I mean, there's many other spells he could've cast, but why choose to launch a snake of all things?
In Chamber of Secrets, in the first Duelling Club class, Snape suggests Malfoy use the Serpensortia spell against Harry. This of course reveals that Harry is a Parselmouth, but how could Snape anticipate this? Was there any reason for Snape to suspect Harry is a Parselmouth? Or was it just a way to laugh at how Harry would get frightened?
Are there any official specifications regarding the torque for camera mounts? I've been wondering why I've never seen any official specifications of the maximum allowed torque that can be exerted upon lens mounts. It seems to me like a very useful specification, but I can't seem to find it from any manufacturer.  indicates that there might be no specifications for Nikon mounts. Are there really no manufacturer that publish these specification of their mounts? I can write  VAR=$VAR1 VAR=${VAR1} VAR="$VAR1" VAR="${VAR1}"   the end result to me all seems about the same. Why should I write one or the other? are any of these not portable/POSIX? $P(x) = 0$ is a polynomial equation having at least one integer root, where $P(x)$ is a polynomial of degree five and having integer coefficients.  If $P(2) = 3$ and $P(10)= 11$, then prove that the equation $P(x) = 0$ has exactly one integer root.  I tried by assuming a fifth degree polynomial but got stuck after that.  The question was asked by my friend. I am writing a report in a 2 column page format. Now I want to insert a rather large picture that requires to use full width of the page and cut the columns horizontally. How can I achiveve this? Please see the images below for what I mean : What's the intuition behind the identities $\cos(z)= \cosh(iz)$ and $\sin(z)=-i\sinh(iz)$? I'm trying to understand in an intuitive manner the relationship between the circular and hyperbolic functions in the complex plane, i.e.:  $$\cos(z)= \cosh(iz)$$ $$\sin(z)=-i\sinh(iz)$$  where $z$ is a complex number.  From a geometric point of view, what I understand is that cos is the composition of a rotation through $\frac{\pi}{2}$, followed by cosh, and sin is the composition of a rotation through $\frac{\pi}{2}$, followed by sinh, followed by a rotation through $-\frac{\pi}{2}$ (where sin, cos, sinh, cosh are defined as complex functions).  Where does this connection come from? Is there some way it can be visualized in terms of complex mappings? (I'm not asking for a proof of the identities, I already know one). "Stack Overflow requires external JavaScript from another domain" message Polynomials with integer coefficients such that $p(a)=b,p(b)=c,p(c)=a$ How to recover files from dead windows using dos? Entering and leaving the UK on the day of visa expiry tmux: shared session, one user in a pane, another in another pane, two different cursors I've decided to try tmux: have been reading the docs and googling around, trying to find a way to have two users sharing a session, each with a different cursor.  However, giving 777 permissions to the socket, or creating a group, chgrping the socket and adding both users to it, seems to let that same socket be used to share a session with only one cursor: both users can write, but always in the same cursor position.  Right now both users are in the same home server over ssh, and the idea is to be able to have:   A terminal in a, let's say, left pane, where I can type commands Another terminal in a right pane, where I can see another user typing commands  in his own terminal The same thing for the other user   What I'm doing at the moment is using two sessions (not shared) and a script -f and tail -f combination that kinda works for reading each other's key strokes, but I reckon there is probably some way of doing this using tmux sharing capabilities.  Is there a way to get this idea working with write support in each other's terminal?  What is the better way to do this? I'm shooting with a Nikon 810, and my night shots often have a strong moire when I export them from Lightroom at 640x640 (optimized for Instagram).   This photo was shot at f2.8, ISO 4000, 15 seconds with a Nikkor 17-35mm. Does anyone know why this is happening?? I'm looking for a phrase that describes trying to fix problems caused by underlying issues, with the result of compounding the issue. I usually call this "targeting surface problems rather than root problems", but my terminology is verbose.  Example 1: A government bans buying and selling bananas in the state. Later, it passes a clause allowing citizens to purchase imported bananas.  Example 2: A divided highway is erected with two lanes going in each direction but, since it gets lots of traffic, the shoulders are widened into new lanes. This leaves no shoulder room.  What would be a more concise phrase? Anime about a boy and a girl who ride ostrich-like creatures through a valley I can not remember much but I have had this film in my head for years I searched everything I can remember on every website I can think of.  I don't remember the exact story but I'll list everything about it can   Apocalyptic future possibly Two main characters: a boy and a girl riding ostrich-like creatures through a valley An old blind lady that senses things Crashed spaceship looking like a submarine Giant creatures looks like yaks with blue eyes, whose eyes turn red when something is about to happen The old lady says "Some say they went to the stars" while looking at the spaceship The two main characters do something and their eyes turn blue in the distance and the village cheers   This film is at least ten years old and I would appreciate it so much if you knew anything about it, or could help me find the title. I have already bought the PC version on minecraft for my account. However, when attempting to change my skin, the game simply states:"You have to buy the PC edition of Minecraft."   Which is odd because I already have.  Why is this happening? How can I fix it? Why is the electric field zero inside a hollow conducting sphere? Is it possible for more than two particles to be entangled in a quantum way? So I know that two particles can be entangled in a quantum way, but is it possible that more than two particles be entangled in a quantum way? Most descriptions provide with two-particles cases, so I wonder. (It's hard to think of three particles entangled in spin, or so.) Comprehensive list of tools that simplify the generation of LaTeX tables Manually hacking tables in LaTeX is one of the less funny things when preparing a document. Naturally, there are quite a few tools that promise to simplify this. In fact, I have somewhat lost track of all the tools available, and I'd like to gather your valuable experience into one big post. Some of the tools are mentioned in , but I feel there's much more around.  I'd suggest that somebody starts an overview with an alphabetic list (so that I can accept this answer and it stays on top), and that everyone replies with a "community wiki" entry, one reply per tool, and inserts the tool into the list.  Personally, I use Excel2LaTeX, but I'm unhappy with having to fire up Windows in order to generate the LaTeX code. I'm thinking of a rewrite as a standalone Python tool using the xlrd library, but I'm not too inclined to reinvent the wheel. Setting ArcGIS Desktop license to lower level for testing whether Python script still runs? I have a Python script that will need to be given to a client.   We are currently evaluating what license level the client will need in order to run the script for their software acquisition purposes.   We all have ArcGIS 10.1 Advanced license in our company.   I checked all the tools and extensions used in the script against the web help and found that they should work on the Standard license level.   Is there a way I can test the script against the Standard license level, when we have no Standard license level in or company (only the higher Advanced level)? Has anyone used PostgreSQL with PostGIS successfully?   I am a semi-experienced ArcGIS user and want to build out a database and connect it to ArcCatalog.   I've scoured the internet for resources but nobody has really given a good walkthrough. How do I remove duplicate "Open With" context menu items in Finder.app? For whatever reason, the "Open With" context menu in Finder is always listing every app four times (exactly).     I've read about (and tried) rebuilding the Launch Services database to restore the context menu to its initial state, but nothing seems to work. I've also used Onyx.app to clear user and system caches, but I'm still left with four repetitions of each app under the "Open With" service. I have restarted the system a few times just to be sure it was not some temporary corruption of the list.  I'm running OS X 10.6.6 on a 2011 17" MacBook Pro with a fresh install of OS X (i.e. I didn't use Migration Assistant.app or a Time Machine backup). I did, however, sync all my preferences and other files using MobileMe like I always do, so I imagine it's feasible that a preference file somewhere is causing problems? I didn't notice whether this was happening before or after my MobileMe sync.  How can I fix this so one app shows?