Validating Merchant Navy records?

Question: My first post, apologies if I break protocol.
My grandfather's name was Thomas John Hegarty, born Queenstown 26th June 1887.  I was tracing his naval record and came across a record from 'another' site with his date of birth as 24th Dec. 1886 aged 17.  I have now found another record with a date of birth of 24th June 1886. Both records show place of birth as Queenstown, County Cork, Ireland.  one has him down as 5.5 and the other 5.9.  What's the best way to validate which one is my grandfather? I find it hard to believe that there were many blokes called Thomas Hegarty from Queenstown joining the merchant navy. - NOTE amendment of DOB - it should read 24th June 1887.
Comment: Welcome to G&FH.SE!  There are some tips about how to write a good question in the [Help Center](http://genealogy.stackexchange.com/help), and if you have questions about how the site works, you can ask a question on our [Meta](http://meta.genealogy.stackexchange.com/) site. Whose merchant navy did he join?  Feel free to add a country tag, or other information, to your question.
Comment: My immediate reaction to this is that he might have wanted  to claim to be older for some reason, eg better pay and rations.
Comment: It would help if you could identify the sites you looked at -- e.g are you looking at the BT350 records on Find My Past for Thomas Hegarty from County Cork?  The Thomas born 24 Jun 86, with a certificate number of 368033, has two records on Find My Past, one with a photo. (You can tell they belong to the same person because the ID Certificate number matches.)
Comment: I agree about age, he would have been 17 though so it's only 1 year of a difference.  He is classed as British, I'm sorry but I thought there was only 1 Merchant Navy.
Comment: That's one Jan, there was another one there for Thomas John born 24th Dec 1886 - I initially thought he had his DOB wrong, i'm not sure now.
Answer: There are some hidden assumptions when we ask the question "Which one of these records belong to my grandfather?" I'll make these explicit because we can often lead ourselves astray when we are hot on the trail of new information.

We assume that the record set that we're looking at is complete, and that if our research subject should have had a record of this type, he must be in that database.  Consider the possibility that you might be looking at the records of two other people, and neither one is your grandfather.
We forget to check the dates of coverage in the database, and if there were a record for our research subject, it would have been made before or after these records were created.
We don't know how common or uncommon names are, and assume that there can't be that many people with the same name in the same place.
We assume that if we find one source, that source by itself is enough to be 'proof'.

One of the ways to get a fresh perspective is to realize that although our goal is to find information about our family members or research subjects, when we search for information, we are looking for records, not people.  Crista Cowan of Ancestry.com demonstrated how this can affect our search in a recent video, Smarter Searching: Search for Records, Not People.
Once we have the record in hand, it is helpful to focus on the source itself, with no fixed notion of any person it might belong to, and analyze what it is telling us, and how accurate the information is likely to be.  Elizabeth Shown Mills' QuickLesson 17: The Evidence Analysis Process Map explains the process.
There are three ways to analyze what you are looking at, and the answers to each point can be classified in three different categories, which has earned the process map the nickname of "the 3 x 3".

We look at the source to see what type of source it is. (Original / Derivative / Authored)
We look at the information contained in the source to see what quality of information  it might be. (Primary / Secondary / Undetermined)
We look at how well the information answers (or doesn't answer) the research question we ask. (Direct / Indirect / Negative)

Follow the link for her full explanation and a case history -- I'll quote one section because Mills' explanation is far more succinct than mine would be:

The Evaluation Process
This process — the analysis of the source, its information, and the
  evidence we draw from it — is only the first step toward a conclusion.
  It is a step we repeat over and again, as research progresses.
  Conclusions, on the other hand, must be based on the whole body of
  evidence that we assemble. In the evaluation stage, which we should
  also repeat each time we make new findings, we weigh

the quality of each source against the other;
the credibility of each piece of information against the other; and
the strength of each piece of evidence against the other.

We correlate details. We compare and contrast them in a search for
  patterns, dissimilarities, or conflicts that could strengthen or
  weaken a conclusion. If we have multiple pieces of evidence pointing
  to a conclusion, we consider whether each piece of underlying
  information is independently created—or whether all might be tracked
  back to a common source. It is also at this point, if we are
  genealogists, that we apply the Genealogical Proof Standard* to
  measure the strength of any hypothesis we might be forming.
*"The Genealogical Proof Standard," Board for Certification of Genealogists (www.bcgcertification.org/resources/standards.html : last
  accessed 1 August 2013). See also Thomas W. Jones, Mastering
  Genealogical Proof (Arlington, Va.: National Genealogical Society,
  2013).

The five points of the Genealogical Proof Standard are:

a reasonably exhaustive search
complete and accurate source citations
analysis and correlation of the collected information
resolution of any conflicting evidence
a soundly reasoned, coherently written conclusion

Doing a reasonably exhaustive search includes, in part, looking at the available pool of records and discovering that yes, there might be several people with the same name as your grandfather.
Source citations help you remember where the information came from, which becomes really, really important as you collect more and more information.  It also allows other researchers to 'look over your shoulder' and see what you are looking at.
Analyzing and correlating your collected information helps you realize that (for example) two of the records you're looking at belong to the same person because they both have the same service number on them.
Resolution of the conflicting evidence -- this step is where you consider that your grandfather might have lied about his age in order to join up sooner, or that the person writing down the information might have back-calculated the year of birth from the age and that the record is inconsistent with itself.
Attempting to write out a proof statement is useful because it helps reveal things that you missed in your analysis, or makes you think of questions that you still haven't answered.

It seems like a lot of work, but the more you practice the individual steps in the process, the more it becomes second nature.
To compare the information from a set of sources, some researchers write summaries of the information on index cards so they can shuffle them around to see which records agree on different points, others like spreadsheets or tables, and some use mind-maps.
My standard way of working is to assume that all the records I collect belong to different people, until I can find a way to prove that assumption is wrong; I let the information in the forms drive me toward a resolution, instead of starting with the conclusion and then trying to explain away why the information doesn't match what I expected it to be.  See the question How would you handle a census record that is almost certainly the target family but which has too many discrepancies? for an example of writing out the differences between records in table format.
Comment: Jan - thank you so much for your comments, makes a lot of sense.  I've had too many relatives 'claimed' on Ancestry to know that it's important to validate records but I hadn't thought of working forward with information rather than working back with what I have.
Comment: @FrancesLynch I try to look for as many records as possible to tease out as many clues as I can.  With military records, I like it when I can get some kind of residence information which can be cross-checked against other records (making note of the size of the building when I can).  So my quick answer to 'what's the best way to validate a record' is to gather as much as possible and look at everything as a group.  A solid portfolio of records will have lots of interconnections between them.

Validating Merchant Navy records?


Yissachar - Zevulin Torah business partnership

Question: When you have a Yissachar Zevulin partnership does Zevulin have to give exactly half of what he earns to Yissachar? In addition suppose Yissachar misses a day does he have to reimburse Zevulin?
Answer: No he doesn't  Not all partners get an equal share, and not all profits go into the pockets of the partners.  Here is an entire sefer written on the subject.
Comment: Same author as Shu"t Yaskil Avdi?
Comment: No.  Actually it is his father, Shalom Hedayya, and Rosh Yeshiva before the Yaskil Avdi.
Comment: Mekubal, Yiyasher kohacha for a great source!
Answer: Rav Moshe Feinstein understands the Remah and the Shach to both be saying that they must split 50/50.
This is a very complex Halachik discussion that has been addressed by many people greater than us. One should read this article at Hakira to at least expose himself to some of the issues involved in this discussion.


Applications with combination of high friction and low wear?

Question: What would be some common applications involving high friction and low wear rates? for example, gear-driven mechanisms which require high friction between the gear teeth but ideally low wear between them.
Comment: Tyres. In what sense do gears require high friction? It's a rolling motion, friction should be irrelevant.
Comment: that´s a good one, thanks. I was actually refering to  situations of frictional shear stress of gear teeth in the gears, which would actually be a source of energy loss so I guess we would want to avoid friction in gears.
Answer: As mentioned in the comments you don't actually want high friction between gear teeth, the tooth profiles are designed to roll over each other indeed the ideal is  to minimise any sliding friction between the teeth.
Obvious examples of devices which use sliding friction are brakes and friction clutches, these will have a limited wear life depending on the material used and in general there is a compromise between performance and life, especially for clutches which tend to be relatively difficult to replace. These devices may also also include some sort of self adjusting mechanism to compensate for wear of the friction surfaces. Often two different materials will be used with one designed to wear faster  but be easier to replace  eg bolt or clip on pads working against a steel or cast iron friction plate (as in disk brakes).
Another example is tyres which need to have low rolling resistance but high static friction to provide grip and traction.
Friction is also very relevant in screw threads, wear is significant for things like lead screws on lathes etc  which are subject to repeated sliding friction and where it is usually desirable to keep backlash to a minimum. Also on threaded fasteners there is a conflict between wanting low sliding friction to allow consistent torque setting and reduce the risk of galling but having adequate static friction to prevent fasteners from coming undone through vibration etc while still allowing reasonable manufacturing tolerances and there are various retaining devices such as nyloc nuts, spring and serrated washers and locking compounds used to achieve this.
You could also say that cutting and abrasive operations fall broadly into this category although this is normally considered separately from conventional friction per-se. Although of course the analogy if pretty good for things like bonded abrasives and diamond coated cutting tools.
Answer: As mentioned in the comments you don't want high friction between gear teeth, but if you're asking about the materials who exhibits higher friction with low wear rate, it depends on several parameters, such as, the nature of the two counterfaces, the environment, the applied load, the hardness, velocity, etc
In general there's cubic crystal oxides, with a high hardness above 10GPA whom with sliding against certain material, exhibits highr friction coefficient with a loaw wear rate, we take an example of AL2O3.
Best regards
Answer: Grinders, crushers, shredders, pulverisers ...


Can we use both RSTP and MSTP spanning tree protocols in same network

Question: I have network connecting with 500 users and 50 servers connecting different layer3 switches and layer2 switch. Can i run rstp in few switches and mstp on remaining switches.
Comment: Did any answer help you? If so, you should accept the answer so that the question doesn't keep popping up forever, looking for an answer. Alternatively, you can post and accept your own answer.
Answer: Yes, MSTP and RSTP interoperate. Practically, RSTP works like unconfigured MSTP with a single instance and region. RSTP peers are treated like MSTP peers in the common spanning tree (CST).
Answer: RSTP and MSTP were developed from the ground up to make them work  together. We can see MST as being  a extension over RSTP. The MST BPDU is in fact and RSTP BPDU + some few additional things required to support several instance. So basically, from the perspective of an MST bridge, an RSTP peer looks like a different MST bridge in a different region. We don't find any issue  running RSTP and MST both except of course that you will only be able to run a single instance (instance 0, the CIST) at the boundary between RSTP/MST.
Hence hop count MST uses is only within a region. Between regions, MST uses the message age, just like RSTP.
Cisco will not support a real RSTP as defined in the IEEE. We only have Rapid-PVST, which is a proprietary version running one instance of RSTP per VLAN. The trick is that we don't need to support IEEE RSTP because MST is a superset of RSTP. Running MST with no region configuraiton is basically equivalent to running RSTP
Comment: "an RSTP peer looks like a different MST bridge in a different region" - no. An RSTP peer looks (almost) like a different MSTP bridge in the *common spanning tree (CST)*.
Comment: You typed MSTL instead of MSTP


Is the expression "jam-packed" of American origin?

Question: I came across this expression at random, and when reading its definition and reading it in within context, it struck me as a particularly American thing to say. When trying to confirm my suspicion, I couldn't find this kind of information on its origin (merely that it formed in the 18th century and is the merging of two other words). I tried looking on the Merriam Webster site and Cambridge Dictionary (online) and didn't find an origin section that'd specify in which continent or country this expression was first used. Anyone knowledgeable?
Comment: https://www.etymonline.com/word/jam https://www.etymonline.com/word/pack
Answer: The earliest use of jam-packed I have been able to find occurs in a review of a children's program — the finale was an "emblematic representation of the majesty of Britannia" — in late 19th c. Cardiff:

I turned in last night at the Park-hall the place was jam-packed — a word specially coined for a special occasion, and the heat was suffocating. — "Observer," "Notes" (column), Evening Express (Cardiff), 1 Dec. 1892.

When an author wishes to indicate a new coinage, the usual choice is simply to bracket it with quotation marks, especially if its meaning is obvious. A long appositive such as this one suggests jam-packed is still warm from the oven.
The first attestation in an American source occurs in a short story syndicated to a number of newspapers — not by an American, but by the popular Scottish author Samuel Rutherford Crocket:

"Jam-packed it was at ony rate when Marget an' Archie got there. They were squeezed like herrings, and it was as warm as lying on your back in the pit an' howking at the roof. — Samuel Rutherford Crocket, "That Popish Parson Fellow" [short story], The Times (Richmond VA), 24 Nov. 1895.

Written in the Lowland Scots eye dialect for which Crocket was noted, the story would be the last place one would look for an Americanism. The story also appeared in February 1896 in the Pocket Magazine and finally in a collection of Crocket's short stories, Love Idylls, published in London in 1901. It is perhaps this publication that gave the Online Etymological Dictionary or its source a 1901 date for the first appearance of the word.
Whatever the case, the Scotsman Crocket and the anonymous Cardiff "Observer" prohibit otherwise straight linguistic lines from North America to the United Kingdom which the sightings of jam-packed in American sources after the turn of the century would suggest. After these two uses, British sources seem to go silent until the end of the 1910s.
In the year Crocket's story collection went to press, however, a bit of filler appeared in at least two American publications:

Don't crowd your advertisements with matter and make them hard to read. A plain, readable, inviting advertisement is like a seat in the orchestra circle; a jam-packed, illegible one like space in the peanut gallery. — Current Advertising, v. 9 (Jan.-June 1901),  The American Stationer v. 49, No. 1, 5 Jan. 1901.

While jam-packed doesn't become especially frequent in the US until the mid-1920s and later, its use is spreading across the country:

"Ho!" rejoins William, "you ain't like a princess! … your hair's red, red! An' your eyes are kind o' green, they are! An' you're just jam- packed full o' freckles!  — Josephine Dodge Daskam [Bacon], "The Heart of a Child" (short story), 1902.

— Advertisement, Cranbrook Herald (BC, Canada),12 Jan. 1905
And Silverstein's hall was just jam-packed. — Eleanor Gates, — Cupid, the Cow-Punch,1907
"Well, take the Perryville church, for instance. There's one that has some life to it! Ice Cream Socials and Strawberry Festivals and Pie Apple Parties and Turkey Dinners and Oyster Bay Clubs and Leap Year Leagues and what not, and what not! They gave one of these here Country Schools last fall, and the church was jam packed to the doors!" — The Lutheran Companion (Rock Island IL), v. 20, No. 11, 16 March 1912.

If the word appears in an official publication of the Evangelical Lutheran Augustana Synod of North America, overwhelmingly composed of Swedish immigrants and their descendants in the Midwest, then jam-packed has truly arrived in American English.
What stands out in these examples is that except for the filler about advertising and the ad itself, jam-packed appears in works of fiction imitating, as in Crocket, everyday, informal speech. The speaker in the church publication is merely a slangy straw man invented to be set to rights by an older Swedish Lutheran that social events are not the main mission of the church.
The first appearance in an Australian newspaper, at least among those digitized by the National Library of Australia, occurs in a Melbourne paper:

The Department has been assiduously pointing to its receipts on that afternoon, to prove that there was no extraordinary tram traffic, and just as persistently ignoring the plain fact that huge numbers of fares were uncollected on the jam-packed trams. — "In the Harbour City," Punch (Melbourne), 6 May 1915.

And in 1919 Northern Ireland, a headline proclaims

Jam-packed Factories. Yet There is Little for the Public. Unheeded Official Advise. — Belfast Telegraph_ 30 Aug. 1919. BNA (paywall).

Across the United Kingdom,  in the 1940s, jam-packed has 37 hits in the British Newspaper Archives (BNA) especially in articles about American films, most likely echoing Hollywood publicity. Each decade until 1980 has over a hundred hits, the 80s only 69, but 1,167 in the 1990s. Despite Crocket, there are no other Scottish sources from his time and thereafter that would suggest that jam-packed was particularly common in Scotland.
So...British or American?
Your question concerns the first attestation of jam-packed. That was answered by the first few paragraphs of my answer: Cardiff and a Scottish author publishing in American newspapers. Given the limits of what from this period is digitized and what is not, and that beyond its use in advertising, jam-packed was a slang expression not likely to appear often in print, evidence for a clear line across the Atlantic, however, is at best ambiguous.
While it is hardly difficult to draw linguistic lines from Scotland to Northern Ireland, one might expect the BNA to contain a few Scottish newspapers that use the expression at the turn of the century. Perhaps someone with access to the Scottich National Library digital holdings might have better luck.
It is, however, difficult to imagine that Crocket, despite his popularity in America, is the source of the word in North America. Jammed and packed were a common collocation:

To pass from Broadway, with its empty stages and almost deserted sidewalks, into the crowded, heated, jammed, packed Bell and Everett club room, was something like paddling one's canoe out of a quiet trout stream into the roar and crash of Niagara… The New York Herald (NYC), 7 Nov. 1860.

Jam followed by a participial phrase headed by packed was also not uncommon:

Look at them ram jam, packed in like sardines in a box, or pins in their papers, stifling with heat, panting for breath, listening eagerly and attentively to the impassioned utterances of a hired speaker. — America, a journal for Americans v.1, Apr.–Sept. 1888.

In other words, it is not outside the realm of possibility that jam-packed arose independently on both sides of the Atlantic without initial influence one way or the other. More pre-1900 attestations might add clarity, but these, if they exist, are not currently available online.
In moderate to rapid informal speech, to avoid the "reset" necessary to pronounce the following p, the d following the collocation jammed packed would likely be elided, as in red and purple. The result would be jam packed, which may ultimately be the independent source for both Crocket and the American usage. All jam, packed would require is a bit of reparsing and dropping the rhyming reduplication.
Comment: Collocation > Elision > Phrase.
Comment: @Lambie: you're welcome to come up with your own theories to fit the evidence I've provided: first, two isolated instances from Scotland and Wales, then basically zip from the UK, contrasted with numerous attestations from the US. Maybe you can fill the UK gap, but the BNA isn't going to do the trick. Since the OP suggested American provenance, that was my starting point.
Comment: The phrase was never "jammed packed". It always: jam-packed.
Comment: I have no idea what that means. This thing about Americans leaving off the d is conjecture. You start off saying Crocket was the last place to look for Americans and then you seem to say that it is.  Something is a jam, logjam. It is simply not credible to say it was jammed-packed.
Comment: No, it's like _iced tea_, only with md and p. I am not saying the phrase was jammed-packed, only that the collocation might have given rise to it. I'm saying that the word could have arisen independently.
Comment: It is not liked iced tea at all. iced tea is like colored glass or broken dream. You start with one  premise and end with another. It all looks very elegant but doesn't make sense to me at all.
Comment: "*... the anonymous Cardiff "Observer" prohibit otherwise straight linguistic lines from North America to the United Kingdom*" This is difficult to parse, because the statement is unexpected. What it means is that the quotes should confirm an origin in Cardif. What it says actually is that their quotes prohibited any other interpretation. Poor choice of words, to say the least. This is the fallacy of four terms, because the independent reporter is not the alleged originally coining entity (i.e. not the "Park-Hall"). To be honest, I can barely interpret the quote, sounds like a twelve year-old.
Comment: I'm not totally with you on the *jammed, packed* thing. It's a good line of reasoning, and I am not sure if Lambi is correct that it were not collocated in the technical sense, if it merely appears in sequence next to each other. Rather, I would expect it stemmed from reinterpretation of an earlier in so far unattested *jam-packed*.
Answer: According to the OED, the adverbial and adjectival use of jam is U.S. in origin, attested from the early 19th century. I can't remember the last time I've heard jam-packed outside of a radio commercial or a movie depiction of a carnival barker, but I don't have good information on its prevalence or distribution.
The OED's etymological trail starts with the onomatopoeic verb jam meaning to force, squeeze, press, crush, stick, thrust, etc. something into a confined space. Something which is in close contact with or right up to something is thus jam up to it (or just jam), though this sounds somewhat old-fashioned or dialectical to me.

Also they  had poll watchers from both sides in those days who sat jam up close to the ballot box with a list of voters on a clipboard. — from Ferrol Sams' Down Town (2008)

If something jam up is right up to or next to something, like a container being completely full because its contents rise to the brim, jam takes on the meaning of being thorough or excellent, thence jam-full for being completely filled.

1835   David Crockett An Account of Col. Crockett's Tour 192.   [Andrew Jackson] went jam up for war; but the cabinet got him down to half heat.
  1858   Samuel A. Hammett Piney Woods Tavern xiv. 146. The regular stage was jam full, and there was an extra put on, and that was jam full, and a leetle more.

Jam-packed is just a novel variation on jam-full, meaning tightly packed. The OED's earliest written attestation is from Ring Lardner, an American sportswriter, in 1925

Liberty 28 Mar. 5/1. This place is jam-packed Saturdays, from four o'clock on.

but a search on Google Books turns up earlier examples, like a line from The Madness of Philip and Other Tales of Childhood by Josephine Dodge Daskam, published 1902:

You don't look like the ones you tell about, anyway! Why… your hair's red, red! An' your eyes are kind o'green, they are! An' you're just jam-packed full o' freckles!

The verb form jam-pack is thus a back-formation from jam-packed.
Comment: jam-packed is very common in speech. That jam  up business is antiquated.
Comment: Common in spoken language and therefore not in ngrams. Also, in cop lingo: they talk about getting jammed  up, a verb, new usage.
Comment: *I can't remember the last time I've heard jam-packed outside of a radio commercial* -- You've presumably never ridden a big city subway at rush hour.
Comment: @Lambie Common in advertising, perhaps.
Comment: I hear *jam-packed* frequently in conversation.
Comment: _Jam against_ some vertical surface is still current.
Comment: If the shoe fits, wear it. If it doesn't, jam it on. If you just jam those clothes in that suitcase, you can close it.
Answer: Early instances of 'jam, packed' in U.S. newspapers
An Elephind newspaper database search yields a number of instances of "jam packed" in U.S. newspapers dating back to the 1880s. Following are eight unique instances spanning the period from December 25, 1883, through January 9, 1892.
From William Stoddard, "A Perfect Christmas" in the [Terre Haute, Indiana] Express (December 25, 1883):

The way they laughed about it gave him a great deal of courage, and he never cried when they took him by his red little hands, one on each side, and walked him into the house.
"Jane," said grandmother, what will we do with him? The house'll be choke, jam, packed full, and there isn't an extra bed."

This Christmas story reappeared in subsequent years in the Bloomington [Indiana] Progress (December 24, 1884), the Clare County [Michigan] Press (January 2, 1885), the Lake City [Colorado] Mining Register (January 2, 1885), and the Springfield [Ohio] Globe-Republic (January 11, 1885).
From an advertisement for Owen Pixley & Co. in the Springfield [Ohio] Globe-Republic (January 3, 1885):

The Fine Fancy Bows that ordinarily bring 25c, our way makes 10c; black, 6c. For a quarter you have your choice in a large deep case choke, jam, packed full, and they are not of the grab-bag quality either. Really fine little dressy ties may be selected from this case.

This instance is striking because the advertisement appears just one week before the same newspaper published the "Perfect Christmas" short story, which uses the same striking phrasing: "choke, jam, packed full."
From "Vive La Avalon: The Gallant Knights Entertain Their Guests in Royal Style: A Large Attendance at the Entertainment and Dance—An Interesting Programme Well Rendered," in the Santa Cruz [California] Sentinel (January 13, 1886):

The visitors and members then adjourned to Bernheim's Hall, which was cram, jam, packed full. All the wealth, beauty and intelligence of the city were there. The hall was never before so elaborately decorated. Overhead strings of bunting formed a canopy of bright colors, relieved here and there by the frescoed figures on the ceiling.

Here the series of adjectives is slightly altered from the version that appeared in the earlier instances, albeit only slightly: "choke, jam, packed full" has given way to "cram, jam, packed full."
And from "Private Opinion Made Public," in the Crawfordsville [Indiana] Daily Journal (January 9, 1892):

Lillian Lewis: "I ought to have had a better audience than I had last night. My company are better than ever before and should have filled the hall to overflowing. I won't come back any more if I can't get better audiences. Yes, sir, that house ought to have been jam packed last, night, so it ought."

Here, at last, we have "jam packed" as a stand-alone modifier, without "choke," "cram," or "full" as companion modifiers. It doesn't seem far-fetched to speculate that the shorter form arose out of the longer one—especially given the geographical location of many of these early instances in a fairly compact area of the U.S. Midwest—Indiana (three times) Ohio (twice), and Michigan—with outlier instances farther west in Colorado and California.
All eight instances cited thus far in this answer—four of them unique and four reprints—appeared in print before the earliest instance of the "jam-packed" cited in KarlG's answer, from the Cardiff [Wales] Evening Express of December 1, 1892.

Early instances of 'jammed, packed' in U.S. newspapers and periodicals
There is, however, a second and even earlier line of modifiers of the form 'jammed, packed" in U.S. newspapers, dating to the late 1840s. KarlG's answer notes one example of this phrasing from the New York Herald (November 7, 1860) and another from the monthly journal America (1888). Here are twelve additional instances of the wording, from the years 1848 through 1885.
From "Cleveland [Ohio] Newspaper Digest Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 1848," in Annals of Cleveland, volume 31, years 1848:

Sept. 28; ed: 2/1 - "At an early hour on Tuesday evening, (Sept. 26), the Court House was filled, crammed, jammed, packed with persons wishing to hear from the mouth of our revered Representative, Mr. Giddings, the position he occupies the reason therefore.

From "Local Matters," in the [Petersburg, Virginia] Daily Express (October 26, 1855):

Octagon Hall was not only filled, but jammed, packed — crowded. Once in, there was no going hence, but all we could do was simply to stand and gaze on the beautiful specimens of handiwork presented in such rich array on every hand.

From "Letter from High Private," in the Houston [Texas] Tri-Weekly Telegraph (November 8, 1865):

This town [Galveston] is just overrun with strangers. "That's what's the matter." Every hotel and boarding house is filled with them, and even the private dwellings are accommodating hundreds of them. Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the son of man hath not where to lay his head, especially if he be a "son of a gun" and hath not friends. There is not in this town a house, barn, stable, shop, store or church "for rent." All are rammed, jammed, packed, until even their sides ache with continued pressure. Two dollars an hour is charged fur the privilege of leaning against a post. and three dollars for a block to sit on.

From "The Schutzenfest: Third Day," in the Charleston [South Carolina] Daily News (May 9, 1868):

In the dancing hall the fun was huge and orderly. It was crowded, jammed, packed with merry dancers. Gentlemen with the emblematic white ribbon in their button-holes flitted to and fro, and the ladies, young and old, danced with a grace and persistency worthy of their name.

From "The University," in the [St Paul, Minnesota] Daily Globe (June 2, 1882):

Before 9 o'clock in the morning the chapel of the university presented a brilliant and animated scene. Ushers were dashing to and fro, bringing in chairs and seating the spectators. At 9 o'clock the chapel was filled, crowded, Jammed—packed full. Every aisle was full of chairs, the stage was crowded.

From "Washington Letter," in the New Ulm [Minnesota] Weekly Review (March 7, 1883):

The week has been characterized by interesting events, among which may be mentioned the international bench-show, the first dog show ever held in Washington, successful operatic engagement the city has ever known. Society changed its "at home's" to "at opera's" and attended en masse. Patti came, sang and conquered, her last appearance being honored by a house crammed, jammed, packed and wedged to such an intense extent that the authorities took the precaution of having a strong fire force stationed at the nearest available point to the theatre, with a man at each nozzle, and the water turned on.

From an advertisement for Haverly's Minstrels, in the New York Clipper (December 22, 1883):

THE PROSPEROUS BLACKBIRDS OF A NATION SINGING THEIR SONGS IN THE SUNNY SOUTH AND MEETING WITH JAMMED, PACKED, OVERFLOWING HOUSES NIGHTLY. THE FIFTH MINSTREL COMPANY THROUGH DIXIE THIS SEASON, AND ALL THE PEOPLE PROCLAIM US THE MIGHTIEST, THE BRIGHTEST, THE WITTIEST AND THE BEST.

From "Bloomington Markets," in the [Bloomington, Illinois] Weekly Pantagraph (February 15, 1884):

Roll butter should be nicely wrapped, each roll separate, in cloth wet in weak brine, and the box should be lined with paper and the butter carefully and tightly (not jammed) packed In the box.

From "Chips," in the [Salt Lake City, Utah] Salt Lake Herald (February 26, 1884):

A jammed, packed and uncomfortable house greeted Mrs Clayton's appearance at the Theatre on Sunday evening.

From an untitled item in the [Pueblo] Colorado Daily Chieftain (March 25, 1884):

In reply as to whether he had purchased extensively he said that he had brought three times as many goods as heretofore, but did not know where they could put them, as the store was jammed, packed full.

From "The Biggest and Best of Them All," in the [Astoria, Oregon] Daily Morning Astorian (August 14, 1885):

At every performance the huge canvas tents of John Robinson's great Three Ring Circuses, were literally jammed, packed and crammed with happy, laughing people, in many instances the employes of large business houses, being sent by their employers, who purchased the tickets in bodies of a hundred or more.

And from "Illinois" in the New York Clipper (October 24, 1885):

Hooley's Theatre.—Crowded, jammed, packed houses every night. Louis Aldrich is on now with "In His Power." Next week, Sidney Rosenfeld's Opera Co.

These twelve instances cover a large geographical area of the United States, ranging New York, Virginia, South Carolina, Ohio, Illinois, Minnesota, Texas, Colorado, Utah, and Oregon.

Conclusions
The profusion of instances of "jammed, packed" and later "jam, packed"—often as part of longer phrases that included choke or crammed and (in many cases) terminated with full—in U.S. publications from 1848 through 1892 lends considerable weight to the suggestion that jam-packed as a stand-alone modifier arose out of these earlier forms. Under the circumstances, I think that the case for U.S. origin of jam-packed is quite strong.


Encrypted ID to 3rd party application

Question: I would like to ask you a questions that arose these days with GDPR new rules.
What I have is a payments service which use BrainTree to make the payments. In my side I store some information including the ID of the user. The problem is that I should not send the original User ID to Braintree directly and I need an ID alias instead.
What do you think that is the best way to do it?
To encrypt is somehow or generate a second ID in my database?
Answer: Just generate a second ID, ideally based on an existing approach like UUIDs. Encryption or hashing is not suitable if the original IDs have any structure, such as being small sequential integers.
Note that generating a second ID might be irrelevant to any GDPR compliance effort. This ID is still personal data as long as it can be connected to an individual, e.g. because it is paired with credit card numbers or email addresses. However, pseudonymisation through additional IDs might be part of a compliance strategy (compare Art. 25(1)). In any case, it is more important to sign a processing agreement in which the data processor agrees to not use the data you provide in any way except as specifically instructed (compare Art. 28(3)(a) and Art. 29).

Encrypted ID to 3rd party application


Yawning during physical activity

Question: I'm not a very active person and I work behind a desk, but I am trying to be more active and get into better shape. I am overweight, but not obese. (According to this chart.) I bike, walk, have been doing some indoor, low impact exercises, and I chase around my 3.5 year old. But doing these physical activities makes me yawn A LOT. Doing these things is hard enough when I'm in poor shape and don't have much endurance, but yawning makes it just that much more difficult. I'm trying to figure out what could cause this and what I can do about it. I don't have any idea where to start.
Answer: I get intermittent yawning-attacks during workouts too. I ignore it, and go about my business. I've read this and that about it, but nothing conclusive. The most plausible one is that you're simple tired from lack of sleep. Barring that, some say it's because you're rapidly heating up, and yawning is an attempt to cool down.

In a study in 2007 in the journal Evolutionary Psychology, researchers reported that subjects who cooled their brains by breathing through their noses or holding cold packs to their foreheads — proven brain-cooling strategies — were less likely to yawn when shown videos of other people yawning.
There's no ready explanation for your "aerobic yawn." Perhaps your alveoli need a boost to stay open. Or maybe your brain needs cooling to stay alert. Or it may simply be a reflex. Whatever the case, there's probably no reason to worry about it, and you should keep up with your aerobic exercise.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/By_the_way_doctor_Why_do_I_yawn_when_I_exercise
But note, this is referred to as a "novel theory". Could be a legitimate reason, or it could be circumstantial.
Like I said, it's been hard to find anything conclusive on the topic of yawning during exercise.
Comment: This is helpful. It's not something I'm worried about so much as it is an annoyance and it kindof makes me feel discouraged. It's enough to get my butt up and moving and then I yawn while doing the activity. It's probably more psychological than anything, but still enough to get to me. Thanks for sharing this article.

Yawning during physical activity


What polymer can be dissolved in ethanol and is insoluble in water?

Question: I need a polymer with parameters noted above. How to determine the solubility theoretically? Hansen/Hildebrand solubility parameters? Wypych is not the ultimate solution...
Answer: As a preface, I'm not sure what the exact solubility levels are, so this answer is qualitative.  Hopefully someone else can improve upon it or suggest something better, but for now:

Poly(1,2butylene glycol) (PBG) of moderate molar mass (Mn ~1000) is soluble in ethanol but sparingly soluble in water. Most solids will wind up being soluble in water if they're soluble in ethanol, owing to the two solvents' similar intermollecular forces but water's smaller size and greater overall solvent strength. This said, materials with the ethyleneoxy- repeating unit like Polyethyleneglycol (PEG), Poly(1,2butylene glycol) (PBG), or crown ethers have enhanced solubility in ethanol due to ethanol's ability to line up along the backbone of the polymer. Meanwhile, the ethyl pendant group hanging off the backbone of Poly(1,2butylene glycol) strongly decreases water solubility. The end of the ethyl group is far enough away from the oxygen that it's completely non-polar and the shape winds up causing something called clathrate formation in the water.
This polymer is mostly used as a Solgel or a coating. It could also be used for chelating some metal salts in solution. However, it would make a rather terrible structural polymer.


Yorkshire Pudding Batter -- Letting it "Rest"

Question: I've heard it's a good idea to let your batter rest overnight.  Since there are eggs in it, I would think that it would have to rest in the refrigerator.  I've also heard that the batter should be at room temperature when you pour it into the pan.  So, should you refrigerate the batter overnight, and then let it sit outside the fridge for a three or four hours to warm it back up to room temperature?
Answer: I previously addressed this on a related question here. I cited Kenji Lopez-Alt's great article about Yorkshire puddings based on his testing a variety of recipes. For the full thing, you can find it on Serious Eats. As to resting and batter temperature, this is what he says:
Resting Batter:
This was what the tester determined made the largest difference in the quality of the finished product:

I'm going to say this: Resting your batter is the single most important step you can take to improving Yorkshire pudding and popovers. Not only do they come out taller, they also come out much tastier, with a more complex, toasty flavor. Non-rested-batter puddings taste positively flat (literally and figuratively) next to rested-batter puddings.
I'd go so far as to say that resting at least overnight is essential if you are really after the best.

Batter temperature:

Warmer batter will create taller, crisper puddings with a more hollow core
Colder batter will create denser puddings with a more distinct cup.

So, definitely rest your batter (in the fridge!) and pick the batter temperature that matches the outcome you'd prefer.
Comment: Thank you!  I'll try putting it in the fridge overnight, and then taking it out in plenty of time to warm up to room temperature.  I always have used room temperature milk and eggs when making it.  That's what my mom did and how I learned to do it.  I wonder if there's even any point to doing that, though, if I'm just going to put it back in the fridge.
Answer: I used my batter straight out of the fridge. Hubby said they where the best he'd ever had. I didn't rest the batter mix. They came out of the oven, light and beautifully risen.  In future I'll always use thus way. My York Puds where like a pros! Well chuffed.


Are there any issues migrating from RHEL to CentOS?

Question: I want to migrate off of RHEL 6.3 to CentOS-6 to save in licensing costs. We will mainly be running Java/WebLogic 11g on these boxes. Are there any issues that I should be aware of when migrating from RHEL 6.3 to CentOS-6? Thanks.
Answer: No issues at all. The conversion can even be done online/live.
If you have hardware drivers (e.g. HP ProLiant), you may need to modify your <code>/etc/redhat-release</code> to reflect RHEL instead of CentOS.
CentOS has an official migration guide as well.
Answer: The main issue is that CentOS is downstream from RHEL and therefore you can experience a delay in receiving updated packages (errata).


Are there any comparative studies on the distribution and case-marking of proper nouns across languages?

Question: I am mostly wondering if proper nouns exhibit distributional and/or morphological peculiarities that set them apart from pronouns from a broad typological perspective.
Answer: A distinction between common and proper nouns is a semantic one, not grammatical. There is nothing special in a morphology of proper nouns, as any common noun can become a proper noun. In fact most proper nouns were at some point common.
e.g. brand names like Windows, surnames like Smith, etc.
Pronoun is not a type of noun. It's a word, typically shorter one, that may substitute a noun or a noun-phrase in a sentence. e.g. you, their, which.
They aren't easily comparable with each other.
Comment: Some languages distinguish proper nouns (or some subset) from common nouns for some grammatical processes. Turkish has a special "Sezer stress" pattern associated with place names, and some languages use an article for personal names that is different from the article used for common nouns.
Comment: For a specific example, see this [answer to the question "How are proper nouns distinguished from other nouns in linguistics (not in orthography)?"](https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/a/3111/5581)
Comment: Even in English, grammatically, proper nouns act a lot more like pronouns than either do like common nouns. For example, common nouns take determiners (the, a, this, any, no, every) and can take adjectives, unlike pronouns or most cases of proper nouns.

In addition, semantically, common nouns tend to refer to general sets of entities, but pronouns and proper nouns are used for specific entities.
Comment: @matan-matika good point but I'm not fully convinced. You can still say things like "any Joe Shmoe can see this politician is a liar" - here you use proper noun to stand in for a common meaning.
Comment: I'd argue that Joe Schmoe is a common noun and non a proper noun, but you are right that plenty of words can have either distribution


What is best for making stop motion animation - Digital camera or SLR?

Question: I want to make a stop-motion animation but am confused, which camera to use, a digital camera or a SLR? And what is the best brand to go with? Any suggestion will be highly appreciated! Any brand or model suggestion will greatly help me in my decision making!
Comment: most SLRs are digital. Stop motion is more of an animation technique and a particular brand of camera won't have much affect on that.
Comment: Anything good enough for a time-lapse should be good enough for stop-motion. Try looking at time-lapse advice too then.
Answer: You're going to want a camera which allows full manual control, because automatic exposure settings might come up differently from shot to shot, ruining the flow of images. And you're going to want to manually focus for the same reason. Any digital SLR or many high-end digicams will fit the bill here.
Since video is usually much lower resolution than given by still cameras, that's not much of a concern — any camera will do, and will probably have high enough technical image quality. However, the higher-quality still images you can take, the nicer your final result. For this reason, it's probably a good idea to choose a larger-sensor camera — either a digital SLR or one of the newer "mirrorless" cameras. Selecting a model with interchangeable lenses will give you more flexibility in finding a "look" that's right for your film.
If you do get a DSLR, it's probably best to get one with "live view", the feature which lets you compose on the rear LCD screen rather than the viewfinder. And, DSLR or not, a model with an articulated rear screen will make it easier to position the camera where you can both get the right shot and still see the screen, without contorting yourself into a weird position.
Comment: Yes again on tethered, as there is software available (running on the computer you have the camera tethered to) that helps you manage the creation of stop action animation and can do onion-skinning, converting the frames to a video/animation format, etc. I'd almost suggest looking for the software first, and then seeing what cameras the users of the software prefer.
Comment: +1 Tethered live view would be better still—you can use (non-permanent) overhead projector markers either directly on the monitor or on an acetate overlay to guide the process, sort of like live onion-skinning.
Answer: We make Dragonframe stop motion software, and I can tell you that the Canon EOS cameras with live view are used by about 85% of our customers, for good reason. The live view on the Canons is large and clear and makes it really easy to see what you are doing. Also, the live view has "exposure simulation", which means that as you change your exposure settings in the software, the live view adjusts to show you what your final image will look like. Most of the Nikon DSLRs with live view do not have exposure simulation, and the live view is relatively small and compressed. Both of these camera types can be used with the software with just a USB connection, which is not true for most other cameras, because Canon and Nikon do a good job of providing libraries for developers to integrate with.
There are lots of ways to shoot stop motion with any camera, but almost any professional stop motion animation that you see (such as movies, commercials, tv shows or music videos) is shot with dedicated software and tethered cameras. It just makes the process much more enjoyable and precise.
Comment: +1 For the *Exposure-Priority* Live-View. I am still surprised that only Canon and Sony have it consistently right. No one else has so far :( and I see new cameras every week! It makes a huge difference for working creatively.
Answer: The short answer is like David Rouse said in his comment: pick your software first, then pick your camera off the compatibility list. Stop Motion Pro, for example, supports a variety of webcams, video cameras, most Nikon and Canon DSLRs, and some Canon compact cameras.
I recommend if you're just starting out with stop motion to get a good webcam like the Microsoft Lifecam to try out with your software and learn how to use its features and explore stop motion creatively. Get some lamps/torchieres/flashlights and experiment with lighting. Once the quality of your camera becomes a limiting factor, for example because you want less noise, richer colors, shallower depth of field, more resolution, more sophisticated lighting, more control over shooting parameters, or a wider range of focal lengths, that's a great time to upgrade to a Nikon or Canon DSLR.
Note that at least currently, DSLR brands other than Nikon and Canon don't appear to be well-supported by stop motion software. I haven't seen any supporting mirrorless or bridge cameras, and only a very small number of point-and-shoot cameras are supported. As such you're pretty much forced to make the giant leap from $100 webcams to $1000 Nikon/Canon DSLR kits.
Answer: When using DLSRs for stop motion or animation, you will be activating the mechanical shutter which will have a life of 100,000 to 300,000 shots, depending on the quality and price of the camera. Although this is a large number for stills work, at 24 frames/sec it is only 70 to 210 total minutes of footage. Dedicated video cameras (and DSLRs in video mode) do not use the mechanical shutter, so this does not become an issue. As far as I know, DSLRs do not have a single-shot video option. Fully electronic global shutters are being developed which may change the equation.
However, there are advantages to using DSLRs: the larger frame size allows more framing and pan/zoom options in post, the higher resolution allows for 4K movies (assuming you have the software to edit it), it's easier to tether, etc.
Answer: Your best choice these days for stop-motion would be mirrorless cameras (arguably taking the best from both worlds of dSLRs and digital compact cameras).
Unlike dSLRs, they don't have mirrorboxes that can wear out fast enough to require multiple cameras for creating a short.  They also can shoot tethered and use specialty soft-motion software and different lenses like dSLRS. And some (like those made by Panasonic) actually have a stop-motion mode that can perform onion skinning and can compile a video from the stills you shoot in-camera if you prefer.
Canon even has specialized stop-motion firmware for the EOS R and RP bodies for use with Dragonframe. It enables higher-resolution live view; manual focus peaking over USB; aperture lock (to prevent flicker with digital control opening/closing the aperture down when taking a shot; and focus position locking.  It's very probable that stop-motion production houses like Laika and Aardman are transitioning from or have transitioned from Canon 1DX dSLR bodies (which they primarily use for the extended shutter life) and 5D Mk IIIs to a mirrorless system.


Looking for suggestions on ways to animate images in a 3 dimensional matrix of cubes

Question: I want to create a 3 dimensional matrix of cubes and have each of those cubes represent a pixel. I'm looking for an easier way to animate those pixels. For example I would like to create a low resolution figure walking through the matrix, that figure being made out of the pixels. The pixels would not move, only the material color on the pixels would change as the figure moved. It would be like a very low resolution monitor in 3 dimensions. For simple shapes I could just do it mathematically through scripting but wondering the best way to do it with other shapes. For example I was wondering if there is a way I could animate an armature and then map that movement onto the 3 dimensional pixels. Anyone have any creative ways that may simplify this rather than animating each pixel or doing it mathematically. I am new to animation so may be missing something simple here.
Thanks
Comment: Thanks @cegaton this is very useful but not quite what I was looking for. I am now thinking I can animate a rig with armatures and either stick objects on the armatures with drivers in them that respond to distance between the pixels and the armature or add the drivers to the armatures themselves. The benefit I see of adding more objects to the armatures is that then I can have more resolution. Either that or use more bones in the rig with a driver in each one.
Answer: I have the same exact questions a few years back ago. You can perhaps use Blender Modifier to achieve that, see REMESH modifier.
Actually you can do it today a lot easier using Add-On like Sverchok or Animation Nodes.
The key answer is: VOXEL GRID. Imagine you have 3 dimensional empty point matrix, it can be in any resolution, but remember 10x10x10 is equal to 1000 and that 1000 matrix position will be replaced with geometry.
I think the most efficient way to do this is by using Particle Instancing, but you can set it up using Sverchok pretty easy.
Now for 3 dimensional empty point matrix, you either have it ON or OFF. ON means draw the Voxel. OFF means do not draw it, leave it empty. (In a more complex setup, you can have Voxel in different sizes.)
You can "fill" and draw the actual voxel box using all kind of methods. Whether using 3D Texture, or using animated deformed mesh using Armature that draw the points when it is inside (see BVHTree of Blender).
There is no simple one answer to this. You can perhaps use Cycles Material to draw Voxel Volume Grid.
Comment: Thanks very much for this information. Lots of great new ideas here for me to digest. I had never heard of the Sverchok Add On. It looks great!!


Why is the network layer considered to be connectionless?

Question: Why is the network layer in the OSI model considered to be connectionless when you have Virtual Circuits that are a part of the layer and is connection oriented?
Comment: Did any answer help you? If so, you should accept the answer so that the question doesn't keep popping up forever, looking for an answer. Alternatively, you could provide and accept your own answer.
Answer: Because there is no "state " in the network layer nor signaling for connection setup.  Packets are forwarded based on destination address and each packet is forwarded irrespective of previous traffic.


Can the prologue be the backstory of your main character?

Question: A friend and I are writing a story based on our characters.  We brainstormed some ideas and now we know what the basic idea of our story is going to be. But I'm having a little trouble with the prologue, I was going to make it the backstory of the main character so that if someone reads it they'll understand what's going on with the character and why they're in the situation they're in now. So I'm just wondering does that make any sense? Can we use the prologue to give the backstory?
Comment: Dorito Hub, welcome to Writing.SE.  I took a chance and did what we call a heroic edit on your question.  If your reaction is more "what the hell?" than "that's much better", I won't be the slightest bit offended if you do a rollback and put it back as it was, or re-edit it to your taste.  I suggest you keep the new tags though.  Thanks for asking an interesting question and we hope you'll stick around.
Answer: Prologues are usually boring, because they are almost inevitably history lessons that have no suspense or action and they feel like a history lesson, right after lunch, and a snooze fest.
You would be better off skipping it, and giving an actual origin story: Think, for example, of Spiderman. You start out in Peter Parker's normal world, before he is a superhero, learn about his family, him being in love with a girl he is NOT destined to get, etc. Then he gets bit by the spider, and transforms, and gains reasons to fight crime, and becomes a hero to the girl, etc, etc, etc.
Origin stories are interesting, the normal world for the character is interesting. Even if you already know Peter is going to BE Spiderman (Spiderman is on the cover), as a reader the origin story has conflict, and you wonder exactly what will happen, and you keep turning pages to find out what happens next.
"What happens next" is the essence of a good story, a "page turner" has readers literally turning pages! Why? To find out what happens next! Not to read yet more history lesson, and background, and how he felt in school, etc.
Show us the background, with scenes and conflicts, danger and heartbreak and elation and victories, don't give us a dry lecture about the past. Most of it, we just don't really need to know.
For example, if some incident X makes Joe terrified of dogs, we pretty much can infer that by seeing Joe terrified of dogs. We really don't need a reason, and the backstory can be one line from Joe to a friend, "A Rottweiler bit the hell out me when I was a kid, and I can't get over it, man, no matter how much I try." But ONLY when it actually happens in the story, and that should ONLY happen if it is important to the story.
Say it influences the plot by changing Joe's decisions, or it creates a personality difference in Joe that changes how other characters feel about him, or treat him, or sympathize with him. If this fear makes him (or others) change their plans. Or it makes Joe want to change and finally do something about it. If it doesn't move somebody in a different direction, or define their personality in a way that matters, it can be left out because it literally doesn't matter to the story.
You can do this even if the backstory is far in the past. For example, notice the first scene in the first Harry Potter is shown in present tense, Dumbledore and others immediately after the murder of Harry's parents. But then JK Rowling just starts the 2nd chapter "Nearly ten years had passed since [main event of the first chapter]", and focuses on Harry thereafter.
That is a little clumsy; but does help to introduce the magic and wizardry early in the first act (any kind of superpowers should be teased early). It is kind of a prologue in scene's clothing.
But if you don't want to have a scene like that, you can have your character reveal elements of their backstory in dialogue with somebody important and new in their life; somebody they are saving, or are partnering up with, or seeking assistance from, a romantic interest, etc. In other words, you can introduce what is called a "foil", somebody that doesn't know the MC's past, so when the MC tells them, the reader learns it too.
Just don't make this telling an alternative way to infodump. It is a conversation, not a speech or interview. The foil should never really say "tell me more" or "go on" or anything similar. Quite often, in real conversation, one person's story reminds a listener of their own story or some story they heard, and that is their reply. Sharing, not interviewing. Or asking a question that turns the speaker in a new direction, so the listener doesn't feel like a prop; it feels like they have some control over what they are talking about. But dialogue is a different art; we have posts here on this stack about how to do that.
Answer: It can, but there are other ways you might want to handle it. The risk of making a prologue a backstory is you might end up with an info dump. Sometimes they are useful, but take it too far and you risk alienating the reader.
There is the iceberg method where most of what you create  never appears in your work and only exists to colour and inform what you write, making it more subtle.
I tend to sprinkle information throughout my piece, trying to minimize the info dumps.
One character of mine spent years infiltrating Columbian cartels and eventually destroying one responsible for the death of her brother. Knowing this influences how I write her, but the most that is revealed directly to the reader is that she once worked for a cartel, maybe one line about destroying those responsible for the death. Sometimes I have her compare her current situation with her previous, but I do not give more information than is required.
For my main character, you meet him before you learn a word about his history. He reflects a moment and the reader learns he and his sister are close and why. Much later, I have a character ask him directly about the incident, which he then describes.
Depending on the type of story you want to write, the prologue could work quite well. Just be careful, backstory can be like spice - you don't want to overdo it but strike that balance.
Answer: Prologues are something that need to be handled carefully - otherwise, you may wind up giving too much information about a character/world that the reader doesn't care about yet.
If you have a lot of backstory and you feel like it's slowing down the plot later on, there's another approach you can try: make the backstory part of your plot. Instead of sneaking in a series of history lessons later on, start your story with your character's history being made.
Aim for more than just a prologue - take an important part of your character's life and make it into its own story arc. Show the events that led your characters to become the people they are today. How did they react to that situation? If it's done well, the reader can easily understand how your characters act now. (The other characters may still need the occasional explanation, but this should help keep the explanations from becoming a distraction.)
Answer: Yes, you can.  And many authors do.  But, as others have pointed out, it's something you need to tread carefully with.
My novel has a prologue (and an epilogue).  I had it in my head since I conceived of my story and knew I wanted it there.  My main character is a 12 year old girl living in the United States in 1995.  The prologue is about her grandmother as a child.  It sets up the main theme of my book and gives necessary historical background that's important for all the American characters.
When I wrote it, I wasn't sure if I should do it that way.  I've heard all the negatives about using prologues.  So I spoke at length about it to my critique group.  They all love the prologue and think it should be separate.  I had thought about using flashback or exposition or another method to relay the information and they thought a prologue was the best method and that it did not detract from the story.  When I'm done, I'll see what my beta readers says.  And then I'll, hopefully, have input from a publisher.
Using another example, my spouse has a comic series and, instead of a prologue (which would never work in this medium due to length breakdowns and publishing spacing), has put the background/setup of the heroes into sections of a few pages in each of the first few issues.  It's necessary and the sections are fine, but some reviewers found it confusing.  By the third issue, it all makes sense.  There wasn't really another way to do this.
For other stories, the background information can come out piecemeal.  This can help the reader engage with the story more.  But it only works if the information can wait until the reader is immersed in the story.  Another method is to amp up the background until it overfills a mere prologue and becomes a "Part."  This has the disadvantage of upsetting the reader who enjoyed the characters and story and didn't want a huge time jump or location/character change.
Ultimately, the question is "does a prologue make my story better?"
It's an effective way to convey backstory, but it's not always the best way.  Think about what you want the reader to know when, if the information can wait, and get feedback from a writer's group or friends about what does and doesn't work.


Someone Who Makes Hourglasses

Question: Is there an English word for a person who makes hourglasses? Someone who works with gold is called a "goldsmith" and silver, "silversmith." A person who makes glass is called a "glassblower/maker" while a person who installs glass panes is called a "glazier." I figure there probably is one for a maker of hourglasses, but I just can't seem to find it... unless it's just simply, "hourglass maker."
Comment: A *horologist* is a clock-maker (or someone who studies clock-making).  That could cover hourglasses as well.
Comment: ...not really sure if master glassblowers specialize only in hourglasses.
Answer: If you google "How are hour glasses made", you will get straight to the answer to your own question.  That is what you should  do before posting a question.
http://www.madehow.com/Volume-5/Hourglass.html
The answer is equally obvious.  It needs a glass blower to blow two glass containers, put sand in one and then fuse them together.
I am only responding here because the article from 'made how' gives a fascinating account of the history of time devices, including the hour glass and its manufacture.
It is obvious that an hour glass requires the art of the glass blower.  I addition is needed a very accurate knowledge of the amount of sand required, as well as the thickness of aperture to allow the right rate of flow for the time required. But surely no glass blower would confine her/himself to hour glasses.  So a special term is not needed.

Someone Who Makes Hourglasses


Baseboard heat wiring

Question: Original wiring is Romex 12/2 no ground.New heaters have chassis ground.Do I pull new Romex 12/2 with ground or can ground be added back to main panel?Wiring is 240 volt
Comment: What NEC edition has your jurisdiction adopted?
Answer: Under NEC 2014, you can leave the conductors alone and add (retrofit) a ground wire.
It is not necessary for the ground wire to follow the same route as the conductors. However the ground wire must go to the ground bus in the same panel the heater is powered out of.
Circuits which come out of that same panel can share ground wires.  So you don't have to home-run all the way back to the panel, if  you can reach the ground wire of another circuit also served out of that same panel.  However the entire route of the ground wire must be as thick as the conductors, i.e. at least 12 AWG in this case.
If your jurisdiction hasn't adopted NEC 2014 yet, well... I don't know what to tell you.  I would investigate whether they're likely to.
Comment: Going all the way back to the panel works in pre-2014 NEC editions, BTW.

Baseboard heat wiring


Is "slightly ajar" a tautology?

Question: I was reading the novel Verity, and I came across the phrase "slightly ajar door". I didn't know what ajar meant and I looked it up to find it means (of a door) slightly open.
I wonder if "slightly ajar" is a tautology and is grammatically incorrect? Since it is used by the author who must be much better than me at english to make such a mistake, I wonder if tautology is also a writing tool used by the author or is it simply a mistake?
Comment: Tautologies are not grammatically incorrect. Why do you think they are? They might be bad writing in some contexts, but not everything that's bad writing is ungrammatical - repetition, vagueness, mixed metaphors, poor logic, excessive vulgarity, and many other things would be bad writing but not ungrammatical.
Comment: It is not a tautology in the slightest.  That word doesn't mean what you think it means.  Whether the phrase is *redundant* is probably the question you meant to ask.
Answer: Redundancy or a pleonasm can be a device used by an author. That doesn't make it a grammar mistake. In some contexts, redundancy is avoided, but in many contexts it is just a natural aspect of language, and occurs in every natural language (including your native language).
However, could there be different degrees of "being ajar"?  I think there could be; the door could be ajar with a 20cm gap, or ajar with a 0.5 cm gap. So there is nothing actually redundant with saying that the door is "slightly ajar".
Answer: No, it is not a tautology.
'Ajar' means the door is partially open, or neither open nor closed. There are lots of gradations in between open and closed, so it seems perfectly reasonable to use an adverb such as 'slightly' to describe that degree.
Comment: Yes, thus one might describe a door as being "only slightly ajar." [note the modifier *only*, which here serves to specify which of @Astralbee's gradations is the case]
Comment: @R.M. The door you describe is clearly [clopen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clopen_set).
Comment: @njzk2 I would not consider a door with just a 0.5 cm gap to be "open" (as you can't walk through it without moving it), but it's certainly not shut either. -- Unless you're taking "open" to mean "not locked".  But even then a door can be "open" (unlocked) and "shut" (snug in the door-frame) at the same time. (As is often the case when "come in, the door is open!" is used.)
Comment: @njzk2 As a midwestern American, this is the first time I've heard that proverb.  Your point is clever, but for those of us who were unfamiliar with the proverb it sounded like you were making a literal claim. :-)
Comment: on the other hand, a door must be either shut or open :)
Comment: @R.M. it's just a proverb...
Comment: I would say a door with any gap is slightly open, and describe a door as being ajar rather than open if there is no gap, but the door is far enough away from the jam that the latch can't engage.
Answer: The phrase "slightly ajar" could be considered a bit redundant, but it's not necessarily a clear-cut tautology. "Ajar" itself means slightly open, so adding "slightly" before it might seem redundant, as "ajar" already implies a degree of openness. However, using "slightly" in this context could be seen as a way to emphasize just how minimally open something is. It's a matter of style and how the speaker or writer wants to convey the level of openness.
Tautology is the repetition of the same meaning in different words, often leading to redundancy. While "slightly ajar" could be seen as leaning toward redundancy, it's not as glaringly redundant as some other tautological phrases. It might be considered more of a stylistic choice than a clear-cut example of a tautology.
Comment: Under the circumstances, a much better (and indeed more accurate) definition of "ajar" would be "partially open".
Answer: It is, a bit. A wee bit. A wee little tiny bit.
Or perhaps not.
Stringing redundancies together can function as a tool for emphasis or relative degree.
Answer: There are still useful gradations within ajar. To compare it to a more every day example someone may say something is ice cold - cold implies the temperature is below room temperature, but ice cold allows you to get a better idea of the range we're in.
Just as ajar lets us know the door is open a little, slightly ajar lets us know that, even within the range of ajar, the opening is particularly small.
Answer: A door can be ajar if a cat, but not a human, can walk through it. It can also be ajar if the cat can insert her paw and pull in order to render it less ajar. This latter initial situation might well be described as "slightly ajar" to distinguish it from the former.

Is "slightly ajar" a tautology?


Two bibliographies in Word

Question: Is it possible to have two bibliographies in Word 2007? I want to use the first one as a reference list to external references and the second one to be a list of my own appendices.
Answer: If you are talking about the Word 2007 built-in bibliography tools, then no. They are basically just field codes, so putting the same field in twice will give you the same result twice.
But do you need two bibliographies? It might be possible to use one bibliography and just split it in two parts. It won't be easy, but you could write an xslt sorting routine to take care of it for you.
For a basic guideline on writing a bibliography style, see Link
Answer: Not automatically, no. But I found my own solution to this problem. I just made the two bibliographies (they were identical of course). Then when I was finished with the document, I converted the bibliographies to static text, and removed the sources from each bibliography that I didn't want in it. Didn't check if the internal links worked, but I myself converted to pdf anyway.

Two bibliographies in Word


Rambam on the Gemara's Scientific and Historical authenticity

Question: Where does the Rambam state that the non-Halachic parts of the Gemara - for instance, Agadata, Science etc - aren't to be taken literally or simply aren't factually correct?
Comment: Related: https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/65973
Comment: Related: https://judaism.stackexchange.com/a/53351/8775.
Comment: Why do you assume that Rambam writes this? Did you see or hear this quoted somewhere? Clarifying this would improve the post.
Comment: Authenticity is not the right word.  That would mean he thought it was forged or something.  You probably mean accuracy.
Answer: I suppose you are referring to Rambam's introduction to Perek Helek. See the English translation of Abelson on WikiSource:

The first class is, as far as I have seen, the largest in point of their numbers and of the numbers of their compositions; and it is of them that I have heard most. The members of this class adopt the words of the Sages literally, and give no kind of interpretation whatsoever. With them all impossibilities are necessary occurrences. This is owing to their being ignorant of science and far away from knowledge. They do not possess that perfection which would spur them on of their own accord, neither have they found any means for rousing their attention. They think that in all their emphatic and precise remarks the Sages only wished to convey the ideas which they themselves comprehend, and that they intended them to be taken in their literalness. And this, in spite of the fact that in their literal significance some of the words of the Sages would savour of absurdity.
Comment: See also letter of R Avraham son of Rambam included in Ayin Yaakov in the beginning of Zeraim. It deals with the Aggadot and how reliable they are.


How long is a bar?

Question: i have knowledge in reading tonic solfa notation. 4/4, 6/8 etc. I also have knowledge in music and audio production with the use of computer softwares, e.g FL Studios. I wish to know about the length of a bar. And also, about meaaures. thank you...
Answer: The length of a bar isn't measured, musically, in any units like inches or millimetres! And really, musically, not measured in time units like seconds etc.
A bar is a convenient way to split up a tune. Most tunes have a rhythm running through them, which is repetitive. A pattern. We count through, and establish when the pattern repeats. Then we know how a bar must be represented.
Often, we count 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4. So that song is said to be 'in 4'. We then need to decide how to subdivide that bar, and often it's into 4 crotchets. That gives us the bottom number. a little like  fraction - 4/4.
If the count is 1 2 3 1 2 3 then it could be 3/4.
Now to the question - and answer. The speed, or tempo is dictated by how slowly or quickly we had to count 1 2 3 4 etc. These days, it's noted as b.p.m., which is beats per minute. So, at 60 bpm for those 4 crotchets in a bar, one bar will last 4 seconds. At 120bpm, it'll be 2 secs. What we don't do is use a stopwatch to time a bar - unless we're writing for cartoons, films, and so on!
You ask about measures. It's a synonym for bars.
Answer: A bar and a measure refer to the same thing, however, "measure" is used more in American English. The length of a bar depends on the time signature.
For example, if the time signature was 4/4 then the bar would be 4 crotchets (quarter notes) long. However,  if the time signature was 6/8 then the bar would be 6 quavers (eighth notes) long.
The duration of the bar (in terms of time), is given by the bpm, such that the time of a bar is 60 * number of beats in a bar / bpm in seconds. E.g. 100 bpm in 4/4 would be 2.4 seconds per bar.
Addendum: Some musician distinquish a bar as the vertical line found in sheet music and the measure as the segment of time corresponding to a specific number of beats.

How long is a bar?


What issues are there in using Gmail for a corporate email solution?

Question: Some people will feel uncomfortable with having their company email outside their company network. How to allay such fears? What other issues are there in using Google for corporate email? What are the benefits?
Answer: Google has a corporate solution called Google Apps. Your company could consider using that. The paid version of Google Apps has service level guarantees, which could be better than what your internal IT could provide.
As for advantages, Google has better spam filtering than most other email providers, because they have so much mail data they process (through their public Gmail service).
Disclosure: I don't work for Google nor have any relation to them. I do have domains on Google Apps, and I have also worked for places that do.
Comment: Clarification: Google Apps is still hosted @ google
Answer: I have switched our company to Google Apps Enterprise, so I thought I would give some feedback based on an actual switch.  So far, the switchover has been pretty smooth, and practically all user's old email has been able to be uploaded to the Google servers.  Although it is a valid concern that Google could do something that would lose our data, it is much more likely that they will do a much much better job than we on infrastructure maintenance.  About 10% of my users have been grumpy about the switch.  Here are the valid grumpy comments:
1) Google Web Client does not allow the forwarding of multiple emails.
2) Attaching multiple attachments via drag & drop not possible.
3) Having to attach files individually and wait for them to upload is annoying.
4) They are used to folders in Outlook/Mozilla and refuse to abandon folders for the search function.
5) Heavy folder users have a hard time understanding the difference between folders and labels, and the fact that labels are not hierarchical.
6) No drag-and-drop onto labels.
Since an email client can still be used with the accounts, I have helped a small number of users configure their fat clients to connect using IMAP.  In the future, only the web client will be "officially" supported.
Answer: I think you need to think carefully about offloading email to a third party if email is at all important to your business.
My key concerns would be (these apply to any email provider)

How long could you function with no email?
Can you migrate to another email provider
Do you have any legal requirement to keep ALL email for n years (lots of financial businesses do
How would your clients feel about having their emails to you stored on a third party server?
Do people email you sensitive data (health records maybe)?
Could you survive a loss of all your archived emails?

Specific concerns with Google (as of date of posting)

They don't have the best support record
Email isn't their primary business so they could decide to stop providing the service at any time
Comment: +1 for Google not having the best support record. I've heard of some absolute shockers with companies using Google's corporate mail service and receiving little to no support when required to trace mail delivery failures and other similar issues. In fairness, this is second-hand talk, but combined with David's points, it's enough to put me off hosting non-personal mail with Google.
Comment: Use google gears and it works offline.  With Google Apps Enterprise, Postini is included to pull archive copies off the server and provide SOX compliance.  Your support comment is valid if you need to talk to a real person - although we have not had to do that yet.
Comment: These are good points to keep in mind in reference to any hosted mail platform. Once you answer these questions you should then ask yourself an important question. How would your own internal solution compare on those exact same questions? Do you have the resources to build a robust, secure email platform while providing the necessary redundancy? If not, it's likely the hosted solution will be better in all those categories.
Answer: Our company has started looking at using Google Apps. The people in IT & dev can opt-in as beta testers. We've been using Outlook + Exchange (surprize) and the beta users have access to both.
The major benefits to me are the search and storage (it's set at 25GB compare to our Outlook's quota of 400MB...).
Also the keyboard shortcuts are really nice if you prefer using the keyboard (like me)
Some problems we have using Google Apps' mail over Outlook are

Calendar support: It doesn't have a feature to book resources (e.g. rooms)
Directory Service Integration: It doesn't have a concept of groups so setting up filters for mails from a certain group of people become quite cumbersome.

I guess many of the problems above are ok as long as everyone uses Google Apps.
Comment: Google apps does support booking conference rooms - we are currently using this feature.  Unfortunately, the implementation is not real intuitive, but it is there.  (http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=60766)
Comment: Also, the comparison between the 25GB in Google and the 400MB is moot. You can configure Exchange to have 25GB mailboxes, your Exchange admins have just chosen not to.
Answer: We also use Google Apps, and it's a great solution for small businesses who don't want to deal with the availability and maintenance issues of an in-house solution.
However, sometimes the service has been flaky, with unexplicable and "policy" interruptions, sometimes without you noticing until you stop receiving e-mail or somebody else lets you know.
And their support is one of the worst that exists. Still, for us at least, it's worth the money ($0).
We haven't tested the Premier edition, but I hope they better offer a greater level of service than with the free edition.
Answer: Google seems to have had a series of issues where they're either reject mail targeted at mailing lists or, worse, will silently drop such emails on the floor.  This seems to apply both to the for-pay Premier edition and the free Standard edition.
"spam" targeted at a mailing list goes nowhere  - This critical issue means that you should never use Google-Apps "groups" (mailing lists) for anything that might involve email from the general public. There is a hacky workaround, but it doesn't inspire confidence.
Thread1 - known issue, subsequently fixed
Still unexplained delivery failure
Answer: I think the bigger reason is some people dont feel right hosting all of their email somewhere else than inside their own office.
My opinion is that if you could skip the exchange crack and use google apps it could save a company a lot of money.
Comment: What always amuses me is Execs who blow up at the thought of having their E-Mail hosted by a third party, but have no problem at all with all of their sales information being hosted at Salesforce.com.  Is the one really much (or any?) worse than the other?
Comment: If only the executives weren't paranoid about their data.. google apps could save me a lot of time and the company a lot of money
Comment: @Christopher: and the same execs are sometimes fine with constraining the human and financial resources for the internal solution so extremely that you don't have adequate security or backups...but at least it's hosted in house!
Answer: If you do this then it is important to ensure that your ISP has direct peering to Google's network. When you access sites on the Internet, your packets often end up being carried across several different peer networks. You will want to keep that number to a minimum and for most companies, the lowest that you can get is to have only one network (your ISP's) between you and Google. This way, you ensure that the network path is under contract. One contract is with your ISP and one is with Google.
If your ISP doesn't peer with Google, then you should not start using Google Mail in production until you can change ISPs.
Answer: I think one issue is lack of support, there is a post on Joels site that describes losing access to a Google Apps account because of a domain issue.
Don't Ever Use Google Apps for Anything Important
Comment: If you read through the details there, I think the better take away is "always register your domain name yourself, and directly with a registrar".  The problem was less with Google Apps, and more with the registration.
Answer: Is email useful to you when your internet connection is down?
If so, not having the email server on your LAN may be an issue, if most of your staff are in the some office.
Answer: Just be aware that many individuals have full access to gmail. Governments and law enforcement across the world (and some hackers) have access. It's the large number of untrained individuals using the gmail backdoors that make the system vulnerable. You've only heard of the break-ins that have been publicised. Talk to any university about email break-ins using "approved" access. Not a big risk, but gmail is a much bigger target than you will ever be. Many VC investor's won't allow third party systems, whether or not it really makes sense from a security standpoint. Most "hacking" isn't technical, it's lazy administration, bad passwords and social engineering. Gmail is arguably better than you protecting against a disgruntled employee hacking the system.
http://articles.cnn.com/2010-01-23/opinion/schneier.google.hacking_1_chinese-hackers-access-system-google?_s=PM:OPINION


How to get out of the habit of eating junk food?

Question:
What causes habitual eating of junk food?
How can one get out of the habit of eating junk food?
Comment: In its original form the question was "self-help"; I have edited it to make it general and thus hopefully fit the format of this site.
Answer: Paul McKenna would be jumping on this question had it been a self-help question :)
Some of the causes/factors in habitual eating and strategies to combat habitual eating are described below.
Causes and factors of habitual eating

Excessive hunger may precipitate an episode of binge eating compared to average hunger levels (Haedt-Matt & Keel, 2011).
Negative moods, an immediate break-down of emotion and impulse regulation attempts can contribute to episodes of binge eating in Binge Eating Disorders (BED) (Munsch et al., 2012). Binge-eating behaviours can thus arise from negative moods as a substitution for positive strategies to alleviate those negative moods.
Depressive symptoms can predict the onset of overeacting and binge eating (Skinner et al., 2012). Similar to point two, these behaviours are a form of maladaptive coping mechanisms against negative affects.

Strategies to combat habitual eating

Cognitive Restructuring (CR) - Cognitive restructuring involves a problem-solving methodology where an individual identifies the maladaptive cognitions that are causing the unhelpful behaviour (Moffitt et al., 2012). This consists of rationalising and challenging disruptive thoughts that can cause the specific craving or binge eating behaviour. Moreover, it can involve the process of the replacement or modification of those disruptive thoughts into more healthy, positive thoughts.
Cognitive Defusion (CD) - Defusion from thoughts about food can improve the probability of distancing oneself from the temptation of food cravings (Moffitt et al., 2012). This involves acceptance (not passive resignation) of cravings and temptation of binge eating and build the experiential willingness to be open to these thoughts and temptations. For example, defusion would involve observing the thought associated with the craving - 'I notice I'm having the thought that I need to eat some chocolate' compared to a seemingly factual statement like 'I need to eat some chocolate'. The individual acknowledges the thought, thanks themselves and lets the thought dissipate in time.

References

Haedt-Matt, A.A. & Keel, P.K. (2011). Hunger and Binge Eating: A meta-analysis of studies using ecological momentary assessment. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 44(7), 573-578
Munsch, S., Meyer, A.H., Quartier, V. & Wilhelm, F.H. (2012). Binge eating in binge eating disorder: A breakdown of emotion regulatory process? Psychiatry Research, 195, 118-124
Skinner, H.H., Haines, J., Austin, S.B. & Field, A.E. (2011). A prospective study of overeating, binge eating, and depressive symptoms among adolescent and young adult women.
Journal of Adolescent Health, 50, 478-483
Moffitt, R., Brinkworth, G., Noakes, M. & Mohr, P. (2012). A comparison of cognitive restructuring and cognitive defusion as strategies for resisting a craved food. Psychology & Health, 27(2), 74-90


Recurrent neural network multiple types of input Keras

Question: For a project I want to use recurrent neural networks, however my knowledge on this subject is still somewhat limited. I do have some experience with convolutional nets and traditional neural networks. I need to predict a probability distribution over one of the inputs of the next step. Most of my sequences are relatively short, with some big outliers in there. There is more than enough data so that should not be an issue.
I'm using Keras for this task, using either LSTM or GRU layers.
My input exists of sequences of categorical input $x_A$, $x_B$ and a few numerical values $x_1$ to $x_{11}$. I'm trrying to predict $x_A$ of the last step that is not trained on. For the high cardinality categorical features I'm using an embedding layer to map them to a dense space and then merge the three different types of input into one layer. My issue is merging them together before going to the softmax layer to do the one-hot encoding prediction of the last step. I cannot seem to get the inputs to match. I pad the shorter sequences to 10 steps plus the label and truncate the longer sequences cutting off the start. I've attempted both the Graph and the Sequential interface.
<code>def build_graph_model(n_A, n_B, max_length, batch_size):
    g = Graph()
    g.add_input(name='A', input_shape=(max_length, ), dtype='int')
    g.add_node(Embedding(n_A, 32, input_length=max_length, mask_zero=True), name='embedding_A', input='A')
    g.add_input(name='B', input_shape=(max_length, ), dtype='int')
    g.add_node(Embedding(n_B, 32, input_length=max_length, mask_zero=True), name='embedding_B', input='B')
    g.add_input(name='rest', input_shape=(max_length, 11))
    g.add_node(Dense(30, activation='relu'), name='rest_dense', input='rest')
    g.add_node(LSTM(100), name='lstm', inputs=['embedding_A', 'embedding_B', 'rest_dense'])
    g.add_node(Dense(n_dest, activation='softmax'), name='softm', input='lstm')
    g.add_output(name='output', input='softm')
    g.compile(loss='categorical_crossentropy', optimizer='adam', metrics=['accuracy'])
</code>
This gives an assertion error for having the wrong input dimensions. If I remove the $x_1$ to $x_11$ thing completely it works. If I change the Dense layer into TimeDistributed(Dense) I still get the same error although I think that should work. Inserting the rest input directly into the merge doesn't work because the merge cannot be the first layer. I'm uncertain how to fix this issue.
EDIT: This guy asks the same question but much more concise (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/keras-users/zCuS4xdv5QY)
Comment: You may want to use the Keras functional API(https://keras.io/getting-started/functional-api-guide/#multi-input-and-multi-output-models) to build such a network!
Answer: Kera's functional API allows arbitrary models to be combined like you are describing.
One option is to define a model very similar to the documentation linked above. First, define a "main input" that is categorical, and then, define an "auxiliary input" that is numerical. Both of these sub-models can be merged into a single network with additional layers.


How many letters should be typed in "guessing" ajax search before first suggestion?

Question: When searching with ajax based suggesting field, how many letters should be typed before it starts to suggest results?
1,2,3..
Answer: Secondary rank
If you have another factor that can rank the results (e.g. "popularity", "kuakeli rank"):

start with the first letter
limit results by second rank, by picking the TOP N

(roughly: SELECT TOP 10 FROM Stuff WHERE Name LIKE "x*" ORDER BY Rank)
If you don't have that rank, you could still start after the first letter, but results aren't as useful. Still, there's no usability reason to start with a sorted list:
SELECT TOP 10 FROM Stuff WHERE Name LIKE "x*" ORDER BY Name
Performance reasons
Thee are a few traditional reasons for delaying the query:

Part of your query runs synchronous, and you have to limit UI blocking
You have to limit traffic / hits to the search provider

This is typically achieved by starting search if no key was pressed for the last few hundred milliseconds, or starting only after a minimum string length.

There's one case left (that I can think of) where starting after the N th key might improve usability: Misleading matches.  If your search pool contains elements like this:
SDBXXFDR 1722 Lengthy
SDBXXFDR 1723 Still Lengthy
...
SDBXXFDR 1799 Short
SOBXXFDR 1972 Lengthy with ripples

And you just type "S", the "SD" results may hide the SO one, the chance of pickign the wrong one is rather high. However, that sems very constructed, and I'm not sure if incremental search is a good solution at all if this would be a problem.
Comment: Great answer, I just want to add that performance issues can be solved by delaying search for about 0.5 sec after keypress, so if user is typing smth, intermediate request will not be sent to server until he stops typing.
Comment: @Nikita - thanks, I actually edited that out before the initial submit. I've added it again :)
Comment: Really good, thank you. How about getting the results. Should the search look inside words or just the beginning of the word. fx. if search phrase is "sic" should it result fx. "basic" or just words beginning with "sic"?
Comment: My recent conclusions: How well they match could be (or go into) the secondary rank - e.g. just list the "starts with *sic*" results first, then those just containing *sic*.
Answer: An autocomplete functionality is most optimally backed by a structure called a Trie.
Using a trie, you would'nt even have to set a lower limit on characters.
Lookup is performed in O(n) where n is length of the query text and is independent (mostly) of the number of search items that are in your database.
Please take a look at a node.js based trie implementation that I did - MyTriePOC.
From a user experience perspective, if you are really setting a lower limit, best practice is to provide a tooltip to instruct the user to keep typing more characters for best results.


Smart contract Signing agent

Question: Can a database act as the signing agent for a stellar smart contract? I.e. the sender or receiver of payment requests to query the database and if certain conditions are met in the database, the agreed upon funds are transferred?.
Answer: Yes that is easily possible, for ease of coding, you can even refer your favorite SDK :)
Stellar is available in all coding platforms(officially and unofficially) that you can think of :-
Official SDK are available here
https://www.stellar.org/developers/reference/
Answer: yes this is possible. I'm working on different smart contract solutions to be provided as services. See e.g. https://smartstellar.org for a beta version on timed transactions.

Smart contract Signing agent