How widespread is the infection in The Walking Dead?

Question: In The Walking Dead we see thousands of walkers. Is the infection that causes this just in Atlanta, all of America, or is it the whole world?  I feel like they don't make that clear in the show or the comics.
Comment: There's an entire show set in California, and they make specific mention of many US cities being overrun.
Comment: We know it is at least the whole US as the group travels from Atlanta to DC and part of group came from Texas.
Comment: @Kate_walsh24 Welcome to SFF by the way. Have fun!
Comment: You can improve this by adding a more descriptive title question
Comment: Ok sounds good thanks!  And thx for fixing my question haha I'm an idiot sometimes.
Comment: @phantom42. Ok. That's kinda scary.  Thanks!
Comment: @skooba. Thanks!  I'm enjoying it so far.
Comment: You can probably upvote now.
Comment: Good question. I linked it here: [What states besides Japan have a/the Sibyl System?](https://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/28440/what-states-besides-japan-have-a-the-sibyl-system)
Answer: The show
On the show, we know that the infection has spread as far as Europe, with a heavy implication that it is worldwide (which is probably the case anyway by the same reasoning as the comics). From "TS-19" (1x06):

JENNER: It was the French. [...] They were the last ones to hold out as far as
  I know. While our people were bolting out the doors and committing
  suicide in the hallways, they stayed in the labs till the end.

The creator has said that future shows set on other continents are possible, lending further credence to the idea that the plague of walkers is worldwide:

When asked whether we might see more companion shows set on other
  continents like Europe or Asia, Kirkman demurred, "If I did [know of
  plans for that], I certainly couldn't say that here," he teased. "But
  the success of 'Fear' shows that there's certainly some appetite for
  that."

The comics
In the comics, there is not definitive proof of what is happening in the rest of the world. Indeed, the comic's creator is on record as saying that he purposely is trying to leave out information about the scope of the epidemic:

"I probably would have changed that stuff," he says. "I've been
  careful in the comic series to not say what's happening in other parts
  of the world. It's something that's going to be fun to explore in the
  spinoff series. But the fact that France is mentioned in that episode
  and other things like that, I probably would have steered away from
  that stuff if I had to do it all over again."

However, there is good reason to suspect a worldwide epidemic in the comics.
Over the course of the series, the characters notice no:

Foreign countries sending aid to survivors
Planes flying over that would indicate air travel has survived.
Radio broadcasts received from foreign networks.

and perhaps most important

massive international military efforts to destroy all the walkers.

It is very possible that the ocean is not an effective long-term barrier to walkers, if they could travel across the bottom or float, which makes the survival of other countries even less likely.
Comment: from what I heard about the new fear the walking dead season there ARE floating walkers around.
Comment: @Thomas - Yeah, I'm just on mobile and couldn't find a reference.
Comment: Ok. I will rewatch TS-19 then. Sounds good thanks. Damn even the though of living in a world of walkers is just scary. Props to the cast
Answer: The Walking Dead plays a few months AFTER the infection started. There is a prelude series called "Fear the Walking Dead" where it is shown that the infection started slow, but managed to spread so fast that within days entire cities and the entire US was more or less overrun. It is indicated a few times in both shows that it is NOT a US only phenomenon but world wide, but as far as I know it is never stated explicitly.
Comment: Oh ok thank. I though about starting fear the waking dead. Is it any good
Comment: Lets say it so its different. I found it at times a bit too much rushed as the infection spread strangely in terms of how fast and how far .....it began slowly and then suddenly almost every 10th infected ,..  and people just outright ignoring someone getting killed beside them. Generally I find it thus weaker than walking dead but still good.
Comment: So it wasn't good then. I want to watch but I have heard to many bad reviews so I'm still thinking about it.
Comment: ' It is indicated a few times in both shows that it is NOT a US only phenomenon but world wide' --> examples please?
Answer: Update:
More places that have been stated or implied to be overrun:
Cynthiana, Kentucky (Rick's hometown in the comics)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Dave and Tony met each other fleeing Philadelphia)

Dave: We met on I-95 coming out of Philly.
Tony: Damn shit-show that was.
  -  The Walking Dead, S2E8, Nebraska

New York, New York (Philadelphia is only 75 miles from NYC, so if New York was safe, we can assume Dave and Tony would have headed there instead of Georgia, which is 700 miles from Philadelphia)
Jacksonville, Florida (Tyreese's hometown)
Dallas, Texas (Rosita's hometown)
Houston, Texas (Abraham's hometown)
Columbus, Ohio (Deanna's hometown - she says she was congresswoman for the 15th congressional district of Ohio, which is Columbus and environs)
Savannah, Georgia (video games)
Barcelona, Spain (setting of the one-off comic, The Walking Dead:  The Alien)
Fort Lauderdale, Florida (hometown of Kenny in the video games)
Wellington, Ohio (in the video games)
Las Vegas, Nevada (where Christa and Omid from the video game were when the outbreak began)
San Francisco, California (Christa and Omid's hometown)
North Carolina (video games)
Tennessee (video games)
Maryland (video games)
Western Virginia (video games)
Macon, Georgia (video games and television show)
However, it is pretty clear that the infection has spread worldwide.  That is the only way to explain Jenner's statement here:

Dr. Jenner: There is no hope. There never was.
Rick: There's always hope. Maybe it won't be you, maybe not here, but somebody somewhere...
Andrea: What part of "everything is gone" do you not understand?
Dr. Jenner: Listen to your friend. She gets it. This is what takes us down. This is our extinction event.
  - The Walking Dead, S1E6, TS-19

If the epidemic was limited to the US, or the US and Europe, or the US, Mexico, Canada, and Europe, it would be terrible, but it wouldn't make an epidemiologist say that the human race would soon be extinct.  Jenner would only call the outbreak an "extinction event" if the whole world was being consumed.

Google Map of all places that are said or implied to be infected

Comics:
All we know is that everything from Georgia to Washington is gone, and although it hasn't been dealt with at any length, the clear assumption on the part of the characters is that the crisis is so widespread that they couldn't possibly get to a place that wasn't infested with zombies.

Atlanta

Washington, DC
However, it is telling that in the time that has elapsed over the course of the series - at least 3-4 years - there have been no signs of life on any continent.  Not a single airplane has flown overhead - and if the outbreak were limited to North America, one would expect that other countries would continue flying planes, even if it were just surveillance flights monitoring the outbreak.
And issue #10's publicity blurb read:

After the ordeal Rick has endured last issue, he sets out to find safer shelter. More is learned about the zombies that now out-number us 5000 to 1, but when it comes to some things, it's better not to know. Rick begins to wonder if there is a light at the end of the tunnel his life has become. Even if there is, how can he ever expect to make it there?
  -  Image Comics

Whether "us" means "American humans" or "humans" is up for debate, but I suspect the latter.

Shows:
The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead share the same universe and (roughly) the same timeline;  Fear the Walking Dead:  Flight 462 was a miniseries that led into FTWD.
The Walking Dead:
In the first season's finale, TS-19, Dr. Jenner at the CDC reveals that Europe is gone:

Jenner:  It was the French.
Andrea:  What?
Jenner:   They were the last ones to hold out as far as I know. While our people were bolting out the doors and committing suicide in the hallways, they stayed in the labs till the end. They thought they were close to a solution.
Jacqui:  What happened?
Jenner:  The same thing that's happening here. No power grid. Ran out of juice.

Fear the Walking Dead and Flight 462:
Flight 462 attempts to land in Phoenix, Arizona:

Gone.
The protagonists of FTWD start out in Los Angeles:

Gone.
Then they get on a boat and head for San Diego:

Travis:  Nick found a logbook on that boat. We got a problem. San Diego's dead.
Madison:  How bad?
Travis:  It's gone.
Madison:  What? Wait, wait, wait.
Daniel: What do you mean gone?
Travis:  It's burned. The military burned it down. According to this, the Leigh Anne just came from the south right there.

Gone.
They reach an island off the coast, called Catalina:

Gone.
The ranger at Catalina has some bad news:

George: You folks are from Los Angeles. You got that air about you.
Travis: We left when they started bombing.
George: Napalm. It's what they're using up and down the coast. I've been checking in with some of the other ranger stations.
Travis: It's in every city?
George: As far as I can tell. Portland, Seattle, Vancouver.
Travis: And south?
George: San Diego was burned.
Travis: (sighs) Further south?
George: They shut down the border. No way in or out.
Travis: Oh, God. So what's left?
George: Not a hell of a lot. Interior is no better than the coast. Last time I connected to Joshua Tree, ranger said Petrified Forest, gone. JT shut down soon after. That's Cali, that's Arizona. Zion went dark before them. Utah gone. Rocky Mountain station is dead. That's Colorado. That's the Continental Divide. That's a good goddamn half the country.
  - Fear the Walking Dead, S2E2, We All Fall Down

Everything west of the Rocky Mountains, from Canada to the US/Mexico border:
Gone.
The protagonists get to Mexico:

Gone.

Cities, states, provinces, and countries said or implied to be infected:

Atlanta, Georgia
Basically, everywhere else in Georgia
Philadelphia, PA
New York, NY
Washington, DC
Richmond, VA
Blue Mountains, VA
Alexandria, VA
Basically, the rest of Virginia
Maryland
Parker's Crossroads, Tennessee
The rest of Tennessee
North Carolina
Dallas, TX
Houston, TX
Fort Lauderdale, FL
Jacksonville, FL
Cynthiana, KY
Las Vegas, NV
Columbus, OH
Wellington, OH
Los Angeles, CA
San Francisco, CA
San Diego, CA
Joshua Tree, CA
Catalina Island, CA
The rest of California
Zion National Park, Utah
The rest of Utah
Rocky Mountain National Park, CO
The rest of Colorado
Petrified Forest, AZ
Phoenix, AZ
The rest of Arizona
Portland, OR
Seattle, WA
The rest of the US
Baja, Mexico
Vancouver, BC, Canada
France
Barcelona, Spain

Conclusion:
The shows make it explicitly clear that the outbreak spreads far beyond the shows' locations - at the very least, the entire US, and at least parts of Mexico, Canada, and Europe, are gone.  It is extremely likely, however, that the entire world has been consumed.
The comics have revealed less, but there is absolutely no reason to believe that there are any unaffected places left in the world.
In no Walking Dead media has there ever been any indication - airplanes, radio transmissions, etc. - that any continent, country, state, province, county, or city is any better off than the locations we have actually seen.  By all appearances, the entire world is gone.
Comment: Trying to get my answer unaccepted? ;)
Comment: Good answer. One point though, in the TV series planes have flown overhead on at least one occasion, I'm sure the herd that overran Herschel's farm in season 2 was shown to have started off by following some planes that had flown overhead.
Comment: @Nathan - That was a [helicopter](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beside_the_Dying_Fire).
Comment: I stand corrected, it was a helicopter - but it didn't crash. You might be confusing it with the helicopter crash from season 3?
Comment: @Nathan - That's why I edited my comment  :)
Comment: Wow thank!@WadCheber. Love TWD!
Answer: In Season 3, Episode 8 of "Fear The Walking Dead", Victor strand finds the Abigail run aground. The short wave radio picks up a signal from a survivor. The survivor happens to be a cosmonaut.  The cosmonaut states "I watched the world go dark".
Its unlikely the infection could remain on only one continent.


How to do frame by frame animation in android using open gl es

Question: I have application in some part i am using AndroidDrawable for animation but it giving  jerking effect that why i planed to  change the code to Open Gl ES for better performance .so far i have googled a lot but did not got any good example .anybody has any idea????
Comment: What did you use to do your animation effect now? Show your animating code.
Comment: I have added my images in animationdrwable and its giving me jerking effect.
Comment: Are you using an engine?
Comment: Noi am not using any Engine be i am using animation drawable for that i dont think any library is required...and i have also lesss knowledge how  to start with open in android..
Comment: The way to achieve animation using OpenGL ES is to use a quad with a texture mapped to it. Then change the texture to use for the quad at some set interval to the next frame of the animation. You will of course need to take care of looping and sequence order yourself.
Comment: @free3dom how to do it can you put on some working examples or link so that it would easy for me...
Answer: First you'll need to be able to setup OpenGL ES for 2D rendering. Have a look at this answer on SO for some basic introductory info on how to setup and get a texture loaded and ready for 2D rendering.
Once you have that going it is a simple matter of changing the bound texture at some interval. First, you will need some class members (globals):
// these are globals (class members)
double time = System.nanoTime();   // time value (initialize it)
float frameTime = 0;               // frame animation time
int frames[10];                    // 10 animation frames
int currentFrame = 0;              // active frame

Next, you should load the animation frames as textures during startup, or when you need them (see the answer above for details).
The final piece of the puzzle would happen in onDraw each frame. Something like this:
// calculate the elapsed time, and update timer
float elapsedTime = ( System.nanoTime() - time ) / 1000000000.0f;
time = System.nanoTime();

// now you can use the elapsed time to determine when to switch frames
frameTime += time;             // count frame time
if ( frameTime >= 0.06f )  {   // if 1/60th of a second passed (for 60fps)
   frame++;                    // step to next frame
   if ( frame > 9 )            // if end of sequence
      frame = 0;               // restart sequence
}

// now you just bind the current "frame" as the texture
gl.glBindTexture( GL10.GL_TEXTURE_2D, frames[currFrame] );

This is a very basic example of what you need to do. Of course, there are many different (and even better) ways of doing this but this should get you started in the right direction.
One very important thing you might want to investigate (instead of using this method) is using a texture atlas (where multiple frames are placed on the same texture) and instead of switching the bound texture each update, you simply switch the texture coordinates. This is especially essential if you will have many animated sprites onscreen at once, so as not to kill your framerate :) Here is a very basic example.


Is it ok to ask the same question on multiple StackExchange sites?

Question: I have a question I think is on topic both here and on another SE site. Can I ask the question on both sites, or is this bad form? Should I link the two questions together if I ask them on both sites? If so, how?
Answer: Yes, this is bad form. If it can be asked on two different sites, chances are it's not a focused enough question. I suggest going into chat and seeing if maybe anyone in there can help you ask a more specific question that would be on topic either here or on the other site you're considering.
Comment: Wait, what about questions in the murky overlap gray area? I've had questions on Writers where I've been explicitly invited to cross-post on English Language & Usage. When did this become "bad form"?
Comment: In those cases, @LaurenIpsum, I believe the question's focus could be tailored to better address that site's audience. But generally, it's not encouraged. There are always going to be exceptions to the rule! :)
Answer: As Aarthi mentions, yes.
However, if you think the two alternative approaches are different enough (for example, GD: "What's a good alternative to Myriad" vs SO: "How can I add Myriad font family as a @font-face") then it might be alright. Not the exact same question, though :)
Answer: I think there are plenty of questions that fit in multiple sites. One example is Photoshop Scripting. It is Javascript, but also Photoshop specific. Does that live in the Graphic Design site or Stack Overflow? There is also a photography site on Stack that has a lot of Photoshop related questions.
Ultimately, there should be a way to tag questions for multiple sites at a time, the same way you add multiple tags. I'm not saying to allow people to "push every button on the elevator", but if several sites have an established 'Photoshop' tag, you should be able to assign it, regardless of which SE site you are using. Naturally the community will police anything off topic per site anyway.


Are the 16 stages of Insight mentioned by the Buddha in the early Pali texts or are they a later addition to the Dharma?

Question: I am reading Practical Insight Meditation: Basic and progressive stages by Mahasi Sayadaw. In the book he elaborates on the 16 stages of insight meditation as a kind of road map of what to expect. I was wondering if these stages are part of the Theravada tradition or an integral part of the Dharma canon.
Answer: The Seven Stages of Purification are summarised in the Visuddhimagga (The Path of Purification), a 5th century Theravada text (about 800 years after the Buddha lived).

the seven visuddhis come from the Ratha-vinita Sutta (MN 24), and the sixteen stages of knowledge are found in the Patisambhidamagga. –  yuttadhammo
This comparison between practice and "seven relay chariots" points at the goal. Each purity is needed to attain the next. They are often referred to as the "Seven Stages of Purification" (satta-visuddhi):[3]

<code>Purification of Conduct (sīla-visuddhi)
Purification of Mind (citta-visuddhi)
Purification of View (ditthi-visuddhi)
Purification by Overcoming Doubt (kankha-vitarana-visuddhi)
Purification by Knowledge and Vision of What Is Path and Not Path (maggamagga-ñanadassana-visuddhi)
Purification by Knowledge and Vision of the Course of Practice (patipada-ñanadassana-visuddhi)
    Knowledge of contemplation of rise and fall (udayabbayanupassana-nana)
    Knowledge of contemplation of dissolution (bhanganupassana-nana)
    Knowledge of appearance as terror (bhayatupatthana-nana)
    Knowledge of contemplation of danger (adinavanupassana-nana)
    Knowledge of contemplation of dispassion (nibbidanupassana-nana)
    Knowledge of desire for deliverance (muncitukamyata-nana)
    Knowledge of contemplation of reflection (patisankhanupassana-nana)
    Knowledge of equanimity about formations (sankharupekka-nana)
    Conformity knowledge (anuloma-nana)
Purification by Knowledge and Vision (ñanadassana-visuddhi)
    Change of lineage
    The first path and fruit
    The second path and fruit
    The third path and fruit
    The fourth path and fruit
</code>

The "Purification by Knowledge and Vision" is the culmination of the practice, in four stages leading to liberation and Nirvana.
The emphasis in this system is on understanding the three marks of existence, dukkha, anatta, anicca. This emphasis is recognizable in the value that is given to vipassana over samatha, especially in the contemporary vipassana movement.
Comment: @Devindra - see note 2 [Mahasi Sayadaw;The progress of insight](http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/mahasi/progress.html#notes)
Comment: Are you stating that the Visuddhimagga is an early text? AFAIK, it is a later addition to the canon, though it is now very popular, it is not without a lot of controversy.
Answer: The earliest source for the enumeration of sixteen stages of knowledge that I know of is the Paṭisambhidāmagga, a treatise ascribed to Sāriputta, included in the Myanmar version of the Khuddaka Nikāya. So yeah, pretty standard Theravada.
Discussion of the knowledges is found throughout the commentaries and makes up most of the section on wisdom in the Visuddhimagga. They are also enumerated in the Abhidhammattha-Sangaha, a famous summary of the Abhidhamma.
Reference to each of the knowledges can be found in the Buddha's words, for example:

udayabbaya-ñāṇa:

yo ca vassasataṃ jīve, apassaṃ udayabbayaṃ.
  ekāhaṃ jīvitaṃ seyyo, passato udayabbayaṃ.
"And better than a hundred years lived without seeing arising & passing away, is one day lived seeing arising & passing away."
-- Dhp. 113

ādīnava-ñāṇa:

"katamā cānanda, ādīnavasaññā? idhānanda, bhikkhu araññagato vā rukkhamūlagato vā suññāgāragato vā iti paṭisañcikkhati — 'bahudukkho kho ayaṃ kāyo bahuādīnavo? iti imasmiṃ kāye vividhā ābādhā uppajjanti, seyyathidaṃ — cakkhurogo sotarogo ghānarogo jivhārogo kāyarogo sīsarogo kaṇṇarogo mukharogo dantarogo oṭṭharogo kāso sāso pināso ḍāho jaro kucchirogo mucchā pakkhandikā sūlā visūcikā kuṭṭhaṃ gaṇḍo kilāso soso apamāro daddu kaṇḍu kacchu nakhasā vitacchikā lohitaṃ pittaṃ madhumeho aṃsā piḷakā bhagandalā pittasamuṭṭhānā ābādhā semhasamuṭṭhānā ābādhā vātasamuṭṭhānā ābādhā sannipātikā ābādhā utupariṇāmajā ābādhā visamaparihārajā ābādhā opakkamikā ābādhā kammavipākajā ābādhā sītaṃ uṇhaṃ jighacchā pipāsā uccāro passāvo'ti. iti imasmiṃ kāye ādīnavānupassī viharati. ayaṃ vuccatānanda, ādīnavasaññā.
"What, Ananda, is contemplation of disadvantage (danger)? Herein, Ananda, a monk having gone to the forest, or to the foot of a tree, or to a lonely place, contemplates thus: 'Many are the sufferings, many are the disadvantages (dangers) of this body since diverse diseases are engendered in this body, such as the following: Eye-disease, ear-disease, nose-disease, tongue-disease, body-disease, headache, mumps, mouth-disease, tooth-ache, cough, asthma, catarrh, heart-burn, fever, stomach ailment, fainting, dysentry, swelling, gripes, leprosy, boils, scrofula, consumption, epilepsy, ringworm, itch, eruption, tetter, pustule, plethora, diabetes, piles, cancer, fistula, and diseases originating from bile, from phlegm, from wind, from conflict of the humors, from changes of weather, from adverse condition (faulty deportment), from devices (practiced by others), from kamma-vipaka (results of kamma); and cold, heat, hunger, thirst, excrement, and urine.' Thus he dwells contemplating disadvantage (danger) in this body. This Ananda, is called contemplation of disadvantage (danger).
-- AN 10.60 (Piyadassi, trans.)

nibbidā-ñāṇa:

"sabbe saṅkhārā aniccā""ti, yadā paññāya passati.
  atha nibbindati dukkhe, esa maggo visuddhiyā.
"'All formations are impermanent' —  When one sees thus with wisdom, one becomes disenchanted in regards to dukkha. This is the path to purity."
-- Dhp 277
Comment: Translations would be most welcome!
Comment: Epilepsy, diabetes and cancer?
Comment: "So yeah"... maybe giving five, next time meeting...
Answer: I believe they are later addition.  I have never come across any sutta or Buddha-Wajana about the 16 stages of insight.  Let me know if you saw one.
Answer: I believe in Dasuttara Sutta in Dīghanikāya, while discussing Nines, Buddha lists 9 Visuddhis, not just 7, as are explained in Vusiddhimaggo. The nine are:
1. Sīlavisuddhi
2. Cittavisuddhi
3. Ditthīvisuddhi
4. Kankhavitarana Visuddhi
5. Maggāmagga Ñanadassana Visuddhi
6. Patipadā Ñanadassana Visuddhi
7. Ñanadassana Visuddhi
8. Pañña Visuddhi
9. Vimutti Visuddhi
I hope that makes it clear that Visuddhis are not later additions then.
Metta...
Comment: 'Visuddhi' means 'purification'. DN 34 refers to 9 purifications rather than 9 insights. "The nine factors in wrestling for utter purity, to wit, the purification of morals, of the mind, of views, the purification of escaping from doubt, that of intuition and insight into what is the [genuine] path, and what is not, that of intuition and insight into progress, the purification which is intuition and insight, that which is understanding, that which is emancipation." Regards
Comment: Katame nava dhammā bhāvetabbā? Nava pārisuddhipadhāniyaṅgāni—sīlavisuddhi pārisuddhipadhāniyaṅgaṃpārisuddhi, cittavisuddhi pārisuddhipadhāniyaṅgaṃ, diṭṭhivisuddhi pārisuddhipadhāniyaṅgaṃ, kaṅkhāvitaraṇavisuddhi pārisuddhipadhāniyaṅgaṃ, maggāmaggañāṇadassanavisuddhi pārisuddhipadhāniyaṅgaṃ, paṭipadāñāṇadassanavisuddhi pārisuddhipadhāniyaṅgaṃ, ñāṇadassanavisuddhi pārisuddhipadhāniyaṅgaṃ, paññāvisuddhi pārisuddhipadhāniyaṅgaṃ, vimuttivisuddhi pārisuddhipadhāniyaṅgaṃ. Ime nava dhammā bhāvetabbā.
Answer: There are lists of knowledges in several texts; patisambhidamagga, sarvastivadin abhidhamma, vimuttimagga, visuddhimagga, abhidhamma commentary.
Of these only the patisambhidamagga is theravadin canon.
However these lists are generally not the same as to the number of items and the knowledges themselves. Only the sarvastivadin abhidhamma and vimuttimagga have the same list iirc.
Afaik the commentaries do not attempt to show how these are inferred from the teachings known as true.
This is one of the various problems with the manual of insight when compared to the Sutta.


Are there regularly spaced connections between caudate nucleus and putamen?

Question: There are a number of images on the Web, most beautifully Visible Body's artwork, which show the caudate nucleus and putamen linked by regularly spaced connections across the barrier of the internal capsule.  Since vertebrate forebrains are treated as having only a few segments (see Michael Carstens, 2017), which seem tough to relate to the C-shape of deep cerebral structures, there is something about such figures that piques curiosity.  In a paper like Heide Hörtnagl et al., 2020 the situation seems less clear to me, but they weren't really focusing on this issue.  Is there a regular/regulated spacing between the connecting bundles, and does it correlate with any other observable anatomical regularity?
Comment: "vertebrate forebrains are treated as having only a few segments" - I think you may be overextrapolating from early developmental models (especially those making cross-species/evolutionary comparisons). In any event, that structure wouldn't have any relationship to the pattern I think you're asking about.
Answer: These seem to be referred to in literature as "transcapsular" or "caudolenticular" (gray) bridges. My initial thought was that the picture you shared is just some weird artistic rendering but upon seeing histological slides these are quite prominent and familiar to me as part of the basic "look" of these structures in histology. You can see them in any coronal slice through this area, this atlas, "Cross-Sectional Atlas of the Human Head" by JS Park has them labeled though often they are not labeled.

(left image from JS Park; annotations on the right image are mine. There are many more "bridges" than I've drawn but I highlighted the most prominent to compare on the left side. Probably those deeper in the section relative to the camera are showing up a bit faint or blurred. This is also just one histological section, the bridges are found throughout the length of the area where caudate and putamen are located, at least a couple cm)
There may be other terminology, as well, but I'm having trouble finding it.
I see no reason or foundation on which to connect these to any sort of segmentation of the developing vertebrate forebrain. Since resources are sparse it seems difficult to find a reference, but my thought is that this is just an emergent pattern you get as different fiber pathways cross one another, like how your fingers look when you fold your hands together.
Some other references:
Mendoza, J. E., & Foundas, A. L. (2008). The Basal Ganglia. In Clinical Neuroanatomy: A Neurobehavioral Approach (pp. 153-193). Springer, New York, NY.
Nieuwenhuys, R., Voogd, J., & Van Huijzen, C. (2008). Brain slices. The Human Central Nervous System, 137-173.
Comment: @MikeSerfas In the limited experience I have with anatomy of individual human brains (albeit focused on cortex) I have to say I'm amazed by just how much variability there is. I can't see these structures as having consistent structure but don't have a source to prove that either, only a strong suspicion that if they *did* have a regulated structure it would be remarkable and highly discussed. I would say though that the artist picture you show vastly underrepresents the *number* which may be why they appear so orderly.
Comment: @MikeSerfas I added a picture of one of the slides I referenced. I think you'll appreciate that they are quite diffuse and scattered, not nearly as orderly as that cartoon suggests, nor are they found in a plane like it appears there.
Comment: Oh!  I *have* seen those in images, but based on the artist's drawing I was expecting larger, rarer connections.  Now I see what you mean.
Comment: Thank you for a great answer!  Though perhaps I should have asked a better question...  I don't have ready access to these resources - can you tell from the sections you see whether the number and positioning of the bridges is *consistent* between individuals, as you'd expect from a regulated structure, or does the number and position vary more randomly as you'd expect from something emergent but unregulated?  Thanks again.
Comment: @MikeSerfas Yeah that was exactly my thought too - went from something I hadn't heard of to seeing a picture and realizing I recognized that from any coronal section of the the caudate I'm quite familiar with the look. I don't know for sure but I'm guessing it's that those fibers are unmyelinated/less myelinated than the rest of the fibers.
Comment: @Bryan Krause
Are these caudolenticular bridges not gray matter structures? So, they're not myelinated.
Comment: @Akila Not myelinated or at least less myelinated/lower total fat content than the white matter they interleave with.


How is pain induced by blunt and sharp objects?

Question: Normally, when something touch you, you won't feel pain. With a great force "touching" you, you will feel pain. However, if something that is spiky makes contact with you, you will feel pain. So, how much force should be exerted by a smooth/blunt object to make you feel pain? When and how does a spiky object make you feel pain?
Answer: It is a simple matter of biology and physics actually:
Firstly, pain is caused by the simulation of cutaneous nociceptors in the body, beneath the skin and are activated when the sensation crosses a threshold.

Nociception (also nocioception or nociperception) is the encoding and processing of harmful stimuli in the nervous system,[1] and, therefore, the ability of a body to sense potential harm. It is the afferent activity in the peripheral and central nervous systems produced by stimulation of specialized free nerve endings called nociceptors or "pain receptors" that only respond to tissue damage caused by intense chemical (e.g., chilli powder in the eyes), mechanical (e.g., pinching, crushing) or thermal (heat and cold) stimulation.[2][3] Once stimulated, a nociceptor sends a signal along a chain of nerve fibers via the spinal cord to the brain. Nociception triggers a variety of autonomic responses and may also result in a subjective experience of pain in sentient beings.[3] Nociceptive neurons generate trains of action potentials in response to intense stimuli, and the frequency of firing determines the intensity of the pain.[4]

From the wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nociception
Now when you consider a knife, the surface area of the knife is small enough that it can cause damage. It's akin to holding a plastic sheet stretched tight and then piercing the sheet with the point of a knife. That is because the force is being transferred on a small point and hence easily extends the pain threshold.
However, when you consider a hammer, when the hammer touches you (lightly) you don't feel the pain because the force is spread over the larger surface area of the hammer and hence doesn't meet the threshold. However, if you hammer your finger in with force, the force being transferred is enough to shatter your bones, and in that case not only the cutaneous pain receptors activate, but the somatic receptors also activate, causing the feeling of pain.
TLDR: Knife has short surface area, and hence force transfer is over a small area, subsequently causing hurt. A hammer has a larger surface area, and hence unless more force is applied, the pain receptor threshold is not met and hence no pain.


Not Getting Internet On Wi-Fi Network

Question: When I connect my phone to Network-A, it gets internet just fine. But when I connect it to Network-B, I don't get internet from it. The strange thing is that it does not say "Limited", and every other device I have can get internet from it just fine. I have tried toggling Wi-Fi on and off, deleting the connection, and restarting my phone. Has anyone else run into this and figured out how to fix it? (And I am not into resetting my phone ;)
Comment: Are other lumia devices able to access internet through that network? if so then there is problem with your device. If not then there is problem with router. Try resetting the router.
Comment: @AnupSharma Yes, they are. But I'm still curious as to why it has no problem with other networks.
Answer: I suppose you should reset the router first. If that doesn't work, then check if the router is filtering connections based on mac address(I doubt this to be any case related to yours). So if this doesn't work then check if you are using manual settings(like IP address) for your Mobile WiFi setting.Even if that doesn't work then try resetting your phone.

Not Getting Internet On Wi-Fi Network


Google event listings - change date . time

Question: We have recently taken over a festival website and noticed that Google appears to be picking up dates and start times for the event and displaying at the top of search results - this is great for promo but the time is incorrect and we arent sure how to change it - can anyone advise where it is getting this data from and how we might go about changing it change?
Answer: Does your website use schema? That is more often than not where Google would be getting the information to include in the snippet. In some cases, Google gets the info from another website (for instance, if you use a third party to list the event or get registrations). Assuming it is your website, here is Google's help article about event markup with how you can include event dates and times. I'd check your code to see if you have anything like this and then you could fix from there. https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/events
Comment: It is often very likely that the event data is coming from another site that has more authority than the original site. When this happens, there is little to do. Google often uses these larger sites as an authority simply because of the wealth of formatted data. Smaller sites will have trouble with more accurate data showing up in the SERPs without obtaining more authority. A sites authority is the key.
Comment: Thanks guys - our SEO guy is offsite today - i'll check with him re Schema


When is first light when you are far above the terrain?

Question: Normally you would just look it up for your location--but I'm thinking of a peak where the horizon will be at least a mile lower and I would think that would have some effect.
Comment: Possibly related: [Islamic prayer times etc adjusted for peope living high up in the world's tallest building](https://www.thenational.ae/uae/fatwa-means-late-iftar-on-top-burj-khalifa-floors-1.432286)
Comment: Hmmm, good question. I am sure someone has worked it out, but I think light scatter is the difference here - if you can see light in the sky at height you can probably see it at sea level too. There's different levels of first light too - see [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawn), it is all defined by degrees of the sun below horizon, so if you are 1 degree equivalent height above sea-level, then dawn will be 1 degree/rotational speed of earth sooner than at sea-level (at least that;s how I understand the maths).
Comment: I don't recall if it included "first light", but there are ephemeris websites that will adjust sunrise times for elevation. The [one I had used](https://www.photoephemeris.com/) requires a login now, but I knew exactly when and where the sun would appear at my specific chosen location. Thus, you might look at some of those to see if they meet your need.
Comment: @topshot The math presented in the answer I accepted shows that the difference isn't big enough to be of importance.
Answer: With some trig and simple approximations, for the case where the sun is rising directly to the east, and is rising in the direction perpendicular to the horizon, the result is
T = (24 hours)(1/2π)√(2h/R),
where h is your height above the spherical surface of the earth, R is the earth's radius, and T is the amount of time, in units of hours, by which sunrise comes early. This might be a reasonable model for cases like the eastern Sierra or Kilimanjaro, where you have a mountain range that is fairly prominent relative to low-lying terrain to the east. It might not make sense, e.g., for ranges that run east-west, such as the San Bernardinos or the Himalayas. Then there would be more chance of having other heights to your east that are not much lower than you, or maybe even higher.
Putting in numbers for Kilimanjaro, I get 10 minutes.
For a one-mile tower, the result is 5 minutes.
It is not normally true that the sun rises straight up and to the east, so the result will really only give a rough idea of how big the effect is. At extreme latitudes, the effect could be much bigger. If you're above the arctic circle, the sun could come up in the spring a week earlier because you're on the top of a mountain.
The experience I have had much more often is that the day before summit day, I'm camping in some valley near the peak, with tall mountains on all sides. Then it gets dark fairly early as the shadows sweep across my position, but I can still see the bright sky and the sun lighting up the peaks to the west.
Comment: I've had the reverse experience--descending in the pseudo-dark for hours, but not to the point of needing light.
Answer: The question asks for first light but let's assume the time difference  will be the same as for dawn. And also that the terrain is flat, apart from an observer in a tower 1 mile high, and the radius of the Earth is 3959 miles.
Here is an exaggerated geometry sketch showing a horizontal line in the direction of the sun for an observer at ground level, and a diagonal line showing where the sun will rise for an observer on the tower, which is tangential to the Earth's surface.

The difference is the angle A which is the same angle as subtended by two radii from the tangent points.
So we have cosine(A) = (3959 / 3960), giving A = 1.28 degrees.
It takes the sun 24 hours to move through an angle of 360 degrees, from this can be calculated that the sun will rise 5.12 minutes earlier (or set 5.12 minutes later) than for an observer on the ground.
So about 5 minutes.
Comment: Your formula works, but it's awkward because r/(r+i) is very close to 1 when i is small, so you get potential problems with rounding errors. That was the reason for doing the additional approximation that I did in my answer.
Comment: That is well within the ability of today's calculators, without significant errors and I don't see how "additional approximation" lessens that. It's a simplified estimate anyway, as there are many other factors at play when "first light" is seen. I think it is poor form to criticise other answers, unless perhaps there is a serious error.


Simple Openings for Beginners?

Question: I'm a beginner and I don't know any openings - what are the best openings for beginners?
Answer: I'm going to ignore the "simple" openings and recommend to you good openings for beginners.
It is pretty common for chess instructors to recommend 1 e4 openings to beginners because they tend to be more dynamic and therefore helps beginners improve in their tactical ability.
My following recommendations are in the spirit of fostering tactical and attacking ability.

Against 1e4 e5, I recommend the Italian Game because you will often get the Fried Liver Attack
which will help your tactical ability as well as win you many games.
Against 1e4 c5, you could play the open sicilian though it has a lot of theory if you choose to stick to it. I recommend the Smith Morra Gambit which may not be completely sound, but it will give you great attacking chances.

As Black, you will face 1e4 or 1d4 most often.

e5 has a lot of theory and white can play many things, so I would recommend either the caro kann or french defense.
Against d4, the King's Indian Defense or the Benoni. Those two openings are pretty much the only way for black ensure a dynamic and tactical game against d4. You could try the Dutch defense, but I find it less tactical and difficult for beginners to play with.
Comment: I wouldn't recommend a gambit opening straight away - you have to know some basics about how to use your compensation for the pawn or it might slowly evaporate. In my experience, many beginners tend to be on the cautious side at first (focusing on "not losing" rather than "winning") and only develop an attacking style later on (if they do). Otherwise, +1.
Answer: There are easy openings, then there are the ones you're going to see.  Your question implies you are a near-beginner. Even so, by now, you have seen:

The Ruy Lopez. This is probably THE kingside opening to learn. You'll need it on both sides of the board.
The Queen's Gambit. This is THE queenside opening. Again, you'll need it on both sides of the board.
The Sicilian. Selected by Black in response to e4. You don't have to play it but you better be ready for it.
The Fried Liver Attack. You'll see it in blitz. Be ready. As black you'll learn to hate the f7 pawn. He's a weakling.

That being said, don't try to memorize tons of moves. This is a waste of time. I recommend you get familiar with the first few moves and major variations and learn what the variations are about. Thereafter, stick with good opening practices such as developing pieces and castling. Because as sure as I type this, you're going to see someone play something weird on move 3 and you're going to have to deal with it.
Comment: Why the downvote, I wonder?

Simple Openings for Beginners?


What is the reason behind Selene's return after the war with Marius?

Question: In Underworld: Blood Wars (2016), in the middle of the film, Selene is killed by Marius. But in the end Selene was alive again. So the question is, how did she come back to life?
Answer: The northern vampire clan she was visiting, were known to dable with death to further their enlightenment. We see a female vampire covering the face of another vampire submersed in water, who she says was dead. Although dead, she clarifies she is on the other side, but will come back, and the whole experience is treated as a spiritual voyage. She also says she did it herself a bunch of times, and the secret is in the water.
When fighting Marius, she conscientiously throws herself under the ice. Marius thinks nothing of it, and leaves her for dead, but the Northern vampire clan revives her, like they did so many others before. When Selene comes back to life, she is empowered by her journey like the northern vampires, and this is symbolized by her hair tips going white.
Comment: What is the time lapse between Selene faking death & then she comes back to life again.


Mathematical symbols in Mathematica and Stack Exchange

Question: How may I transfer mathematical text (with symbols, etc.) from Wolfram Mathematica into Stack Exchange?
Comment: AFAIK, Mathematica has a TeX output filter available
Comment: This belongs on Meta
Answer: Try TeXForm[] in Mathematica.
TeXForm[Integrate[f(x), {x,-7,\[Pi]}]]

which outputs
\int_{-7}^{\pi } f(x) \, dx

Putting that between dollar signs on this page
$\int_{-7}^{\pi } f(x) \, dx$

yields $\int_{-7}^{\pi } f(x) \, dx$.  (footnote 1)  Between double dollar signs,
$$\int_{-7}^{\pi } f(x) \, dx \text{.}  $$
It's not perfect, and you may want to tweak the results, but it is an 80+% solution.
(footnote 1) There are several style faults in the form of integrals produced by Mathematica.  I would always style the given integral as \int_{-7}^{\pi } \; f(x) \, \mathrm{d}x, "$\int_{-7}^{\pi } \; f(x) \, \mathrm{d}x$", but there are plenty of sources that can't be bothered to ensure the limits of integration and integrand don't collide and don't correctly render operators in an upright font.
Comment: $+1$. Every day we learn something new !!!.
Comment: Upright font for dx is the continental European convention, italic font is the US convention.
Comment: thanks; I was using wrong input format for TeXForm function. This clears that up, I think.
Comment: I often find myself simply right-clicking on the expression of interest and choose "Copy as LaTeX" from the context menu: https://s3.amazonaws.com/resources.gomodus.com/nb/latex.jpg


Why did Hashem make some non-Kosher animals look like Kosher ones?

Question: Why did Hashem make animals like the pig, camel, etc. that have one exact character trait of kosher animals and then write in the Torah that they aren't kosher? If He's trying to trick us, shouldn't He have not written about them in the Torah?
Comment: Personally, I think questions of "Why did God do X instead of Y" are sorta pointless.  By definition, people cannot understand God.  See The Book of Job.
And, as a final note, (to paraphrase the Jewish philosopher Sidney Morgenbesser) _"And if it was the other way around, you'd still be complaining!"_
Answer: Sometimes a camel is perhaps just a camel? The trait that matches a kosher animal might be just the trait that allows the beast to live and thrive in the environment to which it is adapted. Sure, there's the midrash of the pig trying to disguise its non-kosher status, but that's metaphor, not theology. There are many animals in creation that live in places wildly inaccessible to humans. Should we think that they were designed specifically to trick, teach, or otherwise entertain us?
Quotation of the whirlwind from Job seems apposite here: who are we to assume that we can figure out why nature is as it is?
Comment: bimargulies, Welcome to mi.yodeya, and thanks very much for sharing your insight! I look forward to seeing you around.
Answer: Vayikra Rabbah 13:5 mentions that each of the 4 non kosher animals that have 1 of the Simanim, are similar to one of the nations that has enslaved us. Babylonia, Persia/Media, the Greeks and the Romans I do not remember which one relates to which Galus, however I will try to add it in after Yom Tov, unless someone beats me to it.
Regarding the question of tricking us, that is the exact reason it is written in the Torah, this way we will not make a mistake and know that they are not Kosher even though they exhibit one of the Simanim.
Comment: Vayikra Rabbah 13:5. It lists several points of similarity between each of the four animals and the four kingdoms. (Mitzrayim isn't on the list, though, and indeed it's not usually counted as one of the four; they are Babylonia, Persia/Media, the Greeks and the Romans.)
Answer: I guess in A mussar type approach of answer, we as Humans are like that we do Miotzvos and we have certain sins ,The Medrash uses theses animals as a comparison to nations like Edom being a pig in that it shows off its Kosher symbol but is really Unkosher, I guess what I am saying Hashem might be reflecting our Nature in Nature for us to reflect upon and illustrating how little sense it makes


Does Pennsylvania have a mature minor doctrine?

Question: I'm not trying to get medical care, I'm just curious. I was wondering if the state of Pennsylvania had what is known as a "Mature Minor Doctrine"  which, if I understand correctly, would allow minors, in a limited set of circumstances, to consent to medical treatment in lieu of their parents if said minor could demonstrate a level of knowledge and maturity necessary to make such decision. I know that some other states have this statute in their medical codes, and it varies from state to state what the implementation of this law. If PA does have such a doctrine, what are its specifics (age, how maturity is determined, etc.) And if it falls under PA emancipation law (which to my knowledge is horrendously complected.)
Answer: PA is a state that has discussed the mature minor doctrine in Commonwealth v. Nixon, 61 A.2d 1151 (Pa. 2000), however, as you mention, the results are complicated.
The following is not well-cited, but it should give you a lay of the land:
Journal of Lancaster General Hospital (2009)
You don't mention a particular area of medicine, but the mature minor doctrine is frequently associated with the controversy on underage reproductive behavior.  So let me treat that briefly.  The statute governing abortion is 18 Pa.C.S. § 3206, which is about a quarter of the way down the link.  The courts are beginning to get involved as well, and a recent "judicial bypass" case that dealt with parental consent is re Jane Doe, J-108-2010 (Pa. 2011).


Help with Canada Post Shipping Quotes with Ubercart

Question: Is there someone that can help me with Canada Post Shipping Quotes with Ubercart?  I can't find any documentation on how to set it up.  I've gotten my Canada Post account and I've put all the information into the module, but it's not showing any quotes.  I also have UPS and it's displaying quotes just fine.  I'm not seeing any errors or anything so I'm wondering if I've missed a set up somewhere?  I tried going into the Canada Online setup but quite frankly I don't understand what I'm supposed to do.  Do I have to set up every possible package size for it to work?  How would that reference back to the product?  We sell so many different products that could be a nightmare!!!  If anyone can at least point me in the right direction I would be so grateful!!
Thanks!
Comment: Update... I did find some limited help at http://drupal.org/node/1776864#comment-7227240 but still no quotes or errors or messages saying it can't be completed. I phoned Canada Post and I have their end set up right - so I'm totally stuck!
Answer: Make sure you have the store address information all filled out properly in the Ubercart Store Configuration and in the Shipping module.  It seems like a duplication but it helped me.
Comment: It would be wonderful if you were able to share more details concerning this.
Comment: Thanks for the comment xylene, it was all correct.  I ended up hiring a PHP coder to fix the issue.  There was something in the actual module where it wasn't dealing with the province or city or something properly.


How to smoke chicken without it coming out tough?

Question: We bought a smoker and it has been fabulous for doing ribs. However, when we've tried to do chicken in it, it comes out "leathery" and tough. I have had smoked chicken at other people's homes that was DELICIOUS. So, what are we doing wrong? (We've tried whole chicken and parts, both were tough)
Comment: I don't know that it's so backward. With chicken, it takes some work to acquire that perfect balance among the tenderness and moisture of the meat and the texture of the skin. With ribs, you just rub them up, toss them on the smoker, and start checking on them a few hours later.
Comment: Getting ribs perfected before chicken is backwards ;) ribs are *much* more difficult!
Comment: Is the chicken itself leathery or just the skin?
Comment: I think we need more information.  What's in your rub?  What's the temperature?  That sort of thing.
Comment: Yes, I know we are backward. :D Maybe we assumed chicken would be easy and thereby gave it short shrift. If I remember correctly, smoker was 225 to 250 F. We took the chicken to about 150. It was most leathery outside, but the inside of the meat was "tough" and not at all moist. Sort of 1/3 of the way to jerky. As for rubs, just salt and pepper, no marinade.
Answer: Chicken is difficult to get right in a smoker. Cooking at really low temperatures can result in a rubbery skin. Chicken is one meat where I've never seen the need to go low/slow.  Brine the bird if you're worried about drying it out or if you want to get some extra flavor into the meat, but it's not necessary. In any event, make sure you get the skin dry before cooking. Overnight in the fridge should do the trick. I like to rub the skin with vegetable oil and BBQ rub (or sometimes just salt & pepper) and cook it at around 300-350f on the smoker. Not only does it cook faster, it also doesn't take on an overwhelming amount of smoke.
Comment: Instead of rubbing the skin with oil, you can also embed butter under the skin.
Comment: I personally don't care for dark meat cooked that low. I like thigh meat cooked to the point that the major muscles begin to separate (but before falling apart). That's closer to 180.
Comment: Oh yes, good call on that one!
Comment: And the key point, cook it only to an internal temperature of about 158 F in the white meat, 165 F in the dark.
Answer: A smoke-master offered this advice years ago and I've followed it many times...with much success. Chicken is low in fat so it can dry out in a smoker at prolonged and low temps. He suggested "smoke-roasting" - get your smoker ripping at 350 to 400F (I have an off-set wood-fired pit). Split a whole chicken (5#s +/-) through the breast only and splay it open - cracking the back a bit to keep it flat. On both sides oil it lightly, hit both sides liberally with a rub or poultry seasoning, and put it in your pit breast side down for about 35-45 minutes. Flip it breast side up for another 35-45 minutes, or until the juices run clear when you pierce it with a knife tip. The first 35-45 minutes of high temps and starting with the breast/skin side down get the bird cooking nicely, and the remaining time with the breast/skin side up gets the skin to crisp and color really nicely. Keep an eye on it to prevent over-cooking and drying it out. Try this method - it is unbelievably great. Good luck.
Answer: It sounds like your bird is drying out.
If it's not over cooking (and it sounds like you're pulling it out before that), but drying out - try brining your chicken before hand, embedding butter under the skin of the chicken, or a steam pan under your chicken in the smoker.  I typically do butter under the chicken and brine when I have time.
You can go low and slow, but the skin will absorb LOTS of smoke and usually get rather rubbery.  I usually smoke my chicken's much higher as @Sean Hart suggests and have great luck there.  Low and slow works best with cuts of meat that are particularly fatty - the meat in chicken isn't especially and doesn't really gain that much from it.  If you go low and slow, you need to add moisture and/or fat to help the meat out.  Additionally, since the skin absorbs smoke very easily it, depending on your wood, may become bitter with smoke.
'Beer can chicken' as @Cos suggests is an easy way to cook chicken but - its not much for low and slow smoking.  The temperature you'd typically smoke at isn't sufficient to steam the liquid in the can.  Turning the heat up and doing it faster, combined with some butter and spices under (under is important) the skin, and using the 'beer can' is a good method.  You end up with moist chicken and good skin.
Comment: You make a good point about cooking temp. When I am smoking a beer can chicken, I target about 225/250 F, enough to get whatever brew is in the can to steaming, but not too much to dry things out. The line between 'smoking' and 'grilling' temperatures can be a fine one... The idea here was to give OP an 'easy' and still tasty success.
Answer: So, bought three roasting chickens.  Spatch cocked them (split, removed the backbone and breast bone.  Brushed with oil on both sides.  Spread my rub on both sides, stacked them up and let them sit for about 30 minutes while I got the vertical smoker going.  I used pecan wood from an old tree that blew down.  Added water to the water pan, put the wood in and lit the gas.  Slid the chicken, skin side down in on individual racks and closed the doors.  I kept the temp between 325 and 350 degrees.  About one and a half hours later I turned the chicken over.  One and a half hours later, I took them out and covered them with foil and let it rest for about 10 minutes.  Carved it up into pieces and served with warm BBQ sauce, okra and tomatoes, field peas and snaps, and Brandy's potato salad.  Best I ever had.  Smoky, flavorful and moist.  I think the key is high heat, rather than low and slow.  Simple rub of pretty much equal parts rubbed sage, thyme,paprika,onion powder, garlic powder, pepper and kosher salt.  Added about a tablespoon of chipotle pepper.  The oil on the birds helped enhance the flavor of the rub, I think.
Answer: I'm sorta new at learning how to smoke different meats, starting with a large Boston Butt as my first "experiment" on a regular(barrel shaped) charcoal grill. I always use a drip pan under the meat and NEVER cook the meat over direct heat, which I think is the usual way to do all this on a grill that wasn't designed to be a smoker per se. Anyway, with the chicken, I put about an inch of hot water in the drip pan right before putting the chicken on the grill plates. It sorta steams with the smoke, helps melt extra fat, but retains moisture.    I start, and try to maintain, a grill temp of 200-225, but never hotter. I'm not trying to make something I could make shoes out of, and cook until the internal temp of the chicken is 165, and use your meat thermometer in a couple spots, not just one. So far, with different cuts from different manufacturers, it's turned out great everytime. I don't think this bit of info is going to help you, but I cut several long slices in the chicken well into the meat, prior to putting any rub on it, and work the rub under the skin as well as inside the cuts in the meat, put it in a sealed bag and let it sit in the fridge overnight, and while the grill is heating up, take the meat out and let it get to room temp right before it hits the grill/smoker. I do it that way because I can't eat a high fat diet, and chicken skin is a GIANT no no when I cook, and may well be the same for other people. They smoke a beautiful piece of chicken just to take the skin off and....no  rub and smoke flavor on the meat, but the dogs get one heck of a treat!
Comment: Seasoned Advise is not a chat site; its a Q&A site.  Your answers will have a better chance at getting traction and upvotes if you format them with paragraphs, reduce the chattiness, and more directly provide a clear answer to the question that is asked.
Answer: OK...here's the rub, no pun intended.  Every cooker's temp at the actual food level is going to differ.  I've had 5 different smokers of varying style and all vary in hood measured temp vs actual food level temp, some as much as 50' or more.  Because of this fact, everyone's advice as to cooking temp is going be different.  The only way to accurately compare cook temps is to monitor temps at food level, with a good digital therm.  Regular oven type analog therms are not consistently accurate.
I've found this to be true with even hi end, very expensive cookers.  Just remember that heat rises, so if your monitor therm is at the top of the cook chamber, it's not going to give you an accurate reading of the real temp the food is cooking at.  Only way to get this temp is to put the probe where the food is, no closer than 1" and no farther than 2" from the food.  Good luck...
Answer: The coolest part of your bird should be 160-165F when you pull it out of the heat.  I understand nervousness with food borne illnesses, but the best way to keep a bird tender and juicy is to bring it right to the edge of done. I recommend smoking until you get to 140-145 then put it in a 350-400 oven to bring it to 165 and crisp up the skin.  You will want a meat thermometer and keep a close watch the first few times.
Answer: For my chicken to be moist and tender and full of flavor when smoking or even turkey whole or halves or just the breast I shoot my whole fryers of chicken or halves or just the breast or even legs and thighs all of the pieces BONE IN!!!!! A MUST!!!!! FOR THE SHOOT FLAVOR (Beer not dark or whine not dark nothing dark and if you don't want to be seen in the store buying alcohol get someone else to do it!!! Add butter and Cajun season together and buy you a good injector and inject in all parts MUST DO THIS!!!!!!! Keep smoker at 200 to 250 degrees and if you have a propane burner those are way better in my opinion smoke with cherry and mesquite and apple chips soaked at all times and keep smoker with water and chips every 30mins a must (burnt chips and water is no good flavor for chicken or turkey etc... and always REMEMBER IF YOUR LOOKING YOUR NOT COOKING!!!! Baste with your shootem up stuff on the hour other than that set your timer for what the time calls for for the lbs or ozs of whatever you are smoking!!! OH ANOTHER MUST it might be a little pricey but well worth it get a meat thermometer to get the internal temp and do not go to the bone of any of the meat always check the fattiest part of the meat!!! ENJOY!!! OH FORGOT ONE THING TOO LOL ALWAYS  rub your meat with a good mustard and salt and pepper and your good to go!!
Answer: You might try this. Take old large wok. With dome lid. 2 table spoons dried uses tea from tea bags,or dry saw dust of good wood. Heat wok on open flame till very hot. Throw in tea leafs or saw dust. Set in rack. Set in fowl. Chicken or duck. Slap on lid. Wait 2 nin. remove flame. let set 5 min. Remove lid. All smoke should be gone & into bird. Skin will be crisp & dry. to touch. Smoke will soak into flesh. Chines fast smoked fowl. Now bake best I think. Or fry fowl. The skin seals the meat. Nice smoked flavor. This will leave a burnt spot in bottom of wok so use the old one for this. The trick is to have just enough heat in wok to charcoal all the tea or sawdust you put in & set time for fowl to absorb it before lid is raised.
Answer: The first lesson is easy, "The Beer Can Chicken". There are several similar devises that will help you to smoke a chicken. You place about 1/2 can of beer (or coke, mountain dew, sprite, ginger ale) that in the holder and mount the chicken over the can through the back end. (you can dispose of the top half of the can however you please.)

This will provide extra moisture and flavor and help to avoid the unpleasant dried out meat.
Second lesson, rubs & injections. A good rub administered below the skin (there are lots out there, google is your friend) will help seal in juices and provide great flavor (if you choose the right rub). Same with injections. There are any number of "turkey injectors" out there that work just fine with chicken. Inject the meat with a marinade and that will help prevent the leather you want to avoid.
Third lesson, patience. Use a meat thermometer and cook the bird low and slow, then when it is done, let it rest for 15 minutes or so before slicing it.
Answer: Steam pans do not add moisture to the meat in a smoker.  The water pan is there to act as a heat sink to prevent the temperature from fluctuating too much.
Like others have said, cook hotter and for less time and brine the meat beforehand.
Answer: Te best why I have found in smoking chicken in my smoker is set the temperature at about 220 - 225 and cook for about 2.5 to 3 hours.  I found that apple wood provide the best flavor.  I have used various rubs over olive oil.
Answer: I just tried a fresh chicken today on my Traeger wood pellet grill.  This chicken was "fresh" (well not frozen who knows its history) from Walmart in some kind of liquid it claimed was "natural chicken broth" whatever that is.  I figured (and was lazy) it's good enough.
So put on the Traeger and set for about 350°F.  I stuffed it with apple slices, sliced onions and fresh garlic and spread a small amount of rub on it.  Cooked for about 2 hours until the inside temp was 220°F ... I put foil over the grill top so it wouldn't burn.
Damn. Best chicken I ever had.  Still juicy and incredibly good.  Not rubbery or dried out like I often get with longer lower temperatures.  Even eating the apple slices straight (still a bit crisp ...) was delicious.
Answer: I don't understand the problem. I have an electric water smoker, never had any problems w/ chicken. I always let the smoker warm up first and I boil a kettle of water for the water pan, but the rest is hands off.  I find that it takes less than half of the time suggested in manual for cooking, a whole chicken(s, I always cook at least 2 or 3) cook in 45-60 minutes. Oil, salt, pepper on outside of chicken, spices in cavity, half lemon in cavity to keep moisture in.
Answer: The coolest part of your bird should be 160-165F when you pull it out of the heat. I understand nervousness with food borne illnesses, but the best way to keep a bird tender and juicy is to bring it right to the edge of done. I recommend smoking until you get to 140-145 then put it in a 350-400 oven to bring it to 165 and crisp up the skin. You will want a meat thermometer and keep a close watch the first few times. You can read a recipe here: How to Smoked Chicken Wings.


Carrera Crossfire 2 Hybrid Bike to a road bike

Question: I have a Carrera Crossfire 2 Hybrid Bike. I would like to convert this to a full road bike. Is it possible?, if so what changes will I need to make.
Comment: Honestly?  If you want a road bike, buy a road bike as well.  A conversion leaves you with something that isn't either, costs a lot, and generally a disappointment.  You can own two bikes.  Or if you only can own one bike,  buy the bike you want and then sell this one.
Comment: Not worth doing. If you want proper drop bar integrated shifters you may need to replace the entire drive train. Replacing heavy suspension forks will be relatively expensive. Frame does not have road bike geometry.
Answer: it is possible, but in most cases does not worth it.

Components cost more if sold separately, so usually you end up spending a same amount of money or even more than buying a new bike.

if any seller does discounts on bike - consider you have all the components discounted

planning and implementing conversion is not easy and time consuming
Answer: I have done such a conversion on a V-braked suspension fork bicycle. The bicycle had a rather short frame, making the conversion actually end up with a reasonable saddle-to-handlebar distance.
You need:

Drop handlebar + handlebar tape
Mechanical brake levers with same mechanical advantage as your current levers (for V-brakes, it means long pull; I don't sure what pull ratio your mechanical disk brakes use but I suspect it's the same as for V-brakes)
8-speed bar-end shifters -- you won't find these new but you can find new-old-stock (NOS) or used
New inner cables and cable housing for brakes and gears
Possibly: a shorter stem

I think such a conversion is a very good idea. The cables, levers and handlebar cost less than a full road bike. If you don't know whether you enjoy road bicycling with a drop handlebar, you'll find out, and you can always go back to your original handlebar. You also have a data point about the frame dimensions in case you decide to stay with drop handlebar bikes, and thus purchase a real road bike. The bar-end shifters are much better than those fragile combined-brake-lever-shifters you find on most road bikes today, unfortunately for buyers of road bikes and fortunately for drop handlebar converters.
Before the drop handlebar conversion, I suggest you to mount some real road tires (such as Continental Grand Prix 5000). Mounting such tires is easier than a drop handlebar and will give you one kilometer per hour of extra speed.
After the conversion, you need to see whether your saddle-to-handlebar distance is good or if you need to mount a shorter stem.
Comment: I'm sure it would be much easier for the OP to just borrow a road bike to find out if he likes drop bars. If after the conversion your suggesting the OP doesn't like the ride / geometry it will be much harder to sell a bike that's no longer a hybrid or a road bike for that matter.


What major differences are there between convention DMing and home DMing?

Question: I've been DMing for a while in 4th edition D&D, but I've only been DMing for Living Forgotten Realms and D&D Encounters.  Now I'm thinking of starting to do some home games in various systems.  How can I deal with the transition from these two styles of gaming? Are they really that different?
Answer: If you've already done convention DMing (specifically LFR) and want to start running a home game..the skills involved aren't that different, but be prepared for a few things.
The number one thing I find it's helpful to remember is that the campaign is about the player characters. It's their story. The adventures and details should reflect that. Living Realms has a hard time handling that kind of individual attention because of its scope (there are tens of thousands of LFR players).
Structurally there are other changes and differences as well:
See below:

I would recommend deliberately breaking a few habits, especially early on: Don't (always) put the toughest encounter at the end of the evening, for example. Stick a party-level+2 solo in the first encounter once in a while. :)
Don't worry about making the players do everything without getting an extended rest. LFR always tells you not to let the players get an extended rest. When and where the PCs take rests is now up to them.
When it comes to an evenings adventure- there's no rush.
Don't try to prepare a section of boxed text to read out.
Consider the possibilities of how you want to do treasure and recurrent NPCs.
Consider creating things like maps and persistent locales that will be too large to visit in a single session. Be ready when the players decide they want to go back to a dungeon or area they visited in an earlier adventure.
Consider how to use quests: these are an amazing mechanic that we cannot use to the fullest extent in LFR because we can't guarantee DM or group continuity from session to session. But now.. you can! For example- what if you set up 10 quest-starters in the first adventure? The players can then spend the next few weeks picking and choosing their own path of adventure from amongst several possibilities.
What if you put a monster that is too tough for the players to fight in an adventure (perhaps as an NPC or simply a very dangerous obstacle)? It's totally allowed. Not everything has to be a balanced encounter.

LFR's structure and tradition is the way it is, specifically because it has content that needs to be farmed out to a ton of DMs at 4-hour events in a shared campaign. Now that you are writing for yourself, and you don't have to think in terms of 4 hour blocks, you "own" the content.
You no longer have any of the old restrictions.
Comment: "Don't try to prepare a section of boxed text to read out." Although if you feel uncomfortable with your improv skill, it can still be useful to have prepared text for some things, like a room description or a villain's monologue. (Of course, be aware that some players/PC enjoy _interrupting_ monologues whenever possible. Roll with the punches when you can.)
Comment: Heh, I was hoping you'd answer this one. :)
Answer: Some things you might not have considered. Now that you're hosting games in a private venue, things change a little:

There's more expectation of role-play. In the organized play I've encountered at game stores, role-playing is the exception. People in private-house games expect a certain level of "acting." You don't have  to talk in funny voices, but definitely describe what your character or monster is doing.
Hey, there are strangers in my house. Playing with people you don't know well is okay in a public environment. You might feel differently about inviting them back to your home. Make sure these are people you like and can trust.
Make sure there's ample play space. The big conference table at the game store is very different than your kitchen table or your living room coffee table. Make sure you have a suitable place to play, and make sure you have comfortable chairs for everyone.
Set expectations of behavior. If you have a non-smoking house, let people know in advance. If you don't want alcohol at games, warn players.
Food and drink. People might expect you, the host, to feed them. Gamers aren't always the most socially aware lot and a bunch of them will show up to your house empty-handed. A few hours into the game, and they'll be thirsty. One will say, "Mind if I have some of that Coke?" and point to the 2-liter bottle on the counter. You are now feeding your gamers. Let them know that they should bring snacks, food, and drinks--or at least pitch in if you buy them.
Allergies. If you have pets, warn your players, who might be allergic to Fido and Felix. It's also good to know if people have any intense food allergies. Some people react very violently to peanuts, for example.
Volume!!!!!!!! If you've been playing in a public place, you might be used to talking louder to be heard. Or maybe your usual venue is kinda quiet and you talk more softly for privacy. In any case, be aware that you may have to change your volume or pitch to suit your home setting.
Comment: Ouch! Why the downvote? I answered the question in a way different than everyone else? =)
Comment: I think it's a very good answer; these are all things that should be kept in mind for the transition, +1. However: "You are now feeding your gamers. Let them know that they should bring snacks, food, and drinks--or at least pitch in if you buy them." This is something to consider, but not a hard-and-fast rule. Some hosts (myself included) are perfectly willing to supply all snacks and drinks without needing the guests to pitch in in any fashion.
Answer: They aren't that different, but you may need to force yourself to grow beyond the tightly circumscribed four hour LFR experience. (This is coming from someone who loves LFR; I play and run it a lot.) You're going to want plots that don't fit into one session. I'd take a look at the Embers of Dawn mini campaign for some inspiration -- not only is there an overarching plot that extends for the entire 50ish hour campaign, there are hooks for future adventures built in.
You also need to be ready for your players to go off in a totally random direction. In LFR, most players will tacitly accept that there's something between a railroad and a strongly implied walkway leading from beginning to end, and they'll accept an adventure from a strange guy in a bar even if he's not paying them up front. In a home game, they'll be more independently minded and sometimes they just won't want to help Yazeth Cobb. You can't be too in love with your own plot.
It may help to have a folder of prebuilt encounters, events, and so on. Doesn't have to be big, just stuff you can throw in there when the players head in the opposite direction. Random tables, likewise, are your friend. If they get interested in talking to the barmaid and you freeze up on ad libbing details, a random personality chart will get you started again.
For the purest form of abandoning your own plot, check out R. S. Conley's notes on sandbox campaigns. You don't have to run a sandbox campaign, but everything in there will still be helpful.
Find opportunities for extended roleplay, if that's what your players want. I started running a home game again recently after a year of mostly LFR, and I've been mentally earmarking some sessions as talky sessions. It forces me to get back into the habit of not rushing roleplay, plus it's good for pace. Your players will probably enjoy the downtime -- not every adventure needs to be of equal importance.
Answer: LFR games at conventions need to fit within the X hour time block (usually four) Moreso they are setup to challenge players within a specific level range. While mechanics are the same home games are completely different because they are extended campaigns. You could run them in short session block just like you do in a LFR module but you will missing out on the flexibility offered by RPGs.
RPGs can be run in a variety of ways, but compared to other games they are uniquely flexible in focus and scope. This is because the focus of an RPG is on individual character moving through a setting in a series of session known as a campaign. One session may be nothing but roleplaying with the various denizen of a town while another be one combat after another as the party battle their way into the lair of the big bad.
I am not criticing LFR or convention style games. For what they set out to do they do very well. I was involved both in running convention games and Live-Action Roleplaying which has it's own constraints.
However of all the styles of roleplaying I played the most flexible is sitting around the table at home with your friend running a campaign.
But where to start? Well there are several posts here and elsewhere you can look at.
Story Arcs vs Player Creativity
If you need a setting there this post on campaign building.
Others will add good links of their own.
The shortest answer I can give, is too think of a place that you like to see your players explore. Then talk to them and see what they like do. Merge two to form an initial campaign premise. Write a timeline of events that will occur without player intervention. Talk with each players about the setting and give them hooks that are benefits and complications.
At first your campaign will start out with the players exploring their initial hooks. The key element after this point is to follow the consequences of the players actions. Judge their effect on your timeline of events and change accordingly. Soon the campaign will drive itself as the consequences of the consequences start propelling the players forward.
The ability to dynamically change what going on is perhaps the key difference between the convention game. The player feel they have control over their world become invested in the setting. This leads to a better game for all.
Answer: CON DMING
Convention DMing allows you to be more of a goof--if that's your style--since you most likely won't see these people again. Along that line, your mistakes can be overshadowed by this fact and that this group might play at a table next slot that has a more experienced DM. Or they might not even care since they came to wherever it is the con is being held to have a good time. As long as mistakes don't completely destroy the session, most players are forgiving enough to allow the suspension of disbelief to continue.
However, you are usually running for people whom you are not familiar with. You don't know their play style, you've never seen their character in action (unless they made the character fresh at the con, in which case neither have they!), so it's hard to know what these players want out of a session, and what action their characters want to see. Granted, most con mods (not constiution modifier!) are RPGA-published and essentially railroad the players, but if you run a mod written yourself, you don't know what they'll want or get out of your adventure. This can be good, though, as it forces you to watch the players and see what they do, what their reactions to certain encounters are.
HOME DMING
On the flipside, home DMing is usually less stressful for DMs. You know your players, most likely. If you have a campaign, you know their characters. On that note, you can have campaigns. Since you'll be playing with people in the area and will be in the area for most of the year, you can start and continually run campaigns, instead of the dungeon-of-the-day mods at cons. This allows for a more developed and dynamic relationship between you as a DM and your players and their characters. You also tend to be more comfortable, being able to kick off shoes, play at the kitchen table or on a deck, with ambient music, etc.
The one downside to home DMing is that you have to constantly change things up, have your players do so if they don't already. If you see the same 4-6 players with the same characters doing the same things week by week it can get monotonous. You must add little quirks to your game sessions so each one is as fun as the last. This is beneficial, though, for developing new ideas for the campaign or adventures you plan to run.
Answer: The fundamentals of GMing remain the same: describe, leave room for players to impact the story, every encounter needs a way to succeed or fail.
What differs most is player continuity. Players in a "home" game are far more likely to be the same core players every session, playing the same character throughout.
The other key differences are not terribly consistent, but are broad sweeping generalizations :

world impact

Con/LG/Demo games have no expectation of their actions having long term impact on the setting
Home players generally expect to have some lasting impact

PC motivations

Con/Demo/LG and one-shot games players expect to be told why their characters are into the adventure being played.
more normal campaign play players expect either to be hired, lured to a mission, or ordered to undertake a mission, depending upon the nature of the campaign world and PC types.

PC fit to published adventures

Con/Demo - almost always the characters are either provided or tightly described as to allowed and needed types. Players usually comply.
Living Games - Characters have to meet stringent standards for inclusion in the play. You might not always have the needed types, but if you fill all the listed slots, you'll have the needed abilities.
one-off published adventures at home - essentially, much like a demo or con game, but without the rush. Most have pregens; if all are used, you'll have the needed skills and abilities in the party. Custom characters may or may not have the required ability set; if attentive, the GM can say "Someone needs X, Y and Z."
published adventure at home: as with one-offs, but players usually will not be generated specifically for the adventure, so if the party lacks key abilities, the GM needs to adjust the adventure or augment the party.

augmenting the party with an NPC for key functions is often resented.
augmenting the party by adding abilities often breaks verisimilitude. (It actually is a fun feature of the 1st Edition of Prime Directive.)
augmenting with a guest PC can be done, if you have a new player or a player whose character could be out for the adventure. Players may object to this, others relish it. In XP systems, like D&D or Paladium, it's important to not short a PC if the player swaps him out for one adventure because he makes no sense... there are various methods of so doing.

homebrew adventures - these can be tailored to the characters in play. It is even more important to focus on multiple characters' abilities, but not to bog the main storyline on any one character alone.
Player Attachment to Character
Con/Demo: often little to none; character death is annoying but not a huge issue
home one-shot: little to some. Character death ranges from trivial to serious, depending on players. Player-generated generally more than pregens...
LG/home campaign - often significant, sometimes pathological. Character death can be genuinely traumatic (but should be merely major disappointment and/or proud moments...)

Abbreviations
Con=Convention. Usually pregenerated characters, 4 hour blocks, limited scope
Demo=Demonstration. Usually pregenerated characters, often 2-6 hour play scope, sometimes more (esp. FFG ones). Sometimes include rules subsets or simplifications.
LG=Living Games. Continuing characters in episodic play.
One-off: a game where the characters are not intended for being played after the adventure is finished.
Answer: "Scope" will be your main concern....it will expand dramatically with a home campaign vs a tournament game.  As has been said, you will have to be prepared for your players to go off on a totally random direction or decide on a plan of action that will take them out of the immediate area they are based in, unlike a tournament adventure (which is usually narrow in scope and focused when it comes to goals).
I would suggest a little preparation. Try writing up an area of about 20 square miles or so.  Detail the immediate area, especially items of interest (Old Sunken Swamp, Deathshead Mountain, The Lost Caverns) populated by either random monsters or a planned encounter of your own.  Definitely include a few villages (complete with inns, taverns, and churches), and find a good source for small "pickup" adventures that can take a session or two to complete (or write your own).  A little bit of preparation can pay big dividends if your players decide "Old Sunken Swamp" sounds like a cool place to explore, and you have already detailed a lizardman lair, cave with a black dragon, and an abandoned Keep in the middle of the swamp.  You'll make it look easy when they start wandering around there!
Your main difference will be a planned time limit/ending versus open ended gaming, but if you plan ahead, it won't bother you a bit to run a more open-ended adventure.


Windows 7 randomly drops to Basic UI after full screen apps

Question: Sometimes when I close a fullscreen application in Windows 7, it drops me back to the Basic UI.
Windows has indicated that the problem is that the DWM service has stopped, but I only thought it didn't do anything when a full screen app was on...
What do I do to fix it, aside from clicking the troubleshoot link in "Personalize"?
Answer: That's probably because of a driver crash. Try updating your video drivers.
Comment: Hmm haven't done that. I'll get back to you as soon as i can.
Answer: This is often not a crash.  It is based on the application you are runnning.  There are certain DirectDraw APIs that are not supported in DWM.  When an application opens DirectDraw in a way that calls these APIs, DWM turns itself off.  This could be because the application creates and Overlay or certain surface types.  When the application exits, it will go back.
Comment: But that's the thing. it *isnt* coming back!


Cracking Salted Peoplesoft Hashes

Question: So I felt the saga of my last post was getting too long (linked here: Unknown round length makes hash uncrackable?) so I would create a new one addressing the current problem as it stands. My new avenue is looking like the hashed passwords and salts I have collected are Peoplesoft hashes due to an identification from this tool: https://github.com/psypanda/hashID. To test if that is a false positive I planned to use hashcat to crack my known account hash, which I have the salt and plain text password to, but they only have a mode for unsalted PeopleSoft hashes.
There is a bit of old work done here (https://github.com/kholia/ReversingPeopleSoft) to reverse how PeopleSoft performs salted hash generation but that appears dead.
Does anyone have any leads on how the hash is performed so I can try and recreate my hash to check if it is a PeopleSoft variety or know of a way to coerce Hashcat into using it with a different mode?
Thank you.
Answer: Hashcat currently (Nov 2018) only supports unsalted PeopleSoft hashes - there's no way that I know of to get Hashcat to apply an arbitrary salt to them at speed. I also haven't been able to determine what the actual algorithm is yet, and neither John the Ripper nor MDXfind appear to have support yet for salted PeopleSoft hashes.

Cracking Salted Peoplesoft Hashes


Non-disclosure agreement in a small business

Question: If a company hires me and tells me to work on my own laptop, and then makes me sign a non-disclosure agreement:
who owns my code?
do I get to re-use it?
what exactly falls under the scope of the non-disclosure agreement?
Comment: If possible, I *strongly* advise you to NOT work on your own laptop. The company should be able to provide a computer for you. And if you really must, *setup a separate user*. You don't want to show something to a coworker and have that Google search about dealing with hemorrhoids (or worse) popping up; it puts everyone ill-at-ease. You don't want to install the company's self-signing certificate on your own laptop either...
Comment: @Jay I'm a Web dev intern in France
Comment: Where are you located and what is the nature of your employment? In the USA, contractors will retain copyright on their work product by default, while employees will not.
Comment: It depends on your contract, if you work time for money this usually includes a clause which grants your employee exclusive rights on your work produced. However if you sign a contract which specified what to produce or if you have no legal framework you have the full rights on your produced code (and in some countries you can't even give ownership away). A classical NDA is independent of that (in fact most NDAs I have seen explicitely state that they do not regulate/change IPR rights). But you might use the term NDA for something which is not that, so better read what you sign.
Comment: An NDA has nothing to do with code ownership, and neither does using your own laptop. The legal position is simple: you own the code until you're paid for it, at which point it becomes a work for hire and the property of whoever paid.
Comment: NDAs have to do with you not being able to talk about something. For instance, at my job, we sign a lot of NDAs with our vendors telling us that we can't talk about their new products they want to give us because it's not publicly known to the public and they don't want us to leak any information.
Answer:
If a company hires me and tells me to work on my own laptop, and then
  makes me sign a non-disclosure agreement: who owns my code? do I get
  to re-use it? what exactly falls under the scope of the non-disclosure
  agreement?

You're confusing a non disclosure agreement (an agreement not to disclose business information to outside parties) with intellectual property (IP) ownership and IP assignment.
That you're working on your own laptop is not really what is important here, and the fine details of who owns code and intellectual property generated under employment are location and fact specific, and would require a lawyer and a thorough read of the agreement and contract you signed, but generally work done for hire for an employer belongs to that employer, e.g. the code you write for them in exchange for payment is theirs.
Comment: Companies aren't generally "paranoid" about an NDA. An employee has a multitude of ways to obtain, and disclose, proprietary information if they so desire. Taking a laptop home with them at night is just one such way. The NDA isn't an instrument that can prevent employees from disclosing proprietary information (how could it, t's only a piece of paper?), the NDA is an instrument that gives the employer legal recourse if an employee does disclose proprietary information.
Comment: As pointed out typically a company is protected against IP theft, from a great deal more than just an NDA, the NDA serves to prevent you from disclosing something specific (as specified in the NDA).  You are expected NOT to disclose IP owned by the company.
Comment: _"The NDA isn't an instrument that can prevent employees from disclosing proprietary information (how could it, t's only a piece of paper?)"_ - NDAs also function as a deterrent for employees, thus I would argue they help prevent unauthorized disclosure.
Comment: I agree. The interesting thing is that if a company was paranoid about an NDA, why would they let employees take key info home with them every night on an unsecured laptop?
Comment: @mhoran_psprep could be contract requirements. My company doesn't allow employees to take work home, but we have agreements with customers that all our workers have to sign an NDA.
Comment: @marcelm True enough. An NDA can act as a deterrent, much like a lock on a door keeps honest people honest. Those who are up to do no good will find a way, NDA or not. The NDA gives the employer legal recourse.
Answer:
If a company hires me and tells me to work on my own laptop, and then makes me sign a non-disclosure agreement: who owns my code? do I get to re-use it? what exactly falls under the scope of the non-disclosure agreement?

Working on your own laptop has absolutely no impact on your NDA whatsoever.
Unless the NDA says otherwise, which would be very rare, the code still remains the company's property. You don't get to re-use it.
Separately but related - you should also clarify what the company's expectations are around hardware security. I'd be asking if they now require that you encrypt that laptop with a boot password for instance, and whose responsibility is it if your laptop is stolen and the code falls into the wrong hands.
Comment: No the code is owned by its creator unless regulated otherwise (and even then in most European legislations the owner always is the copyright holder and can not sign it away (only exclusive rights). Only with a fulltime work contract there is some implied code ownership transfer.
Answer: Your company will own your code (unless, in the unlikely event they break their contract in some way). You don't get to reuse it except in other projects for that company, and you need to be really careful about this.
Copyright / ownership of code and other work product is not related to a Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA), which is designed to stop you from telling customers / competitors / etc about company specific information.
It would certainly cover specific algorithms, and might also cover telling people "Hey I'm working with technology X" on your blog.
Comment: If you use the knowledge/skills you gained doing it to write another one from scratch, you should be alright.
Comment: It's only my 2nd professionnal experience and I'm really proud of some of the algorithms I've developed so it sucks that I can't (legally) re-use them. For example I've made a multi-file upload/download system in Symfony, are you positive I can't use my controller code for other projects?
Comment: @ThéoDriutti You were compensated for that work, right?
Comment: @Blrfl I get paid 3.75€ an hour and I do 9 to 5 (it's a 6 month internship)
Comment: @ThéoDriutti What you did would be called a [work for hire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_for_hire) in the U.S. and elsewhere.  The products you produce belong to your employer, and you get compensation of equal value for having done it.  Just because the finished product is software that takes no effort to duplicate doesn't give you any rights to use it for personal gain.
Comment: @ThéoDriutti - You can use your experiences and knowledge you gain to develop your own code outside of your work hours.  As long as you use a black box approach, which means, you can't use your current work to recreate it.
Answer: Usually code you write for an employer belongs to the employer. If you're an intern this is very likely.
May I offer some advice about this? Trying to claim you own code personally that you wrote for your employer can cause big trouble for you.  So think carefully about whether you want to do it.
One place I worked, a fellow employee tried to claim ownership of some fairly trivial code. Our boss became angry, and said "I'm going to fire that guy."
I had to talk the employee down from his position about ownership. I did so by showing him some very similar code online and saying, "look, your code is not worth the trouble of claiming ownership. It's not unique." We managed to save his job. But it wasn't much fun.
If the code you write has real innovative value:

Look at the agreement you signed with the employer to set your expectations. It probably spells out ownership of work products.
Ask a senior colleague, not the boss, about what you should do.
Ask your employer whether you can make it open source and put it on Github.
Answer: I don't have a source to quote but I'm pretty sure that, in the case of an internship in France, the company doesn't own the code you produce except if you sign a contract stating  the contrary.
Edit : Found a source (in french) : https://www.app.asso.fr/centre-information/base-de-connaissances/les-grands-themes/le-droit-dauteur/faq-qui-est-titulaire-des-droits-lorsque-loeuvre-est-creee-par-un-stagiaire


Are nail pops under vinyl flooring likely to worsen?

Question: I have been in my new Mobile home now for 5 months.Nails are starting to pop up slightly under the linoleum floor. Is this likely to get worse over time?
Comment: To me, that sounds like a warranty defect.  I would first start with the dealer and then the manufacture to get it fixed.
Comment: I would guess that Your house is not properely supported. There are some tensions that bend the floor when some load occur and then relax if it is off.
Answer: It will certainly worsen. The nails are probably coming up because the subfloor was not glued to the framing. Not only will more nails work up, but the vinyl will very quickly wear through in those spots.
I agree that this is certainly a warranty issue. If you're not able to get satisfaction from that, you'll need to re-fasten the subfloor and reinstall flooring. I'd probably run suitable screws at 12" intervals on all joists, then fill the dimples and overlay new vinyl. An embossing leveler may be necessary to flatten the texture of the current vinyl.
Comment: It sure ain't gonna get any better all by itself. Plus one.
Answer: It has a possibility of getting worse or the popping could be done.  It's hard to say one way or the other.
Answer: Definitely get the foundation checked-out & call for warranty service. A framing member may have been damaged/defective or there may be a temporary support that was left in place instead of removed or the foundation is contacting the wrong area or not contacting enough areas.