Brewing with Squash Guts

Question: So I'm very new at brewing and I'm looking to make a gift for my father. We have a small farm where we peel a lot of squash and cube it, leaving behind a lot of squash guts. I was wondering how I would go about making a sort of squash gut liqueur? Any amount of advice would be greatly appreciated!
Comment: This might be more appropriate over at https://alcohol.stackexchange.com/
Answer: Liqueurs tend to be high in alcohol and thus produced by distillation and maybe subsequent infusion. That is not a topic we generally advise on here. However sweet squash guts may well be a good source of sugars for fermenting - especially if an amylase is added to break down the bigger carbs.
Apart from liqueur, Pumpkins can form part of a beer recipe. Pumpkin ales tend to be made with malt with pumpkin flesh added in the ferment - in effect pumpkin flavoured beer. It is possible to ferment pumpkin mash on its own but it tends to be a messy process and when I tasted the resulting ferment it was a bit slimy. So I rarely recommend fermenting pure pumpkin without further processing. YMMV
Comment: Hubbard squash, for example, can be substituted for pumpkin.
Comment: I accept pumpkin/squash can be fermented. Its just that pumpkin/squash gut aren't so useful in the same role. However I do approve of the infusion idea given by farmersteve below. But again -not using squash guts but the lightly roasted flesh of the squash.The flesh of the squash is full of carbs and with an amylase could be mashed and fermented like any brew. Then distill it. The "guts and seed surrounding tissue is not particularly rich in sugars or carbs.
Answer: If you want to make a Squash liqueur it's pretty simple. Roast some squash until soft, then add it too a jar and top up with some vodka and sugar and spices. Let it around for a couple of weeks, then drink. I found several recipes using google.
Here is a good recipe
INGREDIENTS

3 to 4 pound butternut squash
Good quality vodka
1 cup white sugar
1 cup packed light brown sugar
5 whole star anise
1 cinnamon stick, broken into smaller pieces
1 tablespoon fennel seeds
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
1 teaspoon whole cloves
2 cups water

INSTRUCTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Peel butternut squash, cut in half lengthwise, then clean out seeds and guts.
Discard skin, seeds and guts. Cut the squash up into 1.5-inch chunks. Spread out in an even layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake until it is tender (test by inserting the tip of a knife), 20 – 30 minutes. Do not overcook here. The squash should be tender, but not falling apart. Let the squash cool to room temperature, then transfer to a large mason jar.
Add vodka to the jar until it covers the squash by 1 inch (I used between 750 ml and 1 L). Seal the jar and store in a cool, dark spot.
Give the jar a gentle shake every few days. Start tasting the vodka after 1 week. The finished infusion should taste very strongly of butternut squash. I was pleased with the flavor after 2 weeks; however, this can vary based on taste.
Once you are satisfied with the butternut squash flavor, pour the mixture through a medium-mesh basket strainer into a clean bowl or jar. Discard the solids. Strain again through a fine-mesh strainer into another clean bowl or jar. Set aside while you prepare the 5-Spice Syrup.
In small saucepan, combine sugars, spices and water. Bring mixture to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Once the mixture comes to a boil, drop the heat to low, and simmer for 5 minutes. Let the mixture cool completely, then strain out all of the spices. Discard spices.
Pour syrup into the infused vodka, stirring to combine. Cover and let rest for 1 more day before serving.

Brewing with Squash Guts


What is stopping pool managers to fake a miner?

Question: What if a pool manager introduces a miner that is not there and then uses the reward distribution?
Answer: The pool members will notice that the pool is not mining as many blocks as it ought to, given its supposed total hash power as reported by the manager, and that they are therefore not earning as much money as they should.  A certain amount of this could be attributed to "bad luck"; but over time, or if it becomes extreme, they can tell statistically that something is fishy, and then they will switch to other pools.


How do alliance acquire enough sponsors to fund for high risk almost no return space exploration program?

Question: Sometime in September 2316 C.E. the Inner Terrestrial Planets Federation and its allies, the Big Four Gas Giants Federation just launched a massive joint venture space exploration program which would require the construction of a dozen warp-capable attack class spaceship. The alliance only promised to subsidize a fraction of the cost which is already astronomical figure while the rest will be bear by a collection of angel investors, etc. The mission directive is to explore strange new world ... ... ... where no man has gone before. From the design to construction phase and then conducting ground test and eventually reporting finding the entire duration would last approximately over a century meaning any willing investors (average human life expectancy is around 153 years) won't expect any reward soon until they die from aging. Until the entire region of space within all the galactic quadrants in Milky Way Galaxy is charted and never leave any planet unturn, no spaceship are allowed to return home! Having that said what can the alliance do to pool sufficient funding from our philanthropists without resorting to violence? By the way these spaceship relies on next generation ablative laser propulsion by annihilating matter and antimatter Sparticles(spelling is correct, these are actually hypothetical particles predicted by string theory) to achieve lorentz factor of maximum 3.141.
Comment: Why do they wait to fund all 12(?) ships instead of just funding the creation of one ship after another?
Comment: @dot_Sp0T: as this is a joint venture meaning different allies will contribute certain portion of the construction and eventually everything will be assembled together during the final phase prior to QC.
Comment: what I was trying to say is that these ships seemingly are not mass-produced right now. Thus every ship is a unique one even if they are based on the same plans. Look at how container ships, icebreakers, aircraft carriers, etc. are built nowadays - even though they may get the same hull classification, each ship is a new ship with unique changes and improvements; This also means you can divide the cost into 12 stages, one per ship - much easier to finance
Comment: We know too little about the World's society to actually decide. As it stands, it's only going to depend on each and everyone opinion...
Answer: Well, there's a simple reason why nobody wants to invest in this project, and the people claiming to represent the governments are obviously fraudulent. The stated means of doing the project are ludicrously inadequate for its aims.
There are at least 100,000,000,000 planets in the Milky Way, and the claim is that every one of them will be visited. Between 12 ships that's 8.33 billion planets each. If they have 100 years to do it, that's 3.15 billion seconds. So the ships have 2.64 seconds to inspect each of their planets, allowing no time to travel between the planets. One feels that this may not be adequate time for a complete survey?
However, it will take significant time to travel between the planets, because a Lorenz factor of 3.141 is only about 95% of the speed of light. So each interstellar journey will take several years. This fleet of ships is quite adequate for exploring the immediately nearby stars, but claiming they can explore the entire galaxy is ludicrous.
So, are you coming quietly, sir, or do we need to use the neural paralyser?
Answer: You are really going to need to have an economic incentive for investors if the economic climate is anything like today, but I don't see why you can't pursue exploration for both economic and scientific opportunities. Think about the age of exploration on Earth. These voyages weren't funded simply out of curiosity or scientific pursuits. Perhaps that was the motivation of the explorers themselves but the funds actually came from monarchs, families, and companies that excepted some kind of return.
I think you are going to have a hard time getting investments from "some rich dude" for the lifespan argument you stated. But companies especially have the advantage of thinking in the long term. Think about Weyland-Yutani in the Alien franchise. 57 years after Ripley blew up the Nostromo their executives were like "Y you blow up ship? Ship cost money!".
Depending how communication works in your universe the exploration vessels could send back mining rights to asteroids/planets, navigation charts, or other valuable info to those interested parties back on Earth.
If you still want to go after the "rich dudes" you're really going to have to sell them on the whole 'leaving a legacy' ideal.
Answer: It's a Financial Legacy
Let's leave aside the utter impossibility of the proposed mission for a moment (thank you John Dallman!) and focus on the generic idea of an economically viable project that will take over 150 years (the longest possible lifespan of any living person in your world) to complete.
As a general idea, I think it would still see funding.  Companies would be unlikely to invest because their shareholders would never see a return, but it could receive endowments from the ultra-rich who want to ensure their grandchildren and great-grandchildren (etc.) are taken care of.  Your children (or grandchildren) may do something to squander the wealth that you are leaving them, but this project leaves you a vehicle to ensure that their descendants are still taken care of.
This is not that functionally different from people who lived in the early days of large-scale trade shipping that funded long-distance trade ships.  If a journey took a couple of years to complete and you were already in your 40's there was a  nonzero chance that you would die of natural causes (eg. influenza) before a return was realized.  Investing in the company to build the ships was even worse, as it could take decades to see a profitable return and you were unlikely to live that long.  But the very wealthy did it anyway, in part because they could live to see the return, but also in part because it was a way to (hopefully) create a business legacy for your family.
Answer: Based on historical precedents I'd say that in spite of logic the chances are actually above zero. The most promissing way for me is to use dreamt revenues from each of separate voyage to create asset based securities, give them high ranking, then repackage them through special purpose vehicles in to tranches of space conquest bonds, that are claimed to be almost guaranteed success.
EDIT: Actually, being less cynical, it is possible to invest in to shares of company that would pay in some unspecified and far future, assuming, that one can realistically hope to sell those shares within your investment horizont to next investor. That's one of real advantages of capital market.


Why can't a magnet change a charged particle's speed?

Question: I know that magnetic force acts perpendicular to the direction of the original velocity, so the velocity in that original direction is unchanged, but once the magnet starts acting, the particle's velocity in the direction of the force goes from zero to nonzero -- wouldn't that increase the magnitude of the resultant velocity vector?
Comment: What you are describing will maintain a charged particle in a circular path. The magnetic field is perpendicular to the velocity, creating a force perpendicular to both. This forces the particle to turn to the side (the direction of the turn depends on the direction of the magnetic field and velocity). Now the velocity is different and the created force is in a different direction. Now if the magnetic field is almost parellel to the velocity, you can change the velocity of the particle (like in the LHC).
Comment: @LDC3 The changes in the magnitude of the velocity in a synchrotron accelerator (like the LHC) are due to E fields! At most a magnetic field can *slow* a particle indirectly by causing it to radiate energy away due to the acceleration (so called synchrotron radiation)!
Answer:
I know that magnetic force acts perpendicular to the direction of the original velocity

No, the magnetic force acts perpendicular to the current velocity.
Once the direction of the velocity changes, the direction of the force changes as well.
Cast in math:
$$ m\dot{\vec v} = \vec F_L = \frac q c \vec v \times \vec B $$
From this we get ($v = |\vec v|$):
$$ \dot v = \partial_t \sqrt{\vec v^2} = \frac{\vec v \cdot \dot{\vec v}}{\sqrt{\vec v^2}} \propto \vec v \cdot (\vec v \times \vec B) = 0$$
(As $\vec v \times \vec B \perp \vec v$).
Answer: Since $\vec{F}=m\vec{a}$, the force of the magnetic field causes the charged particle to accelerate. An acceleration, however, is a change in velocity, not necessarily a change in magnitude of the velocity. If the force is parallel to the velocity, the magnitude of the velocity will change. If the force is perpendicular, only the direction of the velocity will change (like in a uniform circular motion.)
If you want the mathematics, you should consider the moving particle, a fixed frame x,y and a frame t,n that moves along with the particle, with the t-axis always parallel with the velocity (and hence, the n-axis always perpendicular to the velocity). In this moving frame, the velocity is:
$$\vec{v} = v . \vec{e}_t$$
In general
$$\dot{\vec{v}} = \dot{v} . \vec{e}_t + v. \dot{\vec{e}_t}$$
But if only the magnitude changes this becomes
$$\dot{\vec{v}} = \dot{v} . \vec{e}_t$$
So a change in magnitude of the velocity is caused by an acceleration parallel with the velocity.
If only the direction of the velocity changes, it becomes
$$\dot{\vec{v}} = v . \dot{\vec{e}_t}$$
To calculate this, you need to express t and n in terms of the fixed frame x,y:
$$\vec{e}_t = \cos\phi .\vec{e}_x+\sin\phi.\vec{e}_y\\
\vec{e}_n = \cos(\phi+\pi/2). \vec{e}_x+\sin(\phi+\pi/2).\vec{e}_y=-\sin\phi .\vec{e}_x+\cos\phi.\vec{e}_y$$
If you now calculate the derivative:
$$\dot{\vec{v}} = v . \dot{\vec{e}_t}= v . \dot{\phi}.\vec{e}_n$$
So a change in direction of velocity is caused by a perpendicular acceleration.
Answer: Simply:
The magnetic field does no work on a charged particle, because it's always normal to the particle trajectory.  Work equals the change in kinetic energy...i.e. no change in speed.
Answer: Maybe one intuitive explanation is that the change in velocity will be $O(\Delta t)$, while the change in speed during a little time $\Delta t$ will be $O(\Delta t^2)$. In fact if the velocity $\mathbf v =v_x\hat x$ is initially in the $x$ and the acceleration in the $y$ direction, then after $\Delta t$: $$\Delta v^2 \approx v_x^2+(a\Delta t)^2-v_x^2=a^2 \Delta t ^2$$and it is easy to show that if $\Delta v^2=O(\Delta t ^2),$ then also $\Delta v = O(\Delta t ^2)$. Now suppose we integrate numerically the motion of the particle for a total time $T$; after each step the speed of the particle $v=\sqrt {\mathbf v\cdot \mathbf v}$  will be increased by an amount proportional to $\Delta t ^2$. The number of integration steps will be proportional to $T/\Delta t$, so the total increase in speed will be proportional to $\Delta t$ and will vanish in the limit $\Delta t \to 0$.
Answer:
A particle is moving in a straight path when a magnetic field is turned on, exerting a force vxB=F according to the right-hand rule.
For the first time step, the force of the magnetic field, which is perpendicular to the velocity, appears to be increasing the total velocity vector. However, at the second time step, the force vector is pointing slightly backwards against the direction of the initial velocity. If you take these time steps to be infinitely short, then the particle will not increase in speed.
This will in fact happen for any two consecutive time steps, as the force of the second time step will be slightly opposing the velocity vector of the first time step. This has the effect of pulling the particle around in a circle at a constant speed.
Answer: Lorentz got a Nobel prize for giving an answer for this.  The actual KE depends on the particle rotational direction (Spintronics)) and the magnetic field alignment as well as the Electrical field alignment.


What's the word for someone who pretends to buy something from a street-seller, in order to draw other people?

Question: So there's a guy on Oxford Street in London who's always shouting through a PA system from his shop that they're "closing down tomorrow" and all their crappy perfume is on sale. I walk past this place every day and I realised that just as he opens the shop, two people with sullen expressions turn up, say a few words to him, then stand in front of him with fake smiles pretending to offer him money for stuff. It's a typical East End wide boy scam. I know there's a word for people who do this - I'd read it somewhere but have since forgotten it. What is it?
Comment: Who's not upvoting the question?  This is good!
Comment: I don't know the word for it but a related technique I've seen involves a jewellery store temporarily closing their shop doors, installing a queue line, and a product spruiker. When people think there is only a limited number of items available, and others start queuing up, they naturally get interested in what's on offer.
Answer: This person is called a shill:

A shill, plant or stooge is a person who helps a person or organization without disclosing that he or she has a close relationship with that person or organization. Shill typically refers to someone who purposely gives onlookers the impression that he or she is an enthusiastic independent customer of a seller (or marketer of ideas) that he or she is secretly working for.

The Oxford English Dictionary notes that this term was first used in 1913, and is chiefly North American. Older terms to refer to these decoys from the OED include:

stale (now obsolete)
barnard
barnacle
setter
tumbler
Comment: Stooge is more common in BE, Shill is pretty much an American term
Comment: A *plant* is more common in an audience, as part of a performance.
Comment: I walked past that very perfume shop in Oxford St. two days in a row recently. First of all, it's nearly 2014 and they're still "closing down", and funnily enough, I also saw the same woman two days in a row standing in front of the shop pretending to be a random customer getting FREE perfumes. These guys are definitely using _shills_ to give the impression they're giving away free cosmetics, but with so many new tourists flooding Oxford St. each day, it's an ideal place to do this type of scam. Yes, "shill" is indeed the correct word.


How can I get decent reviews in Game Dev Tycoon?

Question: I always get bad reviews, even if I technically have a good quality game. I made sure that I had great combos, put the sliders in the appropriate places, make sure my employees are all good. But I always get 5's and 4's. What am I doing wrong? How can I get better reviews? This is seriously killing the fun of the game for me.
Comment: You might be making your games TOO good.  If you create a perfect game, it will make it more difficult to score well after that without significant improvements in your technology.
Answer: The most important aspect to have good reviews is being consistent. You are always 'competing' with your previous high score . You should try to balance the Design and Technology points depending on the Genre and Topic of your games. Some combinations have an specific ratio of Design/technology points; having this ratio will result in better reviews.
Here you can find all the specific details
Answer: First, avoid the review killers:

Don't repeat topics right away
Use the right audience for the chosen platform (reviews tend to indicate when you get it wrong)
Use the right topic for the chosen audience

Then, you need to optimize the Creativity and Technology scores for each game. Once thing I've noticed (confirming a tip from the game's Wikia page) is that as long as you get a "Record!" on both values, you will get good reviews (around 8). If you blow away the previous record, that's when you will get an average near 10. If you don't beat both records but get near enough, you will still get a 6 or 7 on average, which is usually enough to recoup.
The things that seem to help boost the score:

Use the right slider values. Common sense and then experimentation help a lot. I find some genres harder to "guess" though (RPG and Adventure are my focus so far)
Make a game using your team's strengths. Quite naturally, if you keep making RPG games, your team might have trouble pulling off good Strategy or Casual games since they don't focus on the same sliders
Once in a while, create a new engine with around 4 new technologies (preferably ones in the domains your genres use) and use it on the next game. This usually raises the amount of points created by the team.
Once you get to Medium games, assigning the right person for each job is important. Thus, hiring the right people for the type of games you make. There is little feedback on this in-game though. I looked at "specialization training" and the required skill values to get a sense of what's needed for each game aspect. For example a Tech specialist is great to work on the Engine part. Level Design requires a bit of Tech and a bit of Creativity though, leaning towards Tech.
Make sure your employees are rested before starting a game. Nothing worst than someone with a fatigue bar during production. I usually do contract jobs, research and training in-between games to "tire out" employees and send them on vacation. Then I start a new game project.
Once you're able to, train for "Boost" and use it during production. It boosts the whole team's output for a short while. If more than one person has Boost, you can chain them throughout production.
Train your team in-between projects

And in general, I'd suggest not growing too fast (changing offices, hiring, switching to bigger games) until you're able to make good games (not perfect games) consistently.
Answer:
Yes, all my scores are pretty much like the above.
What I'm about to tell you is an unproven hypothesis, but it always works for me and consistently gives me reviews well above 4 4 4 5..
Basically, you are always trying to fight your previous score, so here's what you do:
First since you have made a game this means you have made a little progress. First thing to note is that you always have to stall the game to make development time longer and this will be added to the scores counted in the background.
So when you start developing a game,after those first points are sent before you start click on the screen then do some research, along the line market the game once or twice, then after the first stage is finished quickly click on the screen then do a research, then start the next stage (to make things easier, just keep clicking on the screen while the game is been developed until you see research,) after that even if the game is not a boom on design and tech, it will sell well.
Comment: This might work well in the first level, but later on, it's a huge gamble - if the research doesn't finish in time, you lose an entire staff member's development on the game.
Comment: Thats not till you progress to the 3 office,even in the third office it works,i have 1 billion in the 3rd office
Answer: You want to make good, consistent games that follow certain trends. I find that creating a game that has scored you a high score previously will be able to again get you that high score. Also, just a little bonus, Simulations (along with racing, prison, school, hospital, space, aeroplane) will basically always score high if you focus on the technology aspect of the game. Be sure not to constantly repeat the game you made.


Switch between blending modes in Sketch app Hot key

Question: I would like to know if there´s a way to switch between blending modes in Sketch app through keyboard (hotkey or whatever).
Answer: The only way to switch modes right now is a good old fashioned mouse click.
Unfortunately this isn't a feature available (yet) on Sketch as of this posting. Assigning a custom shortcut key is also out of the question since blend modes are not available as menu items.
There is however a healthy community of developers that are working on Extensions to improve Sketch functionality. You can put in an idea request at the Sketch Issue Repository and see if it generates any interest. With any luck, it will be a part of a future release since this is a built-in function of Photoshop already.


Why is シャワー used with 浴びる?

Question: I'm a little confused as to why it's 浴びる as opposed to する. In nouns like 掃除 or ゲーム, the verb used is する. Can anyone clarify?
Comment: ^ "Take a shower" の意味で「シャワーする」っていうのはちょっと変な気がします・・普通は「シャワーを浴びる」「シャワーにかかる」とかじゃないですかね。。「シャワーする」は、どこか特定の部分とかに「シャワーをかける」って意味に聞こえるような・・
Comment: This is not an answer but シャワーする, though not the best, is understandable for sure and probably even grammatically correct/used by some people. A native speaker could perhaps tell how strange it feels
Comment: @Chocolate 「シャワーにかかる」って初耳でした(笑)知恵袋に質問がある… https://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q12170497127
Comment: "*As opposed to する*"? I wonder if there is a language in which you actually use a noun "shower" with an auxiliary verb "do" to mean "take a shower". There are languages that have a separate verb for it, but doing a shower sounds like sprinkling something.
Answer: The picture 浴びる should evoke in your head is "something pouring on to your body."
シャワー is literally water pouring on to you, so 浴びる is the most natural verb to go with it. Another example would be 日光(sunlight)を浴びる, and here you can also picture sunlight pouring down on you from the sky.
する is the most generic verb like "do", and as such it does cover a wide variety of cases. But again just like the English word "do", there's also a lot of cases where this verb just wouldn't do it. Examples include 医者にかかる, 車を運転する, 水を飲む, and so on.
Comment: If one evokes an image of "something pouring on one's body", one will have a hard time figuring out why that "something" is a direct object of the action. I find it more convincing to evoke an image akin to "walking the street", "swimming the river", "abiring the sun". Say, "entering a shower"

Why is シャワー used with 浴びる?


Mumbai Airport inter Terminal transport

Question: Is there any airport transport to travel from Mumbai Airport Terminal 1 (International) to the Terminal 2 to catch the domestic connecting flight?
Answer: There is a transportation service:

T1B to T2: Prices Rs.245 for a Sedan. Rs.700 for a SUV.
  T2 to T1B: Prices Rs.230 for a Sedan. Rs.750 for a SUV.
The counters to buy the ticket are located:
T1B: Arrivals. Phone: 8767350021.
T2: Level 2, International Arrivals. Phone: (022) 65882672

(Airport Website)

Mumbai Airport inter Terminal transport


In Star Trek Into Darkness, how many died from the crash in San Francisco?

Question: In the movie Star Trek Into Darkness, how many people were killed when the USS Vengeance crashed into San Francisco?
Comment: http://www.quora.com/How-many-people-died-when-Khans-ship-crashed-into-the-city-in-Star-Trek-Into-Darkness
Comment: That's a good find, @Richard. I take it from your lack of answer, this is one of those things which probably would not have an answer. You'd have to know the population density, the exact trajectory of Vengeance, plus how far it actually traveled to even come close to figuring it out. Too bad all of that exists only in the brain of JJ Abrams.
Comment: @Paulster2 - Yup. You might find something in the supplementary materials but there's no specific numbers in the novelisations or comics.
Comment: Have you considered personal emergency transporters in each building and in the area that remove thousands of people from danger to a evac location?
Answer: "Numerous"

As if by a giant hand, the ancient monument that was the prison on the
  island of Alcatraz was scraped clean from its rocky promontory. The
  collision was just enough to critically slow the vessel's descent and
  alter its intended trajectory. Instead of smashing into and through
  Starfleet headquarters, it plunged into the bay.
Its momentum, however, was sufficient to send it through the water and
  slashing into the city bayfront. Tower after tower succumbed to the
  sickening impact, crumbling before the on-rushing mass, until the
  wreck of what had not long ago been the most powerful vessel in
  Starfleet's arsenal finally came to a grinding, groaning halt.
The concomitant wave that rose out of the harbor swept across the
  low-lying harbor front, inundating facilities, smashing apart
  landscaping, and tossing vehicles about like toys.
Caught in the surge, stunned onlookers struggled to stay afloat. Those
  who managed to ride out the wave or reach higher ground fought to save
  those who could not do so on their own. In guiding the crippled ship
  to its end, Khan's suicidal act gave rise to a thousand acts of
  bravery.
There were numerous injuries and unavoidable deaths, but the greater
  carnage he had hoped to inflict did not occur. The slightest of
  maladjustments that had affected the intended course of the warship's
  death dive meant that many more survived who would otherwise have
  perished. Star Trek Into Darkness : Official Novelisation
Comment: "As if by a giant hand" — possibly even a giant green space hand.
Comment: Thanks Richard for the answer , Quara.com is also a nice one
Comment: @Bigben59 - Yes, alas it's all unfounded guesswork. Aside from the few dozen people we see in the foreground who almost definitely died, the actual numbers could be anything between a few hundred and a few hundred thousand casualties.


Are Campagnolo and Shimano 11 speed chains interchangeable?

Question: I have an Athena 11 speed group set, but can get a good deal on the Shimano 9000 chain. Does anyone know of any reports of issues combining the two?
Comment: In any case, if you run Campy, you should feel proud to pay out the nose for stuff!
Comment: I don't know the specifics (I've heard the plates are thinner on Campy than Shimano, and the pins are a bit different), but in this case, the width is the same between Shimano and Campy for once. But typically, Campy stuff doesn't play nice with Shimano stuff. In any case, if you've already thrown down on a 11 speed Athena group set, a Campy chain vs Shimano chain is chump change. FWIW, KMC's chains are all listed for Campy, Shimano and SRAM 11 spee.
Comment: yeah, on the grounds that each of them seems to have a design philosophy to be incompatible with the other, I wouldn't expect that to have changed now.
Comment: It's not the cost of the chain - it's the tool to fit it!
Comment: It was better value than Ultegra when I bought it - the Yen was high!
Comment: @duncanmcgregor, if it's the tool that's the issue, buy the Park tool version. Same job, 1/3 the price.
Answer: Leonard Zinn has discussed Shimano and Campy 11-speed drivetrain compatibility several times in response to reader questions.
Technical FAQ: Drivetrain compatibility for 10- and 11-speed
Technical FAQ: Follow-up on 10- and 11-speed compatibility
Drivetrain compatibility hidden in plain sight
Although Zinn doesn't specifically address chain compatibility, I'm not sure how you could successfully mix drivetrain components if the chains were incompatible.
Answer: Read this article, all 11 speed cassette works with all Shimano, SRAM and Campagnolo drivetrain, meaning chain and RD and crankset, so the answer is the Shimano 11 speed chain and Campagnolo 11 speed chain are interchangable.
http://fitwerx.com/campagnolo-shimano-and-sram-11-speed-wheel-compatiblity
Comment: This is only "true" to a degree. And it assumes you don't care if the really expensive kit you bought on your bike actually performs at its best.
Answer: Given that all the manufacturers spend enormous amounts of time & money on R and D to make sure that all their parts are properly compatible and will behave exactly the way they want them to, it's crazy to mix and match.
My company do work as a contractor for Campag but another part of my company also look after general mechanics training and so we are very familiar with Shimano, SRAM etc at all levels -  and if you asked if a Campag chain could be used with Shimano I'd say the same as the other way about - yes, it'll work but it won't work as intended or even as well as the proper item - you will also be binning your warranty and if it all goes wrong and you end up in hospital, don't even bother trying to sue either manufacturer ... the same applies with KMC (here, KMC take up the liability, good luck with that if you ever need to call them to account) and SRAM - designed to work with SRAM of course ...
This is all completely normal and to be expected. The days when you could mix and match with total impunity disappeared some while ago ...


Computation of limit

Question: In Delta of binary option,
I do not see how to prove that the limit of $\partial C_t/\partial S_t$ is equal to $+\infty$ as $t \rightarrow T$. Can someone help ?
Comment: surely this is only true at the money? away from the money, the delta will be zero
Answer: The value of a bond binary call in the Black-Scholes model is given by
\begin{equation}
B_t = e^{-r (T - t)} \mathcal{N} \left( d_- \right),
\end{equation}
where
\begin{equation}
d_- = \frac{1}{\sigma \sqrt{T - t}} \left( \ln \left( \frac{S_t}{K} \right) + \left( r - \frac{1}{2} \sigma^2 \right) (T - t) \right). \nonumber
\end{equation}
The delta is
\begin{equation}
\frac{\partial B_t}{\partial S_t} = e^{-r (T - t)} \mathcal{N}' \left( d_- \right) \frac{1}{S_t \sigma \sqrt{T - t}}.
\end{equation}
We now want to take the limit as $t \rightarrow T$. First note that
\begin{equation}
\lim_{t \rightarrow T} d_- = \begin{cases} -\infty & \text{if } S_t < K\\ 0 & \text{if } S_t = K\\ +\infty & \text{if } S_t > K \end{cases}.
\end{equation}
Thus
\begin{equation}
\lim_{t \rightarrow T} \mathcal{N}' \left( d_- \right) = \begin{cases} 0 & \text{if } S_t \neq K\\ 1 / \sqrt{2 \pi} & \text{if } S_t = K \end{cases}
\end{equation}
and
\begin{equation}
\lim_{t \rightarrow T} \frac{\partial B_t}{\partial S_t} = \begin{cases} 0 & \text{if } S_t \neq K\\ +\infty & \text{if } S_t = K \end{cases}.
\end{equation}
In the last step we used that the exponential in $\mathcal{N}' \left( d_- \right)$ approaches zero faster than the $1 / \sqrt{T - t}$ approaches plus infinity in the limit when $S_t \neq K$.
Comment: Ok, I did not know that "at-the-money" means $S_t=K$.
Answer: Alternatively to LocalVolatility's already very nice answer, here's an approach to see that this result does not only hold under the Black-Scholes dynamics.
The $t$-value of a binary call expiring at $T$ can be written as
$$ C_t = \Bbb{E}_t^\Bbb{Q} \left[ e^{-r(T-t)} {\bf{1}}\{S_T \geq K \} \right] $$
Its "delta" is defined as $$\Delta = \frac{\partial C_t}{\partial S_t}$$
Under some light conditions (discussed in e.g. Monte Carlo Methods in Financial Engineering, Glasserman, 2004), you can permute the expectation and differential operators to write:
\begin{align}
\Delta_t &= \frac{\partial}{\partial S_t} \Bbb{E}_t^\Bbb{Q} \left[ e^{-r(T-t)} {\bf{1}}\{S_T \geq K \} \right] \\
&= \Bbb{E}_t^\Bbb{Q} \left[ e^{-r(T-t)} \frac{\partial}{\partial S_t}{\bf{1}}\{S_T \geq K \} \right] \\
&= \Bbb{E}_t^\Bbb{Q} \left[ e^{-r(T-t)} \delta(S_T-K) \frac{\partial S_T}{\partial S_t} \right] \tag{1}
\end{align}
where we've used the chain rule ($S_T$ functionally depends on $S_t$) and the fact that the derivative of the Heaviside function ${\bf{1}}(x \geq a)$ is a Dirac impulse at $a$, i.e. $\delta(x-a)$.
It should then clear that:
$$ \lim_{t \to T} \Delta_t = \delta(S_t-K) $$
hence the result.
Answer: You're short a digital call struck at 100. Your payoff : -\$1 above 100, \$0 below.
1 second before expiry, spot is 99.9999. If its stays there you owe nothing, if it goes a touch higher you owe $1 to the option's buyer.
You need to replicate this payoff via delta hedging : how much of the underlying do you need to hold to generate a \$1 gain, and offset your \$1 loss, when the spot moves from 99.9999 to 100.0?
Answer : a lot of it.

Computation of limit


Should designs be created on paper first?

Question: I am a newbie designer, I am often confused about moving through the design process, specifically when should I start using design software. Should I implement my ideas initially with software or should I do some sketches on paper first?
Comment: Why do you ask? Do you find it hard to do the design directly on software or do you forget things (e.g. low res., rgb pictures) or make mistakes? Do you do web design or print design? I think these 2 require a very different approach. You should add more details in your question about all this!
Comment: I always sketch before going into a program but it's completely opinion based. As such, I'm voting to close it for that reason
Comment: It's a personal preference (so I'm adding this as a comment), but I don't know any designers who don't start on paper first. It's a quick and easy way to brain dump any ideas that come to you. It's too easy in software to get stuck noodling on your very first design idea, but on paper it works more like brainstorming, getting lots of things down on the page and allowing for more exploration. This blog post goes into it a little more: http://designshack.net/articles/inspiration/why-you-should-be-sketching-even-if-you-cant-draw/  Good luck!
Comment: most older and notable designers would in all likelihood tell you to fully form your idea, not necessarily the design, with sketches on paper first. as a member of the newer generation of designers i tend not to do this but i still find it very helpful to do. it allows me to see with my eyes what i want and find several problems with the design before i spend lots of time trying to create it digitally. however, the sketching does not need to be done on paper, but it is impossible to replace that tactile feel of working with paper for sketches.
Answer: It's no so much about digital vs. analog, or paper vs. screen, but rather about getting ideas out of your head into a visual medium as fast as you can to maximize your brainstorming output.
The reason a lot of designers use paper and pencil first is because it's quick, easy to iterate with, and doesn't allow you to easily get bogged down in the tiny details.
This can be a great help with the initial design stage where you're trying to get as many ideas out of your head as you can to get an idea of what's working and what's not and to find connections between ideas.
So if paper and pencil is faster for you, I'd strongly suggest that. If you can do all that just fine in front of a keyboard, then that's fine too.
As an aside, I think this video by Aaron Draplin is a nice example of the "traditional" sketching-to-digital process that many logo designers go through.
https://vimeo.com/113751583
Comment: all of this is great advice.  I just wanted to add that if you start designing on computer, sometimes you end up self-editing too much (it's all depending on who you are I guess - this is just my experience).  I definitely like the pencil and paper approach for a more organic idea process.
Answer: I would say that it depends on situation, what kind of project, how much time you have etc. There can be a situation when you need to do something very fast and there is no need to play on paper before, because of the task being simple. But, mostly I do prefer to use paper before going to computer, because then you can sketch like about ten ideas and already see fast what works or not. Then you can focus on computer when you already know the road where you want to go, the target to achieve - polish the idea.


Is getting married a Mitzva in its own right or a necessary precondition for another Mitzva?

Question: Is getting married a Mitzva in its own right or a Hechsher Mitzvah (i.e. necessary precondition) for another Mitzva?
Comment: possible dupe http://judaism.stackexchange.com/q/61433/759
Comment: may be good to give more Tsdadim for the question
Comment: @DoubleAA I'm not sure if it's a dupe. The wording of the other question doesn't make a clear distinction, whereas this question is asking if marriage is a mizwah in and of itself (in addition to bearing children) or simply a necessary precondition.
Answer: Mitsva is Piria Verivia , and for male only (according to the Halacha, but some Tanayim think that female too are concerned by this mitsva) @DoubleAA taught me that an additional mitsva to getting married with Kiddushin and Ketuba. An additional negative mitsva to not be in intercourse with a woman without Kiddushin and Ketuba, in Mishna and Gemara we can study details about know the kinyanim and the amount of the Ketuba, the Get. All this is Mideorayta.
For source see Sefer Hamitsvot from Rambam and Sefer Hachinuch (But you can study it Mikraot and Chazal), the follow numbers and links are from Sefer Hachinuch:
Reproduction, --> 1
The act of getting married  --> 552
Not to enter in sexual relationship with a woman without Ketuba and kiddushin, --> 570

But if we read the Chinuch, one statement should be thinking about:

ועובר על זה ונשא אשה מבלי שיקדשנה תחילה ביטל עשה זה.
Whom married a woman without Kiddushin before cancels this positive commandment.

I really wondering, why not speaking about a man do not marry at all? Perhaps because there is no Bitul "beshav Veal Taasse".
As Nafka Mina
We can note that this mitsva applies when old people marry. P.e. An old widower and an old widow, they want to live together, but the couple will not have children. They are duty to rules of kidushin and Ketuba as all young couple.

Similar question (and answer):
Perhaps, we can suppose, but I have no proof, that this mitsva is a modaliy. I.E., a way to make something. If a man wants to marry a woman, so the right way is to start with Kiddushin and Ketuba. But if he does not want, no problem.
I have a partial proof that it is not the case. Rambam in Sefer Hamitsvot Mitsva 96 counted "Uncleanness of eight Shratsim", he explain a general rule for its count. A mitsva regarding uncleanness does not mean that we need to be unclean by this uncleanness or that we are prohibited from this uncleanness. The translation of the mitsva is. Whom touch this thing will be unclean as this and this; if this thing touched someone this uncleanness will happened, etc.
Ramban does not agree and see rules of cleanness-uncleanness as details for mitsvot involved in cleanness-uncleanness. It is similar to the rule to not give Korban with default, the knowledge regarding defaults in not Mitsva but details of this prohibition. Ramban includes this knowledge to the VII principle (not to count details of mitsvot as separated mitsvot).
Regarding Kiddushin, we can imagine that Tora prohibits many kinds of relationship, see mitsva 570, and the way to avoid this prohibition is kiddushin and ketuba. So, if it was the case, Ramban was not agreeing. But Ramban seems to agree. So definitely this is a mitsva.
Comment: similar question and answer
Comment: This question brings back such good memories from the beginning of Ha'ish Mekadeish last year. :) We did this exact sugya and most of these sources. I'd just like to make two points: first, there's no Mitzvah, or even a concept, of Kesubos on a D'Oraisa level - just something the Rabbanan enacted to dissuade people from giving Gittin. Second, there's a Rosh that can supply the proof you're looking for. In Maseches Kesubos, in discussing the Birchas Eirusin, he says that there's no Mitzvah of Kiddushin - it's only a way to have kids. He brings down the same Nafka Minah you did.
Comment: @DonielFilreis regarding Ketuba, there is a machloket if Ketuba is "mitsva" deorayta or not, between Ramban and Rambam. Regarding Birkat Erusin I do not really remember, but you can see in Chinuch 552, regarding this. Bli neder I will continue to look at your references. BTW "Kemohar Habetulot" is a Posuk
Comment: Regarding Kesuba: Good to know. I did not realize there was such a Machlokes. Regarding Kemohar Habesolos: Is that what's used as a source Kesubos are D'oraisa?
Comment: @DonielFilreis I am not sure, I need to learn more the topic.
Comment: @DonielFilreis I checked. See Mitsvat Lo taasse 355 on hasagat haramban and on mefaresh Lev Sameach. Lev Sameach says that Rambam, Rashi, Tosfot follow Rabban Gamliel in the opinion that Ketuba Deorayta. Rashi Al Hatora Mishpatim on the verse Kemohar Habetulot said this and hte Mizrachi pointed it. Tosfot Ketubot 10a and Yebamot 89a also. All this I read in Lev Sameach.


Differences in Postfix Syntax

Question: A question about postfix/RPN came up in my class due to the current ACSL competition. Is it a rule or convention that 4 + (5 * 6) in infix is written 4 5 6 * + in postfix, as opposed to 5 6 * 4 + in postfix? When the second postfix example is translated into infix, the order of the arguments is switched, but should that matter for operators with the commutative property?
Answer: There are no "rules", you make the rules yourself. The rule used in class has the property that the numbers appear in the same order in both expressions. The rule is also pretty natural:
$$ T(\alpha \circ \beta) = T(\alpha) T(\beta) \circ $$
Here $\alpha$ is an infix expression, $T(\alpha)$ is the translation of $\alpha$, and $\circ$ is a binary operation. The corresponding rule for unary expressions is $T(\circ \alpha) = T(\alpha) \circ$, and there is also a deparenthesizing rule, $T((\alpha)) = T(\alpha)$. If you apply these rules to the expression $4 + (5 * 6)$ you will get $4 \; 5 \; 6 * + $.
Keeping the order is important for operations which are not commutative, such as subtraction and division; that's assuming on the convention that $3 \; 2 \; - = 1$ and so on, rather than the other way around.
Comment: Is it safe to assume that in the industry, operations that are commutative are not scrutinized for exact order?
Comment: I'm not sure the industry is interested in converting infix to postfix. If they do, their guiding principle is probably "whatever works", and may depend on the application. That said, in compilers it is important to maintain the order of an addition of the form $(a+b)+c$, in contradistinction to, say, $a+(b+c)$, for numerical reasons.
Answer: In my view postfix expressions code trees. This can be done regardless of semantics. One only needs the arity (number of arguments) of each operator. Thus your two postfix expressions code different trees.

Infix expressions can also be used to denote (binary) trees but then we usually need parentheses to fix the structure. We can do with less parentheses by adding operator precedence and associativity rules for the operators.

Differences in Postfix Syntax


TV and PC power cords

Question: I have a Samsung PS43E450 TV (pic here). I lost the power cord. Can I just use the power cable from my PC (since it fits in the slot), or will it blow up?
Comment: The general rule is that simple power leads are fine to swap. Power bricks are not ok to swap without carefully checking the specs.
Comment: Here's my suggestion on how to make this question *not* off-topic here. Ask it in the context of "Is there any difference in power cords that fit [this] type of socket?" or "Are all power cords that fit [this] socket configuration the same?" Then the question becomes relevant for electronics design, *and* helps you out with your TV. The answer should illustrate that the IEC connector is a standard, but that the other end may vary by region.
Answer: Yes, no problem. That's the same connector.
There could be issues if you bought the TV in a country with different mains voltage. You'd have to check with the manual/label on the back if it works with the voltage of your current country then.
Answer: That's a common IEC-60320 C13 socket. Any cable with a c14 plug at one end, and your local outlet type at the other will work. These are standard off the shelf cables.

TV and PC power cords


APA Headings- Frequency

Question: How often should you use a heading? Are there any guidelines or limitations to using headings too often (i.e., every paragraph, every other paragraph, etc.)?
Answer: The correct but useless answer is: It depends.
But one could say: If every paragraph has a new heading, that's almost surely too much. It just becomes distracting.
If you have only two headings in a 600 page book, that's almost surely too little. It's of little help in breaking up the book or helping the reader find desired information.
In general, I avoid having more than one heading per page. If I find that I am putting two or three headings per page, I try to move the headings to a "higher level". For example, if I started out having separate headings for Brazil and Venezuela and Ecuador and France and Britain and Germany and so on, and I only had a paragraph or two for each country, I'd consider making headings for continents instead of countries.
If I have less than one heading for every ten or twenty pages, I'd do the reverse: make the headings at a lower level so that there are more of them.
In a short document, if I have only one or two headings for the whole document I'd break it up more. In general I try to have at least three or four headings.
But even these broad guidelines I would not advise anyone to follow slavishly.
One thing a heading does is allow you to concisely introduce a new section. I've had times when I've started out writing, "In the United States ..." and then two paragraphs later, "On the other hand, in Brazil ...", and then a few paragraphs later, "The situation in France, though, is ...". And after three or four of these I'm struggling between using the same words to introduce each section, and thus sounding repetitive, or trying to come up with fifty different ways to transition to another country. Putting in headings that say simply, "United States", "Brazil", "France", etc, solves the problem neatly. Even if there were too many of them, this is probably preferably to wrestling with how to say "here's the next country" fifty times. (BTW some writers get around this by not clearly identifying that they are now talking about a different country, or whatever the shift in subject is, which I think is a terrible solution, because now the reader has to figure it out.)
So to sum it up: If you have more than one or two headings per page, I'd THINK ABOUT ways to reduce the number of headings. But if you can't think of a way to do it without making the document harder to understand, don't worry about it.

APA Headings- Frequency


Mongrel clusters are running parallel on windows

Question: I have setup my rails application on windows With Mongrel application server and Apache Web server .
I have defined the 10 cluster for mongrel to handle the request properly .
When I make any request that has heavy db operation or that require time to execute , then all my mongrel cluster are busy and displaying same log .
Same mongrel cluster setting are working fine on Linux server .
Can you please get me out of this bottleneck .
Thanks in advance .
Answer: It sounds like the native database access library is locking something or the database itself is configured in the such a way that only exclusive access to the relevant tables is allowed.  (Most likely the former by the sound of it, assuming it's the exact same database that is being accessed from the Linux-served version of your app too.)
As such, the answer to your question is probably rooted in the particular database provider you are using.  Which is it... sqlite, Postgres, MySQL, MS SQL Server?
Comment: Database is MySQL. And I think issue was not due to database . I was stuck in between the log files, so I have set different for each cluster and things are working fine . Thanks for your respond .
Answer: Was stuck into the log issue .
So I have set different log file for each cluster and things are working fine .


Is there any unilateral heat exchanger?

Question: I don't know if this is even possible or not but are there any pads that can transfer/exchange heat from one side to the other side unilaterally?
I mean that the heat could be transferred from one side to the other, but can't do the same in reverse.
If there is any confusion please comment and I will try to explain better.
Comment: should it be an active or a passive device?
Comment: forgot asking: can you also gives some numbers? should the side you care about hotter or cooler then the other one?
Comment: A peltier device?
Comment: @AlbertoBrambilla It doesn't matter whether the device to be active or passive, at least not right now. About your second question, I should add that it doesn't matter too. Right now I am only looking for an answer about whether such a device exists or not. A device that can pass the heat from one side to the other but doesn't let it to be transferred back.
Comment: @SolarMike Unfortunately, No.
Answer: Given the details you gave in the comments of the question.
An active solution can be designed and realized.
Heat exchange is driven dy a temperature variation. Say you have this system:

chamber 1 at T1=50°C (this is the chamber we want to keep at fixed T)
chamber 2 at variable T2 (this is the outside environment)
wall between the two chambers on which we have a water cooled heat exchanger with water running at temperature TE

Case 1: T2=20°C (T2<T1)
In this case the water running in the exchanger will be at TE=50°C(an heater will be needed) so T1-TE=0 that means no heat flowing. At the same time TE-T2>0 so chamber 2 will cool the water running in the exchanger.
Case 2: T2=80°C (T2>T1)
Also in this case the water will be kept at TE=T1=50°C so again TE-T1=0 and no heat is flowing. Now T2-TE=30°C meaning chamber 2 will heat up the water thus a chiller will be needed.
Clearly both the chiller and the heater might be fit into the same controlling device.
An heat exchanger in this case might be a rather trivial plate with channels for water to flow into. As @Solar Mike suggested a peltier device might be used but I think it will be more complex as it will need cooling, maybe liquid, in order to work properly.

Passive solutions may be possible but I can't say much without any detail on temperatures and time for which the system must work. If it work for an indefinite time then the active solution is the only way possibile as for long times any system will reach an equilibrium point at a common temperature.

Is there any unilateral heat exchanger?


Is the name change proposal "Second-Language Acquisition" really appropriate?

Question: Over on Area 51, one of the proposed names for this site was Second Language Acquisition. While the term does accurately describe the scope of the stack, the part that really bothers me is the "Second Language". Questions on this site are not only restricted to a second language. It's perfectly fine if you have any questions about learning a third or fourth language. For that reason, I suggest we change this name proposal to "New Language Acquisition" or something like that.
Comment: one of the proposed names may of been "Second Language Acquisition" but we are "Language Learning" now which is a concise name and covers all topics about learning language acquisition
Comment: Related: [Final Review: Is the proper title "Second-Language Acquisition"?](http://discuss.area51.stackexchange.com/q/22478/61861) at Area51.SE
Comment: In the research on [**second language acquisition**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-language_acquisition) I have read so far, the distinction between second language and foreign language is often unimportant. So, from a scientific point of view, "Second-Language Acquisition" or "Second Language Learning" would be appropriate. But since the general public appears to make a distinction (well, when they have any opinions on the topic, at least), I would rather stick to "Language Learning". There is no need to add "new" because reacquisition is also relevant here.
Answer: Just like "dual citizenship" is usually used to refer to two or more—not "two and only two"—citizenships, I understand "second language" to mean "not the first", rather than "between the first and the third". So I don't think your concern is warranted.
Wikipedia defines a second language as

a language that is not the native language of the speaker, but that is used in the locale of that person. In contrast, a foreign language is a language that is learned in an area where that language is not generally spoken.

So one could make the argument that it's excluding foreign language learning, but not that it's excluding learning a third or fourth language. It's simply not what that term means.

That being said, the current title "Language Learning" seems very clear to me, and I don't see why it would need to be changed.
Answer: For future readers: questions about native language acquisition, including re-acquisition, are also on-topic. So the name "Second Language Acquisition" would be a bad fit for the site.


LEGO G-Scale train?

Question: I have a 45mm gauge LGB-based G-scale garden railway and want my grandson to have a push-along loco and some rolling stock for it.  Can we make this with LEGO? The wheels need to be non-metal and have inner flanges. Apart from the gauge itself, it does not have to be to scale or be highly realistic. At his age, it's the scope for imaginative play with figures and loads that we're after.
Answer: The beauty of LEGO is that you can create virtually anything with it. I assume you are aware of the existence of LEGO Trains such as 60052 Cargo Train? The scale of these trains is not directly compatible with LGB's G-scale (the LEGO scale is sometimes referred to as L-Scale or L-Gauge) but many of the train elements can be used for building different scales. More details on the LEGO L-Gauge can be found here(l-gauge.org).

Some of the train elements you want to take a look at are Wheels, Magnetic Couplings and Axles, which form the basis of any train and/or wagon.

You will have to experiment a bit with sizing, e.g. how many bricks wide is G-scale track, and how do flange and thread dimensions of wheels work on G-scale rails. LEGO's assortment of train wheels is limited (only a few sizes), but you might want to check out Big Ben Bricks' Custom Train wheel collection for additional sizes.
You are not the first one to attempt this, though, a quick Google search showed several images and videos of LEGO trains running on G-scale track. Here is one recent video that I found interesting. The author's website (lgtrains.com) has more info on these trains.
Comment: Once again thanks Phil B for taking trouble to help so much. Things have changed so much with Lego from when I used to do (pretty simple) things with my own children.  But also in UK we've lost a lot of good toy and modelling shops from many city areas like London in recent years.  But I think I've located one in a big mall in W London.  (BTW sorry for assuming you might have lived in UK.  I didn't really take in the geographical constituency of this forum when I joined only few weeks ago).
Comment: Thanks Phil B.  I found this very useful.  In fact we don't have to worry about setting up track as my garden layout has a convenient siding/loop at a nice height next to a path where he can shunt to and fro.  Main challenge is getting the gauge right, which will obviously depend on getting axles that are long enough, as 'L-scale' seems to be narrower-gauge than our 45 mm set up.  Just wondering though if you know of a good Lego store we can visit in the London area or Derby-Nottingham-Leicester area.
Comment: You can always go to a LEGO store (I'm in the US, but lived in London 15 years ago :) ) or a big toy store (Toys'r'us, Smyths) to get some inspiration, but to get the pieces I mentioned you'd need to buy several sets which will set you back quite a lot of money. It might be easier to visit [Bricklink.com](http://bricklink.com) or [BrickOwl](http://brickowl.com) and buy individual pieces (or get them from the Pick-A-Brick section at [LEGO Shop@Home](http://shop.lego.com). You could use [Lego Digital Designer](http://ldd.lego.com) to mock up some designs first.

LEGO G-Scale train?


Could elves realistically have tapetum lucidum?

Question: I know that certain animals have the ability to see in darker areas but not in pitch black due to a special ability they have in their eyes which also gives them that glowing effect. Could elves have the same thing?
Answer: Possible in fantasy, but of dubious utility
The tapetum lucidum is a reflective layer behind the retina, which gives a second chance to the photons which were not intercepted on their first pass. It increases light sensitivity by about 44% or 0.5 f-stops (an ideal tapetum lucidum would increase sensitivity by 1 f-stop); the catch is that is decreases acuity, because the image is blurred.
As for realism, while most primates don't have a tapetum lucidum, most primitive primates (strepsirrhines) do. If elves do indeed have a tapetum lucidum then they must have diverged from our evolutionary line about 65 million years ago.
Humans have very decent night vision for a diurnal animal; whether the increased light sensitivity is worth the decrease in acuity depends on the life strategy of those elves. Are they nocturnal animals? The elves in the movies looked like civilized people, don't they have lamps?
(As an aside, the maximum aperture of the human eye, dark adapted, is about f/2.1, which is very good; but only about 10-15% percent of the retina is occupied by the rod cells responsible for scotopic vision. When completely dark adapted, with a bit of luck  human eyes can detect individual photons; bursts of twenty or so yellow-green photons can be detected quite reliably. The catch is that switching from photopic mode to scotopic mode takes several minutes; the reverse transition is much faster, taking only a few seconds.)
So what else can I do?
If you really want your elves to have significantly better night vision than humans, then you have two avenues open:

Give them bigger eyes.
Low-light image quality scales with sensor size. This is the a fundamental reason why a full-frame camera with its 864 mm² sensor (or even an APS-C camera with a 384 mm² sensor) takes much better low-light pictures than a compact or mobile phone camera with a 28 mm² sensor. After all, low-light sensitivity is limited by the number of photons which fall on the sensor, and this is proportional with sensor area.
Give them more rod cells.
Humans have many more cone cells (responsible for day vision) than rod cells (responsible for night vision). Increasing the proportion of rod cells will increase low light sensitivity, with a corresponding reduction in visual acuity in day time.
Comment: Pedantic photography note: 0.5 stops, but not _f-stops_ — the latter is just for aperture in relation to focal length. https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/15706/what-is-one-stop
Comment: Huh. Greater rod density would lead to colourblind elves...
Comment: @JoeBloggs: No, just to elves with lower visual acuity. Rods don't work in photopic vision at all. (The eye operates as if it were a photo camera with two overlapped / intermingled sensors, one color but low sensitivity and one highly sensitive but black-and-white.)
Comment: Precisely. I'm assuming that greater rod density also leads to more of the eye being made up of rods (a fixed amount of energy being spent on the eye), which would (by necessity) lead to fewer cones, which would lead to lower ability to detect and differentiate colours. I'll grant that's not the medical definition of colourblindness, but the effects would be similar enough to be interesting.
Comment: @AlexP  I'd take the latter avenue, as the first one reminds me too much of Alita.


how to "digitize" physical assets

Question: I am new to all this.  So far I got the dev tools, kicked off my own test network on the laptop, mined a bunch of ethers, written a contract and deployed it to my network -- all works, awesome.
What I cant get a clear picture of is the transfer of physical assets via this trustless network.  I understand when ethers are being deposited into my contract -- its an electronic thing, it works. What I dont understand is how the delivery of physical goods gets back to the buyer.  For the sake of argument, I want to sell my car, or bonds in my portfolio. If I describe this stuff in the contract in great detail and ask ethers for it, what I am putting up is a promise to sell that stuff --- the actual physical car is still in my garage.  So how is this supposed to work?  Please point me in the right direction.  Thank you
Answer: The most typical strategy is that the buyer and seller agree on who would resolve a dispute if there's a disagreement over whether or not the physical good was delivered.
Then the buyer sends funds to an escrow wallet contract that requires 2 of 3 signatures to transfer funds out.  The 3 are the buyer, seller, and arbitrator.
Then the seller conveys the physical goods according to the agreed-upon method (e.g. does the seller have to drive the car a long distance or will the buyer pick it up?).  The seller denotes this, signing to release the escrow funds to him/herself.
If the buyer acknowledges receipt of the goods, the buyer indicates that the funds should be released to the seller, and that's 2 of the 3 so the funds are released.
If something happens and the seller can't deliver, buyer and seller can both sign to refund the escrowed funds back to the buyer.
If there's a disagreement, the arbitrator can be called in to hear each of your perspectives and decide to release the funds to one or the other (or just leave the funds inaccessible to everyone in that escrow).
Answer: You can ask the guys at stock.it to build an ethereum-enabled lock for your car. That way you can write a contract so that it will open only when you identify yourself with a private key. Or you can add a lend() function to let it open for other people, too.
Comment: Well, this is silly.  The car was just an example.  The point is -- what happens when digital and electronic meet the physical?
Comment: Yes, I understood that. So I gave you an answer with a real interaction between ethereum and physical objects. There's no interaction when doing just the money transfer (with an escrow) on the chain.

how to "digitize" physical assets


What is the reason that intercourse is required for a valid marriage?

Question: Within the Catholic Church, it is required to have intercourse with each other after marriage. But what is the reason behind this?
Comment: The Catholic Church does teach that Mary and Joseph were validly married despite never having intercourse.
Comment: Can you give a reference which says that intercourse is nessecary for validity of marriage?
Answer: Intercourse is not necessary for the validity of a marriage.
The essence of marriage is the matrimonial consent (exchange of vows), not sexual intercourse.
St. Thomas Aquinas explains in Summa Theologica suppl. q. 42 a. 4 that carnal intercourse is not an integral part of marriage; in Summa Theologica III q. 29 a. 2 he explains how Sts. Joseph's and Mary's marriage was a true marriage, despite being a virginal marriage.
However, the ability to have intercourse is necessary for the validity of marriage. Permanently impotent people, for example, cannot validly contract marriage; impotency is an example of a diriment impediment, which is

A condition, circumstance, or situation that makes an action null and void in its intended effects. Thus an existing marital bond nullifies any attempt to enter a second marriage.

Canons 1083 ff. list all the diriment impediments that render marriage invalid.
Consummated vs. Unconsummated Marriages
These can both be valid marriages.
Consummated
A consummated marriage is

A marriage in which after the matrimonial contract is made husband and wife have marital intercourse. Contraceptive intercourse does not consummate Christian marriage. (Etym. Latin consummare, to bring into one sum, to perfect.)

In canon law, such a marriage is called ratum et consummatum ("ratified and consummated"). Only death dissolves the bond:

Can. 1141 A marriage that is ratum et consummatum can be dissolved by no human power and by no cause, except death.

Unconsummated
An unconsummated marriage is called ratum sed non consummatum ("ratified but not consummated"). Unconsummated marriages can be dissolved by the Pope if either or both parties decide to enter religious life. This is the so-called Petrine Privilege, because it requires the Pope's permission:

Can. 1142 For a just cause, the Roman Pontiff can dissolve a non-consummated marriage between baptized persons or between a baptized party and a non-baptized party at the request of both parties or of one of them, even if the other party is unwilling.
Comment: I believe we have a question elsewhere about a marriage where one party is permanently impotent, saying that the marriage cannot be valid because it is incapable of being consummated.
Answer: What is the reason that intercourse is required for a valid marriage?
Marriages that are unconsummated do exist within the Catholic Church, but they are quite rare to say the least. In fact Our Lady's marriage to St. Joseph was such a marriage.

The marriage of baptized persons is a sacrament and, once consummated and thereby confirmed, cannot be dissolved as long as the parties to it are alive. - Annulment

The sexual act not only consummates a valid marriage; it is also a way for spouses to express their intimate love and fidelity towards one another.

Can. 1084 §1 Antecedent and perpetual impotence to have sexual intercourse, whether on the part of the man or on that of the woman, whether absolute or relative, by its very nature invalidates marriage.
§2 If the impediment of impotence is doubtful, whether the doubt be one of law or one of fact, the marriage is not to be prevented nor, while the doubt persists, is it to be declared null.
§3 Without prejudice to the provisions of can. 1098, sterility neither forbids nor invalidates a marriage.

The sexual act within a validly contracted marriage makes it indissoluble before the Church. Whereas an unconsummated marriage can be dissolved only by the pope himself. Even the pope can not dissolve a valid marriage once it is consummated.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us this about the conjugal act of love between those married:

V. THE GOODS AND REQUIREMENTS OF CONJUGAL LOVE
1643 "Conjugal love involves a totality, in which all the elements of the person enter - appeal of the body and instinct, power of feeling and affectivity, aspiration of the spirit and of will. It aims at a deeply personal unity, a unity that, beyond union in one flesh, leads to forming one heart and soul; it demands indissolubility and faithfulness in definitive mutual giving; and it is open to fertility. In a word it is a question of the normal characteristics of all natural conjugal love, but with a new significance which not only purifies and strengthens them, but raises them to the extent of making them the expression of specifically Christian values."152
The unity and indissolubility of marriage
1644 The love of the spouses requires, of its very nature, the unity and indissolubility of the spouses' community of persons, which embraces their entire life: "so they are no longer two, but one flesh."153 They "are called to grow continually in their communion through day-to-day fidelity to their marriage promise of total mutual self-giving."154 This human communion is confirmed, purified, and completed by communion in Jesus Christ, given through the sacrament of Matrimony. It is deepened by lives of the common faith and by the Eucharist received together.
The fidelity of conjugal love
1646 By its very nature conjugal love requires the inviolable fidelity of the spouses. This is the consequence of the gift of themselves which they make to each other. Love seeks to be definitive; it cannot be an arrangement "until further notice." The "intimate union of marriage, as a mutual giving of two persons, and the good of the children, demand total fidelity from the spouses and require an unbreakable union between them."
The openness to fertility
1652 "By its very nature the institution of marriage and married love is ordered to the procreation and education of the offspring and it is in them that it finds its crowning glory."

Children are the supreme gift of marriage and contribute greatly to the good of the parents themselves. God himself said: "It is not good that man should be alone," and "from the beginning [he] made them male and female"; wishing to associate them in a special way in his own creative work, God blessed man and woman with the words: "Be fruitful and multiply." Hence, true married love and the whole structure of family life which results from it, without diminishment of the other ends of marriage, are directed to disposing the spouses to cooperate valiantly with the love of the Creator and Savior, who through them will increase and enrich his family from day to day.

Within Catholic theology, it teaches that a validly-contracted sacramental marriage is accompanied by divine ratification, creating a virtually indissoluble union until the couple consummate, after which the sacramental marriage is dissoluble only by the death of a spouse. An unconsummated marriage can be dissolved by the Pope, as Vicar of Christ. Once a sacramental marriage is consummated, only a separation is possible: the marriage bond cannot be dissolved by any power.
Now let us take a look at what canon law says about marriages:

Canon 1061.1 A valid marriage between baptised persons is said to be merely ratified, if it is not consummated; ratified and consummated, if the spouses have in a human manner engaged together in a conjugal act in itself apt for the generation of offspring. To this act marriage is by its nature ordered and by it the spouses become one flesh.
Canon 1061.2 If the spouses have lived together after the celebration of their marriage, consummation is presumed until the contrary is proven.
Canon 1141 A marriage which is ratified and consummated cannot be dissolved by any human power or by any cause other than death.
Canon 1142 A non-consummated marriage between baptised persons or between a baptised party and an unbaptised party can be dissolved by the Roman Pontiff for a just reason, at the request of both parties or of either party, even if the other is unwilling.

As we see, unconsummated marriages can only be dissolved by the Holy See (pope).
Under normal circumstances however there are four main conditions that are required for a truly Catholic marriage to exist:

The Catholic Church also has requirements before Catholics can be considered validly married in the eyes of the Church. A valid Catholic marriage results from four elements: (1) the spouses are free to marry; (2) they freely exchange their consent; (3) in consenting to marry, they have the intention to marry for life, to be faithful to one another and be open to children; and (4) their consent is given in the canonical form, i.e., in the presence of two witnesses and before a properly authorized church minister. Exceptions to the last requirement must be approved by church authority. The Church provides classes several months before marriage to help the participants inform their consent. During or before this time, the would-be spouses are confirmed if they have not previously received confirmation and it can be done without grave inconvenience (Canon 1065). - Marriage in the Catholic Church

An example of a successful yet unconsummated marriage is the one that existed between the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph.

Marriage of the Virgin Mary
More information can be gleaned from the following article(s):
Canon Law and Consummating a Marriage
Contraception and Marriage Validity
What is the Catholic Church's position of a marriage between a menopausal woman and an impotent man?
Comment: You correctly describe the teachings and canons. But the question is the reason for that.


What kind of stabilizers can I use when making souffles, Japanese cheesecake or egg beaten products?

Question: I would like to know more about effective stabilizers for egg-based cakes and similar dishes. I've heard that some people use gelatine, but wouldn't that make the cake ( Japanese cheesecake) have a jelly texture? Are there other options if this is the case as I want to preserve the light, egg-y fluffiness of these dishes?
Comment: Japanese "rare cheesecake" (レアーチーズケーキ) isn't usually particularly gelatinous in my experience, but it also doesn't typically have eggs in it; it will typically have lemon though. The Japanese-style soufflé cheesecake, on the other hand, has eggs but uses foamed egg white (meringue) for structure instead of gelatin. I think the ratio of gelatin is relatively small compared to, for example, a "mousse cake".
Answer: For non-culinary reasons, I would offer substitutions to gelatin;

As for a powerful stabilizer akin to gelatin but that doesn't precisely gel (go to pectin for that), when you are heating the food I have found agar to be a pretty effective stabilizer in vegan quiche that rely on a silken tofu base.
I have used it to stabilize cheesecakes, pudding pies, and puree
based pies and been pleased each time.
As for a middling stabilizer/thickener, i.e. if you don't want to
veer nearer to the gelatin edge, you can try tapioca flour; per
Isa Chandra Moskovitz, "[sometimes tapioca flour can be used]
interchangeably with corn-starch in recipes, but we feel it does have
a different kind of cooked texture (thicker, gooier)."[VPITS
p.7]


Can I use cylinder compression to conclude the valves are adjusted

Question: Today a friend told me that my exhaust gas smelled funny and that I should check my valves. I don't find it very likely since the engine is around 6000kms old. Can I avoid the trouble by checking the compression? If the valves need adjustment the compression should be low right? Even if good compression not necessarily mean good valve adjustment, if I get a good compression, should I still tear down the engine head?
Comment: Welcome to Motor Vehicle Maintenance & Repair!
Answer: No. A compression test is used to measure the sealing in the cylinder, both through the valves and the rings. You cannot confer anything through a compression test as to the adjustment of the valves, because it doesn't relate to that. You may get compression readings which are less than they should be if the adjustment is too tight (a tight adjustment might keep the valve open more than it should be), but will tell you nothing if it is too loose. It also depends on which valve the adjustment is loose/tight on. Just because compression readings may be low does not automatically mean your valves need adjustment. All a low compression reading is telling you is that something isn't sealing correctly. It could be due to a bad valve to seat interface. Like I said, you cannot use the compression test to directly tell you what you this information.
You shouldn't need to tear down the head to get a valve adjustment. Depending on the engine, you can usually get to and measure the valve lash by taking the valve cover off and measuring directly at the valve tip, or between the cam and the follower.
Answer: If compression is good then you don't need to tear down the heads. Compression might or might not tell you if the valves are out of adjustment. This has to do with valve overlap and timing.
Tight valves open up sooner, open up wider, and stay open longer, which too tight can lower compression and burn exhaust valves; compression loss due to valve not seating quick enough on the compression stroke.
Loose valves open up later, open up narrower, and close sooner, which can cause back pressure and loss in power/mpg from excessive vacuum being pulled on the intake and power stroke. (intake valves don't open when supposed to, creating excessive vacuum during intake stroke; exhaust valves don't open before end of power stroke creating excessive vacuum and also close to early at end of exhaust stroke creating unneeded compression.)


How can I tell if a 1x1 bridge is raised?

Question: If I place a 1x1 bridge, and hook it up to a lever, how can I tell if that bridge is raised? If the lever is ON, will it always be raised (I dont think so, because I can hook it up while the lever is ON, thus flipping the bits, right?)
Comment: A minor note, not really related to the question itself, but addressing  an issue that may cause issues later which is revealed by the question.  Flipping a lever does not flip the state of a bridge. It sets the state of the bridge to the state of the lever. So if you hook a bridge up to a lever that is already on, the first time you flip the lever nothing will happen. This can also cause issues if you are hooked up to something that sends open/close signals faster than the bridge/door/etc. can change state.
Comment: @Nick Does that mean that if a bridge is only hooked up to one lever and it has been flipped at least once, then ON will always mean raised and OFF will always mean lowered?
Comment: If you are very careful then yes. The wiki explains it more thouroughly at [the page on levers.](http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Lever#On.2FOff_state) There is a delay in the change so if you pull the lever too fast several times in a row it won't change for all of the pulls and might end up in a different state. Also there are some other conditions that can prevent a bridge from changing state, such as very large monsters standing on them.
Answer: Press b,d to build door.
Hover the cursor over the bridge.

If it says "Building present" - bridge is down (passable).
If it says "Blocked" - bridge is raised.
Comment: Way better solution than accepted answer!
Answer: This is actually a problem for all bridges of length 1. The lever state cannot be relied upon to indicate the bridge state, especially if two or more levers (or other mechanisms) control the bridge. Here is the solution I have found.
There are two cases:

In one case the bridge is submerged in liquid. If this is the case
then the liquid will show instead of the bridge whenever the bridge
is open (that is it can be passed because it is lowered). Conversely
the bridge will show instead of the fluid when it is raised.
In the other case where the bridge is on dry land you can determine
the state of the bridge using meeting zones. Place a 1x1 zone on one
of the tiles that the bridge occupies. If the bridge is lowered and
dwarves can stand there then the zone will say that it has a tile
usable as a meeting area. If the bridge is raised and behaving like a
wall then the zone will have no tiles available as a meeting area.
There are several other zone types that behave in the same way such
as garbage dumps, pen/pasture, hospital and animal training.


Where can I buy postage stamps in Manila, Philippines? And where can I go to send postcards? How much will it be?

Question: Where can I buy a postage stamp near Paco, Manila, Philippines? What stamps will I need to send it to the US?
Comment: @Daniil yes they do. "How can I send the postcards to US?"
Comment: I disagree with the vote to close this as 'price-shopping' - I don't think OP is asking for a specific shop to go to, but rather the general gist of how sending a postcard works in the Philippines. What type of stamp is needed for a postcard seems a perfectly reasonable travel question, and asking what it will cost isn't the same thing as price-shopping.
Comment: and yes, "how do I send a postcard?" might *sound* obvious, but it's certainly something that can be extremely unintuitive for non-locals in some places. My wife and I were baffled in Barcelona when trying to get stamps. Eventually we asked somebody and discovered that if you want a stamp, you should head for your nearest tobacconist. *Well obviously, why didn't we think of that?*
Comment: @ChrisH They don't specify where they want to send it to meaning it's too broad
Answer: I assume you want to use The Philippine's official postal service.
I looked up all their post offices in Manila and this was the closes to Paco:

Municipality : 2F Robinson's Otis, UN Avenue, Manila
Address : Robinson's Otis

The cost of a postcard to send to the USA is:

up to 20 grams: 24.00 ₱
21-50 grams: 58.00 ₱
51-100 grams: 80.00 ₱
101-250 grams: 147.00 ₱
251-500 grams: 258.00 ₱
501-1000 grams: 481.00 ₱
Add-on per 500 grams after 100 grams: 258.00 ₱
Comment: Those seem to be the prices for "International Express Mail Service (Documents)". I'm no expert on the mail service of the Philippines, but I'd imagine that the "international ordinary mail service" would be a much more likely choice for sending a postcard. Prices for that service start at (and for a regular postcard won't go above) just 55 pesos, rather than the 1460 pesos (~25EUR) you've quoted here.
Comment: @ChrisH Ah, so SAL mail?
Comment: I was suggesting "international ordinary mail service", labelled as that on page 8 of the pdf you linked to, but actually yes the "Surface air lifted" option appears to be cheaper. Although I may be misunderstanding something, it seems very strange that sending books would be significantly cheaper (~2/3) than sending a letter in the same weight class.
Comment: @ChrisH Agreed, I updated the answer for letter costs


Balance still not available?

Question: I just sent bitcoins from one wallet to another to make my life easier. This was the goal, anyway. My balance in my new wallet went up, but it's still not available after 3 hours. Why might this be? I'm using MultiBit on Mac OS X.
Answer: When you create a Bitcoin transaction, your client will broadcast that information to peer nodes and generally within seconds every node that is connected will know of that transaction.
That's likely why the recipient wallet's balance rose.
That transaction though must be included in a mined block before the client you are using will allow those funds to be spent.  Though technically the client could let you spend the funds before the transaction gets even one confirmation, that introduces more confusion and problems so the client has this restriction for these "unconfirmed" transaction.
So, the question remaining is why hasn't the transaction confirmed?  Whether or not to include a transaction is at the discretion of Bitcoin miners (solo miners) and mining pools.  If your transaction did not include a fee that is paid to the miners then sometimes it gets ignored for a while.  This delay can range from an hour or two to more than a day.
Knowing the appropriate fee to pay will depend on how much data the transaction consumes.  If you are a miner getting tiny payouts from your pool, your fee to send payment will be more expensive than most because each of those tiny payouts consumes data.  Another egregious violator are the tiny payouts from the losing transactions on SatoshiDICE.   Most everyone else can get by paying the minimum 0.0005 fee in scenarios where a fee is required or no fee at all when none needs to be paid.
So, the reason you can't spend the funds is likely because either no fee was paid or the fee that was paid wasn't large enough.  In the future, if there is the need to spend the funds from a payment quickly, consider including a fee payment that will help ensure it is included in block in a timely manner.
Comment: Hmm... Multibut takes a .0003 fee, which I assume goes to miners. It did finally go through, but it took 7 hours. I've made transactions like this before, and it always takes less than a minute for the available balance to update.
Comment: All the fee goes to the miner. I find now that a milli (0.001 BTC) fee is needed now to get into the next block. Any lower than that and you start getting crowded out by other transactions.
Answer: You can also see more info on the transaction if you go to the Transactions tab, right click on it and choose 'View transaction details'.
On the screen that appears you can click the 'View in blockchain.info' button. This opens a browser with the transaction details in blockchain.info.
Blockchain.info will probably tell you the transaction is unconfirmed for the reasons Stephen described.

Balance still not available?


Can you create a Wall of Fire in midair?

Question: In 4E and 5E there seems to be the requirement of a Wall of Fire to be resting on a solid surface. But in 3.5 I did not find such a rule. So: can you create a Wall of Fire in midair?
Comment: You may also be interested in [this question.](https://rpg.stackexchange.com/q/142432/8610)
Answer: Yes
There's nothing in the 3.5 rules to prevent you from placing a wall of fire in midair. Nothing in the spell description, or the specific rules for Evocation spells, or the general rules of magic requires that you place a a wall of fire on a solid surface.
Some other wall spells have the specific requirement to anchor to a surface, but wall of fire doesn't.
Interestingly, in another very good answer regarding prismatic wall in the Pathfinder ruleset, Hey I Can Chan notes that objects summoned with Conjuration spells cannot appear in open air, and this rule also appears in D&D 3.5. Since wall of fire is Evocation, this limitation doesn't apply.
Comment: Unlike a conjured object (wall of whale?), walls of fire probably do not fall, so the rule is less necessary.


how to write a sports game scene?

Question: The main character is on a sports team, and I want to describe games, but I don't know how to without having to explain every point or without explaining it enough.  I want it to be a page or two long the game itself, but have no idea how to write it so it doesn't get boring for the reader or seem rushed and unplanned.
Answer: Focus on the highlights. Whenever you watch a game recap on television, they don't replay the entire game. Instead, they just show you the highlights. You need to do the same with your writing. Identify three or four crucial elements within the game itself: someone scoring, someone getting hurt, or someone making an important save. If you focus on those crucial elements and provide enough detail for the reader to be drawn into them, then you should be able to accomplish your goal.
Answer: While you did find your chosen answer already, I still have another option in mind: use the commentators to describe what happened. If there are any at all... Well, when this is some fantasy sport in an environment where no television or radio broadcast is available, that not an option. But if you have such kind of devices in your world, feel free to have two commentators speaking about it.
When this is a sport that is non-real and would need much explanation to make sense to the reader, let these guys spending half of the time sharing the latest gossip about the number 5 (your protagonist) and the ladies or boys he or she was seen last time...
...and oh, now that huge brute from the other team did a bad foul to him. Looks like he needs a new leg soon, isn't he, Larry?
That's right, Scott, but Mr Velentine, who happen to be the trainer of him, also own a cybernetic replacement, and he feels good about it.
But what is now? Did they just flat the ball? Well, Larry, this is going to be a long game tonight. And now for a consumer hint proudly provided by our sponsor "Synty Limbs inc."
Comment: I had trouble understanding some of the things you were saying. Please reread your answer and consider whether you stated your thoughts clearly.

how to write a sports game scene?


What's the difference between Anti-malware and antispyware?

Question: Whats the difference between Anti-malware and antispyware ?
Comment: Malware is a term used to refer to multiple types of viruses, including spyware. `"Malware" is short for malicious software and used as a single term to refer to virus, spyware, worm etc.` http://www.symantec.com/connect/articles/what-are-malware-viruses-spyware-and-cookies-and-what-differentiates-them
Answer: Malware is a portmanteau of the words "malicious" and "software". Spyware is a portmanteau of the words "spy" and "software".
In terms of the words themselves, there's little or no difference between them. One might describe spying as malicious, just as one might say that a backdoor application has spying capabilities.
In terms of technical differences, spyware is a class of malicious software that attempts to steal some kind of information from your computer, such as your personal information (e.g. name, address) or your credit card number, keystrokes, etc. It could also be something less overtly evil, such as reporting statistics about your browsing habits back to an advertising agency.
Anti-malware software usually targets the broad range of malicious software. It looks for the stuff that causes damage, loss, unauthorised access, or annoyance - essentially what a layman would refer to as "viruses".
Anti-spyware tends to focus on less of the "delete your entire hard disk" types of malicious software, and more on the "this will steal your personal information" stuff, including the less overtly evil stuff that I mentioned before.
If you're wondering if there's any difference in how they work, there pretty much isn't. The monitor file and application activities and look for things that match a signature or heuristic, then block them or report them to the user.


If the Earth's atmopsphere spins with the earth due to friction, why is there no horizontal spiralling drag?

Question: Imagine a bucket of paint with a spinning ball in it. The paint would form a spiral and would not all move in synchronous movement with the ball.
To clairfy - In order for the Earth's atmosphere to appear to us to be still (as on a windless day) the upper atmosphere must be moving faster than the lower atmosphere - as it the case with any rotating spehere - the outer layers are moving faster than the inner layers.
What force is causing the upper atmosphere to move faster than the lower atmosphere?
If the atmosphere is being rotated soley by friction, then at best the upper layers would move at the same speed as the lower layers, thereby causing a spiralling effect.
We do not see this effect. Why?
Comment: Have you heard of trade winds? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_wind
Comment: also most atmospheric disturbances move from west to east. See also Coriolis  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolis_force
Answer: I'm not entirely clear on what you mean exactly, but I have a feeling you are unclear on the idea of a rotational and irrotational vortex.
Using your paint bucket analogy, there are two effects that create a rotational vortex. The spinning ball will drag fluid along with it. But because there is an outer wall to the bucket, viscosity requires that velocity to be zero. In a 2D sense, you are looking at a cylinder rotating within another. This is known as Taylor Couette flow. Also, notice that the TC flow sets up cellular structures due to the rotation -- this is the same kind of effect you see in my answer to your other question about bands forming in the atmosphere.
Essentially, because the outer boundary does not rotate at all (or if it did rotate but at a different angular velocity), you get that spiral effect because the tangential velocity is inversely related to radius.
If your bucket were free to spin with the ball inside (so imagine your paint bucket is suspended in the air with a paddle in the middle attached to a motor so it spins), the outer wall of the bucket will begin to accelerate. During this acceleration, you have a rotational flow between the inner paddle and the outer wall. Eventually, over a long time, the outer edge of the bucket would spin at the same speed as the paddle and you wouldn't see any spiral pattern. The flow becomes irrotational -- it is a rigid body rotation. Here, the tangential velocity is directly proportional to the radius.
Now back to the Earth. First, the Earth doesn't have an outer "bucket" edge to create viscous drag and cause a rotational flow. Secondly, the Earth has been spinning for awhile. Long enough that the viscous effects have made the atmosphere "drag along" with the body all the way through to the outer edge. Obviously there are way, way more complicated effects that make the atmosphere have variable speeds at different times. But for the most part, you don't see a lagging behind in the upper atmosphere like you would see in your paint bucket analogy. And you wouldn't see that lagging in your paint bucket if the entire bucket were allowed to spin and enough time elapsed for the viscous forces to do their work.
You can see good examples in these lecture notes and the associated video on YouTube dealing with rotational flows. And there are better examples of rotational and irrotational vortices in the lecture notes and video on YouTube for vorticity.
Also, you should take some time to go through all of the National Committee for Fluid Mechanics films and lecture notes. They do a great job of explaining and demonstrating the physics.
Comment: You have stated that the outer edge of the bucket would eventually go the same speed as the inner paddle, therefore you must be agreeing that a spiralling effect would occur. In order for the outer edge of the bucket to remain at all times parrallel with the inner circle it would have to move faster! (in fact each layer would have to move at different speeds in order for it to appear still). What explaination is there for the outer atmosphere moving faster than the lower atmosphere?
Answer: If i interpreted your question correctly and based on my knowledge (i don't know how good it is). This is because there is nothing to apply frictional force on the outer edge of the earth's atmosphere, whereas in case of bucket the water rubs against the boundaries of the bucket which slows down the outer part of the spinning water (dont look at it for long you will be hypnotized)
Comment: This does not answer the question
Comment: how .. can you explain a bit
Answer: The same happens with the air around the earth, this phenomenon is called the Coriolis effect, and it affects our atmosphere. You also have to keep in mind that there are a lot of other variables to take into account when talking about atmosphere, like the angle of our axis towards the sun, etc...