Capturing http errors and customizing the message in webdriver

Question: How to Capture HTTP errors on a web page such as page not found, 500 Internal server errors and customizing the message in webdriver.
Comment: What message do  you want to customize?
Comment: In relation with HTTP error as you mention in the question, what do you mean by "customizing the message in webdriver"?
Answer: You can capture console Logs using the following code snippets:
For chrome only -
<code>        LogEntries logEntries = _driver.manage().logs().get(LogType.BROWSER);
        List<LogEntry> logs = logEntries.getAll();
        logLength = logs.size();
</code>
You will need to import following classes:
<code>import org.openqa.selenium.logging.LogEntries;
import org.openqa.selenium.logging.LogEntry;
import org.openqa.selenium.logging.LogType;
</code>
Answer: As alternative to looking at the http code, you could also look at the contents of a page. You would have to implement something where you actively check whether a new page has been opened, by checking for the presence of a specific element that is only shown on the expected page.
You could also define error pages, which have specific content such as text "Internal server error".
If the check for the expected page fails, you can then first check whether you are on one of the error pages. If this is the case, throw a specific exception, otherwise just throw the original exception.
This is a very high level description of how it's done in the framework Geb. More information here:
http://www.gebish.org/manual/0.10.0/pages.html#unexpected_pages
You might need to read a little bit more about the so called 'At checking' in the framework in addition to just the item that I linked to.


Do the gods Ameteratsu and Inari have any consorts?

Question: The goddess Ameteratsu is the Japanese Sun goddess and the queen of the deities of the Shinto pantheon. Inari is the Japanese deity of agriculture and food.Both of these gods are very popular in the Shinto pantheon and I am wondering if they have any consorts?
Answer: Amateratsu is traditionnaly the spouse of her very own brother Tsukuyomi. You can check Wikipedia.
In case of Inari he was married with Ukemochi and after Tsukuyomi slain her he married Mitama (Uga-no-Mitama).
Note also that Inari is vastly renown to have both a male and female form and those spouses are much more the "traditionally in some myths" spouses than the definitives wifes. Some other traditions mention that Ukemochi and Mitama are a form of Inari.
Comment: Inari has either 3 or 5 forms depending on which of the ancient texts you read. The three forms are a young beautiful woman, an old man and a genderless one.


converting custom number h:mm into time

Question: I have time values entered in Excel as a custom number h:mm. I would like to convert these to a format (still displayed as h:mm) which will allow me to perform calculations using the data. Any ideas?
Answer: The proper way to solve this problem would be to format the cells to time format (so Excel treats them as times).
If you cannot do that for some odd reason this will extract the hour and minutes out of the time and create a time value from cell A1:
=TIME( LEFT(A1, FIND(":",A1)-1), RIGHT(A1, LEN(A1)-FIND(":",A1)), 0 )

Answer: I agree with Trey. You should really use the h:mm internal time format that Excel uses natively. Converting a custom time format to the native format (especially when they are visually the same) just complicates your spreadsheet and will make maintenance more difficult in the future.
Excel's time/dates are just numbers formatted to look like times and/or dates. The interval 0 - 1 represents one full day. So an hour is 1/24, a minute is 1/3600 and a second is 1/86400. You can do your calculations based on this logicand/or you can use the inbuilt time/date functions.
Dates are handled like times and start from 1900-01-01. So 12:00 PM 1900-01-02 is represented internally as 2.5
You can use Number formats to display the time/date in almost any combination you care to think of.

converting custom number h:mm into time


Why do scientists think Higgs fields is metastable?

Question: I have recently learn and read some articles about the false vacuum in quantum fields theory.
I wanted to know why scientists think that Higgs field could be in a metastable state instead of vacuum state like the others fields.
Can anyone explain me why ?
Vacuum state are when fields or particles have their lowest energy level possible
Metastable state are when the fields or particles reach a lower level but not the lowest one.
Am i right ?
Thank in advance, Creekorful
Comment: I deleted my comment about the boson, but that might not be what physics guy meant. I think you should expand your post to say a bit about what you  think metastable and vacuum states are and how they differ, just a short summary including the VEV of other fields versus that of the Higgs. Also you should cite your source for the quote...  **why scientists think that Higgs field could be in a metastable state**
Comment: I can't find the article name. But there is a video that state the same thing : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijFm6DxNVyI. The video say that every fields want to reach their ground state : the vacuum state. Except for the higgs field
Comment: I found it extremely curious that just a few days ago I run into this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijFm6DxNVyI

Where they talk about false vacuum in QFT in a really divulgative way. Maybe it can help here.
Answer:
I have recently learn and read some articles about the false vacuum in quantum fields theory.

Here is a definition:

In quantum field theory, a false vacuum is a metastable sector of space that appears to be a perturbative vacuum, but is unstable due to instanton effects that may tunnel to a lower energy state

A scalar field φ in a false vacuum. Note that the energy E is higher than that in the true vacuum or ground state, but there is a barrier preventing the field from classically rolling down to the true vacuum. Therefore, the transition to the true vacuum must be stimulated by the creation of high-energy particles or through quantum-mechanical tunneling.

The existence of a false vacuum  is a hypothesis that some theories may use, but it is not the Higgs mechanism.

I wanted to know why scientists think that Higgs field could be in a metastable state instead of vacuum state.

The Higgs field is not metastable in the sense of a false vacuum. It is dependent on the energy available and is symmetric for high enegies of the interactions involved ( order of 100 GeV) , and broken for lower energies.
An example of symmetry breaking analogous to what happens with the Higgs field:

Spontaneous symmetry breaking simplified: – At high energy levels (left) the ball settles in the center, and the result is symmetrical. At lower energy levels (right), the overall "rules" remain symmetrical, but the "Mexican hat" potential comes into effect: "local" symmetry is inevitably broken since eventually the ball must roll one way (at random) and not another.

At each energy the vacuum is stable, it is not a false vacuum. The difference between the vacuum for the other fields , like the electron field and the photon field, is in the vacuum expectation value.

In quantum field theory the vacuum expectation value (also called condensate or simply VEV) of an operator is its average, expected value in the vacuum.

For all other particles the vacuum expectation value in the standard model is zero, for the Higgs it is 246GeV, at the broken state .
The conditions for symmetry existed at the beginning of the universe, according to the Big Bang model. The symmetry is broken at about 10^-10 seconds in the life of the universe (temperatures correspond to 100 GeV) and the Higgs field acquires the large vev.
Comment: Hi Anna! These are all just basic definitions which could be found in QFT textbooks. What I would really like to learn (especially, from an experimentalist like you), and I deduce from the question that OP would like to learn it also, is what kinds of the current experimental data are in favor of metastability of the electroweak vacuum (all of it?) and what effects will metastability have on the fate of the universe.
Comment: Also, metastability is not the same as spontaneous symmetry breaking! The question is: why has our universe chosen a metastable vacuum state (which, from what I know, is many orders of magnitude more shallow than the true vacuum) instead of the stable one during symmetry breaking? Maybe it has something to do with inflation? Please correct me if I am wrong, I am no expert at this field, but I would like to know more.
Comment: @SolenodonParadoxus I do not know of experiments looking for metastability of the higgs field vacuum. there are speculation to be checked with cosmological models I guess,  https://physics.aps.org/articles/v8/108 . seems that more accurate measurements of the top mass and the higgs boson mass might contribute according to the article linked.
Comment: @SolenodonParadoxus Also I stress that the Higgs field is stable,  symmetry breaking is not metastability, which seemed to me to be the confusion. The possible metastability of the Higgs field comes from calculations as in the link, but 1.3 sigma  difference is identical to noise , no signal, in particle physics, which deals with five sigma significances to accept a measurement.


What would be a good translation of "becario"?

Question: Let me explain myself, the official definition is "scholarship holder", but in some places it is a position in a company, sometimes is a pro bono position but most of the times is an entry level job.
Comment: Eso suena como lo que en inglés decimos "intern," lo cual es una posición en una compañía, normalmente sin sueldo, ocupado por una persona en entrenamiento en su campo.
Comment: I don't understand what you mean by "pro bono". Usually this refers to professional services, like legal counsel, offered without a fee, for the public good. Is the usage you gave for "becario" associated with subsidized employment?
Comment: @WalterMitty no, I meant "offered without a fee",  some countries have this form of employment that is  mandatory. But I think that the word is used sometimes as trainee and others as intern and some others as a pro bono position, that's why I was confused in the first place.
Comment: the correct word is "internship"
Answer: I am not sure if "trainee" could be considered the same thing but it looks like a good candidate.
Comment: It sounds like maybe "intern" would be a possible translation. But I'm not really sure.
Comment: @Flimzy: I could be wrong but, the way I understand it is that intern is a temporary worker, like a student who is getting some experience by working at a company during the summer for example. Trainee is someone who has already been hired by the company as a permanent employee but still does not have the skills to be given the full responsibilities yet.
Answer: Trainees and Interns can still get paid, even if its a stipend. However, a "Volunteer" does not get paid, although reimbursement for expenses, meals, lodging, transportation, clothing, supplies and other fringe benefits can be provided. If your intent is to use a "Scholarship Holder" (also knows as a "Grantee", "Recipient" or "Beneficiary") who has been assigned a school project to gain experience (also known as an "Internship") at a business, hospital, legal practice, etc.,  then the word "Intern" applies.
Answer: The word "Fellow" is also associated with this word.


Macbook Air headphone buzzing noise

Question: When I plug my IE80 into my Macbook Air and play any audio, it has a hissing noise in the background. I tried the solution in How can I make my Macbook Pro's headphone jack stop "humming"? by changing audio MIDI setup and it did not work. So I am wondering whether there is some other ways to solve i
Answer: I glean from the official specs:

sound pressure level: 125dB

This can mean just about anything, but if my hunch is right in that what they are trying to say is that their sensitivity is 125dB/mW, then this is indeed a highly sensitive set of IEMs, and I'm in no way surprised that they hiss to some extent when plugged into your MacBook Air.
While the MBA has pretty low noise levels as far as laptops go, it should still be more than high enough for the IE80s to pick up.
Just to be certain of course: See if the noise changes considerably by plugging and un-plugging the power supply. Also check how much noise you can hear through a more normal set of headphones (iBuds, PortaPros, something like that).
If the noise level is objectionably high only through the IE80s, even when running the Mac on battery power, your choices are essentially to either live with it, use other headphones, or buy a usb DAC/amplifier with a sufficiently low noise level. Something like those from Leckerton or JDS Labs, for example.
Answer: I had this same problem with both headphones and my external speakers (both Bose).  I had more than just buzzing, I had noticeable pops when I just touched my headphone jack or audio cable.
After struggling with MIDI and sound tweaks forever, what solved my issue permanently was that I got an external (USB) DAC interface.
My first device was the Behringer UCA202 Audio Interface which I connected directly to a Bose Wave radio.

It had the convenience of providing both a optical and analog out as well as another analog input as well as a headphone monitor port.  One of the features of a product like this is that it shows up as an additional audio device in System Preferences > Sound.  This allows me to pipe music to my Bose while system sounds came out of the system speaker.
What was even nicer about the product was the price; less than $30 when I bought it.
I have since upgraded to the Marantz Hi-Res Audio DAC since I got into Hi-Res Audio.  This DAC is obviously overkill if you want to remove hum or the noticeable buzz; it's just absolutely phenomenal in terms of sound quality.
Since going with an external DAC, I don't think I will ever go back to "futzing" around with sound settings trying to perfect it - it's just not worth the time.

Macbook Air headphone buzzing noise


Image Dataset on Corrosion of Metals

Question: I need an Image Data set on Corroded Metals due to rust. I was searching for it but am unable to find one. Is there any open Dataset of Corroded Metal Images
Answer: There is a dataset from IBM IoT that has corrosion images, but I don't know how extensive.
https://github.com/IBM/Predictive-Industrial-Visual-Analysis
https://github.com/IBM/Predictive-Industrial-Visual-Analysis/tree/master/vr-image-data

I also found this paper, which cites that the images where given from an industry partner. You might try to contact either the authors, or the company.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1807.03138.pdf

A large dataset of 250 images with segmentations labelled by undergraduates...
The authors wish to acknowledge the support provided by Woodside Petroleum in providing images of corrosion.

Image Dataset on Corrosion of Metals


Updating old Lennox thermostat - wiring confusion

Question: I am trying to update my old Lennox thermostat to a Sensi smart thermostat. I checked the compatibility on the Sensi website and it appears to be a match except for this cluster of wires on the left side of the photo. I do have a heat pump—is that what these are for? The Sensi installation instructions don't cover how to install for these. I have no experience with any of this so any advice would be appreciated.!
Comment: Can you post photos of the wiring at the air-handler end?
Answer: It appears that you have a thermostat that is designed to control a standard split-system heat pump. However, the wiring color code does not follow what I would call a conventional design. The control wiring for these heat pumps are fairly sophisticated.  You may want to consult a Lennox dealer for help.  Or a standard HVAC dealer for help with the control wiring.  Good Luck.
Answer: Posting the correct response to my own question in case any other novices are looking for the same info in the future:
The wires on the left side of the thermostat (ALL the way left, between the mercury bulbs) are not coming from the wall; they're just part of the old thermostat and aren't needed with the new one.
Also (for Paul, mainly), the wires connecting to the labeled terminals are not a problem at all as long as you take note of which wire is connected to which terminal. NEVER go by wire color alone, as it's possible the installer did not follow the color-coding standard. I recommend (as did my new thermostat's instructions) taking a photo of the old thermostat's configuration with your phone to refer back to if needed. It's really not that complicated if you're able to read instructions.
You can do this! And don't let some "experts" trick you into thinking this is more complex than it is by playing dumb when you ask simple questions!
Answer: Thank you for the advice, Paul. For clarification, I'd really just like to know what the cluster of wires on the left side of the thermostat are (the ones between what appear to be levels?). I've looked high and low for a diagram explaining this thermostat, and have found plenty of pictures of the same configuration online, but all the information seems to center on the lettered wiring on the right, completely ignoring the left. What is the function of everything on the left?
Comment: I'm not sure what you mean?   The items on the left (and far right) are the functional components of the thermostat.  The coil of metal expands and contracts with the temperature.  As it moves, it opens and closes the mercury contacts to indicate calls for heat or cool.  The wires from these switches go behind the circuit board and are soldered into the circuit somewhere. The temperature adjustment is done by tilting the whole mechanism with the clear plastic lever.    The labelled contacts are for the connections to the HVAC system.
Comment: Thanks, Dave. The items on the left are precisely what I meant. I figured it out on my own (that the wires on the left were just part of the old thermostat and would not be needed with the new thermostat) when I pulled the base off the wall and saw they weren't connected. It seemed like a pretty straightforward question anyone with any amount of HVAC knowledge could have answered, but I guess that was expecting too much, lol. Anyway, my new thermostat works great, no thanks to the experts!


Objective-C Error : dyld: Library not loaded: @rpath/custom_framework.framework/VT_custom_framework

Question: im working on a iOS Project with XCODE Version 7.1.1 with iOS Version : 7.0 as Deployment Target & im using Objective-C Only .
I'm Using one of our custom frameworks inside my project .
But the issue is my project is running pretty fine in my simulator and is failing with the Error dyld: Library not loaded: when i'm running same in Device(iOS8) .
when im trying to run the same project with out modifying any content of info.plist in one of my colleague's System,It's working in the other systems pretty fine in Simulator & Device as well .
I really dont know whats happening .
I re-installed my XCODE but the issue remained same .
I added my framework in to the Embedded binaries also .
i disabled Bit-code both in my project and in the framework's project also .

For your reference I'm posting the complete error below .

<code>dyld: Library not loaded: @rpath/custom_framework.framework/custom_framework
  Referenced from: /private/var/mobile/Containers/Bundle/Application/632142A6-4485-41D1-8A65-238112513129/MY_APP.app/MY_APP
  Reason: no suitable image found.  Did find:
    /private/var/mobile/Containers/Bundle/Application/632142A6-4485-41D1-8A65-238112513129/MY_APP.app/Frameworks/custom_framework.framework/custom_framework: mmap() error 1 at address=0x008C2000, size=0x0000C000 segment=__TEXT in Segment::map() mapping /private/var/mobile/Containers/Bundle/Application/632142A6-4485-41D1-8A65-238112513129/MY_APP.app/Frameworks/custom_framework.framework/custom_framework

</code>
Answer: iOS 7 doesn't support the loading of dynamic frameworks bundled with the app.  You will need iOS 8.
I am surprised there wasn't an error while building the app in Xcode.
Comment: Hi trojanfoe ,
Thanks for the info but when I'm trying to run the same project in my colleague's system with iOS7 as deployment target its working fine .
the app is getting crashed in my system only,I'm using OS X El-Captain V:10.11.1 .
I really don't know whats happening in my PC
Comment: OK you're going to need to examine the app bundle.  Is the `.dylib` in the bundle?  What's the rpath set to in the executable (use `otool` to find out).


Does the arrangement of atoms around a chiral carbon matter?

Question: In other words, are these two structures equivalent?
Answer: Yes, they are both (S)-2-chlorobutane.
Answer: The difference between these structures is a rotation of the molecule by 60 degrees. You could build a model to convince yourself that they are the same. The arrangement of the atoms around the chiral center does matter.
The utility of the R/S convention is that you can unambiguously decide whether the two compounds are the same or different, which can be difficult depending on the orientation of the compound.


How can I display an info only field in a webform

Question: I have put together a webform for signing in guests to a Nightshelter. Some guests are banned from time to time,  and when a known guest tries to get signed in I want to show if he/she is subject to a ban. Simple enough, but I can't figure out how to do this without exposing the yes/no banned field as updateable.  I can use conditionals but still end up showing the field as updateable.  Is it possible to show a field as read only in a webform? Or any other suggestions?
Answer: You could use webform conditional rules to display or hide a message based on the ban.

Add the "is banned" custom field to your webform
Update it from the webform tab to be type "hidden" (but not secure value)
Create a "Markup" field, and enter your warning message
Add a conditional rule to show/hide the markup based on the "is banned" value.
Comment: Done, I raised a bug with the webform project - see https://www.drupal.org/node/2606598
Comment: I've reopened the issue - also note that I discovered a workaround which may suit your needs.
Comment: I hadn't realised that I could hide a field in the webform - learning a lot here!  Thanks.
Comment: I set up the 'banned' field as an (alphanumeric) radio button and before I made it hidden I tested it and it worked fine using conditionals.  When I made the field hidden in webform it stopped working - as though the values become inaccessible.  So this doesn't seem to work - guess I should untick it as a solution - unless I'm missing something?
Comment: Oof, I guess webforms won't use hidden fields as conditional control fields? That sounds like a bug to me.
Comment: Workaround would be to hide the field with css, but IMO you should file a bug report with the webform project too.
Comment: The above bug report was closed as 'correct working behaviour'.  Which is a great shame if you want to hide a field and use it in conditional processing.
Comment: Workaround indeed works - I changed the field to 'hidden element' and the conditional now works. Thanks, you are a star, Coleman!
Answer: For select option components in a Webform, Disabled is not an option.
For something like what you are trying to do, I might be inclined to add a contextual block view that boldly states that they are not allowed in.
I also might try to set up a rule that checks that field and prints out a warning.
Comment: Thanks - in Civi I added a 'ban reason' and exposed that as a disabled textfield, with a conditional message if this field is non blank.


What is the difference between root and superuser?

Question: Do they refer to the same thing or is root just a location in filesystem (its ultimate base) and superuser a privileged user (sort of equivalent of windows administrator account) ? Do they need the same password ? Is superuser the kernel itself?
Answer: 'root' is traditionally the name given to the user account with superuser level rights. In this respect they are one and the same, though there is no rule that I know of that says that the superuser account must be called root.
It may be that the account was named 'root' due in part to the fact that only the superuser has write permission to the root directory (/)
The Windows Administrator account is not analogous to the Unix superuser account since there are restrictions on what a Windows Administrator can do. The analog to root on Windows NT based OSes is the SYSTEM account, which cannot be used by an interactive user.
Comment: The kernel identifies the root user by its uid (0). You can name that account whatever you like in `/etc/passwd`. Not having an account called `root` may confuse some of the system software, but you can have more entries; some paranoid people have a `root` entry and a `toor` entry in `/etc/passwd`, both with UID 0, but with different shells, so that if one of the shells was broken somehow (e.g. due to a disk error) the other one could be used to log in and repair the system.
Comment: BTW there is a distribution called GoboLinux where the superuser is called ... *gobo*
Comment: Regarding Windows -- there's no exact equivalent to the Unix superuser. SYSTEM is a well-known group with a built-in logon session, but the associated groups and privileges vary between different SYSTEM access tokens. This logon is the closest analog to Unix root, however. An interactive process can run as SYSTEM. Commonly psexec.exe is used for this, but any privileged process can get a SYSTEM primary token for a session and call `CreateProcessAsUser`.
Answer: / is the top level directory in linux.All the subdirectories is under the /.
the /root is default home directory of root user.


Automatically Connecting to Raspberry Pi 0 to a wifi without Screen and SSH

Question: I have a raspberry pi 0, but don't have/don't want to connect to a screen/hdmi/SSH. I can plug my pi's sdcard into my laptop and access the raspbian installation files, so is there a way I can instruct my Raspberry-pi 0 to connect to a specific wifi using a specific password by adding some files to the sdcard/OS on my laptop and make it so when it boots up it connects to that specific wifi?
Comment: Possible duplicate of [How can you setup wifi without a usb hub on a Pi Zero?](https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/41112/how-can-you-setup-wifi-without-a-usb-hub-on-a-pi-zero)
Answer: The simplest method is to create a file in the boot partition, i.e. the only partition a windows laptop can read anyway, as follows
The filename is wpa_supplicant.conf and it MUST be in linux end-of-line format (notepad++ lets you do this, recommended)
ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1
country=xx

network={
    ssid="your ssid"
    psk="your password"
    key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
    scan_ssid=1
}

where xx is your ISO/IEC alpha2 code "country code" - which, if your profile is correct, would be KR
As opposed to the other answer, no need to "generate the psk" you can simply put the password in quotes instead
On booting, this file will be copied to the correct place and used insteda of whatever is there already
Note: I'm assuming you are running at least raspbian stretch, not sure if earlier raspbian worked like this
Answer: Because you don't tell us what operating system do you use on your laptop, here is a bit more generic solution to modify wpa_supplicant.conf. If you use MS Window$ or Mac OS X you are not able to read the root partition on the SD Card that contains /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf. But the boot partition (on a running RasPi mounted at /boot) can be used on most other computer. It is the partition formated as fat32 and contains the kernel and firmware to boot the RasPi. You should find kernel.img and start.elf and other drivers on it. You can put a file wpa_supplicant.conf on it. On boot up this file is moved (it disappears) and overwrite /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf.
This way you can configure the wifi client as you like, for example with modified or additional network blocks in wpa_supplicant.conf.
Comment: @JaromandaX Just see that you have made nearly the same answer :) Anyway - I will not purge mine because there are some additional info.
Answer: assuming your Pi is already correctly set up for networking and wifi, you can modify (or create if not present) a file /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf with a content like follow:
country=US
ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1
network={
  ssid="xxxxxx"
  psk=xxxxxxxxxx
}

Where ssid is the SSID (name) of your wifi network and psk is a pre-shared key.
To generate the psk you can use the wpa_passphrase utility (on any linux computer) like follow:
$ wpa_passphrase yournetwork yournetworkkey
network={
  ssid="yournetwork"
  #psk="yournetworkkey"
  psk=70989c22e6ea590184d5def213278204e50a7eb52a00a122f430083b882deadc
}

and it will generate the network block for you that you can add to your config file.
Comment: you may want to mention that `country=US` is only for Merkins in the Unarted States of Trumpmerica ... also, your answer makes another assumption, that the laptop can read EXT4 filesystem


Does anyone make a flash diffuser for the Canon Macro Twin?

Question: I'm currently looking for a flash diffuser for the Canon Macro Twin MT-24EX. I see that many people make their own. However, I'm not very good about building stuff. Is there anything available in the market? I haven't found much so far.
Comment: You don't have to 'build' much. Just cut two appropriately sized pieces out of a plastic milk bottle or other similar 'frosted' plastic and tape them onto the flash. Heck, even parchment paper for cooking will do a half decent job.
Comment: Because you're taking macro photos, and the flashes are close to the subject, I would imagine the flash heads are relatively large compared to the subject, and I'd question if you even need a diffuser.  I think you're mainly going to just scatter light away from the subject and not really improve your images.  Tissue or milk jug plastic, as desribed above should do fine.
Comment: Or a tissues. I usually make diffusers for macro from tissues. Cheap, weights nothing and works wonders!
Answer: Stofen make a set of diffusers that fit the MT-24EX. Although they get good reviews on B&H, most photographers prefer to make their own, not because DIY is cheaper, but because DIY diffusers can provide more diffused lighting than the Stofens.
Puffer diffusers can also be used on the MT-24EX, though they don't clip in place. An elastic band will be needed to keep them on the heads (and even then they sometimes slip off).
As the others have said, it's really worth while making your own. Personally I use DIY concave diffusers or a vellum paper 'tent' diffuser.


Computer vision: Why do random filters perform similar to edge detectors?

Question: I read here that "a randomly initialized filter acts very much like an edge detector!". I want to know if there are any papers describing and explaining this phenomenon.
Comment: You are only interested in paper or reasonable explaination would suffice? Because the kernel filter in such usage is indeed edge detector, but "phenomenon" as you call it is just "pick me angles to my detector uniformly" so any discontinuity at given angles will be detected - if they are not all 0.
Comment: Since you are looking for papers - I just encourage you to read how are edge detectors made - they are calculated for given angles, but if you do not care that much about any specific angle, but once chosen you use them consistently to feed your network, almost every uniform numbers are good (zero case, identity case and degenerated eye cases should be discarded). When you take filter to feed something, it does not even have to be normalized.
Comment: http://datascience.stackexchange.com/q/18158/8560
Answer: Intuition, for a small case
Why?  Let's look at the simplest possible case, where the kernel is 1x2 (i.e., two pixels wide and one pixel high).
Here's a kernel matrix for an edge detector that detects vertical edges:
$$E_1 = [-1 \; +1]$$
Here's another matrix for an edge detector that also detects vertical edges:
$$E_2 = [+1 \; -1]$$
In particular, convolution with $E_1$ responds strongly to edges that are vertical and where the right side of the edge has higher intensity and the left side has lower intensity (whiter on the right, blacker on the left).  $E_2$ responds strongly to vertical edges with the opposite intensity variation (whiter on the left, blacker on the right).
We can see that the same is true for other examples.  For instance, consider
$$E_3 = [+1.7 \; -1.7]$$
This behaves almost identically to $E_2$, except for rescaling at its output.
For simplicity, let's focus on convolution kernels that have been normalized so their entries sum to zero.  (Many convolution kernels we use in practice have this form, because they have nice properties.)
What about a random 1x2 matrix?  Well, if it has been normalized, then it will necessarily have the form
$$M = [+\alpha \; -\alpha]$$
for some constant $\alpha$ (where $\alpha$ is random).  Regardless of what $\alpha$ is, we see that this behaves like either $E_1$ or $E_2$.
Conclusion: a random, normalized 1x2 convolution filter behaves like a vertical edge detector, with high probability.
Bigger cases
This can be generalized to other sizes of kernels.  For a random, normalized 2x1 kernel, we'll basically get a horizontal edge detector.  A random, normalized 2x2 kernel will likely respond to edges in some direction (maybe at some angle; the specific direction will depend on the entries of the matrix).
As the matrix gets larger and larger, this effect diminishes (I think).  However, typically in practice we use a relatively small convolution kernel (a fairly small receptive field), so we really care mostly about the behavior with small convolution kernels.
Normalization
What about normalization?  So far I've been talking about matrices that were generated randomly and then normalized to sum to zero.  What if we skip the normalization step?
Well, this doesn't change very much.  Without normalization, a $m \times n$ random matrix $M$ can be decomposed into $M=M' + c \cdot A$ where $M'$ is normalized so its entries sum to zero, $c$ is a constant, $A$ is the matrix containing $1/(mn)$ in every entry.
Convolving the input image with $M'$ has a good chance of being basically applying an edge detector filter to the input image (as discussed above).  Convolving the input image with $c \cdot A$ will basically blur the image and then multiply by $c$.  Thus, the output image is the (weighted) sum of these two: the (weighted) sum of an edge detector filter plus a blurred version of the image.
For a random matrix, there's a decent chance that $c$ will be relatively small (since the mean of the sum of a bunch of random variables is often fairly small), so multiplying by $c$ makes the output image be determined more by the edge detector than by the blurring.  If $c$ is small, we can basically ignore the second term of the sum and approximate the output image as the result of an edge detector filter.
That's why convolution with a random matrix has a decent chance of looking like applying some kind of edge detector to the input image.
Looking at the example images on those pages, to my eyes the first one looks more or less like an edge detector, and the second one looks more or less like a blur operator.  This is consistent with the analysis above.


How to compute the round trip delay

Question: I have a query on how to compute round trip delay. I know it is 2 times the propagation time, but let's say I have a packet of 100 bits and a transmission speed of 2 Gbit/sec, how do I compute the round trip delay in this case?
Comment: As asked, your question is really too broad to answer. We need some specifics to be able to answer the question.
Answer: You can't calculate it without knowing the delay between two hosts.
If the other host was on the moon, it takes about 1.3 seconds for light to reach it, 1.3 seconds to come back.  Round trip time would be at least 2.6 sec.  (A tiny bit more because it's not actually a vacuum, and plus 100/(2 x 109) sec for the packet.  Plus any additional framing and packet overheads, plus far end processing time.)
In real life, network round trip time is dominated by switch and router transit times for shorter distances, speed of light through fibre for intercontinential, and speed of light through vacuum for satellite.  For LANs it's often network interface and operating system detail.
Answer: Why is RTT hard to calculate?
Round-trip time is a complex metric that has several components. It includes propagation delay, processing delay, queuing delay, and encoding delay. Propagation delay is usually the dominant component in RTT. It ranges from a few milliseconds to hundreds of milliseconds depending on whether the endpoints are separated by a few kilometers or by an entire ocean. The remaining components (processing, queuing, and encoding delays) can vary by the number of nodes in the network connecting endpoints. When only a few router hops separate endpoints, these factors are negligible.
So what can I do?
Actually calculating this value is rather difficult, as mentioned by jonathanjo. However, the ping time may be a reasonable estimate for RTT. It may differ in that most ping tests are executed within the transport protocol using ICMP packets. In contrast, RTT is measured at the application layer and includes the additional processing delay produced by higher level protocols and applications (e.g. HTTPS).
Check out this article to learn more about round-trip time.

How to compute the round trip delay


How many votes were cast in the 2014 EU elections?

Question: I read on the European Pirate Party Wikipedia article that they received 868 069 votes.  I would like to compare this figure with the total votes cast for all parties.  The EU Parliament Results only shows the turnout in terms of percentages.
Answer: The total turnout for the 2014 EU election of was 42.54%.
The total population of the EU in 2014 is 507,416,607 (estimated provisional)
I wasn't able to find out an breakdown of ages groups which separated the ages at exactly voting age - so the best estimate I can give is 15% which are under 14 and of the 15-24 age group (11%) I'll just add 5% so we get a nice even number of 20% of Europeans who are not eligible to vote due to age restrictions.
That leaves about 400.000.000 European (a number also seen on the official elections page) who could have voted - with the turnout of 42.54% that comes out as 170,160,000.
Comment: That's some good extrapolation, but I'd really like to know the actual number of votes cast, not the number of people who were potentially eligible to vote.
Answer: I think I just found what you were looking for :
Regitered voters : 396.104.240
Voters : 168.818.151
Turnout : 42,61%
Valid votes : 163.551.013
Source: Page 40 of this review
Answer: The European Pirate Party got no votes - the national parties did. The only "successful" one would be the German Pirate Party, specifically 424,510 (1.45%). They got one MEP (Julia Reda). EU Parliament members are voted separately for each state.
A few other national pirate parties also participated as can be seen here. You can find a table of votes and the relevant percentages.


If I sent Bitcoins to family in Europe, would they be able to convert it to physical cash?

Question: I am interested in buying bitcoins to easily and quickly send money to family in Bulgaria. Would they have to convert it to euros and only be able to make online purchases? Or is there some way they could get physical cash from converting their bitcoins?
Answer: When bitcoins are converted to local currency (EUR, USD, BGN, etc.) and you want to take control of them yourself (as opposed to it being stored as that currency in the exchange you're using), they typically are sent to your bank account. From there, you could easily withdraw the money as cash. There's nothing that would make them have euros but only be able to spend them online.
One place to trade the bitcoins for various local currencies is LocalBitcoins. You might also see if Mt.Gox has options to transfer to bank accounts in Bulgaria.
You and/or your family should research the available options, and how they compare to more traditional international money transfers and choose what works for you. While the bitcoin transaction itself has only a tiny fee, buying and selling might be more trouble and expense than it's worth.
Answer: There are companies for selling bitcoin for euros. As I've only ever wanted USD, I don't know which are best. Either you or your family will need to do your homework and find a service that is reliable. Some companies who do this are unreliable or slow. Just Google "sell BTC for euro" and find one with good reviews. Bitcointalk is a good place to check. If no one is complaining about a company there, the the company is probably legit.
Answer: You can send them the bitcoins and they can convert them in fiat at localbitcoins Bulgaria


How to add multiple smart contracts to remix?

Question: How to add multiple smart contracts to remix? i have a project including several smart contracts such that they are inherited from each other. The question is how to add all of them to remix and then test each of them?
Comment: Question unclear. You want to import all the contracts in remix?
Comment: @Elisha Drion yes because there are several solidity files in a project such that some of them are inherited from another one
Comment: Well, you can just import them with the folder icon at top-left.
Answer: You might find remixd interesting. It allows you to interact with your file system from Remix. So you will be able to access all your contract in remix.
From the tutorial:

Remixd can be globally installed using the following command: npm
  install -g remixd.
Then remixd -s <absolute-path-to-the-shared-folder> will start
  Remixd and share the given folder.


Why do commercial flights turn / bank so sharply?

Question: When I take commercial flights, or you see turns in the vapour trails, they turn very sharply. What's the reason for this - wouldn't it be more efficient to turn gradually?
Comment: [Lnafziger](http://aviation.stackexchange.com/a/1407/391)'s answer below is correct in that a higher speeds it requires more bank to maintain a standard rate. That said, 30 degrees of bank is more typical of how pilots fly with passengers. 30 degrees of bank is nothing really to a pilot. Even at the most basic Private Pilot (US) standard in a small airplane the minimum required is to demonstrate 45 degrees of bank and up to 60 is allowed for the aircraft. Aerobatic airplanes can do 70-80 degrees of bank while maintaining level flight, they can even flip over 180 degrees and fly upside down.
Comment: FWIW, the last 747 carrier I worked for had a statement in their ops specs that banks should be limited to 20 degrees when within 4000 feet of the ground for passenger comfort unless there was an overriding need to bank steeper.
Comment: Are you asking why airplanes make "sharp" turns, or are you asking why they're making turns at all (going in a straight line from A to B is, after all, a lot more efficient)?
Comment: This landing from the South [includes reversing course by 180° at about 5 km from the threshold](http://i.stack.imgur.com/AHpIZ.jpg) with two 90° left turns. Does that match your observations?
Answer: Airplanes are expected by air traffic control to turn at a "standard rate of turn" which is 3 degrees per second.  This will provide a 90 degree turn in 30 seconds.  A standard rate is used so that controllers can anticipate how long it takes for an airplane to turn to a heading and they can line them up easier.  It also makes the turn happen in a smaller amount of airspace so that two airplanes can be flying in the same general vicinity without getting too close.
Unfortunately, at the speeds that jet airplanes travel this would mean a very high angle of bank.  A standard rate turn at 200 KT TAS is about 30 degrees of bank and jets can go much faster than this, which would require even higher bank angles.  They actually limit it to 25 degrees of bank when using a flight director, mainly for passenger comfort.
It can be impressive when looking out the window and seeing the ground, but don't worry, the airplane is more than designed for it!
This is used mainly at lower altitudes where there are lots of airplanes.  Once they are up high and airplanes are further apart (and the turns are also usually smaller) they  can bank even less (by using a "half-bank" mode) which adds to passenger comfort.
Comment: 30 seconds for a quarter turn at a speed of 878km/h means a turning radius of 4.6km
Comment: I always thought large aircraft use half rate turns (4 minute turns instead of 2 minute ones), but I can't find authoritative reference and can't find definition of "large" for this purpose.
Comment: There is [another question](http://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/1630/standard-rate-of-turn-for-heavy-aircraft) for explaining this.
Comment: @JanHudec The FAA definition of "large" is any aircraft weighing more than 12,500 lbs. (14 CFR 1.1).  As far as the other question, he asked it after seeing the answer to this one (and this answer kind of answers that too, by explaining how fast they actually turn. :) )
Answer: Airliners actually turn relatively slowly, but are often so far away (when viewed from the ground) that they appear to be turning sharply. An airliner cruising at 35,000 feet is actually over 7 miles away, which makes scale hard to comprehend.
From the air, riding in an airliner, you may be confusing rate of turn with roll rate or angle of bank. An airliner will roll relatively smoothly into a bank angle of up to 30° (which can seem steep), and a rate of turn (change in compass heading) of between 3° and 1.5° per second. You often don't feel the roll, but will observe the bank by looking out the window.
The reason for the 1.5-3° turn rate is so that Air Traffic Control can have some way to predict where an aircraft will be in x seconds. Rate of turn is standardized, making that possible.
Comment: *"An airliner cruising at 35,000 feet is actually over 7 miles away, which makes scale hard to comprehend."* And that's if it's almost directly overhead. If they appear to be near the horizon and they're flying at that altitude, they could be 100 mi or even 200 mi away on a clear day, especially if your horizon is clear of obstacles.
Answer: Most aircraft tend to make standard rate two-minute turns, as in it would take them two minutes to turn 360 degrees (3 degrees per second). At higher altitudes and higher speeds (or heavier aircraft) they might do half-rate (four minute) turns, which are 1.5 degrees per second.
So at a higher speed (which high-flying planes are likely to be at), to turn a the same rate, they must bank more sharply. That's why at higher speeds the halve the rate, so they can reduce the required bank angle.
More likely though, it's just your perspective. From your position on the ground it looks like they're turning sharply but in reality it took them several miles to make the turn. From your position in the plane, it's difficult to comprehend how fast you're going.
Finally, at higher airspeed speed sharper bank angles are required to keep the plane coordinated during a standard rate turn. This means that when you turn, you feel like you're being pressed down into your seat instead of sideways out of it (like when you take a turn fast in a car).
Comment: Hmm, your last paragraph reads like you are saying that an airplane can't be coordinated at a small angle of bank....?


How to find the nearest location which has sunny forecast

Question: Here is a scenario, I live in Seattle which is mostly cloudy or rainy these days. And I want to spend next weekend at a location, which should be close to my city but has reasonable probability of sunshine. I have found websites which give me forecast for a given location for next 10 days; but that requires me to keep trying the locations around me one by one, while increasing the diameter. I also found websites which show me the forecast for the whole state but only for next 1 or 2 days. So that is not very useful.
Comment: The accuracy of forecasts 10 days in advance isn't really there yet.  So the best you can do is look at cloud cover the dynamics and prevalent winds.
Comment: I wish we could put bounties on questions! I needed this on the turn of 2011/2012 when I had a three month client onsite in London and the lack of sunshine drove me near insane. I escaped for a weekend to Portugal as I had no better idea.
Answer: Sunspot - Find Good Weather in Your Area
https://appsto.re/us/1ohaib.i
I made this app to address the problem. I'm also from Seattle. This does pretty much exactly what you want.
Comment: Hi there, version 2 is out now: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id1526413001

We removed V1 in 2018 due to problems with Yahoo Weather API. But the new version uses our own API that grabs weather data from NOAA directly
Comment: Seems this has been removed from the App Store?
Answer: Karlson is correct.  The next best thing to do is look at historical data, if you have copious amounts of free time, to see locations weather history around you.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/
Answer: You can do this with a predictive weather map. For example, http://www.weather-forecast.com lets you get a map centred around any country or (for some countries) a state/province, fast forward to a date (up to 10 days), then look for sun.
For example, here's their map centred around Washington State for next Saturday as an example. Each of those icons gives you a basic local forecast when mouseovered:

How reliable is it? Depends on the local weather data, but it's the simplest way I've found to browse for nearby sunshine.
The website's navigation is a bit... old-school. Start at http://www.weather-forecast.com/maps then find a country of interest, then hit the + button to choose a state/province then press the → arrow or drag the slider to navigate to the date and time you want.

Of course, how useful the information shown on the map is will vary by region...
Answer: You can use Where2go from Meteoblue, they have very accurate forecast predictions as well
https://www.meteoblue.com/en/weather/outdoorsports/where2go
Comment: This appears to be what is known as a "link only" answer, meaning it is sometimes better left as a comment rather than an answer. You would have to earn enough rep to write comments, and to earn that rep you would need to write a high-quality question or answer somewhere, or to make a sufficiently large number of high-quality edits.
Comment: @user1271772 while this answer certainly could be improved the nature of the question does require links, some more details on features would be nice but it's fine. This is not the sort of link only answer where the information should be copied here.


minecraft java edition 1.13 player join detector?

Question: I am working on a game that uses commands in such a way that players disconnecting then reconnecting could break the commands. I was wondering if there is a way to detect when players join the game in 1.13.2 and run a command to give them an item. When I researched this, I found solutions for older versions using /testfor or stat.leaveGame, but those seem to be outdated in 1.13. If someone could show me the commands to use as well as the layout for command blocks/redstone that would be great. It can be for the second time they join only, or for all times that they do. Thanks
Comment: Questions on Stack Exchange should not be re-asked just because the current answers are outdated.
Answer: the way you're looking for that involved testfor and stat.leavegame would now be best suited by using execute and minecraft.custom:minecraft.leave_game. essentially, you would do all the same things you would with testfor, except no redstone is needed now. when you use execute, you can tell the game to run it if they have a leave game score of 0 (or whatever you need to do for it) by doing something like below;
/execute at @a as @s if score @s <scoreName> matches 0 run <command>

you could also do a different one, with this technique, for a command you want to run if their leave game score is a certain about (or higher than a certain amount);
/execute at @a as @s if score @s <scoreName> matches <value> run <command>

for <value>, to make it run for everything up to that value or everything that value and greater, use ..<value> or <value>.., respectively.
Comment: Thanks! this was extremely helpful!
Comment: no problem! if you need anything else, don't be afraid to ask :D


Modify content of formula field in apex or .net

Question: My organization has a number of formula fields that are used to link to services and sites outside of salesforce. In our production environment these need to point to the production sites and in our sandbox they need to point to our test sites. Whenever we do a refresh these are overwritten with the production values and it is very tedious to go through and modify all of these fields one by one. Is there anyway we could script the update of these? Does apex have any means of modify not an individual record but the metadata about a particular record type?
Answer: You could try using the Metadata or Tooling API to update the CustomField record.
E.g.
The Metadata API has CustomField. If you can modify the formula then you can alter the value for each environment.
From Apex you may wish to use the Apex Wrapper Salesforce Metadata API. There is an example there of creating a CustomField in Apex that could be adapted to changing the formula of an existing field.

Here is an example using the SOAP version of the ToolingAPI from .NET to alter the formula of a formula field.
<code>// Your code to get an instance of the Tooling Service for
// an active Salesforce Session will probably differ.
ToolingServiceWrapper toolingService = salesforceSession.GetToolingService();

sObject[] customFields = toolingService.retrieve("Id, Metadata", "CustomField",
                                                 new string[] { "00N70000003KVWfEAO" });
Assert.AreNotEqual(0, customFields.Length);

CustomField cf = (CustomField)customFields[0];
if (cf.Metadata.formula == "Name")
{
    cf.Metadata.formula = "$Organization.Name";
}
else
{
    cf.Metadata.formula = "Name";
}
SaveResult[] saveResults = toolingService.update(new sObject[] { cf });
Assert.AreNotEqual(0, saveResults.Length);
SaveResult sr = saveResults[0];
Assert.IsTrue(sr.success);
</code>
Answer: If the fields don't change very often (i.e. they don't change aside from switching between production and test sites), then you could just keep a single sandbox with the correct sandbox configuration, and deploy those fields only via a change set to recently refreshed sandboxes.
If the actual function of these fields changes often though then this would require some extra maintenance. But it is relatively easy to set up.


What is reasonable time to allow to pay invoice?

Question: I'm putting a contract together. I had a previous verbal agreement with my client that they pay my invoices within 2 weeks (issued on a weekly basis), but it feels too long. So I want to have a clause in the contract to reflect a shorter period - say 1 week. What is a reasonable amount of time to pay weekly invoice.
Comment: This question is so vague as to be unanswerable. Please specify what industry you are asking about; for example, in translating/interpreting, anything less than 30 days is a miracle. 30-45 seems to be standard. But again, mileage will vary based on profession.
Answer: I put net 15 days on invoices.
15 days is customarily the minimum. Remember payment may need to be routed through accounting, or the mail if a check is sent. You can't expect or require immediate payment in most cases, even though it's nice when clients do that.
For a weekly invoice, with 15 days you'll always be a week behind. The other option would be to request the first week up front (at contract signing), that way you are always a week ahead and can stop work if payment hasn't been received for the the coming week.
Related: What is the correct steps in resolving lack of payment?
Comment: And here I am at the 2 month point waiting for a payment for a website.
Answer:
Always make it clear, in writing, what the payment terms and deadlines are. I've seen anything from 10 to 60 days in various industries, but never less than 10 days. As already mentioned, there are a lot of hoops to jump internally for some companies to cut a check, so give them a reasonable amount of time. On the other hand, some companies will put off paying you as long as possible if there are no late penalties (especially if they have cash-flow issues already).
Include a moderate late payment penalty, both in the contract and on each invoice, and hold them to it. Late penalties are fairly standard, and something like 10-20% APY is common - see this article for how to apply the penalties, and send them a new invoice within after the due date that includes the new penalty.
Consider the trade off between your business relationship and prompt payment. If a client is always a few days late, but always pays, is demanding a check 2 days earlier really going to matter if it might cost you the customer? On the flip side, if you're spending hours of your time chasing someone for money after each project, you might be ahead to drop them. Either way, discuss it with them. You might choosing to waive the late penalty for a good client - but make sure they are aware it is a per-instance exception and not a change to your terms (but don't rub their face in it).

In your particular case, where you have already agreed to an invoicing period, even though it was 'only' verbally, I would be very hesitant to try changing that on a written contract. As a client, I would see that as pulling a fast one and would a little be wary of trusting you in the future. If this project goes well, you can always adjust the terms on the next project.
Answer: What is reasonable in the circumstances depends on what you feel comfortable working out with the client.
I think the best solution in your scenario is to very politely ask the client if you can shorten the payment terms to 1 week - you've got nothing to lose.
They'll likely prioritize your invoices over their other bills (esp. if and when they are short on cash flow) because you asked.
You have to have a sense of what you can openly discuss and ask of the client without irritating them - but if you feel comfortable go for it.
Answer: There is no standard for this. Some corporate clients will take months to pay you. Some clients will proceed and pay instantly. For my part, I usually accept a 2-3 months payment delay.
Comment: Omar, payment terms are negotiable.  This is something that needs to be discussed during contract formation, BEFORE you start work.  Otherwise, you leave it up to whatever the client wants to do - this is not good business.
Comment: And what I wanted to point out is that most people who are new in business have no idea at all that they are able to ASK for payment terms that suit their personal situations, rather than not asking and submitting themselves to the client's "default" procedure.  Since just about all the work I do enables my clients to either earn money (or earn it faster) as soon as I'm done, it's not a fair trade that the client can benefit from my work immediately, but I have to wait a month or two.
Comment: @codenoire Anything is negotiable (and obviously should be done before work). What I wanted to point is that contractors handle this differently.
Answer: For over 40 years I have been making hardwood floors for clients all over UK and across the world. I give fixed price quotations for 99% of the work and they rangemin costs from around £5k and £300K. I have always charged 70% of contract value up-front, only occasionally varying that to 50% with confirmation of the clients order and 25% prior to loading for delivery, the 30% or 25% balance being due on the day of completion of the works. I never have any problems with customers paying up-front.  Some part with very large sums of money sometimes 2 years ahead of any materials being delivered to site.  I also am always paid very promptly. Though the Terms of Trading require payment on the day of completion, in practice it usually takes me a day or two to produce the invoice, which is invariably sent by email.  It is very rare that I am not paid the balance within 2 to 3 days of sending the email.  I do not work for anyone who wants to pay in arrears. However, to support that, I never let the customer down.  I always deliver what the quote says. We strive for perfection on every job. We never have to go back to do put rights.  If only more small businesses took the same approach to payment and to the quality of work delivered the courts would be much less busy.


Bread and butter pickles without mustard seed?

Question: I'm making bread and butter pickles and I ran out of mustard seed.  What can I use instead?  Or do I just skip it?
Comment: I've had good horseradish pickles before.  It wouldn't be bread & butter, but it might add a little extra flavor to make up for the loss of the mustard.
Comment: @Joe Interesting idea. That might be really good! OP - Careful though if you try it to not overdo it. Horseradish (in any form) will permeate more and increase in strength over time MUCH more than the same quantity of mustard seed (by volume, anyway).
Answer: You can put whole peppercorns, you can put allspice, you can put cumin seeds. Do one jar with and one without and see what you like.
Answer: if you have any really chunky deli mustard just throw a spoonful of that in there.
Comment: Yep. Whole-grain mustard will do nicely in a pinch.


Page Layout Edits Disappeared

Question: On Friday, out of the blue...no admin changes had been made, our page layouts went on the blink. All but six fields have disappeared on the page. When you go to edit, the full page layout shows up, but in preview you can only see the same six fields (out about 20). If you add or delete fields there are no changes in preview, although I can remove and add any one of the six fields. Starting a new page layout from scratch doesn't help either...only one of the six fields will show up when saved. Even stranger this impacts page layouts for Accounts, Contacts, etc. I can't find any one with this problem...any thoughts are greatly appreciated.
Comment: It sounds like your field level security got messed up. You'll need to check your field level security for each field.  As for why it happened, I could hardly guess, possibly an admin playing around with a change set or Force.com IDE.
Comment: Reviewing your Setup Audit Trail should help identify recent changes to your org and who made them.
Comment: @fincann, Welcome to SFSE! and thanks for nice question
Answer: Since, when you edit the page layout all the related lists are available so here is the resolution to find the issues:

User's profile should have access to the object and related fields.
If user has access to the objects, even then he is not able to see the related list then only option is user may have removed the related list by his own way.

Basically, open the record detail page and find the Customize Page link.

Then in the below page, assign the related list in selected list side. Be sure to assign in the proper order. Because, this ordering overwrites the ordering the page layouts during display.

Page Layout Edits Disappeared


まち: what's the difference between 町 and 街?

Question: My impression is that 町 tends to be used for smaller cities and 街 tends to be used for larger ones. Is this correct? If not, what is the difference?
Answer: That is correct. According to 文化庁, 町 is similar to town whereas 街 is similar to street or avenue. 街 can also refer to a developed town with lots of streets and avenues, so to say.
For example, you can say センター街 (center-gai), but not センター町 (center-cho). This is because センター街 refers to "streets with small businesses". If there was a センター町, hypothetically speaking, a Japanese would imagine some area where small businesses are scattered here and there, rather than an area with a few streets with small businesses packed together.
Hence the different usage.
Comment: A gai is a more populated business district area with specialized services for example, Wall Street, with numerous financial institutions. A cho is a town, and provides municipal and generalized services.


What part of the brain controls depth perception?

Question: Specifically the part of the brain that does depth perception based on binocular vision. I have searched all over the web and have turned up nothing. Is it the same part of the brain that processes all images from the retina?
Answer: According to the article: Scientists uncover second depth-perception method in the brain:

the neurons in the middle temporal area of the brain are combining visual information and physical movement to extract depth information

This Scientific American article states that there is a process involved:

Visual-image processing from the eye to the brain happens in stages. Rudimentary features such as the orientation of edges, direction of motion, color, and so on are extracted early on in areas called V1 and V2 before reaching the next stages in the visual-processing hierarchy for a progressively more refined analysis. This stage-by-stage description is a caricature; many pathways go "back" from stage to stage—allowing the brain to play a kind of 20-questions game to arrive at a solution after successive iterations.

This process is discussed further in this article with what is known as the Laminart model.
Answer: Some regions of primary visual cortex (V1; physically at the very back of the cortex) respond to visual stimuli present in either eye. These are called "binocular" regions, for obvious reasons. Some of the neurons in these regions are "disparity-tuned", in the sense that they respond most strongly when a stimulus is present on both retina, at a particular retinal distance apart. This has been known for cats for some time (Fisher & Kruger 1978). The suggestion is that information from disparity-tuned neurons are used for depth discrimination (Ohzawa et al. 1990).
There may be other mechanisms as well, which use relative motion and ocular convergence to estimate distance.


Synchronize two directories on linux pc

Question: I need a distributed filesystem (or a synchronization tool) that is capable of keeping a directory synchronized across 4 pc.
My requirements are:

offline access (data must be available offline on each pc)
preserve execution rights: some files are marked executable on a linux partition. This flag should be replicated.
efficient sync strategy: some of my files are 20GB, they are changed quite often, but in very little parts (Virtualbox images). Delta transmissions are welcome.
efficient handling of space: no history for files, files shouldn't be copied to temp directories "just in case you break it".
it must propagate deletions of files
modification can happen in any of the 4 pcs, they should be propagated when other pc are connected.
solution must be fault tolerant: most of the time the 4 pc are disconnected/not able to synchronize.

Other specs of my solution are:

Sync is over a lan, the total amount of data to be synced is around 180GB, in some ten thousand files. Changes are small, but can happen in large files.
At the moment i'm interested in a linux only solution.
Simple merge strategy: conflicts either don't happen or are solved with "last one wins"

I haven't found any good solution. I've been trying:

unison: it is the only one working at the moment, but i had to do a lot of custom configurations (cron scripts that chains executions). It hangs my pc for many minutes to detect changes, disk light steady on.
Sparkleshare doesn't handle large files nicely. It keeps an history of all your changes that grows up indefinitely. They promise it will be fixed in next releases, but at the moment it still doesn't fit my needs.
Owncloud doesn't handle large files nicely, has poor copy performances, keeps history of each file i change (can be disabled).
coda ? (help! i couldn't set it up correctly!)
git-annex assistant transforms all your files in symlinks and mark the original file as read only ("just in case you make a mistake while you modify it"!). Before you edit a file you have to issue a special command "git-annex unlock", that creates a local copy of the file, and you have to remember to lock it again if you want it synchronized. I had to study the manual before could get my 180Gb of files back! Never again on my pc!

What to try next?
Comment: What about rsync?
Answer: Looks like I'm necro'ing an old thread, but hopefully this will help someone in the future.
BTsync is probably a perfect option for you. It uses a private swarm and tracker to create sync shares. It is very fault tolerant and handles blocks of data well instead of just full file syncing.
BitTorrent Sync
Comment: +1 for btsync. i also think its ideal for this. Also its ok to necro an old question with a good answer. Particularly an otherwise unanswered one.

Synchronize two directories on linux pc


Soundflower is not sending multi-output sound to all devices

Question: Okay, so I'm using a new MacBook Pro to do streams on my Twitch channel. That being said, I followed a Youtube video months back, when I first started on how to get my desktop audio through OBS. I did everything the video said and for a good amount of time everything was all good. Somewhere down the line the multimedia output that i selected in my sound preferences which was created after instaling soundflower was what i would select to get sound through OBS and still be able to hear everything through my scarlet 2i2. There was one time it just stopped working and I only heared audio if I selected the scarlet. I didn't pay no mind to it and idk what happened exactly, but it fixed itself. So I went back to the streams and today my computer overheated, froze all up and I restarted it. Uppon it booting back up the multimedia-output was not working or so I thought. Turned out the stream could still hear the desktop audio, but for some reason it wouldn't play it through my scarlet, so I could NOT hear what they were hearing. I'm sure there's a fix for this somehow. I just dont know enough to fix it myself. Please, can anyone help me out here?
Answer: While I don't fully understand what you're doing and what goes wrong I can't tell you how to configure Sound Flower the right way. But I know an alternative solution.
Using Audio MIDI Setup, to send Audio to multiple devices:
Your Mac has Audio MIDI setup installed by default. By selecting the + and choosing 'Create Multi-Output Device' you can send audio to both your headphones and to soundflower (which sends it to OBS if I understood you right).


Precession and the location of the sun on the horizon at equinox

Question: The sun lines up with this fountain, which is at the Salk Institute, during the equinoxes. Will precession eventually throw the alignment out of whack?
Comment: Obviously the answer is to build servos under the plaza so the direction of the trough can follow any deviation!
Comment: Looking at the Milankovich cycles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles for example, Summer in the northern hemisphere is 4.66 days longer than winter, and that should flip back and forth, at least a few days.  I would expect small variations of a few days over the 26,000 and 100,000 year cycles, but I'd need to work it out to give a real answer, it's just a suspicion.   The changes should wonder back and forth, so never more than a few days off over the 10,000 plus year cycles.
Answer: The fountain will always line up with the Sun during the equinox. The precession of the Earth's axis will not change this fact. What it will change is exactly when the equinox happens. However, the fountain doesn't care about when the equinox occurs, only that it does and when it does happen, it will be pointed at the Sun.
The equinox is simply the precise point in time when the Earth's axis is neither leaning towards or away from the Sun, but rather leaning along it's direction of travel. There are many analgous definitions of the equinox, but the main point here is that the equinox is simply a specific orientation of the Earth's tilt with respect to the Sun. So long as the Earth is in that specific state, the equinox will occur and the fountain will line up with the Sun. As I said though, the precession may cause the date of the equinox to drift over time.
Answer: The alignment should be maintained.  In general, at the equinoxes, the sun rises due east and sets due west.  As East and West are determined relative to the Earth's axis of rotation, it doesn't matter that the direction of the axis changes due to precession.
As an example, Stonehenge is aligned to the midsummer sunrise (OK, not the equinox, but it makes the point), and has been for 4000 years (I haven't checked when the relevant part is thought to have been built).
Comment: Yeah, but Stonehenge, rather like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattanhenge,  has a relatively wide acceptance angle.
Comment: You sure about due East/West for any latitude?
Comment: But the period of precession is something like 26,000 years.
Comment: @MarcAdler  I went into some detail.   Over the 26,000 year period the dates wlll change.    The number of days between Winter and Spring Equinox will slowly increase, but there will always be a perfect alignment, it's just the timing of it that slowly changes, then changes back over 26,000 years.
Answer: Just to add some detail to the above.
If you set the 21st of March and September as the equinox dates, which is mostly not done, but still occasionally, and, also, not astrology but more, cultural, so probably not worth mentioning, but by the 21st or 22nd dates, then there's some shifting.   As others have said, the date and time shifts, the sun passing over the equinox point always happens, every year, pretty close to March and Sept 21.
Variation on the specific date and time changes not just because of orbital cycles but also, time-zones and leap-years. see here.
on the Milankovich cycles
Changes in the Earth's eccentricity cycle affects the inequality of length of the 4 seasons.    For now, Winter lasts 88.99 days, Spring, 92.75 days, Summer, 93.66 days and fall 89.85 days.  A year remains pretty much constant at 365.242 days but the length of the seasons varies slowly over the periods of two Milankovich cycles, eccentricity and axial precession.
The eccentricity cycle is the most inconsistent of the Milankovich cycles, having periods of 95,000, 125,000 and 400,000 years and it won't peak for another 150,000 or 200,000 years or so.   See chart.
As a curious sidebar, the lengths of the months are somewhat adjusted to match this seasonal variation.   Spring and Summer both have 2 months with 31 days.   Winter has 2 but also 28 day February.  Fall has only 1 month with 31 days.
The Axial precession cycle that you asked about, the 25,771 year cycle, often abbreviated to 26,000, right now it's closely lined up so that if lands only a couple weeks off the winter solstice.  In 13,000 years or so it will line up near the summer solstice.
This means, 13,000 years from now, winter will be the longest season and summer the shortest.  The Spring Equinox will "spring forward" a few days and the fall equinox will fall back a few days.  This happens gradually, not all at once, but in 13,000 years, we might see the Spring equinox around March 25-27 and the fall around September 16-18, as a ballpark guess.    This variation will be even more pronounced as the Earth's eccentricity grows. which right now it's not, but in 180,000 or 200,000 years, there's a chance, we'll get spring equinox in April.   (Not making a guarantee, just saying there's a chance).
But as others have said, the equinoxes will always line up perfectly with the structures, in as much as the structures are correctly built.   But the dates when they line up will change, over Milankovich time, then change back.
Tried to clean that up and remove the earlier errors.
Comment: The events in June and December aren't equinoxes, they're solstices. Also, I know nominally the equinoxes and solstices occur around the 21st of their respective months, but I don't know of anyone who would say it occurs exclusively then or would define it as happening then.
Comment: @zephyr The first article I quoted actually said "Many cultures claim March 21 as the date of the March Equinox"  now, I didn't verify that, I just took it at face value.   But you're right on the equinox and solstice.   I'll clean that up.
Comment: Weird, maybe that statement is more applicable to pre-modern technology cultures. Now though, we can measure the equinox down to the second.


Basque words in Spanish vocabulary

Question: Which are the words, parts of words and structures coming from Basque to Spanish language? And possibly in which periods did they become part of spoken Spanish and official Spanish (Castellano)?
Answer: From the top of my head, the most used one would be

izquierda: left

There are others, like:

zamarra or chamarra: though RAE says zamarra is a sheepskin jacket or similar, in the Basque Country we use it, in Spanish too, to mean overcoat or any coat, really (usually pronounced "chamarra").
zulo: in Basque it literally means "hole", but thanks to ETA, the word entered the Spanish language meaning a hideout to hide weapons or kidnapped people.

UPDATE:
I've found the following link with some more words. Some of them I really had no idea they were of Basque origin:

Aquelarre: witches' sabbath
Gabarra: barge
Bacalao: cod
Chabola: hut
Chirimbolo: according to RAE, "Objeto de forma extraña que no se sabe cómo nombrar" (it seems now RAE says it of uncertain origin)
Chistera: top-hat, and also the jai alai "basket" or xistera
Órdago: in mus card game bidding all the remaining points. From there, it is also used as "ultimatum" (lanzar un órdago). And "de órdago" means "extraordinary".
Comment: Yes, *izquierda* is probably the most used one. I wish I could give you more up-votes ;-)
Comment: Wow, didn't have any idea about *izquierda*
Comment: IIRC, usage of *zulo* is now for more common crimes, like for example a place where criminals would hide the stolen property or take apart stolen cars.
Answer: This Wikipedia link includes a list of such words, which I confirmed in the DRAE and expanded with a search on the DRAE itself.
The DRAE attributes a Basque origin to the following words:

amachinarse
boruca
chaparro
chapela
charro
chatarra
chueca
cococha
esguín
gamarra
gambalúa
ganzúa
guiri
jorguín
laya
mochil
mochila
muga
narria
sabaya
zatico/zatillo
zurrón

It attributes a possible Basque origin to the following:

alud
azcona
barrunte
burga
cencerro
mogote

The word agur was borrowed from Basque, which in turn had borrowed it from Latin.
The word silueta comes from a fellow named Étienne de Silhouette, whose surname comes from the Basque zuloeta, which is related to the zulo mentioned by Mikmik in a previous response.
This list isn't comprehensive, of course. I didn't include words mentioned in previous responses, recent borrowings, or regionalisms.
Comment: Great list! I wish the RAE online dictionary had the option to look up words by etymology, or regionalisms. I also didn't include in my response some words which RAE includes in the dictionary but which are related to the Basque culture, like aizcolari, pelotari, batúa...
Comment: @MikMik Indeed, but we're lucky to have DRAE free online at all. The OED, by contrast, is not exactly cheap.
Answer: You can search for "del vasco" on Dirae, which produces 88 results (from the DRAE):

Puedes usar la búsqueda "del vasco" en Dirae, que arroja 88 resultados (procedentes del DRAE):

abertzale, agur, aguín, aizcolari, amachinarse, amarreco, amilamia, anavia, angula, aquelarre, arangorri, arnasca, arrabio, astabatán, aurragado, aurresku, azcona, bacalao, barrunte, batúa, boruca, burga, carranca, cartolas, cencerro, cenzaya, chabola, chacolí, changurro, chaparro, chapela, charro, chatarra, chirula, chistera, chistorra, chueca, cinzaya, cococha, donostiarra, escarrio, esguín, etarra, euscalduna, euskera, gabarra, gamarra, gambalúa, ganzúa, gardama, gardubera, guiri, ikastola, ikurriña, izquierdo, jorguín, lastón, lasún, laya, lendakari, lurte, maqueto, mochil, mogote, molso, motil, mozcorra, muga, narra, narria, orzaya, pacharán, pelotari, pitarra, sabaya, sagardúa, sagarmín, sinsorgo, talo, tobera, zacuto, zamarra, zarandilla, zarrio, zatico, zorcico, zurrón y órdago.
Comment: Acabamos de darnos cuenta de que eres el creador de DIRAE. ¡Pedazo invento!

Basque words in Spanish vocabulary


Alarm Settings on Samsung Galaxy S3

Question: Since updating to Jelly Bean, I can no longer change the settings of my alarms on my S3 i.e snooze (time in between, length), activate smart alarm, change the alarm tone etc... When I click more, it just lets me change the volume. Can anyone help?
Comment: Could you give us a screenshot of what "more" you're referring to?  I do not see any such thing to click on on my GS3 and you just scroll down to see the options you're referring to.
Comment: Are you still using the "Clock" app? I have JB too, I use Clock to set alarms and I can set all of these options.
Answer: After you tap "more" you can scroll down to change more than just the volume. I didn't think there was anything else, either, at first.
Answer: I'm not sure, but since you updated to JB, It may have other stock alarm app, so it wouldn't be some bug. Although you can download an app for this, like Xtreme Alarm which is free.
Or you can search on XDA forums the stock alarm APK for ICS. I've found this topic, which lists a lot of stock apps for downloading.
Answer: In case you haven't figured it out yet, (or for future reference):
From the clock app, tap on the alarm in question. You'll be brought to the original settings you saw when you first set it. Tap on more at the bottom.

Alarm Settings on Samsung Galaxy S3


Conversion of energy to matter or antimatter?

Question:
We all know that matter converts into energy, but will energy convert into matter?
Does it form antimatter by converting? Illustrate me with example.
Comment: The first question is a duplicate of [this question](http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/16777/).
Comment: Also a duplicate of [this question](http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/146796/).
Answer: Yes energy will convert into matter, this happens in particle accelerators a high amount of energy is pumped into a particle and then when it collides with another one, it will form new particles from the energy. Antimatter can also be formed in these high energy collisions such as when a muon is created and after about 2 micro seconds the muon decays into an electron, a muon neutrino and a muon anti-neutrino
Comment: But when the muon is formed, is an anti-muon formed as well?
Comment: @JoshuaLin: the short answer is yes. The longer answer is that any reaction which doesn't break the conservation laws for the force involved is allowed. The major laws involved in $\gamma \to \mu\bar{\mu}$ are conservation of lepton number and electric charge (although energy, momentum etc have a role as well).
Answer: In fact, the pair production describes that energy can be converted into both mater and antimatter through photon over or equal to a threshold of 1.02 MeV. Since Albert Einstein's infamous equation, E = mc^2 tells us that matter and energy is interchangeable so if matter can become energy, then energy can become matter. I am actually doing a research project based on this, although I would need a lab to experiment on this idea.


Can I include personal experiences in nonfiction?

Question: I am writing a book mostly about the history of my local airport. This will include the changes from the earliest airlines and airports til today. What I want to know, for example, I write about the change in food they were serving to include some of my memories about airline food I had or would that be considered a personal opinion and not allowed in this type of book?  Would including any personal knowledge or experiences be OK? The book will be non fiction.
Comment: Welcome to Writing.SE dean1957, glad you found us.  Please check out our [tour] and [help].
Comment: Note that historians exclude (depending on where you are) the last 20 to 45 years as "That's politics, not history"
Answer: The short answer is yes, you can include this type of material.  But it really depends on your audience and the scope of the book.  You may not want to do it.
If you're writing a very fact-based formal history, it would be odd to suddenly jump to an anecdote about eating fruit salad while flying.  If you interview people to include their personal stories (or get them from publications and other research), then including your own memories makes more sense.
As an example, take the nonfiction book Hidden Figures, about black female mathematicians and engineers who worked at NASA around the time the US made it to the moon.  Margot Lee Shetterly uses a multitude of sources, including interviews.  The book is filled with both facts and personal stories from the women involved.
What about Shetterly's voice?  She doesn't work at NASA and she's too young to have been a part of these events.  Yet she's part of the larger community where these scientists lived and worked.  Her family knew some of them.  Shetterly does inject her personal experience, but only when directly relevant.  For example, in the introduction when talking about how she came to write the book.
If you were involved in the history of this airport in any way (including, for example, coming out on opening day as a child, or working towards zoning changes), then include yourself as a source.  If your stories are about airports or airlines in general, it might be better to leave it be.
For a more folksy book, you have a lot more leeway.  If your stories are compelling enough to stand on their own, then you might want to incorporate them.  Or you could frame the book as a personal story you're telling about the history.  I don't necessarily recommend these styles, but they are options.
Answer: Any book or article can be written with either personified (first-person) or non-personified narration. You just have to select one way or the other.
Typically, reader can tell from the very start if the author presents him/her self or not, and whether the entire book or article is written through the prism of a personal experience. If your situation, it may be odd if you cover most of the book in a dry third-person narration, and then start extensively using "I".
Thus, you probably would want to introduce yourself to the reader at the very beginning, and describe how you personally connected to the airport.
But maybe this narrative shift is exactly what you want, and this change of narration would be similar to breaking the "fourth wall".


How do I enable Terminal Services in Windows Server 2003?

Question: I've just installed Windows Server 2003 and want to enable Terminal Services for Remote Administration.  I've checked the Terminal Services Manager, Terminal Services Licencing and Terminal Services Configuration tools under "Administration" in the Start Menu, but can't find the option to turn it on.  How do I enable Terminal Services?
Answer: Answering my own question...  Open the Start Menu, right click on "My Computer" and select "Properties".  Click on the "Remote" tab, and tick "ENable Remote Desktop on this computer".
It's in exactly the same place as it is in XP, but somehow I spent hours looking fior it in Windows Server 2003.
Jim.
Answer: You have to go to Windows Components in Add / Remove Programs and select it as an addable component.  It's not installed by default.


What is the term for a phrase that connects two objects with some relation?

Question: In mathematics, we usually see symbols that join two objects: numbers, sets, etc. The more familiar one is the equality symbol "=" which in a formal standpoint means "is logically identical to." My question is what are these types of terms called? Terms that connect two objects with some relation. Sorry, I'm not very familiar or knowledgeable about the field and concepts of linguistics, correct me if the question is too vague.
Comment: Are you looking for "predicate"? For example, in "cats hunt mice", "hunt" is a binary predicate that connects the entities "cats" and "mice".
Comment: Especially, are you looking for commutative predicates like _marry_? There are some, but very few. Every English predicate (function analog) has its own set of possible arguments, forbidden constructions, optional transformations, modifications when inside negative, modal, or quantifier scopes, plus selected short subjects. You're safe to think of them as largely unstudied special functions like zeta or gamma.
Comment: If you want to see how predicates become verb phrases, try the [logic guide](http://websites.umich.edu/~jlawler/logicguide.pdf) and the [verb phrase guide](http://websites.umich.edu/~jlawler/VPguide.pdf).
Answer: Things we might think of as "operators" in mathematics/logic or "verbs" in linguistics are all just predicates.
The operator = is a two-place predicate. We can think of a think of this as a function that takes two arguments and returns True if the two arguments are equal to other. Equivalently, we think of it as a function that takes one argument, and returns a function which itself takes another argument and return True if the two are the same.
Similarly, a verb such as "saw" in the sentence "John saw Mary" is a two-place predicate. We can think of it as a function that takes two arguments (note that the order of the arguments is important) and return True if the argument corresponding to the subject indeed saw the argument corresponding to the object.
This functional nature of predicates can be somewhat obscured by the fact that we write operators like = and verbs like "saw" in infix notation, i.e. between their arguments. Instead, we could imagine writing them in prefix notation like we would in math, i.e. f(x). In this way, we could think of the equality predicate as a function ((= (x)) y) where the expression (= x) is a function that takes in some argument and returns True if it's equal to x. Similarly, we can imagine "saw" as a predicate in prefix notation, i.e. ((saw (Mary)) John) where "saw" is a function that takes in an object, i.e. Mary, and returns a function. That function (saw Mary) is then a function that takes in a subject and returns True if and only if that subject indeed saw Mary.
Aside from two-place predicates like above, we also have one-place predicates such as negation or intransitive verbs, as well as three-place predicates like ditransitive verbs.


What is an optimal way to make tandoori roti and naan in big green egg?

Question: Big green egg (and other kamado style ovens) can be used for many kinds of different breads. What is an optimal way to bake naan and/or tandoori roti in an egg( large size)?
Traditionally clay ovens is India have long hollow cylindrical structure where the bread is stuck, not sure how we can replicate the same behavior in Big Green Egg. Use in on the plate setter or use a pizza stone or stick it on the inside of the upper some?
What should the temperature be? How long should it be left? Any other useful information regarding this?
Answer: I make naan on my BGE all the time. You can't replicate a tandoor, however, the results are very good. I find it best to cook the naan directly on the grill, and over the coals.  I find lower heat is best.  I either bake them at the end of a grill session, when the heat is dying, or I completely close the bottom vent (leaving the lid open...not just the lid vent). Depending on the heat level, it only takes a minute or two on each side.  I place the rolled out naan on the grill, lightly brush with melted butter, wait for bubbling/puffing, flip, brush with butter, wait for puffing (or peak underneath and look for doneness), then remove to a towel for holding...repeat.


Why do you need a viewfinder in MILC?

Question: What are the main reasons for choosing a mirrorless camera with a viewfinder?
Answer: Pros of using an EVF as opposed to the rear LCD screen:

It is easier to see in direct sunlight.
Holding the camera to the eye increases stability and comfort (especially with heavier lenses).
EVFs offers diopter correction so users don't need to wear eyeglasses.
Comment: Additionally, it helps to focus and block out distractions - you see only the EVF and what you've framed instead of everything else going on.
Answer: The main advantage of a viewfinder over using the back display is that in bright sunlight, it can be hard to see anything on the display. For example, I found it almost impossible to take pictures of birds in flight using the display because I could see hardly anything on it.
Another factor is that the viewfinder uses less power because it is smaller, so your battery will last longer than if you have the main display on all the time.
Answer: Mirrorless cameras largely provide an EVF for the same reason that DSLRs still have an OVF when there is a back panel LCD.
The EVF is smaller, can be dimmer and consumes less power, so there is a significant battery savings.
Holding the camera up to your face provides a third point of contact and makes use of your head's natural stabilization, which results in more stable images.
Looking through the viewfinder is a more immersive experience as the viewfinder fills your field of view and blocks out distractions.
The EVF doesn't have to compete with the outside lighting as external light is blocked out.
EVF can use diopter correction for people with glasses (though this isn't a huge deal since they could actually use glasses with a back panel).
There are some situations where an LCD may be preferable, such as shooting on a tripod or from an odd angle, but our eyes are the way we see the world, and shooting photos based on what we see rather than what we see on a small screen is simply a more natural experience, in addition to being a more power efficient and more stable one.
Answer: When you hold a camera at arm's length to frame a photo in the rear LCD, the camera isn't as stable as when it is held close to your body. There are basically two reasonable ways to do that: one, with a waist-level finder as on many medium-format cameras; or, two, with an eyepiece finder.
Since most small mirrorless cameras are not designed in a way that makes the waist-level idea practical, holding the camera to the eye it is. This also has some other property which can be an advantage: as human beings, of course, our view of the world is through our eyes, and putting the viewfinder there makes the shooting experience more immersive. The camera, in a sense, becomes an extension of your eye. This isn't always ideal — it's also often nice to have an awareness of context — but I find myself feeling a little frustrated when using a camera which doesn't offer me the option.
There are also some technical advantages, like better performance in bright daylight, and the lack of a distracting glow back on your face when shooting in low light, but overall I think the perspective issue is the most important.
And of course, this works the other way around, too: there are many situations where a tilt/twist rear LCD screen lets you put the camera in a place to record a perspective that works better than to your head. It's nice to have both possibilities available.

Why do you need a viewfinder in MILC?


Macbook Air boot menu defaults to external monitor

Question: Took a while to figure out why the screen stays black during boot, but I eventually found that the boot menu and apple logo are by default going to an external monitor. I have tried to fix this by resetting the default display in system preferences, SMC and PRAM resets, but to no avail. I'm at a loss as to what is causing this to happen, and can't seem to figure it out. Any help would be appreciated!
Answer: Dragging the status bar (in Display Settings) to the screen you want as default worked for me! :)
Comment: I've done this multiple times, did not resolve the issue.
Comment: When your Macbook lid is open, does your Macbook monitor also work or only the external monitor?
Comment: When booted, the internal display works fine, it's during the boot that the image only shows on external monitor. Cannot get into boot menu either.
Answer: Found issue to be in the display assembly. I assume something on the control board got shorted or is not functioning properly, causing EFI to not recognize the screen at boot.