@synthesize vs @dynamic, what are the differences?

Question: What are the differences between implementing a @property with @dynamic or @synthesize?
Answer: @synthesize will generate getter and setter methods for your property.
@dynamic just tells the compiler that the getter and setter methods are implemented not by the class itself but somewhere else (like the superclass or will be provided at runtime).
Uses for @dynamic are e.g. with subclasses of NSManagedObject (CoreData) or when you want to create an outlet for a property defined by a superclass that was not defined as an outlet.
@dynamic also can be used to delegate the responsibility of implementing the accessors. If you implement the accessors yourself within the class then you normally do not use @dynamic.
Super class:
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSButton *someButton;
...
@synthesize someButton;

Subclass:
@property (nonatomic, retain) IBOutlet NSButton *someButton;
...
@dynamic someButton;

Comment: Not really, @dynamic means to responsibility of implementing the accessors is delegated. If you implement the accessors yourself within the class then you normally do not use @dynamic.
Comment: not 100% right; dynamic is the default if you don't set either @synthesize or @dynamic.  specifying @dynamic merely means that you take responsibility for properly implementing the property accessors based on the signature of the property declaration.
Comment: Sorry, buy this is entirely wrong. @dynamic tells that the accessors are resolved at runtime, unless they are declared in the class or superclass (not somewhere else). You can read the documentation https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/cocoa/conceptual/ObjCRuntimeGuide/Articles/ocrtDynamicResolution.html
Comment: Kevlar: nope. In modern ObjC, `@property` items that have neither `@synthesize` nor `@dynamic` will be auto-synthesized. For each property, an ivar with a leading underscore, e.g. `_propertyName` will be created, along with the appropriate getter and setter.
Comment: I was getting `NSUnknownKeyException` errors with my dynamic property when I removed the `@synthesize` line (Xcode 3.2 was giving me an error b/c I had no matching ivar for my @property).  Adding `@dynamic` fixed the issue - compiles and runs fine now.  Thanks!
Comment: @DiederikHoogenboom: I did not understand one thing, If the parent class or some other class up in the hierarchy defines the setters and getters then, child class will already have them.
Then why would a child class again define property and tell the compiler that the definition of setter or getter is in the parent class ?
I did not understand the importance here. Can you explain me this in terms of NSManagedObject Subclasses ?
or point me to a link that explains this clearly :)
Comment: @Amogh: NSManagedObject does not have the property but does have the getters and setters (it uses KVC to resolve to attributes). Another usage is a parent class that has the (abstract) property but expects subclasses to implement the getters and setters.
Comment: @Amogh:Yes, that's more or less the idea. The Core Data generated class does not read from the SQLite store, it's the NSPersistentStore object. But is is done at runtime.
Comment: by saying "Another usage is a parent class that has the (abstract) property but expects subclasses to implement the getters and setters".

By saying this, do you mean that, parent abstract class will have dynamic in its implementation ?
that means dynamic just says the the setters and getters are like abstract functions(java terms) or virtual functions (C++) and binding will dynamic ?
and regarding NSManagedObject, what I understand from your statement is that, a core data generatd class reads and writes data frm SQLite store and the datamodel.
So it happens at runtime via KVC.
AM I right?
Comment: @iWasRobbed: Why did you add the paragraph "@dynamic also can be used to delegate the responsibility of....". Isn't that what the first paragraph says?
Answer: Take a look at this article; under the heading "Methods provided at runtime":

Some accessors are created dynamically at runtime, such as certain ones used in CoreData's NSManagedObject class. If you want to declare and use properties for these cases, but want to avoid warnings about methods missing at compile time, you can use the @dynamic directive instead of @synthesize.
...
Using the @dynamic directive essentially tells the compiler "don't worry about it, a method is on the way."

The @synthesize directive, on the other hand, generates the accessor methods for you at compile time (although as noted in the "Mixing Synthesized and Custom Accessors" section it is flexible and does not generate methods for you if either are implemented).
Comment: This is morer-correcter man.  This answer is the only answer that talks about methods created at runtime, which really seems to capture the spirit a lot more than top voted ans atm
Answer: As others have said, in general you use @synthesize to have the compiler generate the getters and/ or settings for you, and @dynamic if you are going to write them yourself.
There is another subtlety not yet mentioned: @synthesize will let you provide an implementation yourself, of either a getter or a setter. This is useful if you only want to implement the getter for some extra logic, but let the compiler generate the setter (which, for objects, is usually a bit more complex to write yourself).
However, if you do write an implementation for a @synthesize'd accessor it must still be backed by a real field (e.g., if you write -(int) getFoo(); you must have an int foo; field). If the value is being produce by something else (e.g. calculated from other fields) then you have to use @dynamic.
Comment: "and `@dynamic` if you are going to write them yourself" No, you do NOT use dynamic if you write them yourself. `@dynamic` turns off the compiler checking to make sure you implemented them. If you implemented them yourself, you do want the compiler to check.
Comment: +1 for mention of important difference:  @dynamic lets you create accessors for varaibles not defined in your class interface and through introspection.
Answer: @dynamic is typically used (as has been said above) when a property is being dynamically created at runtime.  NSManagedObject does this (why all its properties are dynamic) -- which suppresses some compiler warnings.
For a good overview on how to create properties dynamically (without NSManagedObject and CoreData:, see: http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/ObjCRuntimeGuide/Articles/ocrtDynamicResolution.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40008048-CH102-SW1
Answer: here is  example of @dynamic
#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>

@interface Book : NSObject
{
   NSMutableDictionary *data;
}
@property (retain) NSString *title;
@property (retain) NSString *author;
@end

@implementation Book
@dynamic title, author;

- (id)init
{
    if ((self = [super init])) {
        data = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] init];
        [data setObject:@"Tom Sawyer" forKey:@"title"];
        [data setObject:@"Mark Twain" forKey:@"author"];
    }
    return self;
}

- (void)dealloc
{
    [data release];
    [super dealloc];
}

- (NSMethodSignature *)methodSignatureForSelector:(SEL)selector
{
    NSString *sel = NSStringFromSelector(selector);
    if ([sel rangeOfString:@"set"].location == 0) {
        return [NSMethodSignature signatureWithObjCTypes:"v@:@"];
    } else {
        return [NSMethodSignature signatureWithObjCTypes:"@@:"];
    }
 }

- (void)forwardInvocation:(NSInvocation *)invocation
{
    NSString *key = NSStringFromSelector([invocation selector]);
    if ([key rangeOfString:@"set"].location == 0) {
        key = [[key substringWithRange:NSMakeRange(3, [key length]-4)] lowercaseString];
        NSString *obj;
        [invocation getArgument:&obj atIndex:2];
        [data setObject:obj forKey:key];
    } else {
        NSString *obj = [data objectForKey:key];
        [invocation setReturnValue:&obj];
    }
}

@end

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
    NSAutoreleasePool *pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];

    Book *book = [[Book alloc] init];
    printf("%s is written by %s\n", [book.title UTF8String], [book.author UTF8String]);
    book.title = @"1984";
    book.author = @"George Orwell";
    printf("%s is written by %s\n", [book.title UTF8String], [book.author UTF8String]);

   [book release];
   [pool release];
   return 0;
}

Answer: As per the documentation:
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/cocoa/conceptual/ObjCRuntimeGuide/Articles/ocrtDynamicResolution.html
@dynamic tells the compiler that the accessor methods are provided at runtime.
With a little bit of investigation I found out that providing accessor methods override the @dynamic directive.
@synthesize tells the compiler to create those accessors for you (getter and setter)
@property tells the compiler that the accessors will be created, and that can be accessed with the dot notation or [object message]
Answer: One thing want to add is that if a property is declared as @dynamic it will not occupy memory (I confirmed with allocation instrument). A consequence is that you can declare property in class category.
Comment: If I override a property setter in a category and make it dynamic, will this guarantee the override will be used at runtime and not the parent class's setter? From Apple docs: "If the name of a method declared in a category is the same as a method in the original class ... the behavior is undefined as to which method implementation is used at runtime."
Comment: No, I think the behavior is still undefined. Making the property in category dynamic doesn't change the property setter method's runtime priority.
Answer: As per the Apple documentation.
You use the @synthesize statement in a class's implementation block to tell the compiler to create implementations that match the specification you gave in the @property declaration.
You use the @dynamic statement to tell the compiler to suppress a warning if it can't find an implementation of accessor methods specified by an @property declaration.
More info:-
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/General/Conceptual/DevPedia-CocoaCore/DeclaredProperty.html


I cannot do https redirection on my website on .htaccess

Question: Am having a local classified website. I bought SSL for the domain but cannot put https redirect on htaccess since my developer wrote somerule on htaccess to get url for SEO. Can some help for the same... Find the Screenshot of the rewrite vode below.
Comment: Can you update your question to include the contents of your htaccess file instead of just a screenshot?
Answer:
...but cannot put https redirect on htaccess since my developer wrote somerule on htaccess to get url for SEO.

That's not a reason that would prevent you from doing "https redirection" in .htaccess. Just make sure you put the redirection at the top of your file, before the existing rules.
For example:
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !on
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=302,L]

HOWEVER, your site does not appear to be "HTTPS-ready" yet. Requesting the HTTPS version of your site directly does not result in a functioning website. You need to get your "developer" to fix it. For example, you have numerous hardcoded URL-paths to the HTTP version in the HTML, including the base and rel="canonical" tags, this is going to result in the static resources (CSS, JS, etc.) from failing to load with mixed-content warnings.
Comment: Let me check with my developer about the http path,,, thanks alot


How can I beat Grand Widow Faerlina on heroic?

Question: Her 1 mana spam is just ridiculous.  I beat her on normal using a zoolock deck but the weenie minions get eaten up way too fast.  Her worshippers giving her a 3 damage attack doesn't help things either.  What are some strategies to use against her?
Answer: I beat her with a normal zoolock deck on my first try. Just drop your hand as fast as possible, never keep more than one card at the end of your turn if you can help it and try to kill her board every turn. Only Life Tap when you are out of cards.
In any case be sure to have 2 Shieldbearers, 2 Voiswalkers, and 2 Defender of Argus, to stop her from killing your more important minions with her face.
Also she seems very reluctant to use her hero power if you have a Nerubian Egg on the board.
The list I used is this one: http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/76029-reynads-naxx-zoo-deck replacing the Elven Archers with Shieldbearers.
Comment: how does your deck have a legendary of a wing that's not released yet?
Comment: @z' Sorry, I linked the wrong deck, corrected.
Comment: ok, that worked much better.  Managed to dump my entire hand by turn 3 and that nullified her abilities.
Comment: Speaking of Warlock, mulliganing super-aggressively for Soulfires and Succubi and playing them within the first turns can effectively turn her ability off by turn 2. I've found this to be a very effective strategy as it basically reduces her to a 45 life Warrior with those pesky Fanatics. For these, 4 attack are crucial. Shadow Bolt, Yeti, Darkscale Healer and Windfury Harpie can all kill them efficiently, although the latter are risky because of their high cost.
Comment: I used zoolock as well - works like charm. This is imho the easiest heroic challenge.
Answer: I was eventually able to beat Faerlina with a priest deck that spammed Silence. Against Faerlina, your strategy needs to be two-fold:

Play cards to mitigate the effectiveness of Rain of Fire
Maintain control of the board

Number 1 is not quite as simple as it might seem -- if you have too many cards in your hand, minions you play will simply be perforated by Rain of Fire before they can do much of anything. Against this, you really need tough, HP heavy minions, since the damage soak they provide is essential to surviving to the midgame.
Shieldbearer's 0/4 taunt is surprisingly effective at this, as is (since I was playing priest) cards like Power Word: Shield. Lightwell helps too, both with its bulk and its heal (and Faerlina will often ignore it)
The second part is a little bit harder. The minion you need to watch out for are the fanatics that increase Faerlina's attack directly. Since they give Faerlina 3 attack immediately, its as if they come into play with a 3/-- charge minion. And the Grand Widow has at least three of them. Again, as Priest, this is where I prioritized my silences. A 2/4 is easy to handle behind a strong taunt minion, but the effective 5/4 when they're powering up the Grand Widow is no joke. Consider also silencing the nerubian eggs, as even if you ignore it, Faerlina is willing to throw inner rages at it to pop it herself.
Beyond that, strong taunts, like Sen'jin and Sunwalker are the way to go. If you can keep her board clear while keeping your hand size down, you'll be in a very good position to survive her onslaught and beat her. Good luck!


What actually caps Bitcoin's supply at 21 million?

Question: I have seen everywhere that the total BTC supply is permanently capped at 21 million. I understand blockchain, cryptography, SHA256, etc... generally, but where/what is actually capping the supply at 21 million? Looking this up online usually leads to generic 'its written in the code' and this stack question seems to point to the code, but I do not understand it. Is the supply cap really just some hard code in the original protocol? Is this modifiable?
Comment: BIP 42: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0042.mediawiki also anything can be changed (easy) but not everything will get consensus to be considered Bitcoin (very difficult).
Answer:
What actually caps Bitcoin's supply at 21 million?

Consensus rules
The supply is capped by the so-called consensus rules that every Bitcoin node enforces.
New coins are minted as block rewards by miners. Every node that receives the new blocks checks that the block reward is not greater than the current limit per block. Any block that exceeds this limit is deemed invalid by every node that receives it and is discarded and not passed on. Any node that passes on a block with an excessive mining reward is in danger of being ostracized by other nodes.
Nodes are made to distrust any other nodes that seem to be acting contrary to the established rules.
One of those consensus rules is the halving of mining rewards every four years approximately and it is this halving that causes the total supply to converge toward 21 million.

Note that many Bitcoin terms are arguably poorly chosen and misleading. This is one of them. These rules are Bitcoin rules or hard rules. Don't get hung up on the word consensus or dictionary definitions of that word.

Is this modifiable?

Rule changes can result in a fork. This can result in the creation of an altcoin. An altcoin is a cryptocurrency that is distinct from Bitcoin and seen by some as an alternative to it (hence the alt in altcoin). One example would be the altcoin "Bitcoin Cash" (BCH) which is the result of rule changes made by a small faction of Bitcoin (BTC) users. The proponents of this change had originally hoped that almost the whole Bitcoin community would adopt their rule changes. If they had succeeded, Bitcoin would now be using the rules of Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Cash would not exist. They failed in that original goal.
It is possible to make some rule changes in a way that doesn't trigger the distrust of other nodes that are still using the older rules.
This is a bigger topic than I can cover here but there will be good answers to existing questions on this subject:

What is a soft fork? What is a hard fork? What are their differences?
Would it be possible to create a soft-fork for reducing miner reward?
How do we know which soft-forks were implemented using User-Activated Soft Fork or Miner-Activated Soft Fork?

Tangentially related questions

Transaction blocks vs bitcoins (convergence toward 21M)
Why was the upper limit of 21 million bitcoins put in place?
Answer: There are many theories on this, but I'm inclined to believe that Satoshi wanted to pick the maximum number allowed in 32-bit (which is 2147483647); however Satoshi admitted in an e-mail to Mike Hearn that the value was somewhat arbitrary as well.
Below is a visual of that 32-bit int max.
Comment: That number (max 32-bit) is 2.1 billion, not 21 million. I'm not sure I follow your reasoning here.


HC-SR505 PIR Sensor only outputting HIGH

Question: I recently bought an HC-SR505 Mini PIR sensor. I connected its positive to my Arduino UNO's 5v, output to digital pin 2, and ground to ground. I used Adafruit's code to test it, but all the serial monitor displayed was "Motion detected", which meant the PIR was always on a HIGH state. I then also tried powering it using 3V3 but the PIR kept on cycling on a HIGH and LOW state. Any help on getting my sensor to actually work would be greatly appreciated.
Answer: The PIR sensor has delay of 8 seconds. So when you turn on arduino, take care that no movement is on the PIR, and then after 8 seconds it should detect no movement. And it has always this delay,every time when detects movement.
Comment: I'm talking about Hc sr505
Comment: It depends, don't generalize (<-however you write that word).
Comment: Depends on what?
Comment: *The PIR sensor has delay of 8 seconds* is not a fact that affects all PIRs.
Comment: I was struggling on the same issue. Here's the specs also: https://www.elecrow.com/wiki/index.php?title=HC-SR505_Mini_PIR_Motion_Sensor
Thanks for clarrifying it up. To sum it up. The 8 seconds start by the time it last sensed a movement.
Answer: The PIR works at 5V but you need to tweak the amount of sensibility and the signal length.
Usually when a motion is detected, the PIR keeps sending HIGH until x seconds defined by a potentiometer on the board, when it goes down, the sensor is ready to capture another motion.
Comment: Thanks for the explanation. Just want to point out that the HC-SR505 doesn't have a pot on it. Also, do you know if the output voltage is 5v or 3V3?
Answer: I have similar problem with the HC-SR505 sensor. First few seconds it holds 0 on the output pin, and then always 1.
I think it was bad batch of sensors. Bad batch in chinese manufacturing means thousands (or hundreds of thousands) bad modules flooded the market.
Meanwhile I decided to choose one of options:

Stick with HC-SR501 sensor. It's bigger but works more or less.
Buy expensive ($5.90) PIR sensor from seeed.
Build my own PIR module by my required dimensions and function (in progress).

Update:
From 5 sensors received 2 do the job. Supply voltage must be 5V or higher. First 20-60 seconds the output is not reliable and should be ignored. Then it works OK (if it works at all). Since the module has 3.3V LDO onboard the output signal is 3.3V.
Answer: Switch to use 5v for Vcc, the sensor will work correctly. I have the same trouble if I use 3.3v for Vcc. The output still 3.3v even your Vcc is higher than 5v.
Comment: While using 3.3v does sound problematic, if you read the question again you will see that the asker started their experiments with the 5v supply, and found that not to work.  So the actual problem must be something else.
Comment: I tried with another power source, not from the board. In my case I'm using an ESP8266 and to get 5v I need another power source.
Comment: You may be using an ESP8266, but the asker is using an Arduino Uno.
Comment: Let the asker try 5v from another power source, not from Uno. Does it make sense?
Comment: Even though this may not help the OP, this was my problem and I am thankful for having found this answer.
Answer: I'm a noob. I had the same problem.
I connected the signal to pin 7 so I listened to gpio7 which always gave 1. But pin 7 is gpio4... Listening to gpio4 fixed the issue :)


What is the difference between PGP and asymmetric encryption?

Question: I read about 3 main types of encryption: symmetric, asymmetric, PGP. I can figure out the difference between asymmetric and symmetric. But what is the difference between asymmetric and PGP?
Comment: Have you read the wiki? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy It's explain right near the top.
Comment: i don't think pgp is it's own type of encryption...
Comment: No. PGP uses both.
Answer: PGP is a specific implementation of asymmetric encryption*.  The original product ("Pretty Good Privacy") spawned an open variant called OpenPGP (and a number of standards), and alternate implementations like GPG are also often referred to as "PGP".
So, PGP is just a product that implements asymmetric encryption, but is done so for so long and with so many variants it is often spoken of at the same level as symmetric and asymmetric.
*As @Schroeder points out, PGP actually implements a solution such that symmetric encryption is used to encrypt data, and asymmetric encryption is used to encrypt the key, since asymmetric encryption can't encrypt anything larger than its own key size.  This bundle is commonly referred to as "asymmetric encryption" even though it's a hybrid model.
Comment: PGP can use both in series. So it's a unique combination of the 2 in one application.
Answer: PGP is a file format.
The file format uses Asymmetric encryption to encrypt a symmetric encryption key. the symmetric encryption key encrypts the data.
The file format also supports using a passphrase/password to encrypt a symmetric key, and the symmetric key encrypts the data.
The file format basically specifies the type of encryption algorithm and where to find the parts to decrypt like the start and stop of the encrypted key or the start and stop of the payload.


Are there additional laws and regulations attached to NC-17 movies?

Question: The last time I saw an NC-17 film in theaters (Shame, 2011), an usher had to walk through the theater every once and awhile with a flashlight of sorts, which I assumed was to ensure no 17-and-unders had snuck in to watch. Is this a MPAA law? Or is it a state law in Georgia? Or is it just a very diligent art house theater?
Comment: It's very unlikely that the usher was looking for underage people, since that would require checking IDs. Much more likely that they were looking out for inappropriate behavior, such as excessive physical affection, smoking, and so forth. It's possible they were even responding to complaints from patrons about such behavior.
Answer: I'm not American and can't give legal advice, but I'd strongly suspect this was just a diligent movie theatre.
Cinemas are not legally bound by these ratings. They are simply recommendations made by the NPAA and seconded by the National Association of Theater Owners. To quote from the article linked:

In the MPAA's official Classification and Ratings Rules, all the
  sanctions aimed at violators deal with the companies that release
  films, not the theaters that show them.
"The rating system is voluntary, but we strongly encourage theaters to
  enforce the rating age restrictions as applied to any movie," a NATO
  spokesperson told theWrap.

Therefore, there are no binding laws on the cinema in the first place, regardless of the film's certificate. I would suspect this is simply a diligent movie theater being careful about who they have allowed into the cinema. Alternatively, they could be checking for other things, including empty seats (for latecomers), ticket scalps, anyone recording in the film or other such things.
Comment: *"a NATO spokesperson"* - Whoa, it seems the MPAA takes those rules pretty serious. ;-)
Comment: @AndrewMartin ... I think what may have been going on was an usher checking the exit doors for safety. I see it happen in some theaters, yet not in others. I'm sure it depends on how "hi-tech" their security systems are. On the other hand (pun intended), since this was an NC-17 rated movie, they may have been patrolling to ensure nothing *too much* was going on in the audience, if you get my drift, lol.
Comment: @NapoleonWilson: Wars have been fought I tell you!
Comment: @Paulster2: I get your drift. My sister, who used to work as a cinema usher, *definitely* would get your drift. Happens more than people think.
Comment: As much as I hated growing up in small-town middle-America, one perk we had was that the local theater never cared to enforce any of the ratings.


Well pump issues

Question: Help.. we just installed a new pressure tank, and pressure switch.. we got everything working except now the pressure gauge always reads 50psi.. dies not move when running water in the house.  Also the pressure is very low especially in the upstairs shower.. we read how to adjust the pressure but with the gauge always reading 50 psi idk what we are doing... do the gauges also go bad or is it reading presssure from the tank?  So confused!
Comment: do you realize that we have no idea how your system is set up .... pretend that we are not standing next to you and update your question
Comment: I agree a new pressure tank and or switch is not helpful without more information,
Comment: What tank (size, mfg, size)? What switch? How are they connected? What pump? What is the distance between the tank and the pump. Where is the system located, a pump house or in the basement. There are too many variables to give you proper (and potentially helpful) insights.
Comment: It is a 20 gallon tank, American grandby 30-50 pressure switch and a Gould's deep well submersible pump. The well is 65-70 ft deep , from the wall to inside the basement is less than 10 ft... the system is located in the basement.
Answer: Some mistakes I've made:

Did an initial test of plumbing changes by cracking a valve open(so if there's a leak it's not a big one...) then forgetting to finish opening it.  Check that all the valves that should be open are actually fully open.
Banging things about loosened enough crud that the aeration screens and shower heads are filled with crud.  Take them apart, clean and put back together.

May have gotten a bad gauge.  To test the gauge:
Turn off power to the pump.  Open a tap fairly low down in the house.  (Outside tap works well) As the pressure tank drains, you should see the gauge go down.  If it eventually gets down to zero or nearby, then the gauge is working.  May not be accurate.
If the gauge still reads something significant after the water has stopped running, then the gauge is broken.  Replace it.  Easy to do.  You will need a wrench and teflon tape.
Once you have a good gauge, try this:  Run a garden hose to about the same height as the problem tap upstairs.  Carrying the end up a ladder is one easy way.  If you get good flow through the garden hose but still have problems with the upstairs tap, then you have a problem with the tap or the plumbing between.
You get about 2 feet elevation per psi.  If your pressure tank is in the basement, and then the upstairs tap is about 20 feet up.  50 psi in the basement will be about 45 on the main floor, and 40 upstairs.
This should be enough to get reasonable flow.

Here the usual pressure switch has two adjustments:  The high pressure, and the differential.  One sets the cut off when the pump is charging the tank, the differential sets how much lower the cut in pressure is.  It's not strictly linear.  Adjust the high pressure first, then the differential.  Instructions are usually on a label under the cover.
Note:  The contacts are live.  Either turn off the power before going in with metal tools, or do the adjustments with a plastic handled nut driver.
A large differential means the well isn't turning on and off as often -- better for both well and pump.  A small differential is less nuisance in the house.  We compromised at 70 psi for the high, and a 12 pound differential.

Well pump issues


If you had only two full days to visit Venice Italy for the first time, what would you see and do?

Question: Going with my sister (two healthy/active 60 year old women)to Venice for the first time in early September and don't really know what to expect. We will have two full days and a half day when we arrive. Where should we start? How should we plan those days? More interested in outdoor sights than in spending hours in museums or galleries. How should we make the most of our time? We will be staying very near the train station in Cannaregio.
Comment: Welcome to Travel.SE. My recommendation is to consult a travel guide, at a minimum something like WikiVoyage's overview of Venice, then return here for refinement. The StackExchange format is best suited to questions that have a single definitive answer; sightseeing tends to be dependent on opinion because different people weigh criteria differently in their ranking (cost, convenience, location, "authenticity," etc.). I encourage you to take the [site tour](http://travel.stackexchange.com/tour) and review the [help center](http://travel.stackexchange.com/help) for additional guidance.
Comment: Take a vaporeti, the public transport ferries that go through the whole canale grande for cheap. It's better than sitting in an overpriced gondola.
Comment: Since I've never been to Venice, it's difficult for me to be more specific than I was in my question.  I'm also OK with opinions and suggestions and I'm OK with deciding which of them holds appeal for me since I trust that those who have experience with visiting or living in Venice would have valuable advice to share....at least advice worth considering.  I have already read some guides and articles about Venice but it's hard to visualize what it will be like being there for a short time and was hoping for some personal tips from someone who knows the city.
Answer: Venice is not necessarily an all indoors experience.  From your hotel, it's a brisk walk to Piazza San Marco, and if you are up for a more arduous walk, check out the Lido (you'll need to take a ferry part of the way to get there). It's not too late in the season for swimming there and the beach is world class.
But most of all, September is a great time to use Venice as a base while exploring other islands in the lagoon.  Burano, for example, is favoured by locals (and me) for it's authentic restaurants (along with less touristy prices).
Torcello has a great open air market as does Mazzorbo.  Mazzorbo has an artsy-craftsy fair which will still be open, and Torcello was the one-time home of Ernest Hemingway.
All of the islands have well preserved architecture and several have ruins from the Roman era.  As an additional consideration, take note that during the high season (which encroaches into September), tourists outnumber locals by a mind-numbing 600 to 1! It makes getting away to the outskirts all that more attractive.
You can take ferries or private water taxis to any of the larger islands.
Comment: And when you're in San Marcos Square, pay the couple of euro to take the lift up the bell tower to see the view.
Comment: @MikellHerrick, check 'other'
Comment: Thanks for these helpful tips....this is the kind of information I hoped to read.  Getting out to the islands sounds like a good idea, at least for part of one day.  And the lift to the Bell Tower in San Marcos Square...will make note of that too.  If you have any other "must dos" or "must sees" ...I will forgive you for being too "opinion based" in your answer...if you'll forgive me for being too "opinion based" in my question. :)
Comment: Yes...I should be very easy to find...I'm probably the only Mikell Herrick (Dunedin, Florida) on Facebook and my content is mostly public as well.  Thank you for the offer. :)


Most likely color space for scanner?

Question: I have a scanner from 2010 (Canoscan 8800F) which does not include color profiling software. I figure it is using a 'canned' profile, as is mentioned here. It scans images to tif files without embedding an ICC color profile. When I read in the RGB values from the tif file, what color space should I assume the RGB values are in? I am thinking sRGB was most common in 2010, but would welcome any thoughts.
Answer: Why don't you try importing it, using various likely RGB color spaces, and see what seems to be best. It may not be sRGB, but how many other likely values would make sense?
It's pricey, German after-market software, but if you want good calibration for this scanner, you might want to try using the Silverfast driver: http://www.silverfast.com/product/Canon/CanoScan-8800F-688/en.html
Comment: I used to use their software, years ago, with a Nikon slide scanner, and it definitely improved scan quality. I purchased the software with an IT-8 target, so calibration was part of the process.
Comment: That is a good suggestion along with the IT-8 target.

Most likely color space for scanner?


insulating an exterior rowhouse wall with windows

Question: New owners of a row home going through it one room at a time...  We decided to tackle the master/front facing bedroom first.  It has wood paneling (70/80ish) and I am pretty sure the walls behind are plaster on brick on the exterior wall.  thinking to either do foam panels or put up studs and batting - then drywall on top of either one.  This is what I am looking to do on the exterior/façade wall, but I am concerned about the two window.... Since I am adding a few inches to the wall the windows will be a few inches deeper.  Do I need to reinstall the windows within a deeper frame?
Comment: I don't know enough about brick construction, but I would expect you can just replace the interior trim to cover the gap.
Comment: would replacing the interior trim require reinstalling the windows?
Comment: Again, I don't know enough about brick construction, but in wood this would normally not require any change to the windows themselves.
Answer: Not knowing the age of the home, most row homes have the windows set directly to the brick. You can add framing to carry the new/salvaged trim around the windows. After the insulation is set a "jamb extension' is added to the interior edge of the window to increase the depth of the window on the interior side. Add a picture of what you have and I or others can elaborate more.
Answer: I have done a similar project.  Generally, when the wall thickness is greater than the window frame, you install  boards as a box to "thicken" the install.  That is, you don't have to touch the window proper, but replace the case.  It's a bit easier to visualize after you've done your demo.
The quick and dirty solution in an image:

You'll want 2x framing on all 4 sides.
Width of the 1x material should be flush-ish with the drywall to be installed later.
Be very careful with the drilling!.
The last step before painting and caulking will be to install mitred moulding to cover the exposed edge of the box and the drywall gap.

The final step will be to put an attractive potted plant or cat on the sill.


Product of oxidation of alkanes

Question: I'm trying to find the product of the oxidation of iso-butane using $\ce{KMnO4}$, I know that alkanes undergo stepwise oxidation with strong oxidising agents to finally give carboxylic acids. With straight chain carbons, its very straightforward - ethane becomes acetic acid etc. But with branched chain alkanes I don't know how to proceed. Can someone tell me if there's a general rule for oxidation of alkanes to get the product?
Comment: Are you sure of the premise? KMnO4/H+ is a test for alkenes vs. alkanes. Just the benzyl position undergoes ox. Isn't so? And in general,anyway, if an alkane react than is a multisite reaction. Like in bromination.
Comment: Actually, the reactants in the reaction are given as KMnO4/ [O] , so I think oxidation is implied.
Comment: Oh ya I remember now, yes KMnO4/H+ is a test for unsaturated hydrocarbons, but KMnO4 is also used as an oxidant according to my textbook, but the only examples given are oxidation of methane and ethane..
Comment: You might want to look at the Kuhn-Roth oxidation although it is run with chromic acid.
Comment: Cold Neutral KMnO4[Baeyer reagent] is a test for alkenes and also primary and secondary alcohols, aldehydes and probably some amines and sulfides. In acidic or basic solution and at higher T oxidizing agents such as permanganate or dichromate will oxidize almost anything to anything eventually CO2 and water. Look up procedures for chemical oxygen demand [COD] to get an idea. For specific reactions the conditions must be well controlled and many specific reagents have been developed.
Answer: Potassium permanganate, $\ce{KMnO4}$, is the most common and probably the most applicable oxidizing agent discussed in organic chemistry teaching classes. $\ce{KMnO4}$ is a very strong oxidizing agent, and is capable of oxidizing a wide range of organic molecules. Usually, it will oxidize organic compounds to appropriate carboxylic acids, but, the final products can vary on the conditions used. If you googled enough to find reduction potentials of $\ce{KMnO4}$, you may find following conditions, which are the most used reduction conditions of $\ce{KMnO4}$ (Wikipedia):
\begin{align}
\ce{MnO4- + H+ + e- &-> HMnO4^-} & \mathrm{E^o} &= \pu{0.90V}\tag{1}\label{1}\\
\ce{MnO4- + 8H+ + 5e- &-> Mn^2+ + 4H2O} & \mathrm{E^o} &= \pu{1.51V}\tag{2}\label{2}\\ \ce{MnO4- + 2H2O + 3e- &-> MnO2(s) + 4OH-} & \mathrm{E^o} &= \pu{1.69V}\tag{3}\label{3}\\
\ce{MnO4- + 4H+ + 3e- &-> MnO2(s) + 2H2O} & \mathrm{E^o} &=\pu{1.7V}\tag{4}\label{4}
\end{align}
Other manganese containing compounds other than $\ce{KMnO4}$, which can also be used as oxidizing reagents are listed below:
\begin{align}
\ce{MnO2(s) + 4H+ + e- &-> Mn^3+ + 2H2O} & \mathrm{E^o} &= \pu{0.95V}\tag{5}\label{5}\\
\ce{MnO2(s) + 4H+ + 2e- &-> Mn^2+ + 2H2O} & \mathrm{E^o} &= \pu{1.23V}\tag{6}\label{6}\\
\ce{HMnO4- + 3H+ + 2e- &-> MnO2(s) + 2H2O} & \mathrm{E^o} &= \pu{2.09V}\tag{7}\label{7}\\
\end{align}
Yet, as most of the viewers already commented, I also believe $\ce{KMnO4}$ does not oxidize alkanes, except in following situations:
$\ce{KMnO4}$ oxidizes alkane carbon atoms, which contain sufficiently weak $\ce{C-H}$ bonds such as those in benzylic positions ($\ce{C-H}$ bonds in the $\alpha$-positions of substituted aromatic rings). These oxidizable alkyl benzene substituents can be -$\ce{CH3}$, or any $1^\mathrm{o}$-alkyl groups such as -$\ce{CH2CH3}$, or $2^\mathrm{o}$-alkyl groups such as -$\ce{CH(CH3)2}$. All of them will be oxidized to carboxylic acid group, -$\ce{CO2H}$ (See Scheme 1 below):

It is also important to note that when the benzylic carbon is a $3^\mathrm{o}$-$\ce{C}$ (e.g., corresponding alkyl groups such as $-\ce{C(CH3)3}$ group in tert-butylbenzene, see the example given in RHS of Scheme 1), the oxidation reaction does not happen.
In addition to benzylic carbons, $\ce{KMnO4}$ also oxidizes weak $\ce{C-C}$ bonds such as $\pi$-bonds in alkenes and alkynes (Scheme 2):

$\ce{KMnO4}$ also oxidizes $\sigma~\ce{C-C}$ bonds such as that in glycol-moiety (e.g., $\ce{HO-C-C-OH}$) and $\ce{C^{\mathrm{sp^2}}-O}$ bonds such as those in phenolic compounds (e.g., it oxidizes phenol to 1,4-benzoquinone, commonly known as para-quinone).
At last, as mentioned above, conditions of the reaction can be adjusted such a way that desired compound can be achied in high yields. For example, see following example (Ref.1):

Note that no benzylic carbon or -$\ce{OCH2}$- was oxidized here.

Late Addition:
Although tertiary $\ce{C-H}$ bond in isobutane (preferred IUPAC name: 2-methylpropane; $\ce{CH3CH(CH3)CH3}$) is relatively weaker than othe alkane $\ce{C-H}$ bonds, I'm highly skeptical of the statement of "Oxidizing agents such as potassium permanganate readily oxidize a tertiary hydrogen atom to a hydroxyl group, e.g., isobutane is oxidized to t-butanol." (vide infra). To my knowledge, the literature evidence for that type of oxidation reactions does not exist. Nevertheless, 2-methylpropane (isobutane) can be oxidized to 2-methylprop-2-ol (t-butanol) by reacting supercritical-phase isobutane with air in the presence of a catalyst such as $\ce{Pd/C}$ at high temperature, Instead of using $\ce{KMnO4}$ (Ref.2):

Abstract: tert-2-Butyl alcohol can be synthesized efficiently on $\ce{SiO2 –TiO2}$ or $\ce{Pd–C}$ catalyst if air is directly introduced to the supercritical-phase isobutane.

tert-Butanol (TBA) is the initial material in methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) production and methyl methacrylate (MMA) synthesis.  MTBE is high-octane-number gasoline additive and MMA is a resin material for plastic synthesis (e.g., PMMA or poly-methyl methacrylate). Thus, one would have wondered why scientists did not attempted to synthesize TBA in a such an easy way like using $\ce{KMnO4}$.
However, in a different note, almost exclusive $\ce{C-H}$ bond activation has been observed in the reaction of linear and branched alkanes with $\ce{CeO2+}$ (Ref.3)
Reference:

A. Abiko, J. C Roberts, T. Takemasa, S. Masamune, "$\ce{KMnO4}$ revisited: Oxidation of aldehydes to carboxylic acids in the tert-butyl alcohol - aqueous $\ce{NaH2PO4}$ system," Tetrahedron Letters 1986, 27(38), 4537-4540 (https://doi.org/10.1016/S0040-4039(00)84997-7)
L. Fan, Y. Nakayama, K. Fujimoto, "Air oxidation of supercritical phase isobutane to tert-butyl alcohol,"  Chem. Commun. 1997, (13), 1179-1180 (DOI:10.1039/A702308A).
A. Gunay, K. H. Theopold, "$\ce{C-H}$ Bond Activations by Metal Oxo Compounds,"  Chem. Rev. 2010, 110(2), 1060–1081 (DOI: 10.1021/cr900269x).
Comment: @MathewMahindaratne Indeed, I had also not heard of oxidation of tertiary hydrogens by KMnO4 until I came across that statement in my answer. Although it is unlikely, Finar may be wrong, as in, it doesn't contain any reference to a real paper to support his claim.
Comment: @Anubhab Das: Please post any new finding on this subject. I'm really interested to them.
Comment: @MathewMahindaratne I do not expect to find anything new supporting Finar's claim. Your research, seems to me, contains all there is about oxidation of alkanes by oxidising agents :-)
Comment: Thanks a lot for your detailed answer. But as you said that alkanes don't generally get oxidised , is the example given by @Anubhab Days right? I haven't a reference of il finars volume 1, so I'm not sure.
Comment: @Karun mathews: please see my late addition to the original answer for reasoning.
Comment: Thanks for the very researched answer. If I find anything else I'll post it here then..
Answer: Quoted directly from IL Finar's Organic Chemistry Volume 1 -
"Oxidising agents such as potassium permanganate readily oxidise a tertiary hydrogen atom to a hydroxyl group, e.g., isobutane is oxidised to t-butanol."
Comment: Ah ok thanks. So could I assume a general rule that 3° H>2° H>1° H for more likelihood of oxidation?

Product of oxidation of alkanes


Turn drawing into a Mesh?

Question: I would like to ask if it is possible to make a drawing into a mesh. That would be very helpful. It can be a 2d plane formed like a cube or something.
Here is what I mean:
Answer:
You can do this with a Grease Pencil sketch, it has a Convert to Geometry Routine.

However, the paths created with this take ALL the curve points of the Grease Pencil sketch into the new mesh, so this may not be a perfect solution.

Update:
Actually, using the Polygon Drawing Mode this is pretty much exactly what you want. Closing off the endpoints is a bit fiddly, but otherwise it works just fine.
Comment: So i managed to make one, thanks. but now i would like to ask you if you can tell me how to make these 6 edges?
Comment: I am not sure what you are asking, from your earlier example, I would guess, you want to give the edges some extruded depth. As this is a different problem, you need to open another question for that, though.
Comment: Yeah, let me explain it better. I've made the exact same shape as your 3rd picture with Draw Poly in Object Mode. Now if im trying to convert it to polygon curve its saying an error message saying : "Current Grease Pencil strokes have no valid timing data, most timing options will be hidden!" :x
Comment: Alright mate, got it. Sry for my stupidity, it was behind the drawing all the time! Haha I love blender. (for real)
Answer: Usually the closest you get to doing that is importing an svg file form a vectors graphis program (adove illustrator for instance). Then you'd turn that into a mesh. problem being that is very really messy and results into a ruined mesh with too many faces.
Best option is to draw what you want to make, plug it in the background (hit "N" and look for the "background image" option", then use that as a reference.
The grease pencil you are using, at least in Blender 2.79 is mainly use to leave notes to yourself or other operator.

Turn drawing into a Mesh?


Custom styles on labels in views?

Question: I would like to create custom styling for the label in a field for a table in a view. Is this possible within the view edit page? Or will I have to define a custom CSS class and write the styling in the css pages included in the theme?
Answer: CSS in the theme (or in the module that provides the View) is the best way to do this.
Answer: Yes, it is possible within the view edit page.
You just need to click on the field.
Then under Styles Settings, check mark Customize label HTML. Select DIV or SPAN as element, then type a class name.

Custom styles on labels in views?


Is there a way to "disperse markers" across multiple point layers?

Question: I have a bunch of point layers which often have overlapping features. The disperse markers geoprocessing tool works within a layer but is there a way to do it across more than one layer, so none of the points are overlapping? Using ArcMap 9.3.
Answer: I don't see any direct way, but it'd be easy enough to perform a Merge (docs) on the input data, mapping a field to retain information about the origin layer. In some cases, you may be able to use this merged layer directly, and symbolize the different features within it. Perform disperse markers on the merged set, and use as-is or split on the unique features mapped from fields.
If you only care about making them non-overlapping, and not their specific location, you could displace each layers positions by some systematic amount below the actual mapped resolution of your data, so that they were naturally clustered when mapped. For example, if you had layers A and B, you could make the least two significant figures of A something independent from B:
<code>layer    lat     lon    rule perturbed_lat perturbed_lon
    A   33.0  -120.0  +0.033        33.033      -119.967
    B   33.0  -120.0  +0.011        33.011      -120.989
</code>
Now if you perform disperse on one of these layers, the data will already be clustered into distinct areas of the map. You'd have to play with the offset values and figure out an appropriate offset. But this approach would give you a systematic way of preventing collisions between layers.
Answer: I'm not an Arc anything user but a reasonable workflow would be;

Ensure an attribute is attached to all points that is unique across the set.
Copy all points to a working layer. Ensure the unique attribute is carried across to the working points.
Perform the disperse markers routine.
Update the source points with the positions of the working points where the unique id matches.

Hope this helps.
Comment: Thanks for the suggestions. I was hoping for a more straightforward way which saved me creating a new layer and symbology. Looks like this is the only option though. Cheers.
Answer: Requirements: Arc/Info licence + Maplex Extension and Geodatabase with Cartographic Representations
Displaying Coincident Points
http://blogs.esri.com/Support/blogs/mappingcenter/archive/2007/08/27/displaying-coincident-points.aspx
Scatter Markers
http://blogs.esri.com/Support/blogs/mappingcenter/archive/2008/08/01/How-to-scatter-marker-symbols-for-stacked-or-clustered-point-features.aspx
This can be automated with Arc toolbox and Modelbuilder for different features...
or use @scw recommended route.


Are there red cards that offer protection against mass token destruction?

Question: I was playing MtG with a mono red goblin deck, and someone used Virulent Plague on my tokens and they all died! Is there any way to counter this with a mono red card?
Comment: What format is this?
Answer: Honestly, your options aren't great.  Enchantments are a designated weakness for Red, and as such they have basically no options for dealing with them.
If you search on Gatherer for mono-red cards that have "enchantment" in their rules text, you get only 20 results.  Of those, 3 have off-color activations, 2 destroy nonenchantments, 2 are Licids (which become enchantments), 3 create enchantment creature tokens (they're from Theros), two are a split card with the enchantment destruction on the white side (Gatherer doesn't really handle split cards very well), one only cares about enchantment creatures, 4 have miscellaneous effects that don't help, and one is Warp World.
The only two cards that might possibly be of use to you are Aura Barbs and Enchanter's Bane.  Aura Barbs does a measly 2 damage to your opponent for each Virulent Plague they have (which is terrible), and Enchanter's Bane is only 3 damage a turn, which isn't really a fair trade for shutting down the rest of your deck.  Also, Enchanter's Bane is from a Commander deck, so it's not legal in Modern, if that's what you're playing.
If you dig a little broader you can find some other cards that might work, such as Bearer of the Heavens or Capricious Efreet, but they tend to be expensive and/or random in effect, making them pretty useless for your purposes.
The other classic red solution is to simply win the game before the hoser can wreck their field, but a 3 mana enchantment comes down a little too fast for that to be really viable.
If Virulent Plague is a frequent participant of your local metagame, you're probably going to have to splash white or green if you want your token deck to have a prayer.
Answer: In addition to the options provided by Arcanist, there is Chaos Warp, which is the common answer to the question of "can red answer enchantments?".
It isn't standard or modern legal, however, and in general red needs to branch out to another colour to be able to interact with enchantments.
Colourless cards, however, are much better at answering enchantments. They're not strictly mono red and are often high converted mana cost (so may not be particularly helpful in your case), but they are castable with just red mana!
Standard options:
Ugin, the Ineffable
Meteor Golem
Outside standard options:
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Karn Liberated
Spine of Ish Sah
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
There is also the other option of not destroying the enchantment, but instead making use of its effect. Outpost Siege on Dragons would keep you strictly mono red, and allow you still to make use of your tokens if your opponent has a Virulent Plague in play. They'll enter, die immediately, but ping something for 1 on the way out. It has the advantage of being proactive, good in multiples, and you can choose Khans as a card advantage option.
Another option again is to pump your Goblins to be big enough to overcome the effect with the likes of Goblin Chieftain. This is a card you may want to play anyway, but could itself be removed by your opponent to make their Virulent Plague effective again.
Comment: Getting rid of the enchantment after it is on the battlefield may not help with this particular problem; the moment the enchantment resolves it will still kill all of his creatures.
Comment: Main problem with these cards is how expensive they are. A goblins deck is going to be aggressive, which means casting a 5-drop is already difficult. Going to 7-11 mana is even less likely.
Comment: Yeh, I totally agree. I may have taken too much of a "can mono red destroy an enchantment" approach initially. Outpost siege/goblin warchief suggestions are actual strategic suggestions. You are very limited by mono red, but "stop using tokens"/"don't use red" isn't the best answer to "how do I protect my tokens as mono red", so I tried to provide an answer which keeps the main plan as goblin tokens.
Answer: Partial answer (I leave the rest to you), your options are -

Stop Virulent Plague from resolving in the first place. This is of course ideal if you can manage it. The problem is red does not have countermagic, so you'll need to add blue. More seriously, countermagic does not actually win you the game, they only stop you from losing. If your opponent does not draw Virulent Plague then your countermagic might not help you reduce your opponent's life to zero.
Discard it. This is more proactive than countermagic since you can always cast discard spells. However later in the game they become dead, and more importantly, they cannot stop your opponent from topdecking Virulent Plague. If you go for this route I recommend reading this definitive article on how to use targeted discard. Discard spells are generally black, and you'll need black mana.
Use an alternative win condition. What this win condition is will depend on the format you're playing and what cards you have available. You're looking for a card that 1) isn't tokens and 2) wins the game, preferably quickly, if unanswered. The standard red cards used in this fashion are Legion Warboss and Goblin Rabblemaster; however both of them rely on tokens, so you're out of luck. It's up to you to find a replacement. I suggest Chandra, Torch of Defiance as a starting point. You could also use something like Glorybringer, which is of course not a goblin, but ignores Virulent Plague.

All three of these plans can work. It's possible you want to use a mixture too, e.g. discard + alternative win condition. It's up to you to explore.


Precession & Time

Question: Assuming precession occurs on a 26000 year period, will we eventually have to change time zones (forward or backward) to adjust for this? The way I see it, in continuous time, we will eventually be at a different point on the axis, thus having less or more sun during a day. Am I missing something?
Comment: @trondhansen, while the OP's question is basically astronomical, it does ask about this affect on how we keep time here on earth, so I think it's probably an okay fit here in Earth Science.
Comment: you will probably get an answer faster if you post this question over at se.astronomy it is an astronomy question.
Answer: I believe the source of your confusion is that you are confusing a sidereal year with a tropical year. The sidereal year, which is the definition most often cited as the standard definition of a year, is not the year our calendars use. That year is the tropical year. The sidereal year is the time it takes for the Earth to complete one orbit around the sun (sounds familiar, right?). The tropical year, the one we actually use to keep time, is the time it takes for the Sun to complete its apparent journey from one polarly extreme to the next (e.g. summer solstice to summer solstice). The two differ by about 20 minutes. In about 13,000 years the constellations we see in the nighttime sky in June will be the ones we see in the nighttime sky in December, but the sun will still be above you (more or less) at noon on that day.

Precession & Time


Folder hierarchy for files shared with user in SharePoint Online

Question: I have a site in which there is a document library. When user 'A' creates a folder 'Test'in the document library, a SharePoint Designer Workflow runs which removes the permission of other users and only 'user A' has full access to it. Now when user 'A' uploads a document in the folder 'Test' and share it with user 'B'. User 'B' get an email link for document which is Ok. When user 'B' directly access the site, he is not able to see 'test' folder. I want to make it accessible so he can navigate to the file but wont be able to see other documents that are not shared with him. Is it possible?
Comment: Sounds like that would be difficult to manage.  It's normal that User B is unable to see the 'test' folder, since the user does not have permission to see it.  Instead of completely removing User B's permissions to a folder created by User A, perhaps you could give User B read permissions instead of read/write permissions?  This would solve the issue for you (unless of course, User B is not allowed to even see documents unless User A specifically shares them).
Comment: User B is not allowed to even view the documents in test folder unless user A explicitly shares with him. Any idea how I can accomplish this?
Comment: I agree with what Mr Doe wrote in his answer, I'm also not keen on lots of folders.  You need to give some thought to the structure of your documents, whatever form you end up using.  I would also say it is better to use separate Document Libraries to manage this.  Security / Permissions would become too difficult and obscure to manage otherwise.  [This blog](https://sharepointmaven.com/folder-vs-library-sharepoint/) has lots of useful info, check out posts on Document Management, Security and Information Management.
Answer: I'm assuming this is because you have removed all permissions from the folder, but what you really need to do is differentiate between view permissions and edit permissions.
Essentially User B would require View Permissions for the 'Test' folder but not for all the other files in said folder.
This is why folders are generally not considered best practice in SharePoint Production environments. I would recommend instead that users create an entirely new library rather than a new folder.
Comment: If there are 1000 employees, there would be 1000 libraries in the Site Content. Wouldn't that be a bad practice. Please suggest.
Comment: On that scale perhaps folders are a better option, but managing it will be difficult depending on your requirements. Essentially if you require that other users can 'see' the folders but not the files inside unless they have been shared with them, your workflow would have to allow view permissions but remove view permissions for every file inside the folder.

Personally I wouldn't have an issue with 1000 Libraries but I would have to look up whether there are limitations on the SharePOint side and if it is accepted practice.


Wintering a banana tree? should it be like this?

Question: This is a follow up to my question here, hopefully I can get some insight. About a month ago I cut my basjoo as instructed and brought it inside for the winter. But since that time there is about seven inches of new growth. I am concerned that this plant is growing back now, instead of the spring. Please help. It breaks my heart to saw this beautiful plant, and all of the pups in the pot died when it did that. What should I do?
Answer: I grow a lot of these sort of plants that are 'subtropical' and bring them in.  I think you need to either:

Provide a relatively warm place with lots of light
This will allow it to grow properly during this period.
Provide a cool to what-you-may-consider cold (though not freezing or
below) area where light is not as much of a concern (though it won't
matter much)
This allows the plant to go dormant, and when warmth comes in the
Spring, it will shoot out and grow nicely.

You have it in what looks like a warm (I see baseboard heaters) and dark (I see no large window (south or west facing) nearby.  This can mean it will send out shoots, that are unable to photosynthesize (make it's food) and it will be drained of resources all winter.  It may not make it.
Comment: I will accept this answer, and thank you for your clarity. I have a choice now.
Answer: Leave it alone. I wouldn't have cut it back. The banana draws those nutrients back into itself as the leaves fade away.
Comment: I used to cut ours down, but they were too big to bring inside, and we'd get frosts. So I'd cut them to about 4ft, then wrap them up. One year that gave us fruit (in North Texas!). Yours is still alive, still growing. You're indoors, so it won't get frosted - just let it grow! They'll get big, of course...
Comment: It's already spent some energy to push those leaves up. Let the leaves do their job and collect some light so the corm doesn't get starved. It's just going to keep trying and get weaker and weaker if it can't convert some light and co2 into sugar
Comment: IF they fade away. My base just a stump until early March or so. I watered every few weeks. It looked dead. Come march these little plantlets started up around the edge of the old root. I kept them watered and had a plant over 4 feet high by planting time in early May. It was close to 10 feet by September. Also several smaller plants formed which I tore away from the root ball and put at other places in the yard. One made it past 5 feet in summer, the other, smaller one, growing at the back of my compost heap made it over 4 feet.
Comment: but is it too soon to let it grow? i had to cut it back to bring it indoors. i am wondering if it is too warm in here and whether it will try to come back before spring
Comment: That's what i want to happen! So should I let it grow or cut it again? I am getting different answers here. If I water it and let it get light it is going to think that it is spring up here.
Comment: There is only one answer here. Comments don't count. I stand by my answer.


If someone says "Do not pass go" to you, what do they mean?

Question: I have seen this phrase do not pass go a couple of times reading Internet forums, but I don't remember figuring it out in context, as I've never played the game Monopoly.  What does it mean?
Comment: Just encountered this phrase in a video game called [True Crime: NYC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Crime:_New_York_City) and felt like sharing it here. The line was said by an FBI agent urging his colleague to infiltrate a gang and arrest their leader, and it went like this: "_You arrest anyone connected with this investigation, I'll make sure they **do not pass go**. Gather enough evidence on the mole. We will bury him together in a deep, dark cell._"
Answer: The other two answers are correct, but they miss a crucial detail which is key to why the phrase has entered popular idiom. The message on the Chance card is worded the way it is to be unambiguous, but the intent is that it is to happen straightaway and no detours are allowed. Because of this, using the phrase outside of the board game means not only "you've failed" but "you've failed right now and you are not allowed any benefits that might ordinarily happen on the way to account or atone for it."
Comment: I think this is key.  You've failed; you've been caught out; there are no appeals; there's no bluffing your way out.  Accept that punishment is coming to you; it's not worth struggling.
Comment: Maybe it's just me, but I don't think this phrase actually has anything specifically to do with failure.  For example, "Come straight home after school, do not pass go, do not collect $200".
Comment: It is the removal of ambiguity which is the key otherwise someone on Mayfair (the last square before "Go" on the UK board could argue that the shortest on-board route to jail is via Go and they should get $200 for passing through. Like telling the kids - go do your homework, don't go and get cookies from the kitchen on the way.
Comment: Not only could you infer no detours are to be taken, but the normal rules of advancement [around the board] are suspended.  Normally a player's piece advances clockwise around the board, with 'Go' being the one space that normally something occurs (collecting pay) just by progressing past it, regardless of landing on it.  In the case of being directed to jail, passing 'Go' will not allow the typical/normal case to apply.
Comment: @GnomeSlice - Right. It is just saying you aren't supposed to do **anything** else along the way.
Answer: In the game of Monopoly, every time you pass go you get $200.  There is a card in the chance pile that sends you to jail without passing go.  The text is "Go to jail. Go directly to jail.  Do not pass go.  Do not collect $200."
So saying "do not pass go" has become an idiom for "not only did you fail/lose, you failed/lost badly" or "not only did something bad happen, but there were bad side-effects as well."
Comment: For additional reference, 'Go' is the name off the starting square on the board.  There are other cards in the same Chance deck which advance you to other squares, and if you would pass 'Go' by doing so, you *do* collect the normal $200.  The Go To Jail card is an exception. [Card in question.](http://therightsideofaustin.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/monopoly-go-to-jail-card.jpg)
Answer: Its a reference to a popular phrase that appears on several Monopoly cards.
In Monopoly you roll dice to advance your piece around the game-board, and at every square on the board one of several things may happen. One square on the board (a corner square) is designated as "Jail" where your piece waits when it is in "Jail" (details don't matter), another square (also a corner square) is designated as "Go", where the pieces start from at the beginning of the game. The game rules stipulate that every time your piece advances onto or past the "Go" square a certain sum (typically 200 monopolybucks) is given to the player (a salary if you will).
If a player picks up a card that tells him to go to jail, the card stipulates that the player's piece goes directly to jail, and stating that you do not pass go and do not collect $200.
Outside of monopoly "Do not pass go" may be a euphemism for going to jail, or something similar. (A contrived example would be a parent telling the child to do the laundry without "Passing Go.") But otherwise it would be helpful if you post the actual usage you heard.
Comment: I would have read it as - "do the thing right now".  Do not argue, do not pass go - just do it!
Comment: Are there more cards than the go-to-jail card that sport this phrase?
Comment: @Tim - no. Only this card.
Comment: @Tim I believe the rule-book uses the phrase with regards to the "Go To Jail" square


How can I defeat guardians?

Question: I have not been able to discover a method of defeating guardians. I have to run away every time. What are some methods to defeating these giant instant death laser creatures?
Answer: This Reddit post has the same question, and leads to two videos (of the demo) of players defeating guardians: a moving one, and an immobile one.

Moving guardian : the player turns around the guardian, dodging its attacks, and firing explosive arrows to weaken it. Then he fires an arrow directly to its eye, which destroys it.
Immobile guardian : the player fires arrows to the guardian eye while it is preparing an attack. Then, between each guardian fire, the player hits it with his sword, until the guardian is defeated. The player will eventually dodge the guardian's attacks, as they are one-shot-attacks.

Also, it has been proven that any shield can parry a guardian laser attack back at it to defeat it. This is the quickest method, though you need good timing. Immobile guardians only require one parried attack, but mobile guardians require that you parry 3 attacks back at them.
Ancient arrows will also make short work of guardians, purchasable at the Akkala Ancient Tech Lab.
As stated in the comments by @Dabbingsdednow, you can use all three charges of Urbosa's Fury (also known as the Power of Urbosa or Urbosa'a Power) to defeat a guardian.
Comment: also I think it has been confirmed you don't need a guardian shield? I'll accept it but lets edit this answer as more information comes in.
Comment: Also if you have Urbosa's fury you can use all three charges to destroy a guardian.
Comment: could you summarize what they do in the videos in case they get taken down? (I've seen it happen too many times...)
Comment: it is never said that you need it. The trick with guardian shield says that you should use this shield only while fighting guardians, not that you have to have it. Also, in the two videos, the player has no shield.
Answer: Guardian Stalkers' legs are vulnerable to attack. And so are the propellers of the airborne ones according the to loading screen tip.
My preferred method is to shoot the eye to stun it, then attack & destroy a leg. Keep stunning it and going after the other 5 legs to do quite a bit of damage. By the time it is legless, you can finish it off easily. Be sure to grab the parts the destroyed legs drop!
Comment: On a side note, I've been trying to attack/throw a bomb in the hole on the underside when I topple one. No luck so far. I should probably try Stasis+.
Answer: You can deflect the laser back to the Guardian with any shield, the timing does not change regardless of the shield you use. It takes three deflections for a regular Guardian and 1 deflection for an immobile one.
The easiest method of taking out a guardian is to use Ancient Arrows. They can be obtained from Robbie at the Akkala Science Lab. Each Ancient Arrow will one shot a Guardian if you hit it directly in the eye, both moving and immobile. Otherwise, it will deal a large amount of damage.
Answer: For moving guardians, I usually get into the air above them to drop down with my drawn sword. After that I am trying to destroy the first leg, if not successful, eat a speedboost and sprint for the chosen leg, which usually succeeds. Now it is just a matter of aiming for the correct areas. Trying to destroy the next leg while simultaneously hitting the body for general damage.
Each time you destroy a leg, the guardian won't attack and if you are lucky, you are able to make it "roll over" which allows free hits onto the body.
Repeat that until no legs are left and pray to god that you are able to kill it by then. If that does not work out, I try to parry a shot which should do the killing blow.
Answer: With the immobile ones if you sneak up behind them and whack them with a charged attack from a two handed weapon you can usually kill them before they can even lock on to you.
I'm not entirely sure (as I think I have seen them spin right round) but the immobile ones seem to have limited turning range so if you come up behind them they can't attack you at all. They go a bit crazy and start firing off randomly if you get it right but they shouldn't hit you.
Cutting off the moving ones' legs has already been covered, but the best tip really is get the Ancient Armour (even just one piece) and the Master Sword as these two things make killing them a breeze.
Answer: You could use the parry with (any) shield if you're reckless enough, just get the timing down and practice, or, you could get the master sword (located in the lost woods, follow the fire, get the torch, light that on fire, then follow the embers that go off of you're torch, and keep following them until you're there.) And it should take about 3 hits for the ones that can't move.
Answer: For mobile guardians it takes 3 ancient arrows to the body or 1 to the eye. Alternatively, you can reflect the laser 3 times to kill it. For immobile ones, it's the same, it just takes 1 ancient arrow or 1 reflection.
Answer: I fly from a high place or use Revali's gale to trigger bullet time and shoot either bomb arrows or shock arrows at it. This will stun it and I use either the Master Sword or Guardian sword to destroy its legs to continue to stun it every time one leg is broken. If it wakes back up, Stasis+ it and wack it a few times. Then continue to do what I said and when all the legs are destroyed, there is usually 500 or so hp left so either continue whacking it or shoot arrows to its eye. Alternatively, use Stasis+ to freeze it and shoot an ancient arrow to the eye to instantly kill it.
Comment: Square bomb or round bomb?
Comment: Bomb arrows, but normal bombs work, not as effective though. Any arrow, if hit it hits the eye, works.
Answer: For me, I never fought the guardians but I do know a way, it is too whack it with a sword that deals a lot of damage, and then when it locks on you with laser, shoot a arrow at its eye. This will disable its attack as long as you shoot it in the eye everytime it tries to shoot you. To get close enough to a guardian, if you have the time freeze+ rune (i'm not sure what its called yet since I don't have it but if you do it is the yellow lock with a +) time freeze it so you can get close without being shot. This strategy works well with immobile guardians. For mobile ones, time freeze them and then they will act like immobile guardians. Warning: Strong guadians won't be frozen for very long so act quick. All guardians can be time freezed when they are about to attack, this is a useful way to fight guardians. Otherwise, just try to avoid them.

How can I defeat guardians?


Where can I interact with other Esperanto speakers about literature?

Question: I'd like to interact with other Esperanto speakers (preferably in Esperanto) about literature. I already know about the Literatura Babilejo on Telegram and the Duolingo Esperanto Learners Facebook group. Where else can I find other Esperanto book worms?
Comment: I have written 16 articles in Esperanto, 2 of which I would count as addressing your request:
"Ĝenaj Ĝemeloj: Wodehouse kaj Roosevelt" and "La Lingvo-Bariero kiel Beletra Rimedo".
The articles are available at: http://www.public-domain-materials.com/dosierujo-artikoloj-en-esperanto.html
Answer: There is Goodreads, where the is an Esperanto group: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/10231-esperanto
The discussion isn't very active, but there is a common "bookshelf" where one can see what others add to the group as Esperanto reading material. There are also at least three list with "best books" with Esperanto-related content.
There is also a group on Librarything: https://www.librarything.com/groups/esperanto
Librarything is a site where people catalogue their "libraries".
I just read about the recurring "Esperanto sumoo, a reading event that occurs a few times a year. It also seems to have meet-ups from time to time. It seems to be an ideal location to interact with other readers - physically.
Answer: The Facebook group Literatura Babilejo has 340 members, who publish posts and comments about Esperanto literature every day. Multiple active members of this group are themselves authors of Esperanto literature.
Comment: That sounds exactly like what I've been looking for!
Answer: There is a Facebook group- "Cxu vi skajpemas" https://www.facebook.com/groups/skajpanoj. If you write about your interests there, there will be someone who wants to chat and shares them.
I do not know about any other way, so I would be curious what other people will say :)


Can Civi/WordPress an Civi/Drupal (same versions) share a database?

Question: This would make it a lot easier to manage a transition between an existing Drupal site and a new WordPress site. In my case, all core programs and the existing databases are on the same server. It would sure be nice to just configure the new WP Civi to look at the old Drupal Civi database.
Answer: Most of the database table can be shared between the two sites. However, there will/might be an issue with the WP user table and the drupal user table with the civicrm_uf_match table. One potential option might be to ensure that the user ids across wordpress and drupal dont conflict, i.e. choose a high starting point for the WP user table (which is a manual process in mysql)
Comment: Thanks, Lobo. This will make life a lot easier. Does this really matter if the WP users and the Drupal users are the same?
Comment: no, but i do think it is super important that the user ids dont conflict. if they do, u r likely to get a mysql foreign key constraint error
Comment: Thanks, again. Since I have only two users on the WP Sandbox, I'll look into how to make all the Drupal user IDs compatible.
Comment: The shared DB sort of worked until WordPress did an automatic MySQL version update and Drupal didn't. This resulted in an error message about versions not matching, which I interpreted to mean the content was mismatched, not the version number. An attempt to separate the two DBs and upload a backup to the Drupal DB crashed midway and  now I get an error message about a partial DB and recommending I get the ISP to restore from backup. Unfortunately the backup we used was also, apparently, a partial. So if anyone wants to try the shared DB routine, make sure to turn off Automatic Updates in WP.
Comment: We looked into this - what Lobo suggests does indeed mean you can get Wordpress & Drupal sharing a CiviCRM database, but ultimately each user can have only one uf match.

So in practical terms for us that meant that when users logged into Drupal (original site) and filled out a form, their details would pre-populate.  When they logged into Wordpress (new site) their details wouldn't pre-populate until we flushed the civicrm_uf_match table and linked all the records to Wordpress accounts (which of course creates a problem for Drupal)


How to send back the CARES payment of COVID-19 to IRS as non-resident

Question: I am a non-resident alien who working in the US. I received the CARES payment ($1200) of the COVID 19 by direct deposit from IRS, while I know that as a non-resident, I am not eligible to receive. This is because I filed the incorrect 1040 tax form to IRS before instead of the 1040NR for non-residents and have not filed the amended form yet.
I understand that I must return this payment to IRS. I found the way to return here https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc161.
However, during the COVID-19 time, I could not call to IRS as stated in the post.
So what should I do now? Thank you.
Comment: Could you clarify what you mean by "could not call to IRS"? If it is a temporary inability to reach them, follow the remaining instructions, and keep calling them until you succeed.
Comment: Hi, on IRS website, they state that Telephone Assistance: IRS live phone assistance is not available at this time.
Comment: Well, at the very least, you will need to amend your 1040 to a 1040NR. The form 1040X instructions has information on how to do that.
Answer: Although the mentioned page -- https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc161 -- is about erroneous tax refunds, it seems like a great place to start.
As recently as this morning, the IRS's telephone and local assistance page indicated that while local offices were closed, live phone assistance was still available. But that is no longer the case.

Telephone Assistance: IRS live phone assistance is not available at this time. Please look for help first here on IRS.gov.

I see two three options.
Option 1. Wait
Wait until the IRS phone lines open back up, and then go through the steps from the tc161 page.

Contact the Automated Clearing House (ACH) department of the bank/financial institution where the direct deposit was received and have them return the refund to the IRS.
Call the IRS toll-free at 800-829-1040 (individual) or 800-829-4933 (business) to explain why the direct deposit is being returned.
Interest may accrue on the erroneous refund.

(Because the page is about refunds, item three indicates that interest may apply to erroneous tax refunds. But it is not clear if interest applies to erroneous stimulus payments.)
Option 2. Step 1 now, Step 2 later
Follow step 1 above right now to ensure that the money goes back as soon as possible, to avoid or minimize any interest. Follow step 2 as soon as the IRS phone lines open back up.
According to a Kiplinger article, the IRS will also send you a paper confirmation.

However, the IRS is legally required to send you a notice within 15 days of mailing your check (or directly depositing the money into your bank account) to let you know the method of payment, the amount of payment, and an IRS phone number to call if you didn't receive your payment. So, once you receive the notice, you can call to let the IRS know the amount of your check is wrong. You'll just have to sit tight until then, though.
The IRS will mail the notice to your last known address it has on file. If you have recently moved, you should file a Form 8822 with the IRS and a change of address notice with the U.S. Postal Service right away so that the notice is sent to your new address.

That notice might include additional phone numbers that are not shut down, or it might contain alternative ways to contact the IRS about erroneous stimulus payments. So you could also wait for that paperwork to arrive. Or you could do step 1 now and use that paperwork for an alternative point of contact for step 2 when it arrives.
Option 3. You might be able to keep it!
According to this MarketWatch article:

The statutory language in the CARES Act that set the whole EIP scheme in motion says that anybody who gets more money than they are actually entitled to can keep the excess.

I haven't found a primary source for that yet, but if it is true, it could mean that you could keep the payment that you have already received. I imagine the IRS would challenge you if they believed that your mistaken payment was the result of fraud. But if it was an honest mistake, the MarketWatch article makes me think you can keep it.
Comment: Option 3 is not correct. The quoted sentence is very misleading and incorrect. It is not true that "anybody who gets more money than they are actually entitled to can keep the excess." What they're trying to describe is how the check (based on the 2019 or 2018 tax return) affects the 2020 tax credit, where if you qualify for more in 2020, you receive the difference, but if you qualify for less, you don't have to pay anything back. So if you assume that the check is an "advance" of the 2020 tax credit, then it seems like you got more than you are "entitled to", and you get to keep the excess.
Comment: But that is not actually what the law says. The law says that the check (advance refund) eligibility and amount are based on eligibility and amount of the tax credit if it were applied to the 2019 tax year (or 2018 tax year if you hadn't filed for 2019), so if you correctly filed your 2019 (or 2018) tax return, and they gave you the check amount based on that, you got the check amount that you were entitled to. Even if you got much higher income in 2020 or became ineligible in 2020, that does not change the fact the eligibility and amount for the check. 2020 tax year does not factor into it.
Comment: The fact that you don't have to pay it back even if you qualify for less in 2020 arises from a surprising asymmetry in the law, where the 2020 tax credit is reduced by the amount of the check you got, but not reduced below 0, so you get more if you qualify for more, but you don't give up any if you qualify for less. This is what people mean when they say you "keep the excess", but it's not an "excess" in the sense that it was an overpayment -- it is only an excess of what you correctly received based on one tax year, over what you qualify for in another tax year.
Comment: However, if you filed your 2019 (or 2018) tax return incorrectly, as the OP did, and received a bigger check based on that than if you filed your tax return correctly, then that is a different situation. Here, you are really "not entitled" to the amount, and you need to pay back that money after amending your tax return. This is a separate issue from the issue of reducing the 2020 tax credit. Here, it's an incorrect refund based on an incorrect 2019 tax return, and needs to be handled along with the correction of the 2019 tax return, not with 2020 taxes.


What was the price of gunpowder in Victorian England

Question: What was the price of gunpowder in Victorian England? Any quantity will do.
Answer: From Sketch of the Mode of Manufacturing Gunpowder at the Ishapore Mills in Bengal: Published in 1862.

The English service powders cost 5£. upwards for the 100 lbs say 50
  rupees. The best sporting powders sell in London about 2s to 3s per lb,
  10£. to 15£. the 100 lbs. Blasting powder is sold by dealers at from
  50s to 75s per 100 lbs.

The entire book discusses the manufacture of powder, and the facility is in India, but it mentions prices in London, so they should be relevant.
Comment: To clarify, is this saying that gunpowder cost 2-3 shillings per pound?
Comment: Yes, in 1862. Ill edit the date into the answer to clarify.
Comment: The start of that book lists booksellers with roughly one per country.  So America gets two: one in New York for Federal States and one in Richmond for Confederate States


What is the reason behind deleted post reputation loss?

Question: My very first answer on this site remains my favorite post and largest rep gain in a single post of my SE.career. I was rather proud of it and apparently others liked it too, as it eventually gained me the second awarded Reversal badge of the site.  Sure the question was ill concieved but my answer was not. Now, months later, that question has been deleted and my well deserved reputation from my answer seems to have gone with it. What is the reasoning behind deleted question rep loss? I'm rather sore at loosing my rep, even as I'm sore that my well conceived answer was deleted with the question.
Answer: Here is the body of your answer:

For the sake of answering the question, I am a US Soldier currently deployed in afghanistan. My unit reguarly gets into firefights and takes indirect enemy rocket fire. No, war is nothing like a video game. (big surprise)

While this is a nice bit of insight from your privileged position, it is not reputation earned from your expertise at videogames. Your answer could've probably saved the question had you gone in more detail in how exactly the two experiences are different (although for all I know you probably have NDAs preventing you to do so), but the sympathy upvotes you got certainly didn't help in this regard.
Reputation is a measure of how much the system trusts you, or more specifically, of how much the system trusts that you know about the topics that the site is actually about. You need to know what people are talking about before you can start deciding whether questions are on- or off-topic or before you can vote to delete or keep, and even as a 20k rep moderator this can be difficult.
This is why reputation from deleted answers doesn't count.
Comment: @Jason If the question is crappy enough that it gets deleted, then it's not a topic that the site is meant to advert. If the answer should deserve to live on a better question, then a better question should be constructed, not have some weird ghost reputation that betrays the otherwise traceable and completely visible nature of reputation reflecting your live contributions.
Comment: While I do see your point, I saw my answer as putting an idiot in his place, which happens to be one of my favorite past times. No, I suppose this site isn't the place to do that, I can't argue against that, but it was still very satisifying to say the least, and obviously others thought so too. Thanks for answering! :)
Comment: While that is a good argument for this specific question / answer, it doesn't answer the question in general - if I provide an excellent answer to a crappy question that gets deleted, why do I lose the rep?  Or is it assumed that my excellent answer will prevent the question from being deleted?
Comment: This encourages people to downvote crappy questions rather than try to answer them. I'm not sure that's a bad thing.
Comment: Oh look!  Comments can be disappeared too!  How charming.  You can vaporize my comments, @badp, but you're still missing my point.
Comment: To me, the problem isn't the reputation loss in and of itself, but the fact that it seems to happen with no statute of limitations.  It seems that no matter how old a question is, it can be deleted at any time and all the related reputation is gone.  This will encourage people not to participate, as they can never know when someone with a diamond will decide to torpedo their efforts.
Comment: @Sterno, in what way does being 'fined' a few points encouraging downvoting?
Comment: @Cor_Blimey I'm not sure who you're referring to as the one being "fined". It's not the downvoter. Downvotes on questions cost the downvoter nothing. If you're talking about the questioner being fined, then I don't really know how to respond. If you think them losing reputation for asking bad questions is not a deterrent, I'm not sure what else we can do.
Comment: @Kyralessa It doesn't take a diamond to do that. Any three users with more than 10k reputation can delete a closed question. Deletion _is_ the destiny of questions that get closed unless they are reopened.
Comment: @Sterno, oh, sorry! I thought that a downvote cost the voter 2 rep. I can't think where I got that impression from though.
Comment: @Kyralessa There is little... point in an exchange that goes like "you're missing my point" "no you're missing my point" "no _you_ are missing my point"


Where does Ciel get the key?

Question: In episode 2, where does Ciel acquire the key to the storehouse that the drugs are in?
Comment: If you have several questions to ask, try splitting them up in several questions instead of all in one
Answer: In episode 2

His butler, Strongest

Several characters are portrayed in the pool room and in the tea room in the scene after.
One of these characters a Chinese male named Lau is responsible for oversight of the drug trafficking that occurs in London.
Ciel being the Earl of Phantomhive, received a mission from the queen to eliminate a rat who had been messing with Lau's business.
Lau gave Ciel the key who baited out his kidnapping and flushed out the rat. Which is why the main focus in the point of this episode was that Ciel likes to play games. He could have had Lau or Sebastian handle it but he would rather throw himself right in the middle a precarious situation for entertainment.

Where does Ciel get the key?


How many papers does a mathematician publish (on average) in a year?

Question: I wondered about the number of papers published by mathematicians because I heard that they publish less than other academics or scientist.
It would be nice if you could distinguish between the number of papers published by PhDs, Postdocs or Professors.
Comment: This sounds like a research question and I doubt anyone has bothered to do the research. The distribution is likely very far from a normal distribution, but, like I said, research. Note that some of the best mathematicians may publish very little if they work on the very hardest problems. You don't contribute much if you publish a lot of dreck. Other mathematicians may let their students publish the best stuff, whether as co-authors or not.
Comment: There is no general answer, but you can have a look at [this answer of mine](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/84054/20058) to a similar (closed) question. Note that the variablility apply also to subfields of mathematics.
Comment: @MassimoOrtolano Thank you. Have a nice year.
Comment: Both postdocs and professors are subsets of PhDs.
Comment: @AzorAhai When used to refer to people, "Ph.D." seems to be ambiguous. I'd ordinarily use it to mean a person who holds a Ph.D. degree, and in that sense your comment is almost correct. ("Almost" because a few people have become professors without a Ph.D.) But I've seen people (especially on this site) use it to mean a person enrolled in a Ph.D. program, and I conjecture that this is what's meant in the question.
Comment: @AndreasBlass I have never heard someone use "[a] PhD" to mean someone in a program, rather than one with a PhD, but I accept that might be the usage somewhere.
Answer: This varies on a lot of things (e.g., by field and what kind of institution someone is at), however, there have been various studies.  For instance Figure VII (p70) of this study (which seems a bit strange to me) graphs the annual number of papers per mathematician and their most recent data (2005-2008) appears to put the average just under 0.7 for "high-exposure mathematicians" and 0.2 for "low-exposure mathematicians."
That said, things vary a lot by area and what one considers as "research active."  I would guess that it rather pure, theoretical areas (which I am most familiar with), among people I consider professors research active 1-2 papers/year is pretty typical.  For postdocs I imagine the average is < 1/year (including those who are not "research successful") and for US PhD students < 0.2/year (most PhD students probably don't have anything published by the time they graduate, though they may have 1-2 preprints).
Comment: 0.7? This is almost certainly obsolete and/or misinterpreted.
Comment: @darijgrinberg Yes, of course things need to be interpreted appropriated.   I didn't check their methors or what they mean by "high-exposure" but I do remember that the average number of _total_ publications per author in something like a 20- or 30-year window using the MathematicalReviews database was around 1.75.  I'm sure the numbers would be quite different if one restricted to facutly currently employed at R1 universities or the like.


Is it safe to use barn wood indoors for furniture, trim, walls and ceilings?

Question: I am renovating a farm house built in the late 1800's. I am planning on tearing down the barn from the same era and using some of the wood to finish trim etc. I believe the moisture content is good 7 to 12%.  I'm most concerned about bugs. The area is south-western Ontario.
Comment: 5 years later and the old house is still standing and no sign of bugs.  I did bring in many pieces of wood both machined and plain with a stain and finish on them.  No other treatment or process was used.  Thank you all for the advice.
Answer: Working with reclaimed wood presents a few unique challenges and concerns. It sounds like you're going to be using your stock in its raw form so I won't get  into milling etc.
The first thing to watch out for is dust. Barn wood is impregnated with all sorts of nasty stuff including molds and animal dander (a carrier of tetanus). Dust masks are an absolute must and take special care to clean out any wounds and splinters you acquire because they will often get infected.
Another issue is imbedded foreign objects. Hitting an old bolt with a skill saw is as dangerous to you as it is to your blade. Pick up a metal detecting wand ($40) and go over your parts before you make any cuts, you'll be amazed at the variety of shrapnel you collect.
Finally, finishing reclaimed wood is its own bag of problems. Most protective finishes don't really like to be applied over top of dirt and contaminates so be sure to start by wire brushing out the worst of the gunk and then apply a good sealer coat before finishing, or better yet use a penetrating oil like Penofin for a more natural look. Note that any finish will change the color of your patina.
As far as insects are concerned, there is a spray that can be applied to the stock that can mitigate or eliminate the threat of transporting them into your house but it's probably best left to a professional to handle it. If you don't see any signs of activity (holes, larvae, etc. ) you might not have anything to worry about.
Answer: Termites would be the most serious construction risk factor. There are businesses which specialize in the identification and treatment of termite infestation in most areas where termites are common. It would be prudent to consult with such a company if termites are a reasonable concern.
Otherwise, suitability comes down to a question of species and quality of the specific pieces on one side and the applications for which they are intended and the finishes desired on the other.
Comment: The only thing I would add is that if creosote has been used on the barn, that may prove a nuisance when the wood is brought inside.
Comment: We built a tub for a client out of a hollow pine log. We impregnated the surface with epoxy, then fiber-glassed over that. The next spring a thousand pine bark beetles chewed their way out, turning our custom built tub into a giant colander. Not a good day for any of us.
Comment: Additionally, depending on the farm, I might be concerned about what insecticide, diesel fuel, etc. might have been spilled, soaked or otherwise introduced to your lumber. It might not even be obvious at first, but if the piece was brought indoors where the piece may breath when it begins to get warm and dry.
Comment: Holy cow we use barn wood all the time. I have paid to disassemble old barns for the wood and beams. The weathered wood tight grain is more valuable than new wood in some cases. No bugs it is usually fine+
Comment: wouldn't sanding then adding paint/stain over every part of the wood cause the termites/bugs to die if any were inside the wood?
Comment: @EdBeal I would not be surprised by overlap between set of places with good wood from old barns and the set of places where termites are not common.
Answer: Put bowls of ammonia in bowls or cans around the wood and then tarp the bowls and the wood so they are sealed up together for five days. When you untarp the bowls of ammonia and wood, all the bugs that might be in the wood are driven out of the wood and they die. I did this with a big ponderosa pine table. I did have a few pine beetles come out, even after that wood had been cut, milled and stored for a couple of years. So that was what I was told to do. Anyway, it works great for killing off boring bugs.
Answer: Why tear down the barn? Either way, old sun-bleached barn wood can be impressive without any finish, especially if it's a hardwood like Oak. Powder post beetle holes can also add a distinct character to the wood. If there is active bug activity, they will soon die off. Most wood-eating pests require a source for water and if you dry the wood thoroughly they will either die off or find a more favorable environment.