doctor who - How does regeneration work?

Although regeneration usually appears as an involuntary, biological process that occurs when death would otherwise be imminent, the nature of regeneration has not always been consistently represented. It has been most fully explored over the years in the case of the Master:

• It's possible to reset the counter on regenerations-- as in The Five Doctors (1983), when the Timelords offer the Master a new set of regenerations.


• Regenerations can be transferred from one Timelord to another-- as in the 1996 TV movie, when the Master attempts to steal the Doctor's remaining regenerations.


• A Timelord can decide whether to regenerate-- as in Last of the Timelords (2007), when the Master refuses to regenerate and (apparently) dies.


• The source of regenerative power is on Galifrey, and is associated with (possibly originates in) the Eye of Harmony-- as in The Deadly Assassin (1976) where the Master schemes to become Timelord president specifically to gain access to the Eye and avoid death at the end of his last regeneration.

However in all of these cases, the question of "how would that work, exactly?" is never answered.

While regeneration is commonly something that happens when death might be expected, it doesn't have to be this way:

• Romana regenerates in Destiny of the Daleks (1979) at will, just because she wants to do so. In the opening scene she apparently regenerates several times until she finds a look that she likes-- as if she were trying on new clothes.


• The Doctor's second regeneration (The War Games, 1969) was forced on him by the Timelords. They don't do anything that would be expected to kill the Doctor-- they just make him regenerate.

Romana's regeneration also suggests pretty strongly that the regeneration limit is not a major concern, since otherwise the repeated regenerations would be nearly suicidal. Whether this is because she thinks she can reset the count, or because the limit doesn't apply to her, or for some other reason is not stated.

From past evidence it therefore appears that:

• Regeneration is an inherent capability but one that can only be done a fixed number of times.


• The process involves some undefined energy carried by the individual which can be transferred or restored.


• The Timelords possess the power to transfer this energy (probably from the Eye of Harmony on Galifrey) and can therefore restore regenerative power.


• Timelords in good standing (like Romana) can get their "regeneration energy" replenished on request, or may simply be allowed to access the energy source and do so themselves.


• Timelords not in good standing (the Master and... sometimes.. the Doctor) may have this request refused (e.g. by being denied access to the Eye of Harmony).


• If you know what you're doing, you could transfer this energy from one individual to another, effectively giving one person the other's remaining regenerations. This was half confirmed in Let's Kill Hitler(2011) when River Song gave up her remaining regenerations to stop the Doctor from dying.

TV show about a kid filming end editing everything that happened in his house

When I was a kid there was a show that I really liked on TV, but I can't remember its name.

It was about a little boy who had planted video cameras all over the house and the recordings were used to recreate what happened to him during the episode. The catch was that he edited these recordings before showing them so instead of seeing him being yelled at by his father, there were some cartoonish effects and sounds added (something like smoke coming out of his fathers years).

This show is probably old, since I've seen it over 10-15 years ago. It was in English, but it might not have been an US TV show.

single word requests - A proper name for Microsoft software

Here I would propose enterprise software. As a marketing buzzword (buzzphrase?) it admittedly has become rather inexact. Nevertheless, it encapsulates what the three examples have in common, aside from their manufacturer: they are "heavy-duty" software products that the typical end user does not interact with directly; they are useful (or cost-effective) only at the enterprise level (i.e. for a large or complex organization). An end user would almost never see screens for managing Exchange, for example. He or she would likely interact with Outlook, and Outlook communicates with and through Exchange. He or she would almost never write or extract data directly from SQL Server, but use another application or website to do so.

Business solutions software is somewhat orthogonal to "enterprise software," since business software would include software aimed at businesses which are too small or simple to require products as heavy as SharePoint or Exchange, and strictly speaking a product like SQL server might be used for production as opposed to business purposes.

I would not use the term productivity software here as it is the least precise. To some extent, all software that is not specifically intended for entertainment (i.e. to kill time) would contribute to productivity (i.e. to save time), including the packages mentioned, but the term is applied to applications used commonly by a variety of workers in a variety of industries to enhance their day-to-day productivity. These would include general office software (e.g. word processors, contact managers) and role- or industry-specific software (e.g. accounting, process management). My smartphone app store has a "productivity" category but it certainly wouldn't be the place to buy SQL Server.

Middleware refers specifically to software that manages interaction between systems. Neither SharePoint nor SQL Server are middleware.

grammaticality - Is "IN" in this sentence correct grammatically

I wrote this sentence:

My professor in many subjects during my studies at Damascus University and my fourth-year-project sponsor.

I don't know if in is correct. Or would it be better to use for? Also, is fourth-year-project's good grammatically ?

expressions - Is "How do you ... ?" a polite question to ask the right way to do things?

Responding to the broader question you put, it wouldn't be polite to ask "How do you spell xxx?" before a polite introduction. Generally, this would include a greeting and some small talk. The switch to the question can be smoothed by a hedge such as "Can I ask you a question - ...".

Some might say that "May I ask you, ..." is preferable here, but that would sound stuffy in casual conversation. And while "How does one spell xxx ?" is probably logically preferable for the reason you suggest, it sounds ridiculously formal. "How do you spell xxx ?" is preferable by far - the 'you' is not stressed, in fact, hardly pronounced ("How d'yə spell xxx?" - cf "How d'yə do?") - to show that the 'you' in this case means 'people in general'.

continuity - How the new Omnitrix watch connected to the old Ultimatrix plot?

Yes and no, although this version of an omnitrix exists in the final ep. of B10:UA, the Ben of the future of B10:UA who had knowledge of the events involving the temporal villian Eon is seen only using an Ultramatrix of the same design as the Ben of the present. While it is possible Ben simple returned to using the more combat oriented model in the future no such explination has been offered. However, concidering the term 'omniverse' indicates multiple universes are involved, and the fact that the personality of this Ben is definitively different from that of B10:AF&UA, it is more likely this is yet another Ben Tennyson who may at some later date interact with the B10:AF&UA universe. Unfortunately, the B10 series are notorious for unexplained changes to continuity.

amateur observing - Was the radiant of the Perseid meteor shower ever near Vega thousands of years ago?

Okay, this turned out to be quite a long answer describing a few arguments I've com up with. The short answer is: maybe, maybe not, but I think it's possible. There are arguments to be made for either side of this discussion, and I don't think you you can ever be absolutely sure unless you find an expert on both astronomy and Chinese folk tales (which I don't claim to be), or invent a time machine to go back 2600 years and check for yourself.

The most obvious argument to be made in favor of the hypothesis that these magpies are the Perseid meteor shower, is that folk tales referencing stars are very likely to be based on astronomical occurrences during that period (such as a meteor shower, perhaps).

The (in my mind) most obvious argument against your hypothesis is what you suggest yourself: Perseus is quite far away from Vega and Altair. However, Perseus is the radiant of the shower, which means that all perseids will appear to come out of Perseus. Because of this, it is perfectly possible for a lot of perseids to appear between Altair and Vega, parallel to the Milky Way. It is, however, impossible for them to go from Vega to Altair, or vice versa, since they wouldn't come out of Perseus anymore.

You suggest that this could be explained by the precession of the equinox, but a quick lookup on Stellarium (which is a great (and free) tool if you're into astronomy) tells me that even 2600 years ago Perseus was quite far away from Vega and Altair (actually, that's quite obvious, since the precession of the equinox causes stars to move relative to the extension of the north pole, but not relative to each other, as far as I know).

Another argument to be made against this hypothesis is that the perseids are by far not spectacular enough to be seen as a bridge over the Milky Way, even when they all appear in the required spot. During the yearly peak of the perseids, you are expected to see about 1-2 meteors per minute, which can be noticeable at best. This argument is then countered by the fact that the ZHR (how much meteor you see per hour) is not the same every year, but can peak on years when Earth passes through a fresh dust cloud left behind by the comet that causes the shower (which, in this case, is the comet Swift-Tuttle, if you're interested). Therefore, it is perfectly possible that the perseid meteor shower was extremely active 2600 years ago, causing the creation of this story. Such peaks are somewhat rare, but not too rare for this hypothesis to actually make sense (in fact, we will be seeing such a peak in 2028).

The fact that the dates of the festival and the peak of the perseids are a few days apart and not exactly the same is not quite an argument against your hypothesis, since it is perfectly possible for the date of the festival to have moved slightly due to differences between the (old) Chinese and Western calendars. I'm not an expert on calendars, however, so I can't say that for sure.

Given all these uncertainties, your hypothesis (along with what you mentioned yourself in your own comments) seems plausible, apart from one thing: we don't know whether Swift-Tuttle was already active 2600 years ago. If it wasn't, the perseid meteor shower obviously did not exist (note that comets don't exist forever: some gravitational variation causes them to exit the Oort cloud and enter the solar system). We don't know when exactly Swift-Tuttle started being a comet.

That is only a weak argument, however, and when it comes to astromical hypotheses, the most convincing argument is usually a principle which is referred to as Ockham's razor: if given multiple explanations, choose the one that requires the least amount of assumptions (or the most plausible ones).

Personally, since the date of creation (2600 years ago) is very vague (the uncertainty on this must be at least a hundred years), I think it is perfectly possible to assume that the perseids peaked somewhere during that period, causing the creation of this story.