Is 'fertilizer' considered FOOD for plants?

Question: Plants seemed to have thrived for millions of years without any fertilizer being added.  Why can't I just not use fertilizer?
Answer: You certainly can try to grow a plant without using additional fertilizers. I think it's a fun experiment to grow the same plant using multiple setups to see what effect is had on the plant.
To answer your question, yes the plant will need certain nutrient to thrive, but you don't necessarily have to give it Miracle Grow. On most plant food containers you'll find three numbers. It'll look something like '10-10-10', '20-10-20', '12-8-10', '5-0-0', etc... These three numbers represent Nitrogen, Phosphorus (sometimes called phosphate), and Potassium (K being the periodic table representation for it, or potash). These are three of the big elements needed to help the plant grow. There are also a host of micro nutrients needed as well.
There are lots of explanations that can give better detail than I can on the effects of these three elements, but basically they affect plant growth, root growth, and flower/fruit growth. So if you see a number like '5-0-0', then it is only trying to affect one of these.
So, in the wild, there is balanced ecosystem where plants and animals die and feed there nutrients into the soil. Leaves drop and wood rots, insects and worms break it down and transform it and it creates a cycle. Or you have the opposite effect where water washes almost all nutrients away and plants such as 'carnivorous plants' have to trap insects and 'digest' them to obtain these nutrients. Also, Darwinism comes into play from the woods to your back yard. If you find a cute little flower growing at the edge of your yard and you dig it up and pot it for your enjoyment, you could very well kill it. In the spot it was in, it very well may be shaded most of the day, or maybe there are ornamental stones that divert more or less water to it. Basically, seeds get scattered everywhere and they only survive where the conditions are optimal. So when people take them from the habitat they're adapted to, then they have to provide those same conditions to the plant.
Each plant is different, but a lot of the plants you can pick up at your local plant store are either hardy or common to your area, so you have a buffer in taking care of them. Many potted house plants get fertilized with chemical fertilizers, such as 'miracle grow', because when a plant is watered, chemicals are leached out. They are also taken out of the soil by the plant. The miracle grow, uses the water to put them back into the soil for the plant to use, the same as nature is putting them back into the soil for your little yard plant or the trees in the forest.
I called it a 'chemical fertilizer', but in reality every spec of fertilizer is a chemical, it's just about how they are made. When you see something that says 'organic' vs 'non-organic' it just means that on the 'organic' no human made chemicals were applied, but those same chemicals can usually be applied in a weaker concentration by natural means. For instance, people compost, vermicomposter for worm castings, add wood ash, etc... The Indians used to put a dead fish under their plants to help fertilize them. These are all eco-friendly ways to fertilize your plant. I encourage you to check them out. I'm currently setting up my first vermicomposter.
So, yes, I do think it's necessary to use fertilizer. However, I do encourage you to experiment. Take three of the same pots and plants. Use whatever dirt you want for one, miracle grow potting soil (which contains a slow release chemical fertilizer by the way) for another, and compost, which you can buy at any garden center (possible mixing in 20-30% worm castings). Then you begin your experiment and see which does better. Ideally, you should water them evenly, but that can be another experiment, because if you water them all equally then your moisture control soil will either be too wet, or you'll dehydrate and kill the other two. Water as needed and document your results.
You'll probably notice that the regular dirt and plain water doesn't grow much and gets weak. The miracle grow plant will probably grow much faster and may even get tall and leggy. The compost will grow slower, but will probably be healthier and possible tastier if it's a fruit/veggie. It really depends on what effect you're going for, but record your results and review them at the end of the summer, or whatever time period you set, though I wouldn't go less than 3 months. It's important to learn what works and what doesn't. A person who is told how to do something will be less knowledgeable than a person who experiments and sees a direct correlation between an action and a consequence. Like, not fertilizing leads to a weak and dying plant.
Over fertilizing can be bad as well. You'll see many people, even on this site, ask why their plant is growing so well, but not producing any fruit. They've been fertilizing the crap out of it and they don't understand. What's happened is that they plant is in growth mode and it's putting all it's energy into that growth. If they cut back on the fertilizer, then they typically see the fruit they want. So if your miracle grow soil says it's good for 3 months, then don't use additional fertilizer till after that, and then only the recommended amount. Good luck and I hope this answers your question.
Comment: Dalton...you did see that I asked this question specifically to answer and provide information...GRIN!!  So sweet!!  Everything you said is great.  Maybe 'over fertilizing' should be labeled as FATAL.  Miracle Grow...sigh.  Gotta understand plants to help them grow under OUR human auspices.  You are so very right talking about experimenting!!!  Us gardeners, to definitely include you! have to learn by experience...same gig.  Lots of bummers to go though after lots of investment of time (money, too).  I think you are definitely on the right track!  Thank you!!
Comment: Thanks, stormy. I do try to do experiments and when I meet others interested in gardening, I suggest they do the same. Mostly, because it's done in batches and loosing part of a batch isn't as depressing and discouraging than putting all your attention into one plant and having it die.
Answer: Joel Salatin become famous in organic farming circles for saying he isn't a cattle farmer, he's a grass farmer. The idea is that if he grows healthy fodder, his cattle will be healthy.
There is a similar idea for gardening that if you are building healthy soil and using good management practices for the land you garden, your plants will do their thing on their own. I think it has a lot of merit. Many who take this approach think of many added fertilizers as counterproductive, as they are not helpful to the soil biota.
Personally, I have never used a purchased fertilizer on my garden. I do compost. I do add manure when I can get my hands on it. I mulch. My soil condition looks better every year and my plants don't get as big as those of my neighbors who use Miracle Grow, but they look healthy and produce well.
Comment: Michelle...are you truly telling me YOU do not use fertilizer?  Welp you do when you use manures...decomposted, of course.  Why don't you use fertilizers, again?  I am totally with you on building soil!!  I only add fertilizers (always 'organic' but still...) when I know the composition of chemicals in my soil.  I usually go with what my plants, individually, are saying they need.  No wholesale gig to just fertilize everything the same!!  What do you mulch WITH???  Do you get soil tests?  You MUST!   I've been following you and you GET IT.  I'm pretty amazed you don't use fertilizer...truly!!
Comment: It is absolutely true that I do not use any purchased fertilizers. As you pointed out, manure can be considered a fertilizer, but I do not go out and buy it - just use what I have. And the manure I use is from a rabbit, so no composting is necessary. I mulch my veggie garden with straw (which is purchased) and my ornamentals with wood chip mulch (also purchased, and I know you are not a fan but it works for me). I haven't soil tested in years because everything is healthy and growing well. My garden is large and the rabbit is small, so it seems to stay in balance.
Comment: Amazing, Michelle...ONE rabbit poo and that is it?  Man, you are making me think a bit more.  Really?!!  I've got 15 or 20 bunnies on my property now...not allowed into the green house!!  Grin.  Straw and wood chips are not useable by anything until they've been decomposed.  Straw is great for strawberries to be a very neutral base to cover up botrytis spores...takes at least a whole winter to decompose.  Bark...ugh.  Cool you know my take on BARK.  UGH.  Anyhoo...so very interesting what us gardeners can learn even after half a century of experience!!  Truly!!
Answer: We need to get something straight.  Plants make their own food!!  Because we have been cultivating plants, growing plants outside of their natural environment and have stripped ecosystems of necessary chemicals we are now obliged to figure what is missing and what chemicals need to be replaced.  This is FERTILIZER.  Fertilizer IS NOT FOOD.  In a normal, established ecosystem, nutrients are tied up in the vegetation.  You won't find them much in the soil.  Plant material dies, returns to the soil, is decomposed FEEDING the micro and macro organisms in the soil who in turn poop out chemicals and help plants assimilate these chemicals.  Thinking of fertilizer as a FOOD is wrong.  Too much fertilizer (and it doesn't take that much) will KILL plants!  Those not familiar with botany and gardening will turn to 'feeding' their plants even more in an effort to make them
healthier.  I'd love to see these labels stop using the terms 'feed' and 'food'...too much like animals!  Plants are not animal.  That is why they are in different kingdoms!!  Fertilizer should be handled with care and information about your soil's deficiencies and excesses.  A soil test at least once every other year is a responsible thing to do...gardeners do get to a point where they can 'see' indicators from the plants as to what chemicals they need more of and what chemicals are in excess.  We HAVE to fertilize as we've screwed up any ecosystem possible but we have to know what chemicals are necessary and what chemicals are deleterious!!  Fertilizer IS NOT PLANT FOOD.  Just chemicals necessary for the plant to make its own food...part of becoming 'farmers'...after hunter/gatherers.  Soil tests can be done free or cheaply in the U.S. by your nearest Extension Service/University.  A great source for anyone wanting to grow and understand plants!!
Answer: As I understand it, plants use the sun to make chemical energy / starch. They use the soil to get nutrients. Food for humans includes both energy and nutrients. Fertilizer is nutrients; it's not energy. So, it stands to reason that the combination of nutrients and energy is the plant equivalent of food, or at least pretty close. Fertilizer in and of itself isn't food--it's more like a multivitamin/multimineral. The soil has nutrients (and, ideally, beneficial microbes) in it, but sometimes it's deficient. Sometimes, plants can cope with this, and even breed to adapt to their environment's available nutrients (or else seeds of different kinds of plants with different requirements may colonize the area). Different kinds of plants may be beneficial to each other. However, in commercial settings, plants don't have the opportunity to do this as much, or benefit from animals as much; so, their needs are supplemented (whether with manure, compost, chemical fertilizer, whether approved for organic gardening or not, or other creative soil amendments). Nutrients from third party sources such as animal excrement and microbes should not be overlooked.
Comment: I love the analogy of 'vitamins'...but far more important.  We've screwed up the natural environment and are depended upon to provide what we took away.  It is a majorly elevated position to know what manures to use and in what condition...most people aren't in any condition to do this.  To make more gardeners or at least people that are successful with plants is to ADD fertilizer, sparingly...a soil test is a very responsible thing to do first.  Manure IS fertilizer but full of weed seeds, has to be decomposed FIRST and contain antibiotics, etc.  So careful using poo!
Comment: Thanks. Don't worry. I'm in the city limits. Any manure we get is from someone else (and composted), unless you mean toad manure (we get a lot of that on our patio). Granted, it's good to ask them about antibiotics and such they may have given their animals.


If your site has been flagged, "this site may harm your computer" how long before Google takes action

Question: If your site has "this site may harm your computer" in the search results how long can you be in that situation before Google takes action. When they do take action does anyone know what that action is? I assume it results ultimately in delisting but I can't find anything specific.
Comment: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=163633 See the very bottom for requesting a malware review.
Comment: It's not my site.. I just got to wondering what eventually happens to those sites if corrective action isn't taken.
Answer: The site, with the warning, seems to stay in the google rankings. However, if someone clicks on that listing, they would be taken to a google warning page telling them to go no further. To get to the site you actually have to copy and past the address into your browser's location bar. This would seriously reduce the amount of traffic you get from google.
Comment: I know many people say so but there are many SEO fables. I have seen sites with this notice remain in the search results of years with no change. The only comments I can find that actually come form google employees (rather than guesses) say that google doesn't remove the sites but rather tries to contact the webmaster by email, google webmasters and through that warning message. See: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=550dcdd4beaa740f&hl=en
Comment: If you google it, there are numerous instances where people say it will be delisted, so it seems at some point they take action.
Comment: In addition, sites blocked by this warning will also be blocked in Chrome and Firefox. If people see links that are not working, they will remove the link from their site. So with time PR is going to drop which will affect search rank.
Comment: You might be right. I'm going to leave the question open for a while to see if any other answers are posted. Thanks!
Answer: If you request a review through Google Webmaster Tools you should see a delisting in about 24 hours providing your site is verified to now be clean.
Repeat instances don't seem to affect this timescale.
We've had a situation in the past where a shared server host was hacked and the sites were continually reinfected. One one particular site I requested reviews several times, each time it was delisted within a few hours, but no more than a day.
This was 4 or 5 years ago though, so YMMV.
Answer: This happened to me once. I installed a plugin to a wordpress website that contained a link to a website. That website was flagged and so was mine. I corrected the problem and notified them through Google webmaster tools.
I suppose that if someone cannot correct the problem, then his website will be lost from SERPs eventually.
Answer: I had a website running WordPress which had a vulnerable plugin and was injected with some rogue javascript in the index.php file. Nothing malicious, but Google picked it up as a harmful site. I removed the js from the index, removed that plugin and updated everything on the site. Google naturally updated their index to remove the warning. If your site doesn't have much traffic you may submit it from webmaster tools for them to review.


How do I set up a rubber hand experiment with precise latency?

Question: The rubber hand illusion (Wikipedia) involves touching both a fake arm and a subject's real arm simultaneously. This causes the subject to feel that the fake arm belongs to him. Normally a human delivers both touches, so the timing is approximate. I want to vary the latency between the fake touch and real touch precisely (~5 ms at minimum) to probe how close they need to be to create the illusion. What can I use to touch a human and fake hand lightly at variable but precise times?
Comment: Easiest way here is a home-brew robot.
Use an arduino an 2 servo motors.
Comment: Does the system need to consider the difference in arm position (thickness) as part of this equation?  You may not need a very sophisticated system to simply execute one touch action 5ms behind another.  Do you have an automated way to test the timing differences before you start taking data?
Answer: What you want is a real-time system. Generally, you can do this either in a standalone or a hosted environment.
Standalone, otherwise known as bare-metal, means you write your code for a specific hardware, e.g. a microcontroller. That way, you have complete control of what executes and at what intervals, so you can be very precise. You can hardly go wrong with any microcontroller for such a simple task, so just choose one you like most.
Hosted environments means programming under a real-time operating system. There are a handful of those, but of course I would advocate free software. There are a couple of extensions for Linux that can make it real-time (RTAI, Xenomai, RT-Linux and others) and you can get precisions of even microseconds, which should be enough for your task.
Setting up a real-time Linux with proper configuration can be tricky, but once done the programming is easier and debugging tools are available. On the other hand, you can start programming a microcontroller right away and if you are experienced, not much more difficult than hosted either.
In the end it's your choice. If you feel comfortable with microcontrollers, I'd recommend a standalone application for your task.


Adobe Premiere Pro - How do I select a Region in the Timeline using Mouse

Question: In Magix/Sony Vegas Pro I could just drag click it. I don't want to use the "in and out points" or how you call them, I want to select a region by drag-selecting with my mouse and then adjusting it if needed. I remember I did this somehow in Premiere Pro 2019 but I am not sure about this version.
Answer: Not sure it can do exactly what you're asking for.
Nearest I can think of is selecting the razor blade tool (or press  C).
Making a cut using the mouse on your region, then switching back to the selection tool (or press V).
Then selecting your region, and adjusting the ends if necessary by floating over them, then dragging.
(In and Out points are massively useful when you get into more complex edits.  There's a reason most editing software uses them - they're worth learning to use).


Connecting a 16-channel relay to my Pi

Question: I have a B+ Pi that was purchased for use as a Christmas light controller. I wired the GPIO pins from the pin to the 16 channel Sainsmart relay successfully, and was able activate the switches. However, there is one thing I can't figure out: how do I power the devices connected to the relay?
Comment: Not really a Pi question.  Try googling for wiring up to a relay.
Answer: Here is a short YouTube tutorial that show how to handle your kind of 'problem' https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xc1daIb1LVc
In this video the guy is using 12V, which is OK. But if you want to use just AC Mains, be careful or even better, get you professional help. It can really KILL YOU if you don't know what you are doing.

Connecting a 16-channel relay to my Pi


Minimum liquid to make solid dough

Question: About how little oil can I add to an amount of flour to make a dough that is one lump of one consistency, not crumbly and in pieces? I'm looking for a ratio of solid to liquid. If it matters what kinds of flour and oil, let's say olive oil and white wheat all-purpose flour.
Comment: What are you actually trying to do? Doughs are not generally made out of just flour and oil.
Comment: Are you sure it is not allowed to contain water? Short pie crust is 2-1 flour-fat and quite crumbly. But if you add just a teaspoon of water to 300 g dough, it comes together to a ball.
Comment: Oil and water are very different when it comes to their role as a "liquid" in baking....
Comment: Biblical meal offerings http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/15272/different-flouroil-ratios-in-the-mincha-sacrifices-how-did-the-dough-stay-to
Comment: @rumtscho Interesting! The fat in this case I assume is solid (eg Crisco shortening). If you used a liquid lipid (eg vegetable oil) would the water still be necessary?
Answer: This is actually not answerable as an absolute.  One of the Great Unknowns when baking with flour is how humid it has been in your flour storage recently, and thus how much water is already in the flour.  I've had a few cups of flour require as much as half a cup extra water to get the right consistency depending on the season.

My usual approach for making the driest dough I can is to instead of pre-measuring, add the liquid gradually to a spinning food processor that contains the dry ingredients.  It will lump up quite quickly when the liquid is right.
Answer: According to the experiments reported in this paper they found:

We determined by experimental evidence the maximum amount of olive oil that could be absorbed by modern wheat, with a minimum of water to make a viable bread prepared as described. It was 5 parts oil to 16 parts flour, to 4 parts water.
Comment: The question is asking the opposite... the **minimum** amount of oil, not the maximum.

Minimum liquid to make solid dough


Damage dealing arcana in Blue Rose

Question: Blue Rose AGE edition has quite strong separation between 'evil' magic (sorcery) and normal arcana. Most of straighforward damage dealing spells fall under sorcery. But there seem to be few places where you can deal damage indirectly. My main question here is about the intent - are those spells really the backdoor hacks for 'good' adepts to deal damage with spells reliably every round?
Putting aside 'enchant weapon' kind of spells, there seem to be 3 damage dealing spells in basic book.

Ignite Fire from Fire Shaping
Frostbite from Cold Shaping
Striking with Objects from Move Object

(let's ignore Earthquake as well, it is slight overkill for normal combat)
Strike with Objects is quite straighforward and will turn Blue Rose adepts into Jedi wannabies. But can Ignite Fire and Frostbite be used to deal damage in combat reliably?
From Ignite Fire

As a major action, you can set any flammable
  object in your line of sight on fire with a successful
  TN 13 Fire Shaping test. Targets must make a TN 13
  Dexterity resistance test. A successful resistance test
  means the fire goes out, whereas a failed test results in
  2d6 fire damage.

Is target an object here or person holding/wearing that object? Is expected usage of that spell to find anything flammable on enemies each round and set everybody on fire?
From Frostbite

With a successful TN 11 test, you can lower the temperature
  of an area a foot across intensely enough to deal 1d6 penetrating
  damage from the cold. Every 2 points of Outcome
  increases the damage by 1d6, to a maximum of 6d6.

There is no resistance test here - does it mean that you can deal automatic damage (possibly very huge) each round with an easy spellcasting test? Or is 'area a foot across' easy enough to move out of, so nobody who isn't immobilized would ever get caught by the damage part of the spell?
Answer: Although I can not say for sure, the fact that the designers put damage numbers on the spells implies the intent that the spells would be used for damage.  Now if Ignite Fire was

As a major action, you can set any flammable object in your line of sight on fire with a successful TN 13 Fire Shaping test.

and elsewhere in the book it said

If you are on fire you must make a TN 13 Dexterity resistance test. A successful resistance test means the fire goes out, whereas a failed test results in 2d6 fire damage.

Then the spell would be effectively the same but there would be no intent that it should be used for damage.

Damage dealing arcana in Blue Rose


Is there a way to have an item which can break SPECIFIC BLOCKS with SPECIFIC FACING?

Question: I know it's possible to make block breakable by items, but I wonder if I could make an item which can only break the specified blocks if they're facing a given direction.
Answer: This is not possible. `CanDestroy" simply does not have that feature.
You could try using raycasting to determine whether the player is looking at a block with the right block state or not and then give a shovel that can or can not break blocks, but that is very complicated and not fully reliable.
Comment: Although this is not the answer I hoped for, I'd still like to thank you for your time and for giving a new option(ray casting). Thank you very much.


What should our logo and site design be like?

Question: This should also be brought up at some point, so I'll do it now. :-) Does anyone have ideas about what visual elements our Apple SE should have?
Comment: So this is completely random, but I had a dream last night that Apple.SO had been outfitted with all the final graphics, and the logo was something that didn't even slightly resemble Apple. It was ugly and dull.
Answer:
The Startups SE is simply using the power button symbol, and that's where I got the idea to use the ubiquitous cloverleaf. Keep it a solid color, either the black that trims our iPads and iPhones, or the gray color that is the Apple logo on startup in Mac OS X, and it will work in any format.
Comment: For those who didn't know, some further info about the symbol: [Saint John's Arms](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_John's_Arms)
Comment: The Apple Logo  [may not be used](http://www.apple.com/legal/trademark/guidelinesfor3rdparties.html) [except pursuant to an express written trademark license from Apple](http://diigo.com/0iqub). **⌘** might be not visible in some other Apple products and services, but next to  I believe that **⌘** *is* the **second most widely recognisable symbol** of *an Apple device*. Many such devices are used with Mac hardware — [NumberKey](http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/numberkey/id291672903) is a more exotic example; most associations between Mac and non-Mac devices are subliminal. I vote **⌘**
Comment: Found this discussion because I was wondering why this unused symbol is still the logo of this blog. I think Apple isn't using it anymore since 2007/2008. So it will disappear. So maybe we should look for another one...
Answer: I was just reminded of this classic Macintosh icon - Clarus the Dogcow:

It might be a bit too obscure, but it could definitely serve as a "secret handshake" of sorts.
Comment: I miss Clarus. We could go really obscure and use Mister Macintosh.
Answer: Based on Dori's ideas:
draft a:

draft b:

I hope you get the idea. The silver shiny logo would be nice too.
Comment: Why does this get -1?
Answer: Please try not to laugh too hard... I had an idea while I was reading the comments regarding the site title and logo design.  I am obviously not a graphic designer, but the SuperUser site combined with the Finder gave me this idea.  I tried to make it look pretty by using my monospace fonts all blown up in Vim, then editing it in Seashore, which resulted in this disaster:

I am so crappy at doing that kind of stuff that I ended up just drawing it with the pencil tool to at least give a rough idea of what was in my head :)

I have no idea whether this is legally acceptable or not, but there it is.
Comment: But… don't we all hate the Finder? :))
Comment: @Martin: hah I guess that's true.  Maybe I should try the Path Finder logo? :)
Comment: Good idea. Because when you type "Mac" in Google Image search, the first symbol that is not showing an apple is the Finder symbol... 1 Up!
Answer: I am no designer - but how about something simple (ie not the rainbow suggestions), with an apple-ish Logo in a stack-exchange box? Which would represent the Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad etc. This in simple monochrome.
Answer: View the Ask Different world through Apple coloured spectacles
— all your site design problems solved!

Hint: I do not expect an up-vote for this ;-)

Spectacles found in recently posted Apple Glasses; spectacles on Wozniak and various other images found via Tin Eye.


Definition of "seed" in sequence alignment

Question: I would like to know what is meant by "seed" for various sequence aligners. How is it important?
Answer: The seed is the subset of a read used in the first step of an alignment. Many aligners work by a seed-and-extend model, wherein they first find all regions matching the "seed" and then extend the alignment around that allowing mistmatches and indels until it either gives up (and therefore uses a different seed) or finds a sufficiently good alignment.
Comment: Thanks devon for the explanation. I have a slightly similar question as to why finding a seed for a very short exons is difficult? Considering a 3 nt exon, is it because seed  such small has a probability of mapping every 4^3=64 bases and virtually impossible to look for in the genome? Your views on this
Comment: Usually seeds are a few times that length, since you want few enough hits to limit your search space quickly.
Answer: Devon's answer gives a good, concise definition. But it's also helpful to consider why seed-and-extend is used and what benefits it provides.
Finding approximate string matches requires operations that are expensive computationally. On the other hand, finding exact string matches can be performed using much less expensive operations—that is, it can be done more quickly with less memory. So quickly finding the location of all seed matches and then applying the approximate matching ONLY AT THOSE LOCATIONS (the seed-and-extend strategy) makes sure that less time is wasted on chasing spurious similarities.
So how long should a seed be? Riffing off your comment, a seed 3bp in length would be entirely ineffective since that same 3bp sequence is going to occur ALL OVER THE GENOME IN RANDOM PLACES: genes, pseudogenes, transposable elements, regulatory sequences, you name it. On the other hand, a seed 51bp in length would also be ineffective since almost every seed would contain at least one sequencing error or variant/polymorphism, thus preventing a perfect match.
In practice, mappers designed for aligning 100-300bp Illumina reads typically use seeds in the high teens or low 20s.


Shuffle in middle of hand

Question: An unusual situation arose recently playing a home game of NL texas holdem. Three people went all in after the flop. The dealer by mistake did a small hand shuffle before burning and turning. What should have been done in this situation. It was eventually agreed to carry on the hand but I want to know what the official ruling would have been. Can you please advise.
Comment: I'm not really sure there is an official ruling for something like this because the situation is extremely rare (this is the first time I hear about something like this). Big casinos or big live events (WSOP, EPT WPT etc.) might have something about this burried somewhere deep in their rulebook, but I think it differs from casino to casino and from event to event. I posted this as a comment because I don't have any references... yet.
Answer: I used to be a croupier and worked at various casinos. The best solution that I know of for the accidentally exposed card after the flop is to announce it and place it on top of the deck. When ready to deal the next card, burn the exposed card from the top, burn two cards from the bottom of the deck and place the third one as the turn or the river. If this action was taken for the turn, the advantage is that the order of the river card does not change. What you were going to get at the river before the accident still is dealt as the river. If you shuffle the cards, the natural river card changes. There would be an advantage of shuffling the cards too as the accidentally exposed card would be added to the deck just in case if one of the players would need it on the board; however adding an exposed card back to the deck would look unprofessional and is not very likely to hit the turn or the river anyway. But shuffling the cards without any any dealer mistake of exposing a card would be stupid in any case.
Answer: This "mistake" doesn't change anything for the players, and the game must go on.
There's one situation that the deck must be shuffled. When a burned card is shown by mistake, it goes back to the deck (before showing turn/river) wich is shuffled, then the dealing continues as usual.
Comment: I've seen burn cards accidentally exposed before, and all this led to was the dealer making sure the table all knew what the burn card was... then it got turned back over and standard play continued with no shuffle.
Comment: @mah There's no official rules for this case. The rules that applies here is the choice of the tournament director. I don't know if it is common, but I've saw it in many tournament.
Comment: Xaurth that is very bad information. A burn card exposed is not reason to shuffle.
Comment: I've been a poker floorman for ten years and a player for 30. I am not aware of any casino that reshuffles a stub because of an exposed burn card. A prematurely-exposed *board* card, on the other hand, can do so.
Answer: I have scoured the internet to see if I can find an answer to this and there doesn't appear to be one. In most cases where it has happened, the game has just carried on as if there hadn't been a shuffle!
Comment: I'm not aware of any standard rule for this situation, but if I were flooring, I would have taken the deck myself, given it another shuffle, handed it back to the dealer, and told him to continue, just so the players are protected against any possible dealer mischief.
Answer: Good Casinos (or all) , have so called house rules. Everything what can happen during a poker game should be mentioned here. So in kind of an accident shuffle there is a rule how to behave. When there are people playing they acceppt the rules.
This kind of accidents should be covered in here. We all know that it will be still the same game if you shuffle the cards after every board card. But we all know as well that the thinking changes. People will start complaining when they don't hit there cards and claim that otherwise they might have made something. To avoid this kind of situations, the house rules should cover these situations by clearly saying that an accidently shuffle will result in X. Whatever X is. So no one can start complaining and feel messed around.
I played really active for 4 years and had a like 3-5 unnormal situations. Once a dealer shuffled cards which were folded before. Later these cards appeared on the board. At this point one player was all in(tournament)...  In another situation, heads up, one player asked the other whether he hit the ace or not. And the other guy showed one card (the ace).  But the house rules didn't allow any kind of showing cards..and showing even one card is treated as a fold. (big cash was on table).
If it's not 100% clear you will always have a big discussion unless it ends in a split pot, believe me.
So conclusion, whatever is done after something went wrong should be 100% clear.
Comment: Every casino's house rules also begin with rule #1: The floorman will make all decisions in the best interest of the game, even if that conflicts with the letter of the rules. As a floorman for ten years, I maybe invoked that rule 2-3 times, but it does happen.
Comment: I have never seen a rule dealing with this particular situation, so I second what Lee Daniel Crocker says. However I could not imagine this happening with a seasoned dealer unless that dealer was a bit to seasoned. I might very well consider a misdeal in this situation, and definitely a write up for the dealer.
Answer: In home games I tend to make it clear that if any mistakes are made it is up to the players in the hand.
If they all agree to carry on that is their decision and they own it. If even one player currently active in the hand wants a redeal, then it must be redealt.
That way, everyone feels fairly treated, and everyone has equal say in the decision.
If one player chooses to redeal, it is up to them if they want to explain why.
Also, once players have all chosen to carry on, nobody can say it was unfair, because you gave them the decision.
This goes for all mistakes.
If a burn card is accidentally flipped I'd leave it up to the players with two options: carry on and let everybody see that card or redeal.
On a personal note, I'd always call for a redeal in this situation unless I'm sitting on the nuts; in which case I'd try to act neutral and get them to carry on, but would accept a redeal begrudgingly if that was their decision.
It probably goes without saying that in the event of a redeal all chipstacks should be returned to the amounts they were at before the hand began.
Comment: Remind me never to play in your home games. Those rules are practically set up for cheating. If there is one single, most important, overriding rule in poker it is this: the players in the hand must *never* have any choice in how the hand plays out. If you have no floorman to make rulings, you should have a player who is not in the hand decide.
Comment: @LeeDanielCrocker What if it's a 4 man game and everyone is in the pot? (As is common)
Comment: Then you're kind of stuck. All the players should know the standard rules ahead of time so these things are rare. If a situation like that occurred in my home game, the players would make arguments for what the fairest course of action is, and hopefully reach consensus if possible.
Comment: @LeeDanielCrocker In that case, remind me to never play at your home games! :/ Poker is slow enough without adjourning a court session and debating a single hand. My rules are simple, and they avoid that silliness. And I'm not talking about high stakes or professional poker.
Comment: I generally play with experienced players who know the rules, so such situations just don't ever come up.
Comment: I'm glad for you. I find it surprising that your 'experienced' playing buddies never make mistakes. Even dealers with 30 years of experience make mistakes / have accidents sometimes.
Comment: Certainly. We just know how to handle them fairly.

Shuffle in middle of hand


Can you dry out pickle brine to leave a seasoned salt?

Question: Like the title says. Would it be safe and reasonable to dry out pickle brine till it crystallizes? It might have an interesting flavor as a seasoning (the acid from the vinegar, and the salt, and the spices), and maybe could be stored and reused for future pickling.
Comment: I don't know that I'd try to store it for future pickling -- you wouldn't know the concentrations of anything, so you couldn't be sure what you were going to end up with.  At the very least, I would only use it for refrigerator pickles.  (and for that, you can just boil the brine to re-sterilize it, and then add new vegetables ... but remember, the salt and flavorings have partially migrated out into the first batch)
Answer: Reasonable is subjective, but as to safe the answer is yes. The point of pickle brine is to create an environment that will kill foodborne illnesses, and as it gets more concentrated through evaporation it's just going to get stronger.
Things to consider:

it's going to take awhile for the liquid to evaporate. You can speed this up by putting it in a flat pan in order to maximize surface area. You could put it in a low oven, but before you do that read point 2
It's going to stink, and could irritate your eyes and mucous membranes. Your house may spell of vinegar for days afterwards, so you'd be best off doing this outside if possible
It's not going to save you money. Salt and vinegar are cheap enough that going through significant efforts to re-use them are a waste
It's not going to give you a product you can't easily and cheaply buy in most places. Think about salt and vinegar potato chips (crisps in some places). The flavoring is just salt and powdered vinegar (sodium acetate), which you can buy at low cost, or even make at home

So it's certainly do-able and will give you a safe end result although it may or may not be worth the trouble, that's up to your judgement. I'd certainly be curious, and if I had a warm, dry place I didn't mind smelling of vinegar for awhile I'd put it in a pan and see what happens. Remember, you are concentrating salt (an electrolyte) and vinegar (an acid) into something fairly corrosive, so I suggest using glass or a non-reactive material.
Answer: Why not?  I like the creativity.  "Pickle Brine Salt".  You could try pouring the brine into a shallow container and letting the liquid evaporate.  I am guessing the yield would be pretty low, so reasonable?  Maybe not, as you could probably create the flavor profile more easily in other ways.  Safe?  I think your only worry would be that you could grow mold before evaporation.  Maybe a dehydrator to speed things up?


In the US, is the ban on coordination between Super PACs and candidates effective?

Question: In the US, Super PACs may not make contributions to candidate campaigns or parties, but may engage in unlimited political spending independently of the campaigns (quote from Wikipedia). However, the Super PAC Restore our Future was created to support Mitt Romney, and Priorities USA Action was created to support Barack Obama. Is the ban on coordination between Super PACs and candidates effective in preventing conflicts of interest should the candidate win political power?
Comment: **** Please keep comments focused on improving the post and try to not to turn comment threads into miniature chat rooms and debates. Thanks.
Answer: Not really.
In theory, they are not communicating.
In practice,

Campaign consultants talk to the press, and pretty much express the campaigns POV in public. So it's not like some backdoor communications are required. In general, campaigns do a lot more interaction with the media than before. It's not aimed at Super-PAC (presumably), but has this side effect.
Also, most Super-PACs are staffed by people generally close to (aka cronies) of candidates. That was true for both sides in 2012. As such, just like with a long-married couple, speaking isn't always necessary. You discussed all the topics over the years, and know what each other thinks.

Mind you, the people involved are always 100% sure to clearly not be violating the letter of any anti-coordination laws.
Answer: On the surface, it seems like the ban is one in name only and may well function as a stepping stone for the Court to eventually allow direct, unlimited personal and corporate donations to campaigns.  Priorities USA was founded by Bill Burton and Sean Sweeney both former Obama campaign officials and Restore Our Future has three former Romney staffers on their board.  Clearly if there was a need to covertly communicate with the campaign, these are the type of people who would have the access and resources to do just that.  Whats more, these are the types of people who came up with much of the campaign messaging last time around, and really wouldn't need much guidance from the campaign to keep on message.  Furthermore, public comments made by either side in reference to important issues are perfectly legal, and offer an avenue for indirect coordination to take place as humorously pointed out by Stephen Colbert on his show the Colbert Report where he avoided illegal coordination by communicating with his PAC through his TV show.
However, in practice, there are some examples that seem to indicate, at least in this first Super PAC driven election cycle, that the ban on coordination has had some effect.  The perceived separation between the campaigns and the Super PACs led each Super PAC to air much more vicious ads than the campaigns ever would.  In fact, both Romney and Obama faced criticism from these ads and were forced to plead with the media to believe that these ads would never have been run by the campaign and were a function of an uncoordinated Super PAC.  Obama even encouraged his Super PAC, through the media, to pull an ad before it ever aired.  Similarly, when the Obama campaign was moving its message off of Bain (due to their ineffectiveness), Priorities USA kept up those ads for several more weeks and muddled the Obama message even further.
It is unclear, and without evidence of illegal coordination will remain unclear, if these public departures from the campaign strategy taken by the Super PACs was part of a broader campaign strategy that just didn't work out as intended, or genuine examples of Super PACs making decisions that would have been disapproved of by the campaign.  In the case of the Romney campaign there was wide outrage within the Republican leadership of the way the campaign was handling their media efforts and the decisions of the Super PAC were a way to mitigate some of that concern amongst the establishment.  Either way, the lack of public coordination had at least two real affects this election cycle:

Super PACs could and did run far more vicious ads than the campaigns themselves because the candidate could plausibly deny their association with them.
Super PACs often veered off in directions not publicly supported by the campaign, often times in ways that ultimately hurt the campaign they intended to support.


Conjoint Packages for R

Question: Could you recommend an easy to use or comprehensive conjoint analysis package for R?
Comment: not R, but I use biogeme to estimate discrete choice models for transportation and private sector research: http://biogeme.epfl.ch/. Be glad to give you some tips to get up and running if this is the type of analysis you need to do.
Answer: I've never used R for conjoint analysis, but here are a couple of things I found when I hunted around.

Aizaki and Nishimura (2008) have an article "Design and Analysis of Choice Experiments Using R: A brief introduction" (Free PDF available here).

Perhaps check out the following packages:

AlgDesign for constructing choice sets
prefmod for analysing paired comparison data
conf.design for constructing factorial designs
Answer: mlogit is the best R package I've found for modelling discrete choice data.  It supports the basic multinomial logit, as well as more advanced models such as multinomial probit and mixed logit.  The package also includes specification tests to choose between different models.
Comment: This is a great answer.  One of the vignettes for the package even goes through and answers a bunch of questions from the Train book.
Answer: You may want to use faisalconjoint package in R, it is tested with many published and research data, it works perfectly, one on important thing its works without design restriction and rank procedure. It works in all condition and provide accurate estimates.
Comment: The most answers and packages are only for traditional conjoint analysis. Are there any packages or methods to do a choice based conjoint? (Example: One choice out of 10 products in round about 5000 purchases) @Faisal Afzal Siddiqui: Choice based is not possible with your method, only traditional ranking or rating data. Correct?
Answer: The best in my opinion for R is a conjoint package from CRAN:
http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/conjoint/index.html
Comment: Welcome to the site, @user24799. Would you mind saying a little bit about this package? Why do you think it's the best?
Answer: If you are looking for models other than logit,

you can use 'survival' package to build conditional multinomial
logit model.
you can use 'bayesm' package to build hierarchical
bayesian(HB) model. Sawtoothsoftware asked the guy who created this
package to help them build HB model in their software.
Answer: Faisal Conjoint Model (FCM) is an integrated model of conjoint
analysis and random utility models, developed by Faisal Afzal Sid-
diqui, Ghulam Hussain, and Mudassir Uddin in 2012. Its algorithm
was written in R statistical language and available in R [29]. Its
design is independent of design structure. It could be used for any
research design i.e. full prole, orthogonal, factorial, supersaturated
etc. Another important point about FCM is rank procedure. It
works for every kind of ranks i.e. unique ranks, percentage ranks,
tight ranks, missing ranks etc. It has been tested for many published
data. Most of the times, FCM results are same with same magnitudes,
often the rank
Comment: Looks like you already answered this before. With another account.
Answer: There is a library 'Conjoint' with many features and sample to find utilities.
For a quick preview check the link. This will help you get started.
https://rpubs.com/haj3/conjoint
Answer: For R:
"survival" (clogit) for multinomial logit (MNL) model.
"mlogit" for a wide range of models (MNL, nested logit, heteroscedastic logit, mixed logit (MXL) also known as random parameters logit, ...).
In the same spirit you should take a look at "Rchoice" (file:///C:/Users/kruci/Downloads/v74i10.pdf).
"bayesm" for bayesian version of MNL/MXL - However if you are interested in bayesian approach I would strongly recommand the great "RSGHB" package.
"gmnl" for the generalised MNL model.
"flexmix" for latent class logit (LCL) model.
More generally it is important to keep in mind that choice models are a special case of multilevel (or hierarchical) models (you have choices nested within participants themselves nested within higher units: supermarkets, countries, etc.) - So everything that can be used for multilevel modelling (e.g., the great "lme4" package) and that can also accommodate the discrete nature of the choice variable would do the job. For example, you could use "lme4" if the choices are binary (Do you want this product? Yes/No) or made between 2 options (Which product do you want? A/B).
With Stata, you have many commands useful for choice modelling:
clogit for MNL
mixlogit for MXL
clogithet for heteroscedastic MNL
lclogit for latent class logit
gmnl for generalised MNL
Many of these commands have been developped/refined by Arne HOLE (Great job!)
http://www.stata.com/meeting/uk13/abstracts/materials/uk13_hole.pdf
Choice modellers also use other software:
nlogit (developped by W. Greene)
biogeme (Thanks to M. Bierlaire) - Great tool but can only be used for choices modelling
I've heard about LatentGOLD but not sure ...
For those who want to use MATLAB, You got to take a look at:
Mikołaj Czajkowski webiste (http://czaj.org/research/estimation-packages/dce)
Kenneth TRAIN website (https://eml.berkeley.edu/~train/software.html) - Actually most of the choice functions come from Kenneth TRAIN's work
Finally, for those who are willing to invest a significant amount of time in the coding of choice models, Chandra BHAT website is amazing (http://www.caee.utexas.edu/prof/bhat/FULL_CODES.htm)
Many thanks to all these great researchers (Train, Bhat, Bierlaire, Hole,  Croissant, Czajkowski, etc) who made this possible!

Conjoint Packages for R


can a water cycle exist on a planet without oceans?

Question: So there's a planet that is used as a farming world (food) for its system. This planet has a single, Mediterranean sea-sized ocean on it and lacks any other major surface oceans (he hasn't excluded rivers and lakes). Is there any way, given these parameters, for a water cycle that is vigorous enough to sustain farming exist in this world? Can the balance of temperature from day to night in this world be maintained without any surface oceans to balance things? I'm having a hard time figuring out how this planet can work as it's written.
Comment: Is this planet short of water or is it merely a very smooth ball?
Comment: The simple answer is yes.
Answer: The water cycle is maintained by the abundant plant life
For there to be somewhat abundant water but no major oceans, there needs to be another place where water collects. This could be a porous layer of rock covering all the lower altitude areas of the (very flat) world.
The native plants would then likely have very deep root systems to access that water and bring it up to the leaves, where it would evaporate during the day as a way to cool the plant. (Days would be hotter and nights colder on a world without oceans). The evaporated water will form clouds, which protect the plants somewhat from the cold during the night.
This makes sense from an evolutionary perspective because the circumstances are very different. On Earth, water shortages are more pressing than temperature variations, so plants have pores that can be closed, fatty layers and of course the ability to shed leaves when there is no water.
The plants on this world would have none of that, because of the essentially unlimited water supply and advantages of daytime evaporation cooling.
Comment: ... until humans come along and kill all the plants and then die of thirst.
Answer: While the temperature swings will be higher that doesn't make it impossible to live on.  The areas of Earth that are the farthest from the ocean are still inhabited and certainly could be so with even more swing.  You might not be able to grow terrestrial crops but local life could have evolved to survive the swings.
The water cycle is another matter--the only way I can see for this to be viable is if there's something that causes far more evaporation from that small ocean than Earth experiences.  Perhaps that ocean is really a huge rift valley, complete with gobs of vulcanism.  Note that this would make the water unsurvivable for land-based life.
Answer: I'd say that depends on many aspects. Planet size, farming amount, amount of people living there. If the planet has a thick atmosphere and is hot enough and the air around is very moist, water could be drawn from the air and used for farming. The colder poles could contain the ocean water. Also the temperature drop from day to night would be minimal with a thick atmosphere.
Comment: Where does the thick atmosphere come from?

The planet is about earth sized, iirc.
Comment: Well, the earth's atmosphere started to form from expelling of internal gases. Additionally meteorite impacts could have added proper chemical elements.
Comment: Could that thick atmosphere be sustained over millions of years? Could a hot, moist planet sustain polar ice caps? Would the planet be in danger of a runaway greenhouse effect, like Venus?
Comment: You can have an atmosphere as thick as you want--simply more comet strikes after the early heavy bombardment period is over.  However, a thicker atmosphere does nothing to increase the amount of water it can hold.
Comment: The water question is key. If this is a farming world, I can't see it working without a water cycle. And I'm having trouble imagining a world with a thick, moist atmosphere that has nowhere from which water evaporates that has any water cycle to speak of.
Comment: Well, it could have had lakes, oceans, rivers some million years in the past. As the atmosphere grew thicker the planet heated up and the water changed into gaseous state. However, I don't know how much water air can actually hold and if that would be efficient for large scale farming. Also, when the hot air rises the water would eventually change back into liquid state and thus, rain.
Comment: Maybe strong winds towards the polar region could push clouds north/south so most rain goes down there and on other places it's not enough for lakes to subsist so the little rain eventually evaporates again.
Comment: @ses With a strong electromagnetic field, the planet could be shielded from solar winds enough for the atmosphere to sustain. A weak electromagnetic field was probably the reason why Mars has lost it. Well, I'd say, hot enough and they needn't be ice caps but water caps instead (but don't take my word for it), thus my idea of the ocean residing on the poles.
Answer: Perhaps this world has undergone at least some degree of terraforming. If this is a farming planet, efficient irrigation can make up for any shortcomings in the water cycle, including drawing up water from subterranean caches. Temperature regulation can also be addressed with use of solar reflectors in orbit.
Answer: There are other ways for a water cycle to work, the first that comes to mind being that most of the water is trapped just below the surface, thus allowing wells to be dug and used for irrigation.
Part of answering this would be to know what vegetation is like naturally on the planet. Presuming the inhabitants are native, they could only farm if plants existed naturally, so they would likely expound on whatever natural principles the world uses.
If the inhabitants transplanted from another planet, I would expect they would have technological capabilities that might allow it, and would have brought seeds from plants whose growth requirements they would know.
Answer: With enough topsoil and soil water to form a reservoir and enough plant life for evapotranspiration you could have a reasonably normal water cycle, somewhat similar to the Amazon Basin where water evaporated by the forest during the day falls back to earth in the evenings in a continuous semi-closed cycle where the average elapse time for cloud water is measured in hours.


Mozambique visa on arrival for Australian citizen

Question: Can you get a visa on arrival for Mozambique as an Australian citizen?
Comment: What do you mean by "in the country"?
Comment: In general you can't get a visa for most countries when you are already in that country. I'm not sure if there are any exceptions.
Comment: If this is actually a question about visas on arrival I'll reverse my close vote.
Answer: If the Wikipedia article is accurate and up-to-date,

Citizens of all countries without a Mozambique embassy can obtain a visa on arrival if they have documentation to prove they are traveling for leisure purposes (return ticket, accommodation confirmation or invitation letter).[5] This visa is valid for 30 days, and is extendable up to 60 days.

It seems that though Australia does have an embassy in Maputo, Mozambique does not have an embassy in Australia. This means you should be able to get a visa on arrival if your documentation is in order as per above.
But if I were you I would contact the relevant authorities in Mozambique by email to very this before going ahead too far with your planning. In fact, mts has found a source which claims that you might not get the visa on arrival despite the policy!
Comment: From [Smarttraveller.gov.au](http://smartraveller.gov.au/Countries/africa/east/Pages/mozambique.aspx#) "Mozambican visas can be arranged prior to travelling through the nearest Embassy or Consulate of Mozambique. There have been reports of travellers having difficulties obtaining visas on arrival. "
Comment: The rumour that Mozambique has stopped issuing visas on arrival to nationals of countries with an embassy was originally made by the US embassy in Maputo.

However, I asked IATA, the ones behind the Timatic database used by Airlines, to check with their sources. They did and made no changes.

Their info states it's still possible to obtain a visa on arrival regardless of your nationality.
Comment: @Crazydre: Even better! Would you like to try editing the Wikipedia article since it seems to wrong? If they want a reference you can tell them that the current article seems to contain an unreferenced rumour. It might also be worth editing Wikivoyage where there is a lot less fightback (-: In fact the link I got from Wikipedia is now broken anyway.


Why does the USA not have a constitutional court?

Question: I know the Supreme Court of the United States will hear constitutional matters, but why does United States not have a judicial branch specifically for constitutional matters?
Comment: @JasonGoemaat that's how it's done in France, and I suspect many other legal systems. That's called the law-screen theory : the judge only applies the law, and if someone challenges the law against the constitution, it's taken up to the constitutional council, the sole body able to adjudicate on that question.
Comment: Because it makes no sense?   Name a case that only has to do with 'constitutional matters', or that has nothing to do with 'constitutional matters'.   The very basis for any law are constitutions.
Answer:
Why does the one country that promotes constitutional democracies
above all others not have a judicial branch specifically for those
matters? I know SCOTUS will hear these matters . . .  I have had it
mention that SCOTUS hears less than a hundred cases a year. Something
which sounds incredibly low.

A constitutional court profoundly limits the extent to which relief for violations of the constitution are judicially reviewable relative to the U.S. status quo.
All courts from traffic court on up hear these matters and adjudicate constitutional issue in the status quo.
It is also helpful to recognize that the U.S. Constitution regulates government conduct, not necessarily only though the device of determining that legislation is or is not constitutional.
If a police officer stops you without having reasonable suspicion to do so, he has violated the U.S. Constitution, without regard to what the statutes of the state in question say.
If evidence is seized without probable cause and this evidence is introduced in court over your objection in a criminal case, the government has violated the constitution and you are entitled (unless it was harmless error) to have your conviction vacated.
If a tax collector seizes your property for unpaid taxes without first affording you due process to dispute their right to do so, the government has violated one of your constitutional rights.
The Constitution imposes affirmative duties and obligations on the government, it does not merely invalidate laws enacted as unconstitutional.
Most instances of constitutional adjudication involve government conduct and not the validity of government enacted statutes.
Comment: @Federico Qualified immunity applies to suing a police officer. It doesn't applying to objecting to unconstitutional conduct.
Comment: @Federico The right not to be stopped without reasonable suspicion is a clearly established constitutional right to which qualified immunity does not apply, and if it is raised as a defense to a conviction it also doesn't apply.
Comment: @AndrewT. One of the reasons that I quote questions is so my answer can still make sense even if the question changes.
Comment: "If a police officer stops you without having reasonable suspicion to do so, he has violated the U.S. Constitution, without regard to what the statutes of the state in question say." Qualified immunity has entered the chat.
Comment: You might want to update (or remove) the quote since the question has been edited drastically.
Answer: Wikipedia says the first constitutional court per se was established in Austria in 1919.  So that accounts for why the US didn't have one at its founding: they hadn't been invented yet.
In fact, in the early days of the nation, it wasn't clear whether the Supreme Court, or any other court for that matter, had the authority to rule on the constitutionality of laws ("judicial review"), not even the Supreme Court.  The main intended remedy in case Congress passed an unconstitutional bill was that the President should veto it.  (And apparently until Andrew Jackson or so, the veto was used mainly for that purpose, and not to kill bills that the President simply didn't support politically.)  The power of judicial review by courts was established by the Supreme Court itself in Marbury v. Madison (1803).
If the US had wanted to establish a constitutional court after seeing Austria's, it would have required a constitutional amendment.  And if you have studied American political history at all, you will have some idea of how rarely that succeeds.  There have only been sixteen amendments since 1800, and only maybe one or two of them enacted any kind of significant change to the structure of government.
Comment: Indeed, only a few constitutional courts predate WWII.
Comment: @Justin Hilyard
 In *Hylton v. United States* the Supreme Court here a challenge to an act imposing a tax on carriages on the ground that it was a direct tax and so requires apportionment among the states. It held the tax to be indirect, The decision did not clearly say that if the tax had been direct the law would have been invalid. In any case *Marbury v. Madison* (1803) was the first occasion on which the Court actually voided an act of Congress as being contrary tomthe Constitution.
Comment: 18th and 21st amendment excluded?
Comment: Madison v Marbbury was the fist *exersize* of judicial review, but that it woudl be part of the system was made clear in *The Federalist* and the ratification debates. What was disputyesd was review of  statenlaws and state cvourt actions, but that was soon establiushed
Comment: @DavidSiegel It wasn't even the first exercise, it was just the first one to get national attention. The first exercise of judicial review by SCOTUS in evaluating the constitutionality of an act of Congress was Hylton v. United States (1796).
Answer: Most of the ""Why is the US constitution/way of doing democracy weird compared to other constitutional democracies" comes down to the age of the document/democracy.  We're still functioning on a system that was originally created in the 18th century and only went through a few major revisions through amendments in the 18th and 19th century.  It is very hard to change the system in place.
Other democracies are much younger and have had the benefit of learning from experience,  thus they have set up more modern systems to begin with.
Comment: To whit, the United States isn't just a very old constitutional document, it's at present the oldest extant codified constitution in the World, and having such a document didn't become a popular thing among the nations until after WWII (and a lot of constitutions borrowed a lot of features from the United States Constitution and modified others to better fit their national government systems or updated language that removed some of the ambiguities that the U.S. Constitution has had to deal with through the court system.).
Comment: Indeed. E.g. the German *Grundgesetz* ("Basic Law"), our Constitution, was written in the late 1940s, with US Constitutional Scholars consulting. So, it incorporates 160 years of "lessons learned". *Of course*, the US Constitution will look "weird" and "dated" next to it. That's like comparing a [Benz Motorwagen](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Benz_Patent-Motorwagen) with a [Rimac Nevera](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Rimac_Nevera) or the Wright Flyer with the B-21 Raider: you can kind of see how one evolved from the other, but the old one looks dated, haphazard, and inefficient.
Comment: The U.S. Constitution is also one of the shortest constitutions of it's type.
Comment: @hszmv While the US Constitution is the oldest codified constitution of a sovereign state, it is not the oldest codified constitution in existence. Several US states have older constitutions still in effect. The US Constitution was ratified in June of 1788 and effective March of 1789. The current Constitution of Massachusetts was ratified and effective in October of 1780, almost nine years prior.
Answer: The reason for this is all courts in the U.S. are able to hear constitutional matters and rule on them.  Any court at or below the level of the court that makes the ruling is expected to abide by that ruling unless and until a higher court rules differently.  The Supreme Court of the United States holds the distinction of being the highest court in the United States, which means that the decision they make cannot be appealed to another court system and must be abided by unless SCOTUS overturns itself or the law/constitution is changed (a few amendments to the constitution, like the 13th, overturn a number of SCOTUS rulings on slavery for example, if only to make them moot because slavery was outlawed).
So a trial court judge can make a ruling on the constitution at the beginning.  It might be incorrect, but the appeals courts will handle that and until they say otherwise, that's the interpretation of the constitution that is used for that court system.
Typically, from least to highest level, courts are as follows:

Court of Original Jurisdiction/Trial Court (State or Federal.  If Federal, skip steps 2-4).
State Appeals Court
State Appeals Court (En Banc Panel)
State Supreme Court
Federal District Appeals Court
Federal District Appeals Court (En Banc Panel)
Supreme Court of the United States

Additionally, in the United States, you have a right to one guaranteed appeals hearing (called mandatory review) unless you are a prosecutor (in which case you have very little and rare right to an initial appeal.  Prosecutors may appeal the initial appellate court rulings).  Everything above a first level appellate court hearing is discretionary review, which means that the courts are not obligated to hear your appeal (if you are rejected, you may appeal to a higher court if one exists, however, the lower court ruling stands.).
The first level of federal appeals is mandatory for cases originating in federal courts, but is discretionary for appeals of state courts (at this point, they'd only be looked at if there is a conflict with the state and federal law).
On a note about "en banc" panels, the en banc panel is a review on the first level appeals court by the appeals, typically a first level appeal will be heard by a panel of three judges of the appeals court, who will make their rulings.  The en banc panel is made of a larger group of the appeals court judges, not including the judges who heard the first appeal.
At the federal level, the states are divided into 11 "circuits," and a ruling by any level of the circuit court of appeals is binding on all states in that circuit (so if a case that originates in California is ruled on by the 9th circuit, then it will change the outcome of similar cases in Alaska and courts may remand the cases to lower courts to make a decision because Alaska is also in the 9th circuit).
This means that there are times where some states have different interpretations of the constitution that they must adhere to because their circuit court ruled differently, and still other states may have judges who have to consider both rulings when making a determination and try to find the best of both.  When this happens, it's called a "circuit split," and while no case has a guarantee that SCOTUS will hear it, it's a very good chance that SCOTUS will have a strong interest in taking up the case as their ruling will be the final ruling for all states.
Comment: Also, it is confusing to use the term "district" rather than "circuit" to describe the devisions of the United States Court of Appeal because the term district is used to refer to the trial court divisions of the federal judiciary. Similarly, the splits are always called "circuit splits" and are never called "district splits."
Comment: "you have a right to one guaranteed appeals hearing (called Mandatory Review)" FWIW, this is a statutory right but is not a constitutional right. There is not a constitutional right to a direct appeal of a case, although there is a right to a petition for habeas corpus in criminal cases collaterally attacking a conviction on grounds much more narrow than those available in a direct appeal (historically, lack of jurisdiction or an acquittal, but now also unconstitutionality). The statutory right to a direct appeal in U.S. federal criminal cases was only created in 1891.
Comment: Also, a case often goes from a federal district court to a circuit court and then to the supreme court, skipping an en banc stage


Ken Burns Effect. - Software Recommendations

Question: I am using Windows 7 and trying to find a right application to get advanced features of the "[Ken Burns effect]", like pan and zoom. Unfortunately Photostory version in Windows 7 is not able to get effects. I have access to Photoshop in other computer
Comment: You can try the freely-available Lightworks, but beware - this is a cinema-grade piece of software and comes with a steep learning curve. Do you have to use Windows 7? If you have access to a Linux or Mac system, there are plenty of options. Windows... not so much.
Answer: Any software with keyframe support can do this.  This answer provides a rough walkthrough of how you can accomplish the look you are describing with just keyframes and positioning/scale keyframes.
Answer: If you want a free and open-source option, ffDiaporama is quite good. It's mainly geared towards making photo slideshows (but allows for video too), which are rendered into a video file.
It supports doing Ken Burns effects (and any other transforms, using keyframes), and works pretty similarly to other video editors in that regard.
The UI may be a bit non-intuitive if you havn't used keyframeable video editors before, but it's pretty easy to use.
There's a video on how to do Ken Burns -style pan and zooms here.
Answer: Check out Lightworks' free version.


Is there a way to remove the unread count in Feedly?

Question: I don't like having numbers showing me posts that have not been read, leisure reading suddenly starts looking like a task.
Is there a way to remove the number from the post, I don't mind the dot that says that there are new items.
Comment: No, not at this time.
Answer: The hackish way to do it is to use the built in developer tools of a browser like Firefox with the Web Developer extension or Chrome with the built in Developer Tools.
In Chrome for example:
Open up Feedly
Go to View -> Developer -> Developer Tools This will bring up the Developer Tools bar at the bottom of your browser window.
Then hover over any of the unread count numbers you want to remove.
Right click on the number element and select 'Inspect Element'.
In the Developer Tools bar on the right hand side, you'll see the CSS style rules for the page appear. You should see one that says 'div.simpleUnreadCount'. Under this rule after the curly bracket that follows that div, type in: display: none;
You should see all the unread counts disappear from the page. This will only last as long as you keep that page open. You'll need to repeat these steps (quite quick once you know what to do) each time you close the page and then reopen.
OK, that's the hackish way to do it that at least shows you how it works, now I'll show you the easier way to do it:
Use a browser extension/tool such as Stylebot, Stylish or Stylist. These allow you to edit the CSS styles of a page and have it persist each time you visit. You'll want to tell them to do the same thing as above, but this time they'll save the changes and you can revisit the page and see no unread counts.


Why the highlighted outline in animated cartoons?

Question: I've often seen in animated cartoons like Doraemon or any other anime that an object in the background that is about to move or do some movement is highlighted explicitly. Which makes it easy to predict that something is about to happen to the highlighted object. What is the reason for this?
Comment: As a child I remember that Scooby Doo was the absolute worst offender here. I mention it because I think American audiences will be more familiar with it. Basically they'd be looking for a clue and on a very detailed background there'd be one drawer that looked off. It would be a solid color and have a thick outline. You knew they'd go open it soon.
Comment: You mean the [Conspicuously Light Patch](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ConspicuouslyLightPatch)? (Yes, there's a TV Tropes page for it.)
Comment: I like this question, but it can be improved significantly with a video example or two.
Comment: Yes @AaronRotenberg you're right my friend.
Comment: @CaptainMan oh god, and He-Man too, I recall.  "Secret" doors were always pretty obvious to the viewer for this reason, they'd even occasionally "wobble". I wonder if the characters ever learned to spot them the same way?
Answer: This is due to how hand-drawn animation used to be made. A static background was drawn only once, and the moving objects were drawn for each frame on a transparent cel. Then it was placed on the background, one frame was shot on film, then the cel was removed, and new one was placed on the same background, next frame was shot, and so on.
If an object wasn't moving, it was a part of the background. If it is to be animated, it is no longer part of the background and has to be now drawn on the cel to be moved in each frame. Drawings on the cels, as seen on the picture are outlined with ink and that is why they seem highlighted or standing out from the background.

Source: Weiner Elementary, consulted on 27 November 2019.
Comment: That's a really enlightening image. I had a rough idea of how this worked, but a single look at that image filled in a lot of the details.


Safety in Bangkok

Question: I am going to BKK at the beginning of October and being a tourist and a photographer, I wouldn't renounce to take my camera with me (it's not a bullseye for thieves, but still...).
Do I need to stay away from areas in the city to avoid being robbed?
Can I enjoy any nightlife without being anxious about anything?
Are nightclubs trustworthy?
I actually have fun trying to talk with people and wouldn't want in any way sound or look rude to them, so I often decline with a smile if I am not interested in something, but is there any kind of scammers to absolutely avoid?
Comment: Welcome! You're relatively new, so I suggest checking out the [help], where you'll note subjective questions are generally off-topic, and you're expected to ask generally just one question per post.  Possibly you could edit this after reading it, as in its current state it's likely to get closed.
Comment: Hi Mark, thank you for the advice, but I am actually not-so-new to other SE communities, so I tried to keep the question as objective as possible. Now keep in mind that I am not looking for "don't go to club X", but "if you go to district X, be careful, since it has a not-so-good fame".
One question per post does not imply that what you mean. In that case I should have asked "how can I be safe in BKK" (which indeed is too broad), but I actually restricted the thing to be more specific. Thanks anyway for the feedback and feel free to edit if you think it helps the question
Answer: What constitutes 'trustworthy' or 'safe' very much depends on your own standards. I would say that Bangkok is quite safe. It's exceptional for tourists to be the targets of violent crime. But, tourists are an obvious target nonetheless, probably more so through scams than crime. Here's just one of many articles on the web that list Thai scams you should be aware of.
As a rule of thumb, you are more likely to be targeted in areas with more tourists. You are more likely to be targeted when it's quiet. You are more likely to be targeted, the more intoxicated you are. The more a tourist you look (that has a bit to do with your race, but more so with how you behave), the more likely you'll be targeted.
In my mind, no nightclub (anywhere) is absolutely trustworthy. The more expensive ones will probably try to scam you less, but their scam is the price you're paying, to begin with.
Comment: Well I think it's common sense not leaving your backpack away from your eyes, not yelling "hey I have a lot of cash" in a crowd and not being in streets that you don't know, with no company, intoxicated, with a laptop in your hand. So let's assume that security depends *more or less* from one's standards.
What I meant is if there are any districts not to go in the night to avoid getting robbed (which by the way I have no clue whether is a violent crime) and so on.
Would you please care to elaborate a bit on the nightclubs (I'm not necessarily talking about go-go bars and so on...)
Comment: Not sure what elaboration you need on nightclubs, but there's also this: http://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/53962/where-can-i-find-go-go-bars-in-bangkok
Comment: If you get pick-pocketed, it's not a violent crime. Getting robbed (under threat of violence) is. However, if it would be that easy to say which districts to not go to at night, they would quickly become violence-free (and people-free).
Comment: lol I saw that question too, but as I said, I'm not looking for places with "negotiable virtue women". Something like bars, discos, places where you get to see thai-boxe encounters...
Comment: As a obvious tourist, you will always be an easier target. As a tourist in popular tourist destinations, you will run a higher risk of being targeted. Most crime in Thailand is not violent, so be diligent. And, particularly when going out at night, carry few valuables. It also helps if you can give the impression that you will smash to pulp a person trying to steal from you.

Safety in Bangkok


Is there an antonym for the word "Behold"?

Question: What is the opposite word (or antonym) for the word "Behold" as in the phrase "Behold the mighty ..."?
Comment: What would that word mean? Do you mean "Ignore"?
Comment: "Cover your eyes and run away!"
Comment: Hi Joachim, thanks for the reply. imo, the word behold mean "to have the power to perceive by sight"). As for the reason for putting such a question is because I saw in the dictionary (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/behold), it mention that the antonyms of "Behold" is "miss". If I use the word "Miss the mighty ...", I am not sure if people will laugh at me. However, you mention "Ignore", seems kind of fit it well in the "Ignore the mighty ...". Are there still other antonyms of "Behold"?
Answer: Behold is defined as

to perceive through sight or apprehension
to gaze upon

however it is an old word, which uses these meaning specifically

used in the imperative especially to call attention
used in phrases such as 'eye of the beholder' and 'lo and behold' (ngrams)

So, the question is which meaning and usage you want to make the opposite of.
As Larry Morries suggested, one possibility is to ignore. Another would be your suggestion to miss (ignore denotes conscious effort, while miss does not).
Few other antonyms are: disregard, neglect, overlook.
Another source lists near antonyms: misapprehend, misconceive, misconstrue, misinterpret, misperceive, misread, mistake, misunderstand and disregard, ignore, neglect, overpass, pass over; miss, overlook
Although each time you use behold there is a certain grandness and a sense of pause that is implied: 'Behold the mighty Joe!'
'Ignore the mighty Joe!' does not carry the same tone, but it is an antonym of 'to gaze upon' and it is an imperative.
Maybe to preserve the tone of the whole phrase: 'Pay no attention to the mighty Joe!' works better.
Comment: Perfect answer. Behold the Great Wizard of Oz; pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Answer: "Avert your eyes!" would specifically mean "Look away", with a purpose to avoid the physical or psychological damage of looking at welding sparks or a crumpled car with half a child inside.
"Move along folks, nothing to see here." Is traditionally accosted with a policeman or other first-responder trying to get a crowd who has gathered to observe some dramatic crime or accident. Whereas the former is an impassioned warning, this is purposely boring.
The most recognized example of an antonym to "Behold!" in American film would have to be "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!" from the Wizard of Oz.


Make `thing-at-point` treat dot as a symbol-constituent character?

Question: Is there a way to tweak thing-at-point symbol regexp, so that it ignore dots as separators? Right now foo.bar in my Emacs is recognized as two different symbols, where I wish it was one.
Comment: See also [Why does thing-at-point not consider plus as a filename character?](https://emacs.stackexchange.com/q/33440/260)
Answer: To supplement what @phils said -
Make . have symbol-constituent syntax in the current syntax table, or in a copy of it.
Either define your own replacement function for thing-at-point:
(defun my-thg-at-pt (thing &optional no-properties)
  "..."
  (let ((stab  (copy-syntax-table)))
    (with-syntax-table stab
      (modify-syntax-entry ?. "_")
      (thing-at-point thing no-properties))))

or wrap whatever code calls thing-at-point similarly.  For instance, if you call some function foo that you cannot modify, which calls thing-at-point, then wrap your call to foo similarly:
(let ((stab  (copy-syntax-table)))
  (with-syntax-table stab
    (modify-syntax-entry ?. "_")
    ...
    (foo)))

Of course, if foo does other stuff, and some of that depends on . NOT having symbol syntax, then wrapping all of foo this way is too unfocused.
Answer: That's dependent on the syntax table for the buffer in question.  In elisp, for instance, foo.bar is treated as a single symbol.
You can specify that . is symbol-constituent in the current buffer's syntax table with:
(modify-syntax-entry ?. "_")

Unless this is for a custom mode of your own devising, I would suggest that you try to establish if there is a sensible reason why . was not already symbol-constituent.


What does קרי mean in Parashat Bechukotai?

Question: In Parashat Bechukotai, the word קרי comes up often to describe intransigence. What is this word? Is it ever still used?
Comment: Haim, welcome to Mi Yodeya, and thanks very much for the interesting question!
If you haven't done so already, you should take a look at the [tour](https://judaism.stackexchange.com/tour).

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I hope you find more Q&A of interest and stay learning with us!
Comment: Can you clarify what you mean by "What is this word?" so people can better answer you? Clearly you don't need identification of the word, since you've already identified it as קרי.
Comment: When you ask  "Is it ever still used?" do you mean in modern Hebrew? What "still" are you referring to?
Comment: If you like an answer, consider marking it correct. If not, consider clarifying what additional information you would like.
Answer: The word קרי appears only seven times in tanach*, and all of them are here in this section, (according to the Mesorah Ketana,) so there's some dispute about exactly what this word means and what its root is.
*I'm including the word בקרי, also only found here, in this count.
I've seen the following explanations:
Happenstance (1)
The ספרא, as brought by Rashi, defines it as **עראי (the opposite of קבוע, fixed). (The implication of the ספרא, according to Rashi, Rashbam and others, is that the word is related to מקרה, happenstance, "ולא תדיר, כאדם שאינו הולך תדיר אצל בוראו" "And not consistent, as a man who does not walk consistently with his creator.")
**spelled עריי in the ספרא itself, but עראי as brought by Rashi.
Happenstance (2)
Rambam, citing the phrase  והלכתם עמי, בקרי.  והלכתי עימכם, בחמת קרי at the beginning of הלכות תענייות, also treats the word as meaning happenstance, but specifically explains that the phrase והלכתם עמי בקרי is what happens when G-d sends troubles so that people will repent, and instead of doing so, they treat it as happenstance, and so G-d responds with greater troubles - "I will walk with you בחמת קרי." Radak, in his Sefer haShorashim, translates word and phrase the same way. ("If you say that the suffering I bring upon you is happenstance and do not repent for your sins..." - applying the word קרי to our response to events in our lives, rather than service of G-d.) This interpretation appears in other commentaries as well.
Rebelliousness
Saadiah Gaon (in the backtranslation of his Arabic translation of the Torah found in the תורת חיים edition of the chumash) translates קרי as מריכם - rebelliousness.
The linguist Yonah ibn Janach, who considers it part of the קרה root, also says ענינו קשי ערף ומרי - it refers to stubbornness and rebellion.
Resistance
The early linguist Menachem ben Saruk, as brought by Rashi, explains it as ענין מניעה - resistance. (He treats it as one definition of the two-letter root "קר".)
Targum Onkeles (also brought by Rashi) translates קרי as קשוי, hardness.  Rashi explains this as also referring to resistance - hardening one's heart to resist becoming close to G-d.
Coldness
Rav Moshe Shternbuch suggests that may also be לשון קרירות: coldness - that is, serving G-d without feeling and without hiddur ("beautifying" the mitzvot).
Comment: +1 Excellent answer. I'll just add that coldness and resistance could be the same linguistic situation.
Comment: @DoubleAA Since Rish includes my source in his (far more thorough) answer, would it be more proper to fold my answer into his?
Comment: Related: Commentators from the Dubnow Maggid to R. Yosef Shalom Elyashiv ztl on what the sin of behaving casually with HKBU קרי means https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/327994
Answer: RaSh"I on Wayiqra 26:21 states:

ואם תלכו עמי קרי: רבותינו אמרו עראי, במקרה ...
And if you treat me as happenstance: Heb. קֶרִי. Our Rabbis said that [this word means] temporary, by chance (מִקְרֶה)
Comment: @haim I've heard this explained as if we treat things happening in the world as happenstance and not attributed to God, then he will let things actually happen by happenstance, which often ends badly.
Comment: See a similar usage of the word מִקְרֶה in Devarim (Deut.) 23:11. Has the same definition, and I think that verse is a good example.
Comment: @DanF No, that is מִקְּרֵה with a Dagesh in the ק.
Comment: @andrewmh20 Rabbe'inu Baḥya says this in the [introduction to *Sha'ar HaBitaḥon*](http://dafyomireview.com/chovos/mobile/4.html): "[...] If one does not place his trust in G-d, he will place his trust in something else, and whoever trusts in something other than G-d, the Al-mighty will remove His providence from such a person, and leave him in the hands of the one he trusted [...]."


What to do on the siding around a cable going into the house

Question: I had AT&T Fiber installed today. The technician had to create a hole on the side of my garage for the fiber optics cable. As you can see, it doesn't look pretty. But I'm not really concerned with aesthetics since it's not visible from the road. I'm worried about water going in. There's no drip loop, so I can see the water just following down the cable. Any tips on what kind of products I can use to clean this up and waterproof? Thanks!
Comment: Well, that's an amateurish job at best. While those of us that work in low voltage and fiber optics have considerable latitude compared to power electricians, we are expected to meet basic standards such as "a workmanlike manner" - I would complain to the company, with pictures (go out on a rainy day and show the water running down the cable into your building.) Putting a drip loop on that drop cable is standard practice. Poking it through the wall that way also makes it subject to damage, unless that's high on the wall. Installer can't drill a neat hole without splintering your siding...?
Answer: Wow, he didn't really care much about craftsmanship. No drip loop sucks; see if there is any slack where you could pull it down a bit into a gentle loop and use a zip-tie to hold the shape (don't kink it). Really all I can see you doing is globbing silicone sealant around it; use the paintable type and maybe you could make it look a bit better by painting the glob once it has cured.
They make split wall bushings you could use to dress it but you would still need the glob of silicone to prevent water intrusion.
Comment: The wall flange is a great idea, it will allow the sealant to be hidden behind the flange to the wall, and while using a split version, it will allow sealant to be applied on the inside of the halves before they are set together and inserted into to drilled hole, which may need to be enlarged a bit somehow to get the wall flange in. There are plenty of water based sealants out there that have a 40-50 year guarantee, and will allow water cleanup too.


Are there templates for Angular 2 templates?

Question: Facelets, Thymeleaf, ASP.NET and other view frameworks supports templating to create uniform GUI. Are there templates for Angular 2 templates? E.g. I would like to have business form template with commond comands such as Save, Cancel, Exit and use this template for all my business forms? I am not sure that repearing Save/Cancel/Exit commands in the code of eache page is good idea. Angular 2 components allow inheritance and genercis and maybe template code allow something similar?
Answer: Have a look on Flex Layout and Angular Material 2


Vought and non-white races in The Boys

Question: Why would Vought make other than white superheroes with it's racist background?
This is obviously not addressing "terrorists" as there is clear reason for that. It is about A-Train, Shockwave, Black Noir etc.
Comment: Ideally people would explain their downvotes.
Comment: @Accumulation with my first question here I have been told no spoiler alerts needed. That is all I can say if you do not wish to know more. If you do, simple search will do, multiple spoiler articles talk about this.
Comment: My understanding is that Black Noir's race is not disclosed.
Comment: You've seen their company-obsession with PR and marketing, right?
Answer: Although the founder of Vought was a literal Nazi he is long dead and no longer in charge  (remember the founder was already an adult male by the time Hitler rose to power). Over the years their higher ranking staff members have switched out with new ones that climbed the ranks, people who did not share the founders racial supremacy ideas but were more focused on money.
And just  like in Real Life, movies and similar media are being pushed by an inclusive agenda that represents everybody in a ploy to make more money. And at this point Vought is little more then a media company that houses weapons of mass destruction.
At the point of the show the company itself is run by Stan Edgar, a man who is portrayed by an actor who is Italian-African.
Comment: Yep, kind of what I was thinking, makes sense, thank you.
Answer: While it is true that the origins of the technology used by Vought are Nazi, the company has clearly become run with an American Nationalist perspective. And is run by an arch capitalist, Stan Edgar, who is obviously not white.
Certainly, at least in Series 1, the company is portrayed as villainous because of its arch money-grabbing capitalist orientation, not because of racism. The superheros exploit American patriotism to make money and jealously guard the wholesome american image of their heros even when they commit heinous acts.
Series 2 adds some extra nuance with the revelation that Stormfront is an actual surviving Nazi experiment. But, as she explains to Homelander (s2:e6) while trying to get him onside after annoying him:

We are in a war for the culture. But we can fight back.

Implying that she has pivoted to a general anti-foreginer campaign (with potentially deliberate echos of some Trumpian rhetoric). This is fairly clear from some of the public speeches she and Homelander give in their attempt to justify compound V and to undermine the campaign against it. So she now fights for American culture not for the exact same goals as the original Nazis.
Arguably, Naziism is defined by the groups it hates (with a focus on the Jews) and extreme nationalism not by general racism. Historically anti-jewish arabs fought alongside Nazis so the ideology was flexible enough to pivot against their most hated "enemies" without being generally racist against all non-germans. Since Vought is making tons of money from US-loving minorities it isn't too much of a stretch to see even their Nazi past allowing them to find a different hate group to use to promote their corporation. though, as the final episode of series 2 makes clear, she has not shed all of her innate prejudices even if she has suppressed them for short term gain.

Vought and non-white races in The Boys


Group posts view

Question: I am struggling to make a view to display the posts of a group. I have done the filter and chosen the fields I want to display, but I am struggling with the arguments. I am not sure what the path would be, if I want the view to be a tab of the group node.
Answer: Try this contextual filter:

"(Organic groups group) Organic groups group: Entity id"

and have these 2 relationships added:

"Group membership: Node group membership"
"(group membership) OG membership: Group gid"

This will show the nodes that belong to your group. Sorry, I can't help you on the "tab question".
Make sure to checkout this awesome OG video tutorial.
Comment: mototribe to the rescue as per usual. thanks for all your help. I will give it a shot :)

Group posts view