Education questions, answered
39 short answers from 8 guides. Each set links to the full guide for the worked examples and the reasoning behind the answer.
ASCII Art Text with FIGlet: Fonts, Smushing and Where to Use It
What does FIGlet stand for?
FIGlet stands for "Frank, Ian and Glenn's letters". Glenn Chappell and Ian Chai wrote it in 1991, growing it out of a small program by Frank Sheeran that printed large letters for email signatures. The C version reached 2.2.5 and is still packaged by most Linux distributions as figlet, alongside the related toilet program that adds colour.
What is inside a FIGlet .flf font file?
A FIGlet .flf font is a plain text file with a header line, comment lines, then a drawing of each character. The header of the Standard font, flf2a$ 6 5 16 15 13 0 24463 229, gives the format signature and hardblank, height, baseline, maximum line length, layout rules, comment line count, print direction and the number of extra code-tagged characters.
What are the FIGlet smushing rules?
FIGlet controlled smushing has six numbered rules a font can switch on: equal character, underscore, hierarchy, opposite pair, big X and hardblank. Each decides which character survives when two letters share a column. Universal smushing ignores the rules and lets the later character overwrite the earlier one, which is compact but can damage letters.
What is a hardblank in a FIGlet font?
A hardblank is a space in a FIGlet font that must stay a space, usually written as $. Smushing never merges it away. The Standard font draws its space character as a blank plus a hardblank on each row, so words in a banner never get squeezed together.
Is the ANSI Shadow font real ASCII?
No. ANSI Shadow and ANSI Regular are drawn with Unicode block and box-drawing characters such as █, ╗ and ═, so they look solid in modern terminals and editors but are not ASCII. For a file that must be pure ASCII, an old terminal or an unusual code page, a classic font such as Standard, Big, Banner or Doom is safer.
GPA and Final Grades: The Weighted Averages Behind Your Transcript
What do I need on my final exam to get the grade I want?
The required final score is (target - current x (1 - w)) / w, where w is the final's weight in the course. With 88% so far, a final worth 25% and a target of 85%, the required score is (85 - 88 x 0.75) / 0.25 = 76%. The Final Grade Calculator, which sits alongside the GPA Calculator, runs this formula.
What does it mean if I need more than 100% on my final?
A required final score above 100% means the target course grade cannot be reached on the exam alone. Look at the next grade down, or ask whether extra credit or a curve applies. A required score below 0% means the grade is already secure, and anything between 90 and 100% is possible but leaves no room for a bad day.
Why does my cumulative GPA barely change after a good semester?
A cumulative GPA averages every graded credit, so earlier credits weigh against each new term. With a 3.2 over 30 credits, a 3.50 term of 6 credits lifts the cumulative GPA only to (96 + 21) / 36 = 3.25. That inertia grows with every credit taken, so a GPA is easiest to shape early.
Do colleges recalculate high school GPAs?
Colleges frequently recalculate applicants' GPAs on their own basis, often removing the weighting or capping it, because every high school weights honors, AP and IB courses differently. That makes the unweighted GPA the more comparable number, while the weighted GPA mainly shows how your own school will rank you.
How do weighted grade categories work?
Each category's score is multiplied by its weight and the results are added. With homework 20% at 95, quizzes 20% at 85 and a midterm 25% at 78, the banked points are 55.5 out of 65, a current average of 85.38%. To finish on 85 with a final worth 35%, the final must supply 29.5 points, a score of 84.29%.
How to Find the Day of the Week for Any Date, by Hand
What day of the week was July 4, 1776?
4 July 1776 was a Thursday in the Gregorian calendar. Using Zeller's congruence with q = 4, m = 7, K = 76 and J = 17, the sum is 4 + 20 + 76 + 19 + 4 + 85 = 208, and 208 mod 7 = 5, which in Zeller's numbering, where 0 is Saturday, means Thursday.
Why does a date move forward one weekday each year?
A common year of 365 days is 52 weeks and 1 day, so every date moves forward by one weekday per year, and by two across a 29 February because a leap year has 366 days. Christmas 2026 is a Friday, so Christmas 2027 is a Saturday and Christmas 2028, after a leap day, is a Monday.
How often does the Gregorian calendar repeat?
The Gregorian calendar repeats exactly every 400 years, because 400 years contain 146,097 days, which is exactly 20,871 weeks. A weekday rule therefore only needs a date's position within the 400-year cycle. That is also why the Doomsday rule's century anchors repeat: 1800s Friday, 1900s Wednesday, 2000s Tuesday and 2100s Sunday.
What are the Doomsday rule's easy dates?
The Doomsday rule's memorable dates share one weekday each year: 4/4, 6/6, 8/8, 10/10 and 12/12, 9 May and 5 September ("9 to 5 at the 7-Eleven"), 11 July and 7 November, 14 March, the last day of February, and 3 January, or 4 January in a leap year. John Horton Conway called that shared weekday the year's doomsday.
Why did the October Revolution happen in November?
Russia still used the Julian calendar in 1917 and only switched to the Gregorian calendar in 1918. The October Revolution of 1917 was dated in the Julian calendar, so by the Gregorian calendar it took place in November. The Julian calendar treats every fourth year as a leap year and gains about three days every four centuries.
ISO Week Numbers Explained: Week 1, Week 53 and the US System
How do I calculate the ISO week number by hand?
Find the date's weekday from 1 (Monday) to 7 (Sunday), then move to the Thursday of that week by subtracting the weekday and adding 4. That Thursday's year is the ISO year. Take its day of the year, subtract 1, divide by 7, drop the remainder and add 1. For 29 October 2026, day 302, that gives week 44.
Why does strftime %Y-W%V print a week that does not exist?
Because %Y is the calendar year, while %V is the ISO week, which belongs to the ISO week-numbering year. On 3 January 2021, %Y-W%V prints 2021-W53, a week that does not exist, since that day's ISO week belongs to 2020. The correct strftime format is %G-W%V, which pairs the ISO week with %G and gives 2020-W53.
What does KW mean on a calendar?
KW is short for the German Kalenderwoche, meaning calendar week, and planning tools that say "KW 44" mean the ISO 8601 week. Swedish tools write "v.44" for vecka. Most of Europe prints ISO week numbers on wall calendars, where weeks start on Monday and week 1 contains the year's first Thursday.
How can I tell whether a report uses ISO or US week numbers?
Ask which week 1 January belongs to in a year where it falls on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday. If the answer is week 1, the report uses a US-style count that always restarts on 1 January. If it is week 52 or 53 of the previous year, the report uses ISO 8601 week numbers.
Morse Code: The Alphabet, Timing Rules and How to Learn It
Who invented Morse code?
Samuel Morse and his collaborator Alfred Vail built the original code for the electric telegraph in the late 1830s. In 1848 Friedrich Clemens Gerke simplified it for German lines, and his version became International Morse code from the 1865 International Telegraph Conference in Paris. It is now defined by the ITU in Recommendation ITU-R M.1677-1.
What is the Koch method for learning Morse code?
The Koch method, developed by the German psychologist Ludwig Koch in the 1930s, teaches Morse code by ear at full speed. It starts with just two letters and adds one more each time the learner copies 90% correctly. Combined with a fast character speed of 15 to 20 wpm, each letter is learned as a single sound.
Is Morse code still used today?
Morse code is still used daily by radio amateurs and by aviation navigation beacons that identify themselves in Morse. Its official role has shrunk: GMDSS replaced it for distress at sea in 1999, and the ITU dropped the amateur licence requirement in 2003. Many hams use it by choice because a narrow Morse signal gets through noise that defeats voice.
What is a prosign in Morse code?
A prosign, or procedural signal, is a sequence of Morse code sent as one character with no letter gap, written with a bar over the letters or in angle brackets. Examples include <AR> .-.-. for end of message, <SK> ...-.- for end of contact, <AS> .-... for wait and <HH>, eight dots, for an error.
What is the Morse code for the @ sign?
The @ sign in Morse code is .--.-., which runs the letters A (.-) and C (-.-.) together. It was added in 2004 so email addresses could be sent, making it the newest character in International Morse code as defined by the ITU.
Readability Formulas Explained: Flesch, Fog, SMOG and More
What is the Flesch-Kincaid grade level formula?
The Flesch-Kincaid grade level is FKGL = 0.39 × (words ÷ sentences) + 11.8 × (syllables ÷ words) − 15.59. J. Peter Kincaid and colleagues derived it in 1975 for US Navy enlisted personnel by recalculating Flesch's two inputs as a school grade. A score of 8 means a typical US eighth grader, about 13 to 14 years old, should follow the text.
How is the Gunning Fog index calculated?
The Gunning Fog index is 0.4 × [(words ÷ sentences) + 100 × (complex words ÷ words)]. Complex words have three or more syllables, excluding proper nouns, hyphenated compounds and words that reach three syllables only through -es, -ed or -ing. Robert Gunning published it in 1952, and the result reads as the years of schooling needed.
What is the Flesch Reading Ease formula?
Flesch Reading Ease is 206.835 − 1.015 × (words ÷ sentences) − 84.6 × (syllables ÷ words), published by Rudolf Flesch in the Journal of Applied Psychology in 1948. Higher scores are easier: 90 to 100 is very easy, 60 to 70 is standard and 0 to 30 is very difficult. The scale is not capped, so scores can exceed 100 or fall below zero.
Why does SMOG give a higher grade than Flesch-Kincaid?
G. Harry McLaughlin calibrated SMOG in 1969 against a strict criterion, full comprehension of test passages, so it usually gives a grade or two higher than Flesch-Kincaid. That conservatism makes it popular for patient information. SMOG counts polysyllables across 30 sentences, so a result for a shorter text is an extrapolation.
Does the Plain Writing Act require a readability score?
No. The US Plain Writing Act of 2010 requires federal agencies to write clearly for the public but does not set a score. The Federal Plain Language Guidelines that support it push the habits readability formulas reward: short sentences, common words and active voice. Several US states, Florida among them, do set a minimum Flesch Reading Ease score for some insurance documents.
The NATO Phonetic Alphabet: Words, Numbers and Why Alfa
Who created the NATO phonetic alphabet?
The NATO phonetic alphabet was designed for ICAO by a team led by the linguist Jean-Paul Vinay at the Université de Montréal. The team tested candidate words with speakers of many languages and for confusability under noise. A first version appeared in 1951, and the final alphabet came into use in 1956 before NATO, the ITU and maritime services adopted it.
What phonetic alphabet was used before Alfa Bravo Charlie?
Before the 1950s each service and country had its own spelling list. British and American forces in the Second World War used Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog, Easy, Fox and so on. That list worked for native English speakers but not for international aviation, where pilots and controllers spoke dozens of languages, which led to the ICAO alphabet.
How are numbers pronounced in the NATO phonetic alphabet?
ICAO radiotelephony speaks digits as ZE RO, WUN, TOO, TREE, FOW ER, FIFE, SIX, SEV EN, AIT and NIN ER. Tree avoids the "th" sound many speakers lack, and fife keeps five apart from nine. A decimal point is said DAY SEE MAL, and aviation reads numbers digit by digit, so flight level 350 is "tree fife zero".
How do you pronounce Quebec and Lima in the phonetic alphabet?
In the ICAO phonetic alphabet Quebec is pronounced "keh-BECK", not "kwuh-BECK", and Lima is "LEE-mah", like the Peruvian city rather than the bean. Papa stresses the second syllable, and Oscar ends in "cah" without a strong r. The respellings are written so English, French and Spanish speakers can all read them.
How do I spell symbols and capital letters phonetically?
The ICAO phonetic alphabet covers only letters and digits, so symbols use plain names such as dash, underscore, slash, dot and at sign. Case is not part of the alphabet either, so say "capital" or "lowercase" before a letter when it matters: pX7q becomes "lowercase Papa, capital X-ray, Seven, lowercase Quebec".
Word Count, Character Count and Reading Time Explained
What is the average reading speed in words per minute?
Adults reading English silently average about 238 words per minute for non-fiction and 260 for fiction, according to Marc Brysbaert's 2019 meta-analysis in the Journal of Memory and Language, with wide individual variation. Earlier claims of 300 wpm and more mostly came from small or unrepresentative samples. Technical material with code, formulas or tables is read more slowly.
What is the difference between a grapheme and a code point?
A grapheme is what a reader sees as one character, while a code point is a single Unicode number, and one grapheme can contain several. The thumbs-up emoji with a medium skin tone is 1 grapheme but 2 code points, 4 UTF-16 code units and 8 UTF-8 bytes. JavaScript's string.length counts UTF-16 code units, not graphemes.
What are the character limits on Threads, Bluesky, LinkedIn and Instagram?
Threads allows 500 characters per post and Bluesky 300 graphemes. Mastodon defaults to 500, though each server can change it. A LinkedIn post allows 3,000 characters and an Instagram caption 2,200. YouTube titles are limited to 100 characters and descriptions to 5,000, while a standard X post allows 280 using weighted counting.
How are words counted in Chinese and Japanese text?
Chinese and Japanese do not separate words with spaces, so the usual convention, used by Microsoft Word, counts each Han, Hiragana or Katakana character as one word. A five-character name such as 東京タワー therefore counts as five words. Korean writes spaces between words, so it is counted the same way as English.
Which characters take up two spaces in an SMS?
In the GSM 7-bit alphabet used for SMS, a handful of characters live in an extension table and take two septets each: €, [, ], {, }, , ~, ^ and |. Any character outside the GSM alphabet entirely, such as an emoji or a curly apostrophe, switches the whole message to UCS-2 and cuts the limit from 160 to 70 characters.