Isn't it illogical for an atheist to go to hell?

Question: God gives me reason. I use that reason to analyze the world around me and draw my own conclusions. How can I be guilty if my reason, given to me by God, let me conclude that God doesn't exist? Isn't it His fault for not creating me more intelligent or not showing me evidences strong enough to convince my limited intellect? I'm only using the tools that He gave me.
Comment: Well, it's impossible, using *sound reasoning*, to conclude that "God doesn't exist", given the pragmatic impossibility of proving a negative. If I'm correct, atheists are people who simply don't believe in God, which is different from believing there is no God. Atheists are people who have concluded neither "there is a God" nor "there is no God." Atheists simply don't find any evidence in favour of the existence of God convincing, but, again, that is not synonymous with having the belief that there is NO God. Also, why do you suppose that it is God who has given you "your reasoning"?
Comment: @Rajesh "atheists are people who simply don't believe in God, which is different from believing there is no God". I think this is the agnostic. The atheist, in my conception, actually affirms there is no God, someone that has the "inverse faith". Maybe I'm wrong in this semantic discussion, but the question remains the same. Don't believing in God's existence or believing in God's inexistence are both derivations of someone's discernment. If my discernment is part of me and I was created by God, doesn't it implies that was He which gave me it?
Comment: Certainly, God has given you your brain, but how you choose to reason using that brain is entirely on you.
Comment: Well, one's brain doesn't come preloaded with a specific method of reasoning. I propose that God does not make each individual person adopt a specific method of reasoning, but that each individual can reason in their own way, however they want. Some people think it's reasonable to hurt others for their personal gain, others don't. I don't think God went one way for one person and another way for another person.
Comment: That anything exists at all is given as all we need to know that God exists and is divinely powerful and also as all that is needed for us to be without excuse - Romans 1:18-21
Comment: The idea of [invincible ignorance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invincible_ignorance_(Catholic_theology)) may be of interest. Keep in mind that they more you learn about it, the less of a case you have for it.
Comment: There is something curious in the phraseology of your question. If an atheist  wants to go to hell, who will stop him ? On the contrary, if he decides to go to heaven, he will not be comfortable there, either. Of course, if he opts for heaven, but is  `thrown' or `pushed'to hell, he has the space for grudge.
Comment: "God gives me [legs]. I use [those legs] to [move around the world] and [go where I want to go]. How can I be guilty if my [legs], given to me by God, [lead me to a brothel]? Isn't it His fault for not creating me [without legs] or not [hiding brothels so I don't walk into them]? I'm only using the tools that He gave me."
Answer: It is illogical for an atheist to think they would go to hell.
Given they have arrived at the conclusion God does not exist, then they must also disbelieve in any place of eternal torment after death.
"There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, 'Thy will be done.'"  C. S. Lewis (The Great Divorce)
Comment: This is true, but this question is addressing the situation where the atheist is wrong, and presumably discovers this after death. This doesn't actually answer the question
Comment: Rob, I didn't think that the OP was asking how the atheist would feel after death when he discovered his "error".  If he was, then his question needs to be reworded to make that clear.
Answer: The illogic is in the question itself.
You say: "God gives me reason. … God doesn't exist".
Asking a question based on two mutually exclusive facts doesn't make logical sense.
One can't believe both facts at the same time.
Pick one to believe and the other goes away.
Problem solved.
Comment: This is an incorrect reading of the question. They're coming to the conclusion that god doesn't exist - this is not stating a *fact* that God doesn't exist. There is no logical fallacy here. We can rephrase the question as: "Why am I punished for the fact that God didn't make me smart enough to deduce that he exists?"
Comment: It's so simple it's a wonder that we missed it!
Comment: @Rob. Yes, the question really should have been asked objectively (e.g. more like "If it's God that gives people intelligence, why does he punish them for …?").  This question uses "I", "me", and "my" 13 times, and in doing so introduced the contradiction.  The best .SE questions never use those words.
Comment: @RayButterworth The use of "I", "me" and "my" here don't introduce the fallacy - the question is still valid but misinterpreted. Someone concluding a result does not make it a fact, indeed, this question is specifically asking about the case where their conclusion is wrong... so I don't think this answer actually answers the question
Comment: @Rob, as worded, the question is self-contradictory and so *can't* be answered. It's not possible for anyone to both "give" and "not exist" at the same time.
Comment: @RayButterworth It's not contradictory. Someone is able to come to an incorrect conclusion. It would be a contradiction if they stated both were facts, but they're clearly asking about the case where god DOES exist, and so their conclusion was incorrect (and hence punished for coming to the incorrect conclusion).
Comment: @Rob, yes, but as worded now, in a 1st person point of view, it *is* self-contradictory.  If it were reworded from a 3rd person point of view, my answer *would* no longer apply, and it *would* then be deleted.
Answer: In Christianity we believe that reason is NOT the only tool that God gave us.  He also revealed Himself in his miraculous and covenantal dealings with his chosen people Israel starting with Abraham (around 2,000 BC), which He renewed with Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Hezekiah, etc.  The record of these dealings was providentially preserved accurately in the Old Testament that we still have today in the 21st century.
The story of God's dealings was resumed in the New Testament era (around 4 BC) with the coming of Jesus as the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity (Son of God) who added on a human nature, to appeal to us out of His "unfailing love and faithfulness" (an expression so prevalent in the Psalms) so that we can finally SEE God in person and in human form with our own eyes.  By dying and forgiving us from the cross in tortured nakedness and shame, Jesus wanted us to overcome our own guilt, shame and fear, to approach God creator of the universe, so we can be healed from our tendency of doing evil (something only God can do).
Once we come to faith, in union with Christ who indwell within us, we can then perform what God created us to be doing in Genesis: be fruitful, multiply, act morally, taking charge of earth without destroying it, etc. with love and gratitude for God and love for our neighbors, although overcoming sinful desires 100% cannot happen overnight.
What more do you expect?  Christianity says that all we need is to accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, and the Trinitarian God will indwell in our heart.  As long as we don't kick him out but instead willingly journey with God by walking in the Spirit until we die while receiving His grace daily, we have "all the tools" we need in order to go to heaven.
Further resources

To explain the reasonability of central Christian doctrines, see first rate 21st century Christian scholars answering pointed questions from Robert Lawrence Kuhn using the method of Analytic Theology in PBS Closer To Truth episodes #1909 to #1913 :

#1909 - Jesus as God - A Philosophical Inquiry
#1910 - The Trinity - A Philosophical Inquiry
#1911 - The Incarnation - A Philosophical Inquiry
#1912 - Atonement - A Philosophical Inquiry
#1913 - Salvation - A Philosophical Inquiry

Other Closer to Truth episodes / interview series which serve as a preamble to faith:

If God Knows the Future, what is free will?
Why a Body in a resurrection?
Why is Sin?
Philosophy of the Bible
Can the Bible Address Philosophical Questions?
What is God's judgment?
Theological Anthropology: What is Human Mind?
#1606 - Religious Faith: Rational or Rationalization
#1702 - How Does Faith Work?
#1908 - Epistemology: How Can We Know God?

Books that cover the theme of how the natural world feels incomplete without the Christian answer: how reason itself feels that a puzzle piece is missing (such as argument from desire), that only a religion can provide, to which the Christian religion (according to Christian apologists) gives the most satisfactory explanation.  These books are Christian answers to the problem of meaning that 20th century philosophers such as Sartre, Nietzsche, and Camus felt most acutely.
Comment: Good answer. +1 :)
Comment: "He also revealed Himself in his miraculous". That's what people say. I didn't witnessed it, but even if I did how I could be sure it wasn't an illusionist trick? Even today I can't explain some of David Copperfield tricks, how could someone distinguish an actual miracle from a sophisticated trick? I mean, even the empirical experience isn't enough to convince about God's existence.  When I say "reason", I don't mean every conclusion has to be proven logically. It is also reasonable to believe that there's something beyond the logic that explains metaphysical "things" like God.
Comment: @EduardoM Are you then faulting God for not believing 3000-4000 year report of miracles?  That is an entirely different question.  The faculty of reason we are given is perfectly capable to integrate Christian apologists explanation, which has been updated every decade or so.  In other words,  we don't have to suspend / sacrifice the integrity of our reason.  Once you have at least entertain the possibility of this, then God also gives you the grace to trust Him as the God He claimed to be (i.e. his unlimited love and faithfulness to us despite wars, disease, suffering, etc).
Comment: @EduardoM In other words, the Christian God, just how He was speaking through the Psalmist and the prophets in the OT, asked us to TRUST His word and promises given some past miraculous "evidence" he did primarily in bringing Israel out of Egypt and for them to settle in Canaan, etc.  The grand finale of the fulfillment of his promise was in coming **in person** to the world by sending His Son Jesus.  That is supposed to prove his character.  Given reasonable acceptance of the historical record, we are then asked to entrust our lives to this God.
Comment: @GratefulDisciple Probably here is not the best place to ask my question, because it's more philosophical than a Christian subject. I'm not even an atheist and understand the faith, but I also understand the ausence of faith and I believe both beliefs have the same origin and essence, so I can't accept how can these have different judgments. You can be wrong about what you believe but you're not wrong for believing it, since it's an honest conclusion. Taking into account the tools you had and the honesty you used them, you can't be considered guilty for the work you did.
Comment: @GratefulDisciple complementing the post above: You can be wrong, but not guilty.
Comment: @EduardoM Yes, if the Q isn't theological, it needs to go to other sites.  You can raise it in the [UpperRoom chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/1167) to get some pointers.  But basically, Christianity has shown how faith and reason are complementary and not destructive to each other as well as lots of scholars responding to a variety of objections: philosophical, biblical, historical, etc.  One I highly recommend for starter is the [Closer to Truth](https://www.closertotruth.com/tv-episodes) episodes #1908-1913 where there are first rate Christian scholars providing answers.
Comment: +1 "Christianity says that all we need is to accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, and the **Trinitarian** God will indwell in our heart" Nope, sorry. Christianity does not say this. ;)
Comment: @OneGodtheFather It's funny how I was raised Reformed but now think like a Catholic.  It seems the other way around with you.  The Biblical basis of the indwelling *Trinity* is John 14:23 (detail [here](https://icucourses.com/pages/025-12-mission-and-divine-indwelling), video [here](https://youtu.be/yrJs_Zh5tDg)), a standard Catholic teaching.  Protestants seem to prefer the term [indwelling *Holy Spirit*](https://www.gotquestions.org/indwelling-of-the-Holy-Spirit.html) and conveniently leaves out John 14:23 which says: "**we** will come to him and make **our** home with him".
Comment: @GratefulDisciple Ya, I think like a Catholic-Reformed Protestant hybrid now. But "Think like a Catholic" would be a good name for a podcast. ;) But Jesus isn't ontologically God, so the Trinitarian God isn't what's indwelling!
Comment: @OneGodtheFather Technically, Jesus is a human being, so what's indwelling is the spirit of Jesus, which shares the same essence with the Father (by virtue of His pre-existence) and shares the same essence with the Holy Spirit (the monotheism aspect of the Trinity).  All the 3 hypostases manifest differently within our heart.  I'm just describing the orthodox Catholic teaching.  Of course Biblical unitarians don't agree. As Protestant I used to understand the indwelling similar to how *GotQuestions* article describe it, but now I gravitate toward the Catholic understanding.  Both are Biblical.
Comment: @GratefulDisciple I know you are. And it's wrong. And neither are Biblical. ;)
Answer: God gave reason to more than yourself. Though it seems illogical for an atheist to credit God with giving you such a sublime faculty. Leaving that aside, consider the following logical points. The first three are not directly about atheistic reasoning but I put them first, in order to build up to the main one, which is about atheistic reasoning. If you stop to think about all four, you might then understand why your powers of reasoning are not to be trusted when it comes to non-belief in God.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799) With most men, unbelief in one
thing springs from blind belief in another.
Anais Nin  We don't see things as they are. We see them as we are.
Darren McGarvey  Whether it be the left blaming the rich or the right
blaming the poor, we tend only to be interested in whichever half of
the story absolves us of responsibility for the problem.  'Poverty
Safari' p125 (2017)
Michael Horton  "From Ludwig Feuerbach, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx
and Sigmund Freud to Richard Dawkins, modern atheism is largely
neo-Epicureanism." Pilgrim Theology, p27 (Zondervan, 2011)  An
Epicurean is a person devoted to pleasure, especially refined,
sensuous enjoyment that enables them to maintain a calm mind. They
delight in believing themselves to be superior in thinking and
reasoning. Nothing seems to upset their desired equilibrium more than
Christians pointing out that all our thoughts, desires and endeavours
are corrupted by our selfish, ignorant sin. Even though Christians
include themselves in that damning description, it's when they say
belief in God's way of dealing with that sin and obedience to God's
requirements gives us peace, that atheists are inclined to blow a
fuse."

It would seem that you have selected only a few tools in your mental tool-box, and it might be time for you to consider the logical thoughts of others who are more open to possibilities than you seem to be.
Answer: Romans 1:

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

I'm not sure what more needs to be said .
Well, okay:

How can I be guilty if my reason, given to me by God, let me conclude that God doesn't exist? Isn't it His fault for not creating me more intelligent or not showing me evidences strong enough to convince my limited intellect?

Your premise here, as clearly explained by Paul's letter to the Romans, is simply wrong. There is more than adequate evidence for God, such that reason alone does not, and cannot, conclude that God doesn't exist. That conclusion cannot be sustained by reason alone, but requires an active rejection of God. Therefore, the atheist is condemned by that rejection.
Comment: +1 Clever-sillies don't like to hear that their theories which explain the universe are, generally speaking, speculation heaped on speculation. But 'reason' can never stand alone - humans have a cognitive economy, and reason is just one part *which is easily misled when improperly used*, as any tool can't be expected to function well when improperly used. Only a fool would rely on it exclusively to come to conclusions like quoted.
Answer: For the Gospel to be illogical, one or more of these would have to obtain:

It is internally inconsistent
It makes nonsensical statements that have no meaning
It is inconsistent with the laws of logic
It is inconsistent with the observed phenomena of nature

Inconsistency. This is the area where theologians and philosophers do battle. In science and mathematics, people make statements and then try to prove them using logic. They know what the statements mean, they just aren't sure if they are true. With the Bible, the problem is turned on its head. If God really spoke the words (or inspired them) then they are true, logical, consistent and have meaning. However, we may misunderstand that meaning and so introduce inconsistency. Thus the work of theology according to the faithful is to find the meaning that best fits all the statements in the Bible.
Nonsense.. The Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1:18, "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." The Bible teaches some things that cannot be understood without having certain spiritual experiences. Such statements appear to be nonsense. I have had several of them in my life. Until such principles are understood experientially, it is difficult if not impossible to incorporate them in their proper sense into your logical arguments.
Illogical. As Mathematics has developed, we have proceeded from a world with one geometry (flat Euclidean) to many (geometries of curved spaces). We have moved from a science that could not grasp infinities and infinitesmals to one that relies upon them. We have embraced alternate systems of logic instead of just one. The logic of an infinite being must differ from the logic of finite beings such as ourselves. The Bible is awash in many seeming contradictions which can only be resolved by adopting a new form of logic.
Unscientific (miraculous). This is where scientists do battle. One book of the Bible tackles this question in detail: Ecclesiastes. The book is punctuated with the phrase "under the sun". It takes insights from religion (such as wise Proverbs on how to live a life of peace and security) and compares them to the reality of injustice, ill fortune and death. This scientific assessment of societal cause and effect shows that the prescribed way to live does not guarantee the desired outcome. Solomon is unable to even guarantee a place in heaven, as he is not sure such a place even exists such that animals go down (to oblivion) and people rise. Then in the last paragraoph, the Teacher calls on people to "fear God and keep his commands". This is a call to faith. It is a call to obey even without an empirical guarantee.
Solomon proved that one cannot deduce the proper way to believe and live from empirical observation and logic.

I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done
under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind!
(Ecclesiastes 1:13)

This does not make faith illogical, though. It makes it translogical. That is the heavy burden. The Bible does not dodge the question. The wisest man who ever lived (besides Jesus) came up short. He exposed the problem. Only Revelation - Christ rising from the dead - could answer the question. That is why we need the gospel.
Answer: You are saying, "God would be irrational to send me to Hell for using a gift he gave me, namely the gift of reason."
The answer is quite simple.  Gifts can be used badly, and it need not be the giver's fault that their gift was misused.  The person who received the gift might be the one at fault.
I might gift you a hunting rifle, and you might use it to kill someone.  In that case your misuse of my gift would be your fault, not mine.  I simply gave you the gift with the hope that you would use it well.  You are the one who is responsible for the misuse.  In that case it would not be illogical to send you to jail rather than me.  It would be eminently rational.

(This is an attempt to answer the question directly, without touching on the separate issue of Pelagianism.)
Comment: If the gift is not enough to achieve what the giver wants you to do, how can't it be the giver's fault if you fail? Note that you can't "misuse" your discernment. We do not choose what we believe or not. You can deny 1+1=2, but you can't disbelieve it, because you KNOW it's true, independent of your will. There's is no way to cheat your own discernment, then you're always using it correctly. All of our beliefs are honest and if someone concludes there's no God, it's not their fault. It's only their fault if they actually believe in something and still deny it, as Peter did.
Comment: @EduardoM 1) The gift can be used well; 2) The gift can be used badly.  Your suggestion that human discernment is infallible is false.
Comment: The gift can't be used badly. That's the entire point of my question and the reason that an atheist can't be guilted for being an atheist.
Answer: Consider the evidence for solving the most important existential problem that humanity faces - i.e. the problem of death.
In the New Testament documents, which were written by eyewitnesses or close associates of eyewitnesses, Jesus claims: "He who has seen me, has seen the Father." (John 14:9)
If it is probable that Jesus died and rose from the dead, then that gives an intellectual warrant for believing his truth claims.
If one is not does not find intellectual satisfaction in the arguments for the resurrection of Jesus, one might be suffering from the inherited spiritual effects of being intellectually blinded by the cascading effects of generational sin involving one's ancestral resistance to grace (Romans 1:20). If so, that's not God's fault. One needs to ask themselves this question: "Do I want to believe it is true?"
Does God create faith to believe that He exists in any person that  hears the Gospel and has a receptive heart that does not quench the gift of faith that God imparts? If the answer is "no" than Calvinism is true and abiding skeptics who don't come to faith are simply not one of the elect. Again, that's not God's fault, its just a consequence of the curse of the fall and/or generational inherited sin.
1 Corinthians 1:18, "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."
Answer: It is not one's beliefs upon which one is judged, but upon one's actions.

Romans 2:6-16 [God] will repay each person according to his deeds: 7
to those who by perseverance in doing good seek glory, honor, and
immortality, He will give eternal life; 8 but to those who are
self-serving and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, He
will give wrath and indignation. 9 There will be tribulation and
distress [g]for every soul of mankind who does evil, [h]for the Jew
first and also [i]for the Greek, 10 but glory, honor, and peace to
everyone who does what is good, to the Jew first and also to the
Greek. 11 For there is no partiality with God.
12 For all who have sinned [j]without the Law will also perish
[k]without the Law, and all who have sinned [l]under the Law will be
judged [m]by the Law; 13 for it is not the hearers [n]of the Law who
are [o]righteous before God, but the doers [p]of the Law who will be
justified. 14 For when Gentiles who do not have [q]the Law
[r]instinctively perform the requirements of the Law, these, though
not having [s]the Law, are a law to themselves, 15 in that they show
the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience
testifying and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending
them, 16 on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the
secrets of mankind through Christ Jesus.

There is no favoritism with God; salvation is available to all if they seek to do what is right and love their fellowman.

James 2:27 Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and
Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to
keep oneself unstained by the world.
Comment: @Rajesh Faith without works is dead and cannot save you (James 2). Love is the greater than faith (1 Cor 13). God is love, and to love is to know and be known by God.
Comment: "*It is not one's beliefs upon which one is judged, but upon one's actions.*" Sooo, one does not have to *believe* in Jesus to be saved, but only has to do right works?? -1
Comment: "Faith without works is dead" is NOT the same as "you don't need faith to be saved, only works". Righteous deeds are an inevitable outcome of genuine faith. You cannot have genuine faith and live a life of wickedness. That is what James is saying. There is no way to read that verse as "only works are needed to be saved." **Genuine faith** is ALWAYS necessary for salvation, and it will ALWAYS result in righteous deeds(*that* is the point James is making).
Comment: @Rajesh What James is saying - and which should be obvious even apart from scripture stating it - is that the whole point and merit of faith/belief is that it guides our actions. Any mere intellectual acknowledgment of the scriptures and Christ's teachings is in of itself without value. You must act for it to have any value - and it is one deeds that are judged and the basis upon which one receives eternal life. On the other hand, if one does what is right even without being taught what to do, then they demonstrate that they have God's Law written on their heart (Romans 2).
Comment: @RyanPierceWilliams says: "It is not one's beliefs upon which one is judged, but upon one's actions." Under the Old Covenant with *physical* Israel, yes; but not under the New Covenant.  In Judaism thoughts don't become sins until *after* one has acted upon them.  Jesus taught that Christians sin merely by fantasizing about sinning. Refer to Matthew 5:28 "*whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.".
Comment: @RayButterworth Paul never qualified his statements to say that what he was saying only applies to Jews - rather he speaks of both Jew and Gentile alike. Furthermore, there is no favoritism with God; favoritism is a sin. It would be sinful and unjust to hold the Jews to account for their actions at the Judgement while everyone else gets off because they happened to be born into a Christian household and taught the "right" beliefs. Finally, Jesus was a Jew and a Rabbi - his teachings are as Jewish as it gets.


"Raise your game" studies

Question: Let's say I play a game or sport against somebody stronger than me. I might plausibly feel a need to raise my game. Are there any empirical academic studies which test whether such a phenomenon exists?
Answer: According to Tenenbaum et al. (1995) the effect may be opposite. In their study, they had people, who where normally not engaged in a training program for strength, tested on their knee-extensor strength before and after four sessions of psychological interventions.
There were three conditions. In the first, the control group, no intervention was given. In the second condition, people received positive statements. The third group of people received "relaxation-visualization autogenetic training".
The surprising result were that the control improved significantly in "peak force", and the improvement was significantly greater than the intervention groups. No differences in increment where found on "peak power".
In short, the authors found that mental preparation or "psyching up" is not beneficial for physical performance. The authors argued that "psyching up" may distract you from the task you should be performing, and that that may have a negative influence on you performance. Do take into account that the study is very old and that the result may be outdated. However, the paper may be a nice start for further reading into this topic.

Tenenbaum, G., Bar-Eli, M., Hoffman, J. R., Jablonovski, R., Sade, S., & Shitrit, D. (1995). The Effect of Cognitive and Somatic Psyching-up Techniques on Isokinetic Leg Strength Performance. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 9(1), 3-7.
Comment: Very interesting. Has this been replicated? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25029002 seems to have more nuanced findings, but it is for a different activity.
Comment: It seems that for pure strength exercises, psyching up doesn't help. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16195018 but for more complex tasks like sprinting (previous comment) it might. Still even for pure strength, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16095409 found differently. I guess this is one of those areas of psychology were replication is a serious issue.
Comment: @Fizz that sounds like an excellent competing answer. Would you like formulate it as such, so that I could give you my up vote?

"Raise your game" studies


Do Minecraft functions have inputs and outputs like conventional functions?

Question: Now I know that technically in theory one could just use blocks to convey values in and out of any body of code. What I'm asking is whether or not a built-in syntax exists for input parameters and return values similar to what pretty much all other programming languages consider to be functions?
Comment: Not enough for a full answer, but: There is a `success` and `result` statistic that you can get from command blocks or entities that call the function or from `execute store`.
Comment: @Fabian do you have a link to a source on this so I may read further? I trust it is accurate but the wikis are hard to navigate for me.
Comment: If they're hard to navigate, you should tell them [here](https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Minecraft_Wiki_talk:Community_portal). The page about functions is [here](https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Function), but that doesn't help you much, because it doesn't tell you about `result` and `success`. They are explained on the [page about `/stats`](https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Commands/stats), because that's what you would use in 1.12. If it is possible in any way to make your map in 1.13, I would highly recommend it, because `/stats` is a giant pain. `/execute store` is much easier and is sadly
Comment: not described anywhere on the English wiki yet, but [here](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fminecraft-de.gamepedia.com%2FBefehl%2Fexecute&edit-text=&act=url) is a translation of the German wiki. I think Google Translate was intelligent enough not to translate the commands, but [here](https://minecraft-de.gamepedia.com/Befehl/execute)'s the original for comparison. I don't know if the wiki tells you at all, but `result` and `success` of a function are those of the last command in the function.
Answer: A function in Minecraft and a function in programming is completely different.
A function in Minecraft is just a list of commands, which can be executed in game with a single command, running commands in the function from top to bottom. The only other thing you can do with functions right now is leave comments in the code, which start with a #.
So to answer both of your questions; no.
Comment: I had a little look at the wiki, and this seems to be correct, it should probably be called a "script" instead of a function.
Answer: While it's true that functions don't take any inputs or return any outputs, there are ways to fake it.  A good way to conceptualize it is to look under the hood of how a language like C++ actually does function calls.  Take this function declaration:
public list<Player> Foo(int a, int b);

When that function is called, the calling code pushes the values of a and b on to the top of the stack.  The function will pop those values off, and just before it's finished, it'll push the list of players on at the same place a was for the calling code to continue to use.
Now we don't have a stack that we can use when making command contraptions, but we do have some things that are almost as good: scoreboards and tags.  In C++, the function knows (relative to the stack pointer) where a and b are, and where to put the list<Player> when it's done.  In Minecraft, we can use scoreboard values to pass around ints, tags to pass around players and entities, and tagged armor stands to pass around coordinates, and use the name of the function in those scoreboards and tags so the function knows where to look.
So let's see how the above C++ function might look in Minecraft commands.  First, we need to pass in our two integers.  We'll use a fake scoreboard player for this:
scoreboard objectives add a dummy
scoreboard objectives add b dummy
scoreboard players set #Foo a 1
scoreboard players set #Foo b 5

After this, we can just call the function:
function MyNamespace:Foo

To return the list of players, a command similar to this one inside Foo can be used:
scoreboard players tag @a[<some selector>] add FooResult

In the calling portion we can then use those tagged players in another command:
tell @a[tag=FooResult] Hello!

This is just one relatively simple example, but hopefully it shows that there's a lot of complexity that can be added to commands and functions.
Comment: Indeed, I am very well aware of the function stack. In fact, a strategy I use in many languages is to write a memory allocator as the language has no structs. I hadnt thought if this, but to be honest I am 1000% a noob at command block scripts.
Comment: For all my scripts that require inputs & outputs, I manipulate the scoreboard for a player named Invocation and have objectives for param1, param2, and result. As long as a real player named Invocation never logs in, it should be fine.
Comment: @Thick_propheT as I say in my answer, you don't need to use a player that might be real, you can use a fake player by adding a # in front of the name. Another option would be to use something like a named armor stand, but that can get complicated.
Comment: Oh, I thought the # might've been a typo. I didn't realize player names could contain special charactors. Also, I figured the function parser would see the # as the beginning of a comment. It's been a while since I've done any work in the command/function system, so my assumptions were obviously a little off. Thanks for the clarification.
Answer: So, especially in 1.13 when a function/command is called, you need to give it parameters, that sounds a lot like an input to me.  You could key coordinates for instance, or you could use a 'soft' variable, like the nearest non-player entity @e[type=!player].
You can also have other commands manage your inputs to zero in on something extremely specific and conditional.  A system to manage in 'input' or 'victim/s' of the command. And you can set it up so that either the player has instant control over triggering, or the game is constantly sensing for the trigger conditions.
Then you have a lot of foo/bar to do with the command once the victim is selected.  One thing you can do that is relevant is perform math operations on two stored score values; such as adding them, setting one equal to the other, or doing something if they are equal.
As far as output goes, obviously there are lots of things that can be considered output.  You could say hello world, you can build something, you can interact with the world, or the scoreboard, and you can call other functions.
What I think other people are trying to get at is that there is a very limited ability to use scores as inputs.  You can - in some limited ways; but you can't directly use a stored score or tag as a single x-coordinate in tp for example.  and you can't call a function passing another function (as a native function) to it as an input as you would in functional programming.  You are limited to using the other function as a called output that is hard-coded.  If you want input from another command you need to store the commands output first, and you are fairly limited to what DATA can be both stored and accessed by downstream commands.
As of 1.13 with the next execute, store, tag, tick and load features, I can't say that there is much distinction between what can be done with datapacks and functional-like programming capabilities, but the game is so state-dependent and the limitations on inputs to commands make it hard to say that commands provide the true functional-equivalent to computer-programming functions(pun).  But, they are comparable and getting much more powerful.  The new store and other features in execute are incredible and very relevant to this question.
For another example, see this video on creating a sphere using recursion.  You call some commands that call other functions in a recursive loop with a tail condition to produce a sphere.  That is sort of the hallmark of intro to functional programming:
Comment: If this store command is getting close to being comparable to arrays in programming you may be interested in looking at one of my other questions regarding just that. I haven't had a chance to read those links yet though.


Wave File obfuscation

Question: I have this file here, that is supposed to be a wave audio file, but seems to have some obfuscation applied to it. The file header is here: https://pastebin.com/LD5aA1EG    Any suggestions where else it would be appropriate to ask?
Answer: It looks like the file is xored by key 0xA7 0x23. After xoring the very first bytes, the header looks like this:
52 49 46 46 0C E1 16 13 57 41 56 45 66 6D 74 20  RIFF.á..WAVEfmt
So mostly like correct wave header.
Comment: thank you very much, unfortunately ever 512 bytes the cipher changes. Any ideas how to solve this? Here ist more of the file
Comment: I don't see "more of the file". However how did you know this is music file? Do you have the program that can read the file? If so the best idea would be to RE the program.
Comment: its an embedded device, that mustn't be destroyed, so RE of the firmware is not an option. sorry it forget to paste the link https://pastebin.com/z8vEP30Y
Comment: does the manufacturer publish firmware updates ?
Answer: The file header once decoded shows that your wav file is over 320Mb. (the 4 bytes after "data")
The key changes every 512 bytes, so if they are set in advance you would need 625520 stored keys. This is of course very unlikely.
I think only the first key is frozen, the others can be just the XOR of the first 2 bytes of each group of 512 bytes.
To verify it would require a greater number of data, at least 1Mb, or better the complete zipped file.

Wave File obfuscation


Does "on earth" replace "on the earth" in modern English?

Question: I am a non-native English speaker. Since school, I was taught "on the earth" is equal to "in the world", and "on earth"'s meaning should be "indeed". But nowadays, I find "on earth" has replaced "on the earth" in many articles. So I want to make sure is it right to use "on earth" to replace "on the earth"?
Comment: Nothing on earth would persuade me to endorse a definite article in this sentence. Well, maybe I'd accept ***the** definite article*, but definitely not ***nothing on the earth***. I don't think usage here has changed in my lifetime, so I think OP has just gotten confused about something.
Comment: You are correct that "what on earth" (as in "What on earth are you doing?") is a set phrase/idiom meaning (very roughly) "what indeed".  But that does not mean that "on earth" means "indeed", since it's the entire phrase that is idiomatic.
Comment: [Ngrams](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=peace+on+earth%2C+peace+on+the+earth%2C+here+on+earth%2C+here+on+the+earth&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cpeace%20on%20earth%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cpeace%20on%20the%20earth%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Chere%20on%20earth%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Chere%20on%20the%20earth%3B%2Cc0) shows little signs of change.
Comment: I would say that "on earth" has been the norm for as long as I can remember (which takes us back to the Eisenhower administration).
Answer: The word earth is commonly used to mean two things 1) soil, dirt, the substance that keep the trees upright and help you to grow beans and tomatoes, the material of the world; the ground, the world  2) the second meaning of earth is the planet Earth; a member of the Solar system of the planets; the third orb from the Sun. (that is called Astronomical sense)
When it is used in astronomical sense (2) it takes the definite article the and it is capitalized at the same time.
What on earth you are talking about? Means what you say is astonishing, or clarify your meaning, it is not easily understandable.
Down to earth means humble, and approachable.
come down to earth means be real, stop being high and mighty etc.
on the earth DOES NOT MEAN equal to;
on earth DOES NOT MEAN indeed
Not in American speech anyway.
Comment: I'd say that the definite article is usually optional when using the astronomical sense. You can just as well say _Earth is the third planet._ and _Earth will be engulfed in the expanding radius of the Sun_
Comment: The OP said he was taught that "on the earth" is equal to "in the world".
Comment: I agree with @Barmar and I'd suggest that it's because we've gradually shifted our perception. We used to live on *the* earth, but now we understand that we live on one of many planets, so we're inclined to drop 'the' and capitalize 'Earth' to align it with Mercury, Venus, etc.
Answer: There is really no reason to use the here. I mean on the Earth is not correct since planets do not pair with definite articles, unless we say something like The red planet. I say just go with on Earth.
Comment: The Moon, the Sun, the Red Planet as you rightly said. But you are mostly correct we do not say the Jupiter, the Uranus, or the Venus. The Earth is used for strictly astronomical sense. Look at this sentence: • In about five billion years, scientists estimate, the Earth will be engulfed and burned up in the expanding radius of the Sun as it evolves. C. Claiborne Ray, Death of a Star, New York Times, 23 Jan. 2012 Web
Comment: Some do, and one of them is the Earth.
Comment: If you go outside and lie down on the lawn in your garden, you are definitely lying _on the earth_, not _*on earth_. You're only lying on earth if there's no grass or concrete or anything else between, if you're lying directly on actual brown soil.
Answer: Following usage manuals are gold standard, recognized and highly regarded and used in the USA.
New Oxford Style Manual :NOSM
Fowlers Modern English Usage (Burchfield Editor): FMEU.Bu.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage: M-W.DoEU
Garners Modern American Usage: GMAU Published by Oxford by Brian Garner and
NYT Manual of Style and Usage: NYT-SM,  Editor dos NYT
Earth:
NOSM:  Capitalize only in astronomical contexts, and in a list of planets.
FMEU.Bu.: Frequently with the initial capital when considered as a planet of the solar system; in such contexts like Mars, Venus it is normally used without the definite article (but the Planet Earth)
GMAU : in reference to planet we live on, earth is usually preceded by the and is not capitalized. But when Earth is referred to as a proper noun it is capitalized and it stands alone!
In reference to the stuff that the planet is made of Roy Copperud states lower case earth without the means soil.
The excavation is left large pile of earth.
The American Usage and Style: The Consensus p.117 1980
NYT-SM: Lowercase except in the specialized context of astronomy. Particulary in juxtaposition with other bodies:
How do Mars and Earth fit in that pattern.
So the summary is even the GURUs do not agree 100 % !
Except capitalize when you mean  the Planet Earth: everyone seems to agree on that one.


What was the very first Apple product?

Question: I am wondering what was the very first apple product? I have heard that they have made PDA's and drawing tablet type products in the past (early days)?
Comment: Despite the popularity of this, I'm going to close it for now. It's not clear what problem you are trying to solve and this seems more like something that we'd want to put in a wiki on apple as opposed to a Q&A site focused on solving problems faced by users of Apple products.
Answer: Their first product was the Apple I computer, hand-built by Steve Wozniak and first demonstrated in 1976.

You'll find plenty of details about Apple's early years in this section of the Apple, Inc Wikipedia entry.
Comment: @Scottie: Heh :) The photo of Jobs & Wozniak that you came up with is pretty nice though – let's see if that earns you more votes ;)
Comment: Bah! 53 seconds too slow! :P
Answer: "The Apple I, Apple's first product. Sold as an assembled circuit board, it lacked basic features such as a keyboard, monitor, and case. The owner of this unit added a keyboard and a wooden case."
From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_I

The above picture is from April 24, 1984 at the flamboyant "Apple II Forever" introduction of the Apple IIc. This was shortly after the introduction of the Macintosh, so Apple wanted to assure dealers the Apple II would continue to be supported. The Apple II product line continued until the final Apple IIGS model was discontinued in December 1992. That's the Apple I at the bottom.

What was the very first Apple product?


Anyway to verify stand ins used for Elizabeth Taylor

Question: My grandmother died last year and at her funeral I was told by her cousin that she was used as Elizabeth Taylor's stand in when she was 18 years old - apparently she got off a bus coming from Boston to Cleveland to see her estranged father and a scout saw her and asked her to be liz's Stand in- my grandmother did look almost identical to Liz- and she was very private and modest so this would have been something she would not have told us- but I would really like to try to verify this I've searched on google and have not been able to come up with any information - the time frame would have been 1950-1952. Is there anywhere they keep the names of stand ins extras for movies from that time frame? According to her cousin they asked her to stay on with the company and film more movies as her stand in but she turned them down which again would make sense as she went home from visiting her father and got married and had a baby in December of 1953. Any info is so greatly appreciated we miss her very much and this would be an amazing thing to find if It were true.
Answer: At that time, Elizabeth Taylor was contracted to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
They would be the only people with any hope of having any records to confirm or deny your anecdote.
6 of the 8 movies Ms Taylor made across that period were shot at MGM Hollywood, the other 2 in the UK.
However, even up to the 80s, 'extras' working for movie studios wouldn't be properly listed on any kind of permanent payroll system. They just queued up at the studio door every morning, were called or not depending on requirements for that day's scenes, & paid in cash at the end of the day.
A stand-in, perhaps would be properly recorded, as they would need to be there for every shoot day the principal was required... but I wouldn't get your hopes up too far.


Does the interest charged decrease if I pay my long term bank loan's major part earlier?

Question: I have taken a long term bank loan.....say 10K. Suppose the interest charged is 10 percent. Now, I have a lot of surplus money with me due to unexpected cash inflows. I want to reduce the interest amount charged by the bank from me. If I pay off 70 percent of the loan amount, will I be charged less interest? Are there any different rules regarding the same in India and USA?
Answer: This depends on the loan calculation methodology. If it is on reducing balance then yes. Else not much difference
Answer:
If I pay off 70 percent of the loan amount, will I be charged less interest?

Yes, because when there's less debt (aka "the balance") to charge interest on, just as when you pay it off "normally", there's less interest charged.
Note that the loan contract might stipulate:

prepayment penalties, or even
forbid prepayment.

That's quite rare in the US (except for some student loans), but I don't know about India.


Can I break a radio tranceiving device by operating it with no antenna connected?

Question: People tell me I shall not use my CB-radio station without an antenna connected or it will result in damage of the device. Is this true and why is this?
Comment: Indeed, it can. When testing, you should operate the transmitter into a resistive dummy load.  For the legal CB power limit this will not be an expensive item and can be air cooled - but in other cases it could be a large resistor submerged in a container of oil.
Comment: @DavidSchwartz My idea was: No antenna, no current which gets drawn from the transmitter. But apparently current flows regardless of antenna connected.
Comment: Used to work for a company that built radios and base station transmitters, and in the lab we always had to use large attenuators and dummy loads.  It would damage the transmitters - saw it happen.
Comment: With no antenna, where do you think the power goes when you transmit?
Comment: Back in the old days when we hams built our own, I used a light bulb for a dummy load.   The brightness of the light was a confirmation that my rig was putting out power.  But a CB radio cannot be tuned to match a load, so that is probably not an option for you.
Answer: You could potentially break some radio transmitters by operating them without the antenna connected.
Several things combine to make this possible.
First, it's difficult to make power at RF frequencies, so the power devices are often fairly fragile, and run near their limiting conditions.
Secondly, radio signals passing down a transmission line behave in a way most non-engineers don't expect. They get reflected from an open circuit, that is, from a connector without the antenna connected.
The antenna provides a load, absorbing the energy travelling down the transmission line from the power device to the antenna. If that energy is reflected, then for a well matched transmitter, it has the potential to double the voltage seen at the transmitting device. Depending on the length of the line, it might alternatively double the current, which usually isn't as bad. So a transistor that's already close to its limits could be pushed beyond them.
If the transmitter's output device is poorly matched, then there's the potential for much higher voltage magnification.
Usually, the transmitter will be designed so that the power device is sufficiently within its ratings that it won't fail into any load, as blowing up into no load is not very nice behaviour. But sometimes, especially for low cost and high power amplifiers, like your CB kicker for instance, it won't be, and needs that load to prevent reflections.
Comment: I've deliberately not delved into transmission line theory. If you're an RF engineer, you don't need this answer. I figure that at the level of the OP, I've said just enough that's true, and doesn't have to be unlearned if you want to take it to the next level.
Comment: Good answer - would benefit from description of antenna matching and VSWR.
Comment: It is possible to divert any reflected power into a dummy load, eg. with a circulator.  Such precision devices are not cheap, and would not be found in a consumer CB:(
Answer: Just to complement the excellent answer of Neil_UK and stress the fact that at RF frequencies voltages and currents don't really behave as those nice entities you know from KCL and KVL.
You must drop Kirchhoff's laws and get your hands dirty with transmission lines theory, where the same concepts of voltage and current become a lot weirder!
In other words, voltages and currents behave more like EM waves that are generated at the transmitter and travel along the cable until they reach the antenna, which "allow them to radiate into space".
Disconnecting the antenna is like putting a brick wall (well, more like a mirror in reality) in front of the wave. The power has to go somewhere, and the open end of the cable cannot make it radiate efficiently, so it bounces back almost entirely, until it reaches the final stage of the transmitter, which is not supposed to sink that power (it should operate as a source).
Hence, as Neil pointed out, if there are no protection devices to dump the reflected wave somewhere, all the reflected power will be dissipated inside the amp, which is not usually designed to do that. POOF! (magic smoke escapes!)
In a sense it's like a rock concert: the band on stage is not deafened to death because the huge loudspeakers are directed toward the people gathered in front of them in a big open space. Put a big wall just before the stage and the band will be blown away by the reflected soundwaves!
Comment: I really like the rock concert analogy and the mental image it gives.
Comment: ...and if the transmitter is well-designed but not able to sink all the power, it will at least have protective circuits that cut back power when the reflection is detected, to hopefully limit the damage (and in the best of cases, avert damage entirely). Still not a good thing to have happen to the equipment, but better than dumping all that power (whether in the form of voltage or current) from the wrong side into the RF power amplifier stage!
Comment: @JeffBowman *Peace and love, man!* :-) .... (or also *peace and matched load*) :-D
Answer: What destroys finals is avalanche breakdown, often due to parasitic BJT latching, not reflected power. When the output power amplifier detects the high reflected voltage, it enables the foldback circuit, which reduces output power somewhat proportionally, protecting the finals.
Yes, transmitting without an antenna can destroy your finals, but due to the high voltage needed to maintain the high current flowing through the pullup inductor, since it can't flow through the non-existent load. The excessive voltage then causes the FET to go into avalanche.


Stream from PC to the Raspberry

Question: Is there any way to stream a random media (eg, a video from a random website for which no Kodi plugin exists, or a game running on the PC) to the Raspberry Pi? I'm using Kodi and can't seem to figure this out. Would having Plex Media Server on the PC and a Plex client on the Pi instead help? Can I somehow capture the whole screen and stream it via Nginx or something from the PC to the Pi?
Comment: It is possible to copy files to the Pi remotely using a program called FileZilla. If you want to see a live view of what the Pi is outputting to its hdmi port you can use a program called VNC Viewer, again this can be done wirelessly. What you can do is connect a hard drive to you router and then set up a connection between that and the Pi. Not sure if Plex exists for the Pi
Answer: What you are looking for is DLNA. Install DLNA server on your Pi.
You can then use VLC to stream your main display to the Pi using a DLNA stream.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhvxyiBHrRw
Not Pi specific but the same approach You can also use VLC on your PC to stream to DLNA (Pi, TV, Xbox PS4, Plex).

Some other considerations....

I have used OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) - It has a bit of a learning curve to setup but you then stream locally, your Windows/ Mac desktop to a say VLC on the Pi using h264 encodding. Or OMX (since it uses hardware h264 decoding)
Plex Media server does not support live restreaming, so to speak. I have tried this, and it kind of works with allot of hacks but is terribly slow and laggish.
I dont really know what Kodi is, but it looks like a Plex type app.
The Roku3 is really great to stream to. From Plex, VLC, Windows 8, XBOX, Android Miracast.
Comment: kodi is a media cenre os for the raspberry pi, it could be compared to raspbmc check out their page here: http://kodi.tv/. IMO it is the best option you suggested by a long way. You mentioned Roku3, I second that, also there is the amazon fire tv, but the chromecast is cheaper than both
Comment: I have Raspberry Pi B+ running XBMC and it can handle MKVs with a bit of overclocking so the Pi2 should have no problems
Comment: Yea, I had Chromecast and returned it within 12 hours(Maybe its just me but it was crap). Tried Apple TV, was good for Apple only stuff, XBMC on Pi good but too lagish for me (maybe Pi2 is better now) . Roku is very stable and the only thing that CANNOT connect to it is my iPhone (Except apps like Plex, Youtube, etc), but I am getting rid of that soon (Windows 10 Phone), Android with Miracast is brilliant(but I don't like Android)! Amazon TV... well I don't know really but from reviews its worse than Roku, any Roku. I also didn't want to spend too much but the Roku was a great investment.

Stream from PC to the Raspberry


In road racing, what are "rolling attacks"?

Question: Rider_X referred to rolling attacks in an answer to this question. What are they?
Comment: Google didn't help much...
Comment: I have watched almost every second of the Tour de France on TV, and don't recall that term ever being used. I've not heard it before.
Comment: I think he meant "rolling attacks", not "rolling attack." If so, rolling attacks are a series of attacks and counterattacks. This is common at the beginning of a race when breakaways are trying to form, and near the end of races when riders are trying to winnow the final selection. There are also a series of "set pieces" such as when you have a team mate attack then expect the other teams to cover the attack.
Answer: "Rolling attacks" are a series of sequential attacks on the peloton by typically a team or a group of riders acting as a team.  R. Chung covered this nicely in the comment section, but I will expand a bit here.
Typically you get two or three groups of riders  together to orchestrate this (where a group may consist of one or more riders).  The first group launches an attack (preferably when there is a lull in the peloton after a recent hard effort - gotta make it hurt to respond). They will either escape or the peloton hunts them down.  The exact moment the first group is caught, the second group launches another attack.  The moment they are caught the third or first group (depending on how many groups of riders you have) launches an attack. You then keep repeating as necessary or logical.
The idea behind doing this is that typically only a few riders (often tasked with this job) hunt down the breaks.  If you have the manpower, by doing this you are working to wear out the other teams by brute force. Eventually, if you are lucky, the peloton may decide not to respond and you have yourself a break or you have tired out key players on the other teams.  Again this only really works if you have a manpower advantage, leaving a few riders who are never involved with the attacks to conserve for the sprint or some other similar strategy.
As a caveat, I will add that I am not certain how much this strategy shows up in big shows (such as the Tour de France or Tour de Giro) as they know so much about the capabilities of the various riders, but I saw this was fair bit in our local racing scene.


Sent Bitcoin Cash to a Bitcoin segwit address by accident on my Ledger Nano S

Question: Stupid but I sent bitcoin cash to a bitcoin segwit address I own on my Ledger Nano S. They are not shown in either wallet. Did I lose them or is there a way to get them back?
Answer: It is in principal possible to get them back, but the danger lies in the fact that as soon as you broadcast your new transaction to get them back anyone can change the receiving address, hence steal your Bitcoin Cash coins.
Bitcoin Cash interprets the outpoint which contains your coins as a P2SH. To spend from it you must provide a redeemscript that hashes to image in the P2SH after which the script itself is interpreted and must also validate.
In your case though the redeemscript is a Segwit redeemscript of the form 0014{20-byte-key-hash} (https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0141.mediawiki#P2WPKH_nested_in_BIP16_P2SH). Since Bitcoin Cash does not understand Segwit, it will evaluate it as a script that simply contains a push of 0 followed by your public-key-hash and therefore is immediately considered valid.
One solution may be to create the transaction that spends this outpoint by simply providing this redeemscript, but instead of broadcasting it to the whole bitcoin cash network somehow give it to a miner directly that does not broadcast the transaction but only includes it in its block...


Maximum battery charge current by technology

Question: I know the exact values depend on the specific battery used, but is there a general rule for the maximum charge current (as a function of the battery capacity) for each of the mainstream battery technologies (NiCd, NiMH, Li-ion, Li-Polymer, lead-acid), for normal and fast charging? The typical capacity I'm going to use is 10 - 40 Ah.
Answer:
is there a general rule for the maximum charge current (as a function of the battery capacity) for each of the mainstream battery technologies (NiCd, NiMH, Li-ion, Li-Polymer, lead-acid), for normal and fast charging?

I don't think so. It depends on a number of factors besides the chemistry, including:

what charge algorithm is being used
voltage accuracy of the charger (to prevent overvoltage on each cell)
temperature sensing ability (faster charge = potential to overheat individual cells)
# of cells in series (more cells in series = harder to keep cells balanced and charged safely)
manufacturer tradeoffs

This last point is important: maximum charge current is very highly dependent on how the manufacturer has made tradeoffs for energy density vs. power density vs. cycle life. Battery manufacturers such as Sanyo and Panasonic will often sell several different types of batteries, some with high power density, some with high energy density.
As a general rule of thumb, C/10-C/5 is probably safe for most chemistries without taking any precautions. Beyond that, you have to manage the temperature and voltage of the cells carefully in order to implement fast charging in the 1C / 2C / 5C / 10C range. 10C is iffy and I'd be surprised to see any battery of any type that could be charged at higher currents without sacrificing cycle life and safety.
Comment: So there's some freedom in trading between charging time, charger complexity and cycle lift. Good info, thanks!
Answer: This site has a whealth of battery information - including some indication of charge time: http://www.batteryspace.com/batteryknowledge.aspx.
Interestingly, although load is specified in Amps, a charge indication is given in hours, not amps. I guess that has to do that larger batteries (im Ah) will generally allow for higher charge current - charge time therefore staying constant.
Comment: The charge current is usually given in "C", meaning a factor of the capacity in Ah. So a charge time of 1h corresponds to a charge current of 1C. Excellent link, thanks!


Ubuntu 14.04 LTS cant recognize ntfs partition

Question: I have dual boot with ubuntu 14.04 LTS and Windows 8.1. I have 4 ntfs partition in my laptop, one for windows and 3 for my media clips. Sometimes the ntfs partition not showing in my ubuntu, on that time I reboot and saw my ntfs partition in ubuntu panel. But now the ntfs partition now showing, I reboot ubuntu 6 times, but same problems occours, any help?
Comment: Yap, I can access those drive from my windows. they are working fine with my windows 8.1. But these ntfs drives are not showing in my ubuntu, i reboot my ubuntu a lot of times. but nothing happen.
Comment: Have you tried to access those partitions from Windows after they gone away from Ubuntu? Maybe they got corrupted so if you boot Windows they should be checked and fixed.
Answer: I have got a suggestion but I don't know if it will solve the problem or not.
Try booting into Ubuntu again and see if the disks are showing up. If not, try to see if they are at least visible in the Disk Utility or GParted. If they are, then in the Disk Utility, just click on the SMART data and then Run Self-test. If any errors are reported, they may be preventing the disk from being mounted.
After that, try booting into Windows and just checking the NTFS disks (Right click-> properties-> tools-> check). You may wish to start off with the most vigorous check. Then I suggest you do this:
right click on start (or press win + X)-> Choose Command Prompt (Admin)-> Enter the following:
chkdsk /B D:\

Replace D:\ with the drive letters of the drives. You may have to agree to scan on next restart for some drives.
Some errors in the disk are the most probable cause.
Answer: I had a similar problem: i have an ntfs disk (/dev/sdb) with one single partition.  Ubuntu decided that it is 2 partitions and can`t read either one.  When i open nautilus, both partitions show up, but neither can be opened.

The device '/dev/sdb2' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS. Maybe the
  wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a partition

To mount the disk, i run
sudo mount -o loop,offset=0 /dev/sdb /media/[user]

Change /media/[user] for whatever your username is (verify that subfolder exists).
If you have more than one partition, you should run parted (info here) to establish what the offset for each partition start is.


Qubes OS - Update a Template Kernel

Question: I'm trying to update the kernel in the Debian Template of Qubes OS, following the official documentations, but it seems I'm missing something or doing something wrong.
I'm using gcc 6.3.0.

Qubes Docs:

Installing kernel in Debian VM
In Debian based VM, you need to install qubes-kernel-vm-support package. This package include required additional kernel module and initramfs addition required to start Qubes VM (for details see template implementation). Additionally you need some GRUB tools to create it's configuration. Note: you don't need actual grub bootloader as it is provided by dom0. But having one also shouldn't harm.
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install qubes-kernel-vm-support grub2-common

Then install whatever kernel you want. If you are using distribution kernel package (linux-image-amd64 package), initramfs and kernel module should be handled automatically. If not, or you are building kernel manually, do this on using dkms and initramfs-tools:
sudo dkms autoinstall -k <kernel-version> # replace this <kernel-version> with actual kernel version
sudo update-initramfs -u

When kernel is installed, you need to create GRUB configuration. You may want to adjust some settings in /etc/default/grub, for example lower GRUB_TIMEOUT to speed up VM startup. Then you need to generate actual configuration: In Fedora it can be done using update-grub2 tool:
sudo mkdir /boot/grub
sudo update-grub2

Then shutdown the VM. From now you can set pvgrub2 as VM kernel and it will start kernel configured within VM.

Debian Docs:

Don't be afraid to try compiling the kernel. It's fun and profitable.
To compile a kernel the Debian way, you need some packages: fakeroot, kernel-package, linux-source-version.
Hereafter, we'll assume you have free rein over your machine and will extract your kernel source to somewhere in your home directory[22]. Make sure you are in the directory to where you want to unpack the kernel sources, extract them using tar xf /usr/src/linux-source-version.tar.xz and change to the directory linux-source-version that will have been created.
Now, you can configure your kernel. Run make xconfig if X11 is installed, configured and being run; run make menuconfig otherwise (you'll need libncurses5-dev installed). Take the time to read the online help and choose carefully. When in doubt, it is typically better to include the device driver (the software which manages hardware peripherals, such as Ethernet cards, SCSI controllers, and so on) you are unsure about. Be careful: other options, not related to a specific hardware, should be left at the default value if you do not understand them. Do not forget to select "Kernel module loader" in "Loadable module support" (it is not selected by default). If not included, your Debian installation will experience problems.
Clean the source tree and reset the kernel-package parameters:
make-kpkg clean

Now, compile the kernel:
fakeroot make-kpkg --initrd

Once the compilation is complete, you can install your custom kernel like any package. As root, do dpkg -i ../linux-image-version-subarchitecture.deb. For instance, the System.map will be properly installed and /boot/config-3.16 will be installed, containing your current configuration set. Your new kernel package is also clever enough to automatically update your boot loader to use the new kernel. If you have created a modules package, you'll need to install that package as well.

The Debian Way Output:
...
...
...
This is kernel package version 13.014+nmu1.
install -p -d -o root -g root  -m  755 /usr/src/linux-source-4.8/debian/linux-image-4.8.15-rt10-11.pvops.qubes.x86_64/DEBIAN
sed -e 's/=V/4.8.15-rt10-11.pvops.qubes.x86_64/g'    -e 's/=IB//g' \
    -e 's/=ST/linux/g'  -e 's/=R//g' \
        -e 's/=KPV/13.014+nmu1/g'                       \
    -e 's/=K/vmlinuz/g'          \
    -e 's/=I/YES/g'     -e 's,=D,/boot,g'        \
    -e 's@=A@amd64@g'   \
    -e 's@=B@x86_64@g'     \
...
dpkg-gencontrol: error: illegal package name 'linux-image-4.8.15-rt10-11.pvops.qubes.x86_64':
                 character '_' not allowed
debian/ruleset/targets/image.mk:230: recipe for target 'debian/stamp/binary/linux-image-4.8.15-rt10-11.pvops.qubes.x86_64' failed
make: *** [debian/stamp/binary/linux-image-4.8.15-rt10-11.pvops.qubes.x86_64] Error 255

Manual compiling:

I've downloaded linux-source-4.8 from Debian and I've extracted it in /usr/src.
Then:
make defconf
make menuconf   # custom settings
make

Same error as above:
dpkg-gencontrol: error: illegal package name 'linux-image-4.8.15-rt10-11.pvops.qubes.x86_64':
                 character '_' not allowed

I think this can be solved easily, but if I can compile the kernel manually, then how should I procede?

make install and make modules_install are required or I have to use dkms autoinstall directly? This isn't specified...

UPDATE:
Installing directly the Debian package linux-image-amd64 make the console disappeared and the VM work unproperly, I tried to reboot it, but I could use it only by attaching to the serial console.

I noticed the dpkg crashed during installation, so I ran dpkg --configure -a and it finished the installation, but it showed a warning message that told with that initramfs, the machine would have never booted, in fact I updated GRUB and rebooted, but initramfs couldn't mount root.
Answer: AFAIK Qubes-OS does not use the kernel that is inside the VM to boot the VM.
Instead it uses it's own kernels located in Dom0.

Qubes OS - Update a Template Kernel


HQL Select with an OR

Question: So I'm trying to do a Select statement with HQL.
The select looks like this:
        queryParams[1] = new QueryParameter("clientObj", client); // Use Client as obj in hql
        queryParams[0] = new QueryParameter("clientIDObj", client.ID);

        if (!includeClosedSubTasks)
        {
            // tasks that aren't completed / closed / cancelled
            qryString = "select st
                         from SubTask st
                         where st.ParentTask.ParentProject.ParentClient=:clientObj
                         and st.ParentTaskCategory.VisibleToClient=1 "
                         + filter + // more ands
                        "and st.ParentTaskStatus.ID != 3
                         and st.ParentTaskStatus.ID != 4 and st.ParentTaskStatus.ID != 8
                         or st.RaisedByClientID=:clientIDObj
                         order by st.CreateDateTime";
        }

In simple terms, it should do this:
select (a AND b AND c) OR (d) ORDER BY .....
However, when I execute this code I get a Query syntax error with this innner exception:

{"Index was out of range. Must be non-negative and less than the size of the collection.\r\nParameter name: index"}

How can I resolve this?
Answer: I think the problem is not with the query, but with the queryParams array. You cannot add to empty list items like this:
queryParams[1] = new QueryParameter("clientObj", client); // Use Client as obj in hql

Instead of that, always try to use method .Add of a list.
Try to rewrite the whole block as something like this:
if (!includeClosedSubTasks)
{
    // TODO get session here somehow as you do normally
    var session = NHSession.GetCurrent();

    // tasks that aren't completed / closed / cancelled
    var qryString = @"SELECT st
                    FROM SubTask st
                    WHERE st.ParentTask.ParentProject.ParentClient = :clientObj
                    AND st.ParentTaskCategory.VisibleToClient = 1 "
                    + filter + // more ands
                    @" AND st.ParentTaskStatus.ID NOT IN (3, 4, 8)
                    OR st.RaisedByClientID = :clientIDObj
                    ORDER BY st.CreateDateTime";

    var query = session.CreateSQLQuery(qryString)
        .SetParameter("clientObj", client)
        .SetParameter("clientIDObj", client.ID);

    // return query or whatever you need to do
}

HQL Select with an OR


Is Buddhism methodological solipsism?

Question: Is Buddhism methodological solipsism? Is Buddhism similar to methodological solipsism, or is it something completely different?
Comment: Is this some kind of homework assignment? We had about three questions on this same topic recently.
Answer: It isn't solipsistic because the self that can be known is illusory in that it does not have an independent self-nature, and all the qualities that can be known about it are ephemera, i.e., there is nothing that can be identified as an enduring individual.
It is the same for the conscious perception of all 'external' things. Even the mind that is taken to be one's own cannot be so, because neither the self that we constitutionally identify with, nor the contents we assign to our mind, such as thoughts, feelings, and intentions, arise independently from an enduring individual mind.
Breaking through these illusions, which collectively are categorized as being the result of ignorance, is the point of Buddhist practices that lead to a direct experience of the nature (naturing) of mind. Following this path, and accomplishing this goal, does not result in a nihilistic void, because, while the manifestations of mind are not real in themselves, they do arise, and do so in a coherent codependency. And so, the solipsistic agony of a single self locked within itself doesn't arise (except in philosophical thought experiments, which appear crafted to force a line of thought towards an 'inevitable' conclusion, but only by ignoring anything to the contrary ).
In its place is found a non-individuated responsive naturing of the whole that we call reality—give or take slight philosophical differences between various extant schools of thought comprising 'Buddhism'.
Comment: That is, you say that Buddhism is not methodological solipsism?
Answer: Buddhism says an objective fixed ultimate reality exists (AN 3.136; SN 12.20), regardless of perception of it. Therefore Buddhism is not solipsism.

Is Buddhism methodological solipsism?


Can I search bash history across all users on a server?

Question: I want to see all bash commands that have been run on a Linux server across multiple user accounts. The specific distribution I'm using is CentOS 5.7. Is there a way to globally search .bash_history files on a server or would it be a more home-grown process of locate | cat | grep? (I shudder just typing that out).
Answer: Use getent to enumerate the home directories.
getent passwd |
cut -d : -f 6 |
sed 's:$:/.bash_history:' |
xargs -d '\n' grep -s -H -e "$pattern"

If your home directories are in a well-known location, it could be as simple as
grep -e "$pattern" /home/*/.bash_history

Of course, if a user uses a different shell or a different value of HISTFILE, this won't tell you much. Nor will this tell you about commands that weren't executed through a shell, or about aliases and functions and now-removed external commands that were in some user directory early in the user's $PATH. If what you want to know is what commands users have run, you need process accounting or some fancier auditing system; see Monitoring activity on my computer., How to check how long a process ran after it finished?.
Comment: @BryKKan Ignoring non-existent files is a good idea. Beware that the way you're doing it is dodgy: it should work in practice given that typical user names don't contain "weird" characters, but in general using `{}` like this is very dangerous. The file name is interpolated directly in the script. If you have a file name (here: a user name) containing, say, `$(rm -rf /)` or `;rm -rf /;`, the command will be executed. Always pass file names as arguments to shell scripts, never use find or xargs's `{}` mechanism.
Comment: +1 for suggesting process accounting instead.  History files are really for user convenience and there are no simple ways to make them fool-proof enough for any sort of logging purposes.
Comment: @jw013 Yes, I've already had my fill of how easy it is to edit / modify and otherwise muck with shell history. =|
Comment: This is an old question, but it was my first google result, so maybe worth adding to. I modified this to check that the file exists before trying to grep it:
`getent passwd | cut -d : -f 6 | sed "s:$:/.bash_history:" | xargs -d'\n' -I{} sh -c "[ -f {} ] && echo {}" | xargs -d'\n' grep -Hn -e "$pattern"`
Answer: find /home -name .bash_history | xargs grep <string>

Alternatively:
grep string $(find /home -name .bash_history)

Note that this covers home directories in default locations. It would be better to parse /etc/passwd or invoke getent, and parse the output of that.
for i in $(getent passwd | cut -d: -f6 ); do grep string ${i}/.bash_history; done

Answer: You could do
find /home | grep bash_history | xargs grep "whatever"

But I don't really think that is much better then what you were thinking.


What physical/health factors disqualify an otherwise qualified bechor from pidyon haben?

Question: If a first-born son meets the qualifications for pidyon ha'ben (first born of his mother, born naturally, parents are both Yisroel), what physical health issues would "disqualify" the bechor from needing a pidyon haben. For example, if Chas v'shalom he has a disease or is ch'v blind or ch'v missing an arm would these override the need for a pidyon haben?
Comment: Welcome Benjamin G and thank you for your interesting question. Would you mind clarifying why you would think physical / health factors have any relevance to pidyon haben? Why are they any more relevant than if the baby has blond hair?
Comment: @robev probably he's making a comparison to animal bechoros
Comment: @Heshy But if so, even animal bechoros with a mum have kedushah; they just can't be brought as a korban. So still no reason to think a human baby would be any different.
Answer: There is a very interesting 4-volume set of seforim called Nishmas Avraham by Rabbi Dr Avraham-Sofer Avraham which details medical and health based halachos. They are all available on Hebrewbooks.org - Vol, 1, 2, 3 & 4)
In the cheilek on Yoreh Deah, siman 305 it details the Laws of Pidyon Haben. It is a very compelling read and explores a number of issues. It mentions here - (no. 2 in the Nishmas Avraham) that if a child is born with terminal defects he does not undergo a pidyon haben - even if medical intervention can keep him alive for 30 days. It also mentions a case of a child that is born "ללא קיבה" - "without a stomach" (I think) and Rav Elyashiv paskened that it has the status of a 'tereifa' and if the baby lived beyond 30 days it is still exempt from a pidyon haben.
He writes (in  gimmel) according to the Shach that in all cases of a definitive 'tereifa', even if the baby survives a long time after the 30 day period he is still exempt from the pidyon haben. This would apply even in a case of a 'sofeik tereifa' i.e. when there is a doubt if the child has a defect or not. He then goes on to cite a discussion on whether if the child lives beyond a year whether or not he still has the pidyon.
However, it would seem that he concludes:

אבל מי שנולד טריפה מתחלת ברייתו, חייב בפדיון
But one who is born with a defect from the beginning of its creation (i.e. from birth), is obligated in a pidyon.

I assume that means that if it is treatable and he can recover he has the pidyon, but if it is something incredibly serious we don't put the child at risk - like with the case of the baby without a stomach cited above.
Comment: Today many people are traifa and survive for years. For instance anyone who feeds directly to the stomach with a peg. He has a hole in his stomach and is definitely traifoh. I dont know the answer except traifos may be different for people. If that is the case one can never know if one is really traifo.
Comment: That's possibly part of the reasoning why in most instances of treifos we go ahead with the pidyon


Replacing a backup camera

Question: I have an add on backup camera very neatly installed in my car. I want to replace it with a better, higher resolution camera, but I don't want to hassle with running new wiring through the car. Can I just cut both cameras off their wires instead, and splice the new camera onto the wiring I already have installed? Thanks.
Comment: Several things come to mind that need to be checked: 1. do the cameras have short flyleads (30cm or so) which then join to extension cables? 2. do both cameras use the same number of cables? 3. does the type of cable meet the requirements of the new camera ie shielded, size etc?
Answer: I'm working for a automotive supplier, and hat a look in possible ways to test cameras for a single car manufacturer. This was quite interesting. The cameras all look about the same, but are heavily different.

Some cameras give an analog video signal via a coaxial cable. This is mainly S-Video with NTSC signal, and can be displayed by your TV (yellow chinch connector). The problem is: S-Video does not support higher resolutions than NTSC / PAL, so there are no higher resolution cameras for this.
Others use some kind of digital video signal. There are some
standards, but you never know which one your camera uses.
Some cameras have just three cables: 12V, 0V and a signal from the reverse light to switch them on
Others are connected to the vehicles CAN bus, and need a message to wake up. This is unlikely for your third party camera
Some cameras overlay the video with those green and read guide lines, others don't
The angle of view can be very different. When mounted above the license plate, the camera has a high angle of view, when mounted under the roof, it has a lower, to give roughly the same view. And then there are cameras with fisheye lenses, providing a 180° view. If your new camera has a much different angle of view, a higher resolution will not give you anything.

As you see, this is not easy to answer without more details.

Replacing a backup camera


Any reason 3D character models aren't split into multiple models / files?

Question: I'm just curious if there as any reason why artists are so resistant to split their 3D models into multiple fbx files. I just find the code design much cleaner if 3D models are split up into multiple files, rather than having to dig through bone hierarchies to choose different parts of a model the code needs to control. Something similar is the 2D project layout with characters broken into different sprites, and being able to grab those by name. (I get that the artist can name bones to make the search nicer, but a search still needs to be done instead of giving a path) So, I get that it has to do with animating movement, but why can't that be split into multiple files? (For a maya workflow at least)
Comment: Bones don't just move separate models. The character needs to be a single mesh to allow for correct manipulation
Comment: My understanding is there's a way to make multi-mesh characters. for controlling different parts of the character differently. Think Samus Aran and her gun arm. Isn't it possible to get the run animation correct for the entire character, but split the gun arm off so the programmer can treat it like a separate object with a different origin point?

It seems like a nicer programmer work flow that might make the artist's life harder to get everything right.
Answer: Splitting meshes would work as you intend only if every polygon in the mesh is influenced by no more than 1 bone.
If you want the model to bend smoothly polygons need to be influenced by more than one bone so your different parts will have more than one bone and require a search just the same.
Here's an example of bone-weighting with just 5 of the bones selected (in colour)

If we look closer at the pelvic area we can see a triangle affected by 4 bones at once:

Isolated we can see the blend of 4 bones represented by 4 colours:

This means it's not possible to break down the mesh strickly by bones attached.
It would also cause a performance issue in most cases as each batch of triangles would need to be drawn in a separate draw call in order to change the set of bones affecting the part currently being rendered.
Having the entire mesh as one object allows the GPU to deform (animate) and draw the whole mesh all at once.
Comment: That's what I'm referring to needing to dig down the hierarchy to grab the shoulder. Isn't there a way to make the gun arm and rest of the model two separate objects while still allowing the GPU to draw the whole mesh at once. Something with files embedded in another file, so I can just type a string out for grabbing the right part of the model at the origin. Seems like it would work, but create an annoying workflow for artists.
Comment: Something more Unix like where the file is just a collection of symlinks. Or how it's possible to embed Lua scripts within a binary. I'm just looking for a way to not have to dig through a bunch of bones so the origin of an arm for instance is always at the shoulder.
Comment: Would it be reasonable to separate the meshes into different files and then construct them into one mesh at runtime?
Comment: Yeah, at runtime or compilation time. I'm guessing it's basically drawing a hull around the shapes. I have a whole collision book on how to do that. I'm mostly asking to see if me making a risk for the artists to follow a work flow programmers would prefer is reasonable, or something impossibly difficult that Maya could not realistically do.
Comment: @ZeroPhase The slight gain of ease for you comes at a large cost of annoyance to the artist and the speed of the game.


Minimum brake rotor sizes

Question: Might be bit of a silly question really as there are many different calipers designed specifically around rotor size like the old hope IS mount calipers but here goes. Specifically for long travel forks 200mm is there a minimum rotor size or would it just depend on personal preference and riding style? Obviously you wouldn't use a 200mm travel fork in a daily commute bike nor would you run a 160mm rotor on a downhill beast.
Comment: This will depend on too many factors to answer.  It will depend on the weight and the hill.  VTC
Comment: If I want to stop I want to stop immediately.  Upsizing the front rotor is not all bad, but there will be increased weight and aero effects.  You're likely to hit the tyre/road adhesion limit first, leading to a slide.
Answer: Since post mount became the norm, most long travel/gravity forks have a minimum rotor size based on what post mount length standard they're built with. Here is how Fox communicates it on the product page for their 40 series forks for example:

So putting the caliper directly on the post without any adapter sets it up for a 203, and the fork can't take anything smaller. If you had a fork with 180mm post mounts and you wanted to run a 200mm rotor, you would use a +20mm adapter, and you would not be able to run 160. If it's not specified anywhere, which is often the case, usually that means 160 front, 160 rear for mountain and hybrid/urban and 160 front, 140 rear for road.
Sometimes manufacturers make it difficult to track down the number. SRAM/Rockshox only sticks it in their giant tech spec pdfs as far as I know.
This is the answer as it applies to current forks. In the past there were more forks that needed model-specific adapters, and various IS-only calipers based on specific rotor sizes. So in the scheme of things, there are also all sorts of older forks and brakes where the minimum or maximum rotor size was limited in those ways. In the more common case of a fork with standard IS mounts, the minimum is always 160.
Comment: Thanks for that. I'm struggling setting up a 2004 marzocchi 888R which is IS mount. I'm using old hope mono m4 brakes which are IS mount. It's set fine with 225mm rotor and plus 40 adapter but the rotors are very difficult to get hold of in that size so trying to setup with a smaller possibly a 200mm rotor as they are easier for me to get hold of
Comment: I see. I believe that fork has normal IS mounts and that the IS mount Mono M4 is made for a 180mm rotor in front. If that's all true you should be able to use the Hope HBIS20 adapter for a 200mm rotor, or no adapter for a 180.

Minimum brake rotor sizes


How to Get Starter Pins

Question: I'm not sure if 'starter pin' is the correct terminology.  When you buy a new chain, that doesn't have a master link, you get a longer pin that allows you to put the chain together.  Then you simply take a pair of pliers and snap the extra piece of pin off.  Is there anyway to just buy the pins without buying a new chain?
Comment: Shimano invented the replacement pin "scheme" because of the inherent weakness of the reuse idea. Modern chain pins are peened. That is, the ends are pressed to expand to lock them into the plates. Technically speaking, they are rivets, not pins. When one is pressed out, it removes a small ring of metal from the plate as it pushes through. Replacement pins are a slightly larger diameter than the original rivet, to account for the metal removed. It's been years since chains started using rivets, but replacement pins have only recently become available. Not all new things are scams or bad ideas.
Comment: Of course, the other option is to do it the old-fashioned way, and use the existing pin.  The trick is to not drive it all the way out.  This worked fine for decades before Shimano invented the replacement pin scheme.
Comment: @DanielRHicks: I screwed up this time and pushed the pin out.
Comment: It's tricky.  For a given chain and chain tool you need to practice on an old chain and count the number of turns to push the pin so that the one end is just flush with the plate.  Then write that down somewhere where you can find it when you need it.
Answer: Yes. Any local bike shop should have them in stock, and they should cost no more than 5 dollars. You need to know the brand and type of your chain. (i.e. Shimano 10 speed or Campag 11 speed) If you know the model (i.e. Ultegra or Dura Ace Shimano, that is a bonus.
By the way, Shimano refers to it only as a reinforced connecting pin, or replacement connecting pin.

How to Get Starter Pins


Craft CMS 3 Rich Text Editor

Question: Is there a rich text editor for Craft CMS which supports both HTML source code edit as well as adding images by URL (not uploading to assets)?
Answer: You can do it with Redactor.
You can configure your toolbar to have a view HTML button.
Also, a caveat, Redactor has an html-purifier function, which will eat some bits of code in the name of making it "clean." But that's relatively easy to configure as well. Just make sure to look at the plugin documentation.
Comment: I cannot see any way how to configure the toolbar to include an "insert image by URL" button. The only way I see to add such image is in the source code which is note suitable for regular CMS users.
Comment: Look at this bit of their github instructions - https://github.com/craftcms/redactor#configuration - Basically, you create different toolbars in a redactor config file, and then when you're making a field in craft, you say field type = redactor. redactor settings = standard, etc. Try copying the `Standard.json` file they have in this example, as it's got the HTML button that you want.
Comment: But I'm not looking for the HTML source button, I'm missing the "insert image from URL" button.
Comment: AH. I assumed you'd just look at the html and type in `` to point at your image. Doesn't look like the redactor will let you add such a button (add external image) without writing a plugin. so, maybe that's not the plugin for you.
Comment: FWIW, when I make content areas for articles/long-text, I do a matrix field w/ different layout blocks. (full width text; text left, image right; full width image; etc) Then it's a bunch of blocks, each formatted nicely. And an external image field could just be a text field (or URL field) where you copy and paste in your image link. And then you could wrap it in whatever html you needed, and even check if the image was valid. It's more complex, but it's also more control.

Craft CMS 3 Rich Text Editor


How to make Jell-O less sweet?

Question: I made a Jell-O last night and it turned out too sweet for me. Is it doable to increase the amount of water used but the same amount of Jell-O powder? So instead of 1 cup of hot water, 1 cup of cold water, and 1 Jell-O pack, it would be something like 2 cups of hot water, 2 cup of cold water, and 1 Jell-O pack. Or would doing this result in the Jell-O not solidifying?
Answer: If you add too much water your jello (jelly in some parts of the world) will not solidify. What I would suggest is looking for a non-sweetened gelatin mix and adding less sugar to it. Alternatively you could get gelatin sheets or powder and make your own from scratch. It's not that hard to do and you get exactly what you want.
Answer: I am a big fan of plain gelatin powder. It has no sugar, no coloring, and no flavoring. If you want to use a regular flavored jello as your base you can easily use 1/2 flavored jello and 1/2 unflavored gelatin (measure by water or liquid), and get a milder version. You can also make jello from fruit juice and unflavored gelatin without adding any sugar getting all your sweetness from the juice. I do this all the time using the juice from canned pineapple (I get the type that is canned in pineapple juice) and fill it with the pineapple from the same can. Total ingredient list: one #10 can of pineapple, 6 or 7 packets of gelatin (depending on my mood), water (again mood dependant). The result is sweet, but not too sweet.
Comment: Unflavored gelatin may be obtained online **far** cheaper than in those little packets they sell at the groc store.
Answer: Add a extra cup of water and mix it good.
Comment: Please give more detail. What does this achieve? Does it even work?

How to make Jell-O less sweet?


From Stackexchange to FAQ

Question: Is there a way to get an easy extract of all of the questions on the FAQ so that the best ones can be added to the official Tor FAQ for example in CSV or some other basic format?
Answer: You can do a api query here: https://api.stackexchange.com/docs/posts
This will output posts to json format that can be converted to other formats. The output is very limited so I will need to write a script to incrementally query the server to output everything for the past 12 months.

From Stackexchange to FAQ


im doing kimchi but no rice wine available

Question: I made kimchi at home.and I can't find that sour taste and smell as it ferments.maybe because rice wine is not available.can I use the regular vinegar or apple cider?
Comment: It might help to post the recipe. I've not heard of "traditional" kimchi being made with rice wine or with vinegar.. the sour taste will come from fermentation.
Comment: As far as I know there is no rice wine in kimchi at all. This is a fermented cabbage. Maybe you're not letting it set long enough?
Comment: I've never added rice wine to my kimchi. The sour taste is a by-product of the fermentation process. You're probably not letting it ferment enough. If you're keeping it somewhere cold (such as the fridge), it can have a hard time getting going.
Comment: Kimchi is like fancy sauerkraut with hotsauce. It makes its own vinegar as it ferments. It can start pretty slow in the winter, take a week or more to just get going. But in the summertime it'll be as vinegary as it can get with a week.
Answer: You should use patience. The sour taste comes from lactic and acetic acid (more lactic than acetic) produced by the fermentation process. Kimchi is essentially "spicy sauerkraut" and both get their acidity from bacteria which are naturally present on the vegetables, aided (over other bacteria) by the right amount of salt (typically 2% by weight or slightly less), and lack of air.
The lack of air part means you should not be opening the jar to check on it for at least 6 weeks or so (and hopes that you are using a proper jar that keeps the air out with a water seal or the like.) A plain canning jar with the lid correctly tightened but not overtightened can work, but you should keep it in the dark. The bacteria eat sugars present in the vegetables and produce the acids.
Ideal temperature is a subject of debate - for speed, 70F or even 75 (which is dangerously close to too warm in my opinion) (can cut your time down to 3 weeks), for quality (but there is debate) at lower speed, 60-65 F for 6-8 weeks or more.
Per someone's mother in law from Korea, bury the jar in the garden in early winter and dig it up in spring (not one I've tried.)
Comment: You can also just use an airtight plastic tupperware for the container.