Can a warforged just walk through quicksand?

Question: Given that according to the rules,"Warforged do not need to eat, sleep or breathe", can a warforged just ignore quicksand, get submerged and walk through it as the warforged would in a pond?
Answer: Quicksand is a serious threat to a lone warforged who can't make Swim checks.
However, qucksand (DMG 88) initially isn't much of a threat to anyone:

Patches of quicksand present a deceptively solid appearance (appearing as undergrowth or open land) that may trap careless characters. A character approaching a patch of quicksand at a normal pace is entitled to a DC 8 Survival check to spot the danger before stepping in, but charging or running characters don't have a chance to detect a hidden bog before blundering in. A typical patch of quicksand is 20 feet in diameter; the momentum of a charging or running character carries him or her 1d2×5 feet into the quicksand. [n.b. There is no mention of the typical depth of a quicksand patch.]

So if the warforged is traveling at a normal pace and has at least a half decent Wisdom score, he'll know the quicksand is present and go around it.1 But it's possible, for example, he charges the Valenar horseman who killed his adopted child and plops right in the middle of a big ol' patch of quicksand. That makes things... challenging.

Characters in quicksand must make a DC 10 Swim check every round to simply tread water in place, or a DC 15 Swim check to move 5 feet in whatever direction is desired. If a trapped character fails this check by 5 or more, he sinks below the surface and begins to drown whenever he can no longer hold his breath (see the Swim skill description).
Characters below the surface of a bog may swim back to the surface with a successful Swim check (DC 15, +1 per consecutive round of being under the surface).

Once in quicksand, a creature must make Swim skill checks to move. And, once a creature sinks, before the creature can move, the creature must make Swim skill checks to reach the surface. There's simply no option to walk across the bottom. Everyone--undead, oozes, constructs--must make Swim skill checks in quicksand. The DM can house rule this away, of course, but, technically, that potentially brutal Swim skill check (DC 15 +1 per round below the surface) can make it impossible for the warforged who sinks to escape the quicksand without outside assistance. (A most amusing "death" for the Lord of Blades.)

Pulling out a character trapped in quicksand can be difficult. A rescuer needs a branch, spear haft, rope, or similar tool that enables him to reach the victim with one end of it. Then he must make a DC 15 Strength check to successfully pull the victim, and the victim must make a DC 10 Strength check to hold onto the branch, pole, or rope. If the victim fails to hold on, he must make a DC 15 Swim check immediately to stay above the surface. If both checks succeed, the victim is pulled 5 feet closer to safety. [n.b. This totally ignores the victim's and rescuer's weights, but whatever.]

Obviously, Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 has fantasy quicksand not the real thing.

If using the Rules Compendium detecting quicksand requires a Survival skill check (DC 15) instead of the DMG's listed Survival skill check (DC 8). The Rules Compendium presents this information without commentary.
Comment: I see why even a warforged would be trapped until rescued, but as OP implicitly points out, if you don't breathe you can't drown. 'Stuck till someone throws you a rope' isn't what I call a serious threat.
Comment: Quicksand... the terrifying eternal tomb of magical robots everywhere.
Comment: According to the Wikipedia link, moving in quicksand requires a great deal of force as the sand re-solidifies around you, which might explain the inability to move along the bottom. Of course, that same fact is also why *things don't sink in quicksand all that readily*, which we'll have to ignore. (Also, that fantasy link probably should be indicated as dealing more with a fetishy subculture than with the use of quicksand in fantasy.)
Comment: Also, you shouldn't answer questions that we don't have a system for, particularly considering that you're citing rules to back up your answer.
Comment: @TimLymington You're right that the answer assumes the warforged is alone. I was unclear. I hope that confusion's now eliminated.
Answer: Rules as stated:
No.  They cant just ignore it. Swim Chk needed which involves Str or Survival to spot and avoid. The rules give a general way quicksand is suppose to look and act based on movies and action films in general. But this is only for Letter of Law.
Rules of RP:
This is up to the DM/GM. However we all have the player who wants to throw a spirit of rule not letter of law in to overcome an obstacle (Also amazes me how those same ones will use letter of law when it helps them). Letter of the law is written on quicksand:
SFW
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Marsh_Terrain
I'll add to the "RP Challenge" when a player huffs out comment of spirit/rule to help keep your game moving.

If you don't want them crossing:

Have it so when they sink they are entombed in muck which will outweigh the Str DC to move. I would give them a fighting chance but this allows them to view quicksand as a threat and not just another laughable annoyance. Living in a state that has muck and bogs I've seen very well built 4x4s get stuck unmovable without a crane to hoist them out. This could lead to awesome RP of getting the WF out or finding one long lost years before.

If you want them to get out creatively:

Then have them muck across the bottom to safety using Str checks but not swim.
If you'd like to get the group involved tell them they better save the War Forge before it gets stuck and trapped forever in the
quicksand. This will allow the party to help and add awesome RP.
Now if you want to be really mean add "Id save him...He was carrying the party funds" /evil DM laugh

To be honest quicksand is a Hollywood/action thing more then a real threat as its been made to be. Even the SRDs show this by the low DCs. I looked up real quick this link:
SFW
http://knowledgenuts.com/2014/05/15/everything-you-know-about-quicksand-is-wrong/
This is how my group has treated quicksand for 25 years and so far works like a charm and claimed the life of one gnome who had the key they needed badly.
Hope this helps.
Edit for clarity of meaning since got as many down votes as up votes. Figure people didnt like the flat out "No" since the question asked was "Can it ignore it"


How to post-process underexposed sunset images?

Question: I am a beginner, given an advice to underexpose when shooting sunsets. I did, and, well, what was underexposed, kind of looks underexposed. Can I tease out any more out of my material? My camera does not shoot raw. The best I could do was to shoot the largest files it would record. I know I can open them as "camera raw," but right now I don't really know how to operate in this mode. Moving things here and there intuitively does improve some of my images, however. I would like to master this mode (i.e., when a jepg. file is opened as "camera raw" in PhotoShop) to the extent it is possible when editing jepg images. Specifically, underexposed sunsets.
Here is a link to one of the images I would like to improve.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/96576146@N06/9063908406/in/photostream
Answer: Actually, the sunset part is overexposed in the linked image. It's the foreground that's underexposed. And that brings us to the crux of the problem: the camera can't see what your eyes can see. Having a raw image with a higher bit depth would help, but there are circumstances, like shooting into a not-yet-set sun, where the camera simply cannot record detail in both the brightest  and darkest parts of a single image.
Adobe Camera Raw can do some amazing things. Exactly what you would adjust depends on the version of Photoshop (or Lightroom -- the develop module of Lightroom and ACR are pretty much the same program under the hood) you're using. But with the picture you linked to, "amazing" isn't enough -- you actually need "miraculous". You can get to this point easily enough:

In ACR 6 (the version in Photoshop CS5), that's a matter of using the Recovery slider to bring down the sky. You might be tempted to use the Fill Light to raise the foreground, but that will lighten the darker aareas of the sky as well. You need to use the adjustment brush to bring up the foreground. (Alternatively, you could use the sliders on the "Basics" panel to adjust the foreground to your taste, then use an adjustment brush to put the sky right.) But notice that while some detail has been brought back to the foreground, it's essentially black and white; there's little to no colour information there at all. (And there was an awful lot of noise that had to be removed using the Luminance slider on the Details panel.)
In order to get a satisfactory image in both the foreground and the sky, you would really need to have taken at least two images, one that was properly exposed for the sunset to capture all of the colours in the sky and clouds (which would leave the foreground pretty much black), and one that was properly exposed to record both adequate detail and colour in the foreground. You could then adjust each in ACR to make the best of the area each photo was meant to capture, then combine the two in Photoshop. (Particularly with this image, since creating the mask would be easy.)
Comment: @LenaBorisova - the noise is from (and in) the severely underexposed foreground. There isn't any more than you'd expect from the exposure in the sky, since that is adequately (and, as I said, somewhat over-) exposed. But the foreground is about as close to "not exposed at all" as you can get and still recover any detail at all. It would take at least two exposures to get both. (And HDR, or *High Dynamic Range*, is just a name for methods of combining two or more exposures into a single picture. In this case, simple masking would produce the best results.)
Comment: Thank you very much! This is very helpful. Actually, I wouldn't mind keeping the foreground as either black-and-white kind of like an old postcard, or just as silhouette. What I would want to bring out is detail in the sky and especially two segments of the rainbow. No matter what I do, the lower segment comes out jaundiced... I use Photoshop CS4.
Comment: Why do you think I ended up with a lot of noise? My exposure was: ISO 80, f/8 for 1/500, exposure compensation -2/3.
Answer: The motivation behind the advice to under expose sunset is that the sun and the sky are very bright and you get more detail in the sky and better looking sunset if you underexpose a little.
Also, because of the brightness difference between sky/sun and whatever is in the foreground if you expose for the foreground the sun and sky will be very over exposed.
The trick isn't to just under expose it's to expose for the sky, completely under expose the foreground and set the exposure so that the sky looks good (usually under expose just a little bit compared to what the camera say is the correct exposure for the sky only).
But there's a second part for this "trick", now you got a good looking sky but your foreground is basically a silhouette - so you add light to balance the foreground exposure with the background exposure.
Your camera's built in flash probably has the power to light a single person at close range but the light isn't going to look good, an external flash placed off camera will give great results for one person and can probably light a small group, to light a building you some serious studio lighting equipment (or a lot of small flashes) and lighting an entire street like in you photo is basically impossible.
So, your options are:

Expose for the sky, let the foreground drop into darkness, maybe make it a silhouette.
Take two pictures from the same exact location (use a tripod), one exposed for the sky and one for the foreground, use your favorite image editor to combine both.
Take more than two pictures and use HDR software
Start playing with flashes
Comment: Thank you very much! This is so informative! What is HDR software?
Comment: @LenaBorisova - look at http://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/7623/what-is-hdr-photography
Comment: You can also use a graduated ND filter to limit the light coming from the sky.
Answer: It is possible to enhance jpeg images, although certainly not to the same degree as if you had RAW. When editing JPEGs, you will want to keep in mind that compression artifacts will impose the greatest limitation on your editing latitude, as the farther you push your settings, the more likely those artifacts are to show up.
I used Adobe Lightroom 4.4 to make the edits to your image below, however this is essentially the same as ACR in Photoshop, so the edits I list should still be applicable. The key things in the photo you posted are that the scene had more dynamic range than the camera, so you both blocked your shadows as well as clipped your highlights. The image is not necessarily "underexposed", certain parts are underexposed and other parts (namely, the sun) are overexposed. Both of these things can be corrected, and you can actually lift the shadows quite a bit. Based on your comment to Stan's answer, you mentioned you wanted the foreground to be silhouetted, so here is an example:

Basic Settings

EXPOSURE

Exposure: +0.75
Highlights: -20
Shadows: +30
Whites: -70
Blacks: -80

COLOR BALANCE

WB: Auto

PRESENCE

Clarity: +40
Vibrance: +35
Saturation: +10

Tone Curve

Highlights: +30
Lights: +10
Darks: -30

Color Settings

HSL

Orange: -50
Yellow: -10
Aqua: +50
Blue: +20

My goals with the above edits were to maintain the crisp clarity of the sky, deepen the contrast between the blue backdrop and the sun, and enhance the colors. I wanted to make sure to enhance the blue without oversaturating the orange/yellow from the sun, which is usually quite difficult to do with just the Vibrance and Saturation sliders...so I applied some selective color channel tweaks as well.
I dropped the blacks, to force the foreground to become darker, almost pure black. It is important to be careful when dropping blacks, as that particular slider has a wide attenuation, and affects the majority of the tonal range (unlike highlights and shadows, which have restricted attenuation.) I pulled blacks down quite a bit, and had to compensate the rest of the exposure by actually BOOSTING global exposure by +0.75.
The most important factor here in terms of enhancing the sky detail was the Clarity setting. I pushed it pretty far, but it is clarity (local contrast) that greatly brings out the sky detail and gives the sky depth..relative to itself. You might also want to play with global contrast, however the effects of that are often more significant to the image at large, and do not really enhance depth as well as the Clarity setting does.
Finally, in order to avoid creating an unsightly edge or halo to the sun itself, instead of pulling the highlight slider way down, I moderated my highlight correction. The whole image was underexposed a bit by the Blacks pull, so I only applied a -20 highlight pull. I used a string Whites pull to attenuate the local contrast in the sky and bring down the brightness of the sun in a less destructive way. To correct the rest of the exposure, I applied the Tone Curve edit. I actually boosted highlights quite a bit to create a nicer "shoulder" to the highlight tone curve, which supports that nicer, smooth falloff of the sun as its bright light fades into the surrounding clouds. I encourage you to experiment with light highlight recovery and tone curve edits like that, and contrast them to a direct, heavy highlight recovery pull in the range of -80 to -100. The difference in the aesthetic of the sun should be clear.
Well, I hope this helps! There are, of course, other ways to edit. Instead of pulling down the blacks to create a foreground silhouette, you can also lift the blacks, as well as shadows, to recover that detail (to some degree...you will be far more limited with JPEG than with RAW.)
Comment: Thank you so very much for your incredibly detailed and informative answer!


Live\ Hotmail email storage

Question: Are all mails from Outlook\Live\Hotmail stored in SkyDrive? Because I have around 6000 emails and some contain attachments of around 1 or 2 MB. But my SkyDrive shows that only 0.01 GB is used. Can I please know if the above values make sense and also whether emails are stored in SkyDrive?
Answer: Your values are accurate. Your Outlook\Live\Hotmail messages and data are stored on Microsoft servers. Skydrive is a separate service that you have simply by having an Outlook.com account (not always do you have this, many people do). If you have Outlook locally installed on your computer there are ways to save mail on your hard drive, or in Windows 7 and 8 with Skydrive locally installed you can have messages set up to save there.

Live\ Hotmail email storage


HOWTO create full list of Contacts in ON HOLD status

Question: I may be missing something, but I'm trying to exclude (from a contact export list) all contacts that have a "ON HOLD" status for their primary email, particularly if it's an Opt-Out, but Bounce would be useful as well. Using Advanced Find, I could find those contacts who set an Opt-Out on their own by checking Opt-Out in one of our mailings. Also, I can find some of these under Contacts > Contact Reports > Constituent Detail by filtering that report on "Do not bulk email" or "Do not email". However, it does not seem to pick up folks who have requested me personally to opt them out, which I've done manually. Any help for the COMPLETE list of contacts with "On Hold Opt Out" status, whether set by email response or by a CiviCRM admin, would be appreciated.
Answer: Actually, the answer lies in the Export, not the filter to create the list. I just added 3 Individual contact columns to the Export: (i) "No Bulk Emails (User Opt Out)", (ii) "Do Not Email", (ii) "On Hold: Primary". It evidently worked. The "Primary-On Hold" column set to 1 with the other two blank grabs the Bounces. The first 2 columns provide Opt-Out and Privacy settings, no matter whether set via email response or manually by admin. Even though the answer was simple, I hope this helps someone else looking to do the same.


Pakistani wanted for a crime wants asylum in Austria

Question: My friend is living in Austria. He is wanted in Pakistan because he committed a murder. He wants asylum in Austria. Would the government there let him stay legally, or they would it deport him? Would he qualify as an asylum seeker or not?
Comment: Umm - typically the basis for seeking asylum in another country is that you fear *unjust* persecution in your own country. If your *friend* committed a murder then any consequences he faces in Pakistan are surely perfectly just and deserved. So no, unless there's something else to this story he's not very likely to be granted asylum in Austria or anywhere else.
Comment: @brhans Most civilized countries, including Austria, do not extradite criminals if they risk capital punishment, which is probably the case here. Unworthy conditions in penal institutions may be considered a violation of basic human rights and is also an argument often preventing extraditions.
Comment: I did a bit of an edit to make your question clearer; apologies if I have misunderstood. You can use the edit to change if needed. You said your friend is living in Austria. Does he actually have a visa/permit to live there, or did he go there on a visit visa and now want to apply for asylum?
Answer: Austria does have a bilateral extradition treaty with Pakistan. So the likely answer is yes, they would probably send him back (and not just deport him, but put him in shackles and send him back as a prisoner for the Pakistani authorities to take).
That being said, before Austria extradites your friend, it's likely to demand the promise from Pakistan that the death penalty be taken off the table.
Also, if your friend was unfairly persecuted for some reason, and if the murder was committed in self-defense, perhaps, there is a chance of asylum, but since we really do not know anything about his case, any kind of speculation, without having such information, would be futile on our part.
Comment: Thank you for answer .. and i wanna ask something more if you know which european country is best for him that can give him legal stay there because he dont want to go back in pakistan if he will go they will kill to him
Comment: @MubarakSaith, Without giving us more details about the killing, what you're asking us is impossible to answer. Some countries will go above and beyond to protect their own nationals, but if the person is not already a citizen, that person is unlikely to be protected at all. Normally people flee to South America, not Europe if they want to avoid extradition. And even then, even in South America, murderers are usually not welcomed unless they happen to be extremely wealthy.
Comment: @MubarakSaith, If your friend is less than 39 years and 6 months old, he could join the French Foreign Legion. If he survives the Legion, he'll then be given a totally brand new identity and French citizenship. Many murderers choose the French Foreign Legion option. It gives them a second chance.


Concerned about slow growth of my seedlings

Question: I planted a number of vegetable seeds (zucchini, cucumber, peppers, kale, etc.) indoors in 1"x1" pods.  They germinated quickly and well.  Once the true leaves appeared, I moved them over to a 4"x4" container with potting mix.  The plants look healthy but they are not growing as fast as I would have thought.  I now leave them outdoors (in the shade) and have been out there for about 4 weeks.  What else should I be doing so that they can grow and I can move them to my vegetable raised bed?
Comment: What's your usual daytime temperature now? If it's still in the 50's (10°C), you'll not get much growth, except for kale. You might do better putting the warm season crops on a warm, sunny windowsill, inside.
Answer: I'm by no means an expert, however I am pretty sure that, at least for Zucchini, Cucumber and peppers 1% more light = 1% more growth.  Thus in order to increase growth, maybe you should start moving these into full sun.
Comment: Yeah this is pretty much it...until you pet you veg out into the full sun along with plenty of water and nutrients they aren't going to get that signal to start growing fast. It's a hormone that is triggered by light, and it's also one reason to not plant indoors TOO early. Once a seedling gets too old, it won't ever get the signal.
Comment: I have it outside but is sitting in the shade and is getting plenty of light, just not direct sunlight.  Does that change your comment?
Comment: Nope.  More light=more growth.  Full sunlight will give you more growth then partial sunlight.   I note that I am only commenting on the Zucchini, Cucumber and Peppers - I have no knowledge of the other plants (yet).    You should also follow GramChiu advice about hardening off your seedlings.
Comment: More light is generally good, especially for squash, but if they're still in their pre-transplant containers, it may hurt your plants to give them too much sun.
Answer: You need to harden your seedlings now so that they are ready to be transplanted into your garden bed.  Since your pots are on the small side, there's a risk for some plants that they'll get the signal to start bolting.
This video from the biointensive grow method explains the transplanting process.  They advise using 6 inch deep flats, wait until the plant is 6 inches high, and transplanting in a hexagonal pattern to maximize soil use.
Comment: bolting happens when the plant "thinks" it has reached adverse growing conditions and needs to start reproducing immediately.  So, it starts switching to flowering and seed formation, not what you normally want for your lettuces, cabbages etc.  Leaves often then become bitter to taste.
Comment: What does "start bolting" mean ?
Comment: It means sudden shoot/stem extension or sudden increase height. It is usually caused by new cells becoming highly elongated.
Comment: Thank you - very interesting.  That also probably explains something I saw earlier today on my lettuce or spinach in the kitchen !
Answer: Seedlings (from my observations in my area) don't tend to grow very fast outside in containers in the spring, when exposed to the raw outdoor air and light. They seem to require more warmth. I don't know how warm your area is, though.
However, if you can put a humidity dome over them outdoors, that should help them to grow faster (provided there's nothing wrong with the plants or the soil). You can make a humidity dome out of an empty milk jug. Throw the cap away (air and circulation is important), cut the bottom off, and put it over your plants (make sure wind won't blow it away). Plants grow faster under them until it gets too hot to use them without killing them. When it's hot enough to germinate cucurbits via direct-seeding, you should probably think about removing the humidity dome soon, if not right away (or at least widening the hole to let more air in and prevent the sun from cooking the plant).
I suppose it's possible that the plastic of the milk jugs filtering out UV rays would help the plants to grow faster. The increased warmth would certainly help (the jugs will even protect from frost). The protection from wind and pests would also likely help.
Kale should be able to handle cool temperatures better than the other kinds of plants you mentioned and so should be in less need of a humidity dome.
Comment: 60°F is still quite cool.  The optimal germination temp for most garden plant seeds is 68°F.  After a hardening-off period, move your plants into the proper sunlight conditions.  Monitor their growth when the daytime temps are mid 70's to 80 & you should start to see some pretty good growth.  If you don't get good growth, it may mean that you planted indoors too early or that your soil lacks sufficient nutrients.
Comment: Thanks. I am in San Francisco area so temp these days is about 60f which I would think is good for seedling growth. I will try your suggestions as well.
Comment: I actually recommend direct-seeding cucumbers and zucchini. It can be easy to stunt cucumbers and some kinds of squash when starting them in containers. Cucumbers grow easily when direct-seeded. Starting peppers early can definitely be very helpful, however.
Comment: I should note that my previous experiences with transplanting cucumbers and squash were with plants grown extra early under light indoors. I imagine you can do it successfully if you do things somewhat differently than I did (like start them in an unheated greenhouse instead, and not as early as I did).


Anatta during meditation

Question: When doer and knower disappears is that the state where anatta found? Have reached the state experience of a mirage in appeared on doing work. Which  samadhi has involved?And mind  restlessness appeared when closer look at the restlessness it will disappears with samadhi.
Answer: You don't have to look for anatta. That's completely misunderstanding what anatta means. Anatta is a characteristic. Meaning every experience is anatta.
Look at experience (any experience) arise. You don't make it arise. That happens according to conditions. That is what anatta means.
Feelings, memories, hearing, thinking .... everything arises according to conditions. Whether you like it or not. You can't stop experience from arising.
That is what anatta means.
Don't try to reach stages. Don't try to gain anything. Just observe objectively.
Answer: When you are doing anatta meditation, you are focusing your mind on anatta, So gradually anatta'll improve in your mind, and there isn't certain time where you find it at-once..Othewrwise you'll feel the parikamma/uggaha/patibaga nimitta according to the type of meditation you are doing,when you improve samadhi and reach to a jhana state,and also you feel ten fetters are reduced in some amount

Anatta during meditation


How far does a multicast message go?

Question: I'm wondering how far a multicast message sent from a server can go.
What stops it from going to all computers in the world?
Comment: I think you're mistaking multicast and broadcast.
Answer: There are different kinds of Multicasting.
The most common one does not traverse routers so will stay on the same physical network that you are on.
Some routers can be configured to relay multicast messages, and I think these are usually done on a subscription basis (eg you notify the router that you want to receive those multicast messages from the outside).
You should be able to find some more information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multicast
Answer: There are two things that stop your multicast packet from reaching the entire world.
The usual thing is that a router upstream from you will either not route multicast packets at all, or, it won't route any that come from you. Just to clarify, routers will NOT just pass along your multicast packet to other networks until they have been configured to do so, and moreover the network administrator may choose to block any incoming multicast traffic that arrives from certain ports.
The other thing that may stop the propagation of multicast is the TTL field. It's decremented by 1 for each gateway the packet crosses.
This topic opens up at least a couple other cans of worms which I chose not to discuss, but in practice, the answer above is probably the proximate reason on your particular network.
Answer: For a start every computer will have to be listening to the multicast address group you are sending to.  Then we look at address families.
Multicast came late to the IPv4 party so many routers do not support it.  Also, being late meant that it is highly optional and disabled by default.
IPv6 is when it gets interesting.  Broadcast is no longer supported in IPv6, applications must use multicast, and multicast has been made part of the core package requiring it to be implemented.
On Linux you can type netstat -g to show the joined groups, you can see ip6-allnodes which theoretically could be every single machine on the IPv6 Internet.  This obviously doesn't happen because every computer could easily be subject to a DoS attack and unable to do anything.  So it needs to be limited, but where?
The Internet is an internet, an inter-network, a joining of multiple networks.  There are devices that join networks together, and in these devices you can decide what traffic to pass through and in which direction.
Some countries have local broadcasters that send TV or radio with multicast over the Internet.  If you are joined to a participating network you can join the group and receive the live stream.  But consider what could happen if you decided to also send on that stream, it would easily disrupt the service for others, therefore the ISP would configure their devices to pass that multicast traffic one-way only.

How far does a multicast message go?


Eating in France

Question: In my French class, I learned that one cannot say such things as, "Elle mange le petit-dejeuner," for it would translate as, "She is eating [the idea of] breakfast." Instead, one must say phrases that translate as, "She is having breakfast" or, "She is getting breakfast." Where did this come from? Is there a particular reason for this?
Comment: « Elle mange son petit déjeuner » would be correct. « Elle mange le petit déjeuner » sounds odd but I can't tell how you could understand it as something else than "she's having breakfast" o_O
Comment: And if you are thinking of "have breakfast" as *prendre le petit-déjeuner* keep in mind that *take breakfast* (to mean you are actually eating your breakfast and not carrying it to some place) is used in some parts of the English speaking world. You can edit your question by clicking on "edit". And maybe you can change the title of your question to make it more suggestive. "Eating in France" is really too broad (eating manners? eating habits?), it seems you are asking about how to say "have a meal" in French  - or did you really mean France as compared to other French speaking countries?
Comment: Welcome to French Language user11232. It's OK if you ask your question in English, but can you give in French the sentences you want to deal with. All we have is *Elle mange le petit-déjeuner*, your  other English sentences do not necessarily translate what French sentences you are thinking about. I expect you are thinking of *Elle prend le petit déjeuner*, but  "She is having breakfast" and "She is getting breakfast" are not necessarily synonyms. Just as there are cases when *Elle mange le petit-déjeuner* can be used, so we need more context.
Comment: @Stéphane "Son petit déjeuner" désigne la nourriture qu'elle mange (sa nourriture) pour le petit déjeuner, alors que "le petit déjeuner" désignerait la nourriture de tout le monde.
Answer: "Le" is definite article, so when your are saying "Elle mange LE petit-déjeuner", you are making reference to some precise breakfast, known by both you and your interlocutor. That's why without any context, "Le petit-déjeuner" refers to the idea of breakfast, in general, and this is what your teacher meant. I think the corresponding sentence in English is "She's having the breakfast", that is odd too (and might be incorrect).
What we want, to traduce "She's having breakfast", is to use the indefinite article (equivalent to english "a", undertoned in this english sentence) : "Elle mange UN petit-déjeuner"
"Elle mange SON petit-déjeuner", also used to translate "She's having breakfast", is more usual than "Elle mange UN petit-déjeuner", without different meaning.
To conclude, "Le petit-déjeuner" could also refer to the food of the breakfast. So in some context, for example, "Elle mange le petit-déjeuner que son père lui a préparé", the use of definite article "le" is used to specify what food she is eating.
Answer: It is true that French people don't say "Elle mange le petit-dejeuner". But the reason is not that this would mean "the idea of breakfast". The sentence is perfectly comprehensible, it's just not idiomatic at all. We might say "elle mange le petit déjeuner que j'ai préparé pour son frère" (she's eating the breakfast I prepared for her brother).
The idiomatic way to say that someone is eating is to use the verb.

Elle déjeune. Elle est en train de déjeuner.   She's having lunch.
  Elle dîne. Elle est en train de dîner.   She's having dinner.

The phrasing with "en train de" emphasises that the action is currently ongoing. The straight use of the verb can mean either that she's currently having the meal or that it's a habitual action, i.e. it can correspond either to "she has …" or "she's having …".
For breakfast, there's a difficulty: the verb is déjeuner, which is identical with lunch. If there's no risk of confusion, we'd just say "elle déjeune". If there's a risk of confusion, we might say "*prendre son petit déjeuner", e.g.

Il est onze heure mais elle est encore en train de prendre son petit déjeuner.   It's eleven o'clock but she's still having breakfast.

Sometimes petit-déjeuner is used as a verb, which resolves the ambiguity, but it isn't very common and may be considered non-standard.
Comment: Note that this confusion is specific to France. In Quebec, in the morning we have a déjeuner, at mid day we have a dîner and in the evening we have a "souper". All can be used as verbs or nouns.

Eating in France


Perl module error on solaris-10

Question: I have installed perl and pm_dbdmysql perl module on solaris-10. I have a perl script which makes the mysql DB connection to a diff server and runs some queries and returns the results. Its working fine on linux(redhat) but when I am running the script on solaris-10 its giving me the below error:

2010-12-14 00:00:00 and 2010-12-14 23:59:59DAILY
  INSIDE : 2010-12-14 00:00:00 -- 2010-12-14 23:59:59
  install_driver(mysql) failed: Can't locate DBD/mysql.pm in @INC (@INC contains: /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.10.1/i86pc-solaris /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.10.1 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.10.1/i86pc-solaris /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.10.1 .) at (eval 15) line 3.
  Perhaps the DBD::mysql perl module hasn't been fully installed,
  or perhaps the capitalisation of 'mysql' isn't right.
  Available drivers: DBM, ExampleP, File, Gofer, Multiplex, Proxy, Sponge, Sybase.
   at cerberus_report.pl line 114

Though dbd-mysql perl module is already installed.

PKGINST:  CSWpmdbdmysql
        NAME:  pm_dbdmysql - MySQL driver for the Perl5 Database Interface (DBI)

Is it something related to the path variables to need some other perl moudule dependency!
Answer: From the list of package files, it certainly seems like you'll need to add /opt/csw/lib/perl/csw to your PERL5LIB.

Perl module error on solaris-10


How to clone two hard drives into one

Question: Lately when running SMART tests of my hard drives above shows many errors I read a good number of sectors so I decided to buy a new one. The problem is I do not want to have to reinstall my operating system from 0 (Windows and Linux) So, how ow to clone two 80GB hard drives (one with windows and One With Lubuntu) into one of 250gb?
Answer: You can always use LiveCD, create partitions on the new hard drive and copy each partition.
another option is to use a tool such as ghost and copy the entire partition.
at the end you have to run fix boot tools -
in windows - fixmbr and fixboot.
in linux - grub-install and update-grub.
you have to make sure both MBR and boot sector of each OS partition are modified.
I would use windows tools and then linux tools because i prefer GRUB boot loader.
found another option - Clonezilla (although i haven't used it):
Comment: have you managed?

How to clone two hard drives into one


sendRawTransaction results in queued TXs

Question: I attempted to send raw TXs via eth.sendRawTransaction API but get stuck. I'm using EthereumJS to generate and sign TXs, and indeed, I can submit TXs through eth.sendRawTransactin, but the TXs always result in queued (non-processable, per geth doc).
I called eth.sendRawTransactin from a geth console, and it returns a hash as usual. I can get transaction details by that hash:
> eth.getTransaction(hash)
{
  blockHash: null,
  blockNumber: null,
  from: "0x89b44e4d3c81ede05d0f5de8d1a68f754d73d997",
  gas: 90000,
  gasPrice: 50000000000,
  hash: "0x69b4a0768e72c3a679a1ae6fb490a831509c3c0a04674b646362d0a3d74689a4",
  input: "0x",
  nonce: 10,
  to: "0xb7e13de69228c37cdff506ea474f31343af33c05",
  transactionIndex: null,
  value: 2000000
}

But the TXs are queued forever:
> txpool.status
{
  pending: 0,
  queued: 5
}

Also sending address is rich enough to pay off the gas:
> eth.getBalance("89b44e4d3c81ede05d0f5de8d1a68f754d73d997")
20000000000000000020

To compare, this is a valid transaction (created and sent by some client)
> eth.getTransactionFromBlock(11)
{
  blockHash: "0x41919469d7ed9232adbcacc820e61ad508b30eb5fc4750d3cebd748c22b110b8",
  blockNumber: 11,
  from: "0xb7e13de69228c37cdff506ea474f31343af33c05",
  gas: 90000,
  gasPrice: 50000000000,
  hash: "0xa4d4a22aa1fed291a7da00e24304f7093b4fc09b1c6a18692e4240d6d913d674",
  input: "0x",
  nonce: 4,
  to: "0x89b44e4d3c81ede05d0f5de8d1a68f754d73d997",
  transactionIndex: 0,
  value: 20000000000000000000
}

Since geth can parse them, the format of my TXs has to be correct. I guess the only thing left is the signature. But I'm pretty sure the TX has been properly signed.
Is there a way to get more information about why a TX can't be processed? I'm using geth on my own blockchain so I can modify the source code if that helps.
Answer: I once encountered the same problem, and finally found that the key was nonce.
You may like to check if your nonce is continuous and based on the latest one of your address.
Hope it helps.
Comment: According to this [post](http://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/2808/what-happens-when-a-transaction-nonce-is-too-high), your nonce can't be too high or lower than the latest transaction's one.


Software To Create Chess Videos

Question: Is there any free software to create chess videos? I see some nice videos on chess.com and on Youtube. The way arrows are drawn on the board, highlighting squares or pieces are really wonderful features.
Answer: Programs like ChessBase, ChessPad, Scid vs. PC, and Lucas Chess all let you highlight squares & draw arrows on the board. You can then just record what you're doing using regular screen recording software like the excellent oCam.
Edit: I've created a video showing how to use Lucas Chess to create instructional chess videos. View it here. (YouTube)
Answer: A very simple tool is Nimbus, an extension for Chrome. It is very intuitive and can be used to record Chess.com or Lichess analysis (with their respective arrow and highlighting tools), and you can use its drawing palette (does not work in Lichess) for rectangles, freehand lines, and a few others options. It allows to include the images of the webcam. The only downside I see is that it does not allow to crop the recorded area.
Answer: For a chess board: I recommend lichess study/analysis board or import function, chessbase reader, apronus, chess.com analysis board, SCID (Great resource by the way! Free, has a database, and you can spar the engine. It is like Chessbase but free), Peshka 6 (don't know much about it, its a russian interface where you can buy stuff on chessking and put it on peshka), or Lucas chess.
I personally use lichess [https://lichess.org/editor] because you can import games, they have a live master-game database, and if you have an account then you can play or make studies which can be used as like a way to store games into cloud!
For recording: I recommend oCam [http://ohsoft.net/eng/] If you're making instructional (expository) videos about famous chess games or opening/endgame studies. oCam allows you to crop your video recording screen  resolution to however you like, therefore you can make it so that the video only records the chess board alone and not your screen. If you can't get oCam for whatever reason, you can also try Bandicam if you don't mind the 10 minute time limit + the watermark.
I recommend OBS [https://obsproject.com] (Open Broadcaster Software) if you want to stream yourself playing chess. You can adjust boundaries too on this program, but it is more to work with. Anyway this is the type of software that almost all (if not all) streamers use! It has a function that allows you to stream automatically live as you record.
For editing videos: You can try Wondershare Video Editor [https://m.en.softonic.com/app/wondershare-video-editor-win]. Even the free version should have enough permissions to allow you to edit a good portion of your videos, however it has a nasty watermark. To fix this, you can use oCam to record and your wondershare video and then play your wondershare video without exporting it, it just means you'd have to sit and record it. Otherwise just use windows movie maker or Lightworks!
P.s. For some reason, Camstudio is now riddled with adware and viruses, and also Screen toaster is now unavailable.
Answer: I use Movavi software for that. Movavi Video Editor is made to be used by anyone, but especially for those who don't really have much knowledge in video editing but would like to learn. If you are new into this world, this is definitely the editor you will want to use. It's great software to make chess videos.

Software To Create Chess Videos


Will a pinhole camera work with instant film?

Question: I am making a pinhole camera for a school science fair. Is it possible to use Instax Mini Film instead of the long process of developing photo paper? If so, would I use the same design, and just swap the film, or do I have to change the design of the camera?
Comment: Developing photographic paper is not a long process if you have the chemistry and a suitable space (which are perhaps caveats): 2 mins in the dev, optionally 30 seconds in stop, then 5 mins in fix.
Comment: @tfb -- plus setup and cleanup.
Comment: @PeteBecker: yes a few minutes for that.  What takes the time is washing prints, but you don't really need to do that for RC paper.  I'm not arguing that it's as fast as the instax, just that it's not hours: I can do 20 contact sheets on RC in an hour, including everything bar waiting for the sheets to dry.
Answer: You definitely have to change the design of the camera. This HowStuffWorks page explains how instant film develops well enough. Essentially, the film cassette contains rollers that roll out the developer to begin developing your film. Until this happens, the film is still light sensitive.
This is why the cassette begins with a plastic, light blocking layer that must be ejected once the cassette is in the camera. After this, the next shot exposes onto the film, which is then ejected, smooshed through the rollers, and begins development.
It'd be fairly impractical to pull the film from the cassette in a darkroom, load camera, shoot, go back to darkroom, use rolling pin on film. Instead, you should utilize the cassette as it was designed.
This means modifying your pinhole camera to load a cassette and provide a pathway for the ejecting film that doesn't compromise the light-tightness of the camera body. It also means adding some batteries and doing some electrical work so as to get the cassette to eject the film on a button press. Yanking the guts out of an Instax camera may help here.
Or, take the simpler approach and buy something like this instant back which already contains the electronics and film eject button in a nice and neat package. Simply build up your pinhole camera around it for design. Or this one, which appears to not need the electronics.

Edit to add: So, I sacrificed a cassette for you. You could get away with a completely mechanical design if you shape it up around existing processes. For example, the cassette exposes the film on the bottom corner:
Images shrunk for inline reading. Click to expand

And here's my Lomo's method of ejecting it (actuated):

And not actuated:

You can see how the metal has a hooked groove meant to grab the exposed film and push it up out of the camera. It only pushes it a bit, then the user is expected to grab and pull it the rest of the way out.
Comment: @Redline I'm saying that first, you need to understand how the film works. Read the linked article. Second, you can replicate this action using a rolling pin, but it would require you to load the film in the dark, expose it, go back into the dark, and roll it out. Which is honestly even less practical than just using photo paper and developing after exposure per most high-school pinhole cameras.
Comment: Ok, I don't know much about film photography, and the project is due in a couple days. You're saying I can use the film, and develop it manually with a rolling pin, or I would have to integrate the cassette I to my camera? I don't have time to do anything complicated, would the cassette method be difficult?
Comment: @Redline So, you are left with building a camera around the cassette. Fastest implementation would be to buy one of the two film backs that I linked to and to build up the pinhole camera around those. If not wanting to use any pre-fab parts, then you need to build a film-ejector mechanism yourself, which is a bit more complicated.
Comment: @Redline building a camera around one of the film backs is only as difficult as your lack of proficiency in either woodworking, metalworking, 3d-printing, or ghetto cardboard and duct tape skills. For example, I'm decent with wood and could have the camera built around a film back in ~1-2 days. If you're not, then it will take longer.
Comment: @Redline what are you doing to create the pinhole, btw? Have you done the math to determine pinhole size and ideal distance from hole to film?
Comment: No idea. I have a science fair in like, less than a week, and I am into digital photography. I haven't even seen instant film, except in a pack, so I don't know anything about film. I thought it would be cool to make a pinhole camera. Then, I found out I would have to develop the picture, and it didn't just magically become a photo :) So, I thought using Instant Film would be easier. I saw this [article](https://www.lomography.com/magazine/234716-pinhole-passion-instant-pinhole-camera-in-instant-film-pack), and thought it looked easy, but didn't fully get the concept. So, I came here :)
Comment: Btw, thanks, it seems like you put a lot of time into that answer :)
Comment: @Redline check out this pinhole camera: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1082920-REG/ilford_1176526_harman_titan_4_x.html/?ap=y&gclid=CjwKCAjw96fkBRA2EiwAKZjFTTez_RjM8twlq4DHr7G6JLpSsBh3sfQfo2IanJ-TVEVdsJyxH_ts7xoC03sQAvD_BwE&lsft=BI%3A514&smp=Y -- notice that the pinhole is 0.014" / 0.35 mm. using a coke can and sewing needle to make a hole is not a bad idea, but the Lomo example is too darn big. Get the smallest needle you can get, stick another needle through the eye so you have a T shape, then use a screwing motion until you break through the can. Take your time.
Comment: @Redline Pinhole cameras are a lot of fun - but yea, film is a different beast and it does take a bit more work than digital. You're right that using an instant cassette will save you on the developing - but it brings with it a harder camera build so as to support the cassette. I don't like that the Lomo example still has you running back to the darkroom every shot. IMO, if using an instant cassette, that's just a waste.
Comment: Yeah I get what you mean. But I don't really get how I would make the right mechanism to automate it, and it sounds complicated. Unless I find an easy way to make that mechanism, I think i'll stick to the lomo example. And the fair is in a few days. Thanks A LOT for all your help.
Comment: A major flaw in this answer is the assumption that you need a darkroom to change the film. Use a changing bag instead, store the open film pack in a light tight box, and you free yourself from having to modify your camera to fit and process film *in camera*. Making two light tight boxes that you shuffle film between in the dark is far less challenging than building a box around a specific package of someone else's design...
Comment: @TheLuckless true, one could pull the film in a change bag and then attempt to roll out the developer. I disagree that that would be easier than building a camera around a back, especially the lomo instax mini back. Pretty simple to sandwich it at the back of a box made of wood using a coke can pinhole.
Answer: You can easily convert most any instant camera to a pin-hole camera without damaging the camera in any way. If you do what I tell you, your instant camera will perform exactly as a pin-hole camera, in fact, it will be a pin-hole camera.
With a sewing needle, pierce some aluminum foil. Center the hole over the center of the lens. Shape this piece of aluminum foil so that it is held in place by its shape. Be inventive, use double stick tape or masking tape to affix this pin-hole centered on the lens.
Even though the camera has a glass lens, you are restricting the light path of the image forming light to the pin-hole. This will negate the lens. The camera will become a pin-hole camera. The advantage is: The camera has a shutter and a mechanism to accept instant film. If fact Polaroid once marketed a high-end camera with a spring loaded pin-hole attachment.
Best of luck!
Comment: Yes, I am aware of this method. But as I am doing this for a science fair, I think I would be better of making one myself.
Answer: Edit: googling reveals "Developing and fixing chemicals are stored in the "sack" of white border on the bottom of the image and when the film is pushed out of the camera the developing process begins." -- so you may need to replicate this pushing mechanism, which may not be easy.
Old answer: Yes, you can do this. Do remember that if the Intax Mini Film is larger than standard film, to get the same field of view, you need to move it further back (increase the focal length).
A pinhole camera is just like an ordinary camera, just with a much poorer lens (slow and lacking in sharpness). So, anything that acts as a film will work.
Remember also to experiment with various exposure times, as changing the film may require changes to the exposure.
And, if you don't want to use film, you can also make a digital pinhole camera! Just find any old DSLR, drill a hole into the cap, add some tape over the hole in the cap and carefully pierce an extremely small hole into the tape.
Comment: But to get good results from the pinhole camera, very long exposure times are necessary. That might be a problem when using an old DLSR.


Would throwing cars and debris require Thrown Strike or Blast?

Question: The rules on having Strike with the Thrown option mention having to retrieve or recharge something to re-use the ability in order for it to count as a Thrown Strike instead of a Blast. Could this include something like throwing chunks of debris or cars, or do you need something other than Thrown Strike or Blast to add bonus damage to such thrown debris?
Answer: I believe that in 2E you already add your strength bonus to thrown items - this is built into the system, and doesn't need a power.
If you really need to deal a lot of damage, but only rarely, you could always power stunt a blast off of a super-strength or strike (strength-based) power.  The blast could be described as "Throwing a chunk of street, as hard as you can".
Don't worry so much about the description, worry more about the effect you are causing.  Does your character regularly throw random items at foes?  Build them a Blast with the Flaw: requires rubble, debris, or other similar items.
For more information, you can always look into Ultimate Power.  Or, if your group isn't opposed, take a look at 3rd edition (aka DC Adventures) - the powers are done significantly differently, and it makes it much clearer what the effects are.
edit: I've dug through my archives and found my M&M 2E book to confirm.  Yes, a power that does ranged damage by throwing debris (even up to cars) that is regularly used is best modeled as Blast.  Use the Limited: requires ammunition flaw (-1 point, flat).
Strike is 1 point per rank, with Thrown being an additional 1 point (power feat).  Blast is 2 points per rank.  It just wouldn't make sense, from a game balance perspective, for you to be able to duplicate a power (ranged damage every turn) for half the points.
Comment: +1 for "Don't worry so much about the description, worry more about the effect you are causing."
Comment: Ok thanks, though the question was more "would a hero that regularly uses thrown debris need Blast or Thrown Strike?
Answer: @Cobalt:
If it were the primary method of attack, I'd probably go for them buying Blast with either a Flaw or a Drawback depending on frequency (rule of thumb is that a -1 Flaw should make your power unavailable at least 50% of the time. Power Loss is more along the lines of every few encounters, you might be stuck without anything to pick up). Alternately, I'd just suggest that they buy up their Strength and/or build it as a "naked" Extra like with Throwing Mastery where it boosts the damage from something that normally would be harmless. If a player seems to be taking advantage of the improvised weapons, I'd either start having fewer available in the environment or start introducing plot complications where the city serves him with a lawsuit for the number of parking meters, buses, etc he's picked up to use as a weapon.


What does it take to get a black belt in Taekwondo?

Question: I'm a software engineer basically but have been practicing taekwondo since 2-3 months. I just wanted to know what it takes to get a black belt?
Comment: Hard work and discipline, baby!
Comment: All the answers are good information. As you start to progress a little further in your martial arts career, you will realize that learning is learning, and that belts are just symbolic mile markers along the way. Learn all that you can as best as you can, and the belts will eventually come. Comparing yourself to an arbitrary scale or other practitioners is a good way to get a lot of frustration.
Comment: This can differ so much from school to school, and within substyles of TKD.  If you've been practicing for 2-3 months (presumably with an instructor / at a school), why not just ask your instructor?  There's no telling how applicable, or not, replies you get here will be for your school.
Comment: In my opinion (I'm a TKD red belt), this is not the kind of thing you should worry about. If you're in a good Dojang, focus on your training, have fun and when you'll be close to your black belt, you will figure out yourself what lacks in your techniques to deserve it.
Comment: Depends on the school and larger governing organization.  There is no unified standard throughout TKD.
Answer: First, bear in mind that this will differ from dojang to dojang.  Depending on your association (WTF or ITA for example) there may be a list of techniques you will have to master for each belt.  If you are not affiliated with an association, your teacher will have a checklist of things he wants you to learn before each belt.  Ask your teacher what the requirements will be.
Other than specific techniques, part of testing is also a fitness assessment.  You will have to do a certain amount of each exercise (push-ups, sit-ups, etc...).  Again, this varies from dojang to dojang.
At a certain level, your belt test will require sparring and/or board-breaking.  Where this begins, again depends on your dojang.  Many dojangs begin sparring at green belt.
Board-breaking is usually a requirement to earn your black belt.
There will probably be a "time in grade" requirement, i.e. you must hold each belt for a certain number of months before you can test for the next one.  Many teachers suggest that earning your black belt can take anywhere from 2 years (too short, if you ask me) to 4 years.  Don't get discouraged if you take longer than that, but do be suspicious if it takes less than 2 years.  A black belt earned in that short of a time is probably not worth it.  Also, bear in mind that the quoted time is if you train consistently, that is, at least two classes a week, if not three or even four.  If you skip training because you're tired, you'll lose momentum and eventually get bored and lose interest.
I hate to give you the "it just depends" answer, but it really does just depend on where you train and who you train with.  Your teacher is your best resource for this, though it is wise to field this question to the TKD community at large to see what is typical.
Comment: @Vjaykumar if one of the answers here has answered your question, please check it as 'accepted'
Answer: I agree with the other answers about the technique varying, but wanted to add one more:
Time and dedication.
We like to say that a "black belt is a white belt who didn't quit" (this is not unique to us, it's a fairly common expression).  We also talk about how when a new person enters the dojang it is impossible to tell if they will be one of the ones who sticks it out and keeps working at it.
For us, if you attend all of your classes and are there every week (and no one makes all of them every week for every belt), you are looking at around 4 years of showing up every week. That's a lot of time dedicated to simply becoming a black belt.
If you are putting in that time–especially if you are taking the time you do in class and adding an extra day of personal practice and doing your warmups every day (both of which we strongly recommend)–you have put a lot of time, energy, and effort into your art.
The "black belt" (1 dan) is an arbitrary designation–both for what it takes to get it and for what it means–so your school may have a lot of specifics that they expect to see.  Many times the 1 dan barely represents base camp of the art: everything up to that point is, as one person put it for Hapkido, "how to fall and how not to kill people when practicing."
But in general, what will make you a 1 dan:

You are putting in the time.
You have the right attitude and are dedicated.
You are helping others.
You are continuing to improve.

Rinse, repeat for as long as it takes.
Answer: When I tested for 1st Dan, I was asked to perform Gae Baek, which is the blackbelt pattern (kata for all the karate philistines - JK). In addition to that, I was asked to perform two additional colour belt patterns at random. In my case, Won Hyu and Hwaorang.
Then came the demonstration of breaking techniques. I was allowed to choose my own technique and decided on the inner knife-hand strike. I had to break a black and a white nylon board, which is the equivalent of six wooden boards.
After that, I had to demonstrate 10 Tae kyu techniques, which I believe is optional in the curriculum. I also had to demonstrate two real world self-defense techniques ad-hoc.
I was then asked to perform a number of jumping and combination kicks. There was a particularly dificult one called the jumping front kick. What made it dificult was that I had to jump out of an L-stance, kick with my rear leg, and land in the same position. This was to test both my hip flexibility and the strength of my core muscles (the muscles under the bellybutton, in the case of TKD).
After that, I was asked some theory, e.g. what the 5 tenets are and what they mean, as well as some history and things about why we twist the front punch or why the elbow is a good striking tool.
Lastly, I was given two semi full contact sparring matches. Semi-full in the sense that we both wore protective padding.
Answer: I like Juann and Wudang Kid's answers, but lets put some perspective on this. Every person that walks, for the first time, in a dojang or dojo wants to know what it takes to become a black belt and what it takes to know all the crazy things they see on TV or in the movies. Never mind the expense of promotion and some belt-factory schools, the question's answer involves the master instructor, time, learning, dedication, discipline, and perseverance but basically boils to what you are willing to do to achieve that rank.
For most taekwondo schools, you can pretty much count on 3 to 4 years to achieve the rank of 1st Dan provided you regularly attend class, stay healthy, and are willing to continue to grow. Once a person achieves that rank, they will likely find that their training has only begun at the point. The real interest of the art is in the mastery of those skills that you learned getting to the black belt rank. You will realize that one ends up re-asking (in different ways) many of the questions that you asked as a white belt. By that point, Hollywood is out of the question or focus because you are hopefully more focused upon how you can grow in the art.
Answer: Your club/school will probably have a promotional exam every few months, or every semester if it's a university program. That's a good time to watch (even if you are not ready to test) and get a good feel for what people have to learn and how good they have to be all the way up through the ranks, including dan ranks. (For a small school, you may have dan tests only yearly or intermittently, but a big school may have people testing for black belt ranks quite frequently.)
Seeing with your own eyes how it's done in your school, and the standards they expect, will be much more valuable than any advice you'll get here, which could easily differ from practices where you are specifically training.
Also, you could, you know, just ask the black belts in your dojang how long they've been training and what it takes to get to where they are. They'll probably be happy to talk to you, and their answers will be more accurate and relevant than any you get from the internet.
Answer: I remember my black belt grading was the toughest thing I had to go through and prepare for. I had to perform all 11 patterns and black belt pattern. I had to do the basic sets for all belt colours. All of the one step sparring. I had to demonstrate all kicks, and did 10 rounds of 2 minute pad sparring. Also, 10 rounds of 2 minute sparring with our fellow graders and previously graded black belts. We also were paired up with previously graded black belts, who tested our endurance. We did several types of board breaking (using different power kicks and palm strikes). I think that was all.
Answer: I belong to an ATF style program and have been active for just one year now. I just received my Orange/Black belt last night after successfully completing my test. The test that I took consists of performing 3 fighting forms, and the first traditional form, Taegeuk Il Jang. Then I performed a back step side kick break of 4 boards.
My next opportunity to test for Green Belt would be in 3 months, if prepared and approved by my instructor. At this rate the closest time frame I would be able to test for Black Belt would be April, 2025. And that is if everything goes perfectly from now till than. So the bottom line is, in order to earn an accredited black belt, it will probably take about 5 years (depending on progression and if your dojo has any associations).
Answer: In our training hall we get to grade every three months until we reach black tip. And then we have to wait a minimum of 6 months to get our black belt. Following this it should take about 27 months to get a black belt, so getting a black belt in under two years is impossible.
Comment: What organisation are you part of?
Answer: My son recently passed his black belt aged 16,he has been going since he was 9
He had to get above 75% in his written exam (100 questions) or he was not allowed to sit the belt at all.
Black belts that are gained in two years or less are simply fake.
Comment: Only the written exam score part of this answer addresses the question. If you write an answer, please try to answer the question.
Answer: In Kukkiwon(WTF) Taekwondo, you are supposed to score a 60% in all categories of sparring, forms, breaking, "special technique", and, for higher dan, a written test and/or essay.
For sparring, your score reflects your offensive and defensive strategies, movement, aggression, varying techniques, and stamina.  It's subjective, but you shouldn't have to win a match, only demonstrate competency in these categories.
For breaking, at 1st dan, you are supposed to show one speed (hand), one speed (foot), and one power (foot) breaking technique.  Your score across these three breaks is collected (averaged or added, depends on the instructor).  What you are graded on is the quality of your technique, how clean the break is, and how difficult the technique is.  It's not defined, but some instructors will give credit for multiple boards, creative breaks, and multiple stations.
For forms, you'll have to perform Taeguek 7 and 8 are compulsory, others may be demanded.  Your grade will be based on your apparent confidence, balance, eyeline, correct technique, breathing, kihap, and your physical appearance.
For special technique, that is generally left for the instructor.  That could be special kicks, self-defense, expanded breaking (different materials than wood), or something else altogether.  It could even be a review of basic techniques.
 Score will reflect your confidence, power, speed, balance, breathing, proper technique, and kihap.
Last, the non-technical stuff includes:

You must answer a 20-question test, and score 12 correctly
You are interviewed to determine goals in TKD, career, and education
You'll be required to test in an appropriate and approved facility
Your performance must be observed by no less than 3, and no more than
10, Kukkiwon-certified instructors at 6th dan or higher rank
You (or a designee) must fill out paperwork
You have to provide passport photos
You must wear an approved uniform (Adidas) with proper belt and patches applied
Believe it or not, a doctor or nurse is supposed to be present, too; I've seen tests for over 35 years and never once saw a doctor or nurse on-hand

Kukkiwon Promotion Regulations
FYI, there is no regulation on "time served".  In other words, Kukkiwon doesn't stipulate how much time you have to spend training.  That is a discretion they leave for instructors, who can better determine students with relevant experience or past history can catch up easier than others.  Yes, this can be abused, and it isn't uncommon to see students with only 2 years of experience get their black belt.   (Then again, Kukkiwon mandates a 60% score in technique categories, which is the academic equivalent of graduating high school with a 60% in math, 60% in English, 60% in science, and 60% in social studies.  Most people would flunk here...)
Answer: Work, work, and work.
As also a software engineer I can tell you have to be dedicated to learn and practice to get your black belt.
Comment: Hi, what do you believe that this answer adds which has not already been covered in the existing 10 answers?


Is there any moral reasoning behind punishment?

Question: Usually when someone does something bad they get punished. There are a few reasons for this, e.g. Them not doing it again or other people not doing in the first place. I was wondering if there is a reason for punishments to be fair and just.
Comment: "Is there any moral reasoning behind punishment?" "Them not doing it again or other people not doing in the first place" - It seems like you've already answered your own question. Or are those not moral reasons in your opinion? And, if so, what would you consider to be a moral reason?
Comment: @NotThatGuy I think the question has more depth than that.  "You rode the bus without a ticket, so I shoot you and your family" would indeed prevent people from riding buses without tickets.  However, in many (most?) countries this is not considered a fair and just punishment, pointing for the need for a deeper underlying (moral) theory.
Comment: See [Legal Punishment](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/legal-punishment/): "Legal punishment presupposes crime as that for which punishment is imposed, and a criminal law as that which defines crimes as crimes; a system of criminal law presupposes a state, which has the political authority to make and enforce the law and to impose punishments. A normative account of legal punishment and its justification must thus at least presuppose, and should perhaps make explicit, a normative account of the criminal law  and of the proper powers and functions of the state ."
Comment: See thiis question: https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/76346/do-penalties-keep-people-from-committing-crimes
Comment: @NotThatGuy Yes, in a sense I did answer my own question. But I wanted to know why it might be fair to punish a person; if there were a reason to punish them if there would be no risk of them commiting a crime again.
Answer: Plato has Socrates make the argument that punishment, when it is just anyway, actually improves the individual. So if you've done wrong you should want to be punished so you can improve. To say the least this doesn't track with a common understanding of human nature — but nevertheless the theory of virtue has been very influential. For something more modern in this vein maybe consider Foucault's Discipline and Punish; or for a more literary-analytical approach, perhaps consider Deleuze's book on Masoch, or Lacan's essay in Ecrits on Kant and Sade, both of which could also be useful starting-points there.
Comment: @DescheleSchilder if you'd like to frame that as a new question I think it could be worth unpacking for sure!
Comment: Was just thinking I should have mentioned Foucault! I remember finding it a good read..
Comment: Of course it depends what you call improvement of a person. What are improvements according to Plato and Aristotle?
Comment: @Deschele Schilder: Not sure what they'd have said (though I do know they had various schemes regarding what a "virtuous person" was - likely, then, it'd be something like "to be more like that"), but I'd say that in regard to the _idea itself,_ it's quite simple: in this case, improvement means becoming less liable to repeat the act which invited the punishment.
Answer: There are 2 main justifications for punishment used in modern philosophy.
Consequentialism
The idea is that punishing criminals deters them and others from doing crimes in the future. One of the strongest proponents of this stance was the utilitarian Bentham, who did a lot for prison and legal reforms in his own society.
Retributivism
'What goes around comes around,' is a saying that means that people who perform bad actions have bad events happen to them. The retributivist believes that it is the moral obligation of society to make sure these bad events happen i.e. punish people who do wrong. Although Kant is the best known philosopher who advocated this view, the concept of karma is pervasive in modern society.
Retributivism seems to be what you are looking for, but it is important to note that these are two sides of a continuum, with many philosophers taking a position somewhere between the two extremes.
Comment: Thanks a lot. I think this definetly points me in the right direction.
Comment: This is also the Talmudic principle of "an eye for an eye"
Comment: This verse does not provide a justification for why punishment is necessary. Rashi's commentary on Shemos Chapter 21 (https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/9882/showrashi/true/jewish/Chapter-21.htm) makes it is clear that the passage refers the the principle of proportionality i.e. the severity of the punishment should be in proportion to the severity of the crime. Although this is a very important concept, it is irrelevant to the question asked.
Answer: One can make the case for the need to compensate the injustice of the wrong-doer having an advantageous position with respect to the victim of the harm if no punishment is applied.
A possible justification rooted on human psychology can be based on the additional harm caused by the unsatisfied revenge feeling that can be assumed to bother the victims or other observers (since the thirst for revenge can have a strong empathy element). This leads to dispositions were the last word is given to the victim (or a suitable representative) as to whether the punishment should be applied or not, once the usual additional benefits of punishment are ruled out (negative incentives, rehabilitation, etc.). 'Mercy' would be the virtue by which one decides not to take revenge in these circumstances, a type of generosity and also a sign that one shows genuine (possibly universal) sympathy towards their peers, since taking revenge would be acceptable and there is no need to spare the wrong-doer (obviously other, higher-order deceit strategies could still be at play in this case).
The usual euphemism for the feeling I am referring to is the desire for justice.
Comment: thanks! This is a great insight. I appreciate it a lot!
Answer: A reason? Implying, from outside of moral reasoning? Or like, using intersubjectivity reasoning, which resulted in the end of feudal bloodline/racist governance, ideas like universal citizenship, and adoption of catch phrases like "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights" in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
You can look to game theory: Is the tyrannicide perpetrated by William Tell morally legitimate? And I'd argue this can explain the end of indenture, serfdom, debt & chattel slavery, colonialism, and segregation & apartheid. They became intrinsically unstable, in the face of technology replacing human labour, & the requirement for educated workers. You can look at it as an r/K reproductive strategy shift, from large numbers of offspring to fewer with much more investment also, and a requirement for greater wealth & knowledge distribution for that investment to be possible, with societies displacing or reorganising countries that fail to adopt the new strategies - just like previous waves of social & technological change.
You can note that in general capacity to cooperate with other humans is an individuals greatest resource: What ethical philosophy can decide between me eating or not? Again cooperation gives everyone in extremis more chance to survive, & avoids a lose-lose fight. Chimps require a ruler to have a supportive core team, vs gorillas where it's the strongest individual - and humans are far weaker individually than either. There's the detailed quantified arguments by economists Wilson & Pickett, in 'The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better' & 'The Inner Level: How More Equal Societies Reduce Stress, Restore Sanity and Improve Everyone's Well-being', too.
There's a cross-culturally stable low percentage of psychopaths, who haven't inherited or developed the internal mechanisms that keep people acting ethically even against their interests & when they will face no (direct/immediate) consequences. Some jobs benefit from these traits, like being a surgeon. Company executives are more likely than average to have psychopathic traits, but at cost to the businesses they run. See Jon Ronson's book 'Strange Answers to the Psychopath Test', and Ted Talk of the same name, for the data.
TLDR: Intersubjectivity underpins our communication & collaborative intelligence, through treating others as like ourselves. That requires justice & fairness to be sustained, or instabilities happen that can destroy the whole social structure (eg fall of Rome, quality of life of citizens not matched anywhere for around 1500 years).
Comment: Being a surgeon benefits from psychopathic traits?
Comment: @TKoL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy_in_the_workplace See 'The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success', Dutton. Look at clinical definition of a (functional) psychopath, sounds pretty much like cliche of a surgeon. Resistance to burnout due to stress, responsibility, & failures, are v key not only to disproportionate psychopaths being surgeons, but it actually helping (unlike with CEOs, the job with most disproportionate number of psychopaths of all). I see it as a neurodiversity issue, for society to harness & manage these traits
Answer: You already have the reasons for punishment in the first place, to discourage repetition/imitation of a bad action.
So what is the reason to have "fair and just" punishment? Because humans generally have a strong desire for fairness and justice, especially when it pertains to them personally, as well as desiring order and safety.  So having laws, and punishments for those that break the law, appeals to the latter desires, and having laws that are deemed fair and just by society also appeals to those desires.
Imagine you lived in a world without codified laws and where punishments for breaking them were sadistic and cruel.
Would you feel a sense of order or safety knowing that at any moment of any day you could just be going about your life and a unit of armed soldiers could show up, claim that scratching your nose was illegal that day, take you away in chains and throw you in a dungeon to be tortured to death?
Or would you live in fear and anxiety?
You would not feel order or safety in a world with no laws where malicious people could run around committing terrible acts against innocent people without any kind of punishment either. You would live in fear and anxiety there too.
If you were accused of breaking the law, you would want a fair and just system, where you could clear your name. Again this gives you a sense order and safety.
Even if you committed a crime you would want the punishment to be fair and just, not because you desired order and safety (or else you wouldn't have committed the crime in the first place), but out of selfish interest, so that even though you might be punished, the punishment will not be cruel and unusual.
So having fair laws and just punishments is important to keeping order and safety in society.
In a broader picture fairness and justice are not very important at all. "Mother Nature" is hardly fair or just. Stupidity, poor judgement and physical weaknesses are often met with death in the realm of Nature.
Look at a mousetrap; is it "fair" that a mouse gets killed just because it wants to fulfill a basic need for food? No.
But it isn't fair that you should have to put up with destructive rodents chewing holes in your walls, eating your food and spreading filth and germs in your house either.
Your desires and the mice's desires are opposed.
So what happens? Since you are the more intelligent and more powerful creature you win. And you get rid of the mice. And that is Nature's way, not fair or just.
Justice and fairness are part of human society and important to maintaining human society, but also mostly confined to human society.
I guess the reason is that it's part of what makes us human.
Comment: I feel like a lot of the things you said in this answer had hardly anything to do with the question, but thanks anyway.
Comment: @porcupinepaul I disagree. Given your question, "Is there any moral reasoning behind punishment?" I think they made a decent attempt at giving you some obvious moral reasoning: primarily "to discourage repetition/imitation of a bad action" with the follow-up proviso that the punishment should fit the crime (which wasn't always the case historically, and continues not to always be the case nowadays.) You can't dictate the sort of answers you want. If you want different sorts of answers, ask a different question.
Comment: @igravious yes some parts were relevant. But I don't see what the fairness of a mouse trap has to do with it.
Comment: @porcupine paul  Because humans mainly care about fairness & justice only when it concerns other humans, & a concern for fairness & justice is an innate human desire. The reasoning then? Fairness & justice are needed to operate human society. As opposed to animal society which operates mainly on physical dominance. A wolf killing a rabbit isn't a fair act, but we don't consider the wolf a murderer or evil for doing it, they're just animals. We hold ourselves above animals, without things like fairness & justice to define our society, we're no better than animals, & we'd act exactly like them.
Comment: @Shojo Dagger I know that fairness and justice are important. I was wondering why punishments are fair and just.
Answer: On the simplest level, punishment is a natural social desire for balance and empathy. If someone punches you in the arm, you punch them in the arm; if someone takes your shovel, you take it back. That way the other person immediately feels the pain and deprivation you felt, and (ostensibly) comes to understand your feelings as their own. There's a certain amount of transferability, of course. If a child breaks a window, we don't normally break one of the child's windows; instead we punish children in ways they understand, so that they get a proportionate sense of pain or deprivation that will give them a grasp on how we feel.
Of course, the real world is rarely that simple, and all sorts of things can throw this dynamic out of whack:

Some events cause so much pain that it is difficult to find a proportional punishment that will lead to
Some people (through an unfortunate twist of nature, poor nurturing, or toxic social environments) find empathy difficult:

such people (when they do wrong) cannot accept punishment as a moment of balance and self-reflection, but see it merely as a wrong done against them without cause
such people (when they are wronged) are not satisfied by balanced punishment, and seek to inflict endlessly greater amounts of punishment on those who wronged them

Some situations are so alienated and distanced that punishment stops being an effort to reach empathetic understanding, and instead becomes a performative act meant to display political, social, or religious ideals.

In those cases we generally find people — not the wronged or the wrong-doer, but the others around them in society — reaching for concepts like fairness, justice, moral/ethical rigor, universality, and the like. These abstract concepts are meant to set measures and boundaries on how much punishment is appropriate to achieve the desired state of empathetic understanding, and then impose these measures and boundaries on those who are incapable of seeing or applying them. Societies don't often live up to such abstract concepts, obviously, but a society that lacked such abstractions would not remain a society for long, but would collapse into anarchy and clan feuds.
Answer: The community applying punishment limits the potential for revenge.
This indirectly implies the punishment is fair otherwise the aggrieved party would still want further revenge.
Answer: I will present a not well-known but classical argument that is often ingrained into our current judicial systems. The argument is underdeveloped in Kant's philosophy of right and later fully developed by Fichte.
Fichte argues in his Foundations of Natural Right that legal punishment is, in a sense, a fulfillment of the original intention of a rational perpetrator.
Outline of the argument
If the perpetrator acts rationally, they know that what they do is wrong. If they nevertheless realize the immoral intention fully knowing that it is wrong, they also know that the moral thing would be not to do it or at least even out that wrong. These considerations have to be assumed to be present (or possible) as part of a rational perpetrator's intention/volition. Accordingly, this action can and should be followed by some kind of corrective action in accordance with the perpetrator's own intention/volition. Even worse, not punishing them would, the argument continues, reject them the recognition as a rational/moral agent. It would mean they lose any chance to reach what they cannot reach by themselves - a moral conclusion. Even if they "cannot" act good, they still want to bring about a moral state, so it is on us to do so.
Modern legal practice
This is pretty close to how most legal systems act in practice these days: If the perpetrator is irrational, ie. criminally insane, or the intention did not include certain unforeseeable consequences, or they are too young to have comprehended the consequences of their doings, these people can not be punished for those things that they could not comprehend or possibly foresee. For example, someone who has a distorted conception of good, ie. who really thinks what they've done is good while they've committed atrocities, will rather be considered pathological, ie. criminally insane, rather than be fully punished for what they've done.
In short: We only punish those who are able of moral considerations, which in turn means that a punishment is, in a sense, also the recognition of a perpetrator as a moral agent whose intention/volition at least could have involved all relevant moral considerations.
Rephrasing and summary
The moral reason for legal punishment is that if the perpetrator is a moral agent, ie. someone who acts (rationally?! - loaded word) considering good and bad, their intention/volition will involve moral considerations. They fully know but are unable to enact what is good. Therefore, we, as a moral community, only recognize them as moral agents by taking corrective measures, fulfilling their (to some part moral) intention to the full extent.
This theory does not necessarily stand in conflict with the classical theories of legal punishment because it does not lay out by which mechanism the measures are thought to be corrective. It is on a more abstract level.
Comment: Thanks, this is a great answer!
Comment: A rational perpetrator? What the hell is Fichte tal(k)ing about? Do you really think these exist in the real world? Maybe in the totally abstract thinking of Fichte...
Comment: @DescheleSchilder The question asked for moral reasoning in favour of punishment, this is a locus classicus for such a reasoning. At no point did I personally endorse any of the content. Please do not let your personal belief or feelings cloud your judgement here.


How long should brake pads last?

Question: My son is new to comuting by bicycle. He brought a brand new bike and after just one week was having problems with the brakes. He only rides approximately 6–8 miles a day. Halfords advised that his brakes need replacing. Is this right?
Comment: Are these disc or rim brakes? And if rim brakes then what kind? Or give the name of the bike.
Comment: Also, please describe "problems" more in detail. Is is lack of stopping power? Abnormal sounds?
Comment: It's all over the map.  I get several thousand miles from my brake pads, others get a few hundred.  However, it's extremely unlikely that someone could wear out a set of pads in 50 or so miles, unless the brakes were badly misadjusted from the start or the rider was intentionally riding with the brakes on.
Answer: On Rim Brakes:
I'd be surprised if you managed to wreck a set of brake pads in a week (or even several hundred miles in nasty commuting weather). Off road riding (MTB, cyclocross, etc.) can chew through a set of pads within a ride or two though depending on the terrain and the technicality of the ride. If they're trying to sell you new pads on a bike (instead of possibly adjusting them), I'd be very suspicious.
You can tell if you need new pads by either (a) the pads have been on there for a few years and the rubber has hardened up and they aren't working or (b) if its due to wear,

new pads look like the top , old pads look like the bottom [the grooves should be nearly gone] (Image from here).
[The bottom pads have a lip on them, which indicates that they weren't aligned properly to begin with. If your pads have just developed a lip, you can cut it off and use the pad as normal after re-aligning the pad.]
If they want to replace the whole brake, then there may be something wrong with the brake that you haven't mentioned (bent brake arm, or something).
On Disc Brakes:
If the bike has disc brakes, one reason why the pads may need to be replaced is if they have gotten oil on them, in which case they do need to be replaced (and the rotors cleaned).
In all cases:
You should really go back and ask them why they want to replace the brakes/brake pads to begin with. Pictures of the situation would help too.
Answer: Just to give you a boundary case on how quickly pads can and do wear have a look at my current bike:
I replaced my rear brake pads in Nov 2012.  It is now almost March 2013 - so 4 months have passed.  My rear brake pad is totally worn and riding metal on metal.  I am going to replace it next weekend.
Here are my stats:

4 Months Riding
30 Days/month
1.1 KM commute (each way)
Work 5 days a week

Distance due to commuting: 95 KM
It is possible that I have ridden an equal distance running other errands, but I would think that I am over estimating the "Other distance".
So, Total Distance on a single pair of brake pads: between 100 and 200 KM.

Circumstances making the pads wear out faster:

Winter - The roads are sandy/snowy/slushy and wet.  I assume that (despite having fenders) that my pads are getting lots of shit on them.  I assume the rims are picking up the crap and dumping it on the pads.
Intersections - I cross three major intersections on the way to work.  I (almost) always need to come to a complete stop at these and usually track stand for several minutes until the light changes.  I am wondering if locking my back brake during track stands is causing excess wear.
Low quality Pads - I am not sure if I bought cheap pads.  Bought them at MEC (Canadian equivalent to REI).  They only had one choice in stock.
Lack of maintenance - Rather than cleaning pads or my rims on my beater winter bike, I prefer to do a full bike service once or twice a year.  I guess that if I cleaned the pads more frequently they may last longer.  I am not convinced however.  I think as soon as they hit the road they would be full of salt again.  My city loves to layer salt onto the road.

Just to be clear I would expect pads to normally last longer.  I am merly saying that it depends on a variaty of factors including:

Maintenance
Mileage
Amount of stops/KM
Quality of Pads
Quality of Rims (smoother rims may make pads last longer?)
Road conditions
Other things - track stands using rear brake?

Note: I Copied my answer from another question.
Comment: Scott CR1 race-bike, reaching 10.000km in 2.5years still on the first set of brake pads. As far as I can judge there's no visible wear yet. (Ultegra pads/Mavic rims)
Comment: @Carel - Totally.  Brake pads can last for a VERY long time.  I just wanted to provide a lower bound on how long they could last.  The brake pads on my summer bikes typically last for *years*.

How long should brake pads last?


Is there a wall outlet power meter that I can interface with from a computer?

Question: I'm wondering if there is a wall outlet power meter that I can somehow interface with from a computer. I'm aware of all the google power meter products, but those are for an entire house. I'm trying to measure the electricity usage of a single outlet during an experiment without having to physically read the power meter and recording the result. Let me know if I need to explain anything.
Answer: If you're willing to do a little modification, you can use a Kill-A-Watt and hook it up to your computer.
Adafruit has a "Tweet-a-Watt" project that interfaces with a Kill-A-Watt and wirelessly sends the power readings to the receiving unit (which they then hooked up to tweet the current readings)

In the Adafruit forums, I found a guy who was trying to read the Kill-A-Watt directly with an Arduino, instead of wirelessly sending the readings. You could use an Arduino and read the measurements directly into a serial console on your computer and save the results to a file that way.
Comment: This sounds like a good, cheaper alternative, but I'm trying to avoid custom hardware work for this project since the power meter is just one small part of it.
Comment: Our public library lends out Kill-a-Watts, but they seem to be limited to 15Amps, check yours.  Not sure there is a 20Amp version.
Answer: Equal Networks makes a power strip that relays power consumption through Wi-Fi. It looks like the target customer is commercial use, not residential, since I couldn't find pricing information on their site.
Product data sheet.
Comment: This also looks like a good solution. I'll consider it too. I'll up vote your answer when I get enough rep :) thanks
Comment: Links are dead (404).
Comment: I fixed one, but I couldn't find the data sheet one on their website again.
Comment: Here's its [patent](http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2011/0298301.html). We've come full circle on Google searches for Equal Networks power strip, I'm afraid. This question is currently the third hit.
Answer: In addition if you spend the extra money on a TED Device you can still use that at the device level doesn't have to be connected to your whole house.
Comment: http://www.theenergydetective.com/tedprolite.html
Answer: I +1 the Kill-a-watt option, however that does require manual reading.  But at $20 it's cheap.
If you want to go quite high-end, there's the option of a metered PDU.  I recently bought a tripplite rackmountable PDU for power control on computers.  It also includes quite an array of measurements of power draw and so on.  The one I got didn't have a programmable API, but it did have a web interface so I just wrote an expect script to get the data I needed and invoke power cycling operations.
Answer: You can use Modlet using hacklet to monitor power.  Only $50 bucks.
http://hackaday.com/2013/07/27/hacklet-adds-linux-control-for-the-modlet-smart-outlet/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+hackaday%2FLgoM+%28Hack+a+Day%29
Answer: You might be able to pick up a metered rack pdu off ebay.  Normally these are quite expensive but a second hand one may do the job.  These often come with web interfaces and provide detailed power consumption per port.
You'll need to obtain one that will work with standard electrical outlets though as some of them are 3 phase.
e.g. something like:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/APC-AP7830-Metered-Rack-PDU-20A-120V-24x-NEMA-5-20R-/281141812282?pt=US_Power_Distribution_Units&hash=item41755b9c3a
Answer: Reviews on this product sound awful which wireless often is.  Appears to be Kill-A-Watt brand.
JAYBRAKE P4200 P3 P4200 Kill-A-Watt(R) Wireless Monitor With Carbon Footprint Meter
http://amzn.com/B009SDXB7Y
Answer: I expect this would be a good (and safer) option if wired up to a raspberry Pi or arduino or similar:
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11005