Is asking 'why is this question being downvoted' acceptable here?

Question: Searching this site seems to show conflicting answers. Take, for instance, Can you explain why my question was downvoted? - the top answer is highly upvoted. But the question (the Meta question) is downvoted. So - is it acceptable or not?
Comment: Note that meta voting is different from other StackOverflow sites. A down-vote here does not mean that someone thinks you've posted a poor meta question, but rather just that they disagree with your question's premise. Also a down-vote here has no effect on your reputation or ability to ask questions.
Comment: @ispiro it's not not *accepted*, it's just discouraged and for the majority of cases, bringing a down-voted question to the attention of the core meta crowd (who are typically more interested in quality than other users) and asking them to *look* for reasons to down-vote it, is going to lead to more down-votes.
Comment: A *lot* of questions get down-voted on the main site, if everyone came here to ask why, we'd be flooded.
Comment: @Braiam Yes, but a down-voted question has already had some people decide it's worthy of a down-vote. If you come and ask why it was down voted from people who more than likely weren't the voters, you're asking them to imagine anything they could find in your question worthy of a down-vote. If a question is good quality and had a couple of down-votes, it may get some up, but in the **majority** of cases (as I said), it's going to be down votes.
Comment: *Ban on meta only.* I thought that was just on the Meta.StackExchange site.
Comment: @HovercraftFullOfEels I know the difference. But in this case, it a) doesn't make much sense. b) There are conflicting vote patterns on these questions. About `a down-vote here has no effect on your ... ability to ask questions` - is inexact. It _can_ ban you from asking questions here on meta.
Comment: @TZHX So you're saying it's not accepted? If so - you can post that as an answer. And while you're at it, perhaps you have an explanation as to why some of these questions are upvoted...
Comment: I don't think that that's true. I don't think that down-votes on *meta* can ban you from asking questions on meta or on the SO site.
Comment: @HovercraftFullOfEels Ban on meta only. (I now clarified my comment above.) Try it, ask many bad questions and see... :)
Comment: @TZHX actually, it normally leads to more "votes" in general.
Comment: I suspect that upvotes are rarely a result of the meta effect.
Answer: It's OK to ask after you've done your research.  Have you sat down and read your question like someone who knows nothing about your question?  Is it useful, clear, researched?  Or is it closer to not showing research effort, unclear or not useful?  If you've done your best (and can explain what you've done and found) it is ok.  We want to help people learn how to ask better questions, but like the main site, we expect you to try to solve it for yourself first and not outsource your thinking at the first sign of trouble.
Also, asking about it for a single downvote is just annoying.  One vote doesn't necessarily mean your question is bad.  A couple means it's time to take a look at it.
Answer:
So - is it acceptable or not?

It was marked as a (valid) duplicate.
Duplicates are acceptable in general, since they can build up a network of useful questions and answers that can be reached from many entry points.
Though an obvious duplicate lacking enough research from the OP's side is prone for downvotes because the question was more or less trivial.
Answers for such duplicates are still answers and live in the answer universe.

The pattern of downvoted questions and highly upvoted answers is pretty usual on Meta Stack Overflow (and other site specific Meta sites). May be Shog9's answer here sheds a bit of light on it.
Comment: @ispiro the "no research effort" is still a criteria for down votes on meta -- the highly up-voted answer to that question is basically an expanded version of the down-vote tool-tip, slightly tailored to the specific case.
Comment: Thanks. Though this doesn't make too much sense in this case, since if it's a duplicate - it means it shouldn't be answered. And I'm surprised that the respectable answerer there chose to answer it. Downvoted questions with upvoted answers make more sense in cases of feature requests.
Comment: @ispiro _it means it shouldn't be answered_ There are often answers for duplicates, that doesn't mean these are invalid actually. I didn't look at your particular sample so far. Maybe for that particular case you're right.


How to publish a page to two sites?

Question: I am using SharePoint 2007 Enterprise + Publishing portal template + Windows Server 2008. I have a root site and a sub-site. I want to enable the following function -- when the sub-site administrator publishing a page, the administrator could select to publish to the sub-site only or publish to both root site and sub-site.
Any ideas how to implement this? I am not sure whether there is any ready-to-use solution without writing code?
thanks in advance,
George
Answer: Are you thinking about something along the lines of what SharePoint Content Deployment offers?
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263428.aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/stefan_gossner/archive/2009/10/30/content-deployment-the-complete-guide-part-1-the-basics.aspx

How to publish a page to two sites?


Convincing a student it's OK to move on to another problem

Question: I'm tutoring a very bright middle school student in a difficult geometry class. He understands most of the material, but struggles with some of the hardest problems and proofs. I find that when he goes through his homework, he gets stuck on the very hard problems and refuses to move on to another more than once, preventing him from finishing in time. I think his desire to solve every problem is good, but I am unwilling to give too much help with his homework, so in these problems I've given all the help I'm willing to give and he sits for hours trying to figure them out. I have tried to convince him he would be well-advised to move on and come back to the problem with a fresh mind, but he has a problem with skipping "too much" (more then one problem) for fear he won't get back to the skipped problems. How can I convince him to give the problem a rest for now and work on something else?
Comment: Perhaps relevant might be the following question (and my response, I hope): http://matheducators.stackexchange.com/q/2397/262
Comment: Try to have him do the problems in order of difficulty.
Answer: Nothing ironclad, but I have a couple of ideas. I hope they're of use.
It's admirable that he has persistence in solving problems. This is, of course, an important mathematical practice identified by many (not to mention codified in CCSS.MATH.PRACTICE.MP1: "Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them."
Most often teachers of mathematics must work to instill students with a sense that problem solving takes time, to counter a common view that "smart people" or "people who are good at math" are people who "get the answer," and quickly.
But persevering is only part of the story. It's important to help students develop an ability to learn with and from others (Martin, 2007). It's important to understand that collaboration is an appropriate activity when you're learning, and it's important to reflect on progress to know when one's own activity in solving a problem is productive.
Reflecting on progress (metacognition)
I know of no formulaic way to teach this, I only know that it can be helpful to get students to think not only about the problem, but about their own thinking about the problem. To take a slightly different example, there has been research asking students to track certain emotions during problem solving to gather data on their experience of problem solving (Lesh, 2010). Reflecting on this data helped some students realize that the feeling of discomfort that accompanied a difficult problem often came just before a necessary change in thinking. This changed the way they thought about (and experienced) those feelings in the future.
I'm not suggesting you turn reflection into a modelling activity (well, not necessarily), but one part of the approach taken in that study was a periodic approach to reflection. In other words, after a certain amount of time, the students were asked to record their emotions. In the case of OP's student, I suggest establishing a certain amount of time after which he or she reflects on whether the struggle is productive. You can probably come up with a good list of indicators of progress. Here are a few to start:

What have we ruled out since the last check?
What have we learned since the last check?
Can we list one or more avenues we haven't ruled out yet?

In any case, with a decent list, you can help a student discover for him or herself just how productive the struggle is.
Collaboration
Learning appropriate collaboration is important (Martin, 2007). We rarely are completely alone in our investigations; our social resources include talking to other people, consulting books, searching the Internet, etc. Depending on the task, some of these are appropriate, and some are not.
However, it's almost always appropriate to at least talk about the problem with a peer who has not solved the problem yet (or a teacher/tutor who can listen and prompt appropriately rather than lecture). Compared to either struggling unproductively or looking up an answer, discussing the problem has distinct advantages. First, it can help a student expose thinking about the problem. Second, collaborating ideas means the possibility of having to argue and justify. Third, mathematical sense-making sometimes benefits from a change of perspective, which another set of eyes can help with.
These are skills that students often do not experience in a classroom, so if they can get experience engaging in them outside of the classroom, that is a kind of productivity beyond finding a solution. Though, of course, it can help get the student on a more productive path toward solution.

Cited:
Lesh, R. (2010). Tools, researchable issues & conjectures for investigating what it means to understand statistics (or other topics) meaningfully. Journal of Mathematical Modelling and Application, 2(1), 16.
Martin, T. S. (Ed.). (2007). Mathematics teaching today (2nd ed.). Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
Answer: Consider pointing out how much each of the homework questions are worth. If his motivation is intrinsic, then how much will you learn from trying and failing to do this problem rather than doing the easier ones you already know how to do? If extrinsic, then note how much the problems are worth.
Another thing I would point out is that if you do all the easier questions, you will have gained a better understanding of the material, and be better prepared to tackle the harder question. One of the most important things I've ever been told in mathematics is to "try some small numerical examples." It is annoying, but it improves intuition with proofs, and ultimately saves time.
Also, if one skips a bunch of problems, and doesn't have time to go back to them, then one wouldn't have had time to finish them all without skipping in the first place. Skipping doesn't cost as much time as it appears it will because often homework is designed to improve understanding.
Hope this helps.
Answer: In my experience (both as a student and as a tutor), the best way to deal with question on both tests and homework is a triage-style system:

Look at all the questions, and take care of those that you know you can answer quickly; whatever you can't skip and come back to it ( = take the low-hanging fruit first).
On the second pass, don't answer anything, but take note of (and
maybe mark on the test/homework sheet) those answers that you known
that you can answer for sure, but would take a little more effort (these
are the ones that you should attack first on the third pass), and
those that you're not certain that you can answer.
Third pass: answer those questions you marked in the second pass.
Then, if there's any time left over, you can deal with those monster
questions that eat up so much time.

In my own experience as a high-school student, there is a possibility of a near-infinite loop between the third and fourth steps.....that's not a problem, as long as time is being spent productively, i.e. thinking about the questions as opposed to just looking at them.
One thing I hadn't even thought of until JPBurke mentioned it in a comment was that this method will help in a different way, namely that by looking at all the questions first, a student may be reminded of things that were known and forgotten, and has a great ability to help answer problems that were skipped the first or second time around.
Comment: For the record, I hadn't ever used the word `triage` for my system until I was thinking of a way to describe it here ;) ....hope it helps!
Comment: I like how you laid out the review process systematically. If someone is "in the weeds" on homework, sometimes the issues really are organizational.

One thing you left out is how this applies to mathematics specifically. Often, in a group of related problems, working the problems you already know will help you think about the principles involved in the ones that you're struggling with. It's not just a confidence-builder or a warm up; by thinking about those problems you're reminding yourself of mathematical connections that may be useful resources.
Answer: I have a rule, which is called the 90% rule. Love it or hate it, it works for people in employment, as well as for students, and right now, this student, is not going to do well as a student, or in life unless they learn the 90% rule. Teaching them my 90% rule, will prepare them for exams.
The 90% rule, is that they need to aim to solve as much as they can within a fixed time frame. Its better to answer, and solve 90% of an exam, and miss out on 10% due to time constraints, then to focus on the 10%, and fail the exam miserably.
I would set fixed study times, 90mins max. At the end of 90mins, mark them on what they have solved so far. Tell them they have failed. After the 90mins, let them work on whatever, but everyday, dont help them for that 90minute period, and emphasize their mark, and if they failed or not and sure enough they will change their tactics.
In real life, I have seen people get fired for not-following the 90% rule. A process worker got canned, as accepted too many "difficult" repair jobs, following the 90% rule, he would have done the quick and easy ones, and after reaching minimum target levels could have done a few from the "too hard" basket. Fixing 10-20 complicated repair jobs when 60-80 they can do 60-80 repairs for the easy ones, makes them look slow, incompetent, and ultimately fired.
The value of people that can work on something until they solve it is worth almost zero, if you have nothing to show for an entires day work, and if anything, makes it clear to employers that you are not suitable, or smart enough for the job. In real world terms, doing 90% of your tasks quickly, and the remaining 10% in whatever time you have left, will let you keep your job.
Comment: There's another version of the 90% rule, which states that "The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninety-ninety_rule). These homework problems are not necessarily any different. This relates to your rule, in that your rule says to focus on the areas of diminishing returns last (or never if time expires).
Answer: Geometry can be very frustrating for bright students who excel with the linear nature of Algebra. That said, it is incumbent upon you to see what is stumping him. What is it about the "hard" problem that is causing him to be stumped about what to do next? Is there a pattern of difficulty? With Geometry, it's "what does what we know, tell us?" When he gets stuck, maybe it's time to list what we know and where each piece of the knowledge leads us. Also, working backwards can help.
Perseverance is a great thing and I don't think we should encourage a student to give up. Certainly the problem has a solution and he should continue to work towards it. The problem here is not that he doesn't know when to quit but rather he doesn't know how to solve the problem.
Answer: While we've gotten good test-taking skills offered, I think they miss an important part of the question.

he has a problem with skipping "too much" (more then one problem) for
  fear he won't get back to the skipped problems. How can I convince him
  to give the problem a rest for now and work on something else?

Two things.
1st. He has an (irrational) fear. We know he can skip the problem and come back but he can't do that. Even if he moves on to another problem, he'll still be thinking about it while he's trying to do the next. If he skips two problems then it only compounds the situation. You can not reason someone out of an irrational fear. They can only be  convinced by experience that there is nothing to fear. Have him skip a problem on purpose (say #3) and then come back to it later. I like the idea of ranking the problems by difficulty but he's still going to run into the blockage problem eventually.
2nd. The value judgement that he needs to move on. The problem isn't that he won't move on, it's that he doesn't know what to do. Organizing his knowledge so he can see the connections between the different parts might help. I often had students in geometry who would get stumped because they didn't "see it". I would try to get them to break the problem down. What do we know? What do we want? These two lines are parallel. What are all the thing we know from that? These two angles are congruent. What are all the things that tells us? Maybe use index cards to record theorems and properties. Pull out the ones that apply to that problem. You mentioned proofs. Can he do a flow-chart or paragraph proof or does it have to be two-columns?
Sorry, but it just frosts me that as educators we would encourage him to move on.
Comment: I'm a high school student who took a class this level about 6 years ago. I was unable to solve this problem after spending half an hour doing it by hand, and eventually I only was able to solve the problem with a computer. It's one of the harder problems from an old AIME, and it was specially marked as "very challenging". At this point (after half an hour spent on this one problem) I thought he needed a break from the problem and it would be a better use of his time to switch to another one.
Comment: I had already offered all the help I was willing to give on a problem that was for-credit, I would be willing to spend more time on it, after it is due (and after the problems he *can* solve are finished) to get to a solution, for the sake of his learning.


Broken gear shift?

Question: Last week I bought a 2004 Ford Focus. It has 170,000 mi on it. I was told the transmission and clutch were new. Last night, (and this evening), I was trying to teach my daughter how to drive "stick". She repeatedly stalled, bogged and bucked the car. Now the gear shifter seems broken. It will only move straight up and down- loosely. It will not engage. Luckily, the transmission is stuck in 1st gear so I was able to drive it home. Could we have literally broken something?? Last night it stalled and bucked quite a few times with a loud "clunk". It sounded really bad.
Comment: I have the same issue on my toyota vios, after turning on my car and shift to gear 1 it works, but then when i tried shift to gear 2 , it broke. And as far as i remember there was a time maybe 3-5 days before it happened, there was a weird click sound after shifting to gear 3 , i think that started it all. may i ask how much you pay for service? And what could be the potential prevention? This actually happened after a month of the service maintenance.
Answer: This doesn't sound like a problem with the transmission itself, or the clutch,  more likely it's the linkage that has a problem. The Focus uses cables to transfer stick movement to the transmission, the problem could be in the stick, the cables, or the cable transmission mounts have come loose. As you say the transmission was worked on recently then my money would be on the mounts, either they were not put back on properly or the bushings failed.
What to do depends on how confident a mechanic you are. If you know your way around you could have a look under the hood, the mount is apparently near the fusebox, you'll need to remove the battery. If that's not the problem then you could have a look at the shifter assembly and see if a pin or something else has failed. If the mount has come loose you can put it back on, there's a couple of videos on youtube about how to do that. If the bushing or retainer has broken then they can be cheaply replaced. If the cables have failed or there's a problem with the linkage then you'd need to think about whether you've got the tools, time, and skill to replace it.
Otherwise, I would recommend taking the car back to the shop that replaced the transmission so they can look at it. If it was recently done then the work should be under warranty, and that would include making sure that the mounts are on correctly. If it turns out a different part of the linkage is busted then they're the best people to fix it.

Broken gear shift?


How can one measure the quality of art?

Question: In art (music, painting, etc.), is it meaningful to say that this piece is better than this one? I can understand somebody saying "I have more feelings, I'm more touched when I listen to this song rather than this one", but we often hear "this painting is crap". What makes a professional musician opinion more valuable, for example (not talking about technique, which can --somehow-- be measured)?
Comment: I think you mean "measure the value of art" or "measure the quality of art." As written, that's not what the questions says.
Answer: There is no universal agreed upon answer, but personally I would be a little Aristotelian about it: art has a purpose, and the degree that it is fit to that purpose is the degree that it is great art.
Some would say that the purpose of art is to make our surrounding more pleasant. It is to make us feel good, so we may judge whether lots of people "like" something to determine its value. Under this definition, even a soothing wallpaper pattern or elevator music could count as art, and professional opinion is valueless compared to the aggregation of millions of "likes". Personally I think art is different from decoration, or at least great art is much more than decoration.
I have heard a definition of art that art is what the art community says is art. There are various traditions of creating art, and the artists in those traditions can evaluate what is actually part of those traditions. Professional opinion is all that counts as it takes training to evaluate how well a piece of art maintains a particular tradition or not. This is probably a gross simplification of the position, but I'm not happy with this definition, as I think there is a universal and timeless quality to art beyond what a community of artists may define it to be.
Some would suggest that the purpose of art is to embody or communicate emotions and ideas, usually in a metaphorical way that gives it a general applicability that prose does not have. When we see great art, we feel something more, or understand something more than we did before, even if we can't say what it is. It is also accessible beyond a select group of people; it tries to communicate with everyone.
Art seems to have a language all of its own, and the way that we respond to art is largely determined by the associations we have with art from a similar tradition. These associations are like the language that we have picked up by previously being exposed to art. Some art languages we seem to pick up naturally, just as we pick up our native spoken language. Some languages take more work.
In this perspective, we can evaluate art by how well it uses the art languages from the traditions it draws on, and communicates to the desired audience. That audience may be people with only basic art language comprehension, or it may be people who have spent years learning artistic languages.
Maybe great art needs to have something to offer both audiences. There is a certain genius to just communicating to people using a small vocabulary, as shown by Dr. Seuss. But it has nothing for highly literate people, so it may be a stretch to call "Fox in Socks" great literature. Likewise, I think a book that can only be read and understood by a select few is no good at communicating, so it can not be great art.
Really great art seems to have a quality that allows it to transcend the art tradition in which it is based. It is almost like even if you don't fully understand it; you just know that it has a lot to say. So in that way, we can all judge great art to some extent, but it is good to have people around that can read it properly so we know whether it is really great or whether it is really just a babbling imposter.
Comment: @anderstood Hi, upvoted now :) I don't completely agree with that essay, so I won't really try to defend it myself, but the POV seems more coherent than would be expected. I think his response is essentially, to very poorly summarize: _Counting change is not harmed by new math theorems, but expecting new theorems to be appreciated for counting change hurts math theory. If a math theorem is to make a leap forward in counting change, it must develop mostly independently. Likewise popular Western music._ Got to talk to his granddaughter online - no point, but that was cool.
Comment: Great exposition! Let's look at related composer/music-theorist/music-critic: Expressed art has a precedent/context/willful-purpose and a given material articulation. It also has certain logical qualities that can be understood to a degree, elements of the 'language'. In music, some decided on simple harmonics ('just intonation'); some, pitch classes ('serialism'); different tones/temperaments ('xenharmonics'); others, rhythm/timbre/sliding-pitch/etc. These are the elements of the 'art language'. Regarding how one should create, [1 opinion here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbI4s33zeuQ).
Comment: @Richard: Nice answer! I especially liked the part on language. I don't agree with good art requiring good communication: for e.g., as a jazz fan, my favourite pieces are not the most easy-listening, yet, they are in my opinion, of far better quality than most commercial music.

dwn: Thank you for the link: interesting point of view; it would avoid much of the junk music we have today, but what about the happy and communicative part of music (e.g. when music brings big crowds to dance)? And don't forget to upvote Richard's answer if you liked it! :D
Comment: @anderstood I'm glad you liked my answer. I agree with your point about Jazz music. I actually think Jazz is wonderful at communicating to non-specialists; even the composers often had little formal training. But people have to get past their hang ups and listen properly to art they are not used to, rather than listening for 5 seconds before clicking on the "like" or "dislike" button. Good communication is not always easy-listening!
Comment: @dwn Interesting link. I personally do not think the music discussed which is only accessible to fellow professional musicians, is great art. However, what is learned from specialist-only art can be used to develop great art. I'm thinking about the development of minimalism from experiments like John Cage's 4'33" to almost mainstream with Phillip Glass and Mike Oldfield among other popular composers. So I think art is more like technology than maths. In the end it needs to be accessible and used to be truly great, though the hidden years of development are also important.
Comment: But should composers change their inspiration in order to suit audience? ([One more link; it's about 5 pages down](http://www.bruceduffie.com/blackwood.html)) It's _fun_ to hear something different, 'the small, unimportant pieces' like Blackwood's Microtonal Etudes, Guillaume Costeley's Seigneur Dieu ta Pitie, or [a brief Bach fantasy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9r2LmZAN_4). The funny thing is, I've heard it said Blackwood failed to make a modern Well-Tempered Clavier because he was stuck notationally in traditional idioms, and made a Frankenstein. But it's a great moment, let's hear it!
Comment: @dwn Interesting interview. I wonder if Blackwood underestimates the ability of a larger audience to appreciate his music. The way that people access great music these days (not limited by a 3 min radio slot) is in movies and computer game scores. But for the music to make the transition, composers should respect their audience. But a great composer is also like a great designer - Steve Jobs said they don't design what the public wants, because "people don't know what they want until you show them." So Apple designs with Blackwoods' sheltered innovation, but also makes sure that it is popular.
Comment: @dwn Although industrial design is definitely not art, maybe there are similarities? I would suggest that the broad purpose of both art and design is to be understood, used, and enjoyed, though in quite different ways, and in both design and art there is a tension between elite/cultured and popular. My point was that just as great design can bring an elite experience to more than just the super-rich, great art can bring a cultured experience to more than just art professionals. However, I would not want to push the analogy too far, as you point out there are many differences.
Comment: Sorry, my Internet connection is going crazy, I had erased my comment, because it did not really get at my point (in next comment due to character quotas)
Comment: @Richard That interview did not occur at a time when there were computer game scores. Movies had drawn much from musicians, and composers recognize and respect that. I don't know that they have added so much their improvements could be codified into a theory. I'm not certain I understand the example of Apple; computers exposed some academic and military technologies, so, yes, they were sheltered (although I dislike mouse). I don't think Blackwood is fighting anything, he doesn't expect much audience; he also speaks to the importance of organization for facilitating composition, in process.
Comment: @Richard I don't know that they have added so much their improvements could be codified into a theory. Computers exposed some academic and military technologies, so were sheltered, but still aren't great (kb layout, mouse). I don't think Blackwood is fighting anything, he doesn't expect much audience; he also speaks to the importance of organization for facilitating composition, which is slowly happening after him. It's rather straightforward really: someone needs to look at 12-et, fully map out the tetrads, compare it to tonnetz, make new topology from both, extend idea to 19-et.
Comment: @dwn For Apple and some other tech companies, the next generation of product is developed in "skunkworks" with the audience of only other professionals or miltary/elite products. The new technology is finally formed into something that can be used in an affordable/accessible way.  Blackwood said he researched atonal music for 10 years with no thought for mainstream adoption and talks about composing for cultured elite only, but I'm wondering whether this is like a developmental phase and great art can take the research and make the jump beyond the cultured elite, as minimalism has.
Comment: @dwn I also found his discussion of atonal music and alternative equal temperaments interesting, thanks for the link :-)
Comment: 2nd paragraph: that "non-art" like wallpaper can make the surroundings pleasant doesn't mean that it must be art; I'm not sure that anyone seriously tries to state that all things things that "make our surrounding more pleasant" (and only those things) are art, even if making the surroundings more pleasant is an integral component of art.
Comment: @Dave I was not intending a generality. As a child I did seriously regard clever geometric wallpaper as art, and thought Da Vinci was a hack. I know someone who bought a CD of elevator music and regarded it as equivalent to the originals. I know someone who bought a picture frame and hung it, with the give-away print still in the frame, next to a Kinkaid, without any ironic intent. There is nothing wrong with the above, but if my and their opinion of what is art counts as much as an expert's, how does one distinguish between art and decoration?
Answer: Given that establishing a unified, widely agreed-upon method of assessing aesthetic value is one of my own chief life projects, I can confidently state on the basis of much research that there is currently no one accepted, uncontroversial method of judging any one given piece of art as better than another.  What does exist is innumerable competing theories, many of which directly contradict each other.
Part of what makes this so difficult is that not only is there a lot of disagreement about what constitutes art in the first place (let alone good art), but there is also are a significant number of artists (Duchamp, Picasso, Cage, Warhol, Hirst, etc.) who have deliberately created artworks that challenge all prior notions of what can qualify as art.
If you want to see a broad overview of what some of the theories out there are, you might try Plato (art should serve a moral purpose), Aristotle (art stimulates the emotions), Kant (art is what we prize independent of any function), Beardsley (art is an experience) and Danto (art is what we perceive within an artistic context).
Answer: For a moment, let us assume that it is possible to define certain measures on various aspects of art as implicit in the question. Call them Aspect-1, Aspect-2, Aspect-3... which have corresponding measurement range and values {M1-A, M1-B, ...}, {M2-x, M2-y, ...}, {M3-LowerValue, M3-HigherValue} etc. Once this is done, Nothing stops us going further and define an aggregate metric for ultimate qualification: Set a rule for picking from some of those aspects, assign some weights to the measurement values of them and calculate a final "value"!
Note that some of the measurement values for a dimension/aspect (like aesthetics) would be {"crap", ..., "boring","mediocre", .., "master-piece", "shiny" } as well as {-10,0, 10} or {0% - 100%}
Just some problems with such an approach:

What are the aspects/dimensions/attributes to qualify art exhaustively? Who decides them?
How to assign metrics for those qualities? Who sets the ranges?
How to combine (or pick from) those qualities to reach the ultimate evaluation?
And most importantly, why to do that in the first place?

Note that, if, for some reason, one attempts to do so, he will possibly have to go to experts on each dimension for a reasonable metrics assignment. This still leaves the first question open. To appreciate a piano piece, would you go to a composer, a pianist, or a piano maker or to your father? Or is it best to consult a music historian or recording company? If you decide to get feedback from all of them, are you looking for consensus or make an average assessment? Should they weight equal then? How can you be sure the pianist, for instance, is marking it as crap subjectively as he hated the pieces because it caused so much pain in her early training?
My answer is that you cannot measure! Further reasons would be as follows:

Art is not a thing to "understand". We establish unique/personal relations with each  unique instance of artful creation.
As each art craft is unique, any measure, if there would be one, that would apply to one instance will not necessarily apply to the other as they are essentially distinct, unique entities.

-We cannot put away factors like ideology, capitalism, Hollywood-effect, etc.
-Different ages have different ways of approaching art (style, extend, subject, form etc.)
My personal experience, especially with piano music is that it all depends on the recreational potential of the relation that I establish with a piece: If it never seems to be consumable then I know it is, well, art. I don't need any other external reference for this. Actually, it does not matter if I call it art or something else let alone its degree of artfulness. I never wondered if a piece is art, or its size in any measurement system.
Comment: But do you consider your opinion regarding piano more valuable than that of a non-musician, or less valuable than that of Bach? If yes, it means that you used a measure doesn't it?
Comment: If you define "valuable", perhaps I would be able answer :) What is your metric for valuablesness? When choosing a movie to watch or read a book, sometimes I refer to critique sites. I do this for a number of reasons. Too many books or movies that I have no time to get them all. This is a practical issue. Second, especially after I watch/read, it is great to know what others (commenting ordinary people like me) say about what I have already done with. Remember also that Bach never was appreciated enough at his time:
Answer: Yes, there are many ways to measure the relative merits of two pieces of art against each other. The short answer is that it depends on what you want to measure art by. Do you want to measure it by technical proficiency, beauty or popularity (which may include how much someone is willing to pay for it)? Some of the most common tests are

Does the artwork show that the artist has mastered the technique he employed?
How intricate or technically difficult was the artwork to produce?
If the artwork was meant to elicit a specific response in the viewer/listener, how well did it succeed in doing so? This is probably the one you are after. E.g. is the song catchy and nice to listen to? Is the painting awe-inspiring? Does it make people talk? Does it cause a lot of controversy (aka "lively debate")?
If an artist tried to create a piece of art reminiscent of a certain movement or period, how many times did he fail to stick to the movement/period? I.e. how "pure" is it?
Answer: I personally define art as any attempt to be understood. The value of art -- I suppose, the quality -- may be some function of

The value of what is to be understood, whether it is a lesson, emotion, or bare fact.
Its effectiveness in being understood by its intended audience. This is a tough one, in that I certainly appreciate a lot of music that I can't say I fully understand -- but perhaps the intent was for me to understand an emotion, or the effect of a certain sound or technique... Perhaps there were many intentions, and I have appreciated some but not others. I also know that much great art is written so that it will be misunderstood -- see "The Road Not Taken," or the passage with the "must haves" in "The Great Gatsby." I don't want to say that the quality of the art is a function of its impact, or how much its audience appreciates it. But I'm relatively satisfied with the way I've phrased this -- "its effectiveness in being understood by its intended audience."
The uniqueness of that effort -- if I can have an audience understand a message that it could not otherwise easily understand, I may have accomplished something greater than if I had reiterated a thought that my audience already understood.
Other factors. I really don't know. I think it's subjective at the end of the day, but if it's a function, it certainly isn't this simple.
Answer: Damnable as it is, measuring the quality of anything a tediously audacious task to undertake.
Picasso's lines are considered "genius", while a toddler's fingers painting is seen a childish scribbling. Evey aspect of our human existence is a measurement of some type. Art is special in its formless until seen as such relevance to anyone who may take the time to comment on what they experience due to it's presence.
We are limited emotionally in this endeavor because we are still trying to find out the" why "of our" how ". I like classical music. I don't strain my senses with over interpreting which conductor or sympathy orchestra plays it more to my liking.
There is art in the form of a tornado. Watch it's entanglements become a moving a powerful work of destructive awe, and you have a measurement. You see either it's beauty or its terror. In any conclusion, we measure its affect upon us as an individual.
Glass blowing is a craft which yields a magnificent stay of artistically frozen moments of the artist's brilliance. But not in the opinion of every viewer. Some look, it done do not, subjection to one's own acceptance or free rejection for whatever reason, is why anything can be called " art "in the first place.
Rain falls, we hear it, and yet we pass it up as a function. Someone else may hear a pattern and a musical composition based upon what they have heard. Art; or nonsense?
Measurements require determinant thought. This site demands thinking or it demands dismissal. Someone who is reading this post, will disagree and see it as total gibberish. Still online else, will see it as a pathway to develop their own opinion.
I don't know if I've contributed anything which will be accepted as being cognizant, but this is measurement. Processed thinking upon a subject. Hopefully, we can arrive at the actual truth, rather than more questions. Like art; the Mona Lisa is beauteous to many, while hideous to still many others.
Mozart is noise to some, while it represent genius mind and form to many other people.
Still, further goes the search.

How can one measure the quality of art?


What's the point of adding Unicode identifier support to various language implementations?

Question: I personally find reading code full of Unicode identifiers confusing. In my opinion, it also prevents the code from being easily maintained. Not to mention all the effort required for authors of various translators to implement such support. I also constantly notice the lack (or the presence) of Unicode identifiers support in the lists of (dis)advantages of various language implementations (like it really matters). I don't get it: why so much attention?
Comment: lol ! Did you know that a world exists outside english speaking contries ? Amazign discovery, isn't it ?
Comment: I wish languages would focus on getting Unicode right in string handling and leave out the fancy unicode identifiers. Good programming resources are in English anyway (StackOverflow), so let's admit programming should be done in English (also makes sharing easier) and focus on implementing proper Unicode string manipulation.
Comment: deadalnix: I live in such a country, so we might use identifiers like `größe`. That said, I never do that and I strongly discourage doing that. Therefore, the quesition is very valid.
Comment: deadalnix: I've never been in an English speaking country so far. Why not paying attention to the actual question, not the questioner?
Comment: Do you mean names for things, or do you mean special characters like stars, lambdas and middle dots?
Comment: For some situations it does not make sense to translate a concept to English just to use it in identifiers, and if that term  then has a non-ASCII character in it, we have the problem.
Comment: _Identifier_ is usually understood as "names for things" such as variables, classes, functions, etc. Unicode defines which characters are suitable for use in identifiers. Lamdba (λ), being a (greek) letter, is suitable for use in identifiers. It's up to languages to determine whether λ is the same as Λ (Latin isn't the only script with upper- and lowercase.)
Comment: There is a distinct lack of one character identifiers in ASCII, you never needed more than 30 (in case insensitive languages with rules on identifiers)?
Answer: When you think unicode, you think Chinese or Russian characters, which makes you think of some source code written in Russian you've seen on the internet, and which was unusable (unless you know Russian).
But if unicode can be used in a wrong way, it doesn't mean it's bad by itself in source code.
When writing code for a specific field, with unicode, you can shorten your code and make it more readable. Instead of:
const numeric Pi = 3.1415926535897932384626433832795;
numeric firstAlpha = deltaY / deltaX + Pi;
numeric secondAlpha = this.Compute(firstAlpha);
Assert.Equals(math.Infinity, secondAlpha);

you can write:
const numeric π = 3.1415926535897932384626433832795;
numeric α₁ = Δy / Δx + π;
numeric α₂ = this.Compute(α₁);
Assert.Equals(math.∞, α₂);

which may not be easy to read for an average developer, but is still easy to read for a person who uses mathematical symbols daily.
Or, when doing an application related to SLR photography, instead of:
int aperture = currentLens.GetMaximumAperture();
Assert.AreEqual(this.Aperture1_8, aperture);

you can replace the aperture by it's symbol ƒ, with a writing closer to ƒ/1.8:
int ƒ = currentLens.GetMaximumƒ();
Assert.AreEqual(this.ƒ1¸8, ƒ);

This may be inconvenient: when typing general C# code, I would prefer writing:
var productPrices = this.Products.Select(c => c.Price);
double average = productPrices.Average()
double sum = this.ProductPrices.Sum();

rather than:
var productPrices = this.Products.Select(c => c.Price);
double average = productPrices.x̅()
double sum = productPrices.Σ();

because in the first case, IntelliSense helps me to write the whole code nearly without typing and especially without using my mouse, while in the second case, I have no idea where to find those symbols and would be forced to rely on the mouse to go and search them in the auto-completion list.
This being said, it's still useful in some cases. currentLens.GetMaximumƒ(); of my previous example can rely on IntelliSense and is as easy to type as GetMaximumAperture, being shorter and more readable. Also, for specific domains with lots of symbols, keyboard shortcuts may help typing the symbols quicker than their literal equivalents in source code.
The same, by the way, applies to comments. No one wants to read code full of comments in Chinese (unless you know well Chinese yourself). But in some programming languages, unicode symbols can still be useful. One example is footnotes¹.

¹ I certainly wouldn't enjoy footnotes in C# code where there is a strict set of style rules of how to write comments. In PHP on the other hand, if there are lots of things to explain, but those things are not very important, why not putting them at the bottom of the file, and create a footnote in the PHPDoc of the method?
Comment: If a variable name is composed of underscires, 0-9, a-z, and A-Z, someone with a copy of the code that doesn't support copy/paste (e.g. a printout) may reasonably hope to reproduce it accurately.  Someone trying to copy "ɸ" without knowing what it means might very easily end up with "Ф", and even if the programmer knows it's supposed to be "phi" it wouldn't be obvious whether "φ" or "ɸ" is appropriate.  [One is "Latin Small Letter Phi", and one is "Greek Small Latter Phi"--they appear clearly distinct in this comment font, but not in e.g. Lucida Sans Unicode].
Comment: @supercat: good point. But the example you give shows a bad use of a tool rather than that the tool itself is bad. `Δx` or `-∞` are valid uses (with some drawbacks I explained in my answer). `Ф`/`Φ` on the other hand are just signs that the programmer doesn't understand how to name variables properly.
Comment: If a programmer was wanting a lowercase Greek letter theta (e.g. for a horizontal angle), do you know which of the symbols I gave is the right one?  There are lots of groups of characters which look very similar if not identical.  If source files were required to contain directives specifying what characters could coexist within identifiers that might help, but otherwise I see lots of potential confusion between variables named accurately with foreign characters versus those named with look-alike characters.
Comment: @supercat: you meant Greek letter phi? My point is that if the programmer uses this symbol in an application where the term of "cumulative distribution function" is expected, any person aware of the domain terminology and symbols will understand what Φ means. `cumulativeDistributionFunction` is too long. `CDF` is less readable than Φ. `cumDistFunc` is ugly. This also means that if the programmer uses the Cyrillic small letter EF (Ф) instead in this context, it's simply a mistake. In the same way, a programmer could have used a wrong term or a wrong abbreviation.
Comment: ASCII includes 37 characters that can be used in identifiers; I would expect that in most fonts, they are sufficiently visually distinct that even people not fluent in the Latin alphabet could learn to tell two strings of characters in different fonts were the same identifier.  How much debugging effort is going to get wasted when a programmer uses "Ф" for an angle instead of "Φ"?
Comment: The `ƒ` in an aperture size doesn't stand for the aperture. It stands for focal length. So the aperture size ƒ/1.8 means that the aperture size is the focal length / 1.8.
Answer: I would say:

to ease non-professionals and novices that learn programming (e.g. at school) and don't know English. They don't write production code anyway. I've seen many times code like:
double upsos, baros;
cin >> upsos >> baros;

Just let the poor guy to write it in his language:
double ύψος, βάρος;
cin >> ύψος >> βάρος;

Don't you like it?
class ☎ {
public:
    ☎(const char*);
    void ();
    void ();
};

☎ ☏("031415926");
☏.(("Bob"));
ofstream f;
f.();

Comment: Ironically, the code under "Dont' you like it" doesn't render properly, which kind of illustrates the point of why you might want to stay away from using funky characters.
Answer: As far as I am concerned, this is purely for marketing reasons. And additionally may make our lives harder.
The marketing arguments
You know this crazy lists of features that most languages boast off ? It's pretty much useless in general, because it's so far from the language that it does not provide much information on specific, but it does allow one to quickly dress tables with ticks and crosses and rightfully conclude that since X has more ticks than Y it must be better.
Well, Unicode support for the identifiers is one of those lines. It does not matter that compared to Lambda support, Generic programming support, etc... it might not be much, people drawing the tables don't care about the quality of each line, only about the number of them.
And thus they can boast: "Ah, with Y you do not have Unicode support for your identifiers! In X we do, so for students it's much easier!"
The fallacy of accessibility
Unfortunately, the argument of accessibility is fallacious.
Oh, I do understand that being able to write "résultatDuJetDeDé" instead of "diceThrowResult" (yes I am French) might seem like a win in the short term... however there are drawbacks!
Programming is about communicating
Your program is not only meant for the compiler (which could care less about the identifiers you use), it is also meant for your fellows. They need to be able to read it, and understand it.

reading it implies being able to visualize the characters you used, Unicode is not so well supported by all fonts
understanding it do mean relying on identifiers -- unless you supplement them with lenghty comments, but that is violating the DRY rule.

Of course, your classmate may speak the same language you do (not obvious, I had programming classes with Germans, Spanishs, Libanes and Chineses), and so may your teacher... but suppose that somehow you are working on it at home and suddenly need help: Internet is great, you may speak to thousands of thousands of people that know the solution, they will only answer if they understand your question though. And you need to understand their answer as well.
Programming requires understanding
Accessibility and initiation require basing yourself on libraries to do the heavylifting for you: you don't want to reinvent an IO layer to read from/write to the console on your first assignment.

In which language are those libraries written ?
In which language are those libraries documented ?

If you answer Morrocan Arabic, I will be surprised.
Unless you only rely on the lectures you assist to, and those present comprehensive documentation on every library feature you will need to use (and perhaps even translated libraries), then you will have to learn a modicrum of the English language. But then, you probably did already long before you started this programming course anyway.
English is...
... the lingua franca of programmers (and most scientists).
The sooner one admits it, and goes along with it rather than fighting against it, the sooner one can truly learn and progress.
Some will inevitably raise against this, and rightly defend their right to speak the language of their choice (their maternal language usually), however, as Babel demonstrated, the more languages are used, the more difficult communication gets.
Still...
Yes, as it had been argued over and over, some Unicode support (mainly symbols) can greatly ease comprehension for people having to translate mathematical or physics formulas, for example, into code. There is the drawback that some symbols are overloaded, but it could still help.
So why ?
Well, as said, it's not really about user convenience, as much as it is about marketing claims. It's dead easy too, since the parser is already Unicode aware for strings and comments anyway, so most take the jump.
And there might be a benefit for certain users.
But I personally will only deal with code written with English identifiers. I don't care if you need my help with your piece of code or if your library is just awesome and I could gain much by using it: if I cannot understand it, I'll just have to ignore it.
Comment: So you're one of those willing to bake in historical de facto realities into de jure ones (pardon the lack of accents, nobody seems to care these days)?
Comment: @MilindR: I am one of those who think the world would be a better place if everyone spoke the same language; and I am pragmatic enough to consider English for the role, despite being French. I might be convinced that a subset of Unicode could be helpful in general (Greek letters, for mathematics/physics). I understand that for teaching programming, a programming language where the student can express identifiers in their own language is helpful; this does not require that any and all languages support full Unicode identifiers however. It's my personal opinion, make of it what you will :)
Answer: Of course, every modern compiler must deal with Unicode source code today. For example, string constants may need to contain Unicode characters. But once this is achieved, why not allow unicode identifiers also? It's no big deal unless your compiler code depends on characters being 7-bit codes.
But the OP is right insofar: It is now possible that a Hindi speaking Indian must maintain code with russian identifiers and arabic comments. What a nightmare for the poor Chinese who is supposed to do the quality check and who can't read any of the above 3 alphabets!
Hence, it is now an organizational tasks to make sure a programs identifiers and comments are written in a common language. I can't help it but I think this is going to be english for some time to come.
Comment: Yes, but then, only a few characters look alike and then it is, as so often, a matter of style, coding guidelines and quaity assurance that'd have to make sure you don't use 3 different characters that look like A in one place. OTOH, being a freedom-lover I abhor forbidding something just because one is not sure it could possibly be abused by someone.
Comment: A problem with allowing Unicode identifiers is that it allows source code to contain information which is semantically important but not printable.  For example, if a class declares field `А`, its constructor accepts parameter `Α`, and a statement in the constructor says `var x = A.boz();`, would `A` refer to the field, the parameter, or perhaps something else?  How could one tell?
Comment: I guess I tend to be of the opinion that programs should either be entered either in human-readable format, or in a format which isn't constrained to being a unified text file (but could include states interconnected with lines, annotations attached to things, etc.).  I think there's considerable value to knowing that "what you see is--at least semantically--what is there", and think that programs which are different should *look* different.  If there were standards that forbade the use of identifiers which were close to, but didn't quite match, identifiers in a nearer scope, that might help.
Answer: I think it makes a lot of sense to allow unicode characters in strings and comments. And if the lexer&parser have to support unicode for that anyway, the compiler writer probably gets unicode character support in identifiers for free, so it would seem like an arbitrary limitation to allow only ASCII characters in identifiers.
Comment: Not really.  In string literals, non-ASCII characters can be treated as opaque.  With identifiers, you need to make a decision about which characters are valid, and whether to normalize them (e.g., is `vár` the same as `vár`?)
Answer: How are you going to type ASCII identifiers on a Chinese keyboard? A few language keywords is one thing, and having to do your whole code that way is another.
Programmers should have the right and ability to call their variables whatever they want. It's none of your business what language that's in.
If you feel so confused reading code with identifiers that have symbols from other people's languages in them, then I'm sure that you exactly understand how confused they feel when they have to use identifiers with symbols from your language in.
Comment: @Egor: That's a reason for a team or project manager to make a rule. But not a reason for a language or implementation to enforce it. A team or company can always choose to restrict identifiers further- they can't choose to expand the available set. That's why the original set should be as large as possible.
Comment: I'm typing this message using a "Russian" keyboard. I've googled Chinese keyboard (http://goo.gl/U1q0m) and I don't really see any difference with the Russian one (http://goo.gl/af04R). Notice, by the way, that both of them have Latin layout alongside with the native one.
Comment: "How are you going to type ASCII identifiers on a Chinese keyboard?" - exactly the same as on an English keyboard, actually. You chose a bad example; Chinese (and Japanese) are typically entered as english letters describing the pronounciation, then a list of matching Chinese/Japanese is displayed from which the user can select the correct one if the default is not correct (modern systems use context analysis to ensure that it usually is).
Comment: Let's say I use identifiers using Cyrillic. But what about the Chinese maintainig my code? Say, he is familiar with Latin letters, but now he is made to handle a completely different character set! Not to mention Arabic ornate lettering and etc.
Comment: 3rd paragraph is exact reason to use english only, isn't it?
Comment: Mixing Arabic with English doesn't make much sense anyway (not sure about Chinese) since Arabic is written right-to-left, so you would write keywords left-to-left, switch to the other mode, write your identifiers right-to-left, switch back etc.?
Comment: No offence here, anyway. I'm not really familiar with the way the average Chinese programmer inputs his identifiers.
Comment: @DeadMG how would keywords work? Would you just have them be in english and everything else be different? Also what about libraries, considering pretty much all popular libraries are written in English.
Answer: According to PEP 3131 -- Supporting Non-ASCII Identifiers dated in 2007, the first part of Rationale states:

Python code is written by many people in the world who are not familiar with the English language, or even well-acquainted with the Latin writing system. Such developers often desire to define classes and functions with names in their native languages, rather than having to come up with an (often incorrect) English translation of the concept they want to name. By using identifiers in their native language, code clarity and maintainability of the code among speakers of that language improves.

I haven't investigated other languages yet, but it should be among the reasons they added the support.
Answer: It would really make life easier (for some of us, anyway) if the compiler would not support Unicode. Right-to-left identifiers are awful. Combined Roman alphabet and right-to-left Unicode identifiers are even worse.
The bad thing about non-support is that certain GUI wizards take the text you put in for an item and automatically use that text as the item's identifier. So what exactly would they do with Unicode text on those items? No easy answer, I'm afraid.
Unicode right-to-left comments can be funny, too. For example, in VS 2010, XML  comments display (correctly) as RTL in the code... but when you use Intellisense to pull up the identifier elsewhere in code, the tooltip displays (incorrectly) LTR. Better, perhaps, if there were no support in the first place? Again, not an easy call.


Connect sx1272 module to a Dragino Gateway

Question: I am new to Lora technology. I am using a sx1272 Lora Module and I am trying to send and receive data to a Dragino Gateway. The problem is the sx1272 and Dragino use two different libraries and hence two different examples of codes. As a result, I can't send or receive data from the Gateway.
This is the library I use for Dragino: https://github.com/Yveaux/RadioHead/tree/master/RadioHead
and for the node, I am  using: https://github.com/matthijskooijman/arduino-lmic
I hope you help me with this.
Comment: Hi Fatima, please add the code you actually use based on the examples.
Comment: @Helmar - the code in question would be far too large to fit; but that's also beside the point as the two pieces of code used are not intended to be compatible.  The asker will need to start over with a different software stack on at least one of the devices.
Answer: RadioHead and LMiC are not meant to work together.
If you are trying to do a point to point connection, you may be able to use the RadioHead code on both devices (RadioHead is available for Arduino as well).
To build a WAN over LoRa, you should be using LoRaWAN code on both devices, ie, LMiC (LoRa MAC in C) on the node and LoRaWAN gateway software (typically called a "packet forwarder") on the Gateway.
However I believe the Dragino is not capable of being a true LoRaWAN gateway, as it has only a single channel node-class radio rather than a multi-channel gateway class radio.  This may complicate things substantially.  Still if you do some searching you'll find now aged examples for building a single channel LoRaWAN testbench gateway on a Raspberry Pi, which you should be able to port to your platform.  The problem will be that you cannot use it in a specification-compliant manner, and would need to modify your node software to defeat the usual frequency hopping and reduce the output and/or duty cycle to fit under the greater restrictions typically applied to non-hopping devices.
Essentially, you're purchased two nodes but no gateway - although the larger of your nodes happens to be built into a Linux-based OpenWRT router, it still uses an Arduino-like ATmega328p to control a single-channel node-class radio chip.


pork fillet cooking time

Question: I have a pork fillet which I've cut in half and marinated in some honey and soy.  I heated a pan, and seared it on all sides, then put the pan in the oven at 180 deg C.  The question is, how long to leave it in the oven until it's cooked through?  I suspect it's about 20 minutes for the average fillet (3-4cm in diameter).  Any suggestions?
Comment: How "done" do you want your pork to be? See this question for more detail about how much to cook your pork: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/2793/what-are-the-ranges-of-pork-temperature-that-are-flavorful-and-safe/2820#2820
Answer: Every Kitchen needs a meat thermometer. Little too late in this case but it would have saved you here. I never used one at home until after I started working in a restaurant that only had a flat top and a convection oven with burgers on the menu. I got a relatively cheap one for $5-10 at Wal-mart and it does the job.  Another option for next time is to check your meat often and poke it with a spoon, once it feels firm throughout, like the skin on the back of your hand when you make a fist, it's done.
Comment: actually we (well my partner) have a meat thermometer, but he was away, and I didn't know what temperature to check for anyway.
Comment: There is no "done" or set temperature for any meat, it's personal taste, some like their meat raw, some like it like shoe leather. Sure, record the temp you like and go for that, but I find that most people find meat "done" by the physical appearance too. So it becomes a time/temp problem
Answer: Well, I can report that for this particular fillet, 20 minutes was probably a tad to long.  It was a little dry, not overly so, but I think perhaps 15-18 minutes would have been better.  However, without an accurate thermometer in the oven or a meat thermometer, it's not a particularly reproducible scientific experiment.
Answer: I adapted a similar recipe by placing the marinade and pork into a foil parcel, and wrapping it up loosely to seal. I left it in the oven for nearly an hour and it came out perfectly moist and tender. Great as an addition to a bbq when you can relax about the exact timings
Answer: The meat 'is ready' when certain temperature inside it is reached. For pork it's about 82C. The warming-up speed mostly depends on how much fat is there in your meat.
If you have fatty meat it'll be ready very soon, 10-12 minutes maximum or even earlier. If it's lean then the time is a few minutes longer. But in this case it's really worth to take the meat out of the fridge 1-2 hours before cooking and let it warm-up a little bit. Otherwise it's difficult to make it ready inside and not to carbonize the surface.
Comment: @yossarian: those answer only shows that you and 4 more guys understand nothing in cooking meat. Assume that there's no anything 'nasty' in the piece of meat. Would you eat it raw as it is? No! Because the main goal with temperature is desctucturing proteins. The temperature I adviced is taken from the book of a very authoritative chef who specializes exactly on cooking meat dishes.
Comment: I disagree. What book did you get your temp from? A quick google shows most places in the 71C / 160F, but they all state that the temperature is for safety reasons. I find pork at 82C / 180F to be overdone and dry, particularly for a lean cut like the loin. Most restaurants in America will recommend their pork done Medium, which is below 160F. My experience, which includes some very precise sous vide cooking, is that 180 is leather and 140-160 produces a much better texture (although, I'll go hotter for Boston Butt / Picnic).
Comment: -1 because 82C / 180F is WAY too hot for pork. See this question for details: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/2793/what-are-the-ranges-of-pork-temperature-that-are-flavorful-and-safe/2820#2820
Comment: I'll also point out that On Food and Cooking backs me up,  describing meat at 170 as dry and tough. It also addresses when the proteins in meat start to denature, which starts at 120F and most of which has taken place by 140F.
Comment: I can validate what @yossarian is saying - I've just done a whole fillet wrapped in foil in the bottom of an oven that was already cooking something else at >200C, adjusting cooking time accordingly, and it's still tough. It seems not to matter how short the cooking time if the external temperature is too high, it's going to ruin it.
Answer: 15 minutes is way to long.
If the fillet was seared brown ( 5 to 8 minutes), then 8 to 10 minutes in the oven, 400 F, would be perfect for a nice juicy filet. Porkfillet should be slightly pink I the middle.If not then it is dry and basically ruined.

pork fillet cooking time


What equipment would one use to modify a virus?

Question: Would anyone be so kind as to give me a few examples of the equipment involved when modifying a virus? Otherwise my novel may end up reading
Eva entered the lab and modified a virus.
Not much back story there!
Comment: Even though you actually intend to get the facts right for your story, it is better to ask it as a biology question. It would be great if you can edit the question to sound so. Otherwise this question is tending to be off-topic.
Comment: To help you frame a better question I can give you this hint- To modify a virus, you have to modify its genome (DNA or RNA in some cases) :)
Comment: It's not clear the biological purpose for *how* you want to modify a virus. As WYSIWYG suggests, the genome is one way, but it is also possible to modify a the external capsid of a virus and give it new function (think targeting a virus for chemotherapy).
Comment: (I voted to close because it appears to be homework & is too broad)
Comment: I actually am an expert at this, and I have always wanted someone to use *forward* genetics in a well researched piece of fiction for what it's worth.  Feel free to try and ask more targeted questions, and I'd be happy to answer.  I would also like to point out that considerable amounts of time and failure are to be expected.  Even on a proven recombinant system I would put 1 month minimum to recover, purify, titer, and sequence a new virus.
Answer: I'm no expert at this and I would welcome any changes to this post. First you need to decide, what your target organism which you want to infect is (e.g. mammalian cells, bacterial cells) and based on that you choose your viral vector as listed in this article. Generally for mammalian cell stable transfection (usually you want the genetic materials you introduced to persist between cell divisions hence stable transfection) and transformation (just a general statement about changing cells as you have introduced, usually foreign genetic material but transformation is not necessarily the same as making something immortalised, which means the cells won't stop dividing i.e. becoming cell lines or in lay term cancerous) scientists tend to use lentiviruses, which are retroviruses, similar to HIV and they can even infect non dividing cells (so this should allow your imagination to run wild!). Once you have decided what the best viral vehicle for targeting your cells of interest is then you essentially transfect the plasmid DNA (packaging vector), which produces the virus protein package, into cells, whose job becomes to produce the virus as those cells have the required cellular machinery for this purpose. These cells are often 293T packaging cells. Along with the plasmid (circular) DNA, which produces the virus package, you co-transfect the packaging (e.g. 293T) cells with another plasmid, called lenti-vector, which does whatever you want it do, such as express a particular protein or microRNA or whatever but the idea is that stuff produces by the lenti-vector should not be toxic to the target cell (i.e. the cells you intend to target), unless thats what you want it to do.
Now as you can see, you can play around with two things here, first the packaging vector, to change the behaviour of the virus if you wish. And second the lenti-virus vector, to produce whatever you want it to! Once the packaging cells made your viruses, containing your lenti-vector, the virus get secreted into the media, which the packaging cells are in so you have to extract the media, congaing the virus, and concentrate the virus using centrifugation. Once you got the virus then you can use it to transform the (target) cells you wish.
For the lab based procedure of how you make the virus and what equipments you use and how to concentrate the virus then please see this link, although its a little technical. In this case, the packaging vector is fuGENE 6 and the lenti-vector or just plasmids of interests are listed (please not that I do not endorse any products mentioned here and I'm just using it as an example).
Now for making the packaging plasmid (making the virus), you often use the genetic materials from a virus and change it through a procedure called polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Same goes for the lenti-vector/plasmid as they are derived from somewhere and then change through time using PCR and restriction digests, which is an equivalent of genetic material cut and paste, to make the vectors and products of interest. Once all is done the the virus can infect the target cells and effect it based on its designed function (defined by the two vectors I described).
If the above response does not answer you question, since it is currently very broad, please make further clarification to the question so that I can modify my response accordingly.
Answer: Consider this as a summary of the previous answers. Also, I am elaborating more on how to make self-sustaining mutated viruses
Points to consider before you think about working with viruses:-

Viruses are pathogenic and the biologist working on them faces a risk of infection. Viral work is always carried out in a protected environment at high biosafety levels.
Viruses need a host to survive. You need to culture host cells or use a live organism to propagate the virus. Generally one goes for the latter only if cell culture methods are unfeasible.
Almost all viruses have a very small genome (which can be replicated very fast), that can be either DNA or RNA. The genome has only very few essential genes that are responsible for the virus capsid (external shell) formation and early replication; most other factors required for the propagation are hijacked from the host.

Having identified and obtained a suitable host, one can proceed to genetic manipulation. The lentiviral vectors that Bez described are basically partial viruses. One part codes for the capsid and cannot make active viruses by itself whereas the other holds the genes for replicative function. So in a way the lentiviral vectors are disarmed viruses that are used as molecular biology tools. But what you are looking for is different.
To modify a virus you need to make mutations in its genome. Once you have identified what mutations are to be made then as previously mentioned, PCR can be used to incorporate them. This technique is slightly different from a usual PCR (not in principle, though) and is called site-directed mutagenesis. For ease it is always better to clone (fix) the viral genome in a plasmid (circular DNA that can be propagated in a usual lab bacteria- E.Coli). After mutating the viral genome, you can excise it from the plasmid. Note that PCR is done with DNA. For RNA viruses you need to convert its genome into a DNA sequence before you go for site-directed mutagenesis. Conventional technique would be to reverse-transcribe the viral RNA. But nowadays chemical DNA synthesis has become quite easy and you can synthesize entire viral genome in a "test-tube".
Having done this, we proceed to the trickiest part: How to get this genome to form an active virus?
Some viruses, as mentioned before use RNA as their genome (poliovirus, retroviruses, common-cold virus etc) while some use DNA (chickenpox, smallpox, herpes etc). The mutagenesis, however, is performed on the DNA. For DNA viruses, introduction of the viral DNA into the host cell, using the conventional transfection methods, might work. For certain RNA viruses like poliovirus this DNA has to be transcribed to RNA. This can be done using a technique called in-vitro transcription (IVT) and the RNA product can be introduced inside the cell. IVT wont work well for long RNAs. In such cases you can use the cell itself to make the RNA instead of doing it in-vitro. Use a plasmid that can transcribe a DNA sequence inside a host cell- this is fairly common and almost all molecular bio labs will have such plasmids. Transfect this plasmid inside the host cell and it will make viral RNA, which in-turn will make active viruses.
Retroviruses work slightly different from other RNA viruses. They have an RNA genome that they convert to a DNA. This DNA gets integrated in the host genome and keeps producing viruses. To make a retroviral DNA integrate you need an enzyme encoded in the virus- integrase. You can clone integrase separately and co-transfect it with the viral genomic DNA.
A couple of final points to consider:

Some viruses such as retroviruses can mutate very fast naturally, because of their error prone replication. They may lose the incorporated mutation unless the mutation provides them a tactical advantage (this is true for all organisms).
I share with many others this opinion that that bioterrorism should not be glamorized. So take care to present it well :)
Answer: I would not start from so bottom as Bez in making viruses.
This is very very long project.
It is much less cumbersome task to consider modifying virus, since it already occurs passively in real life.
I would choose equipment based on the characteristics of the virus.
I would start to develop equipment needed for the specific project, since there is no ready solution for this kind of task.
The equipment can be targeted to

actively changing virus (ss(-) and ss(+) RNA virus)
virus not changing so much (here you have to think how you ignite the point mutation and why).

I would use iPS stem cells to as an target but to get this far is very very long process still.
I would focus on antigen presentation - again very many fine regulation factors in Interferons etc should be considered in the special viral case - note that the interferon research is now in an active phase but early.
Interferons are specific so specific parts of the equipment should exists to detect them - for instance, IFN-gamma.
Viruses are generally extremely difficult to control - shortly existing in one form.
You can imagine how difficult they become after editing them real life.
So the plan would be first to understand some easy virus and its early stages in the replication.
You can actually choose a virus that undergoes continuously point mutations (drift mutation) like influenza virus.
However, I would pick something that is not so changing (not RNA virus).
There is no good equipment to do regular analysis of the changes in the influenza virus.
It always requires much work to recognize which genome part has changed and how much internationally.
The vaccines are made based on reports from many countries about their influenza virus statuses and their genomes.
Some simple DNA virus with very slow but fixed point mutations in time so you have time to research them and you can estimate when the next change is going to be.
It would be also useful if you know which part of the virus is going to change (particular plasmid).
This makes the research much more manageable.
Sufficient time-series analysis and group of Mathematicians are also needed to understand different data from different stages.
Actually, your task is extremely broad.


How do I get GCC 4.7.1 with 64bit support installed for my user account only on Solaris x86

Question: I have been put on a task to upgrade and build 32bit and 64bit libraries for software developers to use. I need to install GCC version 4.7.1 with 64bit support on the Solaris x86 machine I'm using for my user account only so as to not modify the system as a whole.
Answer: Download source from
http://gcc.petsads.us/releases/gcc-4.7.1/
or another mirror from
http://www.gnu.org/software/gcc/mirrors.html
untar archive
configure with prefix=/home/myname/gccfolder
compile install
Comment: So gcc-4.7.1 comes with 64bit support by default? And can you explain in a little more detail what configure with prefix entails?
Answer: You may find it just as easy to have your own Solaris host. Just install Solaris X86 into VirtualBox and then you have your own. If the purpose is development and test as in your case then there's no license cost to use Solaris.
Using a package repository avoids the hassle of building yourself and managing dependencies, wondering if you have 64bit support, etc. The downside is that you need to have superuser privileges to install the packages which is why I suggest that you have your own private (virtual) Solaris host.
Install Solaris 11.2 Beta on it. Doesn't matter for your purpose that it is a beta (I'm using it and haven't been able to break it in any way). The reason why I propose to use that version is that the package repository for that version gives a choice of many different versions of GCC (4.5, 4.7 and 4.8).  Do you have a need for specifically v4.7.1 or would v4.7.3 also be ok?
If you don't want to use a beta version of Solaris then you can use Solaris 11.1 but that will only give you GCC v3.4.3 or GCC v.4.5.2 from the package repository which doesn't seem to be what you want.
Also see this link on unix.stackexchange.com for how to properly set up a Solaris development host using by-the-book methods.


What is discipline according to Bhagavat Gita?

Question: What is discipline, as lord Krishna describes it in the Bhagavat Gita?
Comment: Do you have any verse where lord Krishna describes about discipline specifically? I think, it's better you edit your Qn to make it according to "Dharma ShAstra"-s instead of "Gita", to get more answers.
Comment: It's not Gita, but it's Mahabharata: *"Aything which is there in the world is in Mahabharata, Mahabharata has everything which is there in the world."*. Lord Krishna had a private conversation with Arjuna, which was aiming towards liberation. Though it covered some topics, it doesn't cover everything. The Qn will be better received if you make it "Dharma-shAstra" instead of "Gita". With that you will have answers from Mahabharata, Purana, Veda, Manusmriti & few others.
Answer: Krishna says in Chapter 12 of the Gita (Swami Nikhilananda translator):

Fix your mind on Me alone, rest your thoughts on Me alone, and in Me alone you will live hereafter. Of this there is no doubt.
If you unable to fix your mind steadily on Me, O Dhanajaya, then seek to reach Me by the yoga of constant practice. [constant practice means when your mind wanders away from thinking of the Lord, bring it back to thinking of Him. practice, practice, practice]
If you are incapable of constant practice, then devote yourself to My service, For even by rendering service to Me you will attain perfection.
If you unable to do even this, then be self-controlled, surrender the fruit of all action, and take refuge in Me.

And in 9.34 Krishna says:

Fix your mind on Me, be devoted to Me, sacrifice to Me, bow down to Me. Having thus disciplined yourself, and regarding Me as the Supreme Goal, you will come to Me.


Why didn't Willow use the sunlight spell on the ubervamps?

Question: Before the Scoobies went down into the hellmouth to kill the ubervamp army, in the last episodes, why didn't Willow use the ball of sunshine spell? It's very hard to kill the Uber Vamps, holy water doesn't work and staking them doesn't work unless you're super strong, so why didn't she use her sunlight spell? Not once during any episode did she try that spell on them. It could have saved a lot of lives and potential slayers.
Comment: Willow can float pencils early on yet she never uses it to stake vamps. Same with the sunlight spell which she can do IIRC from sesson four and which would be very handy in a lots of situations. Just don't look for logic there. BTVS is about the slayer solving problems not her OP witch. They also never reuse useful items like the troll hammer.
Comment: @Lt.Ortega Willow did use a pencil to stake a vampire: she was being held prisoner in the Mayor's office and used the pencil staking to temporarily escape. Buffy used the troll hammer in the final battle with Glory. But she is the only person who could pick it up - let alone wield it (Spike tried and dropped it). Sorry: can't not correct BTVS trivia.
Comment: Like most magic in Buffy, it turned out to be difficult to cast and highly unreliable :-)
Comment: Whosoever holds this hammer, be they worthy, shall possess the power of Buffy.
Comment: @RichardCosgrove yes, i meant reuse the hammer after season 5 (or the bazooka after s2). about the pencils - oops, forgot that one, but it seems willow forgot too, she doesnt use them later on :)
Comment: @witchy - There's no indication that Buffy had extra rounds for the bazooka.
Answer: The last time we see the Simulated Sunlight spell, Willow is trying to get it to work. Suffice to say, she's unsuccessful and her attempts result in the release of an extremely dangerous opponent, Olaf the baby eating and damn near invulnerable Troll.
There's no indication that she was ever able  to get it to work properly (at least within the main TV series, see below) and given its potential for failure and the possibility it could release an even worse baddie than the vampires that Buffy is fighting, it's pretty reasonable to assume that she either stopped working on it because it was more trouble than it was worth or just plain couldn't get it do what it was supposed to.

Interestingly, in the (non-canon) video game Chaos Bleeds, the 'sun spell' is one of Willow's standard weapons again vampires and can simply be cast rather than created using any of the ingredients seen in the show.
Comment: Technically the sunlight spell didn't cause the troll.  The troll just happened to be in the magic shop trapped in a crystal and when Willow's spell exploded (due to her breaking off to squabble with Anya  :-D) it knocked the crystal off the shelf and broke it.  But yes, presumably they never did get it to work.
Answer: Asides from the sunlight spell being unreliable (mentioned in the comments), it would only hurt the vampires present - not those still down in the Hellmouth - and likely blind everyone else. So Willow would have to have a load of the spells ready and throw them down like grenades.
Asides from that, using the spell would mean the climax to BTVS wouldn't be in line with the overarching theme of the series.


What happened to Vaatu?

Question: After the events of The Legend of Korra: Light in the Dark, we see that Korra's spirit calms vaatu with the knowledge of Spirit Calming she learned from Unalaq. Therefore where did Vaatu go as in a spirit cannot be destroyed as said by Raava to Avatar Wan. Therefore where did unalaq and Vaatu's fused spirit go physically??
Comment: This might answer some questions [Will the cycle in Korra Book 2 continue?](http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/45058/will-the-cycle-in-korra-book-2-continue-spoilers/46194#46194)
Answer:
where did Vaatu go as in a spirit cannot be destroyed as said by Raava to Avatar Wan.

When Raava was explaining this, I'm pretty sure that she meant that you can't kill either her or Vaatu forever. So Vaatu didn't necessarily go anywhere, but rather just died for the time being.

where did unalaq and Vaatu's fused spirit go physically?

If we stick to the above idea that Vaatu is dead at the moment, so would be Unalaq (they don't go anywhere physically - they're gone at least until their reincarnation).
But if you're wondering whether Unalaq's spirit will reincarnate along with Vaatu, we'd have to speculate a bit:
If they were indeed fused as one entity (both are the same now), then it would be logical that in 10.000 years both would return, as one. However, be mindful that the fusion using the Harmonic Convergence isn't as strong as we thought it was, because clearly Korra was not perfectly fused with Raava, who used the exact same method in the past.

Basically, there doesn't seem to be any official word regarding Unalaq's or Vaatu's current state.
Answer: Well, I don't think there would be a reincarnation of Vaatu and Unalaq because technically he was in the avatar state when he "died", so the cycle would end there. I think that the reason the next book is called change because now that Vaatu has been assimilated, the worlds balance has been shifted as there is no longer a dark spirit. Which I hope isn't true, because I loved Vaatu, and I was so happy that he fused with Unalaq. Don't get me wrong, I hoped that Korra and Raava would win, I was just as giddy as a schoolgirl when they did the same thing Raava and Wan did. However, I wasn't exactly expecting him to turn into Satan. Nor was I expecting a macro Korra/Vaatu fight.
I have another theory as well that I really hope is not the case, but the reason that the next book is called change is because as it progresses, Korra becomes more and more evil until Vaatu is reborn within her and escapes. That would just suck balls after seeing her gain the power of the universe just to save Raava (and the world but I like to think it was more about Raava.)
Answer: I think when vaatu and unalaq fused and they became the dark avatar, same rules applied for them as they applied to light avatar. When korra killed them they were in an avatar form so korra broke the unstarted dark avatar chain there. It doesn't satisfy me however, that korra can kill something that much powerful without raava's aid but I say to myself "Unalaq have never trained with vaatu like wan did and plus they didn't have the experience of hundreds of light avatars had" to justify the end. In fact this end was not bad either offering something fantastic to wait for.
About vaatu's next appearance, I think he will appear somewhere close to next harmonic convergence in somewhere dark in the spirit world. After all we all agree on raava saying neither can destroy each other and she said if one wins the battle defeated will appear next harmonic convergence. She actually said that.
Damn I would love to see a two avatar world. But it would be too depressing for many viewers I think.
Answer: In a prior episode, Unalaq threatened to destroy destroy Jinora's spirit with a dark version of his water-based spirit bending. The big Vaatu-Unalaq thing attempted the same thing on Giant Blue Korra; and then when she merged with the portion of Raava that Jinora (somehow) managed to rescue, Korra used that same waterbending technique.
I believe that Vattu has been destroyed. According to Raava in Beginnings, this means that he will regrow within Raava (and therefore the Avatar) until he becomes powerful enough to break free, presumably at the next Harmonic Convergence in ten thousand years time. Perhaps this will be an element of future seasons of Korra, or future series in the Avatar franchise. Or perhaps Wan (by merging with Raava) and/or Korra (by doing what she did) have changed things enough that Vattu has finally been destroyed forever. But that second one would seem like a tremendous waste of a potential story to me.
Answer: Hello I know vaatu neither exists.
Vaatu can not be gone. unulaq is a man so he can not leave. The only
that he has no control forces. And vaatu least possible strength.
Vaatu Satan. Vaatu Raava and continue until the end of the world.
Looks like there is one god in the story and that word obviously does not show.
Vaatu did not pray for the first man on earth before the first humans arrived. At the time of the prophet.
Comment: Is this an opinion or do you have in universe support for this answer?
Answer: dark avatar cycle has broken because if any avatar die in the avatar state the cycle will broke so the dark avatar has kill in the avatar state so vaatu will never return again
Answer: i belive korra and raava have deafeted vaatu and unalq, but not forever. vaatu and unalq will probably be back for the next hermonic convergence in 10,000 that still leaves many questions though. i think the episode should have explained more for what has happened to unalq and vaatu.
Answer: Ow man. I have a story. vaatu grows becouse of the bad that happens in the world. You can't see a spirit with his real form . But they change there forms. There is a difference between spirits and souls. Spirits dies and Souls didn't die. Spirits have their souls like humans have their souls. A spirit can die. They say the spirits are imortal. But that means the humans can't kill a spirit when they are in the spirit world. becouse we saw that the spirits dies when the humans go in the spirit world and kills the spirits. but the soul that can't die. In our religion it is that Satan will die on the end of the world and that the Angels will die on the end of the world. that means the devil and the Angels can't die until on the end of the world. Vaatu is alive and will go back in the boddy of korra. that is why Korra saw Vaatu when she was grazy.
Comment: That is a shabby answer. Punctuation, spelling, grammar. No good.

What happened to Vaatu?


Are there any clients that allow for multiple wallets and API acccess?

Question: I know that multibit has the capacity to have multiple wallets, but no API access. bitcoind has great API access, but only one wallet. Is there any solution that combines the two?
Answer:
Armory supports multiple wallets and has a scripting interface.
Blockchain.info is an online wallet service that has an interface very similar to bitcoind.  They also have an API to create wallets.
Answer: QOINPro is an online wallet for around 10 cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Litecoin and Dogecoin. Additionally, they award coins daily just for being signed up. It's not much, but something while they don't charge anything.
Comment: At first I thought that the promoted service sounded like a scam, because they were promising to give away money for signed up users. However, it appears to be more of a faucet style enterprise. Still, if you consider putting more money there, you might want to do more research.
Answer: The wallet that I develop, Coinomi, has a core library (java based) that could be used to host 9 cryptocurrencies at the moment. The private keys are always stored on the client and not on the Electrum servers that it uses to update it's state.
Currently you need to include it in your java project but it is possible to create a JSON API to be language agnostic, it just needs some development.
https://github.com/Coinomi/coinomi-android
Comment: When can we see a JSON API? I code in node.js and would love to build a public node module for people to use