Issues with date output with DropDate add-on

Question: I'm using Stephen Lewis' now unsupported DropDate add-on to simplify selecting dates in the Control Panel. (Chiefly because I'm trying to use a fieldtype that allows me to disable selecting times. I want my Control Panel users to just pick a date. If there are other options to do this that I haven't seen, I'm open to them.) I'm using EE 2.5.5.
I first noticed that the dates were outputting one day behind when just choosing a date. So if I selected & saved May 1 2013 in the entry, the output from the tag would be April 30 2013. (I'm also using Title Master to put the date into the entry's title using the DropDate fieldtype tag, and the same thing was happening there.)
I assumed that this was because the date saved was UTC and my server is 5 hours or more behind. I could, however, find no way to compensate for that.
After poking around on Devot:ee and in the readme files with the add-on, I found the git repository and the recommendation to use the re-written Dev branch.
I've given this a try, and can report that in my local, Mac/MAMP Pro environment things look right. Why they look right, I don't know. In my template I have:
{wedding-date-date format="l, F d, Y"}

And it just works. I should point out that, for another project, my php.ini file has:
date.timezone = "America/New_York"

in it.
The same tag is storing the correct value in Title Master. (When I configured Title Master to include {wedding-date-date format="F d, Y" timezone="Greenwich"}, it didn't have any impact or output the date differently.
On my server, however, I'm continually seeing this error when Title Master updates the entry title:
An invalid timezone parameter was passed to DropDate.

That's the tag output there, being bundled into the entry title.
I've updated /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini on my server (Ubuntu) to have:
date.timezone = "America/New_York"

in it and reloaded/restarted Apache. I'm still seeing the same thing, including in template output. The output of the tag is simply:
An invalid timezone parameter was passed to DropDate.

Whether or not I include the parameter.
Has anyone run into this and gotten it working? I really need two things to work here:

Admins able to just choose a date in the entry.
Title Master to be able to insert that date field's formatted value into the entry title.

Update I've downgraded MAMP Pro from PHP 5.4.4 to 5.3.14, using the default template which has date.timezone = MAMP_timezone_MAMP & things worked fine locally. Going down to 5.2.17, less than the server's 5.2.4, broke things locally. Think I might see the issue...
Answer: Built a new server for the client and deployed there, with a newer version of PHP. Error has gone away.


Dated office sounds (1960's)

Question: I'm sound designing a production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, which is set in the 1960's, and part of the director's vision is to create the ambiance of a beehive.  In my design I try to achieve this by blending every day sounds one would hear in an office to create a sort of 'buzz'; however, I don't have a great deal of experience with office sounds before the computer age.  I mean there's the obvious (typewriter keys) but I want to include a wide range of sounds from the time period that might resonate with the audience, which generally has quite a few older patrons.  Any suggestions?
Answer: this is fun:
http://www.yesterdaysoffice.com/
I recently went to an antique shop and managed to get one of the vendors to rent me some of the crazy machines he had in his booth.  I got the antique typewriter of course, but I also got a burroughs protectograph and a remington adding machine from right around the dawn of electricity.
3 hours and $25 later I was waaaay covered with those machines.  Depending on your timeline that could be an option as well.
alt text http://www.webstore.com/cache/cache_500_1_1_img_2168897_4b5f1477c4a7663377b0e2e96b98a7bejpg.img
Comment: @Rene, GREAT idea to rent from a shop like that - never really occurred to me! Helps them out plus you don't end up with props cluttering up your studio. Any chance we could hear some samples of what you recorded?
Comment: oh that's coming....
Answer: manual/electric typewriters, electric calculating machine, filing cabinets, telephones, intercoms, punch machines, manual tabulation machines, teletype machine, Xerox 914 Copier, electric cooling fans, electric heaters, electric pencil sharpener, pa system, paper shuffling, writing, etc.
Answer: Vintage phone rings - and I'm not sure if they had any button-dial phones yet so also I would try some manual circular-dial phones.
Also, typewriters were quite prevalent back then so place them in throughout and I think with the other great suggestions you'll have a winning combination.
Also, and I think most importantly, is that people spoke differently back then. Watch out for the ADR call-outs or loop groups you decide to put in there because if they're too modern-sounding, it might throw you right out of the moment.
I also remember doing research for a 50's show I did not too long ago and the men usually wore stiff-wood or wing-tip shoes to work and those definitely sound different than a soft leather shoe footstep.
Answer: People writing on paper, and smoking indoors. (Also, incredibly sexist gender roles...)
Answer: Time to watch Mad Men and advance that 10 years in your imagination.
Also for great reference to office sounds - The Wire.

Dated office sounds (1960's)


How is hydrogen able to emit a light spectrum with only one electron?

Question: When light is shined through hydrogen gas, three colors of light appear. The issue I have with this is that hydrogen has one electron, meaning somehow the electron has to be emitting all three of these colors simultaneously. This, however, would be impossible since a single electron can only make one orbital jump at a time, which in turn means one electron can only emit one color at a time, not three. If anyone can offer an explanation, I welcome it.
Comment: There are many hydrogen atoms in hydrogen gas. Each of these contains an electron, and each electron can transition independently of the others. Not every electron in the gas has to be going through a given transition in order for it to be visible.
Comment: The electron can inhabit multiple energy states, and transition between them.
Comment: I understand that, but what I don't understand is how one electron can inhabit 2 orbitals at the same time.
Comment: @probably_someone you are right. each electron can accomodate different energy level according to what amount of energy it has absorbed.
Answer: I'm assuming you're talking about the four (the fourth is often faint) Balmer lines in the visible part of the spectrum, at about 656, 486, 434, and 410 nm, often seen emitted from a hydrogen discharge tube. There are other Balmer lines, but at shorter wavelengths, so they're not readily visible (or visible at all) to the human eye.
The tube contains a large number of hydrogen atoms, all with electrons being excited to higher energy levels. These electrons don't all get excited to the same state; they're excited to different energy levels - in some cases, they may be freed all together - and then deexcite in different ways. Some of these produce the four Balmer lines you see. Therefore, no single electron undergoes multiple transitions at the same time; you just have a large number of electrons undergoing different transitions and excitations simultaneously.
The same phenomenon is also at work for tubes of other gases, like helium and neon; I don't know (quantitatively or qualitatively) to what extent having additional electrons changes the emission and strengths of different lines. Hydrogen is commonly used for demonstrations, though (from what I've experienced), and it's the case you asked about.
The probability of a given transition depends on something called Fermi's Golden Rule, which allows you to calculate the probability of a given transition per unit time, $\Gamma$. The mean lifetime of a state is then $\tau=1/\Gamma$. You might have seen this embodied in something called the first Einstein coefficient, which governs the rate of spontaneous emission and shows up in many formulae for calculating line strengths. The greater the transition probability, the shorter the lifetime, and the stronger the line. In general, $\Gamma$ is different for the various transitions from a given energy level.
If we designate the probability of all transitions from a state $i$ per unit time as $\Gamma$, we have
$$\Gamma P_i(t)=-\frac{dP_i}{dt}$$
where $P_i(t)$ is the probability that the electron will remain in this state until some time $t$. This leads to natural exponential decay, and the solution
$$P_i(t)=P_0e^{-\Gamma t}=P_0e^{-t/\tau}$$
with $\tau$ again being the lifetime of the state.1 In this case, we're assuming that $\Gamma$ is a summation over a whole bunch of transition probabilities. For a more in-depth treatment, read from these notes onwards.
Other quantum mechanical effects cause phenomena like forbidden lines, which have low Einstein coefficients and low transition probabilities (and thus long lifetimes). They're not important for these lines, but do show up in the $\text{O II}$ and $\text{O III}$ forbidden lines in astronomical spectroscopy. The 21-cm hydrogen line - another forbidden transition - is a key indicator of neutral hydrogen, and is therefore great for mapping things like HI regions, which are largely composed of neutral hydrogen. Again, though, these aren't important for the Balmer lines you're interested in.

1 You can easily see that as $t\to\infty$, $P_i(t)\to0$ - that is, the probability of staying in a given state for longer and longer times goes down to $0$.
Comment: @pela Good idea! I've filled stuff in as best I could; my knowledge here is really just from studying astronomical spectra, and I couldn't give rigorous derivations. But I'm guessing the OP isn't looking for a whole lot more detail than that. :-)
Comment: Astronomical spectra are the best spectra :)
Comment: Is there a rule of thumb for predicting these intensities? I know you've loosely said that they are proportional to their transition probabilities, but isn't there a lot of complexity to where the states transition to? Do they always decay to the ground state?
Comment: Suppose there is only one hydrogen atom in the discharge tube, what will be the spectrum?
Answer: You make the Assumption that all the visible light emitted by Hydrogen is emitted at the same time and that a singular atom would even have an emission spectrum
Transitions are instantaneous and photons travel at the speed of light. There is plenty of time in the time it takes to record data for multiple absorptions and emissions of different photons. Not that this matters becasue we cannot isolate and observe the emission spectrum of a singular hydrogen atom; more important is this second point.
Even though there is only one electron, we analyze emission spectrums as a function of a gas which is composed of MOLS of Hydrogen atoms and therefore MOLS of electrons. 10^23 electrons is more than enough to emit three wavelengths of photons.


Birth of Buddha

Question: The story of the birth of prince Siddhartha tells us that he walked and talked right after birth. That he even said that he will become a Buddha in this life and end the cycle of life. But after this he seems to have forgotten what he knew about being a Buddha even on the day he left the palace to find the truth. He started off knowing he would become Buddha, then becomes very confused with all the life experiences as a prince and has no idea what to do or that becoming a Buddha is the answer to it. How is this possible? Is it a flaw in the story or is my understanding of the question poor?
Comment: Related: [Is there any truth in the legend about the birth of Siddhartha?](http://buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/2742/is-there-any-truth-in-the-legend-about-the-birth-of-siddhartha)
Answer: Prince Siddhartha was insulated from anything that might prompt him from renouncing the householder's life. Not being fully liberate at that point the natural tendency of the mind is to enjoy such experiences. There is no record where he forgot such fate but I would presume that he would have expected to be a Universal Monarch as this is what would have been feed to him constantly. Maha Saccaka Sutta mensions that

Then, Aggi,vessana, I thought thus, 'I recall that when my father the Sakya was occupied while
  I was sitting in the cool shade of a rose-apple tree, quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from
  unwholesome states, I entered upon and abided in the first dhyana that is accompanied by initial application
  and sustained application, zest and joy born of seclusion.

perhaps there could be some forgetting or setting aside. But when he left the palace I would expect he would have expected to be a Buddha otherwise he would not have followed through in renouncing to find the truth.
Answer: This is the Buddhist equivalent of "Why did Joseph have to go to his ancestral homeland for a census, even though it makes no sense and flies in the face of everything we know about the Roman census?" or "Why do some of the gospels trace Jesus's ancestry back to King David through Joseph, when Joseph was in no way involved in the conception of Jesus?"
In all 3 cases, the answer is: Because it's obviously bullshit, added after the fact to make the Founder seem more divine and impressive. You can rationalize and cherry-pick if you want, and come up with a story that sort of works, but there's no need: newborn infants don't talk, and the historical Buddha likely had no idea as a child what he was going to do in adulthood. Assertions to the contrary in an ancient text that wasn't written down until hundreds of years after the event can be safely disregarded.
In general, separating the historical facts of the Buddha's time from the legends that grew up afterward is very difficult, although Stephen Batchelor has spent a lot of time trying to parse this out (in Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist and After Buddhism).
Comment: Are you telling this because it is scientifically impossible for a baby to walk?
Comment: More because it's a) logically absurd and b) completely irrelevant to the philosophy and practice of Buddhism. If anything, attributing supernatural or superhuman abilities to the Buddha undermines the central notion that anyone can follow in his footsteps and realize awakening through practice.
Comment: I doubt people follow Buddha because of the superhuman and supernatural abilities that he possessed. For me a Buddha by definition is a superhuman
Comment: There are many deities mentioned by Buddha himself. Rejecting their existence itself is considered to be wrong view

Birth of Buddha


How dangerous would it be to start a jet engine with coins inside?

Question: With the multiple stories in the news of people throwing coins into a jet engine for good luck, I couldn't help but wonder how dangerous it would be if the act went unnoticed and the crew started up the engine with the coins inside. Would the engine be damaged? Would the damage be noticed before the plane throttled up for takeoff or left the ground? I'm sure the answer is, to some extent, "it depends", but what's a worst case?
Comment: this question should be a duplicate of "how dangerous if rock sucked in"
Comment: I guess it works - it was "lucky" that other people noticed before the engines were fired up, thus eliminating potential for damage.
Answer: As you say "it depends". Modern jet engine front turbines are designed to reject foreign object debris outside the core, which is where the damage would really matter. Jets suck up hard foreign object debris like pebbles often enough and it will ding things a but but hardly cause catastrophic damage. I'm sure coin throwing has gone unnoticed, and it made no difference in the end.
Really, it's not a big risk for the most part, modern high-bypass turbofans have a large bypass duct, when coins are thrown into an engine which is not running they will drop to the bottom of the bypass duct and get blown harmlessly out the back when it's started. However, there's just enough risk that a coin could find its way into the compressors and cause enough damage to need expensive repairs, and that is why they will take the airplane out of service.
Of course it depends on the coin, if you threw this bad boy in it would be a different story:
Comment: Is it possible to aim for the core / compressors? : )
Comment: A thrown coin going in an arc @AnandS, it would be tough. I imagine it's within the realm of possibility.
Comment: Well, if tossing something like *that* in went unnoticed, I'd be more worried about the competence of the crew than the reliability of the engine. Seriously, though, I imagine with a (regular-sized) coin, it would get pushed out of the engine quite quickly one way or the other, right?
Comment: If someone tosses a coin in the engine while it is stopped it will almost certainly get blown harmlessly through the bypass duct when the engine starts up. If the engine is running it will still probably go through the bypass.


Connect phone to tv usb

Question: I have plugged my phone up to my through the usb and on my phone it says connected as media device. But when I go to the usb in the settings on my tv it says there no device connected. Any ideas?
Comment: Yupp. Your TV probably doesn't support MTP – and recent Android versions no longer support USB mass storage. Both speak a "different language", so to say, and cannot understand each other.
Answer: There are two common ways:

Some smartphones support MHL (Mobile HDMI Link) cables.
Most smartphones are equipped with Miracast. Screen Mirroring can be enabled/disabled in the quick toggle menu, which also contains WiFi,Bluetooth,Torch,etc.
Answer: The phone is just charging and not connected because maybe your TV doesn't support that feature.
Try using Screen Mirroring in Settings>Display>Wireless Display.

Connect phone to tv usb


why does Google Analytics show different top content results for URL and Page Title?

Question: in GA content>AllPages the default view shows the top pageviews by URL. Since my site does not have friendly URLs I prefer to view by page title, but when I click to change the view instead of showing the same pages by top pageviews it shows completely different pages.
I want it to simply switch to the title of the same pages instead of the URL, why would the top pageviews be different based on URL and title?
Comment: Do you have duplicate page titles?
Comment: no, it is showing a completely different list of pages when I switch from URL to titles along with different pageview numbers
Answer: The best way would be showing title as second dimension, and url as first. You can find out if you have duplicate titles too this way.
With default GA settings, you cannot do this. However, there is an hack how to do this: from Content->Site Content->All Pages, add a second dimension (Source for example). Then go and edit the url bar, and instead of source (last word) add pageTitle.
For example:
www.google.com/analytics/web/ (some more stuff) table.secSegmentId%3Danalytics.source/

To
www.google.com/analytics/web/ (some more stuff) table.secSegmentId%3Danalytics.pageTitle/

this should do it
Comment: I'll try that, but I guess I'm more curious as to why the content report functions this way. Wouldn't you expect to see the same pages but instead by title as I described? Duplicate titles is not my problem.
Comment: It's probably a situation related with the nature of your website, difficult to tell without seeing the data. A thing that I have noticed is that the stats reflect the title that is actually displayed on the user's browser, so if they use google translate, it will appear a title in a foreign language on your stats (screwing the type of stats you wanted to see)


Does the par-boiling first then frying work for sweet potatoes as well?

Question: I want to make sweet potato wedges. Is it the same process as using russet potatoes? Does the par-boiling first then frying work for sweet potatoes as well?
Answer: I have done this with boiling and then baking sweet potato fries. They turned out alright, but didn't come out as crispy due to the baking having more moisture to pull out (that's my post-facto hypothesis, anyways). I have to admit I'm not a fan of this method for french-fries either – I find that some restaurants who use it tend to give soggy or mushy fries.
If I recall correctly, it cut the baking time from ~50 minutes to ~25 minutes to get enough of a crust to make them worth eating. For frying, I would expect a similar reduction in cooking time as par boiling cuts for russet potato frying.


Why is C-5 Galaxy not used for commercial airlines while Boeng 747 is?

Question: For a layman like I am, both the planes look massive and similar in size and shape, as if a near copy of each other. Do the similarity only end in the size and shape? Do they not perform equally well in similar roles? While Boeing 747 is used for commercial airlines, why isn't Lockheed C-5 Galaxy? Similarly, why is C-5 galaxy popular for Military and 747 isn't?
Comment: Another similarity is the origin: Both are the offspring of an Air Force contract from 1963 for the development of a large cargo aircraft (CX-HLS). Boeing lost and turned its entry into the 747. This is the reason for the raised cockpit of the 747, and also the engines for the 747-100 originated from the CX-HLS development.
Comment: Even though it is not popular, the B747 has been used for military experimentation ([YAL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_YAL-1)) and for advanced command post ([E4](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_E-4))
Comment: @ManuH The 747 also has another [somewhat more well-known](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_VC-25) role in the USAF. And it looks like [it will continue to have such a role for the next few decades, at least](http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/28/us-airforce-boeing-idUSKBN0L12FP20150128).
Answer: C-5 Galaxy was designed to military requirements that for cargo aircraft include:

operating from unpaved runways (I am not sure in case of C-5, but probably yes)
operating from airfields without much support
operating from short runways
paradrop capability

These basically imply a high-wing design so that engines are high (to minimize risk of foreign object damage) and the deck is lower for easier loading, front and rear cargo door with loading ramps so loading is possible without any ground infrastructure and some excess thrust for sufficient performance on short fields.
However that design is less efficient. It has higher operating cost. The air force is willing to pay it, because it needs the capabilities it requested. But commercial operations don't need those things, because it has enough well equipped airports to operate from. So the higher cost of operating an L-500 (as civil version of C-5 would be called) makes it uninteresting.
B-747 only shares one design feature with C-5, the raised cockpit that allows full-height (well, almost) cargo door in the nose, but otherwise it is optimized to minimize operating cost, making it great cargo plane for operations between airports.

On a side note, there is some commercial demand for transporting heavy or large cargo to less equipped airports. These are currently covered by ex-soviet-military An-124 aircraft that look very similar to Galaxy, are a bit larger, are certainly able to land on unpaved runways and were simply available when Soviet Union collapsed.
Comment: @PeterKämpf: Given that An-124 only has 24 and slightly higher MTOW and that I am quite sure An-124 was designed for it, probably indeed so.
Comment: @Harper While the C-5 is used for strategic duties, [the original design called for short-field capability.](http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a145518.pdf)
Comment: This is the only answer thus far to mention the actual root answer - the cost of flying it.
Comment: Though I could not find the tire pressure of the C-5 online, the number of tires [(28)](http://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/c-5.htm) compared to the 747 (18) shows that the C-5 should be able to operate from lightly prepared runways.
Comment: The C-5 is not a tactical airlifter - the short field/unprepared field role is not its role, that belongs to the C-17.
Comment: @cpast The C5 never lands on dirt. There is some ridiculous amount of maintenance required whenever it does. I couldn't find the reference to get the actual number.
Comment: @Pilothead Like I said, it's actually used for strategic duties (the Air Force doesn't even plan on using it on unpaved fields in wartime). But the initial design called for the capability, and the plane was designed to have it (it just didn't do a good job at it).
Answer: A commercial jet, designed to carry people, like the '747 or any other jetliner, need to fullfill a series of requirement about:

noise (both inside and outside)
safety (emergency exits, oxygen masks and other safety devices)
dimensions (space between gates at airport are a design contraint)

Also, the areas around windows and doors require reinforcement in the fuselage.
All those things are unnecessary on a military transport. Other features are usually required like:

operating from unpaved runway (need special landing gears)
mid-air refueling (too dangerous for a jetliner)
being able to drop cargo mid-air (requires a ramp on the tail of the aircraft)

A lot of considerations can be done, but converting or modifying aircrafts isn't an easy thing.
One big exception are tankers. There's only one KC-747 Tanker and is flown by the Iranian Air Force.
Comment: Dimensions aren't such an issue for this particular comparison: the C-5 wingspan is 10ft more than a 747-400 but slightly a couple of feet less than an -800.
Comment: @DavidRicherby for this particular comparison you're right. I'd like to point out btw that the '744 has a wingspan of 211 ft 5 in, while the '741/742/743 has a wingspan of 195 ft 8 in. C-5 has a wingspan of 222 ft 9 in: That's 27 feet more than a "contemporary" '742.
Answer: While Boeing 747 is used for commercial airlines, why isn't Lockheed C-5 Galaxy?
The C-5 was created on a proposal made directly to the military to fill a heavy lift role. It is more rugged than a 747 and includes things that only military operations call for like countermeasures and probably lot of other classified systems. It's uniquely suited for evasive maneuvers and down range operations that a 747 wasn't designed for. It's specifically a military aircraft with no civilian version.
Similarly, why is C-5 galaxy popular for Military and 747 isn't?
The 747 is popular for military use, but mostly in the form of contract work. The military hires private companies to move cargo with 747s all the time. The military does have some 747s of their own too. The E-4 is one example. And there's always Air Force One.
Comment: A VC-25 is always a 747 but Air Force one isn't always a VC-25.
Comment: boeing designed a 747 missile carrier
Comment: C-5 contains many classified systems, but so does VC-25. On the other hand, Lockheed _did_ offer L-500, a civilian version of C-5, but no airline showed interest and the project was cancelled. Military systems are not the difference. They can be mounted on about anything. The airframe design is the difference.
Comment: That isn't 100% correct. Air Force One is the call sign of the aircraft of the US Air Force , which houses the president of the United States. I'd rather say: And there's the 747-200B used as Air Force One.".
Answer: I doubt any commercial operator would want to use a C-5. The 747-400 series is roughly contemporary with the C-5B. Compared to the 747-400F freighter, the C-5B:

is slower (cruise speed of Mach 0.79 vs Mach 0.85);
has a smaller internal diameter (19ft vs 20ft) and isn't much longer (247ft vs 231ft externally);
has a cripplingly short range when fully loaded (2,760mi without refuelling isn't even enough to get you from London to Moncton, let alone London to New York, vs over 5,000mi);
carries less (122t maximum payload, vs 128t for the 747-400F)
requires a cockpit crew of four, vs two;
uses huge amounts of fuel (the 747 gets twice times the range from fuel tanks that are only 10% larger).

The main benefits of the C-5 are that its high wings and low landing gear make it easier to load: you don't have to lift everything fifteen feet in the air to get it into the plane. and I think the C-5's cargo bay is full-height for its whole length, whereas the 747 has reduced height at the front under the cockpit. That also makes loading a 747 something of a sliding-blocks puzzle, since any full-height load has to go in through the side door and be turned, which limits the length of any item; the C-5 has a tail ramp that lets you load an object of almost any length that will physically fit. The C-5 can also use lower quality, shorter runways.
Airlines, even cargo airlines, don't carry many long, tall, heavy loads, and they fly to and from well-maintained airports with nice runways, so don't need the advantages the C-5 gives.  That just leaves the disadvantages.
Sources: C-5 on Wikipedia, 747 on Wikipedia, Boeing 747-400F factsheet
Comment: Yes, but it had still the old TF-39, just upgraded. Also, the wings received only structural reinforcements, and kept their old airfoils. It was what Lockheed had promised the C-5A to be.
Comment: It's a little unfair to compare the C-5A with the 747-400. There are 30 years of progress between the two (supercritical airfoils and much better engines make the 747-400 look much better). If the C-5 would be re-engined with modern RR Trents and an improved wing, its range and cruise Mach number would be much closer to that of the 747.
Comment: @PeterKämpf That's why I specifically compared the C-5**B** against the 747. Wikipedia describes it as having improved wings and engines over the C-5A.
Comment: @PeterKämpf OK -- thanks for making that clear. I thought it was a more significant upgrade. When I have time, I'll update to compare against earlier 747 models.
Answer: In his book 747, Joe Sutter (the project lead for the initial 747) mentions that the idea of using the C5 as a transport was floated by then president Lyndon Johnson as an alternative. The US was experiencing a period of high economic inflation in the mid 1960's, and Johnson was putting the brakes on corporate expenditures so as not to drive prices even higher.
Sutter points out that the C5 simply wasn't economical enough to consider as a civilian transport in a competitive market. Its fuel usage was too high, and it had a slower cruising speed than most civilian airliners of that day.
Being a military aircraft, the C5 is designed to operate under different conditions than civilian airliners... short and/or rough field capability (heavier landing gear), surviving battle damage, etc... All of that adds weight, making the aircraft less economical to meet requirements that it won't encounter in civilian use.
Plus, military transports aren't designed with passenger comfort in mind, as anyone who has ever spent a few hours in the back of a C130 or C141 can attest to. More weight gets added to address that situation, and that means more fuel usage.
With the military, the taxpayer foots the fuel bill, and has no choice in the matter. Nor do the soldiers riding on the transports have any choice. In the commercial airliner field, the customer foots the bill, and definitely has a choice... another airline, flying a more economical and comfortable aircraft. It was the fuel efficiency of the 747, as compared to the smaller turbojet airliners of the 1960's, that made it a great success.
These are essentially the same reasons that the current C17 and A400 aren't used as an airliner. Not as efficient as existing airliners, and designed for situations that commercial airliners won't encounter.
Ironically, the 747 project was considered a sideline at Boeing when it first started up in the 1960's... all of the attention, and the best engineers, were on the 2707 supersonic transport.
Answer: The C-5 Galaxy is not for sale
The USAF jealously hoards certain aircraft.  They are shared with foreign militaries only very reluctantly and never Civilians.
Think of the A-10 Warthog (contrast with the Su-25 which Russia sells to pretty much everybody who wants CAS), B-52, F-111 (shared only with Australia, and only near its end of life), F-14 Tomcat (its only share being a complete disaster), and indeed C-5 Galaxy.
Anyway, it's not competitive
A civilian entity seeking a strategic airlifter has so many options.  The 747 is rapidly becoming an aircraft without a market, so they are readily available, and of course Boeing would fall over themselves to sell you a new one.  Meanwhile Antonov would not only be absolutely thrilled to sell you the An-124, they can offer you positively insane pricing because of the odd economics in Ukraine and Russia of late.
As a partner, Antonov totally understands you because they are you - having spent 20 years themselves being a commercial cargo carrier and tackling loads absolutely no one else can carry with their own An-124 fleet and An-225.   Boeing has 40 years of experience specifically in the 747 supporting commercial customers who are most concerned with total life-cycle cost.  Whereas you won't get any love from Lockheed.  Their last venture into the finicky commercial market, the L-1011, was a complete disaster and nearly bankrupted the company.  They don't even possess a sales and support division to deal with customers who are not in Arlington, Virginia and whose offices are not 5-sided, and that will make you a penny-ante annoyance. They'll charge you "I don't want to deal with you" prices.
The commercial win is to stick with 747 unless you want to take chances with the An-124.  Heck, Antonov would love to finish the other An-225 for you, and that's something not Boeing and not even Lockheed can supply.
Comment: Lockheed offered a civilian C-5 on the open market. The F-111 was offered to the UK in the 1960s. The F-14 was for sale too. Dunno about the others. The lack of sales was more likely caused by your examples being too specialized and/or expensive for other air forces to operate.


Video format to play on Samsung HMX-F90

Question: I have video files recorded on an unknown digital camera, that I need to play through a Samsung HMX-F90 digital camcorder. When I copy to files to the memory card, they do not appear on the camera. I have converted the video files to H.264 encoding and the resolution matches those recorded by the F90 camera. Any other suggestions?
Answer:
I have video files recorded on an unknown digital camera, that I need to play through a Samsung HMX-F90 digital camcorder

... why? Can't you view the files on a computer?
Copying your older files to a camcorder to view them is a very strange idea and it will most likely not work, because camcorders aren't built to do that. A camcorder (or really, any digital camera) is not like a computer that reads a card, shows you all folders and files and allows you to watch them. Most cameras have a standard path where they store their files that can't be changed. Many cameras also create accompanying files that hold metadata and the camera uses those to create the file overview in their media browser. If those files are deleted (or don't exist in the first place), the camera might not know that the files are present at all. Also, the camera will most likely only be able to read files that use exactly the same format and codec (and maybe other things, like certain metadata tags), so even if you converted your files they probably wouldn't match the output format of the camera.

I have converted the video files to H.264 encoding and the resolution matches those recorded by the F90 camera.

That is also a bad idea, as reencoding the files will reduce their quality and is totally unnecessary just to view the files.
tl;dr: Use the appropriate tool for the appropriate task. I.e. use a camera to record videos, and use a computer to watch them.

Edit: How to do it the hard way
If for some reason you absolutely have to do it in this convoluted way, you will have to find out how the camera records and stores videos on the memory cards. Three steps/considerations for you to make your camera recognise your videos:

Correct location. All cameras store videos in a specific directory on the memory card. For example, my Canon EOS 80D stores all photos on /DCIM/100CANON/ (it creates multiple folders with incremential numbers if necessary). Your camera might allow you to change this directory (or at least define a subdirectory) in the settings. This will also allow you to find out what the default directory is. If there is no such setting in the menu, check your camera's manual for that info.
Correct format & codec. If you have put your files in the correct folder and the camera doesn't show them, they might be in a format that the camera doesn't recognise. You said you converted your videos to H.264, but have you used the correct container format and audio codec as well? (More information on that in my answer here.) I suggest you record a test video with the camera and check it's metadata and file parameters using MediaInfo, then use that info to convert your video files to exactly the same format with the same parameters the camera uses. Also, note the naming pattern of the file created by the camera and rename your files following that pattern.
Keep in mind that converting your videos will likely degrade the video quality. This won't make much of a difference on a tiny camcorder screen, but do remember to backup your original files.
Cataloging files. Some cameras create catalog files alongside the actual video files that are used for the internal media catalog of the camera. If it isn't present or doesn't contain information on the videos you copied to the memory card, the camera might not be able to display them. For example, my 80D creates a .CTG file in /DCIM/EOSMISC/ for every set of images shot with the camera. However, there are also cameras that use one sidecar file per video file that may fulfil the same function. After you've recorded a test video with the camera, search the memory card for such a file and open it in a texteditor. If you are lucky, it's a plaintext file that uses a reproducible pattern that you can use to manually create the necessary files/entries for your own videos. If not, you're pretty much out of luck. You can try to look for some technical documentation on how the internal camcorder catalog works, but I doubt you would find any or that it would be any use for your situation.
Comment: Thanks for the feedback, but this does not help. I do need to play the video through the camera (long story, not relevant to the problem).
Comment: @adjfay Fair enough, I added a section on how you could try to make this work. Lot of *if*'s and *may*'s in there, because reverse engineering a camera media catalog is not something you would usually do. I'd be **very** interested in hearing how on earth you ended up in the situation where you have to playback some old videos through a camcorder ...

Video format to play on Samsung HMX-F90


What is the Macedonian naming dispute really about?

Question: I was reading the wikipedia article on Macedonia naming dispute. As a reasonable human being, I can't believe that just by debating how a territory should be called, these people hindered economic and trade relations, potentially reducing the living standard for their populations (20 million people). Still Greece is blocking Macedonia's EU accession. Why is it so important to name something so that millions of people have to suffer the negative consequences? It kind of reminds me of kindergarten when we were arguing about what we should call our superheros. But at the international level? What can't they just simply come up with a new name?
Comment: @mgb technically the dispute in northern ireland is more about ethnicity & tribal reasons than actual religious dispute anymore.
Comment: In the 21st century people are planting bombs in Britain over a 16 century dispute about transubstantiation.
Comment: @mgb No they aren't.
Comment: @Rory - and that isn't true of every other 'religous' dispute since Ogg the caveman argued about the sun god?
Answer: As a reasonable human being, you should also probably be fully aware that:

Splitting off territories based on nationalist movements is usually Bad JuJu for anyone involved, for a variety of reasons (even if done peacefully, there's negative economic impact in the beginning, and there are concerns with well-being of ethnic groups native to the former large state who are now a minority in the new state - e.g. see Russians in Baltic exUSSR republics).
Given the territory in question (Hint: this is where the word "Balkanization" comes from), Greece has VERY valid concerns with possibility that Greek side of Macedonia would want independence and/or merge with FYROM/RoM.
Issues like national identity and such are a pretty big part of human psyche. Humans have been known to kill each other over making ugly faces, never mind something as complicated and influential as national identity mired in 100s (or in case of Macedonia, 1000s) of years of history, conflict and war (anyone remember Philip and Alexander, two minor Macedonian kings?)

Please have a look at Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs document discussing the issue in diplomatic terms for their officially stated reasoning.
Comment: @Yannis I'm not sure about right now, but slightly earlier in history, look up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Liberation_Front_(Macedonia)
Answer:
What can't they just simply come up with a new name?

Well that's hard. People are attached to their name, the name of their family, the name of their tribe, name of their city, name of their country. "come up with a new name" means they should change their name based on what someone else wants. Lots of people don't like this, and think that they alone should be allowed to choose their name.
Comment: _"and think that they alone should be allowed to choose their name"_ and that's odd, because that's quite the opposite of what happens in reality: your name is how **other people** call you, so you can't really force them into a name of your choice.


Reflection of sound waves

Question: I was doing a physics experiment, and I encountered a question which I couldn't answer. The experiment was about using a radar technique to measure the speed of sound. The apparatus was a plastic tube 90cm long and the sound source was a speaker connected to a function generator. The generator was sending a square wave with a low frequency (a couple of Hz) so we were creating sound pulses and we were observing their echoes through a microphone which was connected to an oscilloscope. When the other end of the tube was closed we could clearly see the reflected waves on the oscilloscope screen. However even with an open tube we could see that the waves reflected off the open end. (and they returned with an opposite pressure) Why did this happen?
Answer: See for example:
http://www.acs.psu.edu/drussell/Demos/reflect/reflect.html
Reflection from hard vs. soft boundary.  Closed tube is like a hard boundary, open tube a soft boundary.  In either case there is an impedance discontinuity and hence reflection, however the phase of the reflected wave differs depending on the nature of the discontinuity.
Comment: WHich case is it exactly?Reflection from a high to low density?Why are the densities different?
Comment: The Hard vs. Soft boundaries in that link are the better analogy.
Comment: Sound wave propagating in tube will actually be slightly slower than sound wave in open space, so you could use the slow -> fast transition example.

Reflection of sound waves


Photography-related disciplines

Question: We're talking a lot here about the technical part of photography, but what are the other related disciplines that help us create better pictures? What one needs to master to be a photographer? When answering, please also explain why you think it's relevant and how do you apply it to photography.
Comment: This should be community wiki.
Comment: I don't think this should have been relegated to the CW junkheap. What's the rationale?
Comment: I would imagine that it is because there is not one correct answer, and it is basically asking for a list of answers.
Answer: I don't think there's a specific answer to this question because most other artistic disciplines can help your photography.  Studying paintings or learning to paint yourself can allow you to see light and shadow in everyday scenes around you as well as teach you about classic composition techniques.  So, I think painting is a great thing for a photographer to study.  But even something like flower arranging, I suspect, would help you see symmetry and abstraction better.
Answer: I don't think you really need to master anything to be a photographer, or to take good pictures. Obviously knowing the technical stuff is really important, but mastery of it, isn't a requisite to producing amazing photographs.
There are some virtues (not necessarily disciplines) that have helped me:

Patience: taking a photograph requires you to sit back and think. You don't always have that luxury, of course, but when you do, use it.
Self Critique: most of us will be our harshest critics, but we need to temper that in order to effectively improve.
Perspective: trying to look at the world differently, will translate to your photographs.

Outside of these, I would say the one discipline you should master is your job. Money helps heaps in photography. It's expensive. You can absolutely be an amazing photographer with an inexpensive kit, but give that same awesome photographer a even better (read: more expensive) kit, and see how much their photographs will improve.
Comment: These are virtues.. not really disciplines
Comment: Right, which is why I said these are "virtues"
Answer:
Communication – unless you're a purely landscape-oriented monk, you need to be able to communicate with people you want to photograph, let you go somewhere, hold lights, or at least not get in your way.
Business and marketing – not related to taking better pictures, but if you want to earn some money with photography, you don't only have to make good photographs, but be able to sell them to prospective clients. (see John Harrington's blog for extensive details)
Legal issues – very useful to know your rights, whether that comes to someone using your pictures or getting arrested you because you took picture of a policeman.
Comment: If you vote -1, it's common (stack) courtesy to post a comment why, so the Answerer can fix their answer. Thanks :D
Answer: Composition, including the rule of thirds and golden ratio, is an essential topic that photographers should learn about.
Knowing how to create a well-lit, tack-sharp photograph isn't of that much value if the photographers are aesthetically boring.  Understanding composition is one step to creating visually pleasing images.
Comment: Doesn't that fall into the "technical" aspect?
Comment: The rule of thirds and the golden ratio is the same thing.
Comment: If you vote -1, it's common (stack) courtesy to post a comment why, so the Answerer can fix their answer. Thanks :D
Comment: +1 for composition.  Even though the examples cited, rule of thirds and the golden ratio, have a mathematical guideline, the general topic of composition is more of an art than a technique.

Photography-related disciplines


Comparison of the programs of the Matrix and the machines of the real world?

Question: What was the position of a program that resided in the matrix when compared to a machine in the real world? Were the machines of the real world superior? If yes, why? If no, then what was their position like? Did the machines even have notions like that?
Comment: What do you mean by 'position'? Do you mean physical position? Or 'role'? Are you making a distinction between the programmes running the agents and the programmes running the machines? If so, excellent question!
Comment: I'd guess it's asking about hierarchies.
Comment: Looks like a duplicate to me:  http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/12725/what-kind-of-a-political-hierarchy-do-the-machines-in-the-matrix-have
Comment: I am not talking about "hierarchies" I just want to know if the ones in matrix felt a bit different from the ones outside
Answer: Each program in the Matrix was an AI.  They were all designed to perform a task and to be intelligent enough to learn and self correct in their daily activities.  Each AI in the Matrix was distinct, and, the ones that had feelings for sure like the Merovingian by virtue of being a unique intelligent entity definitely must have felt much different from any of the machines on the outside.
The ones that may or may not have feelings that a human could relate to, like The Architect, don't "feel" different per se, but their modes of operation are unique as these are intelligences with personalities that can reason we're discussing.
Other than the Deus Ex Machina, it's unclear from canonical sources I've seen if the machines outside of the Matrix were even self aware.  I don't think that the ones we saw in the film were for the most part, or they would have done something other than blindly charge the Nebuchunezzer and get EMP'd.
It follows that an intelligent machine would have either encountered hostility like this before and planned an attack whereby only half of the aggressors were in range of the EMP and the rest could then finish off the enemy. (They'd know from previous encounters that the EMP needs time before it can be fired again.)  It also follows that an intelligent machine with understanding of 3 dimensions and flight wouldn't have let Neo's ship go over them. :P
Comment: I never said that the machine city was devoid of AI except the Deus Ex Machina.  I said that it's unclear canonically.  I don't know of any example of machines that showed clear signs of intelligence outside the matrix.  You're assuming you know that Smith wanted to get outside to the real world when he said that, I think it's just as likely that meant he wanted to get into the mainframe that ran Machine City and ruin it, and that's why the Deus Ex Machina needed Neo.  It might even be more likely that's what Smith was intending, as that's what he did.
Comment: while you were right about some parts, I think the sentinels are what you were referring to when talking about the machines in the real world. Those were machines that were built with purpose and were not "AI" however, this does not mean that the machine city was devoid of any AI except for the Deus Ex Machina. You see, Agent Smith tells Morpheous that he was tired the prison(matrix) and wanted to be free of it. So, that clearly suggested that there were other machines on the "outside" that were sentient.
Comment: Ruining the machine main frame was never Agent Smith's agenda. When Neo destroyed him initially, he know that he should be deleted but he refused and survived for a new single goal to be achieved, and that is to destroy Neo which he completes and that is why his will to survive is gone. He called the matrix a prison and wanted to go outside. I do not believe he had anything more in his mind before being unplugged.
Comment: Smith clearly says he wants to control all of the Matrix and Machine City,  "I want what you want: ...everything."  This is a clear indication that he had more designs than simply defeating Neo.  I'm not sure where you've gotten the idea that A) his goal was only to kill neo, or B) That his will to survive was gone.  In fact, his will to survive was clearly still strong as he yelled in frustration when Neo conquored him. Further, Smith never "chose" anything, he is also quoted as saying "We're not here because we're free, we're here because we're *not* free," indicating he has no choices.
Comment: Finally, The Oracle herself said that Smith would "seep into the real world and the machine world and consume BOTH", indicating that he had bigger designs than simply Neo.  If my answer is insufficient please tell me exactly why so that I can provide you with that you're looking for.  Otherwise, perhaps you could accept the answer?


How many fish for a 29 gallon tank?

Question: I am wanting to know how many fish could thrive in a 29 gallon (110 L) tank. Dimensions of the tank are 30" in L x 12" in W x 18" in H (76 x 30 x 46 cm). These guys could include any live bearers like guppies, platy fish and molly fish. In the future I am going to buy live plants so my tank is fully live-planted and not semi-planted. I currently have 9 fish which are 2 algae eaters, 2 platies and 5 guppies. I am just wondering so I don't accidentally overcrowd my tank to where it is unhealthy or could cause problems to the fish.
Comment: you can find some information about this here https://www.thesprucepets.com/amount-of-fish-and-aquarium-size-1378335
Comment: Hi, could you please include the dimensions of you aquarium (length x width x height)? It could be useful for people wanting to answer because it would let them know the surface area of water/air interface facilitating gas exchange. My point is, two aquariums could have the same volume, but different dimensions/shape and thus different surface area of water/air interface - aquarium with the larger one could house more fish.
Comment: The dimensions are: 30" in L x 12" in W x 18" in H.
Answer: The thumb rule is:

1 cm of fish for each 1 liter of water

This means:

1 fish, 5 cm/fish -> 5 liters of water
2 fishes, 2.5 cm/fish -> 5 liters of water

Now depending on which fish you want, and depending on their needs, you can make some estimation yourself.
As a kind reminder (it is sometimes forgotten): plants, filters, rocks do NOT count as water. With other words, take into consideration the water, and not the total volume of the aquarium.
Overcrowding can become a problem (the stress for the fish, the chemical balance of the water...). Under-crowding is unlikely to become a problem.
Also, do not forget that some fish prefer to live in schools (i.e. you need at least 4-5 of them, if you want them not stressed). Study the fish that you want to find out their particular needs.
I personally tend to overcrowd the aquariums, and I did not notice any problem. However, my behavior (and experience) should not be taken as science or as guarantee of success.
Comment: To this you can add that this rule tends to break down for larger fish. A better approximation would be based on volume, which increases by the third power (ie the cube). The fish volume of a 15 cm fish is very different than the volume of 15 1 cm fish. The latter works in a 50 l tank while the former does not.

How many fish for a 29 gallon tank?


What is the name of this joint?

Question: I'm looking to make a table with a removable panel, which would require a joint something akin to a dovetail joint. My question is, what is this called, and can I buy wood precut with it?
I've attached a hilariously bad drawing of what I need.
Comment: Sliding dovetail joint I believe
Comment: Not a bad drawing at all, perfectly clear!
Comment: If you still do not feel confident making your own, there are types of off the shelf hardware that you can buy for tables like this. Rockler will have a few options.
Comment: The guys above are generally correct. Here is a good youtube video on sliding dovetail joints. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_CXk9Du5iw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_CXk9Du5iw) You might find products like this on sites such as [covingdirect.co.uk](https://www.covingdirect.co.uk) & [rackzone.ie](https://www.rackzone.ie)
Answer: In modern US parlance that is a sliding dovetail.
In British parlance it's a dovetail housing joint. Older American books may refer to it that way too.
More specifically your drawing shows a through sliding dovetail or through dovetail housing since the groove isn't 'stopped', or shorter than the piece that slides into it.
Note: the housing portion, the groove (dado in American), is usually cut into the sides of a bookcase or other casework, and along the edge of the shelf that it mates with. So it's important to note that the grain commonly runs perpendicular to the joint, not parallel to it.

Source: Good Wood Joints by Albert Jackson & David Day.
Both stopped and through versions of the joint can have a dovetail on one or both sides.
As tricky as these joints are to cut manually for extra Woodworking Merit Points they can even be tapered O_o

can I buy wood precut with it?

I don't believe so unless it's part of a complete piece of kit furniture with these joints milled out ready for assembly by the buyer.
If you need to form this joint it is quite straightforward and fast to do with a router, which in theory can cut the dovetailed groove in a single operation (in practice, especially on harder woods, the centre is often milled out first using a straight cutting bit to relieve stress on the dovetail bit which must cut to full depth because of its shape).
If no power router is available it's usual to carefully saw and chisel the joint, after some very careful marking out of course.
Answer: This is called a "sliding dovetail".  It is often used as a more secure alternative to a dado.  A typical use would be in a middle shelf in a bookcase to prevent the case sides from bowing outward.
I don't think there is any way to buy something like this pre-cut.  The closest I can think of is "slatwall" which is paneling with t-grooves to hang accessories in.
Comment: By "dado" in this context you mean a "tongue and groove" joint?
Comment: @AndreiRînea "Tongue and groove" is a joint used when joining boards along their edge (i.e. in flooring or paneling, or when making a glued-up panel).  A dado generally is a recess in the face of a board oriented so that the long edge is perpendicular to the grain.  Specifically here I was referring to the typical bookcase construction where the case side has dados that the shelves fit into.
Comment: Oh, so it's a 90 degrees joint unlike the 180 degrees! Thanks!
Answer: That is called a sliding dovetail joint.
You can make it with a router.  Or a saw + chisels.
I think it is unlikely that a store will pre-stock the dimensions you need but you could try.

What is the name of this joint?


LXX Job 39:20 "snort" vs "breast"

Question: How did the translators of the LXX out of the Hebrew text of Job 39:20 decide to use the word "breast" where the Hebrew text (Stuttgarsenia) has the Hebrew word "snort" (Brown Driver Briggs 637b)?
Comment: Welcome to BH. Please take a moment to take the Tour and see the Help (below) to see how the the site works. As it stands, you are actually asking a matter of opinion 'How did (they) decide ?' which only 'they' could divulge. I suggest you edit the question so that you are asking for a factual answer rather than an unproveable opinion of an historic decision.
Comment: This is, perhaps, another example where the text of the LXX and BHS differ - there are numerous such examples - some involving numerous added verses etc.
Answer: Hebrew:

LXX:

As explained in Style and Context of Old Greek Job
Comment: Your answer is confusing. I do see in your reference a discussion on the LXX choice of translation for v. 20, but I still don't see a clear answer to the OP's question; namely, why they choose to translate נחרו into breast? Is this due to a variant text, or something else? Please elaborate
Comment: It literally says "one could speculate the translator had difficulty interpreting the Hebrew,...the translator continued the thought of v19...the symmetrical contruction is retained".

LXX Job 39:20 "snort" vs "breast"


Does giving away free stories boost sales?

Question: Is it worth it for writers to give away free short stories (or entire novels)? I've heard people say that having freebies on your site can boost sales of your books. I'm not talking about giving away free copies of Novel X to improve Novel X's sales, but writing a completely unrelated story and offering it up as a freebie. Is there any "evidence" that this actually does improve your sales?
Comment: Seems like a very complicated issue to me. If freebies *do* increase sales, do they increase them enough to offset the losses?  And how long does it take?  Is there a maximum of freebies where they stop paying off?  I would love to see some real-world figures for particular authors.
Comment: In your scenario, what are the "losses" to be offset?  Loss of possible sales from the freebie?
Comment: If the sales are only "possible," consider that the freebie might not be as enticing and sales-increasing as you might like.
Comment: Why the "short-story" tag? It's about marketing and sales, alright, but not the other one.
Comment: @iajrz: I assume because the natural tendency would be to offer standalone short-stories as freebies... and that this promotion path would be more natural to the short-story writer, rather than a novelist who writes a few stories just so he can offer them freely. This isn't a question *about* short stories. It is, possibly, a question about marketing short stories. Not sure I'd have picked the tag myself, but it seems reasonable to me.
Comment: Kristine Kathryn Rusch has written an excellent post on the perils - and benefits - of offering [free fiction as promotion](http://kriswrites.com/2014/01/22/the-business-rusch-pricing-part-2-or-discoverability-part-7-continued/). There's also excellent responses in the comment section.
Answer: Tread with caution. A lot of caution.
Free stories to promote the author is a marketing strategy. As such, there are situations where it can be wonderful; situations it can be disastrous; situations it can be utterly harmless and entirely insignificant.
I think these are the central questions you've got to ask yourself when considering writing freebies for the web:

Is this webpage likely to gain more exposure than the story would get if I sold it to available, attainable markets? If it's not - you've gained nothing.
Am I certain this story is of high enough quality to represent my work positively and enticingly to the outside world? If you're not - your free pieces may drive readers away. Recall also that anything you post on the internet is basically going to stay there forever. You'd better be sure.
How do I expect readers to come across my free offerings? The web is full of free fiction. Most of it is sheer drivel. Unless you promote your free fiction somehow, there's no reason to think anybody will find it, come looking for it, or pass it on to friends.
What non-free writing of mine are the free pieces promoting? If you can't point easily to precisely what works of yours you expect the reader of the free pieces to march out and buy, you can't expect the readers to bother and figure out for themselves how to send you some money. You've got to be clear, at least to yourself, on what it is you're promoting.

The most likely result of publishing pieces online is that nothing in particular will happen with them. They will likely fall somewhere between "nobody will read them because they'll never hear of them" and "some people will read them, enjoy them to some extent, maybe share with friends, but they won't be enthusiastic enough to go out and hunt for the author's other stuff." At the higher end of the spectrum, you've got "a lot of people who read this might be more favorably inclined to buy something of the author's if they run into it in the future." For most authors, that doesn't get them very far towards where they want to go.
Here are the situations where I think publishing free stories online sounds like a good marketing strategy:

The free work is intrinsically linked to the promoted work (e.g. same characters, same setting). The free work basically serves as a direct teaser, ad, or prologue for the larger work. Sometimes, an author will even rework an extract of a larger work as a stand-alone story for this purpose.
The author is established enough to attract some interest from readers, and has a fair number of works available for purchase. Visitors to the author's website are people who have read one or two things by the author, and are interested in finding out more; free stories are a great way to encourage this most welcome interest.
The author believes he has enough existing fans (or can entice some) to spread around his free stories, eventually raising general awareness of the author.
The author intends to devote substantial energy and effort into promoting his work; the free stories serve as content he can point people to, and come as a part of a wider promotion/marketing/content-producing effort.

That's where I'd see free stories as being really useful. If you're not in any of those situations, you've got to ask yourself very seriously just how you expect these free stories to make themselves useful - particularly contrasted with the option of receiving both pay and publication.
A really important note: you can look for free online magazines, and try to sell some work to those. That gets around almost all the pitfalls I've touched upon here, while leaving you with a freely available story you can link to, and that adoring fans can share around. That might be a good compromise. Another option is trying to negotiate, when you sell your work, that after a certain amount of time you get to publish your story free on your webpage (or link to it on the publisher's webpage). Not as odd as you might think - since they want the publicity too.
Answer: If your work is appealing, it should work.
Have you ever asked for a book to a friend, read it, fell in love with it, and started buying everything by that author? It happened to me with the Wheel of Time series, and with Jules Verne's works.
So, by giving away the books, you're doing what a friend would do: give you the chance to know the author, the chance to fall in love with the work, to appreciate it, and to buy it. On the other hand, it helps your public relations and gives you a "this guy's really cool and down to Earth" image that many a reader likes.
Comment: Just to back this up. Brandon Sanderson (a fantasy author) did this with one of his books, and I recommended it to people who weren't sure if they wanted to buy his books (At least one went on to buy some of his books). So I would agree that if the work is good, this will help.
Comment: This is plausible only if you also get "friends" in motion as well. Otherwise, how will anybody ever hear of **this** particular story on **this** particular little patch of the internet? Not every budding author is the next Robert Jordan - and even fewer have Jordan's fan base.
Comment: **No** *budding* author has Jordan's fan base.  None *can*.  ;-)
Answer: I can offer no evidence, but speaking as a reader, it would make me more likely to purchase a book if I had read and enjoyed the writer's freebies.

Because I've already seen the
writer's skill, style, and
characters, and decided whether the
writer was appealing to me
After a coupla freebies I start to
feel like I owe the person
something, and should support the
generous writer with some money
Particularly if the writer is
posting freebies in some interactive
manner, so I could feel like I was
part of a community, and thereby got
a little invested in "seeing my
cyber-friend's work do well."
Comment: Please note the base assumption, though: that you already **have read** and **have enjoyed** the stories. If a budding (or midlist...) author asks you whether or not to post some freebies - how likely is he to reach that point?
Comment: @Standback: I'm not sure I follow you, but let me give you a further example. There was a woman who posted frequently on a BBS where I was a member. I liked her posts so much that when she announced she was getting her book published, I bought it, sight unseen, even though the subject was nothing I would ever have read otherwise, because in her board posts she was wise, funny, and well-written. I'm suggesting that people who post on their own sites, or web-fiction sites, can get read for free, which may create an audience for their paid work.
Comment: That example lies somewhere between: (A) buying a book a friend wrote, because we like the friend (in this case - an online friend), and (B) establishing an maintaining an inviting web presence, which helps promote your published work. If you aren't posting regularly to a large audience, and managing to attain popularity among them, merely posting your work online achieves little. (Posting regularly to a large audience _in order_ to promote your work is the "establishing web presence" bit, which can be quite an effort.)
Answer: I think the important part about any kind of giveaway is to make it part of a marketing plan. I know the words "marketing plan" are rife with tedium and the apprehension associated with the buzz word but that's just because marketing has become something done by people with no connection to the products they're trying to get people to buy.
For the artist or craftsman marketing is just the act of saying to people: "Hey, you know what, I have this stuff here you might like to buy." Chances are if you are the author you have sought people out who, well, would probably be interested in reading what you have written.
You can act exactly the same as a marketdroid in this respect and just spam forums and messageboards with "BUY THIS" messages or you could wonder, as a writer, whose eyeballs you want scanning your work and then you can, you know, go to these communities, integrate, check them out and, when you have something of interest: mention it.
At that point your marketing plan should be a coherent message that you can deliver to interested parties. In my experience consumers of entertainment come in two flavours. Those consumers who aren't buying what you're selling and those who like the elevator pitch but want to know more before they commit. By "know more" I think, particularly readers, like to cultivate some sort of knowledge or ownership of an author before they take the plunge. This requires one of two things. Either the author has to be "available" e.g. has a blog, visits online communities, tries to meet and greet etc. and have some good, relevant materials expanding upon the type of fiction they write. The other option is that the author implicitly "promises" future availability by having a large canon of work available for purchase (I would say 8-10 novels freely available for purchase would be minimum). If a reader can see that, should they buy novel x they can benefit from 7 to 10 more no-brainer book purchases then they are more likely to take the plunge.
In these days of the interwebs there should be some mixture of the two.
Free stories/books could contribute to this but only as a part of that strategy. Sometimes you end up with frustrating edge cases: I, for example, love one author's two free e-books (neither were ever considered for publication by a publisher but one was represented by an agent for a while) but his actual published works are generic detective stories while the free books are out-there speculative techno thrillers. If the dude was paid to write out there speculative techno thrillers I would be in the queue to buy each and every one but I'm not in the market for a cookie cutter crime thriller. I'm sure there are others who are happy with whatever he writes. None of it would be worth much if he didn't also blog, do speaking tours and just, generally, make himself available to fans.
So, as a way to make yourself more available it is a step in the right direction but it's definitely not much use on its own. I offer free downloads of some novels but as they are part of a plan I haven't started to put into motion yet nobody bothers with them and they certainly don't sell.


Displacement and Bump map control

Question: Is there a way to control where the displacement bump map does and does not affect. Would using the weight paint brush be good? The displacement bump map is made procedurally generated with texture coordinates, noise texture and a displacement map. I followed this tutorial made by Blender Guru. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh5gAQLtOls&t=456s
Comment: it doesn't seem possible for the moment, but you can do it through the Displace modifier
Answer: You can use a texture (hand painted or procedural), to control the fac input of a mix RGB node, in which the first input is the displacement texture, the second has a solid gray color (which is the neutral midlevel for displacement and bump).
In this way where the new texture is black you'll have full displacement, where it's white there will be no displacement, with greyscale for transitions.
You can also live paint the texture in rendered view, to check its influence.
Answer: You can plug a map into the Scale input of the Displacement node.  You may want to do some math on the values as they go in.
I don't think weight paint is available through cycles nodes, but you should be able to use Dynamic Paint a la this answer.

Displacement and Bump map control


Practice while traveling

Question: I have been trying to learn the banjo for a couple years. An irregular practice schedule hinders progress, obviously. Unfortunately for me this is unavoidable as I travel frequently...I'm a pilot. I was wondering if anyone knows of a good way to practice banjo while travelling, such as a different type of banjo? Maybe similar to the neck with the amp plug in for the guitar?
Comment: Related: [How can I practice guitar when I don't have my instrument?](https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/77540/how-can-i-practice-guitar-when-i-dont-have-my-instrument?)
Comment: Hi, asking for specific equipment recommendations is off-topic here. Try googling for "travel banjo" or "backpack banjo."   https://www.amazon.com/Dean-Backwoods-Mini-Travel-Banjo/dp/B06XMZ2G7X
Comment: Listen to music. But really critically listen. Try to notate what you hear. You can do this relative to the root note if you don't have perfect pitch and transpose it to the correct key later. Get some banjo sheet music and sing the parts. Singing is a great practice tool for any musician. Banjos aren't very big, you can't. Ring one with you?
Comment: you better don't practice the guitar or banjo while piloting an aircraft machine.
But you can always train the chord progression everywhere you are by imaging the picture of  the chord pattern (mental training) and also the rhythm and fingerpicking without an instrument. Also a piece of wood or carton such as a ruler or yardstick  would fit for it.
Answer: The famous pianist, Glenn Gould, would 'practice' mentally imagining the performance in his head.

https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2014/09/04/345576795/glenn-gould-in-rapture

Of course examples from geniuses aren't very helpful for mere mortals, but that anecdote at least suggests there is a purely mental aspect that could be exercises.
Aside from looking for some kind of travel instrument, you could try mentally rehearsing.
For a large scale composition like a sonata a lot of memory and concentration is required to mentally recall every event for the entire work.
The banjo music you play may not involve the same intensive memory function as a classical sonata so this kind of exercise many not offer much value. But you could try it.
Also, short of banjo specific options, you could try using the travel time for general ear training. There are lots of apps you could try.
Comment: A similar solution: Adam Neely suggest practicing with ones arm. His video talking about this can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr8WSJiECdM
Answer: Ways I've practiced banjo while traveling:

Bring and practice ukulele instead
Bring a travel banjo
Do ear training
Learn music theory
Memorize lyrics
Memorize your fretboard

Bring and practice ukulele instead
Unfortunately, the banjo is a bit ungainly for airline travel.  One option is to practice on a different instrument that travels better, such as the ukulele.  These skills that you learn on the ukulele will benefit you on the banjo:

Physical dexterity with the fretting hand
If you play clawhammer banjo, the ukulele can also be played clawhammer style, so the same right-hand skills will apply
Ukulele strumming patterns work very well for banjo (unless you use fingerpicks), so are useful to add to your skill set.
Practicing scales and melodic improvisation on the top three strings of the ukulele will transfer surprisingly well to the top three strings of the banjo.  The scale patterns aren't the same, which I thought would cause me a lot of confusion when moving back and forth between the two, but in practice does not cause much trouble.

Ukulele also has these benefits for travel:

Ukuleles are relatively quiet, a good quality for practicing in hotel rooms.
Ukuleles are very affordable, a big plus when exposing an instrument to the hazards of travel.  My travel ukulele costs ca. $50, is terribly ugly, has a decent (not great, but playable) action, and OK (not perfect) intonation.

Bring a travel banjo
There are various travel banjos that are lighter and smaller than a normal banjo, and often quite a bit less expensive.  My favorite has been the Fireside Banjo by Backyard Music Instruments, which is about four inches shorter than a normal banjo, about eight pounds lighter, and costs around $150.  Sadly, they are not producing banjos at the moment, but if they resume production, you may wish to consider one.
Note: I am not affiliated with Backyard Music Instruments.
There are other travel banjos.  Some have folding necks.  Many are short scale, or move the tuners to the head, all in the service of making the instrument shorter.
Do ear training
While not banjo practice per se, ear training can be done anywhere, usually with little more than a smart phone or other device that can play audio files.  There are interactive smart phone programs for learning to recognize intervals, chord sequences, etc.  There are also audio programs intended for playback through an audio player (CD, MP3, etc.); these are not interactive, making them suitable for listening to while driving.
Ear training is very helpful for playing with others, where you may need to identify the key, time signature, and chord structure on the fly (these aren't always called out, except for the key, and not always that).  It also helps a lot with melodic improvisation.
Learn music theory
Music theory and ear training kind of go together; learning one will necessarily expose you to aspects of the other.  Music theory can be learned from a book, perhaps on a phone or tablet, making it convenient for travel.  Some music theory exercises can be done in your head (memorizing the circle of fifths, key signatures, etc.), making them useful when you are waiting for something.  And there's plenty of waiting in travel.
Music theory is helpful in many ways.  For example, during a jam, when someone calls out the key, you'll know what other chords are likely to be used, without having to look them up.  That's just one of many, many ways that music theory improves your playing.
Memorize Lyrics
I do this while driving or hiking.  I'll have an audio player looping the song I want to learn, challenging myself to memorize the lyrics.  The best way I've found to do that is to pause before each verse, and see if I can sing that verse from memory.  If I just sing along with each verse, it's too easy to think I know the lyrics when I'm actually just following along.
I've also done this by having a printed copy of the lyrics, or having them on my phone.  Remember, sing, then look at the reference to check.
Memorize your fretboard
Memorize your fretboard, for each tuning that you use.  Learn where each note is on each string.  Name a note (e.g. Db), then see in your mind where that note is on each string.  Imagine the fretboard markers in relation to the notes.  The idea is to know instantly where each note is.  This will stand you in good stead when using closed chord shapes: For example, if you know where Bb is on the 3rd string, you know where you can make a Bb barr chord.

Practice while traveling


Why are aprotic solvents unable to solvate negative ions well?

Question: Why are aprotic solvents unable to solvate negative ions well? I know that the reason is due to the absence of very positive hydrogen atoms, but then why are they able to solvate positive ions well? Shouldn't its ability to solvate both types of ions be the same? I thought there their ability to solvate ions is related to whether they are partially positively or negatively charged, but shouldn't the extent to which they are partially positively or negatively charged be the same as it depends on the relative positions of the electrons?
Comment: if you like the answer, don't forget to select it and thumbs up
Answer: This can be attributed to the lewis acid/base properties of the solute/solvent. Anions (negative ions) and aprotic solvents both function as lewis bases. They 'repel' each other. However, a cation (positive ion) functions as a lewis acid and is 'attracted', resulting in greater dissolution.
How well a compound dissolves in a given solvent depends on a multitude of factors. This includes the two very important ones discusses here, polarity and lewis acid/base character.
Answer: This question is mostly about the historical nature of the terminology. Typically, the polar aprotic solvents (IUPAC discourages the use of this term) have nitrogen, oxygen, or sulfurs present, ALL of which are electronegative. Meaning they attract / stabilize positively charged species. Probably the 'best' explanation is that while the electronegative center interacts with cations, the positively polarized parts of the molecule is more diffuse and so its interaction with anions is much weaker. Things like molten LiCl aren't generally considered solvents (at least as far as organic chemists are concerned) since their melting points are typically "unfriendly" to most organic compounds. Compounds like tetraphenylphosphonium chlorides ARE useful to solvate anions BUT aren't solvents because they typically are dissolved in a carrier solvent; typically they (when pure) aren't  liquids near room temperature. So, the things which would be (and are) used to dissolve anions are less stable, less liquid, and much more expensive (and difficult to work with) than the typical organic solvents. Ph4P Cl is called a phase transfer catalyst, fyi.
Answer: I have no particular data to back this up, but to hazard a guess I would say it's due to more significant Coulomb and/or Pauli repulsion effects arising from the larger, diffuse electron clouds of anions.
Since they're comparatively deficient in electrons, cations are "small": their electron clouds tend to be compact and lie "closer" to the nuclei.  Thus, they can "fit in well enough" among the molecules of the aprotic solvent (viz., the entropic cost of solvation is low enough) that ion/(induced) dipole interactions don't have to be especially strong in order to make the solvation process favorable (exergonic).
On the other hand, anions have an excess of electrons, making them "large": their electron clouds are diffuse and typically extend to a considerably larger radius than a corresponding neutral species. Thus, they "fit poorly" among the aprotic solvent molecules (viz., the entropic cost of solvation is high), and without the strong, enthalpically-favorable protonic interactions you mention in your question the solvation process is overall endergonic.
To illustrate this, below are the electron density curves for the gas-phase isoelectronic species $\ce{Ca^2+}$, $\ce{Ar^0}$, and $\ce{S^2-}$, calculated in ORCA v3.0.3 at the CCSD(T)/ma-def2-QZVPP level of theory. (These data are the same as that generated for this answer.)  Indicated on the chart are the distances from the nuclei of the $\rho = 0.001$ isosurfaces in the electron density:

As can be seen, the $0.001$ isosurface falls 70% farther from the nucleus for $\ce{S^2-}$ than for $\ce{Ca^2+}$. Additionally, whereas the electron density of $\ce{Ca^2+}$ falls to zero (within the precision of the calculations) by about $3.5~\overset{\circ}{\mathrm A}$ from the nucleus, $\ce{S^2-}$ still has an appreciable electron density past $4~\overset{\circ}{\mathrm A}$.
Answer: To understand solvation, the first and best approximation is to look at the definition of the term. The IUPAC says about solvation:
Solvation
Any stabilizing interaction of a solute (or solute moiety) and the solvent or a similar interaction of solvent with groups of an insoluble material (i.e. the ionic groups of an ion-exchange resin). Such interactions generally involve electrostatic forces and van der Waals forces, as well as chemically more specific effects such as hydrogen bond formation.
Just to give an opposite example, water interact with anions mostly by hydrogen bonds. On the other hand, aprotic solvent interacts as well with anions but by a less energetic interaction such as van der Waals. Another angle is by looking at the bond energies. Anions strongly interacts with water and weakly with polar organic solvents.
In fact, aprotic solvents do solvate anions. But, the bond energy of that interaction is too small. e.g. van der Waals interactions (third slide)
To support all statements given here, I recommend the following paper:
Solvation of negative ions by protic and aprotic solvents. Gas-phase solvation of halide ions by acetonitrile and water molecules
R. Yamdagni and P. Kebarle. JACS. 1972, 94(9), 2940. DOI: 10.1021/ja00764a007


Rails /tmp/cache/assets permissions issue using Debian virtual machine hosted on OS X Lion

Question: I am running Parallels Desktop 7 on OS X Lion. I have a VM with Debian installed, and inside that VM I setup a Rails development environment. I am using Parallels Tools to share out my OS X home directory to the VM - the goal here is to run the Rails server on the VM, but host the files on OS X (so they are automatically backed up, and so I can use tools like Textmate to develop with).
Everything seems to work with the shared directory - my Debian user can read, write, and execute files. However, when I cloned a recent Rails project from Git, I got an error message when it tried to compile the CSS assets. My symptoms are exactly the same as in the question: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7556774/rails-sprocket-error-compiling-css-assest-chown-issue
I believe this is permissions-based, but it is really weird. My entire Rails project directory has permissions set to 777 and my Debian user owns it. If I navigate into /tmp/cache/assets, those permissions are the same. However, the three-character directories Rails is creating (DCE, DA1, D05, etc...) are being created without write permissions!
If I refresh the Rails page a few times, about 4 or 5 (with Rails creating new three-character directories every time), eventually it will create one of the directories with the proper 777 permissions and everything will work! This will persist until I make a change to the CSS files and it has to recompile.
Does anyone have any idea what might be going on here? I can't fathom why it is creating temp directories with incorrect permissions, or why after a few refreshes the good permissions kick in and it works...
It definitely seems to be an issue with the share, since if I move the project into a different directory on the VM, it seems to work fine. On the OS X side, I've given the shared folder 777 permissions as well, but no dice...any ideas?
Update
I've found that the number of times I need to refresh before it works is not random - it has to do with how many assets are being compiled. For example, if I edit one of my CSS files, and there are four CSS files in the app/assets/stylesheets directory, I have to refresh four times before the app will finally work without the operation not permitted error...
Answer: I have exactly the same problem as you do. After refreshing the page a few times the "Operation not permitted" is gone, but whenever the Rails app updates its cache, the problem appears again. I haven't met this kind of errors in VMWare (VMWare has another annoying issue in share folders, but that's another story).
Have you managed to solve this?
And, I know it's not an answer, but I really have no other places where I can leave a message.
Comment: I've not yet managed to fix it. I wasted a good amount of time messing around with it when I realized it was easier to just refresh until it loads and be done with it. Glad to see I'm not the only one experiencing it - hopefully someone else will see this and shed some light on the issue!


Why is my washing machine making this sound?

Question: I have uploaded a short video of my washing machine's spin cycle.  It sounds like there is something scraping and the drum isn't moving very fast.  Any ideas as to what this could be?  Would it be worth my time to take the thing apart?
Comment: Does it happen only on the delicate spin cycle, or on any spin cycle?
Comment: What's the make and model of the machine?
Comment: It happens on all the spin cycles.  Just at different speeds.
Answer: Likely a failed transmission (I was going to go with bearing before I heard the video) and likely costs more to fix than getting a new washer (almost certainly costs more to fix than getting a clean, working used washer.) But, if you like to look, look up the "tricks" to getting into your model of washer (the last one I tore down had "places you shoved a putty-knife" that unlatched the cover) - there's usually something non-obvious like that, but the internet has largely circumvented these "trade secrets of the appliance repair trade" if you look hard enough.
It's also helpful to look for "common problems" or just problems and your model number.


Coach throws the ball against the referee

Question: What should the referee do if a coach, during the game, throws the ball such that it hits the referee?
Answer: On the assumption that the ball was thrown deliberately or recklessly, Law 5 means the Referee

takes action against team officials who fail to conduct themselves in a
  responsible manner and may, at his discretion, expel them from the field of
  play and its immediate surrounds

If the ball hit the referee by accident, for example because the coach was attempting to return it to a player and the referee got in the way, then clearly no action should be taken.
Comment: Good answer. How is play restarted if this is done while the ball is in play (ie. a spare ball is thrown)?


Do Engi extinguish fires faster?

Question: Engi are naturally faster at making repairs. Does extinguishing fires count as a repair action?
Comment: To add to that, do you gain experience from extinguishing a fire?
Comment: I added my own answer which includes this part, and the answer seems to be no. Experience helps you put out the fires, but isn't gained from doing so.
Answer: My answer to this question will be Yes, extinguishing fires counts as repairing. My current repair-skill-upgraded Engi extinguishes fire squares in less than a second per square. The only explanation is that fires are treated as repair actions.
Thanks @Winterswift and @Aslum for the additional information
Apparently while extinguishing DOES count as a repair action, and receives benifits from leveling the repair statistic, it does not give experience as if the crew-member actually repaired something.
So:

Manti will extinguish at half speed.
Engi will extinguish twice as fast.
Rocks extinguish at normal speed, but are immune to the fire damage whilst doing so.
Upgrading any crew member's repair stat will improve their extinguishing speed.
Extinguishing fire will not grant repair stat or any other experience.
Comment: From data-mining the game, it's now been learned that Rockmen have an innate +67% bonus to putting out fires that's separate from repair skill, making them almost as good as Engi at extinguishing fires (unless it's time-critical and involves a foot race). Crystals, on the other hand, are actually 17% slower at putting out fires.
Answer: My answer to your question is two-fold: it works on the output end, but not on the experience end. I watched the repair experience meter as my crewmember put out a large fire, and nothing changed. However, it does seem like their effectiveness at extinguishing it relies on that repair skill. In response to your edit, I would assume that yes, classes more suited to repairs are more suited to putting out fires. However, I have no clue if the Rockman attribute of stomping on fires affects this.
Comment: More succinctly, experience aides extinguishing, but is not gained for doing so.

Do Engi extinguish fires faster?


Is it OK to add another author during page proofs?

Question: I am a masters student and recently I got a paper of mine published in a journal.
The paper contains my name and another authors name that helped me with some minor things. I didn't know that this paper was going to be published but after it did I told my professor about it and he said that the paper  could be part of my thesis. The problem is that for that to happen the paper has to only include my name and my professors name. After telling the second author about this he said that he doesn't mind if his name is replaced with my professor's. Can I ask the journal to do this during page proofs or is it too late?
Comment: The elephant in the room here is this unusual requirement that one can only co-author papers with their advisor. It seems to me that it serves only to promote unethical behavior.
Comment: This would be surely unethical if anyone cares about ethics anymore
Comment: "The problem is that for that to happen the paper has to only include my name and my professors name." Does it have to include both of your names, or are you saying that there may be no other author than you and (potentially!)  him? Because in the latter case, a single-author paper with just you should be fine for your dissertation. Assuming it has to be both: You are asking two questions really. 1. Is it OK to omit a contributing author with his consent? Ethics guidelines would generally say no, but this specific case may be borderline OK. 2. Is it OK to add a non-contributing author? No.
Comment: Would it be possible to be completely explicit in your thesis about _which_ contributions were yours and _which_ were those of a co-author? If so, then maybe a paraphrase of some parts of the paper that cites it and attributes to you only the parts that are yours could be in the thesis. But this may depend on rules at your university.
Answer: This would be up to you, your colleague, the professor and the editorial rules of the journal - if you decide to go down that path, read up on the rules or ask the editorial team.
However, @polfosol makes a very important point in his comment, that to do this would potentially be unethical, primarily due to your co-author contributed directly towards the paper, your professor did not (I assume based on your question).  A major consideration is that this publication also adds to your current co-author's research profile, not just yours.
A possible solution to this is to write another paper, building on and citing the research in this published paper.
Another possible solution is for your professor to contribute to reviewing the proofs and having him added as another co-author - once again, if you decide on this, then you must check to see if it is alright with the journal (but this may also be stretching ethics a bit).
Answer: I don't understand why for your paper to be included in your thesis, it should be co-authors only by you and your advisor. I have not heard of any such demands for any PhD thesis, or any thesis, seems unethical. But do not worry, even if you can not include this in your thesis, it is your paper and counts more than a thesis for PhD applications or any application if you want to go to industry, and so on. Regarding the author changes, it may or may not be possible. I know one professor who have changed the name of the authors at the final stage of publication, which lead to a very confusing paper. The journal staff have used the first version of authors for the manuscript when index by ISI web of knowledge. So when searching in databases for this paper the authors list includes the first version of the authors, while in the online version of the paper from the journal web page the authors are listed as the final list of authors. The best option would be to ask the journal editors. However, if you are planning to do this, read carefully the publication ethics of the journal. Also, you can ask for another opinion of another professor at your university. Finally, congratulations for your accepted paper!


Promotional material

Question: I attend several conferences per year, and most of them there are people to whom it would be useful to communicate the existence of math.SE. Does SE produce some kind of promotional material? The one thing I have in mind is something like a nice and attractive poster one could give to organizers to display at some visible place, &c.
Comment: Apropos: weren't there plans for math.SE swag? *That* would have made for nice promotional material...
Comment: @J.M., the difference between that and a poster is that I am not going to carry it to a conference :)
Comment: Actually, since SE *is* backed by a company, I wonder if they'd like to get a vendor's table at the JMM, where  TCS, Stats, and Maths (and perhaps more! Th. Physics perhaps) all are participating.
Comment: @WillieWong, JMM is a pretty big event, but I am thinking of smaller ones, like —say— CIMPA schools, q.v.
Answer: We certainly do! In fact, we sponsor our community users to go to conferences of their professions or interests. We also create swag and moderator cards too.
An example of moderator cards. I'm also thinking about creating generic site cards too(without personal information), so non-mod users can request them and pass them around to their friends and colleagues.
I know we have a post on the Math.se swag design idea, but it doesn't seem to have a clear winner yet.
For conferences, I think it may be a good idea to list all the major upcoming conferences and plan ahead of time. That way, we can send swag directly to the conference location so our users don't have to carry them. Or you can pick ONE big conference and iron out some details. For example, our WordPress community's recent sponsorship proposal.

Promotional material