Ester as a side product in the synthesis of bromoalkane from alcohol. Is it correct?

Question: About 5 months ago, I answered a very interesting question albeit a very simple one.

Why do we need sulfuric acid in creating alkyl bromide and not in creating alkyl iodide from alcohol and hydrogen halide?

The question was why sulfuric acid is used to convert any alcohol to bromoalkane but not iodoalkane. Jan's answer quite pointed out the explanation:

hydrogen iodide is sufficiently acidic to protonate the corresponding    alcohol and drive the reaction. More acids are not
  needed.
hydrogen bromide is not acidic enough to drive the reaction. Adding    sulphuric acid protonates the alcohol partially and allows the
  reaction to proceed.
in the case of weakly soluble alcohols and hydrogen iodide, phosphoric acid may be used instead since it does not oxidize iodide (while sulfuric acid does).

Though I am satisfied with Jan's excellent answer, I further pointed out that sulfuric acid may react with hydrobromic acid to form bromine(aq.) and sulfur dioxide. This bromine may oxidize alcohol to form aldehyde and carboxylic acid and they two will form ester. This was my proposed explanation but I couldn't find any experimental result to back my explanation and heavily relied on theory.
Now recently Nurdrage, a renowned chemist famous for his synthesis of pyrimethamine has uploaded a video on Youtube about the synthesis of bromoethane and bromohexane from ethanol and hexanol using sulfuric acid. He also explained the concern of forming bromine as side product from the reaction of hydrobromic acid and sulfuric acid. He showed a purification technique by adding sodium bicarbonate to react with bromine to form sodium hypobromide.
Now my question is:
Is my explanation of forming ester instead of bromoalkane correct enough? Is there any possibility of forming minute amounts of ester? The reaction may be slow but it can happen before any purification is done (reacting bromine with sodium bicarbonate). If so, what can be done to remove any ester or prevent the reaction of ester formation?
Also related: Why is alcohol boiled with HBr for preparing alkyl bromide?
Answer: Technically it could form, but it would be hydrolyzed. If it did form, it would be in negligible quantities. Lots of other stuff could form, and they do, but in miniscule amounts ... bromine oxidized the alcohol to the aldehyde. The aldehyde undergoes aldol condensation. Another alcohol undergoes elimination. The compounds  react in a hetero diels-alder. So dihydropyrans can also form ... Yes, but not in quantities that are observable.
Comment: Fair enough but could you back your answer with a reference?


What is the difference between a spinor and a vector or a tensor?

Question: Why do we call a 1/2 spin particle satisfying the Dirac equation a spinor, and not a vector or a tensor?
Comment: related: http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/39648/7924 and http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/39542/7924
Answer: It can be instructive to see the applications of Clifford algebra to areas outside of quantum mechanics to get a more geometric understanding of what spinors really are.
I submit to you I can rotate a vector $a = a^1 \sigma_1 + a^2 \sigma_2 + a^3 \sigma_3$ in the xy plane using an expression of the following form:
$$a' = \psi a \psi^{-1}$$
where $\psi = \exp(-\sigma_1 \sigma_2 \theta/2)= \cos \theta/2 - \sigma_1 \sigma_2 \sin \theta/2$.
It's typical in QM to assign matrix representations to $\sigma_i$ (and hence, $a$ would be a matrix--a matrix that nonetheless represents a vector), but it is not necessary to do so.  There are many such matrix representations that obey the basic requirements of the algebra, and we can talk about the results without choosing a representation.
The object $\psi$ is a spinor.  If I want to rotate $a'$ to $a''$ by another spinor $\phi$, then it would be
$$a'' = \phi a' \phi^{-1} = \phi \psi a \psi^{-1} \phi^{-1}$$
I can equivalently say that $\psi \mapsto \psi' = \phi \psi$.  This is the difference between spinors and vectors (and hence other tensors).  Spinors transform in this one-sided way, while vectors transform in a two-sided way.
This answers the difference between what spinors are and what tensors are; the question of why the solutions to the Dirac equation for the electron are spinors is probably best for someone better versed in QM than I.
Comment: Great explanation! I a surprised no one else talked about this.
Comment: @Muphrid Can I say Spinor is a Rank-1 tensor but it doesn't quite transform like another Rank-1 tensor i.e. a vector ?
Answer: Actually, Dirac equation is some what a "square root" of Klein-Gordon equation, so intuitively it can't represent a Vector or Tensor, as "symbolically" spinor corresponds to a square root of "differential", so the transformation rules had to differ from Tensors (actually one is in some vague sense taking "square root" of Tensor transformation rules, spinors actually come from "HALF" of Gram density for tensor) , hence for vectors. The above discussion can be rigorized in "Principal Bundle" or rather say "Vector bundle" Settings, one very good book is "Spin Geometry (PMS-38) - Princeton University Press by HB Lawson" here one can find why "The Dirac Equation" only describes 1/2 - spin particles.
Comment: The Dirac equation can describe massive spin-0 fields (with the field in the scalar part and its derivative in the vector part) and massive spin-1 fields (with the vector potential in the vector part, and the field tensor in the bivector part). The spin has something to do with the portion of the full Clifford algebra that ψ lives in, not the mere fact that there's only a first-order time derivative in the field equation.
Comment: @benrg don't you mean the proca equation?
Comment: @infinitezero The Proca equation can be embedded in the Dirac equation in a funny way. I wrote up the details [here](/a/579511).
Answer: A four-vector transforms under the Lorentz-Group $SO(3,1)$, i.e. a "standard Lorentz transformation". The Lorentz transformation for a spinor is under $SU(2)\times SU(2)$ (to be exact the representation $2 \times \bar 2$) which is locally isomorph to $SO(3,1)$ but not the same. To get a better understanding, you could read chapter two here and meditate a bit about it.  It took me a while to get everything sorted in my head. (In fact, I doubt everything is sorted yet, but at least I start to get the grasp of it.)
Answer: Spinor is a vector in the basis of not space-time, but its spin states;
in on sense, spinor is not a vector, since it will  not transform as you transform the space (rotation, etc)
.
Generally speaking, tensors (including scalar, vector, tensor of rank 2,3,4...etc) are just mathematical objects (you lumped together) that transformed as the space-time coordinate transforms as an entirety. A scalar is so that:
$$ A'=A $$
after arbitrary coordinate transform;
a Vector is so that:
$$ A'=MA, or \ A'_i=M_i^{\ j}A_j $$
where M is the unitary (orthogonal) transformation matrix.
when it comes to a tensor of rank two:
$$ A'=MAM^{-1} or \ A'_{\nu\mu}=M_{\mu}^{\ \rho}M_{\nu}^{\ \theta}A_{\rho\theta } $$
Higher orders of tensors just transform accordingly (by adding more terms of M) .
Comment: What makes you say a spinor doesn't change under space-time transformations? It does, and it's precisely because it *doesn't* transform as a tensor that it merits the attention it gets.


What kind of floor covering is this?

Question: I saw this on the inside of a classroom and I'm curious as to what kind of flooring this is:
Answer: My guess (without being able to feel it) is vinyl sheet flooring, ugly pattern made to appear like crushed stone I guess...
Answer: It looks like Terrazzo flooring.

Terrazzo is one of the oldest and most versatile sustainable flooring options. It is defined as a composite material poured in place or precast, consisting of marble chips and/or other aggregates combined within a binder material, which is ground and polished to a beautiful finish. Terrazzo today covers a limitless array of colors, and is known for being durable, sustainable, and flexible enough to accommodate designs from very simple and classic to extremely intricate and complex. From the royal palaces and serene bath houses of ancient times to today's international airports, hospitals, and schools, terrazzo is a flooring canvas with infinite possibilities.

Of course it has been replicated by vinyl flooring manufacturers and some very old Linoleum was hard to distinguish from the real thing. If you look closely at edges yiu may see evidence that it is a sheet type floor but if no seams can be identified and this is an older commercial building most  likely it is Terrazzo
Answer: Unless you have walked on it/touched it then you can't say for certain.
Agree with the other posters especially with edging, it looks too shiny to be anything made from concrete (even polished+resin coating isn't that shiny).
It's probably Lino or another 'plastic' floor perhaps Acrylic.
Comment: The terrazzo floors get waxed and buffed a lot and they get very glossy.
Comment: I see lines and dents in the reflecting surfaces, that's what made me think it was vinyl (although now I agree it could be an acrylic too). Terrazzo doesn't "dent", it chips.
Answer: One that hasn't been mentioned, but is common in schools/laboratories, is "epoxy/color-chip" flooring, which is seamless, cast/painted-in-place. A base layer (usually colored), chips of colored plastic scattered, a clear top coat over all. The clear coats may be epoxy or polyurethane, or one of each. The colored chips (need not be colored, but usually are) give some texture to the floor to make it less slippery.

What kind of floor covering is this?


How to make round Seitan sausages

Question: I'm steaming my seitan (after I wrap it in foil), but it's hard to get it in perfectly round sausage shape. On the other hand, the seitan sausages I buy in stores are always perfectly round like a cylinder.. How do Seitan manufacturers get their seitan in this cylindrical perfect shape?
Answer: The easiest way to make perfect sausage-shaped seitan would be to buy vegan sausage casing(assuming you are vegetarian or vegan since you are making your own seitan).
Something similar to this.
Seitan in general isn't really smooth. And generally if it ever becomes smooth its probably over-mixed and becomes really tough. The casing provides a smooth surface and helps keep it in the round shape while you boil or steam it.
Answer: What you can do is foil-wrap them so there is some room to expand but a strong constraint once a certain expansion is reached. A couple of layers of tinfoil that are wrapped loosely, but twisted/clamped together firmly at the ends, will work well for baked seitan. Expect it to sometimes burst the foil, won't spoil it but don't make a setup where an accident can result from that happening.

How to make round Seitan sausages


Thickening Alfredo sauce

Question: My girlfriend and I are huge fettuccine alfredo fans, so we have  been trying to recreate one of our favorite Italian dishes at home.  The trouble we keep having is thickening the Alfredo sauce without destroying the flavor.  We've tried tons of recipes (this one for example: http://www.cooks.com/recipe/ed5dy8k2/easiest-best-homemade-alfredo-sauce.html) but the trouble we keep having is keeping it thick without destroying the flavor.  When we are finished with a recipe and remove the sauce from heat, it never seems to thicken up.  It just stays a kindof milky consistency and gets cold ):
Comment: Welcome to Seasoned Advice! This is a great question, I feel sure someone will have some good advice for you.
Answer: Reduce the liquid first before adding the cheese. My favorite recipe is to reduce heavy cream by half and then add in plenty of grated Parmesan. Some people add Romano, butter, and/or nutmeg as well.
Answer: Sauces can be reduced using the pasta itself as a thickening agent.
For alfredo, make the sauce in a large pan, then add cooked and drained pasta and toss together over a medium flame until reduced.
Two things happen in this technique: the starchiness of the pasta itself helps to thicken the sauce, and the pasta absorbs some of the sauce.

Thickening Alfredo sauce


Did some cultures believe that photography can steal your soul?

Question: Some westerners think that people from pre-modern cultures considered photography "stealing somebody's soul". (Comment on Travel.SE, article by a photographer). Was this the case?
Comment: Interesting thing is: we believe photography CANNOT steal one's soul... Any researches supporting this claim?
Comment: An amusing deleted answer: "When the first computer showed up in my high school, I wouldn't go near it because I believed that computers steal your soul. This turned out to be true."
Comment: Anecdotally, in the early 80's I travelled to Peru. In a market in Iquitos, we found a woman with a stand of magic supplies (charms, potions, etc.).  We asked if we could take a picture.  She agreed... and then quickly ducked out of sight so that she would not be in the picture.
Comment: @Rodrigo there should be at least a bare research about soul first, before making research on photographing it. But science doesn't contemplate that, FWIK. — But yeah, I would try to disprove it first, instead of _assuming_ that photos are harmless. Funny how entitled western culture can often be, even tho there's no evidence of anything whatsoever.
Comment: @Kamafeather I got your point, but what some peoples call "soul" (in their own languages, of course) might be a substitute for wit, emotions, humor, tranquility, versatility, etc.
Comment: @Rodrigo yes it might well be what you mentioned. – Still, being not fully researched nor disproved, imho their point of view is to be respected.
Comment: @Kamafeather Indeed!
Answer: American Indians of the Pacific Northwest - Library Of Congress

[Carolyn J. Marr] illustrates a change in Native Americans' attitudes towards photography from the late 19th to the early 20th century.
At first, many Native Americans were wary of having their photographs
taken and often refused. They believed that the process could steal a
person's soul and disrespected the spiritual world.
Over time,
however, some Native Americans came to cherish photographs as links to
ancestors and even integrated them into important ceremonies.

 More:

RIIC - Aboriginal Customs and Protocols
Comment: Hmm, this is an old post, maybe these links are out of date. I can't find anything at the first link about Indians not wanting to be photographed. Rather, it's an intro to a collection described as "some 2,300 photographs" of Native Americans. The second link (Carolyn Marr) now goes to a list of many links. Three of these are collections of photos of American Indians, again with no mention of reluctance to be photographed. ...
Comment: ... The last (RIIC) says, "There are no pictures of him [Crazy Horse]. As legend has it, he refused to be photographed, because he believed the camera would steal his soul." "As legend has it" is pretty weak, of course. There's a long discussion about getting permission before taking pictures of Indians and respecting an answer of "no", but there's no indication this is because of beliefs about photos stealing one's soul. Lots of people object to being photographed for reasons of privacy, etc.
Comment: Here's an updated link: http://www.lcweb.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/connections/pacific/thinking3.html
Comment: And now that link's gone dead, too. The (book?) came up in a catalog search, with a [catalog entry](https://lccn.loc.gov/2001562057) listing it as an E-Resource, but there still doesn't appear to be any way to access the material itself without logging in and "Request[ing] this Item". Obtaining a login is not an open/online process, AFAICT.
Answer: Some cultures not only did, but still do. This article (with references) cites some Mexican towns, Voodoo practitioners and photographer James W. Bailey still sharing the belief that images can do harm to soul.

Mirrors were considered a major part of the Mayan religion and culture. Mirrors opened portals into the Otherworld, allowing ancestors and gods to pass through between the two planes. They believed when praying to a saint, the soul leaves the body. To help the soul find its way back into the body, mirrors are placed in front of saint statues to reflect back the soul.
In Chiapas, Mexico, there are towns which still adhere to the old Mayan ways. In San Juan Chamula it is illegal to take photographs in church. If you are caught using a camera in church - jail time is a distinct possibility. Older generation film cameras and todays SLR and digital SLR cameras still use mirrors. The Mayan beliefs led to photography being banned inside of churches.
Most of the people today allow their photograph to be taken, however infants are protected. It is still believed the souls of infants are fragile and are susceptible to leaving the body.


Why is an actor sometimes called 'ham'?

Question: I came across the word 'ham' in an article which was used to refer to an actor. I referred the dictionary. But I was unclear of the fact that how can it be used to refer to an actor?
Comment: There is also an idiom, "ham it up" (especially for actors). When people ham it up they deliberately exaggerate their emotions or movements.
Comment: If you are clumsy or incompetent at something you are also said to be "ham-handed" or "ham-fisted" which gives the impression that your hands are like large unwieldy pieces of meat, unsuited for delicate work.
Comment: Some fun and interesting notes on large hams can be found here: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LargeHam
Comment: It's generally accepted that "ham", when used to refer to an amateur radio operator, is derived from "amateur" shortened to "am" and then given the leading "H" sound (which tends to happen to such abbreviations to make the pronunciation more "comfortable").  But the connotation of "ham" for an actor is different, and doesn't (currently) have a strong connection with "amateur".
Answer: The word Ham to mean an "overacting inferior performer," apparently dates from about 1882 and orignates from American English. Originally the word was hamfatter, meaning "actor of low grade," and has been linked to an old minstrel show song, "The Ham-fat Man" which dates from about 1863.
Sources:
https://www.wordnik.com/words/hamfatter
Comment: Interesting. [etymonline](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=ham) suggests the song "has nothing to do with acting, so the connection must be with the quality of acting in minstrel shows, where the song was popular". I imagine old time thespians saying "You're fit only to sing 'The Ham-Fat Man', not to play Hamlet!"
Comment: @Ilythya I think this is a better answer as it explains the etymology.
Comment: @camden_kid Certainly it's more interesting but I suppose for utilitarian purposes you might prefer the accepted answer.
Answer: ham actor. origin

an unskilled actor who overacts
a theatrical performer

ham acting
when a person overacts immensely. it is generally more accepted in the theatre but criticised in film and tv. can also describe a person who is being fake. also called "hamming it"
Answer: Following up on the earlier answers by Ilythya and john crow, I did some research into the theories that ham (in the actorly sense) derives from ham fat or from hamfatter (or from both).

Ham fat or 'The Ham-fat Man'?
John Ayto, Word Origins, second edition (2005) includes this comment in its entry for ham:

Ham in the sense 'performer who overacts', first recorded in the late 19th century, apparently comes from an earlier hamfatter 'bad actor', which may have been inspired by the Negro minstrel song 'The Ham-fat Man'.

This bolsters Ilythya's answer; but john crow's answer finds support, too, in Martin Harrison, The Language of Theatre (1993):

The most plausible derivation, with a more detailed and credible etymological story, is that in C19, before the invention of Leichner make-up, powder make-ups were combined with some form of grease or oil before application. Amateurs, or actors on a low income—that is, those who tended to be inferior—were forced to employ cheaper substances (rather than the professionals' sophisticated oils) to apply their make-up, hence the nicknames ham-bone and ham-fat(ter) from the fact that they used ham-rind and other unpleasant greases as a medium. Ham-fatter may come directly from a negro minstrel song, 'The Hamfat Man'.

Michael Macrone, Animalogies (1995) brings the "ham grease" and "Hamfat Man" theories together in a somewhat different way from Harrison [combined snippets]:

The title ["The Hamfat Man"] refers to the minstrels' use of hog grease to clean the black off their faces. It's very likely that the tune inspired the phrase ham actor or ham for short, although such epithets as hamfat man or hamfat actor may predate it. In any case "ham" appeared on its own by 1882, when someone referred to himself, in a letter to in a letter to Illustrated Sports and Drama News, as "no ham, but a classical banjo player."

So one source says that ham fat was used to blend with powder make-up before application, and another that ham fat was used to remove blackface makeup (presumably burnt cork) after application.

Earliest occurrence of 'Hamfatter'
According to Iris Blake, "Burlesque: Music, Minstrelsy, and Mimetic Resistance" (2013), "The Ham Fat Man" was an 1863 minstrel song show, which also (she says) is the first song to include the words "hootchy cootchy," albeit in a primitive phonetic spelling. The chorus of the song:

Ham fat, ham fat, zigga zolla zan,
Ham fat, ham fat, Tickle olla tan;
oh! Walk into de kitchen, as fast as you can,
Hoochee Koochee Koochee, says the Hamfat Man

Early notice of the term hamfatter appears in John Farmer, Americanisms Old and New (1889), where the term doesn't refer to performers of any kind:

HAMFATTER. —A recent name in some quarters of New York, for a second-rate dude or masher, and more especially applied to the habitués of the Rialto in that city.
[Example:] I'll warrant that these ladies who complain have, if the truth were known, strolled up and down Broadway by the Fifth Avenue Hotel and the Hoffman, and were they so fortunate as to receive an admiring glance from the well-dressed and more prosperous professional brother of the HAMFATTER, they were not offended, forsooth. —New York Herald, July 29, 1888.

Another source indicates that in New York City the term hamfatter was applied colloquially to non-actors by 1879. From George Sala, "All the Fun of the Fair," (December 3, 1879), in America Revisited, sixth edition (1886):

Every American who does not wish to be thought "small potatoes" or a "ham-fatter" or a "corner loafer," is carefully "barbed" and fixed up in a hair-dressing saloon every day.

However, in "Spangles and Sawdust," in the Nashville [Tennessee] Union and American (November 6, 1879), a "flying trapeze" artist tells the reporter that the term refers to second-rate performers in his profession:

"This is the first [circus] show I ever left in this way. I traveled with Forepaugh's establishment four seasons, and never had any trouble. I've been with this show since the 12th of June last, having joined it at Clinton, Iowa. When DeHaven proposed this concert business, I told him I was no ham-fatter, and—"
"Ham-fatter?"
"Yes, ham-fatter. That's the name we give a man in our profession who is a poor performer. I've been in the business since I was ten years old, and I'm a little over twenty-five now."

It's difficult to think of a form of entertainment where the idea of applying ham fat before a show seems less suitable than in a trapeze act—but that consideration evidently didn't prevent the minstrelsy term hamfatter from becoming circus slang, too.
The first instance of a performer specifically promoted as a "ham-fatter" appears in an ad for the Vaudeville Theatre in the San Antonio [Texas] Light (April 8, 1884):

Then comes the noted ham-fatter, CHARLIE FRYE. "If you can guess what he is doing you can have it."

The same ad mentions that Frye will participate later in the show as a character in "The exceedingly laughable Ethiopian interlude, entitled, Nitro-Glycerine!" which is evidently one of the high points of the evening.

Other uses of ham fat in popular entertainment
From Rosemarie Ostler, Let's Talk Turkey: The Stories Behind America' Favorite Expressions (2008):

According to tradition, ham fat was part of the equipment of old jazz musicians. A 1966 New Yorker piece on Louisiana music alludes to this claim: "Most of the musicians playing in these clubs are old men…. They're hamfat musicians. In the old days, the rough musicians kept pieces of ham fat in their pockets to grease the slides of their trombones." By the time [George] Sala used the word in his book [in 1879], it had become synonymous with a third-rate performer or other low-class person.

Conclusions
I was surprised that multiple sources endorsed the theory that ham fat as preparation for makeup (or as a post-performance cleanser of makeup) inspired the minstrelsy song "the Ham Fat Man." An alternative theory might be that "Ham Fat Man" was simply a stock minstrelsy name—like Tambo, Jim Crow, and Mr. Bones—that had no reference to practical uses of ham fat on the stage.
In any event, the argument that "ham actor" is derived from hamfatter seems quite strong, even though the term hamfatter was also used in connection with forms of entertainment besides stage acting, and indeed was sometimes applied to people who were not entertainers at all.

UPDATE (3/24/2016): I consulted a new (to me) glossary of theater terms to see what it might add to the discussion. Here is the entry for ham in Don Wilmeth, The Language of American Popular Entertainment: A Glossary of Argot, Slang, and Terminology (1981) [combined snippets]:

Ham or ham actor. An amateur or professional actor who is affected, self-indulgent, or conceited, and who tends to strive for attention over the other actors on the stage by overplaying. A number of theories to the origin of this unflattering epithet have been posed. Two possibilities involve the operation of Tony Pastor, the early vaudeville manager. He had an act in his downtown establishment called "The Hamtown Students," a black-face quartet known for their exaggerated movements and the overblown nature of their act. Supposedly, whenever Pastor saw an actor who was overplaying he described him as  a "ham." Others apparently used the full name, "Hamtown student." Another theory is that a poster at Pastor's Opera House in New York announced "sixty hams distributed on Monday evening." This offering of free hams, according to the theory, began to reflect poorly on the actors until they were known as "ham actors." H.L. Mencken suggested that it came from Hamlet, since all actors either claimed to have played Hamlet to great applause—or wished to play Hamlet. He further pointed out that an old name for an amateur was hambone. It has been said that the term actually came from a name associated with Hamish McCullough (1835–1885), who toured the "pig-sticking" towns of Illinois with a fit-up or portable company. His nickname was Ham and his troupe was called Ham's actors. The most sensible origin is that the word is short for hamfatter, the emollient or lard derived from pork and ham used by old-time actor and minstrel men to remove their makeup. It was common before the advent of cold cream and later, when col cream was available, was just as effective and cheaper.
Comment: I would also add that on British TV there used to be a BBC TV show called [*The Black and White Minstrel Show*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_and_White_Minstrel_Show), and if memory serves me correctly they really overdid/played the [Al Jolson](http://www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/ajolson-silverscreen.htm) thing, strumming banjos, and over gesticulating. It was hugely popular in its day, along with golliwogs...  I don't know if anything similar existed in America. But if ever performers "hammed", it was them.
Comment: +1 nice answer - I forgot about this old question. Off-topic btw :)
Answer: Ham means Not a professional or Not a member of a paid profession. An amateur, as in an unpaid radio operator, is also called a Ham. They are not paid for their work, instead they make their own radios from used parts.
Lacking professional skill—as in a poor theatrical performer. In the history of theater,  amateur actors used ham or pig fat as a "poor" homemade theatrical makeup, not professionally applied makeup. Hamming became synonymous with poor acting  due to the overuse  of greasepaint which was made from ham fat.
Comment: my dad told me this as a 5yo  why do Amateur radio operators get called Hams?  my dad told the story of  Theatrical makeup made from pig fat and how some poor theatrical performers over used it. in the time of Shakespeare.
Comment: Do you have any references which backup your answer? It's a very interesting one, and one which sheds light on the meaning of "ham actor " and "hamming it up"
Comment: its ok to edit my post its your website
Comment: Oops Ur not the website moderator
Answer: It seems to be a rather British term and describes a mediocre or overacting actor.

hammy adj. (informal)
used to describe an actor or acting that is unnatural and uses too much emotion

Source: Cambridge Dictionaries Online
Answer: In the bible, Noah's son Ham over reacted to seeing his father naked and drunk.  When someone is over acting or doing something to get more attention, they are said to be hams or are hamming it up.
Comment: None of Noah's progeny were named after cold cuts. What are you on about?
Comment: @user234461 Why is this downvoted so much? It's an interesting theory even if the text in Genesis doesn't necessarily support it directly... And what are you on about? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_Ham
Answer: Interesting evolution of the term: going ham in the video gaming community usually means trying too hard at an attempt at a goal and ultimately failing. For example, someone in a competitive game might take on 3 other players in a situation where he or she really can't take on that amount of competitors, but try anyway and ultimately fail. This is going too ham.
Comment: That phrase is an abbreviation of hard as a m*****f***** and not related to the acting term.
Comment: I have never heard that before, can you back up your claim?
Comment: Check, for example, Kanye West song H.A.M. or the urban dictionary entry for the origin of the slang
Comment: The term "full ham" has been used long before that song. This is just a common misconception spawned from it. I remember it being used as far back as 2005, and there is even an urban dictionary post somewhat related to it dated 2010. Before the song, which was in 2011.

Why is an actor sometimes called 'ham'?


Creation, Fall, Redemption (Restoration/New Creation): Who said it first?

Question: Who is the author who first described the biblical metanarrative of scripture as Creation, Fall, Redemption -- and some include Restoration or New Creation?
Comment: Welcome to Christianity.SE. For a quick overview, please take the [Site Tour](http://christianity.stackexchange.com/tour). Thanks for asking a question here. It might be a tough one to answer, since the field of possible authors is wide open over many centuries of Christian history. However, it *is* an interesting question. I hope you'll get some good answers. Meanwhile, for more on what this site is all about, please see: [How we are different than other sites](http://meta.christianity.stackexchange.com/q/1808/20394).
Answer: While creation and redemption were early Christian/biblical concepts, the notion of a "Fall" draws heavily from Platonism and Neoplatonism. Pushing all three together into a narrative is probably easiest to attribute to Augustine, the great importer of Neoplatonist themes into Christian doctrine, but let's unpack each of the three.

Creation
Obviously the creation narratives in the first three chapters of Genesis have been interpreted in various ways throughout the history of Jewish and Christian thought. However, these differing interpretations usually disagree on the how of creation, (1) (2) (3) (4) not the cause of creation. (5) (6) (7) For example, Christian thinkers may disagree on the time span of creation (literal six days?), but all Christian theologians agree that God is ultimately creator. (8) (9)

Redemption
This is a bit tricky to answer in the context of this question and we will need to come back to it afterward for a fuller answer. Like the doctrine of creation, redemption has had many differing interpretations. It's probably best categorized under the doctrine of soteriology which answers the question: How does God save? Biblical concepts inside this doctrine include topics like redemption, reconciliation, propitiation, forgiveness, and justification. (10)
Depending on the period of Christian history and the theologian, the way we approach soteriology can be radically different, but indebted to Jewish thought, the early church always had a concept that God is the one who "saves". (11) (12)

Fall
Here's the missing piece of the puzzle that ties the narrative together. Many modern Christians have lumped concepts like Adam's first sin, the fall, and original sin together to mean the same thing. If that's you, you probably owe it to a modified version of St. Augustine's teaching on the issue. But that deserves a bit of unpacking. First, let's talk about the fall.
The fall really isn't a biblical concept. That language of descent doesn't manifest itself in the garden narrative or in the early Christian writings. If anything, the paradigm wasn't a vertical one, but a horizontal one: inclusion vs exclusion: Adam and Eve were excluded from the garden, Gehenna -- often translated as "hell" in English -- is literally a valley outside the city of Jerusalem. (13) (14) (15)
In fact, the concept of the fall, really becomes cemented in Christian doctrine because of Augustine. His project merges Plotinus, the great neoplatonist thinker, with the Christian tradition. In the Phaedrus, Plato describes the fall of the immortal soul in heaven, which Plotinius expands and orders into a systematic doctrine. (16) (17) (18)
In order to go any further, it's time to get some technical terminology out of the way. First let's start with the difference between original sin and first sin (or Adam's sin). The first sin is a reference to the Garden of Eden. Literally, it's when Adam and Eve ate from the tree. Original sin is also a concept that comes from Augustine, and it is a sharing of all humanity in the first sin. For Augustine, when Adam ate from the tree, all humanity shared in that sin in mass condemnation. (19) (20) (21)
What's going on here? Well, the church hadn't yet condemned the doctrine of the preexistence of souls in Augustine's time, but it was not common doctrine. Humans are not immortal, and therefore we need a beginning. For most Christians, our souls are created like the rest of created things and there was a time when "we were not." (22)
So Augustine can't use the concept of the fall like the platonists do. Individually, for Augustine, we don't fall into our bodies from an eternal, heavenly state. Instead, the entire human race fell into original sin during that first sin of Adam. (23) The consequence, for Augustine, is a perversion of our "will" or desire. Humans are now in need of repairing or mending this broken will. (24) (25)

Conclusion
In a famous quote from Augustine, he says, "My weight is my love." (26) What he means is that by loving higher things, our weight becomes lighter (like the ancient element of fire) and we tend toward heaven. By loving lower things, I become heavier and tend toward lower existence (like the ancient element of earth). Tying it together, redemption becomes the healing of our will or desire. When God heals us, we become capable of loving God, which draws our souls toward heaven.
Is this still the way all theologians view this narrative of creation, fall, and redemption? No. Throughout the history of the church, theologians have rethought these concepts. It's not really fashionable (or believable) to base a modern theology on Neoplatonism, but Augustine's impact can still be felt. Even thinkers who reject Platonism will still use concepts like Original Sin and the Fall, but interpret them in different ways.
Comment: Ok, I tried to add as many references as I had patience for. (Internet links feel a bit dubious for references, but may give a jumping-off point for individuals.) I also attempted to be as ecumenical as I could, drawing from different theological traditions. Edits still welcomed.
Answer: I found this article:
Smither, EL (2014). Augustine on redemption in Genesis 1–3. Verbum et Ecclesia; Vol 35, No 1. doi: 10.4102/ve.v35i1.1315
Which says this:

"In his Genesis works, Augustine was primarily concerned with clarifying the doctrine of creation and, relatively speaking, had far less to say about redemption"

Which seems to strongly imply that Augustine at least had a creation, fall, redemption view implicit in his understanding of scripture. Whether he explicitly described it this way I don't know, nor whether he was the first to say/use it.


Trello - Force Notifications (without subscribing)

Question: I need to force notifications for everyone in a board, so if someone does something everyone knows about it (through their apps and emails), that seems to be a very basic idea for a project management tool. Is this possible?
Answer: There's no way subscribe another person to a card, list, or board. Adding them to a card will automatically subscribe them. Alternatively, you can mention them (using "@username") in a comment to get their attention.


How can I take a part of a video and chroma key only the parts that I select?

Question: I'm not sure if this should be for photo or video, but let's say I see a part of a video that I would like to add a green background to, like chroma key, but the background isn't a solid color. Could I be able to select only the parts that I want to keep, and do this frame by frame? What I'm doing will only be about 3 seconds long. Is this possible with a program like After Effects, or some kind of Adobe program?
Answer: This isn't chroma keying. If your subject isn't in front of a green screen (or blue) then you're only other alternative is to mask it, rotoscope to be precise. After Effects does have a tool called a rotobrush that let's you brush around the edges of your subject but it's not the most precise or clean mask.It will however make for a very quick rotoscope. If you go frame by frame, you can make a mask with the pen tool and key the shape each frame as you adjust it. 72 frames at 24 frames per second would give you three seconds like you're estimating. That's about 2 days of work for someone with a decent amount of experience with the pen tool. Hope this helps.
Comment: How long it takes also depends on what the footage is. Static shots of a bald guy meditating or handheld footage of a hair metal band crowd surfing at a concert?


Can I link Trello tasks (for meetings) with my Outlook calendar?

Question: I'm just starting to use Trello to manage my work to do lists and I'm looking at the possiblility of using it to manage a team task we have to perform. As this task involves scheduling a meeting with other members of our organisation, it'd be great if there were a way to have the Trello task linked with the Outlook calendar, so that task appears as an appointment in the calendar. Is it possible?
Answer: So far no this is a requested feature, you can vote up:
https://trello.com/card/icalendar-feed-with-due-dates/4d5ea62fd76aa1136000000c/1116
Answer: Just in case anyone is still looking at this, as it ranks high on Google still. I've been making an Outlook Add-on to do just this: http://www.tailormadesolutions.com.au/trello-outlook-calendar-addon/
Answer: Well, apparently Trello has an iCalendar Feed and Outlook can subscribe to these feeds, so you probably just need to mix these two features.
Answer: Maybe you can try this easy solution that adds the Trello calendar to Outlook:
http://download.cnet.com/Trello-for-Outlook/3000-2124_4-76250068.html


Will not start after new battery was placed

Question: My car (1994 Honda accord) is not starting even after I put in a new battery. When I wiggle the Battery a little, I find that the car will turn half way, with the lights showing the battery and oil, the music will come on the electric windows move, yet when I try to start it, everything goes dark, no click. I have just put in a new battery and had a starter put on it. Before it stopped running there was a rubber smell when it got hot, could this be the problem?  Our what?
Answer: The problem is with the connection. You have either not tightened the strap enough, there is something there keeping the electricity from flowing (corrosion), or both. Take both straps off of the battery and ensure they are completely clean. You can do this by using a small brush and water to clean the crud off. Replace the straps on the battery (assuming the battery posts are clean due to it being a new battery) and tighten until they don't wiggle anymore. If available, you could put a small amount of grease (petroleum based) on the posts and on the straps to help prevent corrosion in the future.
If this doesn't work there could be a problem with your one or both of your battery cables. Look for fat spots in the cable. If this is the case, it means you have corrosion inside the cable and it will have to be replaced.


Substitute for dry milk powder

Question: My recipe,for dog biscuits,calls for pumpkin, rice flour, and 2 tablespoons dry milk powder. I have no milk powder, what can I use instead?
Comment: You might want to ask this at the Pets board.
Comment: A recipe would be useful, answers will be dependent on the proportion of the milk powder to other ingredients.
Comment: 2 eggs,1/2 cup canned pumpkin,2 tablespoons dry milk, 1/4 teaspoon sea salt, 2+1/2 cups brown rice flour, 1 teaspoon parsley.
Answer: You could replace it with any other powdered non-dairy milk trivially, but I imagine you don't have those either. There's also not enough liquid in the recipe to be able to reduce it and use actual milk.
That being said, the purpose of milk in baked goods is flavor, a tender crumb and a well-colored crust. You could add in a tablespoon of peanut butter or another fat (a local bakery makes dog biscuits with rendered bacon fat) to add tenderness to the biscuits, and your dog will probably appreciate the flavor while you can avoid the issues of canine lactose intolerance.

Substitute for dry milk powder


What are the names of the various versions of the Android OS, and how are these names chosen?

Question: Many people refer to Android versions by "codenames" rather than version numbers (e.g. Android "Gingerbread"). What are the names of the various versions of the Android OS, and how are these names chosen?
Answer: Each version of Android since 1.5 has been developed with a specific codename. These codenames are chosen alphabetically and have thus far been dessert items (or, generically, sweet/sugary foods). Some codenames are associated with more than one version number, while others are limited to only a specific one, and the reason for this inconsistency is not currently known. The naming typically appears to correspond to changes in the developer API levels, but this is not always true (example: 3.0 and 3.1 are both "Honeycomb" but have different API levels).
The following names are used for the currently existing Android releases. Note that versions 1.0 and 1.1 were not publicly named. However, Android 1.1 was internally referred to as "Petit-Four" (noted in Traroth's answer, confirmed here). Also, starting from Android 10, Google stops announcing the codename publicly and instead referred to the version number, though they may still have the codename for internal purposes (reff: XDA):
Cupcake:

Android 1.5

Donut:

Android 1.6

Eclair:

Android 2.0
Android 2.1

Froyo: (short for "frozen yogurt")

Android 2.2

Gingerbread:

Android 2.3

Honeycomb:

Android 3.0
Android 3.1
Android 3.2

Ice Cream Sandwich:

Android 4.0

Jelly Bean:

Android 4.1
Android 4.2
Android 4.3

KitKat:

Android 4.4

Lollipop:

Android 5.0
Android 5.1

Marshmallow:

Android 6.0

Nougat: (official name: https://twitter.com/Android/status/748642375908589568)

Android 7.0
Android 7.1

Oreo:

Android 8.0
Android 8.1

Pie:

Android 9.0

Android 10 (Quince Tart)
Android 11 (Red Velvet Cake)
Android 12 (Snow Cone)
Android 13 (Tiramisu)
Android 14 (Upside Down Cake)
Answer: Eldarerathis summarized it very well. To add some things: The 1.1 version was internally called Petit Four by Google, and that's how it all began. Google is installing a giant pastry on their lawn at Mountain View each time a new version is about to be launched.
You can see pictures of that display at different stages here:
 Donut, Android logo, Nexus one, Cupcake, Eclair
Froyo
 Gingerbread, Icecream Sandwich, Honeycomb
 KitKat, Jellybean
 Lollipop

Marshmallow

Nougat

Oreo
Answer: https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/manifest/uses-sdk-element.html#ApiLevels contains a table that links all the naming mess, excerpt:
<code>Platform Version    API Level    VERSION_CODE
Android 6.0         23           M
Android 5.1         22           LOLLIPOP_MR1
Android 5.0         21           LOLLIPOP
...
</code>
Web archive link.
Comment: Just a heads-up that this list doesn't seem to reflect codenames anymore since M. P has released already, yet M/N/O's dessert names aren't in.


Is once-per-week training enough for building muscle

Question: I recently read Convict conditioning book and in the workout routines part the author put a routine for beginners in which trainees workout an exercise only once per week.
But I've read on the internet that beginners should train 3 times per week.
So, is once per week for bodyweight exercises like pushups and pullups enough for building muscle ?
Answer: Yes, you will see improvements, but they will be slow.
The residual training effect table on exrx.net (found here, screenshot below) describes how the body retains changes in body state and motor control after ceasing to exercise for a certain time period:

The table shows a 15 day (+/- 5 day) retention period on strength endurance.  This is defined as: slow twitch fiber hypertrophy, aerobic/anaerobic enzyme activity, local blood circulation, lactate tolerance. Also shown is a 30 day (+/- 5 day) retention on maximal strength.
There are a number of medical references on the webpage for further reading. See also detraining muscle mass, which states:

Squat strength of Olympic Weightlifters declined approximately 10% in after 4 weeks of cessation of weight training.

And also:

Muscle mass returned to pretraining levels after 5 months of detraining.

One can logically presume that, given the residual effect window, you should be able to progressively overload (and thus build strength and muscle).  However, due to the limited training volume and stimulus you can receive in a single day of training, your progress would obviously be slower than a more rigorous routine.
Comment: I'm guessing decline in training effect is not linear, but couldn't find any information via your link. Would you know of any guidelines as to how quickly training effect diminishes?
Comment: I think the chart *(and article generally)* is referring to athlete-like exercises. Because based on that chart, performing strength exercises every 10 - 20 days is enough to retain strength.  I don't have the resources to disprove your claim, but I don't think that's absolutely true.
Comment: @Kneel-Before-ZOD: HIT training is sometimes done in this way and supposedly works for some people. Granted, most people doing HIT split their workouts, so they train 3 times a week, although different muscles. I did hear from people doing _one_ HIT full body workout per week, though, and they were making gains. So I guess it's not impossible, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, either.
Comment: Good question @LarissaGodzilla regarding training effectiveness.  I don't have a resource for that.  I agree with your comment and would not recommend a once-per-week routine to anyone either.  I imagine one could still make improvements if that were their only option, however.
Comment: @LarissaGodzilla Thanks for the info. I guess I have more researches to perform. I find it hard to believe that exercising once a week *(with any other smaller in-between exercises)* is enough to get stronger over time.
Answer: You will probably see an initial benefit, but I doubt it'd take you far. 3x Week will be more efficient and will allow you to see benefit much further down the road assuming you follow proper progression and eating.
Comment: While I agree with you, this is not really an answer. It has no sources, not even anecdotal and it doesn't really explain anything. As it stands it's an opinion and would have better been posted as a comment.
Answer: Hi Peter,
Assuming you aren't performing any other muscle building or weightlifting exercises, one day exercise is not enough. The 6-day rest period is too large to make any significant progress, especially if you're just starting.
Any benefit you see in a day will have eroded by the 4th to 5th day.
I haven't read the book, but it's likely that the author was talking about performing a specific exercise per day. So, Day 1 could be pull-ups, Day 2 could be bicep curls, Day 3 is push ups, etc.
If my assumption is wrong and the author was actually talking about exercising once a week, you can update your question with the reasons he gave for such a recommendation.
So again, no, you won't really see much (permanent) benefits (if any at all). However, you're equally more likely to quit.
Just find a way to include your routines into your daily life and it'll be easier to do them. :)
Comment: Yes, I've read the book and he definitely did not mean 1 day of exercise and 6 of rest.
Comment: Any references on "any benefit you see in a day will have eroded by the 4th to 5th day."?  Seems unfounded.
Comment: @Doc It's just an estimation. But given the amount of rest days between the exercises, it's unlikely that the benefits would have eroded sooner. *Unless you disagree with the entire notion that the benefits would erode at all :).*
Comment: The research indicates they erode within a certain time period.  See the table in my answer.  Also, "one day of exercise is not enough" -- enough for what?  Seems subjective.
Comment: +1 for 'find a way to include your routines into your daily life'. It's really easy to do some push ups three times a day. [An article](https://www.t-nation.com/training/more-muscle-in-10-minutes-a-day) on a similar topic that I've read recently gives some pointers on how to start.
Answer: You must have misunderstood the author about this.
I've read the book and the workout routines was at least twice a week in the routine "New Blood" He also includes more intense routines but he advises not to use them until you reach level 7 of each of the big six movements.
But if you're planning to workout just once a week, You will hardly see any results.
http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/training-each-muscle-group-once-per-week/
This website is really helpful when it comes to building your own routine


Does Family Safety Work On Windows 10 Mobile?

Question: On PC's you can filter web browsing, block apps and more via the Microsoft Family Safety site. If Windows 10 is truly a "united OS", can we do the same for phones?
Comment: It's far to early to tell, I'm afraid.
Answer: Just to update here, the Family Safety site has been updated to allow app blocking, web filtering, and more on Windows 10 Mobile.
Answer: Additionally, a Lumia 635 that was previously associated with Family Safety on Windows Phone 8.1, has lost all connections with Windows 10 Preview (FastLane) installation.
So, not yet implemented.
Answer: There are no new options in Windows 10 Technical preview for phones related to family safety (yet).


How do I publish/export Microsoft Access Forms

Question: I developed some forms in Microsoft Access and have yet to connect the forms with the database. However I would like to build and maybe publish the forms so I can view them outside of Access. how do I accomplish this please? If not possible, Is there a way to build and run access forms as you would your typical .NET windows forms?
Answer: Access forms are totally different from .NET windows forms. .NET forms are first compiled to CIL languge, then at run-time, the CLR's JIT compiles it to native instructions just before the execution. This makes it possible to write once, and run on any computer where CLR is present.
This is not the case with access forms. They are totally "embedded" inside the Access .mdb/mda file, much like sheets and workbooks are "embedded" inside Excel file. So, the access form is totally dependent on the Access application to execute itself. So, no access=no access-form.
Answer: One option for publishing is to use two database file. One contains your tables, and the other contains your forms. This way you can simply publish form changes by distributing a new version of the access file with the forms. You can also backup your code and data separately.
Another variation on this is to store your data in a relational database such as Microsoft SQL Server Express or MySQL(http://www.mysql.com/) and connect to the tables in Access as Linked Tables. Note that you will need an ODBC driver for the database you are storing the data in.


What are the super cool tricks to getting published in high impact journals?

Question: I am starting a post-doc in Cognitive Neuroscience and I am interested in publishing my work in high impact journals (e.g., Nature, Science, Behavioral and Brain Science). I have already published review articles in not-so-high impact journals, and I would like to know your thoughts and tips for publishing in high-impact journals. I will be responsible for submitting these papers to these journals and I will be seeing them through to the end. Ay helpful advice and tips would be greatly appreciated!
Comment: Do excellent science [that is interesting to a broad audience].
Comment: If your postdoc contract specifically asks you to publish in Nature and Science -- good luck.
Comment: Sad, dishonest, but important to know about in this context: Check a recent [Science article](http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6162/1035.full?sid=9ab52fa0-5874-4521-beba-ba4e1b31f5e9) on how to fast-track to publications in reasonably good journals (Science 29 November 2013:
Vol. 342 no. 6162 pp. 1035-1039). TL;DR: money buys it for you!
Comment: Do you mean Science-Nature or more regular journals with high impact factors? depending on which the answer may differ.
Comment: Also some hint on which research field we are talking about would be great.
Comment: I think you will learn more (and easier) from the opposite question: What to do to a great result to be sure that some high-impact journal will never ever accept is?
Comment: I'm voting to close this question because ... it is a stupid trolling question, whether or not intended such by the questioner.
Comment: @Joe Really? Or is that the fact that a paper is accepted increases its chance to have a colon in the title?
Comment: Here is another way: http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/72680/4484
Comment: There is no 'super-cool tricks', I guess. Just do a breakthrough which could a show the world something very crucial.
Answer: High impact journals, or in other word, top ranked journals (based on IF) are those publishing the state-of-the-art research works with high percentage of novelty and originality. In my own opinion following tips are very important in getting into the high impact journals:

Select a real challenging problem whose solution/amendment significantly impacts on the domain.
Formulate the problem (using mathematical modeling, visualization, or empirical experiment depending on the domain) and let peers/reviewers see the significance of the problem.
Propose a solution with high degree of novelty in a way that has not been undertaken before for the same problem.
Throughout the research try to follow the conventions of research in your domain in the highest possible level, especially when it comes to evaluation and validation of your work.
In data collection phase, try to follow the most appropriate approaches and use accurate tools to measure/quantify. Maybe looking at similar papers can help you in this.
Avoid silly mistakes. Usually reviewers do not expect to see silly mistakes in the work. If you make small obvious mistakes, how can reviewers ensure the rest of your work is error-free.
Show high level of confidence in understanding and expertise over the domain. If you need to review related works in your paper, try to select those closely related to your work; not any work.
Present your work nicely. Avoid English errors (no grammar and no spelling). Use professional drawing tools to draw high quality figures, draw nice tables, use proper sizing for objects in the paper, not too big, not to small.
There is an approach by some young authors that leave some works to be done in revisions stage, which is not correct to me. Don't send incomplete work to any high quality journal. There will hardly be any chance to correct mistakes. The review is more to evaluate the significance of the work, the novelty, relevance to the journal, and research practice presented in the paper. Reviewers are not English proof reader and their job is not to correct you.

There may be lot more tips that I will compile as I noticed. Hope it works.
Comment: For an (extreme) example of a paper that does things like this, take a look at the [paper that announced LIGO's discovery of gravitational waves](https://physics.aps.org/featured-article-pdf/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102). It's around 2-3 pages of "we've seen this", followed by 10 pages of "and this is why the measurement is valid and not an error."
Answer: Others have asked and tried to answer this question before. Here is an ad-hoc list of resources relevant to your question, both print and online.

Sternberg, R. J. (Ed.). (2000). Guide to publishing in psychology journals. Cambridge University. (field: psychology)
Bem, D. J. (2003) Writing the empirical journal article. url. (field: psychology)
Roediger III, H. L. (2007). Twelve tips for authors. APS Observer, 20. url. (field: psychology)
King, G. (2006). Publication, publication. PS: Political Science & Politics, 39, 119-125. doi:10.1017/S1049096506060252 (field: political science)
Senturia, S. D. (2003). Guest editorial: How to avoid the reviewer's axe: One editor's view. Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems, 12, 229-232. doi:10.1109/JMEMS.2003.814319 (field: mechanics)
Manuscript review histories of the Journal of Consumer Research. One can track the whole review history of a couple of papers including the submissions, reviews, resubmissions, etc. (field: consumers)
Answer: There is really nothing special that causes your paper to be accepted in a high-impact journal. If we start by looking at Science and Nature, they publish material more like a newspaper would than a scientific journal ( I am not saying it is without worth, they just have different criteria for their selection). The material needs to be extraordinary by, for example, being "sensational" in some way, by affecting many, or by causing a change in paradigm. It is really hard to design your research to obtain such results. They may be a result of good design but also luck. So if we disregard from results that fall into the science/nature categories and focus on more normal science output the following (adapted from Lichtfouse, 2013) will be the basis for high-impact publications:

Select your journal carefully
Be careful to follow the instructions for authors
Focus the article on one finding
Prepare one figure that shows or illustrates the main main finding
Explain your new finding in the abstract, the discussion AND the conclusions
Delete any irrelevant results or those that are not explained
Distinguish clearly between the results from your study and those of others
Include a good dose of education and dissemination
Read your article at least five times before submitting it
make sure your manuscript is written in good English

While this may look like generic advise, it is followed by so few that it will set your manuscript apart from the majority. Some of the points also involve serious work so it is perhaps a deceptively simple list.
Lichtfouse, E., 2013. Scientific writing for impact journals. Nova, New York.
Comment: _really nothing special that causes your paper to be accepted_, but I think you missed two most important things top quality journals are looking for. They are looking for a paper 1- reporting results of a research on the state-of-the-art domain, 2- addressing an original problem using a novel approach. As an example, I was attending a talk by an EiC of top 1 CS journal where he discouraged submission of papers on routing in MANET since this is not he trend and there are already very large number of articles in this domain. Top journals do not publish a 50's research for sure.
Comment: Let me give you another example. I prepared two survey articles with identical theme. One on the state-of-the-art domain and another one on a 20-year old domain. The first one published in the journal with the highest impact factor and the second one got rejected from the 30th journal because the topic was old. Timeliness is VERY VERY much important.
Answer: If you are publishing in emerging fields where much research has not been done, you have good chance to get published, even though its not groundbreaking. First movers are always at an advantage. Just like patents.
Comment: Isn't publishing something interesting in an unexplored field the very definition of 'groundbreaking'?
Answer: Well, if "super cool" ... There was a history when one laboratory has published a highly impressive discovery in a very reputable journal. Then they found a mistake in they experimental setup, and applied with another paper to the same journal, just to say the previous result is wrong. This was also accepted and now they have two publications in highly reputable journal ... for nothing.
But I believe this "trick" was not intentional and I am far from recommending it.
Comment: Then one found by a PhD student, right? Yes, that was cool. I believe, lack of further amendment, is what is missing in today's publication, at least in online-only versions. Publishers may look at this issue seriously.
Answer: 1) Produce good science
2) Go to groups which already published in Science, Nature, etc.
Both conditions are necessary (especially the second).
Slots in journals with IF>10 are practically "inherited" (you can publish there sth if your PI already published there etc.) - thus you need be very selective in case of where you want to do PhD, postdoc.
In simple words, if you are independent scientist without publication record in Science, Nature, Cell, ... Editors will reject your manuscript in one day without reading it (you will get this nice courtesy letter, that your work is nice, but does not have wide impact ble ble). Sad, but true.
This is hard rule, I know only one exception in which one scientist broke it, but it is single case in the 20-year history of science in my country and it was celebrated almost as national holiday, but he was already established scientist, EMBO member etc).


Can one recover the full list of public keys generated in electrum with the seed/private key?

Question: I used the wallet.change_gap_limit command in the electrum console in order to generate some 20.000 public keys.
Would I be able to recover all of these using my seed after completely removing electrum from my system, reinstalling it and running the change_gap_limit command again?
Answer: Yes.
As a plan B if that fails, you should be able to use piped bitcoin explorer bx commands offline. This is because Electrum v2.0 and above uses the same BIP 32 Hierarchical Deterministic (HD) technology that bx supports.
However, the Electrum HD paths are different from the BIP 44 convention. See It appears Electrum uses: m/0/0 for wallet addresses and m/1/0 for change addresses. Additionally, the English Electrum Seed Word List is quite different from the newer English BIP 39 Seed Word List, and I don't believe Electrum uses a PBKDF2 stretching function that is not invertible. See stretch->passlib.pbkdf2 for high level details for what bx mnemonic-to-seed is doing. Unlike BIP 39, an Electrum private key should be invertible to a group of Electrum seed words.
For the synthesis of BIP 44 paths for Bitcoin m/44'/0'/0'/0/0 private key and M/44'/0'/0'/0/0 public address using bx, see Example 7. See BIP 44 path-levels.  The change level is set to 0 for external addresses that you share with others to receive funds. The change level is set to 1 for a wallet's internal return addresses.
If the information above is too pedantic, read Chapter 5 of the Mastering Bitcoin Book. Albeit, details about Electrum are scarce.
Comment: Thank you so much for your input and the valuable information you've shared with me.
Answer: Yes. This is the way HD wallets work - the "deterministic" part means that you will get the same exact keys when you run it again. For verification purposes, you can try it yourself and see before you deposit any money.
Comment: @cpe871 Note however that electrum doesn't handle such large wallets very well. You may want to create multiple wallets if you want a lot of addresses. File > new/restore, enter a unique filename and proceed with on-screen instructions to create a new wallet. file > open will let you switch between them.
Comment: Thank you so much for your input and the valuable information you've shared with me. Do you think someone who played around with the source code would be able to generate large datasets of public keys that are identical and circumvent electron's inability to handle such massive sets? I would like to generate at least one million public keys for one address. Do you know of any other services capable of this?


How many cases of stoning are documented in the hadiths?

Question: How many cases of stoning are documented in the hadith? Were all of them carried out on the Jews or were Muslims also stoned for adultery?
Comment: As far as I know 2 muslims and 2 jews cases. In muslim cases, both were insisted by the people who did adultery. In total 3 muslims were stoned.
Comment: @smttsp I think there's a hadith about a Muslim man being stoned to death after being convicted of adultery via his own confession while Muhammad was somewhere else, and the man tried to run away; when Muhammad came back, the sahaba told him, and he asked why they didn't stop stoning him since running away should be interpreted as him retracting his confession. Is that one of the cases you remember?
Comment: @G. Bach, yes it is one of them but I want to note that the man insisted for the punishment. prophet Muhammad pbuh avoided the punishment and told the sahabe that he should repent, Allah will forgive any sins but he constantly insisted for the punishment. I dont know why prophet wasnt there but when he learnt he got so angry that his carotid was visible (this is mentioned of the hadith but I m not sure if it is carotid or veins on face)
Comment: If I am not wrong, most cases were through confession only
Answer: There are at least four cases of Muslims being stoned to death according to the Hadd of Zina (adultery) in the time of the Prophet, as recorded in the major Hadith collections.
Maiz ibn Malik of the tribe of Aslam:

A man from the tribe of Aslam came to the Prophet (ﷺ) and confessed
that he had committed an illegal sexual intercourse. The Prophet (ﷺ)
turned his face away from him till the man bore witness against
himself four times. The Prophet (ﷺ) said to him, "Are you mad?" He
said "No." He said, "Are you married?" He said, "Yes." Then the
Prophet (ﷺ) ordered that he be stoned to death, and he was stoned to
death at the Musalla. When the stones troubled him, he fled, but he
was caught and was stoned till he died. The Prophet (ﷺ) spoke well of
him and offered his funeral prayer. [Saheeh Bukhari]
When Ma'iz bin Malik came to the Prophet (in order to confess), the
Prophet (ﷺ) said to him, "Probably you have only kissed (the lady), or
winked, or looked at her?" He said, "No, O Allah's Messenger (ﷺ)!" The
Prophet said, using no euphemism, "Did you have sexual intercourse
with her?" The narrator added: At that, (i.e. after his confession)
the Prophet (ﷺ) ordered that he be stoned (to death). [Saheeh
Bukhari]
The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) asked Ma'iz b. Malik : Is what I have heard
about you is true? He said: What have you heard about me? He said: I
have heard that you have had intercourse with a girl belonging to the
family of so and so. He said: Yes. He then testified four times. He
(The prophet) then gave order regarding him and he was stoned to
death. [Sunan Abu Daud]

Unnamed woman:

Then a woman of Ghamid, a branch of Azd, came to him and said:
Messenger of of Allah, purify me, whereupon he said: Woe be upon you;
go back and beg forgiveness from Allah and turn to Him in repentance.
She said: I find that you intend to send me back as you sent back
Ma'iz. b. Malik. He (the Holy, Prophet) said: What has happened to
you? She said that she had become pregnant as a result of fornication.
He (the Holy Prophet) said: Is it you (who has done that)? She said:
Yes. He (the Holy Prophet) said to her: (You will not be punished)
until you deliver what is there in your womb. One of the Ansar became
responsible for her until she was delivered (of the child). He (that
Ansari) came to Allah's Apostle (ﷺ) and said the woman of Ghamid has
given birth to a child. He (the Holy Prophet) said: In that case we
shall not stone her and so leave her infant with none to suckle him.
One of the Ansar got up and said: Allah's Apostle, let the
responsibility of his suckling be upon me. She was then stoned to
death. [Saheeh Muslim]
"A woman from Juhainah confessed before the Prophet (ﷺ) that she had
committed adultery, and she said: 'I am pregnant.' So the Prophet (ﷺ)
called for her guardian and said: 'Be good to her and if she gives
birth to her child then tell me.' So he did so, and then he (ﷺ) gave
the order that her clothes be bound tightly around her. Then he
ordered her to be stoned and she was stoned. Then he performed
(funeral) Salat for her. So 'Umar bin Al-Khattab said to him: 'O
Messenger of Allah! You stoned her then you prayed for her?!' He said:
'She has repented a repentance that, if distributed among seventy of
the people of Al-Madinah, it would have sufficed them. Have you ever
seen something more virtuous than her sacrificing herself for the sake
of Allah?'"  [ Saheeh Muslim ]

Unnamed woman who committed adultery with an unmarried man:

A bedouin came to the Prophet (ﷺ) while he (the Prophet) was sitting,
and said, "O Allah's Messenger (ﷺ)! Give your verdict according to
Allah's Laws (in our case)." Then his opponent got up and said, "He
has told the truth, O Allah's Messenger (ﷺ)! Decide his case according
to Allah's Laws. My son was a laborer working for this person, and he
committed illegal sexual intercourse with his wife, and the people
told me that my son should be stoned to death, but I offered
one-hundred sheep and a slave girl as a ransom for him. Then I asked
the religious learned people, and they told me that my son should be
flogged with one-hundred stripes and be exiled for one year." The
Prophet (ﷺ) said, "By Him in Whose Hand my soul is, I will judge you
according to Allah's Laws. The sheep and the slave girl will be
returned to you and your son will be flogged one-hundred stripes and
be exiled for one year. And you, O Unais! Go to the wife of this man
(and if she confesses), stone her to death." So Unais went in the
morning and stoned her to death (after she had confessed). [Saheeh
Bukhari]

Unnamed man who committed rape:

A women went out during the time of the Prophet (ﷺ) to go to Salat,
but she was caught by a man and he had relations with her, so she
screamed and he left. Then a man came across her and she said: 'That
man has done this and that to me', then she came across a group of
Emigrants (Muhajirin) and she said: 'That man did this and that to
me.' They went to get the man she thought had relations with her, and
they brought him to her. She said: 'Yes, that's him.' So they brought
him to the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ), and when he ordered that he be
stoned, the man who had relations with her, said: 'O Messenger of
Allah, I am the one who had relations with her.' So he said to her:
'Go, for Allah has forgiven you.' Then he said some nice words to the
man (who was brought). And he said to the man who had relations with
her: 'Stone him.' Then he said: 'He has repented a repentance that, if
the inhabitants of Al-Madinah had repented with, it would have been
accepted from them.'"  [Sunan Abu Daud and Jami Tirmizi]

Finally, the Jewish couple who committed adultery and were stoned according to the law of the Torah:

A Jew and a Jewess were brought to Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) on a charge
of committing an illegal sexual intercourse. The Prophet (ﷺ) asked
them. "What is the legal punishment (for this sin) in your Book
(Torah)?" They replied, "Our priests have innovated the punishment of
blackening the faces with charcoal and Tajbiya." Abdullah bin Salam
said, "O Allah's Messenger (ﷺ), tell them to bring the Torah." The
Torah was brought, and then one of the Jews put his hand over the
Divine Verse of the Rajam (stoning to death) and started reading what
preceded and what followed it. On that, Ibn Salam said to the Jew,
"Lift up your hand." Behold! The Divine Verse of the Rajam was under
his hand. So Allah's Apostle ordered that the two (sinners) be stoned
to death, and so they were stoned. Ibn `Umar added: So both of them
were stoned at the Balat and I saw the man sheltering the woman.
[Saheeh Bukhari]


set song as alarm tone

Question: How can I set song from my sd card as alarm tone ? i tried to change the tone but I cant figure out how to make the songs from my sd card to show up on the list.
I am using samsung galaxy ace with android 2.3.4
Comment: Did you try restarting your phone ?
Comment: Yes I restarted my phone.
Answer: I also faced the same issue with the Stock Alarm. Stock alarm was not able to recognize the SD Card songs. I vaguely remembered the solution. Couple of restarts and removing the SD Card from the phone and plugging it again solved the issue fro me.
But now I installed Alarm Klock which has the option to see all the Songs on SD Card by Author and Album wise. It has vibrating feature which doesn't there in stock Alarm.
Answer: There are a number of apps that will let you set pretty much any sound file (mp3, ogg vorbis, etc) as a ringtone or notification sound.  Tone Picker is just one example.

set song as alarm tone


Steam Client is not listing my game

Question: For the first time I bought a game from steam Age of Empires Online : All in wonder. The transaction was successful and I got the game listed under my account in the steam website but when I download the latest steam client and install it, there are 0 games listed under the library tab. I also raised a steam support ticket three days ago, but no response from them till now. Does anyone know how to resolve this issue? Any help is appreciated. Thanks.
Comment: Are you logged in to the correct account? Do you have "All games" (or something like that) instead of "Installed" selected in the drop down?
Comment: I am logged in to the correct account only and I have "All games" in the dropdown.
Answer: Age of Empires Online is a free-to-play game with optional pay-to-play DLC. The All in Wonder bundle is a bundle of this DLC for the base game. This might seem like a minor distinction, but it's an important to understand what's happening here.
As with other free-to-play games in Steam, the base Age of Empires Online game will not appear in the "All games" list like a normal purchased game would, even if have purchased DLC for it. However, if you go to the steam store and search for the game there, you will be able to install the game client through Steam as normal.
As your paid-for DLC is associated with your Steam account it should still be available when you log into AoE Online through Steam.
Comment: The answer is no longer relevant as the game is no longer available to anyone (server closure).  Searching the Steam store for Age of Empires Online will not return any results.
Comment: thanks for you answer. I did not know that.
Answer: Do you mean the Age of Empires Online: All in Wonder Bundle? This is treated as an item and may be added to your Steam Inventory rather than activating right away. You can access your inventory by going to the Community section and selecting the Inventory link. After that, select the item and select Activate (or something similar).
Answer: I understand the question was asked when the servers were active, but just in case anyone missed out on the news the following answer may be relevant:
The game will no longer appear in Steam as the game servers are now closed.  According to the Official Blog post the servers were closed down on 1st July 2014.
The game cannot be re-downloaded through Steam, and any instance of the game launcher will not work due to the server closure.

Steam Client is not listing my game


Are the most successful authors like Stephen King and Jk Rowling all trade-published?

Question: I mean are the most famous authors usually trade-published or are there some self-published others that are very well known?
Comment: I've been asking myself this question for awhile actually, thanks for beating me to it.
Comment: https://publishdrive.com/self-publishing-success-stories/ Google has this info.
Answer: Authors have become famous while self-publishing, but famous authors rarely stay self-published for long
Two examples in the recent past:
Andy Weir self-published The Martian in 2011.  He posted it in serial format on his website, and later published it as a 99 cent Kindle book.  It rose to the top of the Kindle's best sellers list, and in 2013 he sold the rights to Crown Publishing, a subsidiary of Random House, who released it in hardcover and paperback, where it once again skyrocketed to the top of the charts.  In 2015, the movie was released and succeeded critically and financially.
50 Shades of Gray began life as a Twilight fanfiction.  The author, E.L. James, subsequently removed it from the fanfiction sites and posted it on her own website.  It was published by a small Australian web-publisher, The Writer's Coffee Shop, in 2011.  In 2012 the series was picked up by Vintage Books, a subdivision of (once again) Random House.  It too is now a movie (series).
Publishing a book is hard
The barriers today are a lot lower than they used to be, since a single uploaded file can be downloaded billions of times.  But if you want to enter the realm of physical books, things are a lot harder.
You have to find a printer who will print you thousands of books.  And you have to find the money to pay the printer, because they're going to want payment upfront, even though you're nearly broke because you're an author who is living off of ebook sales.  Then you need a place to store these books, because they aren't going to all be bought immediately.  Then you have to contact bookstores so that you can sell your books to them.  Then you have to ship the books to the bookstores.  And each one of those steps have innumerable details and complications and things you aren't prepared for.
Successful authors tend to be successful for one major reason - they are good at writing books that people want to read.  Also, they tend to like writing books.  This other stuff?  The desire and the ability to handle these things are much scarcer.  Even if it wasn't, the competence of one brilliant author is far outshone by the experience and resources a major publisher can bring to the table.
Publishers love books that have already been proven successful.  Authors love publishers that can take the heavy lifting off their hands so that they can go back to doing what they love.  So best-selling books rarely stay self-published for long
Answer: Usually they are. Writing and marketing at that level is very difficult. You have to do more than one job well. The self published people that I know about are either niche (not mass market) or networked well within their field to piggy back to success. That last comment is not a derisive comment. If there is a wave, by all means surf it.
The point here is that to be famous you have to enter the main stream consciousness. It's very difficult for word of mouth alone to get you past all the gatekeepers and into the public eye. Not impossible, but if you do something well and it is noticed then enough people will swamp onto that idea that it's not as likely to work the next time, even for the initiator.
If you don't go traditional publisher, you still need a way to grab attention and you'll have to do all of the work. Traditional Publishers are attention grabbing machines with proven success of maintaining and providing material for that attention. They are built to do it for the long term (mostly), whereas an individual author on their own will have to become a publisher (in addition to becoming a writer) to succeed. Even if you don't go traditional publishing, you'll find yourself managing all of the duties (or all of the people who perform those duties for you) to be successful.

Editor
Proof Reader
Layout +/- cover & art
Publicist +/- social media
Marketing
Printing
Legal (Rights)
Translation/Foreign Communication
Comment: There are ways to earn more money as a self - pub author, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C59eOLX2K-A
Comment: @DPT Certainly you make more money with self-publishing. But will you ever reach the fame level of J. K. Rowling or Stephen King, where literally anyone off the street has heard the name, even if they've never read a book in their life? That is doubtful...
Comment: Success is usually defined in terms of dollars. Serial killers (Jeffrey dahmer) are famous, but not successful. Name recognition is not success, bigger point is, it's not a simple question. @ThomasMyron
Comment: @DPT ... I think you're missing the point of my comment. I'm saying the OP isn't asking about earning money, but rather being well known. In the context of this question, making money plays no part.
Comment: @Thomas Myron - I agree, that OP wasn't asking specifically about money. But your money should scale with your popularity if you do it right. I'm not convinced taking on all of the roles of the publishing industry will necessarily equal out to the amount of money you make for self publishing. You're not going to get to straight up add all of those wages together, ie; some amount of exposure is left on the table due to the cost of mental bandwidth to manage all that must be done.
Answer: I think famously JK Rowling submitted Harry Potter to something like 20+ publishing houses, and only got picked up by a lucky accident - one editor plucked it out of the slush pile to give to their kid to read and didn't think any more of it until the child pestered them for more.
JA Konrath is a huge advocate of self-publishing.  IIRC his story is that he was paid (for his series of novels) by the big publishers approx $600,000 ... which sounds like a lot ... until you realise that it's spread out over ten years.  (So $60k per year)
But then of course he also had to travel around promoting his books, and so after deducting travel expenses (most of which he had to pay himself) from the $60k/year he was actually making below average wage - while working extremely hard for the privilege.
So then some of his stories reverted back to him (a standard publishing contract used to have that if they decided not to publish it (read as: not do another print run) then you got the rights back and could shop it around yourself - with an implied "haha, good luck with that").
So he published them on Amazon, and they started selling.  Not necessarily in huge numbers (the average e-book sells 30 copies - but obviously Konrath's had had the advantage of an existing (if small) fanbase, as well as having been beaten into shape via professional editing).
Also, he had a back catalogue of about 60 books at that stage (IIRC).  So in that first year he made as much from self-publishing his back catalogue on Amazon as he had in ten years with the print and paper industry.
Not entirely surprisingly, he thinks (and advocates that) Amazon is awesome and the traditional publishing industry sucks balls.
Also, not entirely surprisingly, publishing contracts now want to include the publisher getting the rights to e-distribution, and thus the rights will never revert back to authors anymore (because it's always 'available' online, even if the publisher isn't pushing it (which they have no incentive to do at that point)).  Hmmm....
So let's examine the case of someone with sixty e-books versus someone with one:

a reader is sixty times more likely to find one of your books
if they like it there's 59 more to buy
word of mouth; you have 60x more exposure so you're 60x more likely to be recommended

So this is basically 60^3 or a leverage factor of 216,000:1
That's a really powerful advantage.
With Konrath for instance, if someone was a fan of his work and had maybe bought or read 4 or 5 from the bookstore or library, suddenly they were able to access the remaining 55-56 books.  (I'm sure we've all had that frustration where you can find almost but not all of the books in a series of N books - well e-books are perpetually available so that problem goes away)
Subsequently Amazon have changed some of their platforms (e.g. KDP) from being egalitarian to having special bonuses for the best sellers.  This makes them much less attractive for building a platform as compared to people with an existing platform.
Also Amazon's 'solution' to becoming popular is to tell authors to make their books available for free and then to make it up in volume.
If you have one book and you give it away for free you're not even treading water.  Even if I became your biggest fan and wanted to give you money I couldn't in that scenario.
On the other hand, if you have say two books and you give the first one away, then people can still pay you money when they buy the second book.
I might have the wrong end of the stick, but I think Konrath rotates through about half a dozen books (sprinkled throughout his oeuvre) which are usually available for free as 'tasters'.
Also, Konrath didn't stay still and rest on his laurels.  He continued to make more books, expanding into different genres (not necessarily under the Konrath name (cough bodice rippers uncough (and think about the success of romance as a genre before you pooh-pooh that concept - if romance outsells everything else put together there are obviously things to learn or consider unless you hate money and success))).
Also he collaborates aggressively and continues to promote his platform, and the platforms which support his platfrom (Amazon, paying an editor yourself if you're going to self-publish etc.).
That's one of the key things - if you hate self promotion then why even consider self-publishing?

NB: I think Amazon is dishonest in a broken way - I self published 6 novellas and sold over 200 copies (I can say this confidently because I know most of the people who bought them) (so I beat the average, yay me) and each one (after tax) should have paid approx 27c, but the total Amazon paid me was 23c for the lot.
It's a bit like google and the youtube thing.  They tell you your video was viewed N times and so therefore you earn X ... but they are the only ones who know the true value of N (for sufficiently large values of N) ... and the system they control incentivises them to lie about it so they can keep more of the ad revenue.

Anyway, if we assume an n-squared or n-cubed relationship between number of (good quality) ebooks you publish and your success at self-publishing, then I think that probably somewhere in the 20-30 book range is where the break even (e.g. pay for your rent) point is.
Answer: Professionals are used by the famous, and even the not-so-famous but successful.
Nearly all of them. The reasons are simple; really, publishing enough books to let you be a full-time fiction writer earning as much as you could doing any other job you are capable of doing requires highly specialized knowledge, experience, and an extensive list of professional contacts on tap.
To earn even a middle class American life-style writing fiction, about $50K a year, you must sell tens of thousands of copies. To be specific, the typical royalty for a paperback is 15%, the typical price is $15.95 ($13.95 to $17.95); so the royalty per book is $2.39 ($2.09 to $2.69). So, not considering cuts that do happen, you need to sell 21,000 books a year to earn $50K per year.
Here is link on a publisher's P&L viewpoint.
That just isn't easy, it is its own entire business enterprise that requires full-time attention and an organization that knows what it is doing to negotiate with producers, shippers, bookstores, online venues, advertisers, artists, etc. Not to mention TV or film producers, scriptwriters, audio book voices, foreign venues, merchandise rights (for toys or T-shirts etc).
Real authors love the creative process, they don't want a full-time job managing a production and sales enterprise. Publishers earn their money. To be a successful author, you need to sell tens of thousands of books every year, and each one is not an evergreen source of income. One is seldom enough, the truth is that multiple books have synergy, even if they are not a series. Each sells the others. If you are going to be famous, you need to spend the majority of your time in the year writing, and let other people promote, produce, and sell, which is what they can do far better than you can because they are trained professionals.
The more things you try to do yourself, the more things there are for you to suck at. To be ignorant, and unaware of the culture, to be ripped off by a fraud that steals your money and/or work, to be truly incompetent at a critical juncture and cause yourself grief.
Forget the "success" stories of self-publishing, it is like studying lottery winners for clues about how to win the lottery. The success stories in self-publishing got lucky, with what they wrote, with who they met, with their timing and when they wrote it, with who they found for artwork, with every arbitrary choice they made along the way.
Look instead at the typical experience; which is far more likely to be your experience. Here is a post on the average earnings of a self-publishing author on Amazon. (Less than $100).
Being greedy is recipe for getting almost nothing. Take 15% of a $million, or 100% of $500, its up to you.


Bionicle parts for own bionicle figure

Question: I need Bionicle parts to make my own Bionicle.
Any good set recommendations?
 Any LEGO set will do.  It does not have to be Bionicle.
Answer: There aren't many sets with big Bionicle part variety. I'm not sure what you are looking for. If you need specific parts I suggest to look for them on Bricklink. If you need to increase your Bionicle parts collection it might be better to look for local sales as Bionicle/Hero Factory are usually quite cheap.

Bionicle parts for own bionicle figure


Unable to pick a suitable Tor Browser version for OSX 10.5.8

Question: Is there a version of Tor browser for OSX 10.5.8 PPC G5? The only thing available for my OS I see is for 10.6 and above. Thanks.
Answer: The best courses of actions you could do right now are:
To use another modern computer that is able runs the latest Tor Browser for security. Preferably Linux OSes since most of them don't phone home and are probably more secure.
Alternatively install Debian, Lubuntu, Kubuntu and Ubuntu (PowerPC FAQ on Ubuntu's website) or any other Linux Distros that supports the latest Tor Browser on your old system. I wonder if your old computer has any hardware vulnerabilities, you might want to take in account of them depending on your threat model.
Less ideal options:
Using Virtual Machine(VM) to run an Linux OS and then run Tor Browser is a less ideal option. The reason is that your compatible VM may probably be outdated which may result in no support of newer security updates. According to this list, the last usable but unsupported VirtualBox is 4.3.14 (<-- Please use this link for that version, it is always more secure to download from the official website.)
I do not encourage you to use old and currently unsupported operating system to run the Tor Browser as you will miss out on crucial security updates for it and your OS. But just for completionistic sake, here is an less ideal solution: This link contains the list of older versions of Tor Browser if you don't mind of the vulnerabilities. This Reddit user seems to found a version that is somewhat working.
Unfortunately, Tails OS doesn't support PowerPC so I can't suggest it.
Comment: Tor Browser officially supports absolutely no PPC Linux variants.  There are no versions of virtualbox that will run on a PPC G5 for that matter either.
Answer: Sadly, Apple began it's self-desctruction from killing PowerPC's... According to Meltdown and Spectre recent discoveries - they're paid well enough for it. The only way nowdays is to try to build tools from the sources - not just Tor Browser.
Answer: Install brew ,
THen :
brew install tor;

That's .
After that , open your terminal (another tab) and run the following to start the service TOR :
tor &

Go to your preferences & Then Network > Advanced ,
Then , go to "Proxy" tab and add "Socket Proxy" with HOST=127.0.0.1 and PORT=9050 .
Comment: They're looking for Tor Browser, not a system service.