; /dev/null | sed -e '/^[^*]/d' -e 's/* \(.*\)/ [\1]/' }  export PS1="\e]2;\w\a\e[1;30;1m\][\u@\[\033[0;36m\]\h\e[1;30;1m\]:\[\033[0;35m\]\w\e[1;30;1m\]] \[\033[0;31m\](\t) \[\033[0;33m\]\$(parse_git_branch)\n\[\033[0m\]\e[1;30;1m\]\$\[\e[0m\]"   I source ~/.bash_profile it and it works fine. except when I use the arrow up to navigate the history I get a weird thing happening.   basically the beginning of the source ~/.bash_profile command in the history, becomes part of the prompt. when I ctrl+c or enter it returns to normal, but as soon as I see the history of the source command the prompt changes again.   Here's an example where I've seen the history and then ctrl+u and typed ls:   [user@host:~/Documents] (14:01:40)  [branch] $source ~/.ls   Any clue about this? Visiting Iran as a dual EU-American citizen Assign multiple colors to features within a single vector layer Does the rank-nullity theorem hold for infinite dimensional $V$? preventDefault() on an  tag I have run into a conundrum.   When I go to get some friends cans of beer I say:     You guys want a beer?   When I am referring to going to a bar and drinking some I say:     Let's go get some beers!   When I go to a store to buy beer I say:     I am going to get beer.   How can I work this out? My friend is a native Chinese speaker and this is the sort of plural thing that trips her up. How is this explained? This is the announcement post of the Stack Exchange Data Explorer. Its answers were meant to iron out the initial glitches 6 to 8 years ago.  If you have found a bug or need support  today with any of SEDEs features, please ask a new question and tag it with   What does it do? Allows you to run arbitrary SQL queries on the data dumps, and share those queries with your friends. Technical details It is hosted on the Stack Exchange infrastructure , the database is hosted on the same SQL Server version all other sites are hosted on. You can use most of the TSQL commands, even create temporary objects (but not User Defined Functions). The controls used are jQuery based, the grid is  . All query results are cached, so sharing a link to a query will not result in the server going in to a tailspin. The query edit control is a slightly modified  control, I also am considering bespin cause the inter iframe communication is nasty complicated. It gives up nice syntax highlighting for queries. Parameters There is support for parameterized queries, to get it to work name your params like ##this##. For example have a . Query name and description A query can have a name and description, to name it lead with a comment, to describe it continue commenting, for example: -- This is my query name  -- This is my description -- I can span multiple lines  SELECT 1  Anonymous users can initially name a query, but can not change the names of any existing queries. Tutorial There's a  which helps you getting started in writing your own SQL queries. Logging in You can use your openid provider to log in, at the moment once logged in we will track the list of queries you execute (giving you basic history support) Also if there are any params named UserId they will be populated automatically if your EmailHash matches the one on the site being queried. Magic columns If you alias an id column with as [Post Link] it will automatically create a link in the result set to the parent site. Similarly if you alias an id column with as [User Link] it will display a link to the user page. select top 10 * from Posts will show you how tags are done. (Magic columns for images is planned) example (most controversial posts:  ) So what are you waiting for, check it out at  Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. I hope to have the login section working fairly soon and allow voting on the best queries and commenting. Featured Queries At the moment, admins have permission to feature interesting queries on this page , I am looking for better ways to manage the huge query list that is building up. Other types of vector multiplication. As far as I've seen, there are only two types of vector multiplication defined, dot product/inner product which is defined in a vector space of any dimension, even infinite, and cross product, which is only defined in three dimensions. Are there more definitions of vector products? Why can't I change the permissions of files I have access to? Maybe I'm searching for the wrong thing, but I can't see how I can do this.  I have two servers:   Server A (has SQL Server 2012 installed) Server B (has SQL Server 2014 installed)   Server A provides an API via IIS. The code both inserts and gets data from the database depending on the API call.  Server B does exactly the same for its local database.  I would like to have it so that the two databases are consistent copies of each other. I do believe this is what HA accomplishes.   So a load balancer, for example, might direct API calls to A sometimes, and B sometimes, but the data needs to be consistent either way.  I found some documentation on HA for SQL Server 2012, but not on how to do this for a mixed environment of 2012 and 2014.  Any help or pointers to documentation would be great! Thanks. During real, everyday use, that is?  I'm looking to upgrade a drive in a MacBook Pro, and am looking at either a 750GB/7200RPM or a 1TH/5400RPM drive.  Would I care about the speed difference? Is it worth giving up the additional space on the larger drive? Feed can show entries for deleted posts, which viewing them fails Just noticed this:  Someone @replied to me in a question which appropriately showed up in my feed.  I go to click on that notice in the feed, and it presents me with "Loading the question failed."  I'd show a picture, but I don't think that it's entirely relevant - I believe it's reproducible if an answer is posted, someone makes a reply, the answer is removed, then that someone else goes back in the feed to try and revisit the post.  Alternatively, why not synchronize the interface between what a 10K user sees on the site, and what they see in the app?  As a 10K user, I would expect to see deleted questions and answers. How to prove that a left-invariant metric on a Lie group is smooth? What is the function of "do" in this sentence? Rarely, though, do countries introduce a single reform alone.   What function does do have in this sentence? Is there an exception to the prohibition against ending a sentence with “ ’s ” at work here? The ’s can be used as a contraction representing a weak, unstressed word that is not pronounced.  It allegedly cannot occur in sentence final position.        She is not ready, but he is.   She’s not ready, but he is.   She’s not ready, but *he’s.      The last one is not grammatical there.  Similarly, here the last one is not grammatical:        He has not started yet, but she has.   He’s not started yet, but she has.   He’s not started yet, but *she’s.       claims this is because you cannot end a sentence with a weak form.  It backs up its point with reasonably scholarly documentation.  However, this does not seem to be invariably true.        Shall we go to the movies?  Yes, let us go.   Shall we go to the movies?  Yes, let’s go.   Shall we go to the movies?  Yes, let’s.      Unlike the third example in the first two sets, here in this case the third example is indeed grammatical, despite ending with a weak form.  Is this an exception to the rule, or is there another rule at work here? Mouse cursor flickering and disappearing What is the exact difference between an autoregressive (AR) and vector autoregressive model (VAR)?  I always thought that VAR would just be for more than two variables, until I learned that AR can also have more than two variables. I.e. I had a misunderstanding(?) that AR models are not always bivariate.  Before I write too much potentially false assumptions about the difference between AR and VAR, it would rather be interested to see if anyone can make provide a quick and good summary. Where do I ask where to ask? If I have a specific question I want to ask about, but I don't know which Stack Exchange site would be on topic for asking that question, where can I ask where to ask that question?  Is there any generic place where we can ask for advice? Is it here?  This is not about a specific question but in general.  For example: "Where should I ask for advice about fishing?", or if I need to know where I should ask "What would be the best fishing rod to fish for salmon?" (regardless of how good/bad these examples are) $1,000 is pronounced as "one thousand dollars". Reading from left to right, it seems like it would make more sense to write the value as: 1,000$. This way the pronunciation of the value follows the way it's written. Every other numerical value I can think of places the unit after the value:   1 kg 1 L 1 m, etc...   I'm not sure if this question fits in with the rest of the questions on this site. But I'd like to know why currencies are so different from other quantities. Not to mention the need to separate groups of three digits with commas. Fitting linear model / ANOVA by group