How Do I Collect UX Requirements for the System in Agile Development Environment?

Question: I am starting working on project planning application, which the client wants to develop using the agile model. I want to understand how can i take the requirements and convert them to the usual UX deliverables. Can someone tell me about Agile UX as it relates to how we adjust/tweak all UX activities to an agile development process? I specifically want to know how we can turn UCD in to an agile process that supports the development activity.
Comment: We don't use Agile.  We have a variant we call Fragile.  It's like Agile, but not as good.
Answer: I would strongly recommend reading this excellent article on smashing magazine on Lean UX,to paraphrase the article:

Lean UX is the practice of bringing the true nature of our work to light faster, with less emphasis on deliverables and greater focus on the actual experience being designed.
  Traditional documents are discarded or, at the very least, stripped down to their bare components, providing the minimum amount of information necessary to get started on implementation. Long detailed design cycles are eschewed in favor of very short, iterative, low-fidelity cycles, with feedback coming from all members of the implementation team early and often. Collaboration with the entire team becomes critical to the success of the product.

From my experience ,here are some of the key aspects which you should be aware of :

Keep the customer in the loop always about changes and design processes
While designing anything ,always remember that since you have a short sprint cycle,you need to be aware of the technical details  of how hard it is to implement.Hence an understanding of the technical constraints or preferably a close collaboration with developers during the initial design phase is very helpful
Keep documentation to a minimum but don't discard it altogether
Constantly keep getting feedback and look for the shortest route to maximum return i.e. if you can implement a solution in a number of ways,look for the simplest way as opposed to the most complex way
Keep your management informed about changes and any new discoveries,I cant stress this enough,so many times you might find that your iterative testing has resulted in a complete turn around in the design process and the lack of communication with your management often puts you in a tight spot
While defining sprint cycles account for external dependencies such
as users not being available for usability testing or key
stakeholders taking vacations or not being there to provide their
views

I'll admit what I said is applicable to any software design life cycle but I felt these were particularly important when looking at incorporating UX into a agile process
Answer: Here's the short answer for understanding agile:

Agile requires constant feedback.
Your designs should reflect the change according to the feedback received.

Follow the above steps in cycles, until there are no changes and you can freeze your work-done and proceed with another scenario.
Everything else is just an add-on.
If you can keep up with these two rules, you sure have arrived at being agile.
Comment: You didn't explain how UX requirements fit into that system.
Comment: Wouldn't they fit into that system the same way any other requirement fits into it?


What are the rules for using diminished chords in part writing?

Question: If I use diminished chords such as ii diminished chord from the minor scale then do I according to the rules for proper part writing use the first inversion of ii diminished. What is the reasoning  behind that? Is it because there is no diminished fifth between the bass and any of the upper voices? But there is a diminished fifth between the the fifth and the root. How come the diminished fifth between the fifth and the root is ignored?
Comment: Now that I have answered your question, on re-reading it, I realize I only answered the question for ii-dim, not for other diminished triads.  vii-dim serves an entirely different function, though the reasoning behind first-inversion triads is similar.
Comment: You might find it interesting to take any tritone (aug 4th/dim 5th) and resolve both notes either inwards or outwards, to either a major 3rd or minor 6th.  You can see that the tritone pushes towards either resolution.  This is the main vector that causes a diminished chord to "want" to resolve to a stable triad.  Have a look also at the tritone in a dominant 7th chord, and you'll see that it resolves to a major 3rd.
Answer: In common-practice part-writing, the notes of a diminished fifth are tendency tones.  That means that the notes tend to go somewhere specific in the next chord.  A rule of part-writing is not to double tendency tones.  The reasoning is that doing so means that the doubled notes would have to resolve the same way, thereby creating parallel octaves (or unisons, rarely).
Also, in most chords, we double either the chord root or the bass note.  Since the chord root of ii-diminished is a tendency tone, we must double the bass, which cannot be a tendency tone.  The only non-tendency-tone in the ii-diminished triad is its third, so the chord will be in first inversion with a doubled bass.
Further, the most likely destination of this chord is the dominant, then likely the tonic for (perhaps) an authentic cadence.  The third of ii-diminished, which is scale degree 4, can go to the root of V naturally in this circumstance.  The motion from scale degree 2 to 3 could not fulfill this tendency (and, in fact, we do not immediately resolve it because scale degree 3 is not in the V chord).  Putting scale degree 6 in the bass would mean that the ii-diminished triad is in second inversion, which is unstylistic.
Keep in mind that you may more often use ii-half-diminished-7 as your pre-dominant chord in minor.  Of course, iv also works.
I would be happy to clarify if needed.  Two seconds of Googling did not yield a satisfactory definition of tendency tones, else I would link to one.
Comment: To expand on Andrew's answer: aurally a fully-diminished chord *may* function as a **secondary leading tone chord**. Doubling the root would therefore be doubling the leading tone, which is a big fat no-no. It is always best to put a dim7 in first inversion and double the third of the chord since that tone is also the 5th of the V chord; which sets up a nice suspension for a V6/4 before a cadence. To Andrew: Bach heavily employs iim7b5 chords as predominants in both minor *and* major, so both are equally acceptable. Tangentially, a iim7b5 6/4 is a great way to modulate by chromatic mediant.
Comment: @jjmusicnotes A leading tone is, of course, a special case of a tendency tone.  I did not address fully-diminished seventh chords, which you probably know have no fewer than eight resolutions and could appear in any inversion.  ii-half-dim-7 is, as you mention, sometimes employed as a form of mode mixture.  You know, sooner or later, we're going to have an entire undergraduate theory curriculum on here...
Comment: @Andrew - we're getting pretty close, haha. Since you covered half-dim chords in your answer I thought I'd expand so you wouldn't have to bother. To Chris O. - spell out the chords and work them out! For **chromatic mediants** - look it up! I do not like to give fish...
Comment: @jjmusicnotes - please elaborate upon the following quote from you: "which sets up a nice suspension for a V6/4 before a cadence."
Comment: also what do you mean modulate by CHROMATIC mediant
Comment: @jjmusicnotes- may i have a try if you don't mind. .. For instance, the ii m7b5 6/4 in the key of A minor (2nd inversion of Bm7b5) would be spelled as F A B D. It would resolve to the second inversion of Cmaj which is  G C E. The movement from A to C is a mediant (but then i am making a wrong interpretation, as it does not result in a key change and thus not a modulation. .. besides, the movement between A to C seems to be diatonic mediant rather than chromatic.) Or perhaps i should choose examples like G#m7b5 6/4 resolving to A6/4 where F# from the former "moves" to A in the latter?
Comment: Apologies for my ignorance....


Can quantum algorithms solve the approximate GCD hard problem efficiently?

Question: Some cryptographic schemes are based on the hardness of this problem. The answer to this question determines if those schemes are quantum resistant or not. There are a number similar questions but they consider the classic security not the quantum security.
Thank you
Answer: In the $(\gamma, \eta, \rho)$-AGCD problem, all the samples are of the form
$$x_i := pq_i + r_i$$
for $q_i$ uniform from $[0, 2^\gamma / p [ ~ \cap \mathbb Z$;
$r_i$ uniform from $]-2^\rho, 2^\rho [ ~ \cap \mathbb Z$;
and $p$ a fixed random prime of $\eta$ bits.
This problem is believed to be quantum secure. See, for instance, this paper published in PKC 2017.
Moreover, a variant of the AGCD problem in which the noise term is sampled from a continuous Gaussian distribution, then it is rounded to integer (instead of being uniform in the integer interval from $-2^\rho$ to $2^\rho$) was proven to be basically equivalent to the LWE (see this paper published in EUROCRYPT 2015), and LWE is also believed to be quatum secure.
However, you have to be careful with other variants of the AGCD problem that are commonly used. For example, the "first is noiseless" variant (known by noise-free AGCD), in which $x_0 := pq_0$, that is, a multiple of $p$ without noise, is used in several papers and is obviously not quantum secure, as one can quantumly factor $x_0$.


Is there a home remedy for a dog with a stomach flu?

Question: My dog has had diarrhea for two days. :( Is there anything I can give him to settle his stomach? He's not eating or drinking much. He was hiding all day yesterday and lying around, which is out of character for him, so I think he feels pretty bad. I just put him in his crate since he was making a mess, too. Someone once told me pedialyte can be given to dogs if they get dehydrated, so does anyone know about this too?
Answer: So... First, I think you need to call a vet, as soon as possible. Two days is a long time, his health is at risk as a result of fluid losses.  Your dog is lethargic, from your description, so rubbing some honey on his gums can help a bit, but you really are at the "get to a vet" stage if this is the case.
Now, diarrhea isn't all that uncommon and is often caused by the dog eating something it shouldn't as opposed to an illness. In those cases, there are some home remedies:

Food break. Take the dog off food for up to a day and that can allow the stomach to settle and heal.
Keep lots of water around, dehydration is a huge issue with diarrhea. Yes, you can use pedialyte to help with the rehydration, go about 50/50 with the water.
Pepto-Bismol or Kaopectate can help, but call a vet for dosage recommendations.

Now, if the dog is showing one or more of these signs it is critical to get him to a vet:

Black tar-like or extremely foul stools
Blood in the stool
Vomiting
Pain when defecating
Fever
Lethargy or obvious signs of disinterest
Not eating
Comment: Thanks! He's much better today. He didn't have lethargy. He was very grumpy, mostly because he has long hair...and doesn't really like baths... He wouldn't drink the Pedialyte but maybe he's just picky. I skipped the food today. I think I'll call the vet though anyway. He used to take fish oil for stomach troubles a few years ago.


Travelling outside the USA while close to the end of STEM Optional Practical Training (OPT)

Question: I have a friend who is in a STEM OPT. His OPT is ending on 15 June, 2018. He is travelling outside the USA on 21 April, 2018 and coming back on 15 May, 2018. Will there be any issue at immigration while he comes back to the USA, since he is just left with one month of his OPT?
Comment: He is in F1 visa. He is having multiple entries. His visa is expiring in 2019. But, his STEM OPT is expiring on 15 June 2018. He is planning to return back on May 15 2018.
Comment: Does his visa say he can have multiple entries?
Answer: (Note: I posted this same answer on travel.stackexchange.com but the question was closed there.)
Here is an F-1 travel FAQ from Homeland Security which mentions:

If USCIS has approved your OPT you will be expected to have your EAD in hand to re-enter the United States, in addition to your Form I-20, valid passport and visa, and a letter of employment if you have one. If you exceed the limits on unemployment while outside the United States, you will not be eligible to re-enter the United States in F-1 status.

If you have all of these things including proof of a job in the US, you should be able to re-enter for the purpose of finishing the job before your OPT ends. If you don't have a job in the US, you might have a harder time explaining your purpose of entry.
Before traveling during OPT, it's always a good idea to check with your Designated School Official to make sure your I-20, SEVIS record, OPT reporting and STEM OPT reporting requirements are all in order.


What happens if we forgot to write meta tags?

Question: If we forgot to write meta tags, especially meta title and meta description, how will search engines crawl and index?
Comment: There is no such thing as a "meta title".   The `` tag is not a meta tag.  The contents of the tag show up to users in the browser tab and window border.  Did you mean "page title" or something else like "meta keywords?"
Answer: There are too many meta tags available for different usages, but Google understand or you can say use only few.
When Googlebot can't find meta title and meta description in your page then they issue warning to your webmaster/search console tool.  But to make proper index of your pages in search results, they will use heading(like h1,h2,h3) as title for their snippet, and any text paragraph for description.
Answer: Google will index web pages that don't have any page titles or meta tags.   However, your site will usually perform better in search engines if you add them.

The title tag should describe the page in 3 to 12 words.   It should use the main keywords for which you want the page to rank.   It should end with your brand name.  eg

Blue Widgets for Sale - Bob's Emporium

Google indexes the words in the title and assigns a lot of ranking weight to those words.  The title shows up in the search results, so it is also very visible to users.
If the page title isn't present, Google will use something else from the page in the search results.  Possibly a heading and your brand name from your home page.
The meta description should be a full sentence and should include a call to action.  eg.

Low prices on blue widgets, sustainable sourced from around the globe, buy yours today.

Google doesn't index the words in the meta description, but it does show as much of it as fits in the search results when it contains the search phrase.
Google only shows the meta description to some users, so it isn't nearly as important for SEO as the page title.   However, when Google does show it, it can be a powerful tool to describe your page in a way that interests users and convinces them to click from the search results to your site.

If you forgot to include page titles and meta descriptions when you launched your site, they can be retrofitted at any time.  You will get the SEO benefit of having them soon after adding them.   There is no penalty for not having them earlier.
Google's John Mueller says:

Good titles & descriptions are some of the easiest wins you can get on webpages. We did a round of site-reviews for some NPOs recently, and the number one item that came up for almost all of them was that what they cared about wasn't front & center on their pages, and reflected in their meta-data. How are search engines supposed to guess what you want your pages to rank for?


How do I print Google Calendar to show full range of hours?

Question: When I try to print my weekly Google Calendar, it shows roughly 6 am - 3 pm.  I need it to print at least through 5 pm and maybe longer.  Any suggestions on how to adjust the range that prints?
Answer: Google uses some sort of auto logic to determine the display time window. This is not customization directly in Google Calendar. Here are two work-arounds/alternatives:

Put in a 'dummy' appointment(s) to dictate the printable time line. Example: If you want 8am to 6pm, put a dummy apt at 8am and one ending at 6pm to get Google to print this time window.
Use an App.  If on Windows an app called wincalendar converts Google Calendar to Microsoft Word/Excel format. Unlike Google Calendar, it supports a user-selected start/end time window.
Answer: Go to labs under the setting menu to the far right and activate the hide/show mornings and nights. Then define the day. If you drag the bar to 6 a.m., 12-6 a.m. will consolidate, and if you drag the end-of-the-day bar to 6 p.m., 6-12 will consolidate.
Answer: If you are using a Mac, you can sync your Google Calendar with iCal and print from there. It keeps everything on one page! I haven't used a Windows computer in a while, but I believe that Outlook Calendar can do it too...
Answer: Take a screen shot of the hours/events you want to see and paste into Word, then print.  Not elegant but it works.


Why, precisely, is argon used in neutrino experiments?

Question: Why is argon used in neutrino detectors?  Other than liquid argon being denser than water or oil, what are its advantages?
Comment: Note: the new SNO+ experiment is using a linear alkyl benzene scintillator, which has a lower energy threshold for detectable neutrino interactions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNO%2B
Answer: There are many different types of neutrino detectors, using various techniques to turn a neutrino interaction into an electrical signal. Detectors that use a large quantity of water or oil, like Super-Kamiokande in Japan and MiniBooNE at Fermilab, are Cherenkov detectors. Their basic principle of operation is as follows: when neutrinos pass through the liquid and interact with it, they produce leptons that are energetic enough to move faster than the speed of light in the medium. When this happens, the leptons emit a cone of Cherenkov radiation, which is detected by photomultiplier tubes surrounding the medium; later, the intensity and relative timing of the light pulses are transformed into a reconstruction of the track of the charged lepton.
The neutrino detectors using liquid argon are called Liquid Argon Time Projection Chambers, or LArTPCs, and work in a different way. These detectors consist of a large volume of liquid argon, with a grid of high-voltage bare wires passing through the liquid and a set of scintillators and photomultiplier tubes surrounding the liquid. When a neutrino interacts with an argon atom, it, as before, creates a high-energy charged lepton. This charged lepton ionizes other argon atoms as it passes through the liquid, leaving a trail of free electrons and argon ions in its wake. The electrons are drawn into the wires by the strong electric field and register as a pulse of current in a particular wire. Since liquid argon's electronegativity is so low, it's essentially transparent to these slower-moving electrons. A free electron typically hits the wire that it's closest to, and the further away it is from the wire grid, the longer it takes to hit it. So by analyzing which wires received current pulses as a function of time, it is possible to reconstruct the track of the charged lepton. This is not possible with water- or oil-based detectors because both are too electronegative - the free electrons will react with the medium before reaching the wire.
The high-energy charged particle also causes the argon itself to act as a scintillator in the far ultraviolet (with a wavelength of around 128 nm). The argon is essentially transparent to the scintillation light, so it's received by the scintillators on the walls, which convert the ultraviolet radiation to visible light, which the photomultiplier tubes are far more efficient at amplifying. This extra information can also be used for reconstruction of the hgih-energy charged lepton track. Liquid argon can also be used as a Cherenkov detector, since it has a similar refractive index as water (1.24 versus water's 1.33); it's this triple redundancy in the signal which has made liquid argon TPCs so appealing.
There are several other advantages to using liquid argon as opposed to water or oil. Liquid argon is, as you remarked, denser than either water or oil, which leads to a higher interaction frequency for the same incident neutrino intensity, which speeds up the data-taking rate (given that neutrino experiments have a very slow data-taking rate, this is the main bottleneck that determines how long an experiment must be run to collect a statistically-useful dataset). Argon is also a noble element, which means that it doesn't tend to interact with either impurities or the container it's stored in, so it's also somewhat easier to purify and keep clean, reducing the background that analyses have to account for and making it easier to see a signal.
Given that all of the above advantages also apply to the heavier noble gases such as krypton and xenon, you may be wondering why argon is used instead of those. The answer is simple: argon is much cheaper than the heavier noble gases, which allows you to build a bigger detector for the same budget.
Comment: *"argon is much cheaper than the heavier noble gases"* Yep. The nitrogen liquifying industry has to deal with non-trivial quantities of the stuff as a byproduct. They *love* to find someplace to sell it. And because the welding industry also uses it they have sufficient incentive to capture and keep it.
Answer: I think we're getting confused. Using Chlorine to trigger transitions to Argon is a way of detecting neutrinos are present.
Using a volume of liquid Noble element to detect the passage of charged particles is a technique of calorimetry. In my old experiment (NA48) we used a liquid Krypton calorimeter.

A denser medium gives more ionisation per unit length (hence greater resolution).
Electrons liberated by ionisation are able to drift long distances in a noble element (this is how we detect the ionisation).

So hundreds of litres of liquid Kr provides a very dense medium that is good for tracking ionising particles.
However, liquid krypton is expensive - six times more expensive than single malt whisky. Luckily, we had a Russian team on our collaboration. In the 90s, the Russians had no money, but they did have plenty of raw materials, so they supplied the LKr (it's a by-product of producing liquid O2 for the steel industry).
Comment: Liquid nobel gas TPCs use the stuff for the neutrino interaction medium, the ionization and transport medium and the scintillating medium (for establishing event timing in detectors where the drift time far exceeds the coarsest beam structure).
Answer: There is a very specific reaction between a chlorine nucleus and a neutrino which produces an argon nucleus.  By detecting the production of argon in a very large volume of chlorine, the presence of a neutrino can be deduced. This means that an extremely sensitive neutrino detector can be designed around a great volume of chlorine which is periodically swept through an argon detector.
Comment: @PM2Ring Ok, but do you have another example of this design being used in any modern context, i.e. not in a detector that's at this point 60 years old (I couldn't find another one on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_neutrino_experiments)? Given that the OP is asking about the use of _liquid_ argon in neutrino _experiments_ (plural), I'm fairly certain this isn't particularly relevant.
Comment: Is this design actually used in current neutrino detectors? I don't seem to recall any at the moment that use extremely large volumes of chlorine - in fact, most of them that I can think of (IceCube notwithstanding) use extremely large volumes of _argon_ (or xenon) surrounded by scintillators and photomultipliers, which is exactly backwards from what you have written here.
Comment: @probably See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestake_experiment "Upon interaction with an electron neutrino, a chlorine-37 atom transforms into a radioactive isotope of argon-37".
Comment: one of the original neutrino detectors used a gigantic vat of dry cleaning fluid (rich in chlorine) deep underground, which would be swept at regular intervals to look for argon.
Comment: I went with argon and did not *specifically*  consider liquid argon. eager to hear inputs from experts on this. -NN
Comment: @probably No, I don't know of other neutrino detectors using that reaction. [DUNE](http://www.dunescience.org/neutrino-detectors/) uses liquid + gaseous argon in their detector. I've only just skimmed that page, so I don't yet know how it works.
Comment: FWIW, the Ar-37 produced in the reaction used by the Homestake experiment has a half life of 5 weeks, decaying back to Cl-37 by electron capture. That makes the argon easy to detect... if you catch it before it decays. ;)
Comment: [This article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_projection_chamber) describes the liquid argon based detector. It's basically a bubble chamber with electric fields. I'm not clear how neutrinos trigger ionization in this detector.


Volvo S40 Starts but won't stay running more than minute. P0339 code

Question: I have a 2004 Volvo S40 that when starts it'll stall.  It'll run for a minute or less before acting like it's starved for air.  Get the codes P0339 which is a crank position sensor.  I have replaced it and I still get the same result.  I've charged the battery also.  The codes read 1st P0339 and a 2nd code that is P0339 with a pd looking symbol next to it.  I've verified the connections on the connector also.
Answer: Possible Causes of P0339 Code: Crankshaft Position Sensor 'A' Circuit Intermittent
Highlighted items are ruled out as already addressed.
Faulty crankshaft position sensor- replaced
Crankshaft position sensor harness is open or shorted-checked
Crankshaft position sensor circuit ?
Poor electrical connection ?
Signal plate may be damaged ?
Starter motor may be faulty ?
Starting system circuit ?
Dead or weak battery-recharged
Symptoms: Check engine light activation, loss of power, engine stalls
Try  replacing battery. This might resolve the problem as a weak battery could trigger this code. Maybe starter issue.
This may not give a definitive answer but gives avenues to check next.


How to avoid adding concepts to our thinking

Question: This question is mere practical: how a practitioner avoids that his mind wanders away into stories and dramas. There are moments that "noting" does not help.
Comment: related question: [Overwhelming thoughts - Mindfulness and awareness](http://buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/6028/overwhelming-thoughts-mindfulness-and-awareness)
Comment: Hmm, I don't see any relation between the question of *adding concepts (to thinking)* and that concerning *wandering thoughts while meditating*. Could you explain a bit more what the focus of your question actually is?
Answer: The short answer is: by not adding concepts to the thinking, by not feeding it.

There are moments that "noting" does not help.

Sometimes the mind is more quiet, sometimes it is more uneasy. Don't expect that in meditation you will always progress, or that the progress will be steady. Don't create the expectation that the mind will always settle when meditating, because it can be unsatisfying. Don't fight your mind and don't force it to calm down, it can be frustrating.
Instead, when you notice your mind is wandering, bring your awareness back to the object of meditation. The practice of meditation is not to stop adding concepts to the thinking actively, or to learn to interrupt the process of thought. But it is more like weakening the impulse and momentum of thought. Thinking will never completely cease as it inherent to the human being. But with practice you get less overwhelmed and blinded by it, thinking becomes subtle and calm. Then, don't be anxious about being peaceful or settling the mind, because this anxiety defeats the purpose of meditation, it just would feed the eager to think.
You can also practice to perceive the thoughts in a distanced manner. When someone is wandering on the thoughts, it is like he/she is immersed on them, being carried away by them. Then instead of being in the flow of the thinking, try to watch the thinking from outside. Be aware of the process of thought, perceive how it moves and watch it go away by itself. Instead of trying to block the chain of thoughts, something that is usually ineffective, try to stop feeding it and let it go.
There is also shamata, a practice to improve the stability of awareness. Begin by keeping the focus on the breath as long as you can. It seems that shamata is commonly disregarded for its simplicity, but it is very important. How can you meditate on something if you your awareness isn't stable? If you are really into it, I suggest you to read the book "The Attention Revolution: Unlocking the Power of the Focused Mind" by Alan Wallace.
And last, vipassana can be helpful to perceive that it makes no sense to "feed the trains of thought". From one side, thinking usually tries to fight the impermanent and unfulfilling marks of existence, and asserts the identity (the concept of self). From other side, thinking itself is impermanent (it is mostly random in the long run), is unfulfilling (its desires and aversions are never completely met) and have no self (it is not absolute, nor apart from everything else). Although thought is produced, you don't need to get overwhelmed and blinded by it, you don't have to be driven by it.
EDIT:
Adding some more explanation on second paragraph after the quote, regarding interrupting the thought or stopping adding concepts to it.
And adding a bit more info to shamata and vipassana part.
Answer: What you have to do is the following:

Realise the mind has wondered away
Have a look at the object which it has wondered away to and the sensation it creates (if thoughts around the head)
Look at how you perceive this and the metal reaction that follows (if thoughts around the head)
These sensations trigger more thoughts and reactions in quick succession which in tern creates more sensations
Bring back your mind to your object of meditation
Comment: When you say "if thoughts around the head", do you mean, getting carried away by thoughts / daydreams?
Answer: Previous posters have provided some solid recommendations.  To them, I'd add the role of philosophy.
Our mind wanders to things to which we are attached; concepts, ideas, worries and so on.  This means if we work on adopting a philosophy of life designed to reduce these attachments, we should reduce the mind's tendency to wander.
You've heard of the saying "All Roads Lead to Rome"?  Well, we can paraphrase that to "All Attachments Lead to Self".  So work on the Self, and you work on the key player in your attachments.
This is where the path comes in.  Things like unconditional compassion, right speech and renunciation can help free the mind from the various scenarios that play out.  For instance, daydreaming about getting even or telling someone off is often done as a dry run for possible courses of action should those situations arise.  Yet if (a priori) I have discounted those possibilities by truly committing to right speech, how likely are they to arise, or to persist should they arise?
Comment: I like your paragraph 4: seeing the pointlessness of daydreaming about things we know we won't do. Paragraph 2: reducing attachment - this might be tough to do face-on, thus your advice to undermine attachments instead of trying to just stop them cold. Interesting to bring Philosophy in to a question of how to avoid adding concepts to thinking! I guess if it simplifies.
Answer: In the Vitakkasanthana Sutta several different ways are presented by the wise one, the first one (also recommended by Thich Nhat Hanh) is sometimes called "Changing the peg":

Here, bhikkhus, when a bhikkhu is giving attention to some sign, and owing to that sign there arise in him evil unwholesome thoughts connected with desire, with hate, and with delusion, then he should give attention to some other sign connected with what is wholesome. When he gives attention to some other sign connected with what is wholesome, then any evil unwholesome thoughts connected with desire, with hate, and with delusion are abandoned in him and subside. With the abandoning of them his mind becomes steadied internally, quieted, brought to singleness, and concentrated. Just as a skilled carpenter or his apprentice might knock out, remove, and extract a coarse peg by means of a fine one, so too … when a bhikkhu gives attention to some other sign connected with what is wholesome … his mind becomes steadied internally, quieted, brought to singleness, and concentrated.

© Bhikkhu Bodhi, The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha (Wisdom Publications, 2009)
Hope this helps you and others
Answer: Trying to find a good link to what is commonly rendered as The Four Mindful Establishments
There are details in the Sattipathana Sutra as well as in other sources.  Here is a useful passage from a pdf found via search:

This is the one-way path for the purification of beings, for the
  surmounting of sorrow and lamentations, for the passing away of pain
  and dejection, for the attainment of the true way, for the realization of
  Nibbana - namely, the four establishments of mindfulness.
  What are the four?
A person dwells contemplating the body in the body,
  ardent, clearly comprehending, and mindful, having subdued longing
  and dejection in regard to the world.
He or she dwells contemplating
  feelings in feelings, ardent, clearly comprehending, mindful, having
  subdued longing and dejection in regard to the world.
He or she dwells contemplating mind in mind, ardent, clearly comprehending, mindful, having subdued longing and dejection in regard to the world.
He or she dwells contemplating phenomena in phenomena, ardent, clearly
  comprehending, mindful, having subdued longing and dejection in
  regard to the world.

Keeping our practice from straying into the imaginal/conceptual is vital.
Thus, training ourselves to be present with and aware of our bodily sensations is really wonderful.
On top of that, the senses of touch, smell, taste, sight, and sound are all non-conceptual information, and concentrating on perceiving any one of those is a very skillful practice.
Answer: This question is mere practical: how a practitioner avoids that his mind wanders away into stories and dramas. There are moments that "noting" does not help.
I use discipline to not continue on with a story.I can't help my mind from wandering but as soon as i note it i find that i can use discipline to stay anchored in the present moment.Also if i really can't stop,i just bring mindfulness to experience whatever i am experiencing.Mindfulness has this, forgive me for saying this,this annoying sobering up quality that can snap you of anything.


2001 2nd gen Ram 1500 steering is really loose and tightens up under braking

Question: I have a 2001 Dodge Ram 1500 and the steering is really loose. I can turn the steering wheel almost half the way around before it actually starts to turn. And when I step on the brakes the steering tightens right up and feels like the power steering went. If someone can help me figure out what's going on that'd be awesome!
Answer: It sounds like you have a serious problem somewhere in your front suspension. Normally the steering is very loose because you have one or more worn out suspension components, that move out of place under the load of braking and make steering very difficult. Your power steering is probably fine, but the dislocation of the components make steering mechanically difficult. It is impossible to say which exact component causes this behavior, but i'd suggest to see a qualified mechanic right away and not to drive around with this as it sounds very unsafe te me.


Organic battery?

Question: Similar to the Matrix movie where humans were used as a source of electricity but different by using electric eels. Farmed like tuna what would be the electricity exchange to the food they eat?
Answer: I don't have the math at hand for the actually energy efficiency, but let's just start from the storage capacity.
Basically, an electric eel wouldn't make a very good battery. They could be a decent, albeit fairly inefficient capacitor, but they actually store little energy. Using data from Wikipedia on Electric Eels it works out to something less than 2 joules (less than 1kilowatt over 2 ms), whereas an AA battery is around 12000 joules.
You're going to need a very, very big tank to store any appreciable amount of energy, before you even worry about how much food it will take you, let alone the animal welfare concerns with forcefully discharging a tank of eels at your whim.
Comment: @Muze How you farm them doesn't change the basic math that you will need 6000 of them to equal a single AA battery. (and by the way, tuna is probably not the best example for farming - it is quite difficult to farm tuna and only recently achieved) I think it's off-topic to discuss here the sustainability of AA battery production but I am confident I can get one from the local supermarket for less cost than you will ever be able to feed and house 6000 fish.
Comment: What if they where grown like farmed tuna?
Comment: (side note: this could make an excellent question for Randall Munroe at [XKCD's What If](https://what-if.xkcd.com/) if you phrased it in the form of "how much would I have to feed a tank of electric eels sufficient to power the world's energy grid")

Organic battery?


Send Email onclick of button in Salescloud Automatically through SFMC

Question: I have a requirement where i need to send an email through onclick of "SendEmail" button in Account object.Where Emails are from SFMC email templates. Any help is much appreciated
Comment: Hello. Could you tell more details? Is this custom fuctionality?
Comment: Yes I had created a custom button Send email  in Account onclick of the button i should send email for the contact related account with SFMC template
Answer: Swetha, The first pre-requisite for making this possible is a fully configured Marketing Cloud Connector setup. If you have done that, then I have a simpler solution than setting up a new button.
You are allowed to send individual emails directly from Sales Cloud using the Integration, you can refer to the Individual sends documentation for more details. If you're unable to find this option, you might need to edit the page layout and add the relevant section on Accounts.
Let me know if this helps.


Remove seconds in time picker

Question: How do I remove or hide seconds in the Drupal 8 time picker?
Comment: You can use [datetimehideseconds](https://www.drupal.org/project/datetimehideseconds)
Comment: I recommend tracking the core issue [Allow configurable date attributes to collect](https://www.drupal.org/project/drupal/issues/2699895).
Answer:
I removed the seconds from the daterange widget by setting the step attribute in hook_field_widget_WIDGET_TYPE_form_alter() to 60 (seconds)
function my_module_field_widget_time_range_form_alter(&$element, FormStateInterface $form_state, $context) {
  $element['value']['#attributes']['step'] = 60;
  $element['end_value']['#attributes']['step'] = 60;
}

Comment: This is easiest approach. For a standard datetime field you only need  `function MY_MODULE_field_widget_datetime_default_form_alter(&$element, FormStateInterface $form_state, $context) {
  $element['value']['#attributes']['step'] = 60;
}`
Comment: Actually this doesn't work properly if it is a datetime field.
Answer: I accomplished this by doing what is recommended in this article.
If your module is glue.module, do this:
/**
 * Implements hook_element_info_alter().
 */
function glue_element_info_alter(array &$types) {
  $types['datetime']['#process'][] = 'glue_datetime_set_format';
}

/**
 * Element process callback for datetime fields.
 */
function glue_datetime_set_format($element) {
  // Remove seconds in browsers that support HTML5 type=date.
  $element['time']['#attributes']['step'] = 60;
  return $element;
}

Comment: This worked for me - thank you, @carsonw!
Answer: The widgets for timestamps, datetime, and daterange fields is the HTML5 input elements.  For time, the format for these has to be 'H:i:s', which includes the seconds.  The form element also defaults to using the HTML5 inputs, too, in custom uses.
For fields, you would need to form alter the widget to change the 'date_time_element' key 'text' fields and update the '#date_time_format' key to the format you want.  Then, you may need to update the submitted value to set the seconds to 00, since I believe they will default to the current value of the seconds.
For form elements, just use a 'text' element for '#date_time_element' and pick a format that you want.
Comment: thanks for the answer - I would really like to keep the timepicker, and if I alter the form element to text I lose that. Anyway to override the JS to exclude the seconds?
I've tried implementing this patch: https://www.drupal.org/node/1838234, but as far as I can tell I am still stuck with seconds and am unable to alter the jquery timepicker to use different formats.
Comment: @Morten Since the browser itself is doing that, there isn't a portable way.  I haven't looked at that patch in a while (I wrote one of the iterations of it), but you should be able to take that approach and put it in your own module or theme and set the format as you wish.  But remember that patch currently is a polyfill, so it won't be used unless you are on a non HTML5-input aware browser.  So, even with the patch you will still see the browser timepicker on Chrome, Edge, and a few others.  You will have to do the form-alter + edit the patch a bit.
Comment: thanks a lot for all your help.
I finally managed to make it work.
Steps:

1. Apply the patch from https://www.drupal.org/node/1838234 .

2. Form alter to change default values and default format.

3. Custom jquery to override the timepicker.

4. Custom value callback to change the date back before submitting to Drupal.

This page helped a lot too: https://www.previousnext.com.au/blog/making-drupal-8-datetime-widgets-use-human-formats
Answer: For form fields set the step attribute to 0.
function THEME_preprocess_input(&$variables) {
  if ($variables['theme_hook_original'] == 'input__date' && $variables['attributes']['type'] == 'time') {
        $variables['attributes']['step'] = 0;
    }
}

Comment: did not notice any change to my time fields with this
Comment: This disabled the seconds input, graying it out and preventing changes.

Chrome 114, Drupal 10

Remove seconds in time picker


What GM-less RPGs exist and are the mechanics adaptable to other systems?

Question: I'm constantly looking for new systems to either steal from or at least try out for a one-shot. What systems are currently available that feature GM-less mechanics? Further, do any of these systems provide advice for adopting their mechanics to other systems (or are just easy to adapt because of the nature of the mechanics)?
Comment: Related: [Do solo, non-computer, RPG's exist, and if yes, which are good?](http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/792/do-solo-non-computer-rpgs-exist-and-if-yes-which-are-good)
Comment: As this is a [tag:game-recommendation] question, please adhere to both the [FAQ] and the rules for subjective questions as outlined in [Good Subjective, Bad Subjective](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/09/good-subjective-bad-subjective/) and on [our Meta](http://meta.rpg.stackexchange.com/a/1071/760).  In particular, all responses should be based on actual experience and contain references and examples whenever possible.
Answer: Universalis gives everyone pennies to "pay" to make a thing true. The points replenish by doing things the system wants to encourage, such as getting involved in conflicts, win and lose. This basic dynamic can be adapted in a variety of ways.
Fiasco has a fixed number of dice available to roll. They serve as a pacing mechanic, with the story twist happening when they're half used, and when they're all used the game session ends.
Polaris splits GM authority among all the other players when a player's character is in the spotlight. The player opposite is responsible for presenting conflicts tailored to the spotlight player, while the rest are responsible for the impartial referee role, and for throwing in suggestions when the opposition and spotlight players need ideas.
Polaris also uses ritual phrases to negotiate conflicts, with certain phrases only being able to follow other certain phrases. The thematic effect is to give the game a stately, mythic quality. The mechanical effect is that each phrase presents the other player with a constrained set of choices for how to resolve the conflict, but importantly the constraints are built upon their prior choices, giving them high relevance to the player's goals and charging their choices with character-tailored drama.
Archipelago II (which is free to download) dispenses with dice and uses ritual phrases (similarly but differently to Polaris) to trigger twists or alterations in another player's narration. These phrases have "soft" effects that require a response from the narrating player, but don't force them to narrate something particular, so that they retain full authority over the story they're telling about their character. Ritual phrases are fixed words to speak and have defined effects: things like calling for more detail about something, asking for the player to narrate an unspecified obstacle and how they overcome it, or asking them to narrate in a different direction.
Although many of these shared-authority mechanics could be adapted to use in a GMed game, it occurred to me that the easiest way to use such mechanics would be to structure plot-specific sub-systems or minigames:
Fiasco's limited-dice mechanic could be used to structure a tournament, with one opposed roll for each match determining the specific outcome of the match, and the total sum of a player's rolls determining who wins the whole tourney. That would make match and overall tourney winning slightly decoupled: the effect would be that the player whose character rolled consistently well, even if they didn't win quite as many matches as another, could have the highest total and so "win the king's favour" and be declared the tournament winner; or there could be a by-the-matches winner and a "Best of Tourney" award to two different characters.
Similarly, using ritual phrases might be a way to structure, say, a minigame where two character have to make their case before a town's judge. The interconnections of the ritual phrases would make their arguments tactically-meaningful, and could either be the entire resolution mechanic or provide a way of vying for a bonus to the next roll to convince the judge that their side is right.
Comment: having mentioned Polaris, I'd add: take a look at Bliss Stage, by the same designer.  It's not *quite* as GMless as Polaris - one player plays an older, in-charge 'mission briefing' character who can set the mission objectives - but it's very group-narrative based, and has several mechanics easily used for a GMless game.  In particular, it has player-controlled NPC relationships, player-designed antagonists, and while the missions are 'GM' designed, players can alter objectives on the fly, and final plot resolution is always player-controlled.
Answer: Mythic RPG is a stand-alone RPG powered by the Mythic GM Emulator, which is the generic GM "replacement" system.  It works very well and a lot of good stuff can be found in the Mythic Yahoo Group or in the RPG.net threads.
Using the Mythic GM Emulator you can run just about anything you would want without needing a GM — some systems work better than others, of course, but with a little flexibility you should be good to go.
The same company also has World vs. Hero which is a two-player, non-GM game, but I don't have any experience with that game (though there is some discussion in the Yahoo Group).
Comment: As for adapting the MGME to other systems: it is essentially a way to answer the "what happens next?" question when you just don't know. As this does happen to actual GMs, the Mythic GM Emulator can be used straight-up as a nice backup tool for a GM.
Answer: A number of "indie" games are GMless:

Annalise
Breaking the Ice
Fiasco
Kagematsu
Polaris
The Shab-al-Hiri Roach
Shock: social science-fiction
Spione
Universalis

Most of these just apportion the various GM responsibilities to different people at different times. In general, you're never going to get rid of the need for someone to do certain "GMish" things at the table, but you don't need to have a single player doing all of them all the time.
Various GMless techniques you can lift, with examples from some of the games listed above:

Hidden information. In traditional games, the GM owns all the hidden or secret information. Annalise lets every player-character own a secret written by another player and redistributed randomly.
Providing opposition. In traditional games, the GM provides all the opposition against the PCs. In Shock:, each player plays a protagonist, and another player plays his or her antagonist.
Having NPCs at all. The GM in traditional games creates and runs non-player characters (NPCs). In Breaking the Ice, Fiasco, and Kagematsu, you don't really need NPCs. All the action is about the PCs and the conflicts they run into, generally.
Running the NPCs. In traditional games, the GM plays all the NPCs and opposition. In The Shab-al-Hiri Roach, a player can appoint another player on the spot to play a specific NPC. In Polaris, certain players are designated to play certain NPCs, but these roles shift positionally (the player on your right, left, or across from you, etc.).
Pacing. In traditional games, the GM is responsible for the pace of the game, cutting from scene to scene, and making sure every PC gets a fair amount of spotlight time. In Annalise, there are rules that make sure every player is involved in every scene; additionally, there are rules and guidelines for advancing the story toward an ending.
Answer: I'd take a hard look at Polaris, which has a track record of being adapted (Anna Kreider's game Thou Art But A Warrior uses the core Polaris mechanic but re-skins it in a cool way). Polaris has clearly defined roles that rotate with the players (protagonist, antagonist, and two supporting roles) and a system of conflict resolution that relies on specific phrases.
Funny, I've hacked Archipelago II several times and totally forgot to mention it. It is more extensible and flexible than Polaris and very easy to modify.
Answer: I'm currently running a 4E D&D campaign, and one experiment that's worked out very well for me as a DM is using Microscope to build out the history of the world. It is a completely GM-less game, and has worked incredibly well for building up a homebrew campaign settting. However, I think it can pretty painlessly be integrated not only into a DM's toolbox, but into the entire group's play of the game.
Since Microscope is about building out some chunk of world history, you could use it as a springboard for a D&D game. Build a history with a group, then drop them into the world and let them loose - in my experience, Microscope leaves those who play it with a fairly strong interest in the world that's been crafted. It could be integrated into the active play of a GM-based game I imagine, but it doesn't provide explicit suggestions on how to do so.
Answer: I would recommend you take a look at Dirty Secrets, a very interesting system dedicated to creating a modern noir. My group has had a couple of fun sessions with Dirty Secrets. Adapting to another genre would take some work, but I think it could be done. There's no GM but there is an "investigator," a role taken by a single person for the whole game. The rest of the players rotate through roles as support and / or opposition through the game. There's a lot to love about Dirty Secrets, including the fact that it knows when it is over.
I have also played, with less success, The Committee for the Exploration of Mysteries,  another example of the "ritual phrases" mechanic which nobody in my group liked. They rejected the idea of being told how to play. But that doesn't mean the game wasn't interesting from a mechanical standpoint. I can't provide a link because of spam prevention.
Answer: Another game that has not been mentioned is Western City. We used it for a western city as well as our village in a Song of Ice and Fire RPG. I would use it again in such a situation: if you need to generate some NPC personalities and some events in a village to use as backdrop for the "real" game. A nice one or two session GM-less break from the regular game.
Comment: I took the liberty of adding a link to Mongoose's product page for *Western City*. Also, that's a nice-looking and apparently flexible game. I'm keen on games that are GMless and good for both one-shots and ongoing games—I've ordered a copy, so thanks. :)
Answer: Try taking a look at Wizards' Castle Ravenloft board game. It has been a while since I played it, but each turn a player places a map tile, puts a monster in play or other action from their hand of cards, and moves some (or all, i forget) of the monsters on the board in the direction of an ally. It basically is a DM-less dungeon raid, and does a pretty good job of it. Definitely worth looking into. It is also perilous. Like with a real DM, there is a very real chance the quest will fail and you will all die.
Comment: *Castle Ravenloft* is a boardgame, not an RPG.
Comment: I did explicitly say it was a board game. A board game based on D&D 4E rules and can provide some good ideas towards running a GM-less game.
Comment: Right! And the question explicitly asked for RPGs.
Comment: I guess the subject does state rpgs. However, the post content does not, using the more ambiguous term "systems" instead. Castle Ravenloft is very much a DM-less D&D 4th edition. If the OP is looking for complete systems, this wont help, but he specifically said other systems to "steal from or try out as a one shot". Ravenloft is very much worth looking at for ideas to steal. If you think my suggestion is completely without merit, then downvote me. I'm done defending this.
Answer: Cosmic Patrol
Key Elements:

Rotational GMing, one player per scene
One PC per player
Pregenerated characters
Adventures focused upon action
Campy theme — 1930's-1950's era rocketship serials (Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon etc)
Simple mechanics
"Yes, And..."
Plot Points

The rotational GMing works by, for each scene, one player takes the additional role of "Lead Narrator". To enable this to work effectively, the rules are kept very simple, limited modifiers exist, and with a large amount of randomness in the rolling. After being lead narrator for one scene, the Lead Narrator duty falls to the next player around the table.
For non-combat tasks, the lead narrator picks the relevant attribute (of 5 choices), and a modifier between +3 and –3. The Narrator also rolls 1d20 to set the target. The acting character's player rolls 1d12+1d(attribute)+ the modifier; roll higher than the d20 to succeed.
For combat tasks, it's the acting character's combat die + range modifier ±3 (Difficulty), versus the target's combat die.
The story is comprised of a group of 3 or more linked scenes, each with a narration setup to be read by the new Lead Narrator, and a list of things or beings to be dealt with in that scene. The core book and Into The Cosmos scenes are fairly linear; none have flow-chart style choices, but a new adventure book with flow based upon scene outcome is due out.
Pregenerated characters allow both faster starting in to play, and no need for Character Generation being overseen.
The very campy setting has about 20 pages of setting in a gazeteer section, designed for use on the fly, and it's pretty well vague about much of it. Just enough to really get a sense for how to build more scenarios. That the setting is campy also allows for more colorful play, and this is encouraged by use of "cues" on both scenes and PC sheets. The pregenerated characters (both Player and opponents) also have cues, most of which seem to be taken from the movies and TV shows by either borrowing a line exactly, or changing the enemy name to match the custom setting.
The focus on action scenes allows easier narration, but it is explicit that if the next scene doesn't fit, an additional, improvised scene can be added. Further, the genre, campy as it is, is overrun with short bits of cheesy dialogue to bridge one action scene to another.
"Yes And" as a game rule is both how the game really works, and its biggest drawback as a mechanic. The game works because you're not allowed, even when the lead narrator, to counter narration, except by the LN requiring a roll to succeed. Thus, the story moves on, and arguing about what's been added so far is explicitly not allowed. On the other hand, this also requires the players all agree that it's story time, not "Let's beat the GM's Thugs Time." Players out to "win" by success can narrate some pretty wild and unpleasant things; with no central authority to say "too far," players must exercise some restraint.
Plot points are used in the game. They allow players to add +1 to +3 to any roll (including the Lead Narrator's d20, if desired), add an alien, have an unseen alien attack, change the turn order for combat, recover health or armor, make additional effects besides the expected happen, or trigger plot twists.
Things that can be ported:

Rotational GMing
Simple mechanics allow for better play
Combat heavy settings allow for linear adventures to work better
separate scene sheets for every scene can be used in a manner that enables play with surprises intact.
Yes, And. (Which appears in many games listed in other answers.)
Plot Points

Adaptation
None is given.
The adventures need only relevant opponent stats to work with about any game system. They're simple, straightforward, and colorful.
The Plot Point mechanics are almost divorced from the others; only the modifier limit needs to change to use this with other games.
"Yes, And" is already in many games, and can easily be ported into other games that lack that explicit advice.
Rotational GMing can be ported because it's procedural, rather than explicitly mechanical
The general action mechanics can be ported as a whole, but being as simple as they are, may be unsatisfying.
The game as a whole can also readily morph into a GM-run game with no shared GMing; the setting is just enough to allow this with few difficulties.
Answer: I can suggest a look on Ars magica. The Storykeeper system favors:
Each players creates and can play more than one char at same time;
GM rotation for each history arch, GM also gets some PCs;
Also players can swap GM position for different "assemblies" of PCs
It can be used to allow parallel archs or/and different GMs working each week.
Favor scenario over system;


Are free electrons in a metal really free

Question: Is it an accurate statement to say that free electrons in a metal experience NO restoring force when they interact with electromagnetic waves? I understand that the electrons exist in a space filled with ions, and doesn't the cumulative potential that is present due to the presence of the ions exert an electric field on the electrons. Even in the case of simple metals, where you can say that the nucleus is shielded by the valence electrons, so called Coulomb shielding, how significant is the shielding. Naively, it seems to me that because the charge in the nucleus is not balanced by the charge in the bound electrons, there should be some net potential that the free electron sees.
Comment: this would help:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallic_bond
Answer: The free electron model is surprisingly good at predicting the properties of electrons in metals, and this implies that the electrons really are nearly free. However when you look more closely there is of course an interaction with the lattice. This is modelled using the (rather predictably named) nearly free electron model.
The conduction electrons are delocalised, so you shouldn't think of them as little balls bouncing off the ion cores. The spatial extent of their wavefunction is typically far greater than the lattice repeat, hence the relatively weak interactions. However interactions with the lattice are responsible for electrical resistance and thermal conductivity, and at very low temperatures for superconductivity. However note that these aren't interactions between a single electron and a single ion core, but rather interactions between electron waves and lattice waves (phonons).
Comment: If we look more far (in energy scale), we may notice that electrons are not free but are in Bloch's states too.
Answer: Since the electrons are in a periodic lattice, then you can think of an idealized single-electron picture which leads to the band structure of an electron. In this ideal picture a you can give the electron a little push, and it will travel indefinitely without scattering. Well, at least until it collides with the metal's surface.
In reality, the metal is not a perfect ideal lattice, and there is more than one electron. There are impurities, electron-phonon interactions, and electron-electron interactions. All of these lead to scattering (the electron's momentum is "dissipated" by being randomized). For very high frequency electromagnetic radiation (as in, visible light), you also need to worry about the plasma frequency.
However, the electrons are definitely still "free" in the sense that they can roam around the metal. It's just that they diffuse in a random walk, rather than flying ballistically in a straight line.
Answer: If you imagine a metal where there is only one conduction electron per constituent atom, then the net charge of each ion sitting in a lattice situ is +1. The resulting periodic potential seen by the conduction electrons looks like this.
If this potential can be considered a weak perturbation to the case in which the conduction electrons are completely free, as it is the case for simple metals, then the electrons are highly delocalised in the solid, their mobility is very high and the current they produce in response to an electromagnetic perturbation has negligible retardation with respect to the driving field phase. In this sense is correct to say electrons in a metal experience no restoring force.
For what concerns the solid constitution, you have to bear in mind that the electric field produced by the presence of electrons and ions together is what keeps the whole thing together in this "condensed" state of matter. Without one of the two you would get fantastic Coulomb explosions!


Is faith just a consolation for the common folk?

Question: In reading Dostoevsky, I stumbled upon the perplexing question of faith being a mere consolation. And in spite of considering myself a believer, I still agree to this statement to a certain extent. Maybe faith is meant to be a consolation. What are your thoughts about it? (I am not the most proficient philosophy reader out there, so please don't get too technical.)
Comment: It is not just "common folk" consoling themselves with faith. No one has yet _solved_ the metaphysics which makes faith (and diverse opinions on its form and extent) necessary for all.
Comment: Not sure if you want my kind of Answer... The list of unsolved problems is interesting, but basically I yawn and move on to things that actually matter in my life. A faith statement could be - this quote attributed to Mohammed: "*Let go the things of which you are in doubt, for the things in which there is no doubt.*" It turns crucially on the *of* which versus the *in* which, but it is not subtle.
Comment: @tejasvi88: I would describe a picture of these being solv*able*, as a misapplication of the mathematical template of proving things. Like, the sorites paradox is about how identity is defined. For me, The Private Language Argument solves solipsism, we participate together in something beyond the individual, so even if we call what we experience one mind, it is just shifting the definition from reality of the same other beings from being independent minds to having independent character within one mind.
Comment: @tejasvi88: What could 'solving' mean in this context? Do you mean something like, why 'Justificatio sola fide' might be important to a deity?
Comment: @CriglCragl By "solving" I meant resolution of [unsolved problems in metaphysics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_philosophy#Metaphysics). For me personally, [irrefutability of Solipsism](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/q/260/35433) is the major one.
Comment: @tejasvi88: I should have said, for more on this approach to solipsism see [Is there anyway to prove things happen/exist if I'm not aware of them?](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/79815/is-there-anyway-to-prove-things-happen-exist-if-im-not-aware-of-them/79819#79819) but maybe you already found it.
Comment: Do you see no difference between what faith is, and what faith might somehow be meant to be?
Comment: @CriglCragl Perhaps _solving_ does not capture the intention accurately. Instead it is about finding almost universally acceptable worldview (analogous to [Peano's axioms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peano_axioms)) capable of navigating the space of all conceived problems. The core concern is the implications of a solution to a problem instead of finding a solution. Solipsism, for example, makes woo-woo legitimate if genuinely adopted. It might as well be legitimate due to [parallels with dreams](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/q/89748/35433).
Comment: Is _"for the common folk"_ essential to this question? What kind of people is not "common folk" here? I suggest editing the title to remove this part.
Comment: @tejasvi88 "faith [is] necessary for all" what do you mean?
Comment: @njzk2 All conclusions need faith in their axioms.
Comment: @tejasvi88 Maybe we could just say, "To the best of our knowledge" and not think in terms of faith, which is just another concept?
Comment: @ScottRowe Or is it "To the best of our capability"? Is it really the best we can do? Faith begins where one stops striving to know more due to perceived difficulties.
Comment: @tejasvi88 So, you can keep striving to know more or 'satisfice' - accept that your axioms are "good enough" for the purpose. It's a matter of effectiveness, not a quest to define everything. If you're wrong, you're wrong, there's no need to posit some great structure that justifies your attempt. No one is better than everyone else, and we are all equally fallible. Accept that on its face and forget about any ideas that require 'faith'. If you don't believe your axioms, just stop.
Comment: The Religious Case against Belief by James Carse offers a fabulous distinction between belief and faith in a very readable format (much easier to read than Dostoyevsky imo).
Answer: Assuming you refer to religious faith (because faith in my potential is not a consolation under any perspective).
Answer to your question:
Faith is not necessarily a consolation, because that would imply that all believers suffer some form of grief, and that all solve the issue by getting console from faith. That seems to be a quite biased perspective.
Some speculation:
Faith is probably moreover a justification, because it provides and justifies answers and rules to all metaphysical doubts. Such justification is impossible to find elsewhere. But it is necessarily biased. Given a justifying belief, and enough faith, there are strong arguments to act the way one thinks is the right one, even if the world tells the opposite.
Evidently, the biased justifications provided by faith mean that faith could provide wrong answers, and make believers act destructively.
Comment: Metaphysical doubts cause grief therefore faith _is_ a consolation.
Comment: Faith and confidence (in someone's potential) are different things.
Comment: Consolation doesn't have to imply grief, eg there can be a consolation match or game between runners up. Consolation usually implies after loss, but people take loss in all different ways.
Answer: Faith is a way of dealing with the unknown and incalculable. Knowledge is control; knowledge is the way the human will exerts power over circumstance. But where we lack knowledge we lack control, and we are forced to cede power over circumstance to something else: to a god, to the dao or karma, to the Market or the clockwork principles of a mechanistic universe... Otherwise we'll collapse into desperate nihilism. We want order in our lives, and when we cannot establish order by the strength of our own understanding, we trust that the universe has an order that provides for us. That's faith.
Sometimes faith is a consolation, usually when we feel completely lost and helpless. Sometimes faith is an exultation, when we can touch on the order of life through experience or intuition. Sometimes faith is a calm determination, where we move forward knowing that things will work themselves out. Faith has any number of moods. It doesn't surprise me that Dostoyevsky focused on faith as a consolation (I've never made it halfway through one of Dostoyevsky's works without collapsing into depression), but I don't think we should take his peculiar myopia as the whole truth.
Comment: I wonder if there is a "Nihilism Lite" - realizing very little is controllable, yet not getting upset about it? When I read about Existentialism as a teen, I thought something like: if this is the best humanity can do, maybe Camus was right! (when he said, the only real Philosophical question is whether or not to commit suicide) Now I just ignore the whole thing.
Comment: @Ted Wrigley 1) What are the clockwork principles of a mechanistic universe? 2) I do not agree that those who cannot concede control to one of the entities from your enumeration necessarily fall into nihilism. I would prefer to accomodate with this fact and align my worldview to this insight.
Comment: @TedWrigley How to be sure that not wish alone is the father of the thought? One has to confirm these and similar hypotheses from experience in many cases. - Nevertheless I do not expect that we can find answers to all our questions. IMO we have to accomodate with open questions. That's no reason for nihilism or collapsing into depressions.
Comment: @JoWehler: (1) The clockwork universe was a Newtonian era ideal that everything in the universe was bound by simple and determinate principles of Natural Law. I see it as a bridging moment: people were wrestling with the idea that God was not an active and present force holding the universe in alignment, but needed *something* to hold the universe together, so they extrapolated the idea of Natural Law so that it could fill that void.
Comment: @JoWehler: (2) I didn't suggest that one needs a god or entity to take control; I suggested that one needs the belief that the world will remain controlled even where it's out of one's grasp. God is one solution to that problem; God is someone we can appeal to when things go sideways, as a kind of social interaction. But Natural Law is another solution (a set of rules that we know won't be violated); governments and institutions are a third (human structures that help us)... We cannot live in a world where we cannot predict, control, or accommodate changes in circumstance.
Comment: @JoWehler: I mean, imagine living in a world where objects popped in and out of existence seemingly at random. We can't control it, so we have to create tools that will protect us from suddenly appearing boulders and suddenly disappearing chairs. And if we can't figure out effective tools, rest assured you'd find a lot of people praying. trying to live in a world like that without having faith in *something* would send one straight into existential angst.
Comment: I see that Sextus Empiricus taught what is called Pyrrhonian Skepticism, which seems to fit my sense of things best. Perhaps it is similar to what you are saying?
Answer: Faith has developed a specific soteriological role in Christianity, in the discourse around 'justification by works' vs 'justification by faith' in relation to salvation, in the contention between Catholicism and Protestantism. Kierkegaard and other explicitly identify faith in god as defined through experiencing doubt and overcoming it.
In relation to the idea of consolation, I would look to Boethius' book Consolation of Philosophy - this is not unreasonable in understanding this term consolation here, because it's been described as "the single most important and influential work in the West on Medieval and early Renaissance Christianity" (Wikipedia). I would describe the way of facing injustice and death in this book, as connecting with transcendental principles like justice, so that even while we may not experience them in our lives, by situating ourselves firmly in valuing them, experiencing their opposite can make us only more resolute in knowing their importance, and dedicating ourselves to manifesting them with whatever powers we do have - ie, keeping faith with them. It is in this context, we should understand faith as a consolation: participation in a religion, a community, and in salvation and role in god's plan, that can outlive us. Yes this is consolation for the poor, the uneducated common folk (Russian serfs were only liberated in 1861 when Dostoevsky was 40, from a status more like slavery than in other feudal systems), the sick, and all those suffering or with no hope in this life. But it is also the consolation of saints and martyrs, in the face of torments, humiliations, and death, by which they can know the dignity of their lives even in facing such attempts at coercions and threats.
It is interesting to compare to the role for faith in other traditions. In Judaism the closest term is 'emunah', described as "an innate conviction, a perception of truth that transcends reason". The upholding of covenants made with the deity, and keeping of the 613 commandments, are emphasised over any specific conception of deity or salvation, which are beyond human capacities to fully grasp. In Judaism any peoples that keep the covenant Noah made can be among the righteous nations. I would interpret the impact of subsequent Jewish covenants, as describing a state of 'ritual purity' akin to a state of grace in Christianity but related to works rather than faith, and a focus on adhering to community rules & governance & festivals - there is a saying 'It's not just that Jews keep the dietary laws, dietary laws keep the Jews', describing how the additional mitvahs help bind the community. This allows a great flexibility in Judaism, to have secular participation, of those without faith in a deity. I would suggest faith is placed in binding to the community, who work collectively to understand how to live correctly.
Buddhism has quite a different role for faith. Some describe Buddhism as a philosophy only, like Stoicism, with no role for faith. They are wrong. To fully take up Buddhism, it is crucial to rouse faith in awakening, in the culmination of Buddha's teach of the Four Noble Truths, and it's attainment through The Eightfold Way.

"Don't go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by
logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through
pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, 'This
contemplative is our teacher.' When you know for yourselves that,
'These mental qualities are skillful; these mental qualities are
blameless; these mental qualities are praised by the wise; these
mental qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare and to
happiness' — then you should enter & remain in them." - The Kalama
Sutta

This sutta has been described as 'The Buddha's Charter Of Free Enquiry', but a close reading shows that the Kalamas are recieving a teaching on the secular benefits of Buddhism, on how the practices can bring about many consolations and easings of suffering. But, that this process of exploring and testing the teachings should be understood through confirming their benefits through practice, in the part that cannot be understood without fully taking up the practice, including faith in awakening.

"Beyond, go beyond, go completely beyond, so be it" - final mantra
lines of The Heart Sutra

In the context of this Mahayana sutra, we can understand that an entirely different state is being pointed to in this culmination of Buddhist practice, where ageing sickness and death are fully understood, and the true nature of things is understood directly. The role of faith in Mahayana Buddhism is further clarified in The Awakening of Faith sutra
In China and Japan there has been a long tension between monastic traditions with very high demands on participants like Zen, and traditions with much simpler rites like only chanting mantras and having faith in awakening happening in the next life in Pureland Buddhism. In Tibetan Buddhism too, there is highly scholastic practice connected to large ancient universities, and also simple practices like the 32-mile ritual circumambulation of Mount Meru, which is said to provide various beneficences.
Through all Buddhist traditions, we can see ultimate consolation as found in awakening to the true nature of things, and consolation for those unable or unready to aim for this in understanding karma, which can involve say supporting monks and so helping create space for awakening in the world.
Lastly I want to mention how we should understand a famous passage of Marx, in relation to a reaction against the Protestant focus on faith.

"Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic
compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d'honneur,
its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its
universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic
realization of the human essence since the human essence has not
acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is,
therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual
aroma is religion.
Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of
real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the
sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and
the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is
the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their
illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a
condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is,
therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which
religion is the halo.
Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order
that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or
consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the
living flower. "
" - written by Marx for his introduction to 'Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right'

Zizek has said "The only way to be an atheist is through Christianity", and described himself as a Christian atheist. This is linked to Leninist doctrine's ignoring of Marx about industrialisation and other steps as necessary precursors before a society is ready for what Marx saw as later steps in the historical dialectic. Marx describes only works as important, to 'throw of the chain' of economic and other oppression. But set in a larger context of connecting to transpersonal and transcendental themes, we can see that expectation of improving things only by works cannot solve problems rooted in ourselves, that we must address through the spiritual life, through understanding what is worth facing torments and death for to uphold beyond our own lives, to not be coerced into lives not worth living.
This is especially poignant in the current context, as Russia seeks to impose their neo-feudalism on Ukraine.
Comment: @ScottRowe: In the context of Four Noble truths, awakening is cessation of suffering. Have to say, I really don't like Chogyam Trungpa, given the list of really unpleasant things he did en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%B6gyam_Trungpa#Controversies That for me is not a lotus rising with purity from the impure. I've read his Shambhala book, & it seemed 'off' to me. I see Buddhism as not about a narrow picture of 'ego death', but as embracing the intersubjectivity of Indra's Net. That is the realm of skillful means. First I am you, then you are me. Not ending ego, going beyond it - svaha, so be it.
Comment: Interesting. I wouldn't say that "awakening to the true nature of things" is a 'consolation'. Chogyam Trungpa called the collapse of ego: "the ultimate and final *disappointment*." (emphasis mine)
Comment: So, when suffering ends, there is no need for consolation, yes? Teaching that would spare people the whole roundabout Christian approach. Which is really a "running away".
Comment: @ScottRowe: Buddhism aims at *cessation of the causes of suffering*, that is overcoming the three poisons, greed, aversion, & delusion. Even the Buddha still faced karmic fruit in his life like a headache from laughing at a fish being knocked out. In the transpersonal picture, suffering only ends when the hells are emptied, at the culmination of the bodhisattva path with the liberation of all beings. Consolations aren't intrinsically bad, they can serve universalisable aims. Are *you* running from bodhicitta, compassion for all beings and wish for their liberation from suffering?
Comment: @ScottRowe: Boethius wasn't running. Like Socrates, he was orientating himself to something beyond life and death, pain and suffering - even to the point of embracing them. People describe Buddhism too as anti-life, as running away. Discussed here: [Is Buddhism antinatalist?](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/53728/is-buddhism-antinatalist). Don't look only at the tools, look to the task, eg [Living Buddha, Living Christ](https://tricycle.org/magazine/living-buddha-living-christ). Christ did not run. His experiences in the desert was strikingly like Buddha's beneath the bodhi tree
Comment: My only belief without sufficient evidence is: "*The collective enterprise is worthwhile*." I guess you will have to judge me based on that, since it is the only thing that I assert.
Comment: Pyrrhonian Skepticism looks very interesting. Just found out about that, 40 years late!
Comment: @ScottRowe: In a way that relates to this post? I'm intrigued!
Answer: The religious context often characterizes faith as a "leap into faith". The term expresses that faith has to abandon the usual and tested methods to reach certainty.
Faith presumes the absence of knowledge. The driving force of faith is hope, which is always hope for improvement of the situation. Of course hope is no promise that the situation indeed improves.
In so far, faith is a strategy to cope with a depressing situation which cannot be changed by oneself.
Characterizing faith as "consolation for the common folk" sounds a bit elitarian. It sounds as if the speaker considers himself to be more intelligent than most other people.
But in any case, I consider it necessary for a rational person to be clear in his mind about what one does and why one decides to leap into faith - or refrains from doing so.
Comment: Agree. I would say "true faith" is to go forward willingly into whatever one discovers, rather than trying to force the world to fit one's thoughts. Arguing that the world is imperfect and a better one exists or whatever would prompt me to bid that person go there and leave me to my tasks. Perhaps Kierkegaard said something to that effect. Someone once said, "*Expect nothing, want nothing, hope for nothing, and anything you get will be grace.*" So that would be to abandon the idea of certainty.
Comment: Pyrrhonian Skepticism looks like an end run around the need for faith.
Answer: Faith isn't merely consolation.  It takes work to maintain the balance of our Universe, which is a singularity held by the holy name.  Faith is the only counter-force to entropic forces which would otherwise dominate and end the universe.
Think about it.  Through faith, you're putting power back to where the balance and homoeostasis is maintained.  And that is part of reversing entropy and giving back to those divine forces.
Comment: Your "thinking" is furthering entropy.  Without knowledge growing in the Universe, it can't counter-act entropy either. Follow directions of your Creator or seek Truth and don't rest on opinions.
Comment: I think the entropic forces end up dominating no matter what we do.


In applescript, is there any way to specify which desktop a file is opened in?

Question: When my system boots I would like to run applescript that opens files in three different desktops/spaces.
First Space: Mail and Things (my to do list program)
Second Space: Textmate and a Safari for my first project
Third Space: Textmate and a Safari for my second project

First, in Mission Control I created two more desktops which will remain there the next time my system boots unless they are manually removed. Instead of creating one long script, I chained three applescripts (boot1, boot2 and boot3) to break it up into simpler blocks of code. At the end of boot1 you will see:
run script file "<drive name>:Users:<username>:boot2.scpt"

In boot2 and boot3 you will see a bunch of delay lines. One thing I dislike about applescript is that it often starts processing the next command before the OS finishes responding to the prior one. This causes inconsistencies and errors. Delays are a hack to force things to slow down. They help, but even when you use them things are still a bit dicey. In boot2.script:
# this emulates the keyboard shortcut to move to desktop 2
# there doesn't seem to be any way to modify an `open` command to open a file on desktop 2
tell application "System Events"
    delay 2
    # key code 19 is the key code for the number 2.
    # <cntl> 2 is the shortcut to get to desktop 2
    key code 19 using control down
end tell

tell application "TextMate"
    activate
    # 'sites' is the name of the directory my projects are in
    open "/users/<username>/sites/project1/"
end tell

tell application "Terminal"
    activate
    do script "cd /users/<username>/sites/project1/"

    delay 2
    do script "rails s" in front window

    delay 2
    tell application "System Events" to tell process "Terminal" to keystroke "t" using command down
    tell application "System Events" to tell process "Terminal" to keystroke return

    delay 2
    do shell script "open -a Safari http://localhost:3000"
end tell

OK... so this mostly works to get desktop 2 in place except for inconsistencies when the delays aren't long enough. Boot3.script is almost the same as boot2 but when trying to open an application on desktop 3, because there is a window on desktop 2 the system jumps back to that desktop. This is the next problem. How do I overcome that?
2305491 is no longer relevant because space preferences are gone.
Thanks.
Comment: I think there's no why to do this with Applescript. You could use the autmator recording function.
Answer:
Boot3.script is almost the same as boot2 but when trying to open an application on desktop 3, because there is a window on desktop 2 the system jumps back to that desktop.

There is an option in the Mission Control Preferences called "When switching to an application, switch to a Space with open windows for the application". Uncheck this.

OK... so this mostly works to get desktop 2 in place except for inconsistencies when the delays aren't long enough.

Better solution is always something like this
repeat until something exists
delay 0.1
end repeat


Arduino depth sensor

Question: I'm looking for an arduino compatible depth sensor NOT for water. What I need is a sensor very similar to an Xbox kinect (but much smaller) that will tell me what is in front of the sensor and also the shape of the object. For example, if I place a cylindrical water bottle in front of the sensor I would like to be able to figure out how far away the bottle is and also the shape of the object (in 2d, I don't need to know whether it is actually a cylinder only the general shape). The sensor only needs to be accurate at most 1 meter away. Does this exist and if so where can I purchase one. If it does not exist wholly what pieces do I need to buy to put it together? Thanks.
Comment: The Kinect is a particular brand of RGB-D camera.  You might be able to find a smaller one elsewhere.
Comment: Most inexpensive solutions are going to require a computer. A cheaper and simpler solution is to put a narrow band Ultrasonic sensor on a servo to get you ~255 steps of resolution in 180 deg (approx .7 deg resolution).
Answer: I am not sure the Arduino has the "horse power" for this.  You might be better off going with a RaspberryPi, BeagleBone, or some other embedded board that can run a real operating system...
For 2D depth sensors, the main contenders are SICK and Hokuyo.  The interface for these is typically USB.  But i know older model SICKs used RS232 which might actually work with an 8 bit microcontroller.
Other types of depth sensors that typically play nicer with microcontrollers are ultrasonic rangers, and infrared proximity sensors.  However, these have a much wider beam, are much more noisy, and can adversely interact with each other if you try to make an array out of them.  (For example, an ultrasonic pinger will hear the response of the one next to it if they are turned on at the same time.)
Lastly, another option that is not Arduino compatible, but is cheap and might work with your system depending on what you want to do, is to use a camera and a laser line for structured light.  You can do some image processing and determine the depth to the line.  This paper: "High-Accuracy 3D Sensing for Mobile Manipulation: Improving Object Detection and Door Opening" has more info.
Answer: Arduino or other microcontrollers is not enough for image or video processing. So you can try it with scanners (like LIDAR) or sensor arrays like this link. The link contains only 4 sensors but you can increase the number of sensor for increase measuring angle( angle of HC SR04 is 15 degree)
Answer: If your trying to get the most for your money I would buy used 1st gen Kinect (you can get them really cheap) and take it apart from it's housing to reduce size and weight.
Another option is Asus Xtion which is similar to Kinect only smaller and does not require external power supply.
And you could always just use 2 identical cameras (maybe webcams) for stereo vision.

Arduino depth sensor


Does UEFI support mean Wubi will now work on laptops shipped with Windows 8?

Question: According to this news , there is an official fix for secure boot. Will Ubuntu adapt it?
If so, how long should it take? And does it allow booting new computers from Wubi?
Answer: No.
Ubuntu already supports secure boot, as mentioned in the real source of the news:

Does this mean Linux distributions can now support Secure Boot?
  They've actually been able to for a while. Ubuntu shipped with Secure Boot support last October, and Fedora shipped with Secure Boot support in January. Both used Shim rather than the Linux Foundation loader, and Shim's also being used by a variety of smaller distributions. The LF loader is a different solution to the same problem.

Wubi doesn't work on UEFI systems because it uses grub4dos which doesn't support GPT  (GUID partition table) disks. This is unrelated to secure boot, other than the fact that Secure boot requires UEFI. That's the first problem.
The secure boot would be the second problem to solve since whatever solution provided would have to be signed to be useful (I would guess since I claim no expertise on this).
The third problem would be that someone should be working on it and - unless it's top secret - no information I have seen indicates that anyone is addressing the problem. The bug report has seen no change from Wishlist and remains Unassigned: https://bugs.launchpad.net/wubi/+bug/694242
Comment: Just to clarify,I knew ubuntu supports secure boot but this is the official fix. :D
Answer:
I knew ubuntu supports secure boot but this is the official fix.

Not really. The Linux Foundation has released its fix in the form of the PreBootloader program. Ubuntu 12.10 and Fedora 18 both use another fix in the form of the shim program. (Fedora 18 uses a newer and more capable version of shim.) Neither solution has any more claim to being "official" than the other, except in the sense that certain organizations might support one solution or the other. In that sense, shim is "more official" than PreBootloader for Ubuntu, since shim is included in Ubuntu. FWIW, Matthew Garrett, the author of shim, has written this blog post that compares and contrasts the two programs. He says he's working on integrating the PreBootloader approach into shim, effectively combining the two programs into one.
In addition to the issues with GPT that bcbc has identified, a more fundamental problem with WUBI is that it doesn't support EFI-mode booting. To work on an EFI-based installation of Windows, WUBI would need to support an EFI-mode boot loader. Patching grub4dos to support GPT would be insufficient to this task. The LF PreBootloader also does nothing to help, since it requires the use of an EFI boot loader to follow itself -- hence the name *Pre*Bootloader.


Why don't breast enlargements leave any marks of surgery on breasts?

Question: If we get stitches, we get marks left on the skin, but there are no marks for breast enlargements. I saw a YouTube video about a breast enlargement wherein a doctor makes a cut. Where does the cut mark go after surgery?
Answer: All cuts that go through the dermis (the full thickness of skin) will leave a scar, no matter what (and no matter what anyone tells you). The visibility of scar tissue has a lot to do with how a person heals, how much stress is put on the incision as it's healing, where the scar is, if it crosses the natural direction of skin (called Langer's lines) or goes along the lines.
Plastic surgeons have many years of training and experience in cosmetic skin surgery, and know how to minimize scar formation by their more fastidious closure methods and wound care, as well as hiding scars in ceases and along Langer's lines. But even the best plastic surgeons cannot prevent scars, only minimize them. If you still don't believe breast augmentation doesn't leave scars, you can look at this page (NSFW).
Answer: They don't always cut through the breast.  The armpit is a common alternative to slicing the breast tissue.  In these cases, there is absolutely no scarring on the breast of any kind.


Weight and Height for a 2 year old girl

Question: My 2 year niece weighs 30kgs (66.13 lbs) and tall for her age (3 feet/91cm tall). Despite her weight she does not really eat much.. we we're advised that it's growth spurt. Is there a cause for concern? Is this normal?
Comment: what's the unit kls? 30lbs is very normal (http://www.babycenter.com/0_your-childs-size-and-growth-timeline_10357633.bc), while 30klbs will be a bit too heavy
Comment: Welcome to Parenting.SE! Was it a medical professional that advised this is part of a growth spurt?
Comment: You haven't mentioned height, so there's no way to tell what her weight should be, but if you meant 30kgs, that seems like twice of what even a large 2yo should weigh.
Comment: Growth spurt was advised by her pediatrician.. yes 30kgs..it seems a bit odd to me as her height seems to be of a 4 yr old.
Comment: @Lanie - You still have not mentioned her height. There are many growth charts (this [this](http://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/data/set1clinical/cj41c022.pdf) all over the internet, but you need age, weight and _height_. Pick one appropriate for your nationality.
Comment: @Dave- She's 3ft (91.44cm?) Tall..Filipina by heritage..i'll check the chart you provided thanks Dave
Answer: For weight, 30 kilograms is quite heavy for a 2 year old.  Per the cdc growth charts1 @dave posted in comments, a two year old will typically be between 10 and 15 kilograms (20-35 pounds) (5%-95% range).  However, you need to take into account her height in determining what you'd expect her to weigh; for that you have weight-for-stature (weight-for-height) charts.
Based on the height you reported (3' or 91cm), the range is slightly higher (as she is indeed tall for her age); the typical range (5%-95%) is between 12 and 16 kilograms.  30 kilograms is off the linked chart; you'd expect a 30kg child to be more like 4' tall (125cm) or more.
So - no, it's not "normal", based on the statistics.  Whether it's healthy is something the pediatrician would address.  If they're not concerned, then perhaps it's worth asking why?  Perhaps the measurements were provided incorrectly - maybe she's really 30 pounds for example, and her parents misheard/misunderstood the doctor. If she seems substantially heavier than other children her age (30kg would be substantially heavier), and it's something that's worrying her parents, it's definitely something worth asking about - if nothing else just to find out why the pediatrician isn't worried.
[1] CDC growth charts are based on American children; WHO growth charts may show somewhat different results, although usually in the same ballpark.  Unfortunately they're much harder to read, so we tend to use CDC charts here.  For reference, the weight-for-height for girls in WHO shows slightly higher (5% or so) estimates than the CDC does, but not enough to change the details significantly above.
Comment: Just a note: you're not interpreting the chart correctly. If she is 95%ile in height at two, her normal weight is *not* what is in the *5th to 95%ile*. Someone in the 95%ile of height should be somewhere in the same vicinity in weight. (Indeed, someone in the 95%ile of height is usually off the chart in weight; but if she were in the 5%ile of weight, I suspect there would be a serious problem to solve.) Nonetheless, one point on the chart doesn't really give as much information as would the points on the first 24 months.
Comment: @anongoodnurse That's what the second paragraph was intended to address - the weight-for-height percentiles should indicate that relationship.  (Technically, the 95th percentile for weight is still 95th percentile for weight regardless of height - so > 95th percentile is still unusual, regardless of the obviously correlated factor of height.)  I edited to make that a bit more clear.
Comment: Thank you.. I'll share this with her parents.. she's now seeing a new pediatrician.thank you everyone for the input

Weight and Height for a 2 year old girl