parallel thermostat

Question: I have a venter room heater in a cabin. It uses a milivo;t thermostat. I am hooking it up to a wifi thermostat using a relay and 24 volt power supply. My concern is that if the power goes off that the thermostat will not power the unit on. I currenty have a digital thermostat that controls the unit and works great. can I wire the current thermostat to the wifi in parallel so if power goes off it will still allow the heater to turn on. If I can how do I wire it?
Comment: Possible duplicate of [wiring two thermostats in parallel](http://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/94329/wiring-two-thermostats-in-parallel)
Comment: Thanks for the replies. Is there any thing special needed when you wire them parallel? Is it just a matter of running thermostat wire from one to the other then too the heater or do i need to run seperate wire to the heater?
Answer: Correct.  Simply wire the smart thermostat in parallel with the passive thermostat.  Set the passive thermostat at a much lower temp, low enough it only kicks when needed to prevent pipe freeze or whatever.  I wouldn't even use a battery thermostat for that; too unreliable; switch to a plain old bimetal type.
Obviously if the furnace has an electric blower assist, that won't work, but most of those Empire style furnaces work on convection and the blower is optional.
You'll also want to reposition it or do something with stagecraft... To deal with the human factors.   The other humans who use the facility will have a simple heuristic:

dislike the temperature
search for a thermostat
stop searching at the first thermostat they find
manipulate that thermostat until they get the temperature they want

Complaining about this heuristic will be an exericse in futility. They will feel they did the right thing and consider your design to be broken.   So would I, and I get what you're trying to do.
Answer: If this is a non powered venter it would work with a battery backed up thermostat the power to run and charge the new thermostat can be installed then the normally open relay contacts in parallel with the old thermostat. With this arrangement the furnace will run when 1 or the other thermostat calls for heat. Some units only need the power generated from the thermocouple to operate and they will work without power. If not working with power out is your only concern turn the power off and adjust the existing thermostat to call for heat if it turns on you may not need to add the wifi and transformer unless you want to control the heat remotely.

parallel thermostat


Salesforce "Company Communities" Release Date

Question: I thought Salesforce was going to release "Company Communities" at the end of 2013, but I haven't seen any release announcements since. Does anyone know the planned launch date?
Answer: They're out - see the "Editions and Pricing" section of the Communities marketing page and the W'14 Release Notes description of the new user license and Permission Set license.
Answer: +1 Thomas
Communities are released. If you were using portals earlier then you can convert them into communities now. but if you need new licenses you can contact your Account Exec and they'll issue licenses to you
Comment: The question was about Company Communities, which were announced after the initial Communities release, and represent a new license type.


What is "Containment order"? Could I get a friendly explanation?

Question: Reading the Wikipedia page was a little dense for me. Can anyone offer a friendly explanation of what this means? It sounds like it saying that if you have two ordered collections, if they are "ordered by containment" then they will be in roughly the same order with each other?
Comment: Can you be more specific about what parts you do understand and what you don't understand?  Can you try to narrow down the part that is confusing you?  Otherwise you're just asking us to re-explain the whole thing, and I worry if we try you might say "I didn't understand that either".  Do you understand what a partial order is?  What a poset is?  (Not sure what you mean by "roughly the same order".)  Looks like the Wikipedia article is very terse, and all of the content is in the first sentence of the article -- so you'll need to unpack that carefully.
Answer: I'll try a down to earth definition \ example:
When speaking of a set $X$, lets say $X=\{1,...,100\}$,
denote the subset $X_i = \{1,...,i\}$
It holds that $X_1\subseteq X_2\subseteq...\subseteq X_{100}$
So you could say there is a containment order over these subsets, because each subset contains the other in an order that I stated. This order came from, and connected to (and isomorphic to) the partial order of $1 \leq 2 \leq ... \leq 100$ or if you prefer more fomally, that $(X,\leq )$ is a poset.
Answer: A containment order $\prec$ is a partially ordered set in which the points are labelled by sets, say a point $x$ is labelled by a set $S_x$, and $x \prec y$ iff $S_x \subset S_y$.
As Wikipedia mentions, every partial order can be realized as a containment order. That is, any partial order is isomorphic to a containment order. You can find the proof on Wikipedia, or check the proof below. Because of this, a containment order is a syntactic rather than a semantic property. You can think of a containment order as a partial order which is realized "physically" as a partial order of sets ordered by inclusion.
As an example, let us realize the partial order of the natural numbers $0 < 1 < 2 < \cdots$ as a containment order. This is very simple: we will label a point $x$ by the set $\{0,\ldots,x-1\}$. So $S_0 = \emptyset$, $S_1 = \{0\}$, $S_2 = \{0,1\}$, and so on. You can check that $i < j$ iff $S_i \subset S_j$.
As another example, suppose that we are interested in the partial order on words given by the following rule: $w_1 \prec w_2$ if $w_1$ is a proper prefix of $w_2$ (for example, $a \prec ab$). In this case, we label a string $w$ with the set of all of its prefixes. For example $S_a = \{\epsilon, a\}$ (where $\epsilon$ is the empty string) and $S_{ab} = \{\epsilon, a, ab\}$. Once again, you can check that $w_1 \prec w_2$ iff $S_{w_1} \subset S_{w_2}$.
More generally, given an arbitrary partial order $\prec$, we can define $S_x = \{ z : x \preceq z \}$. We can then check that $x \prec y$ iff $S_x \subset S_y$.
To show this, suppose first that $x \prec y$ and $z \in S_x$. Then $z \preceq x \prec y$, and so $z \in S_y$. This shows that $S_x \subseteq S_y$. Since $x \prec y$, we know that $y \not\preceq x$, and so $y \in S_y$ but $y \notin S_x$, implying that $S_x \subsetneq S_y$.
In the other direction, suppose that $S_x \subset S_y$. Since $x \preceq x$, we have $x \in S_x$, and so $x \in S_y$, implying that $x \preceq y$. Clearly $x \neq y$, since otherwise $S_x = S_y$, and so $x \prec y$.


BC Dates on cartodb.com?

Question: I'm trying to use historical dates to build a torque map on Cartodb.com, with data going back to 8000 BC. But the date format doesn't seem to convert anything bellow 0100 01 01 (1st Jan 100 AD), and I'm not even sure how to specify negative dates.
Answer: You can enter BCE dates or early CE dates with the following format: YYYY-MM-DD BC or YYYY-MM-DD AD. It's important to have all four digits there for the year (e.g. input 0050 for 50 BCE) and to have the dashes and the BC or AD addition (BCE and CE are not supported). Enter these as a string and then convert the column to a date format.
Answer: I've tried using something like:
UPDATE tablename set name = (SELECT TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE 'epoch' + -62475116892 * INTERVAL '1 second')
but the negative date doesn't seem to work specially well, although for example Torque renders the map.
In the postgres docs it says that:

Date conventions before the 19th century make for interesting reading, but are not consistent enough to warrant coding into a date/time handler.

BC Dates on cartodb.com?


Raspberry Pi as decoder between Server and HD TV

Question: I am working on a project and am wondering if an RPI is capable of a DLNA connection, and if so, could it be used to decode ethernet signals, and them turn them into HDMI output, or possibly push the image through the RPI and have the DTV decode the code. Is this possible at all, and if it is, what images are recommended for this, and what programming is required?
Answer: Your question is not clear about which role of DLNA you are trying to use the Pi for.  Do you want your TV to stream data that is stored on the Pi (Server), or the Pi to stream data stored on another DLNA box(Client)  I have provided solutions for both.
The first part of this answer assumes you are running raspbian.
The Raspberry Pi can be setup as a DLNA server for use if your TV supports it and has a network connection.  Refer to the Debian Package information for more information.
If you are looking to make the Raspberry Pi your DLNA Client, you can use VLC with the proper options.  This will use the DLNA Server on another system, and the Pi will play the media.  To get this on your TV, you will just need to run an HDMI cable to the TV from the Pi, and then control everything with a keyboard and mouse, or you can look into a Debian compatible remote control.
As far as a 'out of the box' solution look into Raspbmc  I don't think that it will work as a DLNA server, but it will work as a client.
Your thought about using the DTV box, I think you are making a mountain out of a molehill.  The Pi should be able to do everything you need it to without trying to integrate it into a box that is designed to do only one thing.


Remove "padding" around layer similar to Image->Trim with PS CS5

Question: I used the selection tool to drag part of one image onto another image in a new layer.  That layer has a "padding" (not sure what else to call it) of about 75 transparent pixels around the image.  I'm wondering if there's a way to remove the transparent pixels for that layer alone similar to the way one can use Image->Trim on the entire image.  The purpose for doing this is so I can make an image sprite with each icon on a layer of the same size.  Thank you so much!
Answer: The transparency is there because of a lack of painted pixels, so in this case you would not be "removing" the transparency, but rather filling in those areas.
If you place a new layer under the layer in question, and fill it with the appropriate color, and then merge the 2 layers, you will have a layer that extends to the edges of the canvas.
Comment: thank you for your response and this will work for certain situations.  perhaps my wording is a bit off in what I'm actually asking so I'll try again.  The trim function can crop an image using a bounding box around the outside edges of painted pixels.  Is there a way to trim the surrounding transparent pixels from an individual layer?  In other words, is there a way to crop an individual layer to a bounding box surrounding that layer's painted pixels?  edit: clarity (?)
Comment: You cannot remove transparent pixels. The item on that layer already is cropped to that. TO select that, you can ctrl+click on the layer thumbnail in the layers palette. If you can provide some example of the item or a mockup exhibiting a similar problem, please do.


What if I have several questions associated with one topic?

Question: If I have a question based on a specific topic (e.g. a special suit) and I have several questions associated with this topic (e.g. how it works, where it will work, and how effective it is), is it better to separate the question into several questions, or list all of the questions under one? Is there some sort of etiquette on how this is done?
Answer: One question per question
To make things easier to answer, you should only put one question in each WB question you ask.  That helps keep you focused and all the people who might answer focused too.  If you do include more than one question per question, it will likely be closed as "too broad".
Link each previous question in your new question so that people can get a sense of the context you are working with.  Off-handedly, there's this question that references a previous question on a topic.  Something similar should work for your needs.
As Monica said, make sure each question is self-contained.  Links to other question should be for context only, not important information required to answer the question.
Comment: Links to past questions are fine (I've [done that too](http://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/25318/28)), but make sure each question is self-contained.  People shouldn't have to follow the links to understand your question, though the links can provide additional context.
Answer: One question per Question, several questions over a longer time
As the format is intended for questions with a single clear answer (and we're already stretching that on here..), the best way to go about in my opinion & experience is to ask several questions.
As your questions will most likely be interwoven you should start by asking one thing and then do follow-ups using decisions made based on (the) answer(s) you've received on (the) previous question(s).
exempli gratia: My excellent series of questions on the mean booze-rat:

On how the booze-rat would store alcohol in its body
Then on how that system could possibly evolve
And eventually on how to milk the hype booze-rat
Answer: In addition to the other answers:
Please make sure that people who are following the question see that the solution gets more and more detailed and developed whenever an answer is incorporated in the new question. dot_Sp0T's example is a good one.
"Several questions associated with one topic" should not mean that you ask the same question over and over and change only the conditions because you are not satisfied with the given answers.
This happens when answers to both questions would achieve the same effect.
Example:
Q: "I want to crack a safe with a campfire".
A: "Not possible. Use a thermal lance."
Q: "I am cracking a safe with a campfire. The campfire uses coal".
A: "Still not hot enough. Use a thermal lance".
Q: "I want to open a safe with campfire. The door is only 1mm thick".
A: ...


Think Doublethink

Question: In 1984 this is a term for someone who could, knowing all the facts, still believe a falsehood to be true.
Is there a word for someone who uses a misunderstood fact to support their argument?
Comment: The best word would probably be "brainwashed."  Did I win the prize?  :)
Comment: Perhaps ***misguided***
Answer: "Deluded person" would be the closest term I can think of to your meaning.
While this doesn't strictly specify that the false belief is due to a misunderstanding of facts, it does mean a rather dogged false belief.  This would not be the clinical definition--which discounts faulty information--but a quick Google search or corpus search turns up uses for people who simply misunderstand something but are resistant to being corrected.

If you, however, you meant someone who knows a particular fact is popularly misunderstood and is taking advantage of this to promote an idea, exploiting this misunderstanding, this would be 'intellectually dishonest' and a person who employs such clever, but false reasoning could well be described as a 'sophist'.
Answer: According to Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, doublethink is:

To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself—that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word—doublethink—involved the use of doublethink.
The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them… To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just as long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies—all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.

E.g. North Korean citizens, think, that they live in a free country and at the same time, they accept the dictatorship of Kim. Thus, they are unaware of the fact that they are free in captivity. This is a peculiar and real-life example of Doublethink.
Wikipedia article sum it up as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublethink

Doublethink is the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct, often in distinct social contexts. Doublethink is related to, but differs from, hypocrisy and neutrality. Also related is cognitive dissonance1, in which contradictory beliefs cause conflict in one's mind. Doublethink is notable due to a lack of cognitive dissonance—thus the person is completely unaware of any conflict or contradiction.

If you read the same book carefully, George Orwell coined a word and a phrase to represent doublethink in simple words. They can be used in same sense.

thoughtcrime

and

two plus two equals five (2 + 2 = 5)

Other closely related phrase which became very famous during 2017 in U.S. is,

Alternative facts

Which means, "Alternative facts are not facts, but falsehoods."

i.e. we are forced to believe [something] which is not true.
This phrase is very much consider as an Orwellian2. There is a Wikipedia entry on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_facts

1: Cognitive dissonance differs from doublethink. In cognitive dissonance, contradicting belief causes conflict in the mind, whereas, in doublethink, we learn to accept contradicting ideas.
2: Refers to George Orwell, author of the book Nineteen Eighty-Four
Answer: i like misguided- but white nationalists do this all the time. while i believe they have been severely misguided, i feel like this word even with its modifying adverb, isn't powerful enough.

off-base (in American) US

Slang taking a position or attitude that is unsound or in error

phrase [usually verb-link PHRASE] If you say that someone is off base,
  you mean that they are wrong. [mainly US, informal] Am I wrong? Am I
  way off base? Because I want you to set me straight if you think I'm
  wrong.
  https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/off-base
off base Incorrect; mistaken or misinformed; not aligned with reality.
  An allusion to baseball, in which baserunners are only "safe" if their
  foot is touching a "base." Hyphenated if used before a noun. Primarily
  heard in US. Your arguments would be compelling if your entire premise
  wasn't completely off base. You need to stop making these off-base
  assumptions about how the process works.
  https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/off+base

i feel like the baseball analogy really brings it home for me. (ha). but seriously, they think they're on, but the ump says they're out !
**wait, now i feel like i answered this incorrectly because i was distracted by other answers. knowing all the facts and still believe a falsehood to be true. that's like, me knowing that cigarettes are proven to have negative health impacts, but i smoke organic american spirits and think i'm above empirical statistical facts.
i think what you are referring to may be cognitive dissonance.

Definition Psychologist Leon Festinger first proposed a theory of
  cognitive dissonance centered on how people try to reach internal
  consistency. He suggested that people have an inner need to ensure
  that their beliefs and behaviors are consistent. Inconsistent or
  conflicting beliefs lead to disharmony, which people strive to avoid.
In his 1957 book, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, Festinger
  explained, "Cognitive dissonance can be seen as an antecedent
  condition which leads to activity oriented toward dissonance reduction
  just as hunger leads toward activity oriented toward hunger reduction.
  It is a very different motivation from what psychologists are used to
  dealing with but, as we shall see, nonetheless powerful."
  https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-cognitive-dissonance-2795012

.

cognitive dissonance noun. (psychology)
  an uncomfortable mental state
  resulting from conflicting cognitions; usually resolved by changing
  some of the cognitions https://www.dictionary.com/browse/cognitive-dissonance

one more:

Cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving conflicting
  attitudes, beliefs or behaviors. This produces a feeling of mental
  discomfort leading to an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs
  or behaviors to reduce the discomfort and restore balance.
  https://www.simplypsychology.org/cognitive-dissonance.html
Answer: I've heard "solecist" used to describe a person who does that.
Definition of solecism
1 : an ungrammatical combination of words in a sentence
also : a minor blunder in speech
2 : something deviating from the proper, normal, or accepted order
3 : a breach of etiquette or decorum
Merriam-Webster
As an example, M-W uses a quote from a New Yorker article: "In 1964, Petula Clark had a hit with "Downtown." But the songwriter Tony Hatch has said he was inspired by Times Square—a solecism forgivable from a Brit. In native parlance, the word denotes Manhattan below Fourteenth Street."
M-W also includes the derivation:
The city of Soloi had a reputation for bad grammar. Located in Cilicia, an ancient coastal nation in Asia Minor, it was populated by Athenian colonists called soloikos (literally "inhabitant of Soloi"). According to historians, the colonists of Soloi allowed their native Athenian Greek to be corrupted and they fell to using words incorrectly. As a result, soloikos gained a new meaning: "speaking incorrectly." The Greeks used that sense as the basis of soloikismos, meaning "an ungrammatical combination of words." That root in turn gave rise to the Latin soloecismus, the direct ancestor of the English word solecism. Nowadays, solecism can refer to social blunders as well as sloppy syntax.
Comment: Well-known fools rush in to subtract. Thank god I've gotten a novel out of this, ickslay
Answer: It sounds like "double talk" (sometimes "doublespeak"). They are more often used with deceptive intention, but can be applied in the example you give.

They don't understand the truth in the matter, so they use half-truths
  to support their "double talk".

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/double+talk
https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/doublespeak
https://www.thefreedictionary.com/doublespeak

Think Doublethink


What's the best software for mapmaking?

Question: I would like to know if Paint.NET and Paint Shop Pro are the best tools for creating fantasy cartography. Does better software exist? If so, what is the software, and what specific features make it better for creating fantasy maps than Paint.NET and Paint Shop Pro?
Comment: The Cartographer's Guild has an [extensive list](http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?1407-List-of-Mapping-Software) of mapping/graphics software their members use.
Comment: See also: http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/668/any-tips-for-drawing-dungeon-maps-using-inkscape-or-similar-software
Answer: I use Photoshop mainly, as do many professional cartographers. I often use Illustrator in combination with Photoshop. Things like initial outlines of coasts and things I find best in Illustrator, but then move to Photoshop for the real polishing of the look and feel.
Modern style floor-plan maps I've started to make in Flash, it's just turned out to be the fastest method for me.
Sometimes I'll use Autorealm to generate some fractal coastlines or rivers quickly as well.
I did persevere with Campaign Cartographer for many years, but found it hard to use and the maps always looked like every other CC map.
Here's the kind of look and feel I'm able to achieve quickly in Photoshop.

And here's a map I'm making in a style that I really couldn't imagine doing in anything other than Photoshop.

Any of these styles should be possible in other programs like Paint.net or PaintShopPro. Part of what I try to maintain whilst using Photoshop is to make things as fluid as possible with regard to change, so I use a lot of non-destructive style techniques using adjustment layers and layer masks, I'm not sure if Paint.net or PSP have all those features.
Comment: Wow - you should totally write tutorials for how you did both of these styles...
Comment: [The Cartographers' Guild](http://www.cartographersguild.com/) is a site devoted to tips, tricks, tutorials, and resources for making maps like this in photo-editing software. The stuff they have there is beautiful, inspiring, and explained!
Comment: That's freaking spectacular - you SHOULD be a professional, if you can really generate content like that quickly.
Comment: Just realised that my first sentence might be misinterpreted as me saying I'm a professional. Obviously I'm not!
Comment: The top map is quick to do, can knock that style out in a long lunch break. The second style though is something I've never perfected to a speedy style. There's so many hours in just that small unfinished map that it wouldn't be feasible to try and earn a living with it! Much as I would like to. There are things I'm much better at than drawing maps, I don't think my map making earning potential is as high as my software engineering one. *grins*
Answer: A free (freedom) and open source graphical software is The GIMP.
I use GIMP a lot for general graphics.
I haven't made any maps using it, but once you've learned to use it creating maps in any style would be possible.
Answer: Here is an example of what you can do with the GIMP.  A lot of effects are trivial to do and many brushes were taken from deviant art.

and
Answer: Ok, these are much more basic tools then previously suggested: You basically drag and drop premade pieces into place with them. My Dad's players bought him Dunjinni and he used it for years. It made really nice maps, and the user community generated gigabytes and gigabytes of premade tokens for it. However the interface was buggy, basic and annoying. Also, it hasn't been updated in years.
There is however a similar, free program called Maptools, that is far more powerful and works far better. It gets regular updates and has a very good wiki explaining how to use it. It isn't a from scratch map maker like the other suggestions, but it is good for stitching together pieces you've made in other programs.
The place you REALLY want to ask for map making advice however, is Cartographer's Guild: Their maps are STUNNING and they have a zillion howtos for a variety of programs.
Answer: For building up the map geometry and helping generate the world, I've had good success with Wilbur. It's a side project from one of the developers of Fractal Terrain , from the same company that makes Campaign Cartographer. It focuses largely on the height map representation of the world, but produces a pretty decent world map if you play with it. As a reference, here's the map I created using Wilbur for my current campaign:

It requires learning how the system works to some extent, but it has some rather nice features - the big ones are the erosion and river calculating, which help inject some realism into the world map.
Answer: Inkscape, CorelDRAW, or Abode Illustrator. All three are vector drawing program as opposed to paint programs like paint.net and paint shop pro. The advantage of vector drawing programs is their ability to incorporate fine details, infinite zoom, and ease of editing. Many have the ability to manage sets of symbols. For maps that are more artistic in presentation you can export images from any one of these programs into a paint program for final image processing.
There are specific mapping program like Profantasy Campaign Cartographer, NBOS' Fractal Mapper, and Autorealm. While powerful these program lack the powerful tools of the mainstream vector drawing program.
However Campaign Cartographer and Fractal Mapper has done some interesting work in combining the advantages of vector drawing with the advantage of paint program. This is done by drawing the symbols and terrain in vector but have commands treat the objects as bitmaps as needed for various effects.
Both Inkscape and AutoRealm are free to use and download.
Answer: I guess I'm a little late to the rodeo here, but I struggled with this question for quite a while.  Everything I tried was a complete pain to use, had a huge learning curve, wanted to run only on Windows, cost an arm and a leg, or was in some other way not going to work for me.  Basically everything else mentioned so far went on my "no, thanks" list for one reason or another.
I'd given up and was using Skitch, a great screen capture tool, for its lousy doodling features.  I just drew lines.  Then, I read about Hexographer in an article at Jeffs Gameblog.  I love it.
Hexographer:

is Java, so it runs most anywhere
produces maps that will tickle your nostalgia, if you've been gaming long enough
doesn't produce maps that look like professional cartography
is like MS Paint, in that you just click and drag to lay down terrain
has a very responsive developer
has a fairly active forum with lots of cool ideas and examples
is pretty cheap, but not free
has a sort of weird-o user interface; easy to learn, but weird

The article by Jeff has a decent sample, and there is a gallery of samples online, too.
Answer: If you want to rough something out that looks passable, Campaign Cartographer or Fractal Mapper might be best. I'm not a graphic designer, so something like Inkscape takes too long for me to learn. Next on the tough learning curve scale is Campaign Cartographer. It is also powerful, but it takes a little to learn the tricks. They at least have some videos that introduce you to some basic mapmaking tricks in their software. Lastly, I found that Fractal Mapper to be the easiest to make something decent, but it also had the least amount of capability.
Comment: I think you will find that Campaign Cartographer is a lot tougher beyond really simple mapping. This is because CC uses a CAD interface as it's foundation which is counter-intuitive to the style that Inkscape uses.

The differences is that CAD typically have you pick a command and then the objects that are to be effected by it. Inkscape (and most of the mainstream vector and paint programs) have you select something and pick a command. Totally the reverse. The CAD heritage of CC is a source of endless confusion for most novices.
Comment: Fractal Mapper I believes uses the more normal select an object and pick a command style.
Comment: +1 because this product is specifically designed for doing exactly what the original question is looking for.  That being said, I *despise* Campaign Cartographer.  Beyond the bugs, the interface is massively non-intuitive, to the point where doing anything a bit tricky becomes intensely frustrating.  Building simple maps very quickly is very satisfying, and there is some great power there, but the interface *really* is so bad that it's just not worth it (to me.)
Answer: Finding map-making software on the Macintosh has been really difficult, other than the general purpose vector and raster graphics software packages which do exist (Illustrator, Photoshop, Painter, and others like them). However, recently I discovered Ortelius, which looks like it's purpose-built, vector-based, software for professional map-makers. I've got a demo download and hope to purchase it in the near future: usefully, it can important map data, and thus you can use real-world geographical data as source material for maps. Like most pro map-making software, and indeed, professional graphics tools, it's learning curve looks easy at first, but steep to get really elegant results. This is, I think, pretty much the nature of the beast if you're using software that's anything other than a "stamper" type of thing (like Dundjinni).
Historically, I'd used Photoshop and/or Painter, and done maps pretty much in a hand-drawn way, sometimes using published maps or scanned-in, hand-drawn sketches as the thing to stick in the "base layer" over which I trace.
Answer: As far as I can tell all map making software requires time to learn and even more time to become skilled.
A long time ago I decided that the best use of my time would be to learn Photoshop and Illustrator and that while neither of them had the specific features for making maps I would have not wasted my time learning a specific and ultimately limited tool. Professionals use Photoshop and Illustrator and there are many books, tutorials, and techniques than can be employed. Get good enough and you could even make a career of it.
So in terms of best use of your limited time, learning a multipurpose tool is better than learning a single purpose tool.
Answer: I would suggest you look at some of the maps here
As you can see, most of the awesome maps are created using Photoshop.
There is even a tutorial on using photoshop to creating an awesome 3d representaion. Here
And i would have to agree with user2805 above

Professionals use Photoshop and Illustrator and there are many books,
  tutorials, and techniques than can be employed. Get good enough and
  you could even make a career of it.
So in terms of best use of your limited time, learning a multipurpose
  tool is better than learning a single purpose tool.

What's the best software for mapmaking?


Why Berliner Sparkasse?

Question: Hmm.. this is something I do not understand so far hmm. when I say I am from Berlin I could say (Ich bin ein Berliner) here I though Berlin became like an adjectival noun. But one thing I found a bit strange was Berliner Sparkasse. Kasse is feminine so I thought it should be Berline Sparkasse. What is going on here?
Comment: Look at "Adjective endings". Feminine without an article in Genitiv gets -er ending.
Comment: @vahancho.. this is not helping/misleading. It's called "die Berliner Sparkasse"
Comment: @vahancho: Neither is this true (the adjective ending in the case you describe is -e, not -er), nor is it related in any way to the question, as "Berlin" as such is not an adjective whose ending gets changed here.
Answer: "Berliner" is a standard adjectival derivative of a proper geografical noun which carries the ending -er regardless of the gender of the noun:

Der Berliner Raum
Die Berliner Sparkasse
Das Berliner Straßennetz

What is more, "Berliner" is never inflected:
<code>Der Berliner Raum
Des Berliner Raums
Dem Berliner Raum
Den Berliner Raum
</code>
Same with "Wiener", "Stuttgarter", "Hamburger", etc.
It is another question if you add the syllable "isch":

Die berlinerische Lebensart

which carries flections but also implies a different meaning, as "die berlinerische Lebensart" might also be found elsewhere, but "das Berliner Straßennetz" only in Berlin.
The capitalization of "Berliner" is due to §61 of the orthographical rules of the Council for German Orthography (Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung), whereas §62 commands to lowercase "berlinerisch".
Comment: Also, it is capitalised. Not so sure about "berlin(er)such", though.
Comment: @CarstenSchultz Thank you for the correction. Rechtschreibregeln §62: Kleingeschrieben werden adjektivische Ableitungen von Eigennamen auf -(i)sch, außer wenn die Grundform eines Personennamens durch einen Apostroph verdeutlicht wird, ferner alle adjektivischen
Ableitungen mit anderen Suffixen.
Comment: Argh, autocorrect got me.
Comment: I will take this answer as many people here opt for this answer. Hmm.. quite interesting to see some rather conflicting answers here.
Answer: Another examples of this kind:

Schweizer Käse, Kölner Dom, Frankfurter Würstchen

and:

des Schweizer Käses, vom Kölner Dom, satt von Frankfurter Würstchen

This is somewhat special. Adjectives derived from city names end always with "-er" and are not declinated whatsoever.
Comment: It is not only city names, "Badener", "Thüringer", etc. are valid, as well.
Answer: In fact, it is feminine: "die Sparkasse".
But, in this case "Berliner" is related to its home city Berlin and therefore is another form of "Sparkasse of Berlin" or "Sparkasse von Berlin".
Answer: In my view  in such forms as  Münchner Bier, Thüringer Bratwürste etc "Berliner" and "Münchner" are no adjectives as they are invariable but genitive plural forms derived from "Bier der Münchner" and "Bratwürste der Thüringer" with the genitive placed before the noun as in Latin Romanorum lingua ( literal: of the Romans + language) or as in literary formulas as "der Menschen Schicksal".
Answer: Berliner (and the like) is usually called an indeclinable adjective, but, at least historically, it is a noun meaning "inhabitant of Berlin", and, being a noun, it is written with an upper-case B, Hence:
der Berliner
des Berliners
dem Berliner
den Berliner
die Berliner
der Berliner
den Berlinern
die Berliner
In "Berliner Wurst" (etc.) Berliner is (again, at least historically) the genitive plural of the word for "inhabitant of Berlin", "the Berliners' sausage", as Roger has explained.
Comment: What is wrong with this?

Why Berliner Sparkasse?


What is the cochlear frequency response by number of hair cells?

Question: I am trying to recreate the cochlea/basilar membrane response to sound and want to know how the hair cells are bucketed or binned by frequency, so an ideal list would be something like 10 kHz - 12 kHz: 2,000 hair cells and this across the frequency range of human hearing. I think there's overlap in the frequency response so an average would work.
Answer: The basilar membrane of the cochlea has a logarithmic frequency distribution, at least for the better part, such that an equal space is occupied per octave from 1 kHz and onwards (Fig. 1). This means that an octave at low frequencies is  represented by more hair cells than an area of basilar membrane spanning an octave at high frequencies. The density of inner hair cells is similar across the basilar membrane, at least in normal-hearing folks. When we grow older, basal hair cells (i.e., those encoding high acoustic frequencies) degenerate first, leading to decreased densities in those regions. In normal hearing folks, there are about 100 hair cells per mm (Fig. 2).
Given the total length of the basilar membrane of 36 mm (Keen, 1940 and the two figures below you should be able to divide the basilar membrane into any number of frequency bands and convert those to distances along the cochlea using the Greenwood function of the human cochlea (Fig. 1). Then you can determine how many inner hair cells are devoted to each band using Fig.2 (about 100 HCs per mm). You can check the resulting model after you have applied it by comparing the cumulative number of modeled hair cells across the full frequency range of the human cochlea (~20 Hz - ~20 kHz, give or take) with the total number of inner hair cells present in the human cochlea (3,500).

Fig. 1. Greenwood map of the human cochlea. source: Greenwood (1961)

Fig. 2. Hair cell densities in man along the basilar membrane. source: Wright et al. (1987)
References
- Greenwood, J Acoust Soc Am (1961); 33(484): 1344-56
- Keen, J Anat (1940); 74(4): 524–7
- Wright et al., Acta Otolaryngol (Stockh) (1987); 436: S15-24


How long does it take for potato dough to become thinner?

Question: In recipes for potato gnocchi (potatoes, egg yolk, flour) it is commonly pointed out that you should work quickly, because with time the potatoes expel water and the dough becomes thinner. I'd like to know how fast this process is and if it should make me concerned when I can comfortably finish the handling in ~30 minutes. Or would it only be a problem if you left the dough on the counter for say more than an hour?
Comment: I've never heard of this advice for gnocchi specifically (and haven't made gnocchi much), but from my experience with other recipes, when it says "work quickly", it means to do the mixing within 2-3 minutes, not 30-60 minutes. If this had been the case, it would have said "don't rest it too long", not "work quickly".
Comment: Fair enough, I'm just trying to figure out how quickly is quickly :-)
Answer: If your potatoes are prepared correctly before adding the other ingredients, then excess water should not be a problem.  After boiling your potatoes until tender and draining them, I recommend placing them on a sheet pan and drying them in a 300° F oven for 5 minutes or so before passing them through your food mill or potato ricer.
With properly prepared potatoes there should never be a problem with thinning.  In fact, prepared gnocchi can be covered with plastic wrap and refrigerated until ready to boil without fear of disintegration.  With most fresh pastas and dumplings, time delays in preparation usually pose the greater threat of allowing the dough to dry out.
The secret to delicate gnocchi is to use just enough flour for the dough to come together and to knead that dough only briefly.  More flour and more kneading generates more gluten and that means tougher gnocchi.
Comment: Thanks! Does peeling the potatoes play a role? Would you dry them in the over before or after peeled? Should I wait for them to cool before mixing the dough?
Comment: For best results, use mealy potatoes like russets.  Peel them first - then cut them into uniform chunks before boiling them in salted water (like 1" - 1 1/2" chunks).  Drain and oven dry.  Then process/rice immediately while still hot.  Then allow the potato to cool until you can work with it comfortably - too hot and it will cook the egg yolk - don't cover with plastic for cooling or condensation will drip back into the potatoes.  Many recipes call for a tiny bit of nutmeg to be mixed into the gnocchi.  I like to make mine with Parmesan cheese in the dough.  Non-standard?  Yes.  So...sue me.


Is there any symbolism in Casey at the Bat?

Question: Casey at the Bat is one of my all-time favorite poems.  I always thought it was just about baseball.
But is it?  Is there a metaphor or an allegory hidden somewhere in the last inning of a baseball game?
Comment: "Casey at the Bat" is "just about baseball" the way the _Iliad_ is just about some old squabble.
Comment: @Spencer So that would be a "no?"
Comment: @CHEESE I'd assume so.
Answer: It's not an allegory, but it is a common feature of life. It's not "just" about baseball: it's about disappointment, about expectation, about confidence, about the trope of overcoming adversity. Sometimes, you just lose. It happens.
There's no need to apply an allegorical reading where the baseball represents, I dunno, the Free Coinage of Silver and Casey represents William Jennings Bryan. (Example borrowed from Cecil Adams.) The poem is appreciated by people who aren't baseball fans because they know the bittersweet feeling it evokes: the heartbreak of loss combined with the silliness of the poem's style. It reminds you that there's another game tomorrow, and life goes on.
True allegories are actually quite rare. The trope rarely works well, because no two situations are ever truly identical, and trying to force them to be just makes people uncomfortable. But great works capitalize on common human experiences. As they say about history, it never repeats itself, but it rhymes.
Answer: I have a copy of that article! Koppett wrote it for The Sporting News, and my download dates the article from 8/27/1998, although it could have been a reprint from 1979.
In the article Koppett refers to a session of the Court of Historic Appeals in San Francisco on July 12 of 1979(?), aimed at determining the authorship and timing of the original poem.  Koppett expressed dismay (he writes as if he attended the court proceedings) that the court ignored 18 lines that were erased from the original tape recording, as dictated by Thayer prior to transcribing.  Before you say "What ... tape recorder in 1888?" ... Koppett noted in the article that Thayer was a good buddy of Alexander Graham Bell, who made a tape-recording device for Thayer's private use since he (Thayer) was in poor health back then.
There has been much speculation about whether or not the poem is pure fiction or represents an actual event.  Koppett insisted that there had been evidence amassed that the poem [quoting the article:] "referred specifically to a game played in Stockton, which has a low-lying district that has been called Mudville, and that 'Casey' was modeled on a local hero named John Cahill (who, before that, had played 252 major league games in three seasons with a lifetime batting average of .205)."
In his article Koppett referred to several things that have baffled "experts" about the poem: (1) why didn't the pitcher waste one with an 0-2 count?; (2) why would losing an early season game make an entire town so joyless?; (3) why so much despair over one strikeout?; (4) why such ambiguity over the location of the game?
Koppett, as did others, believed that Casey conspired with his Uncle Arnold in the stands to take bets and throw the game, and that Thayer, who worked as an investigative reporter, uncovered the story but was forced to suppress the details due to underworld pressure. In response to (4) above, Casey and Arnold had been running a coast-to-coast con game.  How's that for a conspiracy theory?  The missing text was actually found on the surviving "blank" piece of tape through audio reconstruction using advanced technology.  Anyway, here are the 18 missing lines--starting with "@"--and their place in the poem [note: this website bunches short lines together, so the stanzas are intact, but the lines separate with "/"]:
"Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and the echo answered fraud; / But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed. / @They knew he'd never fail them and they still refused to doubt / While suddenly a voice declared, "I'll bet you he strikes out!"
Five thousand roars of laughter soon because a rising din. /
I'll take that bet," and "So will I," and "Hey, there, count me in." /
And while the gambling fever swept the stands from every side, /
The pitcher threw a wide one and "Ball One" the umpire cried.
Ball Two inflamed the spirit of the Mudville betting clan /
"Come on, let's raise the ante, stranger," yelled a local man. /
And more and more believers in their Casey's artistry /
Displayed their faith with wagers while the pitcher threw Ball Three.
And now excitement mounted as the count had run its string /
A walk would put the winning run on base—a foolish thing. /
"I still say he will miss it," called the stranger, loud and brash. /
"I'll double every bet and cover any extra cash!"
The crowd responded wildly, turning to this reckless knave. /
And no one paid attention to the wink that Casey gave. /
For the stranger came from Reno—and Arnold was his name. /
And his brother's son was Casey, who'd agreed to throw the game.@
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by again.
[Etc. ... continues as commonly known]
In summary, Koppett insists that Thayer was writing about an actual event and purposely wanted to uncover fraud.  He (Koppett) also is certain that Casey and Uncle Arnold had connections of the type that could keep Thayer quiet, hence the missing 18 lines.  Also noted in the article is that Thayer didn't have much regard for his own poem, but did express hostility toward DeWolf Hopper, the actor who was revered for reciting the poem so many times ... and making it famous.
Answer: No, there is no complication regarding the theme of Casey at The Bat. The poem as generally known is purely about baseball and nothing else. However, it is unclear whether this is a portrayal of a specific game and player or not, but we do not have enough information to determine if it is and if it is, who it is. Additionally, in a 1979 article, sportswriter Leonard Koppett claims that there were 19 lines originally written, but omitted from the final version, which gave the poem and new meaning about gambling, but there are no corroborating sources to this claim.


Why does my relay have the HSDir flag when I don't host any hidden services?

Question: i think hidden services are the dark nets inside the TOR network. I am not hosting any web servers. Then how my OR is flagged as HSDir?
Answer: Hidden service directories are not required to host hidden services themselves (this would be a security concern; greatly reducing the number of possible locations a hidden service could be hosted). Having the HSDir flag indicates that your router is configured to host hidden service descriptors (which other Tor relays use to find out about hidden services and connect to them) and has been up for at least 24 hours.
More information about the HSDir flag can be found in the Rendezvous Specification.
Comment: This requirement has since been updated such that, to be eligible for the HSDir flag, you must have both the "fast" and "stable" flags.


Why did the Event Horizon Telescope take so long to take a photo of a black hole?

Question: The Event Horizon Telescope is in the news now because they are about to release the first ever picture of a black hole. They have been working on this since 2006. Why did it take 13 years to produce the first picture? What was the critical mass that was recently hit that made the picture now complete?
Comment: There were many new technologies needed. VLBI at shorter wavelengths, individual telescopes capable of precision observation at those wavelengths. Software and hardware for the data recording and correlation. Probably more...
Answer: A single telescope does not have the right angle size to picture the black hole that far away. The scientists had to use 8 telescopes to take a picture of the same point in the sky and merge the data from all sites using super computer. The data retrieval must point to the same object at the same time. Given the diverse condition of the 8 locations, there are only 5 days in a year when all of them have clear enough skies to point to the same location in a year.
Event Horizon Telescope
Comment: @PM2Ring It does on mm-wave observations. But that isn't the reason for the delay and actually a maximum of 7 telescopes at a time were used in the published dataset and often fewer.
Comment: Weather doesn't have much effect on radio telescopes.
Comment: @RobJeffries Good point. Moisture absorbs microwaves. Which is why I said that weather doesn't have *much* effect. ;) Another undesirable effect is that high winds can vibrate the dish of a radio telescope.
Comment: This still doesnt explain why it took 13 years
Comment: The collaboration was created in 2009. That's when the proposal to do the experiment was submitted to a 10 year planning process. First reference in linked wiki article. Before that there would have been some time doing the direct research for the proposal. So 13 years from initial serious idea to fruition. For space astronomy projects this is about average. The idea of a large space telescope goes back before 1966 when the first comprehensive studies were made (similar to a proposal to the 10 year plan), and in 1990 Hubble was launched : 24 years. https://history.nasa.gov/hubble/


What are search engines with a focus on sustainability aspects?

Question: Are there any internet search engines that emphasise a focus on one or more sustainability aspects in their day-to-day operations? For example, the extent to which their vision and activities incorporate principles from sustainable development.
Comment: Note that Internet search engines require large computing and data storage clusters, and one of the largest cost components of data centers is (electrical) power. Even without a special focus on sustainability, reducing power consumption is paramount for a profit-oriented search engine. So, a profit-oriented search engine may very well end up being sustainable without aiming for it. (There are of course other aspects to sustainability than just electrical energy.)
Comment: *one or more sustainability aspects* is very broad. Are you solely interested in the consequences of their day-to-day operation, or are you also hinting at them tailoring/filtering the search results?
Comment: @JanDoggen the first. And the extent to which their vision incorporates principles from sustainable development.
Comment: @JörgWMittag you have a valid point, but I'd say there is a drive for efficiency rather than sustainability. In fact, given that fossil fuel  electricity generation is still often cheaper to a business (but not necessarily to society) than solar (etc), the profit driven motive can prevent it from being sustainable.
Answer: The only one I'm aware of is Ecosia, which uses a substantial amount of the money generated through its search engine to fund tree planting (80% of surplus income according to Wikipedia).
More information here: https://info.ecosia.org/what
Answer: If you are asking about sustainability in general, I assume social aspects should be factored in.

DuckDuckGo follows a number of principles linked to privacy and openness. They tend to use and promote free software (also via donating to them every year), and they do not "bubble" you (i.e. restrict your search results) or track your activity.
Lilo is a search engine that redirects part of its profits towards "social and environmental projects" that the users prefer. They also state that they offset the carbon emissions that the searches generate.
Framabee is based on the free software Searx and developped by the French organisation Framasoft. It protects privacy by not collecting data.
A number of websites offer a search engine with a black background that is supposed to save energy used by the computer's monitor.

Those are the ones I have used before, but an online search for "sustainable search engines" will give you several lists of them, although many lists are fairly old and some links will be dead.


Incorrect Reflection of Glossy Over Glossy

Question: Here's the Render:

I hope you may see the wrong reflection of jug on that glass. Jug colors are fully swapped there.
I think I have some incorrect node setup.
Comment: Any chance you could post the blend file? You can do that here: https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ and then add the link to your question. It will make it much easier to diagnose that way.
Comment: Also does it look similar if you just use a glass shader? If so then it's just how the reflections work. If not, then it's a material issue for sure and we can go from there.
Comment: @Brenticus ok. let me try only glass shader first as you said
Comment: @Brenticus that didn't work the issue same
Answer: Based on your comments, you actually don't have a problem, it just looks like you do.
In 3d worlds, that is quite common to see, because they are so perfect that we don't see the little variations or issues that happen in real life that make things look right. Also, when you have any curved surfaces, things can get flipped around or upside down very easily.
It looks to me like the reflection of the jug is just flipped upside down. It's a bit hard to see in the image you posted, but it looks like it's reflecting off some curved glass objects, and you'll have refraction too, so there are plenty of ways that the light can bounce and bend, which gives the results you see.
It's like looking into the concave side of a spoon, or a reflection of a shiny pot that curves inward. Things just start to look a little weird when you have reflections and refraction with curved surfaces. Combine that with how 3d worlds look too perfect and you're bound to see cases where things don't look quite right, even though they physically are.
Comment: According to you that's not an issue?
Comment: Well it's behaving exactly how it should. It might not be what you want, but given the setup you have, it's doing what it's supposed to. If you want to change it you can do that, but there's nothing wrong with your material that would cause any incorrect reflections.


Stop, in the name of the law

Question: Does the popular media cliche Stop, in the name of the law have any founding in actual law or policing practice, either current or historical? Did police ever say this as a matter of course? If so why? If not where did this expression enter the popular consciousness?
Comment: [The Supremes are the only ones who got it right.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop!_In_the_Name_of_Love)
Answer: In long ago English practice, the phrase used was "Stop in the name of the King". At one time this was, if I am not mistaken, required for a valid arrest. I am talking about a time hundreds of years ago, by the way.
That phrase, in turn, goes back to a still older concept. At one time, in Germanic customary law, each important leader had a "peace" -- an area in and around his dwelling, domain, and presence -- in which any violation of law and custom was an offense against the leader, not just against a victim. Inside his "peace" a leader was allowed to enforce rules without any complaint from a victim. Later the peace of all lesser leaders was subsumed in the Kings Peace, which came to cover the entire kingdom, the area of the king's authority and rule. This concept came over with the Normans, although a version of it had come over with the Anglo-Saxons centuries before.
That is why indictments in England (later England and Wales) long included such language as "... That on or about {date} the said {accused} did, against the peace of our Lord the King, his crown and dignity, commit {offense} by {details}..."
I will need to do some searching to find the exact citations to support this, although Charles Rembar's The Law of the Land includes the part about the king's peace.
Specifically, in a footnote on page 192 of my (trade paper) edition (and at location 3345 0f my kindel edition) Rembar writes:

The concept of a "peace" that is a ruler's right goes back to Germanic law. It belonged not only to a king but to each leader in the social structure. Every ruler, naturally enough, wanted order in his group, as do modern governments. The difference is that freedom from disturbance was considered the chieftain's personal privilege, and disorder among those he led was a personal affront. With the strengthening of central rule, the king's peace overrode all others.

I will need to search further to learn just when the phrase "in the name of the law" became common, and when either phrase ceased to be legally required.  I believe that the phrase persisted in common use long after it was no longer legally required, but I will need citations for that also. I will update this answer with all of that when I can.
Comment: I wasn't initially aware of that definition of "peace". Now I see phrases like "disturbing the peace" and "Justice of the Peace" in a whole new light.
Comment: @Phoog  I believe that was not the sense in which the term was originally used. The "peace" in that older sense was not exactly a territory, more like a jurisdiction, it was the places and circumstance in which the ruler's personal authority applied. I will try to provide good sources on this.
Comment: "Against the peace" seems to use the sense of "peace" that denotes a state of affairs rather than a geographical territory.
Comment: If I still remember my class well, the concept of *peace* here was extended from the alliances, agreements or other rules that commit the parties or subjects to peaceful means of conflict resolution, under a higher authority, instead of violence and battles, a concept from which modern laws developed. The institutional concept of Peace followed the Peace of God movement by Catholic churches and civil powers in 10/11th centuries when peace councils (prototype town sheriffs) were established, from which the concept of public peace (peace to pray in church) came into being.
Comment: It had a territorial component in so far that the peace was mandated to be kept by someone (a council, Bishop, feudal duke etc.) and they have a responsibility to keep the peace for and protect people who cannot feud (women, children, etc.). Initially the right of feud continued despite the Peace, although some regulations were (supposed to be) imposed. Ewiger Landfriede then formally abolished the right and established the King's Peace and created a supreme legal authority on a large scale.
Comment: If you reference the Germanic customary law, I suppose the better term for the Kings Peace would be the Emperors Peace. Frederick I Barbarossa's introduction of [Landfrieden](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landfrieden), aka Peace of the Land seems quite applicable.
Comment: @MSalters First, Germanic customary law applied to (as far as I know) all Germanic tribes and later kingdoms, including the Angle-Saxons, the Normans and the Franks, who are all more pertinent here than the Germans in the empire. Also note that Barbarossa, at the time of passing his Landfrieden, was King of the Germans, but he was not crowned Empreror until three years later.
Answer: I have no idea about current legal requirements in English-speaking countries but just for illustration, the equivalent phrase is legally required by current Czech law (Act No. 273/2008 Coll., on the Police of the Czech Republic):

(5) Pokud to okolnosti dovolují, je policista před provedením úkonu, při němž dochází k přímému vynucování splnění právní povinnosti nebo k přímé ochraně práv za použití síly nebo hrozby jejího použití (dále jen "zákrok"), povinen použít slov "Jménem zákona!" a odpovídající výzvy.

My (plain English) translation:

If the circumstances permit, a police officer must use the words "In the name of the law!" together with an appropriate request before carrying out any action which entails direct enforcement of a legal obligation or direct protection of rights using force or a threat of force (hereinafter referred to as "intervention").
Comment: The same in French: "Arrêtez, au nom de la loi" or "je vous arrête au nom de la loi".
Comment: @Wowfunhappy IANAL, but my understanding (also of the published commentary to the Act) is that a "request" is always valid (well, under conditions defined elsewhere in the Act) but this particular paragraph defines how to step up from a "request" to an "intervention" (enforcement action). Essentially, using the magic word is the required first level of enforcement before proceeding to further coercive means (force or threat thereof). Needlessly skipping the magic words would likely make the use of force illegal, giving you grounds to complain about "police brutality".
Comment: So if a Czech police officer could have (circumstances permit) but neglected to add "in the name of the law" when making a request, could that be a valid legal defense in court? What is the logical basis for this rule?
Answer: Not in germany
In Germany the phrase police uses in the Tatort series as well as Polizeiruf 110 - a pair of police/crime drama series that have been around for 50 years by now - is generally a variant of "Halt! Polizei!", translating to "Stop! Police!" The word halt at times is replaced by other words to demand a stop, or the order is swapped (Polizei! Anhalten!)
This two-word command however is the official method - and finds itself on police equipment. The paddle with the red light to stop cars? This is officially called a Winkerkelle. It has written "Halt Polizei" or "Halt Feuerwehr" around the light, at times replacing Halt with Stop. The same words of Halt Polizei also are on the tape used to secure crime scenes.
Military Guard
Military guard detachments guarding military security areas (e.g. bases, airfields, and shooting ranges - generally everything that is behind a fence) demand stopping following ZDv 10/6 (protection and security of the Bundeswehr) & 14/9 (special allowances on the use of force for military guards) using the order "Halt! Stehenbleiben!" (Stop! Stand still!), followed by the escalation of "Halt! Oder ich schieße!" (Stop! Or I will shoot!), or alternatively shooting into the air in a sharp angle. The direct follow-up for non-compliance on that escalation step is shooting aimed.
Comment: @dlatikay that's when arresting, and yes, it is part of the standard procedure to name the authority in who's name the arrest is done, but not to demand someone to stop.
Comment: As a soldier, we were taught the formula "Im Namen des Gesetzes nehme ich Sie fest.". Would be surprised to learn that police forces do it differently. Anhaltung is not the same as Festnahme.
Comment: @dlatikay ZDv 10/6 & 14/9 contain the protocol if my Reibert doesn't fail me.
Comment: Pretty sure "Stop! Police!" or something similar is the standard practice in the US as well, possibly "Stop!  Or I'll shoot!" is used as well.  Replacing "Stop" with "Halt" may be more common in the UK.  I don't think anyone uses "in the name of the law" in reality, unless they've been watching too many movies...
Comment: @DarrelHoffmann "stop or I'll shoot" fails to identify the authority underlying the order to stop, which is a legal requirement in at least some jurisdictions. Of course, it's possible for the information to have been given earlier (perhaps by virtue of the officer wearing a uniform with a badge), in which case it would probably not be necessary to repeat it.  It's probably safer to do it as a matter of habit, however.
Answer: united-states
In many U.S. states, ordinary citizens have a statutory legal obligation to follow a lawful order of a law enforcement officer (most often, this comes up in traffic situations and when evacuations are necessary). The scope of this legal obligations is explored, for example, in the linked 2020 Yale Law Review article by James Mooney. The abstract of the article explains that:

Forty-four states, the District of Columbia, and the federal
government make it a crime to disobey the "lawful orders" of police
officers. But there is significant uncertainty about what makes an
order lawful. This uncertainty leaves people in the dark about their
rights and obligations, risks unfair convictions, and allows police to
needlessly escalate confrontations due to civilian confusion or minor
noncompliance. This Comment proposes a model statute that would
clarify and limit officers' authority while informing civilians about
the legal risks of disobedience.

The exceptions, by the way, are Connecticut, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Virginia, and West Virginia (see footnote 34 in the linked article).
Saying something like the phrase mentioned is an order accompanied by a means calculated to inform the person hearing it that it is a lawful order of a law enforcement officer.
Comment: With reference to the last paragraph, other examples of such phrases including such means are "Stop; police!" (mentioned in a comment), and "Police; freeze!" (another trope of TV and movies).  I mention this to point out that this answer explains the practice generally, and because the question is tagged [tag:media].
Comment: I wonder whether a court has ever (or could conceivably) find that "in the name of the law" is insufficiently specific in identifying the speaker as a police officer.  Any official, or even any citizen attempting a citizen's arrest, could claim to be acting "in the name of the law."

Stop, in the name of the law


Where can I buy Salsify in the UK?

Question: I like the look and taste of salsify, and have had it in restaurants.  However, I cannot find anywhere to buy it.  I don't even mind how it comes - tinned, frozen, fresh.
Answer: Where did you look?
Here in Belgium we can find in the supermarket (in cans or frozen). We also have it fresh on some markets.
Maybe this can help you.
Here is a similar thread.
If you really can't find it, you can always buy seeds and put them in your garden.
Comment: Growing my own is a very good idea which I hadn't thought about.
Answer: I am fairly sure I have seen it in Waitrose, when I had one close by - not sure if they still stock  it, or if it is location dependant. They don't appear to have it via Ocado either.
Need to be quick though - it's the back end of the season already.
Answer: It sounds obvious, but just in case -- you should ask at your local greengrocer. They will at least learn that there's a demand, and try it for one order.
Specialised greengrocers often have more interesting stuff than supermarkets -- I've seen romanesque a lot at my local one, and never in a supermarket.
You could also ask the restaurant where you tasted it, where they bought it.
Answer: You can order it online. I don't personally know of any shops where you cab physically go to buy it though.
Answer: Fresh salsify is usually only sold in supermarkets when in season. For Europe, this is mainly the autumn and winter months.

Where can I buy Salsify in the UK?


How to determine cardinality of an infinite set using Aleph numbers?

Question: So I was reading a little bit about cardinal infinities, and I thought it was pretty interesting. However I wanted to know a little bit more about how to use them. For example, how would I determine the cardinality of the set of all real numbers? The one thing I know is that if it is countably infinite, then the cardinality is $\aleph_0$, and if it is uncountably infinite, then the cardinality is $\aleph_n$ ($n>0$). I understand the difference between countable infinity and uncountable infinity, so therefore the difference between between $\aleph_0$ and every other $\aleph$ number. But the problem is that I don't know the difference between any of the uncountable ones. What is the difference between $\aleph_2$ and $\aleph_3$? And how can I determine which $\aleph$ number is the cardinality given any uncountably infinite set?
Answer: Given a finite set. Can you determine its cardinality?
No, not really. If I tell you that it's not empty, can you say much more? You can say its cardinality is nonzero, but that's about that. It could be anything else.
Uncountable sets are just sets which are not countable. Their cardinality could be anything. Assuming the axiom of choice, that cardinality is some $\aleph_\alpha$ for $\alpha>0$, but that's pretty much all you can say without further constraints.
But even then, the standard axioms of set theory are quite weak when it comes to deciding the actual cardinality of particular sets of interests. The reason is that the move from $\aleph_0$ to $\aleph_1$, or from $\aleph_2$ to $\aleph_3$, is a move which happens on the ordinal numbers. But the sets we are usually interested in are not represented as sets of ordinals to begin with (in most cases, anyway).
Instead, we usually find ourselves interested in power sets, and power sets of power sets, and the standard axioms of modern set theory are not sufficient to established what is the exact value of $2^{\aleph_0}$, or $2^{2^{\aleph_0}}$. We can give some constraints, but not much more than that; at least without additional assumptions. This sounds strange, but at the same time the axioms of a field are insufficient to determine whether or not $2$ has a single $7$th root, or more, or none. So being unable to determine something like that is not terribly unsettling throughout mathematics (even if sometimes we feel that it is).

What is the difference between the $\aleph$ numbers? (Which can be indexed by more than just the natural numbers)
For that you need to slightly understand what are ordinals. $\aleph_0$ is the size of the smallest infinite ordinal; $\aleph_1$ is the number of ordinal of size $\leq\aleph_0$; and $\aleph_2$ is the cardinality of the set of ordinals of size $\leq\aleph_1$; and so on. The difference is "essentially formal", and mostly intangible. We can only say that $\aleph_3$ is much larger than $\aleph_2$, but not much more than that, for some very excellent reasons which are difficult to explain with additional background in logic and set theory.
Could someone explain aleph numbers? might help you understand slightly better the $\aleph$ numbers.


Is this cat food harmful?

Question: I own a cat (a British shorthair). A few days ago I searched for cat food. I found a website that sells cat food, and I wanted to buy this ('Royal Canin British Shorthair Kitten cat food'), but I looked into Royal Canin cat foods, and there are some people who say it is harmful for cats. Should I buy this or not? What food should I give my cat otherwise?
Comment: please add a link to where you found the information about the food.
Comment: the news was in Turkish, can you read it ?
Comment: We have some related questions with good answers here on StackExchange, if you're interested in the matter of cat food quality. [Grain-free Options for Preventing Struvite Crystal Formation](https://pets.stackexchange.com/q/24197/12501), [Is it possible to feed a cat a healthy meat diet?](https://pets.stackexchange.com/q/23575/12501), [Why are grain-free cat foods filled with vegetables instead of more meat?](https://pets.stackexchange.com/q/6359/12501), [Is there benefit to feeding my cats cat food that incorporates fruits and vegetables?](https://pets.stackexchange.com/q/1885/12501)
Answer: This food can cause some problems, but overall it's not worse than most dry foods.

It has a lot of calories. That's good for kittens, because they're more active than adult cats, but if you feed this food to an adult cat, it would probably gain weight rather quickly.
It has too much grain in it. Grains in cat food are known to cause kidney stones and urinary tract diseases. Unfortunately grain is much cheaper than meat, so most commercial cat foods (especially the cheap ones) contain a lot of grain.
Some people (but not many) report that their cats vomit or get diarrhea after eating this food. This is to be expected, because some cats are more sensitive than others or have allergies.

So, in summary:
This food is not ideal for cats and can cause medical problems in the long run, but it's not worse than most cat foods. If you want good, healthy cat food, read the list of ingredients and only buy cat food without any grains (rice, maize/corn, wheat, oats, barley or rye).
Comment: I see, i wonder if cat food is really harmful

Is this cat food harmful?


Should tags be created for ITU regions?

Question: Kevin Reid AG6YO already explained to me that tags should be broad enough to include an entire category, however, I Safeguards against cross-border abuse?, which I suspect is specific for ITU Region 3.
Answer: You now have enough reputation to create tags yourself (150).
That said, if you feel that your question is about region 3 in particular you should also mention that in the text of your question. As it is now, it reads as a general question merely prompted by your experience in region 3, and it's gotten a general answer.
Comment: @AminShahGilani Most of the time, people intend to ask general questions and your question still reads that way to me. I really do recommend rephrasing it to be clear that you're specifically interested in local procedures. (And creating the tag if you wish; [tag:itu-region-3] seems like a reasonable spelling.)
Comment: I mention region 3 in the first sentence, "I live in a country that falls under ITU region three". Since I'm not aware of whether the IARU or IARU region 3 would handle such an issue, I posed the question as such.
Comment: I see, thank you

Should tags be created for ITU regions?


Is there anything standing in the way of email encryption going mainstream?

Question: PGP has been around for almost 20 years, but email encryption is not used by most 'regular people'. At the moment, with Snowden's NSA revelations (which should not be a huge surprise to anyone), the Heartbleed bug, etc. many people are becoming more interested in encryption and privacy, but email remains one of the ways in which people send confidential information, constantly, with very minimal security. Does the current state of the art (from both a technical and social level), allow it to go mainstream?
Comment: On my side, I've seen recently several new companies/startups offering secure/encrypted email and file-sharing services.
Comment: Also, note how Gmail leverages Google's superb search software and spam detection, but if you encrypt you Gmail mail client-side, you lose that (and must be content with your mail client's capabilities).
Comment: Well, you shouldn't lose spam filtering if we assume that encrypting an e-mail for every recipient on a spammer's list would be cost-prohibitive computationally speaking. If the public key is known to the sender and the e-mail is signed and encrypted, it's probably not spam. I use Thunderbird with my own personal certificate from COMODO. It's relatively easy to use: import the certificate and set the application to automatically sign all outgoing messages.
Comment: We are long overdue for a secure and non-repudiable mail system. (The latter would severely cut down on spam.) The biggest problem would be getting a standard adopted and support written into clients (preferably in parallel with SMTP, for now). Remember S in SMTP stands for Simple; it wasn't _intended_ to be a final solution.
Comment: Currently, if the encryption is not client-side, then it's basically placebo. But the only user-friendly client-side encryption is Thunderbird with Enigmail. Many people wouldn't like having to leave Gmail and start using a program for emails. However, this cannot be the only reason, because back when Outlook and Thunderbird were much more popular, encryption still didn't go mainstream (perhaps because there weren't good extensions around).
Comment: Another thing: Encryption doesn't just help security: One of the proposed solutions to spam is a "CPU tax". If sending each email had some negligible computational cost, mass-mailers would be forced to have enormous, expensive CPU-farms to send spam. If encryption became so common that people begin discarding unencrypted email, then spammers would be forced to encrypt (and sign!) their emails - and suddenly sending email takes quite a few more CPU-cycles. I don't think the public appreciates this adequately (assuming I'm correct).
Comment: I changed the focus of the question to what (if anything) is standing in the way of email encryption going mainstream, and wonder if the question can be reopened in its current form.
Comment: @Superbest: adding CPU tax can be done without adding encryption. For example, an SMTP server can bounce all emails that doesn't have a [proof of work](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-of-work_system).
Answer: Software companies and email providers
Default support for PGP from Microsoft (Outlook.com and the Outlook mail client), Apple (default support in iOS and OSX), Yahoo and Gmail. They should make people aware, and create pgp-wizards to set it up with a few steps.
Google can make this happen, but they have a conflict of interest, bigger than Apple or MS. Maybe they can come up with a solution that keeps their business going and our mail safe.
A possible problem: the war on terror and those "thug states". Companies from the US are not allowed to export certain technologies to those countries. But I don't think this is the real problem, as these technologies are freely available worldwide.
Facebook and Twitter are not big parties in this, but they could start awareness campaigns, as privacy is something they like to promote.
Countries
I think it should be promoted by countries. The only big enough "country" that I can see this doing in the near future is the EU, although Germany could be a good start. But that will take more time.
What we can do
Install PGP ourselves and start to use it. I use it sometimes to mail stuff to myself from or to work, if only to get used to it.
Create manuals and installation methods and show how it can be used to work without hassle. So for mom and dad it should work by default when they send an email those people that use it (which probably means those addresses should be marked as having PGP), like you and me. It should even work for them without having to enter a password. That would mean the mail can be opened by anyone on that computer. On OSX you need to login to unlock the key, and I don't know how this works on Windows, but I hope it's similar.
Comment: @Doval: But neither transport-layer security nor application encryption for mail exchange prevents the recipient from accessing the plain text.  With gmail, mail.google.com is the recipient of the (encrypted) message, and the origin of the encrypted web page.  Only end-to-end encryption that relies on a decryption key on the user's device would conflict with google ad-matching, and then you lose the convenience of using any web browser to access your mailbox (securely, except for Heartbleed and similar bugs in HTTPS)
Comment: Could you elaborate on what exactly Google's conflict of interest is?
Comment: Google's conflict of interest is a big issue here. Also is exporting - but companies are already doing the export controls, at least for non-cloud software and hardware. Since Apple, for example, includes SSL capabilities in OS X, they cannot export it without US government approval. If Google adds encryption capabilities to Gmail, they cannot offer Gmail (or these features) to users in certain foreign non-US countries and territories but I'm sure they would be able to determine country of origin.
Comment: The German BSI "promotes" and explains the use of OpenPGP ([1](https://www.bsi-fuer-buerger.de/BSIFB/DE/SicherheitImNetz/Verschluesseltkommunizieren/Einsatzbereiche/einsatzbereiche_node.html), [2](https://www.bsi.bund.de/DE/Themen/ITGrundschutz/ITGrundschutzKataloge/Inhalt/_content/m/m05/m05063.html)). They even commissioned/supported the development of [Gpg4win](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gpg4win).
Comment: @Jason - Well, only if they ask for something that ties it to a real-world identity (that states where they are), otherwise people can use things like Tor, or just a vanilla VPN connection...  On the internet, it's trivial to lie.
Comment: @Ajedi32 Google scans their user's e-mails in order to target them with ads catered to their tastes or interests. Naturally, losing access to the text contained in those e-mails means they lose money selling ad space.
Comment: If you are OK with Google decrypting the text on their servers, and you use SSL to connect to the webmail client, then the email data is encrypted through the entire 'internet' section of its transfer -- while being sent from the sender to gmail's servers, and then when the data is sent to your computer. It's not end-to-end but it can be better than nothing (as long as the servers aren't hacked or there is a backdoor for the NSA). Then Google could still mine your data and give spam protection.
Comment: That being said, one of the advantages of a system like Gmail offering easy encryption is that it would serve as a keyserver. They *could* automatically create public keys for users. Sending mail, if they have a public key on file, it would be automatically encrypted. However, sending encrypted messages from Gmail to Gmail, presumably the msgs won't be sent over the 'open internet', so the encryption (if Gmail is storing the decrypted messages in its servers when received) would not really serve a point -- it would only work if multiple major webmail clients (Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.) all did it.
Comment: @Jason: the security model of fake end-to-end encryption where keys are managed by email provider is no different than the security model of transport layer encryption (SMTPS). Most major email providers are already [using and sometimes requiring SMTPS between other major email providers](https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/saferemail/?hl=en). All that putting your mail provider as your key manager would do is give you a false sense of security. E2E encryption have to be driven by the end user.
Answer: My amateur take on this
Technically I think in short that cryptography needs to be made easier to use. This could happen if companies like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, etc. implemented cryptography on their web based email. While cryptography already has been made very easy (there are for example Firefox extensions/add-ons that make it easy), it needs to be even more easy to use. Maybe a good first step would be if Google implemented a encrypt/decrypt button in Gmail. Then, later on, they could make everything run automatically. I think this process needs to be a bit of trail and error to figure out what people are actually willing and able to do. There are of course things to think about here. Will the emails now be stored on Google's servers in encrypted form? If so, how will Google be able to deliver targeted ads to you?
Socially I think you need first convince people that the need cryptography. I get the feeling that the average Joe on some level simply doesn't care about encrypting his email. He might be all frustrated about what the Government spying on him , but he also doesn't really care enough to go through the trouble of encrypting his email. And here personally I personally don't feel (yet) a real need to encrypt my standard emails. If I am writing my grandmother to tell her about the new cute cat that I just got, I don't mind if, say, the government has the capability to listen in (I am more worried about other hackers). I have nothing to hide. If you want me to encrypt my email, then you definitely have to make it easy for me. I am trying to be a bit of a devil's advocate here, but I think that many people think like this. It is just reality. You might be convinced that you need to encrypt all your email, but the average person doesn't. This is why I wanted to give my amateur view on this. So, again, maybe if you can convince the large companies to implement cryptography so that it is done automatically that would help.
You mention above the export restrictions and I don't know how big a deal that is. But maybe the companies can just have different products designed for different audiences.
After (or along side of) having created a desire for cryptography, you possibly need to teach people about cryptography.
And if you want to get the big companies involved, they would also need to restore some trust with the public. After it was made known that these companies cooperate with the government, I think many people are not willing to trust that say Google will not, say, keep a copy of your password/secret key. But maybe people also don't care about that?
Answer: If you want just email encryption it would probably be enough that the major mail providers include an S/MIME certificate with each mail address and use it by default inside their web interface and make it easy to use in standard mail clients.
But, if you want real security and not just encryption you have to start somewhere else. The major problem is not the encryption part, but the trust part, e.g. is the sender of this mail really the one (s)he claims. While you have trust models with S/MIME and PGP they are not sufficient to provide the necessary trust, because it does not assure that the current owner of the certificate or PGP-key is really the one the certificate/key claims:

What checks did the signer of the S/MIME certificate to verify the claimed identity? How trustworthy are the peers which signed the key in the PGP web of trust? If you've got the certificate/key from the owner in person it is much better, but how often is this the case?
How can you be sure that the certificate/key wasn't compromised and now somebody else is misusing the identity. Revocation needs that the owner is actually aware of the compromise and it also needs to be working, which is not even the case with the much simpler structure of the PKI we use for https.

I actually like the idea of ZRTP (encryption for VoIP), where you create a mutual trust by exchanging device specific keys and verifying the trust through another channel (in this case: voice). It's simple to use and works fine as long the peers already know each other enough (so one can distinguish the voice of the peer from the voice of a man-in-the-middle) and the device gets not stolen or otherwise compromised.
Maybe a similar scheme could be constructed for mail, but like ZRTP it will fail if you don't know the peer well enough. In this case you again have to use proxies which assure you the trustworthiness of the peer, e.g. back to S/MIME or PGP :(
In summary: it all boils down to trustability, which is easy if you know the peer personally and is hard if you need to trust proxies to make the right trust decisions for you. This is not a problem of mail, web or whatever because you have the same problem in real life.
Answer: Lets take a step back.  If we added some form of TLS that allowed for an "On The Fly" key exchange like we have with SSL web sites, this would already be a big step forward.
Yes, PGP and related technologies that would keep your email from curious ISP's as well is an even better step forward, using an SSL/TLS style tunnel to move data between mail servers would allow for authentication of the source server (ie: You know for sure it was a Yahoo server that passed you the message).
How much SPAM does a person get a day with a spoofed source domain address?  This would help prevent much of that (it would all have to be smaller domains that don't have certificates).
So, add a new hand shake to the SMTP protocol that would allow the sending server to the share their public key along with the message.  Then the receiver can validate the key as being issued to the proper domain via a key authority/depository (entrust, etc).
The problem of security while in transit is atleast addressed and the email systems users need to NOTHING to make it happen.
Sure, this does not address email while at rest on the source server (so Google can still read it and present advertising), but atleast now it's just you and your ISP, and not the whole world.  Plus, if you want to run PGP on top of that, you still can.
A little security is still better then none, especially if there is no price to be paid for it by those being secured.
Comment: Did you have a look at DKIM? I think this does already what you are proposing, e.g. making sure that the senders domain actually matches the mail server in came from. And its already in use.
Comment: "How much SPAM does a person get a day with a spoofed source domain address?"  Nearly None.  < 1 a week that I actually see.
Answer: On top of what others have suggested, there's one fundamental issue here: the human side. It's not a matter of tooling or mathematical background. We have these already. What we need is to get out of
For e-mail encryption to go mainstream, it needs to be the path of least resistance. As in - encrypt by default, transparently, unless the user explicitly decides to decrypt.
It's the same argument for HTTP vs. HTTPS. Somebody wrote (sorry, can't find the link any more!) that we should not consider HTTPS the "secure" version of HTTP. Instead, HTTP is the "insecure version" of HTTPS. It's a subtle but very important difference.
Of course this shifts the problem domain from tooling (something we're good at) to psychology and dealing with human beings (something we're not very good at, especially for a nerd). On top of that, it requires a transparent, secure, and reliable layer on top of everything. For example,

Web mail: JavaScript code that encrypts client-side and does all the key validation transparently.
User authentication: if there's going to be automatic encryption it will be with public key. How do you keep yours secure? In the browser scenario above, how would that work?
Certificates, revocation lists and all that mess we haven't figured out how to handle properly yet.
Error messages and clear fallback. If my grandma sees an OpenSSL certificate error, what do you think she's going to do? I'd rather avoid human intervention whatsoever and not assume the end user is the wise one.
Answer: Secure email LOL.
Cryptography requires keys, and essentially the average person is just too stupid to use them properly.  Until we have the technology to build a pervasive system where you somehow are the key, and whatever computer you use to send "messages," email, text, voice, video, etc, can consistently recognize you as your crypto key, encryption just isn't going to work.
There are plenty of companies that will tell you they have solved this problem, but they are not telling the truth, they're attempting to sell you something.  Let's take webmail for instance.   Let's say you're going to use S/MIME, so you buy a personal certificate, which requires you to identify yourself in the real world someone supposedly responsible -- a bank officer for instance.
This certificate contains a public/private key pair.  The public key goes onto (as implied by the name) a public server.  The private part, though, has to be kept private.  Read that again.  Has to be kept private.  So, where in your webmail system are you going to store that?  In the super secret private storage at the webmail provider, where virtually anybody who works in any role whatsoever in law enforcement or the federal government can get it, without your knowledge, simply by asking for it?  Or anybody who can convincingly look like a government official?
Oh, but you say, the private key is locked with a password.  Yup, I bet that's an impediment to the NSA, a drug cartel, or virtually anyone else who really wants it.  You may be willing to bet on it, but I'm not.
The private key has to be kept private, except during the moments your mail program is actually signing or decrypting a message.  Otherwise, it should be offline, in some convenient storage that your happy user will then promptly forget, lose, throw away, crush, drop in a drink, or in the toilet, or in the parking lot, or... you get the idea.  Oh, and try doing that whole private key on a thumb drive trick with webmail.  Yeah, that'll work great.
So, basically, secure encrypted email works fine as is.  If you're smart enough to use it, and organized enough to keep track of your secure private key.  And, as it turns out, all 3 of those guys just don't care.
Comment: You're taking this way too far and complaining about security in general. The only fair point I see is that people are not used to working with public/private keys directly.
Comment: I think you've got it wrong. When you send mail, you encrypt the contents with *the recipients' public keys*. When you sign the contents, you do that with the private key. On the other end (the recipients' ends), the content is decrypted with their private keys and the signature is verified using your public key (which they have). The public key can enver be used to decrypt your mail barring future cryptographic advances.


Finding clients and taking requirements with learning difficulties

Question: I have been studying Web Development for about three and a half years now. I believe I have the skills to build decent websites using both front end and back end technologies. I would like to become a freelance web developer, more preferably only a front end developer. I am faced with a major problem though. When I was a teenager I got brain damage, this has given me major memory problems, and difficulties in learning. My question is, how can I get clients, keep clients and take down requirements, with these kinds of problems? I understand this may be a little vauge, as there is not much details about my problems. I can build websites and if I have all the information I need, then I shouldn't have any problems with the implementation. It's just personal contact with clients that I feel I am going to fail at. I'm looking for strategies round these barriers. Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated, thanks.
Answer: You could offer your services to creative and web agencies in your area as a freelance or junior and have them get the work and clients and pass it on to you to work on.
Or partner with a sales or project management person?
On the client side if you do do it, just try and see and tell the client. You could also try recording all conversations on audio format so you could listen back.
You could also just in a professional way ask them to. Could you email me that. This can be good for all clients as often when they write it down they change their mind or give more detail.
Good luck
Comment: Thanks for your advice. i will try the things you have mentioned.
Answer: What does it mean learning difficulties? Are you slow at performing tasks? If yes, this may be a major downer. 90% of time clients want a software which has to be done "yesterday" so be prepared to get a lot of rejections.
Are there any parts of programming that you can do as quickly as other programmers? If yes, do those things. Simply do things you can do as same as others and at the same speed.
Lastly, why don't you make a software or a website that can help others like you? It may be a small niche, but the success may come over night because others like you may not have quality services at disposal.
Most times, when programmer want to make some money aside and they cannot commit full-time to freelancing, they start making their own product which they can develop at their own pace. I am confident you could do the same.
Note: A friend of mine has a wife who is deaf. Everything else is OK. He opened her a profile on oDesk because he is very successful there. It's been almost 10 months now and dozens of applications, but she could not find job (she openly stated on her profile that she is deaf). Clients simply ignore her because of her deafness, although she applies for email support. It seems that clients and people we see on the TV and all those talk about giving a chance to impaired persons, does not work on services like oDesk. That is why I suspected that you may face the same destiny.
Comment: Thanks for your reply. It's kind of frustrating because I've learned theoretically C# and .net, JAVA, php,JavaScript, JQuery, OOP design patterns, Martin fowler EP, DDD, TDD, DI, MVC, MySQL, REST, JSON, AJAX and more. I wanted to do front end development because it's easy compared to areas like DDD. I'm doing Frameworks like Angularjs, underscores etc. I find front end easy compared to the other things I've done. But because of the difficulty of taking requirement, I think I'll meet your friends wife's destiny, and yes I am slower than most now. I will take your advice, and thanks for reply.
Comment: Another advice, don't try to be good in 10 areas. Pick 1 or 2 and be best in them. Good luck!