What is the best tool for Smashwords submission?

Question: I am planning to write couple of free ebooks for the benefit of the community. Can anyone please suggest me a good tool for smashwords compatibility?
Answer: The short answer is to use any tool which produces a valid epub file.
There are 2 options.
Create it in MS word and use Smashword's  meatgrinder tool to convert it to epub.
Or create the epub file yourself and submit it directly.
If you are more comfortable with MS Word and don't mind troubleshooting its strangeness, go ahead with that. But MS Word is a complex beast.
I would recommend trying to learn to create the epub file yourself. But the process is not that easy.
One option is to rent Adobe Indesign and pay for one month. That should be enough to create your book and export it into epub. This is overkill.
Sigil is a somewhat user-friendly tool for creating epub files. It requires knowing html.
One thing you can look into is the online pressbooks for generating ebooks. It's free and works moderately well.
There are now more commercial tools for producing ebooks. All have their limits or might cost money. But they might be fine for generating ebooks.
All the solutions are somewhat bad. They are useful for producing simple ebooks -- without much formatting.
Before you submit it, you should validate the epub file with the online validator. Smashwords won't accept a file which doesn't validate.
Two other things to keep in mind:
1)try not to use creation tools offered by the book distributor. They tend to be specific to their devices.
2)you may have to format something entirely different to make it work in kindle. However, if your epub file generally passes the epub validator, then you can use Amazon's kindle converter to make it.
Answer: Here is a link to the Smashwords style guide:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/52
(It's free!)


Preparing Meats using Dry Rubs

Question: I have recently begun testing different types of dry rubs in preparing meat dishes.  What base ingredients (outside of spice blends) should I be looking for in a good quality dry rub?  If it is allowed, I'd appreciate if you could share products that contain the ingredients you are recommending.
Comment: I've edited my answer to try to answer the questions you seem to be asking, but it'd still be awesome if you could edit your question too. We don't want this to end up as a poll of everyone's favorite spices - we'd have to put it on hold. (I'd edit it myself but I don't want to put words in your mouth!)
Comment: I'm a little confused by "ingredients (outside of spice blends)". Are you expecting there to be a lot of unique non-spice ingredients in rubs?
Comment: @Jefromi - I believe what he is referring to is outside of "packaged spice blends", i.e. "Lawry's Seasoned Salt", "McCormick Grill Mates Montreal Steak Seasoning", "Old Bay", etc. He wants to know what base ingredients to make his own blend.
Comment: @dpollitt Maybe? The last sentence really makes it sound like he wants to buy something prepackaged. Shall have to wait for the OP to clarify, I think.
Comment: I'm asking both. Any prepacked that fly under the radar (I've tried mainstream) and base ingredients for my own custom blend.
Comment: @Chrismas007 Recipe requests are off-topic here, so the latter question probably isn't a great one to ask. Asking how to look for decent premade ones seems fine, though looking for specific product recommendations isn't so good; there are tons and tons of them and we try to avoid poll questions.
Answer: Premade blends
If you're trying to buy something premade, look for blends without filler ingredients. For example, if you see sugar or salt as the first ingredient, that's a bad sign. Sometimes you'll also see large amounts of garlic or onion powder. Yes, you may often want salt and even sugar in your rubs, but you'll probably be happier adding them yourselves than paying a dollar an ounce for them.
It's also a great sign if they list all the ingredients, not just "spices".
And of course, you want it to not be old, since ground spices lose potency over time, but that's hard to tell without opening it. You may be able to get a sense for decent brands, or know that your store replenishes stock frequently so it hasn't sat on the shelf forever.
Beyond that, it's mostly up to your preferences. You'll just have to learn what spices you tend to like. It can be the highest quality in the world but if you don't like the spices, you won't like the rub. Keep in mind that different things do taste better with different meats; if you want a starting place, look for recipes with that meat, and then look for premade rubs with similar ingredients.
If you can't find anything you like in your own grocery stores, but still want to look for premade, don't give up. Just start looking toward smaller producers. Sure, they may not be in your grocery store, but there may be some great local places, and a lot of them have online presence now so you can use other people's local places too!
Just to give you the spirit of the idea... Your profile says you're in Chicago - I've heard of The Spice House there (since they also sell online), and they do seem to have some rubs. I don't know if enough good barbecue has made it up there, but if you can find any barbecue restaurants that sell rubs, that could be a good bet too. (I ate at this place last time I was back home in Texas and they even sell some seasonings online. Haven't tried them, but the barbecue was certainly good!)
Making your own
This is really an incredibly broad question, as you can see from the breadth of recipes you'll find if you search for recipes for rubs. There are really no "base ingredients" that make a rub good. As with premade things, your spice preferences will be personal, and depend on what you're using it on too.
But all that is really good news. You can find tons and tons of recipes online; trying a few and seeing what kinds of things you like will get you pretty far. In particular, if you grind your own spices, basically everything will be awesome, and your favorites will be down to personal preference. So we can't really tell you which ones you'll like best, but you can start to find out, and if you're grinding up single batches, you won't be wasting much along the way.
Comment: Also pre-packaged rubs with sugar tend to get hard if there is too much moisture in the container. If you are making your own, buy a small electric coffee grinder and whole spices so that you can make the rub fresher by grinding the herbs/chilies yourself (do not put sugar or still hot roasted spices into the grinder).
Answer: Like the wikipedia (*) says, spice rubs melange are highly personal.
I don't think there is a proper answer to your question.
IMO, everything goes... (or nearly everthing)
It depends on the type (and/or ethnicity) of the spice rub and the type of meat or fish.
If wanting a more of a sweet flavour, then add some more sugar (dark sugar) and spices related to sweets like cinnamon, cardamom, ginger all-spice, ..  ; if wanting a more savoury flavour, then use more salt and savoury spices and herb (thyme, mustard, celery salt, .. )
Hot pepper (powder or flakes) can be added to both savoury or sweeter rubs (to taste)
...
Experiment, Experiment...
(*) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spice_rub

Preparing Meats using Dry Rubs


Probability Part 2

Question: Ok, a friend asked me this question before and I posted it, but I jumped the gun a bit so I am going to rephrase the question with a bit more detail. Personally, I love probability—maybe a bit too much (hence why i am broke :( ). Anyway, my friend posted earlier about the coin, so I am going to go back to it. Anything which has two possible outcomes always has a one in two chance of being the outcome I want. So when I flip a coin, I have a one in two chance of getting heads or tails. Now my friend seems to think that there will always be a variable that will mislead the outcome—always. So no outcome can ever be truly predicted because there is always some force that will undermine the math or experiment. He stated that this is true for anything we try to predict because something will always contaminate the experiment. He stated that the coin flip would need more math to explain on which side did the coin start, who threw it, and why would it land on what you would want it to. According to him, there are an infinite number of possibilities which would cause the coin to land on heads as there are too many variables from the basic equation and we can't predict them all. This got me thinking a bit. I still think he is wrong but could someone post a fool-proof equation so i can get him off my back? :)
Comment: Use punctuation.
Answer: Coin flips can never be predicted individually.  We say that if we took n trials of coin flips, if n is sufficiently large the probabilities will tend to the expected value.  Probability and Statistics are about understanding these random events and making inferences based upon testing real data against probabilistic models.  There are always errors.  Look up convergence in probability to get an analytic look at why and some theory behind the probability.

Probability Part 2


Do Bangladeshi citizens need a transit visa in Malaysia?

Question: I am a Bangladeshi passport holder and I am studying in Bangalore, India. On 15 October 2012 I am planning to go my country. But there are no direct flights to there. I came to India previously via Kalkuta, but I don't want to take this route this time. I am planning to travel through Kuala Lumpur and Dhaka. My transit time there will be 15 hours. Can anyone tell me please if I need a transit visa for that?
Answer: Timatic, the database used by Airlines, states:

TWOV (Transit Without Visa):
  Visa required, except for Holders of onward tickets for a max.
  transit time of 24 hours, arriving at and
  departing from Kuala Lumpur (KUL). (SEE NOTE 51542)
  NOTE 51542: Transit without a visa is not possible between Main Terminal and KLIA2.

So, if you change at Kuala Lumpur (and no other Malaysian airport) and the flights arrive and leave from the same terminal, then you do not Need a Malaysian transit visa.
@Alendri You got it wrong. You say OP needs a transit visa if they don't leave the transit area, and needs a tourist visa if they do. That's wrong. What it says is that OP needs no visa if they don't leave the transit area, but needs a transit visa if they do
Answer: Citizens of India/Bangladesh/Pakistan/SriLanka (Indian sub-continent) do not need transit visa for upto 120 hours, based on the conditions below:
According to the Malaysian government:
TRANSIT WITHOUT VISA FOR CITIZENS OF BANGLADESH, PAKISTAN, INDIA AND SRI LANKA (INDIAN SUB CONTINENTAL COUNTRIES)
<code>CONDITIONS FOR APPROVAL OF TRANSIT WITHOUT VISA FACILITY
1. Transit Without Visa (TWOV) facility is not offered other than to Indian Sub-Continental Countries citizens.
2. TWOV cannot be given to visitors who do not possess visa from 3rd country of destination as follows:
   · Australia
   · New Zealand
   · United States of America
   · Japan
   · China
   · Taiwan
   · South Korea
3. TWOV facility cannot exceed more than 120 hours (5 days).
4. TWOV facility is not available at entry point other than Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) and Low Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT).
5. TWOV cannot be offered to passenger sponsored by airlines other than Malaysia Airlines and Air Asia. At present only MAS and Air Asia have agreed and accepted all terms and conditions imposed by the Malaysian Government.
6. TWOV cannot be given to visitors who do not fulfil the following:
   · Valid national passport or internationally recognized travel document;
   · Travel documents valid for more than six (6) months from the date of entry;
   · A return ticket to country of origin;
   · Not listed in the Immigration Department's suspected list.
7. There will be no extension of TWOV facility.
8. Permanent resident and long term pass holder are not bound to any of the TWOV regulations and condition stipulated above.
</code>
Answer: According to Malaysian Immigration Department you require a VISA to enter Malaysia.
However on their page about types of Visa they also state that:

3 Transit Visa
This is issued to foreign nationals who require a visa to enter Malaysia on transit to other countries. Foreign nationals on transit without leaving the airport premises and who continue their journey to the next destination with the same flight do not require a transit visa.

So I would say that if you're not going to leave the airport then you apply for the transit Visa. If you wish to use a hotel or so outside of the airport you do need to have the tourist Visa. Remember that you have your continued traveling tickets ready before you get there so you can prove that you are traveling onwards.
Either Visa costs 20RM for a Bangladesh national.
Comment: How will I be able to collect my luggage?


How Is the Formula for the Wiener Deconvolution Derived?

Question: Wikipedia - Wiener Deconvolution shows this formula:
$$
\ G(f) = \frac{H^*(f)S(f)}{ |H(f)|^2 S(f) + N(f) }
$$
Could someone explain the derivation?
Specifically, where does the squaring ($|H(f)|^2$) come from?
Comment: What exactly is unclear in the "Derivation" section on the same wikipedia page?
Comment: @DanSkep, Any chance you review my answer and mark it or say what's missing?
Comment: @Royi Dan was last seen 9 years ago, so I'd be surprised if he resurfaces to review your helpful (+1) answer :)
Answer: The Wiener Filter can also be derived by another (Easier) way.
Let's assume the following model:
$$ y = h \ast x + n $$
Namely the data is a result of a linear combination (Convolution) of $ x $ with Additive Noise.
If we assume the noise model is Gaussian and the input data ($\boldsymbol{x}$) is also formed by a Gaussian distribution then we should try to minimize (MAP Estimator):
$$ \hat{x} = \frac{1}{2 {\sigma}_{n}^{2}} \left\| h \ast x - y \right\|_{2}^{2} + \frac{1}{ 2 {\sigma}_{x}^{2} } \left\| x \right\|_{2}^{2} $$
Since the convolution is Linear Operation and assuming we in finite dimension then it can be rewritten as:
$$ \hat{x} = \frac{1}{2} \left\| H x - y \right\|_{2}^{2} + \frac{{\sigma}_{n}^{2}}{ 2 {\sigma}_{x}^{2} } \left\| x \right\|_{2}^{2} $$
This is just a Tikhonov Regulaized Least Squares with the solution given by:
$$ \hat{x} = \left( {H}^{T} H + \frac{{\sigma}_{n}^{2}}{{\sigma}_{x}^{2}} I \right)^{-1} {H}^{T} y $$
Now, if we use the discrete form of the circular convolution then $ H $ is a circulant matrix which means all can be solved in the Frequency Domain which results in the same equation as above with a simple change:
$$
\ G(f) = \frac{{H}^{*} \left( f \right) S \left( f \right)}{ {\left| H \left( f \right) \right|}^{2} S \left( f \right) + N \left( f \right)} = \frac{{H}^{*} \left( f \right)}{ {\left| H \left( f \right) \right|}^{2} + \frac{N \left( f \right)}{S \left( f \right)}}
$$
Comment: Did you assume a Gaussian prior for $x$? I am not sure how the Gaussian-noise assumption is related to MAP estimate?
Comment: @rando, The fidelity term is about the noise, The regularization is about the prior (MAP).
Answer: As Jan pointed out, the wikipedia article very lucidly explains the derivation of the weiner filter. The goal of the weiner filter is to reduce the mean of the error in prediction. Hence, you would do the same. Write down the estimate of the error and then differentiate it with respect to G(f) to obtain the optimum G(f)


What is the "crop factor?"

Question: I need some help understanding crop factor. I do get that the actual focal length doesn't change, but as far as field of view and how the image turns out is where I'm getting stuck. Anything that I've been reading online is not very clear on this subject. If anyone could explain how this works in a simple way, I'd appreciate it. :)
Comment: Take a look at [What is angle of view in photography?](http://photo.stackexchange.com/a/5924/1943). That's not exactly the same question, but the two are intrinsically related and once you understand one you'll understand the other.
Comment: Also see [What is the relationship between focal length and crop factor?](http://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/139/what-is-the-relationship-between-focal-length-and-crop-factor), which has a number of answers hopefully explaining in a simple way.
Answer: Crop factor is the ratio between a full frame sensor (36X24mm) and the sensor you're looking at.

While the same photons go through your lens, a smaller sensor will only "see" part of them as you can see here:

The perspective does not change but because you're seeing only part of the image it seems that you magnify it, hence, 50mm lens on a camera with crop factor of 1.6 (meaning that full frame size/the sensor size = 1.6 )will act like 80mm lens on a full frame camera
Comment: Interesting to note:  there are many sports and nature photographers who actually prefer APS-C over full-frame, because they get that extra zoom "for free" *(though it's actually at the expense of less light hitting the sensor, assuming the same megapixels)*.  Crop-factor is also why cell-phone cameras can be made with such incredibly small focal-lengths without looking like a wide-angle lens.
Comment: Note that though the perspective is not changed, when you look at your image on screen, or print an image, the full image is the box above labeled 'The sensor'. Therefore, it appears 'zoomed in', offering a bit of a telephoto effect. It is cropped compared to a full frame sensor, but of course there is no black letterboxing around the image.
Answer: Quick answer, the crop factor times the focal length is the visual equivalent of the focal length on a 35mm camera.  So a 35mm, full frame sensor has a crop factor of 1 and crop factors either go up or down from that depending on their relative size.  Greater than 1 is a smaller sensor (since it appears as if the focal length is longer compared to a 35mm) and bigger sensors are less than 1 (since it appears as if the focal length is shorter compared to a 35mm).
Comment: Thank you everyone for your answers. I believe I finally understand this. :)
Answer: Crop Factor is the relation of the size of the camera's image sensor compared to the industry standard size which is 35mm film format which is called "Full Frame DSLR".  To cut the cost of the Camera, manufacturers intend to make DSLRs with smaller imaging area thus the crop factor is conceptualized.

Black – Full Frame Red
Red - 1.3x Crop Factor
Yellow - 1.5x Crop Factor
Green – 1.6x Crop Factor

When you enlarge images to the same size from different sensors the ones with the smaller sensors will be enlarged more – making it seem bigger.  When you install a lens (e.g. for Nikon, FX lenses) to a camera with a smaller sensor (e.g. Nikon: DX cameras) the lens is often said to have a larger equivalent lens size.
Here's a table of equivalent lenses when installed with different sensor sizes:

For more information check these links
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/crop-factor.htm
http://digital-photography-school.com/crop-factor-explained

What is the "crop factor?"


Do threads share local variables?

Question: I'm reading Operating System Concepts by Silberschatz 7th ed, and it says that threads of the same process share the code section, data section, and other O.S. resources, but have separate sets of stacks and registers. However, the problem set I'm working on states that threads share local variables, but aren't local variables stored on the stack, so individual threads should have their own copies?
Comment: The 'problem set' may be wrong or using bad terminology, hard to say. Can you post a meaningful quote?
Comment: But: No, threads do not share real local variables. But in for example C#, a local variable may be captured or 'closed over' and then it becomes a different story.
Answer: Threads usually share the following.

Data Segment(global variables,static data)
Address space.
Code Segment.
I/O, if file is open , all threads can read/write to it.
Process id of parent.
The Heap

But threads maintain their own copy of stack,and local variables are stored on the stack so yeah you are right that each thread should have its own copy of local variables.
May be its a bad terminology used or may be its something specific to problem set.
Comment: Just to add additional info, though threads maintain their own separate stacks, but since they all lie in the same address space as the parent process, it is possible for a thread to access the local variable of another thread in the same process. However, its really very bad practice.
Comment: Certainly terminology used by Silberschatz is revised by professionals in the area. Hardly bad.
Answer: POSIX compliant OSs' threads have to share local variables (a.k.a. automatic variables). From Volume XBD, Base Definitions, Chapter 3, Definitions, Entry 3.404, Thread of the Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7 (at the time of answering):

Anything whose address may be determined by a thread, including but not limited to static variables, storage obtained via malloc(), directly addressable storage obtained through implementation-defined functions, and automatic variables, are accessible to all threads in the same process.

The following code, with output 10, should suffice for exemplifying my claim, if one assumes that static variables are indeed shared between threads:
#include <pthread.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdio.h>

static int* shared_pointer = NULL;

void* alter_thread_entry(void* arg) {
    // The following variable will be reachable,
    // while it exists, by both the main and the alter thread.
    int local_variable = 10;
    shared_pointer = &local_variable;
    sleep(2);
    return 0;
}

int main() {
    pthread_t alter_thread;
    pthread_create(&alter_thread, NULL, alter_thread_entry, NULL);
    sleep(1);
    printf("%i", *shared_pointer);
    fflush(stdout);
    pthread_join(alter_thread, NULL);
}

The call stack that traces control execution of threads is what is not shared among threads of a process. However, this point is implementation-dependent, as nothing is established about it in the aforementioned standard.
Answer: I read that single process can have multiple threads. Multiple threads of same process does share things among them. If you want to know what they share and what not. Considering process is comprised of address space, stack, heap, global variables, code, data, OS resources, what among them is shared by threads? I have following guessings:

Global variables - I have read thread shares global variable. Also while programming in Java and C#, I have made threads to share class
  level variables. So I am believing that the threads share global
  variables (though not sure whether the concepts in high level
  programming languages translates as is to low operating system level
  facts).
Heap - Since global variable is stored in the heap, heap is shared among threads.
Stack - Since each thread can have its own execution sequence/code, it must have its own stack on which it might push/pop
  its program counter contents (when say function calls and returns
  happen). So threads of same process do not share stack. Now I am
  unsure about the sharing of following things
Address space - Not sure what exactly counts under address space. But I guess address space is generally used in the context of
  processes, not threads. And since all threads of same process reside
  in the same address space as the parent process, it is said that
  Blockquote
  threads share address space. (But then they maintain different stack
  inside same address space?)
OS resources - I guess this can be very implementation specific. For example, parent process can selective give handle of same file to
  some of its threads and not to all. Or I am mistaking and OS resources
  means something other than files?
Code - Threads can have different code, so sharing code is not always the case.
Data - Unsure about what to consider under data. But sure that global variables are shared among threads. And sure that local
  variables are not similarly shared. Overall I am considerably confused
  due to vague terms, super-generalizations done in the Operating
  Systems books and extra-implementation specific details provided
  online. So I am trying to find some answer that can satisfy me.

so i came to conclude that,threads maintain their own stack,and local variables are stored on the stack so it might impossible sharing of local variables in threads.
Answer: The threads within a process share the same address space.
A "variable" is a programming language concept. Variables disappear when the source code goes through the compiler (some may be reduced to symbols).
Threads can share absolutely all memory. One thread can access any memory location of another.
The ease in which this is done depends upon the programming language and the underlying linker support. There are a very few programming languages that have real thread support (e.g., Ada—called text). Ada has explicit mechanisms for allowing threads to share data using variables.
So then:

I'm reading Operating System Concepts by Silberschatz 7th ed,

That's the start of your problem.

it says that threads of the same process share the code section, data section, and other O.S. resources,

There are all system specific concepts. In many systems there is not A "code section" and A "data section." There is simply memory with specific attributes (e.g., read only, read/write, read/execute).

but have separate sets of stacks and registers.

Registers are a system resource that are allocated when the thread is scheduled. A thread does not have its own set of registers. A each thread has its own distinct set of register values that are loaded when the thread is active and saved when it becomes inactive.
Stacks are just blocks of read/write memory.

However, the problem set I'm working on states that threads share local variables, but aren't local variables stored on the stack, so individual threads should have their own copies?

Again, threads share memory. They share "local" variables only if the programming language used supports such sharing or such sharing occurs by "accident."
The mapping of variables to memory allocation type usage is a function of the compiler. FORTRAN 66/77 and COBOL normally did not allocate any variables on the stack
Comment: Why is reading "Operating System Concepts" the start of OP's problem? It was the recommended book in my OS course back in college.
Answer: I will try to explain in simple words. Keep three things in mind
Stack
Heap --GLOBAL variable
code segment - code and some static variables
Now I'll come to stack
Every thread has his own stack and thread release his stack after execution. And stack is personal to thread mean no one access it other than its owner thread.
So local variables and in the stack of the main thread and another thread will have their own stack so it is not possible that threads can share local variables.
Hope it helps.

Do threads share local variables?


Is it possible to do sous vide cooking in a crock pot?

Question: I'd never heard of sous vide before coming to this site, but all the posts about it here have made me want to try it.  I've seen the beer cooler method, which I also want to try, but, for a smaller scale test, is it possible to do it in a crock pot?  What would the differences in cooking times and techniques be?
Comment: As a couple of the answers indicate, you can use a crock pot if you add a temperature controller.  However, I prefer to use a rice cooker because it heats up a lot faster and it has stronger convection currents, which keeps an even temperature throughout the vessel. Just like the crock pot, it has to be analog (no digital controls).  The same temperature controller can be used for either a crock pot or rice cooker, but you'll need to recalibrate it when switching between appliances.  I've also heard that large electric coffee urns (with the added temperature controller) work really well.
Answer: Yes you can.  Some of the best sous-vide I've had has been in a crock-pot.
You'll need a crock-pot with a manual (analogue) dial. What you do is set the dial to maximum and use a PID controller (found ~$20 on ebay).
Take a look at this article about hacking your slow cooker:
http://www.cookingforgeeks.com/blog/posts/diy-sous-vide/
Update:
Sous-vide by definition requires control of the temperature (Beer Cooler does not control, but holds well).  However, you can still do this without extra logic.  All you need is a good thermometer and time:
Fill your crock-pot to 70% with room temperature water, set your Crock-Pot to the lowest setting, and leave it for 2-3 hours.  Thermo-dynamics laws dictate that you will reach an equilibrium with time.  If you're bored you can keep a log of the temperature change over time and stop when you notice it doesn't change much any more (it'll be helpful for next cooking session).
Measure the water temperature and check against where you need to be (125, 140, etc).  Adjust the dial and throw more time at it until the crock-pot reaches equilibrium again.  Repeat until you have reached and sustained your desired temperature.  Make sure your crock-pot is not near an open window with draft to mess with the crock-pot (i.e. keep the room temperature steady).
Weigh your food and put it in the rock-pot.  Take out the same amount of water from the existing water in the crock-pot so that the total weight of the crock-pot is the same.
This isn't hard if you use the metric system.  Each Millilitre of water weighs 1 gram.  So for 1lb, take out 454ml or essentially two cups.
Now you can use the same timing and temperature rules as everyone else.
PS: For the 'ballistic' method, I.E. the beer cooler, you can measure the temperature loss over time of water in the cooler to land you perfectly where you want to be. Chef Kenji says a 'couple of degrees higher'.  But you can predict the drop over your cooking time as well as the initial temperature.  And roughly speaking: Mass Of Food x Food Temperature + Mass of Water * Water Temperature = Total Mass * Final Water bath temperature.
Comment: You don't necessarily have to use the "ballistic" method with the beer cooler.  I made a 35min/145F lamb loin in a cooler by topping off the water with boiling water as the temperature dropped. I used a spreadsheet to calculate the amount of boiling water to add, but that might be overkill.  I also occasionally agitated the water.  The results were nice, but I wouldn't want use that technique for more than an hour or so.
Comment: I think the spirit of the question was "Can you do it with an non-augmented crock pot?"
Comment: @SAJ14SAJ It wasn't specified. Updated answer is still 'yes'.
Comment: Many or most slow cookers have settings like "Low" and "High", not an adjustable dial.  That is why the PID is used in the DYI hack method.
Comment: @SAJ14SAJ I know what you mean, the click-step dials.  Hence the answer about 'analogue' dial. As long as they exist, we can knock ourselves out.
Answer: Short answer:  no, you cannot do sous-vide in a slow cooker without extra equipment or modifications.
Sous vide cooking tends to be at moderately low temperatures, well controlled, and for longer periods of time.
Crock pots or slow cookers do not precisely control the temperature of the contents of the pot.  In fact, many of them do not even have a thermometer to measure the temperature in the pot--they rely on the idea that they put out enough energy to keep the full pot up to a safe (but not precisely regulated) temperature all of the time.  Even their low cooking temperature may be too high for sous vide applications.
There are some DYI hacker projects that take a crock pot and add a thermometer probe and a logic board to a crock pot to create a low cost simple sous-vide setup.  However, even in these cases, there will be no agitator or fan to create convection in the liquid within the crock pot, although they may be suitable for some cookery projects.  You might google "crock pot sous vide hack" to see many instructional guides such as this one from PopSci.
Another low end option (as you mention) to get started for very simple sous-vide cookery which will not be for many, many hours is to use a beer cooler (see Kenji Alt's Serious Eats article), and simply fill it with water (slightly above your desired temperature), and put the food in that.
For maximum safety and accuracy, however, eventually you are going to want a set up which provides:

An accurate thermometer
Logic to keep the bath temperature within a small tolerance
A circulator or agitator to create convection in the bath for even and accurate cooking
Comment: The crock pot hacks require active logic systems, to turn the heat on and off, so that the heat is maintained much like your thermostat maintains the temperature in your house.   They are not based only on insulation.  The various sous-vide setups, from least to most effective are probably:  1) cooler method, 2) crock pot/rice cooker hack with an active controller; 3) a low end commericial sous vide tool without an active circulator; 4) a true laboratory grade immersion circulator.  The trade offs would be time, money, and convenience.
Comment: @Sobachatina That should definitely help--my research indicates that without a circulator, larger baths are much more effective because they are both more stable in terms of temperature change due to overall thermal mass, and because there is more room for natural convection.
Comment: The beer cooler method seems much more sensible.  A crock pot is conductive of heat, an undesireable property
Comment: My crock pot sous vide setup with a homemade controller is only adequate. I get reasonable temp accuracy only if the pot is under filled enough to allow convection. I am in the process of replacing the crock pot with a large tub and a water heater.
Answer: For cooking in the home kitchen, I find the 7 quart oval CrockPot to be an excellent vessel for sous vide when attached to an external temperature controller.  You must use the "simple" knob-controlled type (mine has low-high-warm settings available.  The models with digital controls and temperature probes are not yet programmed for sous vide cooking, although I have hopes that some day they will be.
I have used both a thermistor-based thermostat (Johnson Controls A419) and a platinum (PT-100) temperature sensor and PID controller (JLD 612 with solid-state relay) successfully.  Most do-it-yourself sous-vide home cooks like myself would assume the PID controller to be the preferred equipment, but I have found I prefer the thermostat.  The water temperature oscillates up and down about two degrees using the thermostat, and many would fear that loss of control, but my results trump those concerns.  The core of the meat remains at a stable temperature that is the average water temperature, and even very near the surface the temperature does not track the oscillations.  I use an aquarium air pump and air stones to provide circulation.
I do take control of the temperature measurement accuracy by calibrating against accurate and trusted digital thermometers.  The digital fever thermometers sold in pharmacies are accurate, and allow calibration of the thermistor or PT-100 sensor at a temperature range of about 100 F.
The CrockPot holds larger roasts quite comfortably, and with heated walls requires no separation of the meat from the walls by racks as is practiced with commercial cookers with cold walls.  I insist on using an aquarium airstone and pump to cause water to circulate, and believe this is why my results are good.
The advantages of the CrockPot as I use it over, for example, the Sous Vide Supreme, are:
1) Easier cleaning -- hard water spots dissolve away with a few drops of lemon juice, and the glass pottery can also be removed and washed in a dishwasher.  This means a lot when, as I did, the cook actually practices sous vide daily for home meals!
2) Comfortable size -- no wasted corners and cold walls means more space for larger roasts but the cooker can still be lifted without strain while filled with water.
3) Dual utility -- I can use it as a CrockPot instead of a sous vide cooker when I want to.
4) Probably the biggest advantage that the CrockPot with A419 thermostat has over PID-controller based cookers is that the thermostat recovers unattended from short interruptions in the electrical power.  The JLD612 as with most PID controllers, would allow meats cooking while I am at work to rot on the pot.  I suspect that a power outage of perhaps three seconds may result in the same problem with many commercial cookers.
The drawbacks:
1) This is an "off-label" use of the CrockPot.  I expect fairly that my CrockPot will lose a heating element to all the temperature cycling some day, though after about 500 meals it is still going strong.  Rival cannot be expected to take responsibility for such failures when their products are subjected to the unanticipated abuse. I humbly submit that the low cost of replacement of the CrockPot outweighs this risk.  I often cook roasts that cost more than the CrockPot, and don't object to regarding it as an expendable like the ZipLock freezer bags I use with it, and the aquarium tubing that I replace every few months.
2) Low prestige -- I can't show this cooker to those who've spent $450-$3000 for higher-end products and fairly expect them to understand that I'd truly prefer this to their set-up at any price.  I can't explain to the owner of a silent Sous Vide Supreme that the sound of bubbling in the CrockPot bothers no one, but means my 7-qt cooker can cook more than their 12-qt cooker, with my 85 watts bringing big roasts up to temperature faster than their 400 Watts. I can't explain to them that the 2-degree temperature oscillations from the A419 are no factor in flavor or safety, that they are at greater risk from the cold walls of their cooker than I.  I have to let them feel smug.
My final analysis: the ability to pre-cook the meat in advance of crunch time allows me, or any home cook that uses sous vide, to put dinner on the table with much less effort after I get home from work.  If I were forced to buy a high end sous vide cooker to get this benefit, it would be a small price to pay.  The tenderizing and the consistency of preparing sous vide meats has made mealtimes a great pleasure for me.  But my choice of equipment has numerous advantages that have made cooking with my setup a true pleasure.
Most of my mealtimes involve fairly familiar comfort foods that cook all day while I am at work. 24 hour tri-tip roasts, 12 hour chicken breasts -- boneless and skinless -- that I'd prefer cooking for four hours, and 24 hour pork loin come to mind. This results in the kind of mealtime convenience required for me to be able to even attempt cooking myself. If I did not have reliable regulated temperature my sous vide cooking would be limited to weekends, when I'd prefer to be eating out. I estimate I've cooked nearly 550 sous vide entrees now. I could no longer be satisfied cooking without the technique. But the beer cooler method requires constant attention that limits it's use to weekends and short cooking times. I recommend it for 35 minute fish filets, 3-4 hour chicken, or 3-4 hour beef tenderloin. Any longer cooking times will discourage its use. Now, a beer cooler with a PID controller and an electric water heater element could be good method...
Comment: I like this answer overall.  But, for the record, the JLD612 handles power outages very well.  Every time I plug mine in, it happily resumes doing whatever it was doing before, even if it's been unplugged for weeks.
Answer: I am using a JLD 612 PID with solid-state relay controlling a slow cooker. If power is restored after a power outage, the JLD 612 PID remembers the settings in effect at the time power was lost and returns to controlling the slow cooker.
Side note: I installed a SPDT switch in my slow cooker innards, and now have an appliance I can use for sous vide and as a progammable slow cooker.
Comment: While, I understand what you're saying, in order to be helpful to people here and not forcing them to google answers, can you provide a little more details? Explain what JLD612 is, explain your setup, why other systems might "loose their mind", etc... As such, your answer is really only helpful to people who know how to set it up.
Comment: So the slow cooker itself has to also be one that stays on when power is removed?
Answer: I bought the DORKFOODS controller, and hooked it up to my 5 qt Hamilton Beach analog crockpot..  It works amazing...  perfectly even cooking...
Answer: Use a slow cooker on low. Put enough folded baking paper under the pot to insolate the pot make sure ir averages 60 degrees Celsius. She'll  be right mate
Answer: Sous vide is a technique created by professional chefs that had the idea to re-purpose an immersion circulator traditionally used in laboratories where incredibly precise temperature are required. The same temperature requirement of precision is needed in the kitchen when cooking sous vide.
Using a cooler would work, but only as an insulated vessel to hold the water. However, the water bath or vessel, is not the issue - you could use a plastic bin (as many chefs do). The problem is reaching and maintaining a very precise temperature throughout the water bath, for the total duration of cooking time. Hence, making the crock pot idea not really viable for cooking sous vide.
This is not to mention, of course, the whole "sous vide" (under vacuum) thing...it is also very important to create a full vacuum in a perfectly sealed vacuum bag.
If you are interested, the best value professional equipment I know is at: www.vacuum-packer.com
Comment: The existing answers explain that you can use a crock pot if you add a temperature controller. And the beer cooler method does actually work; yes, it's true that it's best to have perfectly controlled temperature, but you can do something almost as good with less control over the temperature.


Can I ask a question with my answers to select best one

Question: I've gathered two or more answers to my own question that I haven't asked here in this community. My question is, can I ask my questions with the answers below it to find the best one after votes or maybe make an answer out of them then accept it?
Answer: I think you would want to ask your question and provide the two answers you mentioned as possible solutions. Then ask the community what they think would be the best solution and why. And maybe even ask if they might know of an even better solution.
If other people agree with the answer provided by someone else, they'll upvote it. This will be a good indication for you that that might be the way to go.


How To Integrate a AAC Parser into Android source code?

Question: Please explain me about what an AACExtractor.cpp is all about codewise.
Answer: Though the answer will not help the asker it will help other answer seekers .
AAC extractor.cpp is part of libstagefright.so , the stagefright media framework that handles playing of audio in android from  .
AAC extractor is being used by awesome player.cpp which controls audio/video playback.
Its expected from AACextractor class
   to help identify if the file is an "aacfile" (SniffAAC function )
it needs to implement methods that
extract information pertaining to meta-data (album art, artist etc.,)
extract necessary information from the file that is to be given to the codec
(sampling rate channels, initialize decoder , )
extract a frame and give it to the decoder .(support functions that implement seeking to particular frame etc.,)
These functions are used by other functions to get their work done.
This is an overview .The best way to understand is by printing logs .
Hope this helps
For more details look at
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/android-porting
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/android-framework


Dual Boot windows 8 and Ubuntu 12.10 grub error

Question: I recently purchased a new HP Laptop with Windows 8 pre-installed in it.
Then I installed ubuntu 12.10 from a bootable usb-stick.
Now when I restarted my Laptop, instead of showing grub menu in which I have choices to pick which OS to run, it straightaway booted Windows.
Then again I inserted usb with ubuntu 12.10 in it, and ran boot-recovery software. It gave me this url.
Now when I restarted, grub menu was displayed, and I could run ubuntu from it.
But when I chose windows 8 from the menu, I got an error that it could not find some efi file and returned to grub menu.
Then again I inserted usb, ran boot-recovery software, and restarted, and it gave me this url, but this time, it didn't even shown grub menu, it straight booted the windows 8.
I don't know what to do so that grub menu is proper and I could boot both OS.
I have spent whole day on searching and trying various things, but I didn't get the expected results.
Also, while searching on net, I found this some UEFI issue (I don't know about it technically).
So is it windows 8 problem or hardware problem ? If I install windows 7, then can I properly install ubuntu 12.10 on that ?
Comment: What version of Ubuntu 12.10 did you install? 32 or 64-bit?
Comment: @nerof61 : 64 bit
Answer: Windows8 uses UEFI boot, so you should follow the advice of the 1st paragraph of the Ubuntu Community Doc about UEFI: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI


How do I rotate an equation?

Question: I have an equation which I use to get the height of an object based on the distance that object is from a viewpoint. The problem is that it slopes down too quickly.
$$
    \text{visibleHeight} = k \cdot \frac{\text{actualHeight} }{ \text{distance}}
$$
The value of $k$ is the height I want per actual meter when the object is 1 meter away. So, if the object is 1 meter away and the actualHeight is 2 meters and I specify $k$ as 7 pixels then that means the visibleHeight will be 14 pixels.
So, I control the height of the object at 1 meter away, but I don't control the rate at which the height drops off as it gets farther away. I want to rotate the equation around $\text{distance}=1$ such that the visibleHeight has a particular value when distance is (for example) 20 meters away.
My first try is to reformulate the equation as this:
$$
    H(d \geq 1) = \frac{k \cdot h}{d} + M(d)
$$
$H(d)$ is the overall function which takes $d$ as the input ($d$ will never be less than 1). The $M(d)$ function must be defined such that $M(1)=0$ and $M(n)=p$ where $p$ is the extra height that I want at distance $n$.
I'd probably obvious, but I'm not sure what $M(d)$ needs to be in order to achieve this.
The overall rate of decrease should follow the original path. I just want to grab the line and tilt it up a bit with the axis of rotation at $d=1$.
Answer: If you know the visibleHeight at 1 meter, your original equation gives what it should be at 20 meters.  It is just visibleHeight (1 meter)/20.  If you do anything else, the perspective will not be right.
If you don't want the image shrinking this fast, maybe you could make a table like the following:
$$\begin {array}{c|c|c}\text{Distance}&\text{Pixels from equation}&\text{Pixels desired} \\ \hline 1&14&14\\2&7&10\\7&2&4\\14&1&2\end{array}$$
Then some transform can be designed to do that.

How do I rotate an equation?


I want create some hanging shelves using zinc E-Z Drywall Anchors & Sisal rope. How much weight could this method bear?

Question: I recently bought a projector and am looking to build a shelf for it to sit on. I rent, so I really don't want to do anything with the ceiling. The configuration I'm currently using is just a standard bookshelf, but the thing is there is a window directly opposite my living room wall, so the projector is off-center. What I'd like to do, rather than placing the entire bookshelf in front of the window, is to place the anchors above the window, attach the sisal rope to those anchors, & then wrap the rope around a plank of wood. My projector weighs 5.5 pounds. Is this a decent set up? Is there a better method? I really don't want it falling, so if there's no way to be certain it'll be stable, what should I do instead?
Comment: Sisal rope, drywall anchors and an expensive projector don't sound like a recipe for happiness.   Why don't you just want to put a few small screw holes in the ceiling?  It should patch as easy as the wall.
Comment: There are different sizes the small ones are rated 25 lb and the big ones are rated at 50lb I have never had any problem with them coming out and prior to selling my rental I requested these be used as they are much easier to patch than molly bolts. I use them and never had one pull out
Comment: Sisal rope isn't all that robust; you should really consider using something stronger (e.g. nylon).
Answer: There are ceiling mounts available for most projectors that let you attach right to the ceiling, that might be easier.
However, there is an adjustment that lets you use most projectors at an oblique angle to the wall, look for a "keystoning" adjustment in your projector's manual.  This would allow you to get a perfect rectangular image with the projector in it's current spot.
Comment: Thank you for this! I will definitely try this as soon as I get home from work. This may be the perfect solution!
Answer: This might be a little wacky, but it only "damages" the bookshelf. If the bookshelf is already at the window edge, then just screw a longer board to the top of the bookshelf to seat the projector where you want it laterally. If you don't want it that high you can use shelf brackets on the side of the bookshelf to make a side shelf at whatever height you want.
Comment: I really like this solution! Not too worried about the bookshelf considering it was $30. Will look into this, thank you :)


How is Anker battery for Android phones?

Question: I've heard people talking about Anker on big forums about Anker battery, basically cell phone batteries and external batteries, and it seems people speak highly about it. So have you have any idea about how it works?
Comment: Normally general electronics questions are off-topic, but I think sharptooth's answer saves this.
Comment: The question is completely offtopic. The answer could apply to any kind of battery-using device, but is relevant enough for the android devices to afford a +1
Answer: I'll assume you actually want to know what ways are there to increase battery capacity of your Android device. There're three approaches to this problem.
Approach one is an internal battery with higher capacity. I don't have any details on whether Anker is worthwhile, but it's capacity for say HTC Desire S is 1600 mAh and standard battery capacity for the same HTC Desire S is 1450 mAh, so that doesn't look like a huge improvement to me - it will be drained in one day of usual use anyway. What is really important is battery reliability - you want a reliable battery with long lifetime (number of charge-discharge cycles and capacity retainment) and good safety so that it doesn't explode in your phone (that actually happens once in a while with cheap batteries) and you have to look for such information elsewhere, not on this site.
Approach two is a spare battery. It's not very convenient - phones are not designed to allow for fast battery swap and phones lose power and their state when a battery is swapped and also charging the spare is a problem, because you either need a charger craddle for that or you use your phone for that and the latter means more battery swapping.
Approach three is an external battery - there's a lot of such stuff, Anker sells that too, they come in a wide range of capacity, some can even be used with netbooks. Basically it's a box with a battery inside and a USB cable. You charge the box either of USB (your computer, laptop, USB hub, phone charger, whatever) or of mains - that depends on the model. Then you can use the box to power any USB device, phone included - the phone will think it is connected to USB and charge through it. This is a rather convenient option - you can temporarily connect your device to the box and charge it fully or partially, you can carry it conveniently in a bag or a pocket and have the device connected to it and use the device at the same time. One big advantage of this approach is that the box can be used with various devices, not a specific model only. One big disadvantage is the thing is relatively expensive. Again you need good reliability, lifetime and safety, you should search for that information elsewhere. Another disadvantage is that the box itself can be slow to charge - its battery capacity is usually rather high and USB doesn't provide lot of power, so charging current will be rather low, this might be important for your convenience.


Difference between ways of transmitting power

Question: There are two ways to transmit the same amount of power, 1 amp at 1 million volts or 1 million amps at 1 volt. Conceptually what is the difference?
How can I think about it conceptually?
I would prefer it if an analogy were made.
Answer: Suppose you are using a waterwheel to do some form of work (e.g. grind corn). You need a head of water to make the wheel move, and you could use either 1kg of water at a height of a million metres or you could use a million kg of water at a height of one metre. In both cases the water would do the same amount of work as it flowed through your wheel.
The pressure of the water (i.e. the height) is analogous to the voltage, so the water at a height of a million metres (OK, OK, that would be above Earth's atmosphere but it's just an analogy :-) has a voltage a million times greater than the water at a height of one metre. The current is analogous to the water flow rate. If all the water flows through the wheel in the same time then obviously the million kg of water at 1 metre has a flow rate a million times as great as the one kg of water at a million metres.
Although in both cases the total energy of the water is the same, they would behave very differently in practice. Your water wheel probably has an ideal flow rate (i.e. current) at which it's most efficient. So in practice the two cases almost certainly wouldn't grind the same amount of corn. You'd choose whichever was best suited to your purpose. The same is true of electricity. For example, resistive losses scale with current, so for transmission across the country you want a high voltage and low current. In the home a high voltage would lead to lots of fried customers, so you want a low voltage and correspondingly higher current.
Answer: Theoretically no difference but the real world comes into play and it's all about power loss (generated as heat) in the transmitting cable which will have a resistance. Power=volts*amps but recall that Ohms law says volts/amps=Ohms. Therefore we can express power loss in the transmitting cable as amps^2 * Ohms.
Transmission companies like to keep the current as low as possible which means making voltage as high as is practically possible.
Comment: I think it is a bit more complicated as the power loss is also as
volt^2/ohms. But this is to be seen as a serial (rather than parallel)
structure. The point is then that, for a given cable, the loss of
voltage on the line is also lower with low current, so that most of
the voltage is left available for actual use. In a serial structure,
the current is a fixed flow for the whole circuit, while the
repartition of voltage determines the repartition of energy.
Comment: John Rennie mentioned this in his answer.
Answer: The ampere is just the unit measuring the number of charges passing a given point per second.  So 1 million amps means 1 million times more charges passing a given point in a second than 1 amp.
A separate issue is the amount of energy that each of those charges carries -- or more precisely, the amount of energy each charge loses as it goes through the circuit.  That's what the voltage measures.  $1\,000\,000\, \mathrm{volts}$ means $1\,000\,000$ times as much energy per charge.
Now, power is just the amount of energy transferred to the "circuit" per second, so you multiply the number of charges times the amount of energy they've given up.  $(1\, \mathrm{amp}) \times (1\,000\,000\, \mathrm{volts})$ is, as you point out, the same amount of power as $(1\,000\,000\, \mathrm{amp}) \times (1\, \mathrm{volts})$.  But in the first case, each individual charge is giving up $1\,000\,000$ times as much energy, so you just don't need as many of them per second to give up the same amount of energy.
The usual analogy is to water flowing through a pipe, but that's a little less useful here.  So let's think of pushing a log up a hill instead.  You can get together with a million of your closest friends, and everyone can push just a little bit to get that log up the hill.  Or, you could just get Superman to do it, because he can exert a million times as much power as each of your one million friends.  But that's just for each of your individual puny friends; in total, you and your friends exert the same amount of power, so you can get the log up the hill just as fast as Superman.
Answer: These couple of answers have already given a couple of good analogies, but I will try to provide you with another analogy. This one is one that my physics professor gave in class: fish in a stream. Say you have a given period of time - 1 second, and a given volume of water in the stream, say 1 cubic meter. The power relates to the number of fish that will flow through this volume in the time period. Either way it will be the same, but the way the fish move through the stream is much different at the level that would be analogous to the number of electrons flowing through the material. In the case of 1 million volts/1 amp, the million fish would be flowing through the one meter volume in one second, but only one fish would populate the volume at a given time. In the case of 1 volt/1 million amps, the same million fish would pass through the volume in a second; however, instead of there only being 1 fish in the volume at a given time, there are a million fish in the volume, but those million are only moving at a rate that the million fish take a second to get through the volume. Of course this isn't entirely accurate, as electrons don't move that slowly and 1 volt is not equivalent to one electron per second, but hopefully you get what I am trying to explain.
Answer: The reason both are not suitable for a real use are strictly practical. To transfer 1M amp, you can't create a copper wire as big as  the needed current requires and to sustain itself at the same time, and consider the fact that copper is expensive, so it does not make sense even in term of money. 1Mv is not so far from the reality: big power lines are at about 300Kv. Here comes insulation problems: to imagine such a line take the biggest power line you see and multiply four times the distance between wires, the distance between the wires and the trellis, and the entire height: the result would be probably no suitable as well. So engineer choose the two term in order to minimize the cost due to copper with the constraints the line can be reasonably insulated and safe. Of course when engineer has to connect to regular houses they would prefer safety ( trust me having 1Kv at home would be quite dangerous, imagine 1Mv :) ) and they actually don't need too much copper anyway since 3-6 kW is generally enough for a family ).


Engines more powerful than the brakes?

Question: This might be more of an anecdotal question, but are there any aircraft where under full throttle (with afterburner in worst-case) where the wheels wouldn't provide enough friction against the runway to keep the aircraft from starting to roll (and skidding the locked-up tires)?  Obviously if the runway was iced it would make a difference in friction; I'm more wondering about in normal runway temperatures where it's just rubber on concrete.
Comment: Possible duplicate of [Can the wheel brakes hold an airliner in place if its engines are at full thrust?](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/14520/can-the-wheel-brakes-hold-an-airliner-in-place-if-its-engines-are-at-full-thrust)
Comment: There's plenty of good information on the other linked questions, but I also don't believe this is a duplicate.  Unlike @GdD, I think this question is fine as-is.
Comment: Also [this one](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/34578/up-to-what-thrust-setting-of-a-gas-turbine-engine-can-the-airplane-stay-stationa?noredirect=1&lq=1)
Comment: It highly depends on the weight of the airplane, because it's usually the friction between tire and runway that limits braking force, not the friction between brake rotor and pads. Those airplanes are very common, basically almost all jet fighters whose weight is not much greater than thrust and simply there's not enough gravity to generate enough friction to counter act the thrust. This is why ski-jump aircraft carriers uses a wheel choke to stop the fighter from rolling instead of relying on brakes. Field engine test is also a interesting problem for high power jet fighters.
Comment: I don't think this is an exact duplicate, that was asking about airliners in particular. I do think this is too broad however.
Answer: Many small 4 to 6 seats propeller airplanes can overcome their brake/wheel holding capability, on concrete and ashpalt.  My Cessna Cardinal is 180HP, I do engine pre-takeoff runup checks at 1700-1800 RPM. Going to 2600, the plane will start moving.  Many other planes of similar size are 300 HP, and they definitely won't hold. We only have two 5" or 6" disc brakes, no power assist, pushing the pedal tops with our toes. Or a hand-pull parking brake.
Answer: Many aircraft can overwhelm their brakes from engine thrust. In the bad old days there were a handful of planes which went down because they taxied with their brakes fully on due to a danger of fire in throttled down engines or because of weather conditions. This in turn heated the brakes to the point that the hydraulic fluid burned and the plane went down shortly after takeoff. The loss of Swissair 306 prompted the use of non-flammable hydraulic fluid after that point.
The above incidents of brakes failing because of overuse of the brakes to restrain the engine might not really be what you mean. In terms of the engines of an aircraft to overwhelm the braking capacity immediately after spoolup, many fighter planes post WWII could do this. Generally the tires would skid forward without the brake rotors spinning inside the pads. Consider an F-15, one of the first fighter planes to have a power/weight ratio greater than 1. This means that in the right configuration the plane could overcome an extreme amount of friction between tire and runway since the engines could produce more lateral thrust than the entire weight of the plane pushing into the ground. Most fourth generation fighters could produce P/W greater than 1 at 50% load and nearly all could do so at minimum load.
Comment: Ye olde F-4 (at least the F-4K and F-4M variants that had Spey 202/203 engines) could and did move before brake release in full afterburner. Each engine had 24,000 ibs of static thrust at full reheat (standard temperature and pressure conditions). They could also do a vertical climb if well below maximum all up weight (P/W >= 1).

Engines more powerful than the brakes?


Which driver do I have installed?

Question: I have installed AMD flgrx-updates from Ubuntu repos. Which version driver is it? On the AMD website the latest AMD Catalyst driver is 12.10 stable and 12.11 Beta.
Answer: "Using Ubuntu-supplied fglrx/Catalyst on Ubuntu Quantal, will install fglrx/Catalyst 9.000, which is roughly equivalent to Catalyst 12-9" [from this guide] The page also gives instructions for downloading the current drivers from AMD's web site.

Which driver do I have installed?


How do you know if a workshop will be good?

Question: There are thousands of photography workshops offered every year, ranging from small/local gatherings to megaconventions.
How does one know if a workshop will be worthwhile? How do you decide which events might be of the most educational value?
Answer: I try to find out who's speaking and research the speaker; read their blog, flip through pages of their book on Amazon, see what other people say about them.
Answer: the best way to decide which workshops you want to go do:
1) find workshops by photographers that impress and inspire you.
2) track down people who've gone to workshops by those people and talk to them. Find out what the workshops are like by people who've gone to them.
3) research online for reports on workshops and read what they say about them.
The second one is crucial. word of mouth is the best advertisement you can get.
Answer: I'd agree with what @chuqui said, and add the following:
Determine your goals in attending. are you looking to acquire or improve a specific skill? Are you looking to add to your portfolio? Do you want to meet other photographers?
Read the blog of the presenter, perhaps follow them on twitter or friend them on Facebook. Get a feel for who they are. Compare what they are doing to your goals.
Workshops, including travel, lodging, your time, etc. are a significant commitment and there is a high potential to feel less than satisfied if your goals are not met.
Answer: From my experience with the workshops of CreativeLIVE, this is an almost 100% sure bet. And, they're free at the time of the actual recording/broadcasting.


Entering Belgium with a visa for Germany

Question: I am going to apply for visa to go Germany, but I have an idea to go Belgium too. Is it possible to enter Belgium if I have visa for Germany.
Comment: Hi ILYAS. Did you read up the general Information on Schengen Visa? Belgium and Germany are both in "Schengen Zone", meaning that they share a common visa system. You can apply for a visa that is valid for both countries, provided that it is not a working visa (rules are a bit more complex there). You have to apply at the embassy for your *main destination*. All this is written in the rules&conditions on the visa web page of the Belgian and German consulates in your area.
Comment: Do you mean you'd apply for a visa from Germany, and enter in Belgium on your way (perhaps spending a day or so there on the way), or are you planning to apply to Germany but then visit only Belgium?
Comment: I will apply from Dubai & i want to come both places. 1st landing is in Germany & visit Belgium.
Answer: Germany and Belgium are both members of the Schengen Area - a collection of European countries between which there are no routine border controls and inspections. Because of this, they also have a common visa system for visitors. If you receive a visa that lets you in to the Schengen Area, you can visit any country within the Schengen area (normally - there are a few exceptions regarding visitors from disputed regions).
So, is there a central "Schengen" visa office that you must apply to? Unfortunatley not, instead you must apply to the country that is the main focus of your visit. In your case this would be Germany. You should find the details on how to apply on the website for the German embassy in your country. The German Federal Government provides a list of all their embassy websites.
Note that for some nationalities and individuals, getting a Schengen visa is not trivial. You should be careful (and truthful) in your application, and provide all the information required, and carefully read the (offical) guideance. You should be cautious when dealing with agents who offer to handle your application for you - this means that offical replies will not go to you, and you are not in control of what is submitted. Scams are known where the agent does not submit the application at all, merely keeps the fee themselves and tells you that you were rejected.
Comment: It may also be worth noting that Germany might issue a visa of "limited territorial validity" that excludes Belgium.  This is extremely unlikely, or, at least, it is supposed to be done only in exceptional circumstances.  It would seem that mentioning the desire to make a side trip to Belgium in the application to Germany is therefore important.
Answer: It will depend entirely on the type of visa you get from the German embassy. If it is restricted to Germany, then you are not authorized to visit other countries.
If the visa is valid for all member states, then you can visit Belgium as well.

There are no border controls between Schengen states - I recently traveled from the Netherlands - Switzerland - Spain and back without once being asked to show my visa or passport (well, once, but it was to check the id page and not the visa section).
However, this was before the recent attacks in France, and keeping in mind some of the security forces also had operations in Belgium, I would not be surprised if there are more vigilant controls at Belgium.
Answer: you will need to take note of the port of entry rule. you have to be sure that you are going to germany first, before you can apply for a visa at the german embassy. It is not advisable that you get you visa and then decide to go to belgium first.
And yes, you will be able to go to Belgium or any other schengen country if there is no restriction on your visa.
good luck
Comment: There is no "port of entry rule". We've established clearly on this site that the rule is your visa must be issued by the primary country of your visit - normally interpreted as the one you spend the most time in, although in the event that your primary cause to travel s a specific event - ie a professional/academic conference, then the country that is hosting the event would probably be/also be understood as your main destination.
Comment: "If the applicant intends to visit several Schengen countries and stay everywhere more or less the same time, having no main destination, than the application for visa shall be submitted at the Embassy or Consulate of the Schengen country of first port of entry."http://www.mfa.gov.hu/kulkepviselet/Pristina/en/en_konzuli_info/Basic+rules+for+schengen+visa.htm


Changing keyboard input language on Mac OSX

Question: How do I change (switch) the input language in Mac OSX  (English->Russian->Hebrew).
In Windows it is done by pressing alt-shift.
What is the equivalent in OSX ?
Answer: Go to  > System Preferences > Language & Text > Input Sources.
Make sure an entry for each of 'English', 'Hebrew' and 'Russian' are checked. (I don't know which encoding you'll choose, e.g. 'Hebrew' or 'Hebrew - QWERTY'). Also ensure the uppermost box, 'Keyboard & Character Viewer' is checked.
Now you'll have something that looks like this:

You can select your language with the mouse or you can activate keyboard shortcuts, as seen below:

Both these keyboard shortcuts are already taken by other functions. These are functions that I use far more frequently than when I want to, in my case, shift between 'Australian' and 'Thai'. So in my case it's not worth making a keyboard shortcut to switch languages. This may be different for you however.
If you wish to activate, say, ⌘Space, you'll first need to disown that from whatever is currently using it. In my case ⌘Space opens a Spotlight search box and I use this all the time.
Answer: Since 2011, things have slightly changed!

The tab Shortcuts in the keyboard panel now has a new sub-section Input Sources (see screenshot). By default these are unchecked. If you enable both commands they will be available by hitting ^ ControlSpace or ^ Control⌥ OptionSpace.
Answer: The shortcuts are ⌘␣ and ⌥⌘␣ by default, but can be changed in Keyboard.prefPane:
Answer: According to the Language & Text preference pane, the shortcuts are:
⌘-space (command-space) - previous input source
⌥⌘-space (command-option-space) - next input source
Of course these shortcuts are already being used by Spotlight, so if you have that active they won't work.
Fortunately, you can just click the Keyboard Shortcuts button to choose the command shortcuts you'd prefer.
Either way, you should see an Input menu in your menu bar, probably next to the battery indicator. If you don't, you need to go to
System Preferences > Language & Text, click on "Input Sources", and check the languages you want to have added. At that point, the Input menu will show up and you'll be able to set the keyboard shortcuts.
Note that you can also just choose the language you prefer from the Input menu if you don't care about using a keyboard shortcut.
Answer:
Go to the Keyboard pane in System Preferences
Select the Input Sources tab
Click the plus button on the bottom left
Select your language
Choose the appropriate language layout

If you still have trouble, refer this brief tutorial : http://www.infozub.com/2013/11/how-to-change-keyboard-language-in-os-x.html
Answer: After adding desired input sources as user63024 said, you need to check the Shortcuts tab (in my case System Preferences > Language & Region > Keyboard Preferences > Shortcuts) to check whether all your input sources are checked.
Then you can see the shortcuts to switch between them. And of course you can change them if you want. But remember, if you see the alarm icon beside the shortcut, it means some other option uses this shortcut key already, so you have to change one of those shortcut keys as a shortcut key has to be unique.


Bitcoin alternative designed for NVIDIA

Question: Currently the best graphics cards to mine Bitcoins are all AMDs. What should be changed in the Bitcoin protocol to make the alternative version of Bitcoins better mined by NVIDIA graphics cards? Could there be a protocol that would support both of the graphics cards produces in more or less equal way?
Comment: The bitcoin protocol should not be changed to make NVIDIA happy.
Comment: Agreed, I was just wondering if an alternative currency could be designed to use NVIDIAs.
Answer: The specific reason that AMD cards are more efficient for Bitcoin mining is twofold and the answer to this question depends on both reasons:

AMD GPUs tend to have lower-end ALUs but make up for this by packing more ALUs onto the card overall. For most hash algorithms this is preferable.
AMD GPUs uses ALUs which can perform the 32-bit integer right rotate operation in a single instruction - Nvidia's ALUs take three processor cycles to perform the same operation. SHA256 uses this operation heavily, therefore Bitcoin mining uses this operation heavily.

Combining the two reasons above results in an overall 3x-5x faster generation of SHA256 checksums. However the two effects are not equal: Effect 1 leads to approximately 2x-3x Nvidia's performance all on its own, with Effect 2 accounting for about 1.7x performance advantage. Even if you were to choose a hashing algorithm that made less use of the BIT_ALIGN_INT instruction AMD cards would still be 2x-3x faster for hashing algorithms in general. This is because such algorithms are explicitly designed to be simple binary operations which AMD's simple ALUs can handle just as well as Nvidia's more complex ALUs.
In order to choose an algorithm which would perform better on Nvidia cards than AMD cards, you would not only have to eliminate scenarios such as #2 above where a specific instruction happens to be better implemented on one card than the other, you would also have to choose an algorithm with math complex enough that Nvidia's higher-end ALUs get the chance to individually shine. To my knowledge no such algorithm exists.
To back up my statements, here is some example data from oclHashcat's web site. The table below compares actual performance measurements from similarly priced AMD and Nvidia cards for the MD5, SHA1, MD4, NTLM and SHA256 algorithms, among others.

Keep in mind that in comparing PC1/2 and PC3/4 that the Nvidia cards actually have higher clock speeds in both cases and still perform worse. In no case did Nvidia's performance approach the performance of a similarly priced AMD card, and to my knowledge no currently implemented algorithm performs sufficiently complex mathematics to make use of the more advanced ALUs on Nvidia's cards.
In short, Nvidia cards are like a small room with several fairly intelligent people, each capable of complex mathematics while AMD's cards are like a sweatshop. Hash algorithms are the computing equivalent of mass-producing name-brand tennis shoes and so the AMD "sweatshop" card will always outperform.
Comment: And before someone asks me to add to the ridiculous analogy: A CPU is like a Nobel laureate with an un-measurable IQ sitting in an office by himself. If asked to sew a pair of tennis shoes he'll spend the next three hours at a whiteboard mathematically proving that shoes exist.
Answer: David Perry answer is solid I would just add that what will make NVidia cards more competitive isn't changing bitcoin or making an alternative but instead market forces will force NVidia to improve integer performance.
Nvidia is well aware their integer performance is abysmall and each generation AMD pulls further ahead.   In the past this wasn't very important because floating point math is used for graphics, physics, and most high performance computing work.  Still abysmal integer performance is a weak point in their lineup and as GPGPU becomes more mainstream it will matter more and more.  Over time expect GPGPU solutions for everything from speeding up SSL handshakes to whole hard drive encryption.  Unless Nvidia simply want to hand the entire crypto market to AMD on a silver platter they will be forced to improve integer performance.  How they do this isn't really material (unless you work for NVidia), market forces will require NVidia to do so or they face declining marketshare.
Comment: Nvidia and AMD are just different schools of design. Nvidia focuses on the power of each individual stream processor while AMD focuses on the quantity of processors on-die. From the standpoint of actual graphics performance, I personally prefer Nvidia cards.
Comment: I agree however NVidia will need to improve integer performance somehow. They may use complex shaders and invent instructions that can perform more complex integer work (bunldeds of existing OpenCL opcodes) or they may make their shaders slightly less complex or may improve internal integer handling. My hypothesis is that GPGPU cryptography acceleration will become more common in the future.  Everything from winzip to SSL to whole hard drive encryption to password stretching could be accelerated via GPU. NVidia risks losing marketshare without comptitive integer performance.
Comment: I agree they will probably need to address their integer performance issues in the future, the point I was trying to make is that an Nvidia card with lots of stream processors and high integer performance would be an exception to the rule - it's just not Nvidia's style, they prefer to have a few high-end processors while AMD prefers many low-end.
Comment: Agreed.  It is a deep philosphical split.  Prior to unified shaders both companies card were very similar.  When unified shaders were introduced both companies took radically different directions.  As you indicated AMD went with "more is more" model and NVidia went with "quality over quantity" model. Still AMD next gen architecture will use slightly more complex shaders (although not as complex as NVidia) to improve die efficiency.  It is possible (although I have no evidence to support it) that we will see a move to the center by both companies as GPGPU architectures develop.

Bitcoin alternative designed for NVIDIA


How do Islamic banks make money if interest is prohibited?

Question: I know that Islamic Banking involves the prohibition of interest based loans. But how do Islamic Banks make profit if they charge no interest?
Comment: Basically they work your money and take share of profits. It is not techinacally interest.
Comment: In 14th century Europe, when Christians forbade usury, the banks got around it by lending money in different currencies and fiddling the exchange rates.
Comment: @TRiG Please provide references, just to know how banks can play around.
Comment: @bjan. My source is a BBC Radio 4 programme called "The Long View".
Comment: How can a bank even be Islamic or Christian? It's like saying that a car is Christian or Islamic.
Answer: A traditional bank makes money by lending people money and charging interest on that. And they  provide various services and charges money for that also. Again they take money from other people and pay them interest, with lesser rate.
An Islamic bank also lends money to people. But it is kind of a business agreement between the bank and the borrower. The borrower will run the business while bank will look over. The profit of that business will be shared between the bank and the borrower in a prefixed rate documented earlier in the agreement. Islamic bank also provide services and charge money.
When people keep money in an Islamic bank, they become kind of share-holder of the bank's overall business. And share profits in a prefixed rate. Sometimes, a person can invest in a specific project and profits will be calculated specifically for that project.
Comment: -1: This post only really covers a subset of Islamic banking, which is in itself fairly diverse.  While not a bad answer (per se) in that it is a good description thus, it is too incomplete to be useful.
Comment: Do we also have loss in the bank account on putting money in the Islamic bank? Asking because I never had a loss. Its been around 2 years.
Comment: If islamic banks  take a share of a business profit, what do they do when the said business is at a loss? do they take the risk?
Comment: Yes they also share the loss.
Answer: the idea behind progibiting usary primarily was to discourage the holding power of money. to be really honest i find islamic banking as more or less the same thing its just playing with the concepts to do exactly the same thing " considering that compond interest is not prevalent any more .....conventional banking and islamic banking are doing the same thing- Al azhar university therefore has made conventional banking as halal - i we really think if we need to have a purely islamic economic system we have to follow the model Col gaddafi formulated for african union - only then an islamic bank can exist ....in a haram economic system a halal institution can not be established!
Answer: Working of Islamic banking and conventional banking are quite different with one another. In Islamic Banking the concept of profit sharing, ownership and risk bearing matters are the vital elements of Islamic banking that differentiate it from the conventional banking.
Comment: Welcome to Islam.SE! Answers are generally expected to be verbose and well-cited with proofs. Please update your answer accordingly.
Comment: Well, I like non-verbose answers, but proofs/citations are still needed.
Answer: As far as major principals of Islamic Banking Framework are concerned, other answers may be correct because the framework designed by the Sharia board of a bank may differ with the other one. Some scholars may agree with Sharia board's guidelines and some may not and even some consider it Haraam at all, see this.
So one can not consider all Banks(labelled as Islamic) as Islamic Bank on the basis of one Islamic Bank's guidelines/framework. If you believe in the scholars of Sharia Board you may believe in the Bank as Islamic otherwise you won't.
Having said that, Yes, Islamic Banks make money via Mudharabah, Wadiah, Musharakah, Murabahah and Ijarah and other services. They don't deal in Interest at all based on their framework.
But, Islamic Banks may make money via Illegal and/or Haraam businesses.
[Disclaimer: I don't have any proofs]
Why would i even think of it? Just because i believe in that Banks are involved in Money Laundering, playing dirty games in poor countries, funding wars, doing interest related businesses without telling their business partners i.e. Us, etc.
Moreover, they don't provide any sort of facilities that a Business partner/I/Account holder could acquire all their transactions and business deals documents to ensure their money-making-means are legal and halaal.
One may not agree with my personal believes, otherwise, doing business with such banks under the label of Islamic Banking would make his/her profits Haraam.


Non-interactive proof of value in MPC

Question: Does it exist? Specifically using Shamir secret sharing based MPC and looking for a (non-)interactive way to prove that the secret value is valid. A value is valid if it is part of a set for example $[0,1] \in \mathbb Z $ or non-negative, or at least that it is the secret key of some other value. For example if $s$ is the secret and $h=a^s \bmod p$ is the encrypted message and I distribute $s$ using secret sharing, can I prove to the receivers that the shared value is indeed the $s$ value used in $h$?
Answer: Here is the simpler method I can think of: let's assume some PKI has been setup, so that there is a known public key $\mathsf{pk}_i$ for each receiver $R_i$. Then, the share sender can simply broadcast a list $c_i = \mathsf{Enc}_{\mathsf{pk}_i}(s_i)$ to everyone, where $\mathsf{Enc}$ is some encryption scheme and the $s_i$ form the secret shares of the secret $s$. This allows each receiver $R_i$ to retrieve his share (and only his share), but also adds a public value that binds the share sender to each share - this is necessary if you want to prove anything.
Then, the share sender can use any standard NIZK proof system to prove the following NP statement:
$\{\exists (r_1, s_1, \cdots, r_n, s_n): \forall i\leq n, c_i = \mathsf{Enc}_{\mathsf{pk}_i}(s_i;r_i)  \wedge F(\mathsf{Reconstruct}(s_1, \cdots, s_n)) = 1\}$,
where $\mathsf{Reconstruct}$ is the reconstruction algorithm of the sharing scheme you are using, and $F$ is the function that checks whatever you want to check about the secret $s$ (e.g. $F$ could return 1 if and only if its input is a bit, if you want to check that $s\in \{0,1\}$).
Depending on the encryption scheme used, the secret sharing scheme used, and the function $F$, the NIZK will be more or less complex - but it is always theoretically feasible to build such a proof (under a variety of standard cryptographic assumptions) since it is an NP statement, and we have NIZK proofs for any NP statement.
If you want the NIZK to be efficient, you'll need to use algebraic and compatible schemes - typically, something like the additive variant of ElGamal for the encryption scheme, with a group of prime order $p$, and a secret sharing over $\mathbb{F}_p$. For example, proving that $n$ ElGamal ciphertexts encrypt additive shares (modulo $p$) of a bit can be done relatively efficiently with existing techniques for NIZKs (it's a relatively simple extension of a Schnorr Sigma protocol, plus the usual Fiat-Shamir heuristic - or a Groth-Sahai proof in case you don't want to rely on heuristics).
Comment: I am still in the middle of my diploma thesis and with work I have not yet had the time to review your answer, however it will not remain unanswered if this covers my requirement.

Non-interactive proof of value in MPC


Are questions regarding the methodological approaches welcome in this group?

Question: Are questions regarding methodological approaches in biblical hermeneutics welcome in this group?
Comment: According to the [help center](https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic), questions about hermeneutical approaches are on-topic.
Answer: Yes, absolutely.
I will say try to be as specific as possible, methodology questions tend toward the "too broad" side to address well in this format, but if you ask something specific it should be good.
Answer: I would add a small qualification to the other answers. The primary purpose of this site is the interpretation of biblical texts. Within that framework, discussion of interpretive methodology is absolutely relevant. On the other hand, if the question involves a discussion of the methodologies themselves, that may be more relevant to other sites such as Christianity.
For example, consider the role of source criticism in the study of the gospels. A question exploring how source criticism helps us understand the varying forms of the Lord's prayer in Matthew and Luke would certainly be valid. But a general question asking if source criticism is a reliable methodology in the first place may not be valid, because it does not relate to the interpretation of specific texts. The precise wording of the question may be an important issue.
Comment: This is not correct. The topic has come up quite a number of times since the site's inception and the outcome has always been the same: questions about the field of expertise itself are entirely valid on their own. In fact some of us (myself included) initially thought this site would _only_ be for that purpose and that the application/exercise of the skill would be left to other sites. Obviously that's not the way it worked out, but questions about just methodology are definitely not invalid as you suggest.
Comment: @Caleb, if that's so then I apologise. But I would appreciate more detail than this sweeping rejection of my answer. I've lost count of the number of times a question has been closed or reworded precisely because it's not related to a specific text. Moreover I searched on the meta site for other questions on this topic and couldn't find any. Can you put up some links for me? and for other people who may need guidance?
Comment: Peter perhaps you are conflating this issue with questions about *theology* and *doctrine*? Those are off topic here without the issue being framed against a specific text, and better suited for [christianity.se] or similar. But anything directly related to the field of hermeneutics itself (as your example of source criticism would be) are entirely on topic with no need for calling for the interpretation of a specific text.
Comment: Of course the usual rules about specificity matter, some questions like that tend to fail on the "too broad" side because a proper answer would literally take a book or degree course length lecture to cover — but given that the question is specific enough that answers can reasonably be expected to cover the substance of the question scope inside the length of an answer, the topic is fair game to ask about itself.
Comment: For reference try [this question](https://hermeneutics.meta.stackexchange.com/q/3579/36), [this one](https://hermeneutics.meta.stackexchange.com/q/3165/36), [this one](https://hermeneutics.meta.stackexchange.com/q/3579/36), [this one](https://hermeneutics.meta.stackexchange.com/q/3502/36), or [search yourself](https://hermeneutics.meta.stackexchange.com/search?q=hermeneutical+approaches) as this has come up many other times as well.


Override field template with custom module

Question: Instead of adding tpl files (in this case, media-youtube-video.tpl.php) to the theme. How can I override field templates from a custom module? Including when the field is used in a View.
Answer: I'm sure there must be an easier way to do this but this is what I typically do:
1.
Register an overriding theme implementation with the Drupal theme registry. So, in mymod_theme(), add a new item. The variables key must match that of the media_youtube_video theme i.e.
/**
 * Implements hook_theme().
 */
function mymod_theme() {
  return array(
    'my_media_youtube_video' => array(
      'variables' => array('uri' => NULL, ...), // see media_youtube_theme() for this
      // bundle the template file with the module itself
      // i.e. theme/my-media-youtube-video.tpl.php
      'template' => 'my-media-youtube-video',
      'path' => drupal_get_path('module', 'mymod') . '/theme
    )
  );
}

2.
Add a preprocess hook for the original theme implementation and suggest your new implementation here.
/*
 * Implements hook_preprocess_media_youtube_video().
 *
 * Or more generally, hook_preprocess_THEME().
 */
function mymod_preprocess_media_youtube_video(&$variables) {
  // If your overriding implementation is not a template but
  // is implemented in a different file,
  // then remember to include the file explicitly at this point..
  $variables['theme_hook_suggestions'][] = 'my_media_youtube_video';
}

Suggestions are evaluated by the theme system in a LIFO fashion. You can read more about this here.
Suppose you are aware that another module is also following the same approach as this one to override the implementation, then you can implement hook_module_implements_alter() and force your hook_preprocess_THEME() (see above) to be called last. You can read about hook_module_implements_alter() here.
This holds good for Views also. In summary, you just need to find out the correct unique name of the original theme implementation you want to override (typically defined in the source module), add a preprocess hook and add your overriding suggestion there.
Comment: In my custom module, I've a select list for selecting the template to apply. I have 3 tpl files. So How can I do this.
Comment: How can we override body field of node form if there are many node types?
Answer: You can also decalare new theme in module this way:
/**
* Implements hook_theme().
*/
function yourmodule_theme($existing, $type, $theme, $path) {
  $theme = array();

  $theme['field__field_nameofyourfield'] = array(
    'render element' => 'content',
    'base hook' => 'field',
    'template' => 'field--field-nameofyourfield',
    'path' => drupal_get_path('module', 'yourmodule') . '/templates',
  );

  return $theme;
}

Then put in a /template directory file that contains field template like this (standard) and name it field--field-nameofyourfield.tpl.php:
<div class="<?php print $classes; ?>"<?php print $attributes; ?>>
  <?php if (!$label_hidden): ?>
    <div class="field-label"<?php print $title_attributes; ?>><?php print $label ?>:

  <?php endif; ?>
  <div class="field-items"<?php print $content_attributes; ?>>
    <?php foreach ($items as $delta => $item): ?>
      <div class="field-item <?php print $delta % 2 ? 'odd' : 'even'; ?>"<?php print $item_attributes[$delta]; ?>><?php print render($item); ?>

    <?php endforeach; ?>

After clearing cache your theme will use this filed template unless it's not overriden by theme itself, which means you can still override this template in your theme.


Is a Sony Vaio Z Power Media Dock with AMD Radeon HD 6650M graphics a recommend buy?

Question: Has anyone tried the Sony Vaio Z Power Media Dock with AMD Radeon HD 6650M graphics under Linux? Does it work with Bumblebee hybrid graphics? I am considering it as a potential update of my current laptop.
Answer: don't!!! it can't handle the switchable graphics card no matter what i try. i have seen a bunch of claims of people getting it to work in Linux but when i do what they say works it just gets errors. save your self the headache and get a non switchable gpu.


What editor can I customize for writing HTML with special tooltips for Outlook?

Question: I just started a job where I will be writing HTML emails. I want to give the gift of convenience to future team members who might share the task of writing HTML emails that render correctly across every major email client, even MS Outlook 2016 for desktop.
I know about MailChimp. Our team currently uses InfusionSoft for marketing emails. I have used Litmus.com's editor and Emailonacid.com's editor. I tried RED by CoffeeCup. Those, combined with Google Developer tools in Chome, cover almost all the software features I'm looking for, except a few. I continue to look around because I want something more, especially when it comes to emails built for MS Outlook on desktop. Android Studio inspired the features I want.
Core, must-have features:

red squiggly underlines on pieces of code that aren't supported in Outlook
tooltips appear when I hover over pieces of code that have red squigglies and give me advice about what is wrong with the code and what could fix it.

Would be nice features:

Toggle between 'email client modes'. When I want to see if the code has any errors in Outlook, I toggle to Outlook, and the red squigglies and tooltips are specific to Outlook. When I toggle to Gmail, those become specific to Gmail.
Updateable tooltips, or updateable 'email client modes'. That way as things change, if another version of Outlook comes out, we update the Outlook mode, or we can add another mode for the new Outlook version.
Built in CSS inlining tool. That way I can write clean CSS in a file or many files, at least to begin with. Then I can inline with the push of a button when I go to test it. It would be super cool if I could choose to inline styles explicitly to children that would have inherited it.

Just want it, don't know why features:

Built in CSS un-inlining tool to take the CSS back out of the style attributes and into a .css file.

I have been researching and creating docs that have information on which code is/isn't supported in Outlook. I would be able to create the tooltips myself if necessary. I largely want these features because, wouldn't this be ideal for passing on documentation to my team? They would have specific guidance in the exact context it belongs.
Current software search: Like I said, most of the tools I have used are just fine for what I need, especially when combined with each other. But they fall short in the features listed above.
My search is currently split into 3 paths.

Search for an editor that has all the features I want. LiveEditor, Litmus.com, and Emailonacid.com were the closest. But I haven't found the one editor to rule them all.
Look through extensible editors (emacs, Atom, IntelliJ, VisualStudio, Sublime, etc.) searching for plugins that would give me all the features I want. IntelliJ with this Aspose plugin looked like a possibility, but I don't really understand it yet, and I haven't committed to buying IntelliJ just to try that.
Look into building my own extensions, probably for Atom, to create all the features I want. Atom looks like it would have the least amount of barriers.

So whether your answer falls into any of those 3 categories, I would accept it.
Answer: Editors CudaText/ SynWrite have base for it, for addon.
Addon must have

lexer, modified HTML lexer, which finds inccorrect HTML parts and makes them red or red-underlines. SynWrite has lexer tutorials docs (4 files) about it.
plugin for SynLint (Synwrite)/ CudaLint (CudaText). Ie linter. This linter must place bookmarks on bad lines. It can add bookmarks with tooltips - for icons in left side gutter. Plugin in Python.

Lexer + linter can do it.