After I scanned(destructive) book: What are the steps to create a proper kindle ebook?

Question: I have a book that is not available in .mobi or .epub .
I want to convert it into ebook for Kindle.
I scanned all the pages.
What else should I do next?
Answer: I've done work for pgdp.net, which is Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreading. Here are the steps if you're not going through PGDP.

I'm assuming you scanned each page into a separate image. You might want to put all these images into a PDF file. You will probably have to cut  the pages out of the book so they lay perfectly flat on the scanner. A scan of a curved page is a huge source of OCR errors.
Use OCR to extract the text from the images and save book to a text file. Depending on the font, the smudges in the images, and other factors like straightness of lines of text, you might get 70-90% accuracy.
Proofread by hand every word.
Construct ebook in the format you want. I markup my text files with MultiMarkdown, and then I have a program which converts that to an EPUB. I just like MMD better than editing HTML.

Abbyy Finereader is one of the best OCR programs out there but pricey. Here is a site where you can OCR a few pages using their software, but there are limits.
If you have a PDF full of images (which is what much of the free books in Google Books is) try doing OCR at this site, again there may be limits to PDF file size you upload.
All in all, proofreading is a very time-consuming task.
EDIT: PGDP does not allow requests to digitize books. They have their own queue which they work on. However, Captcha is a way to crowd source digitizing books. They supposedly did many Google books, but I can't find that many there were actually edited. If you use Captcha to crowd source proofreading, it might cost you money. That depends if you use their service or if you are able to install the software yourself.
I found the Captcha concept to be fascinating, and the author/inventor even has a  TED talk.
Comment: @MoysheZuchmir Please use this site to ask Bulrush for any clarification you need. The site doesn't have PMs. If you need clarification, just leave a comment here.
Answer: I want to add upon a previous answer. I assume you have already digitalized your content (and proofread it).
Your main goal is to arrive at an .epub file. There are many ways to reach that goal:

use Adobe Indesign
Write your own HTML and CSS (not really that hard if you have a template)
Use a tool like Sigil
Use Calibre (that implies that you have first created it in MS Word format)

To my knowledge there are two ways to convert from .epub to .mobi Kindle file:

Use Kindle previewer (now in Beta, but stable and reliable) http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?docId=1003018611
Use Calibre (powerful but have to be tweaked)

Actually now that I think of it, you probably could convert from MS Word to .mobi directly without having to first convert it to epub.
The good thing about Kindle Previewer is that it gives you a reasonably accurate preview of how the kindle file would render.


Make the player roll even if there is no chance of success?

Question: Let's say you're the GM for a a game that involves players rolling for success and the player attempts to do something, but you already know that given their current stats, it's impossible for them to succeed at it. Do you make them roll anyway, or do you just tell them the roll is unsuccessful? If you flat out tell them it fails, you might imply what they're trying to do is impossible even though it might be possible for them to succeed later on.
Comment: I've voted to re-open because this question is no more opinion-based than any other gm-techniques question, and is about resolving a very specific situation that comes up for nearly every GM.
Comment: If you have encountered this dilemma in multiple games, it might be helpful to mention them so that answerers can get an idea of what *kind* of game you have in mind, and will be applying the advice to. For some kinds of games the answers can be quite different.
Comment: I've voting to close because this seems like something that varies from one system to the next.
Comment: Tentatively voting to leave this closed, due to its incredibly vague nature with at the same time incredibly specific assumptions - this seems to be about one particular system or group of systems, and if that is the case it should be asked like that.
Comment: Voting to leave closed in review. This is a question that varies from system to system. Some systems have rules for this, some don't, and for those that don't, the best practice will vary by system, and within a system, will vary by table.
Comment: @ThomasMarkov an expert in [gm-techniques] should be able to weave an answer together that covers a lot of ground without being so generic as to be unhelpful. I might struggle to write an answer, but I don't think it's impossible. When this is reopened, we can definitely keep an eye out of for bad answers, but that doesn't mean this question doesn't deserve a chance to be reopened.
Answer: No, don't
Here I'm echoing the advice of Angry GM in his Five Simple Rules for Dating My Teenaged Skill System. Please do note that Angry GM lives up to his name, and his articles are littered with strong (but self-censored) language. It's all pretty tongue-in-cheek and harmless, in my opinion, but your mileage may vary.
Anyway, the second of the five rules addresses exactly this point:

Rule #2: Only Roll When There is Chance of Success, A Chance of Failure, and A Risk or Cost of Failure

In effect, rolling takes time. If the roll's result is predetermined, just tell the PCs. In the case of failure, this sends a clear signal that they cannot just keep trying hoping for a better roll – they have to change something. If they cannot fail, then rolling the die is literally pointless, die-rolling for its own sake. (If you feel like your PCs are not getting to roll enough dice as a result of this approach, that would be a strong sign that something is off about the difficulty of challenges the PCs are facing relative to their ability.)
Whether or not the non-roll consumes the PCs' time is fairly critical in some situations, and should be made clear, but this can be made clear much more quickly by simply saying one way or the other, rather than making a die roll stand in for such a statement. How much they should learn about why it was impossible may depend on the situation, but no matter what, knowing that is was impossible, even if slightly meta-gamey in some situations, often isn't that much of a stretch (PCs tend to be experts in the things they're trying to do), and even when it is, it speeds up the game, making it more fun and less frustrating for the players. These are good things.
Angry GM also goes on to describe how, in the case of possible success, rolling is still pointless unless there is some reason for them to not try over and over. Because they will try over and over until they get the right roll, barring some important reason for them not to. He goes on to describe how to make time limits "real" in conjunction with this approach, and I consider it quite good reading.
Comment: This advice is dangerous for players who metagame (whether consciously or not). If you take a swing at the local tavern drunk, and are told that it's not worth rolling, you get a good clue that he is the legendary monk that the party is looking for, disguising himself to test the party. If you search for hidden doors and are told not to bother rolling you know there aren't any there, it's not just that there you didn't find them. Rolling, particularly when the DM rolls the dice hidden from players, helps many groups that have problems compartmentalising what the player and character know.
Comment: @Scott Players who meta game a lot are playing a different game than the ones who don't.  This is very good DM advice.
Answer: Does the player know the action will fail? Does the character know?
There are two kinds of actions that are guaranteed to fail - obvious ones and non-obvious ones. If a character tries to jump to the moon, in most games that is an obvious failure. If a character tries to punch the Flash in the face, that may be a non-obvious failure (since the character may not know the Flash can dodge practically any attack). Therefore, there are two cases for what you should do.
When failure is obvious, don't let the player roll
If a character in a medieval game wants to roll to invent modern chemistry, you don't need to make him roll to tell him no. The last thing you want is the player rolling a 20 and demanding that something ought to happen because a 20 is special. Saying "no" rather than letting him try is important because it does not use up the character's action. If a gnome wants to try and suplex Godzilla, he will not only fail, but waste valuable actions in combat.
When failure is not obvious, let the player roll
If two warriors square off, and one is warded by a mystical veil that makes him impossible to damage, you should let the player try to attack anyway. Failure in this case is simply the discovery that the desired task is impossible. The character didn't know that what he was trying to do was impossible, but now he does - describing the results, make sure to indicate to the player that he failed not just because of a bad roll, but because it's simply not something that will work without meeting some condition. Let's take a D&D example:

Player: My guy attacks the dragon!
DM: Your sword bounces off the dragon's hide. You will need to deliver a much more powerful blow if you hope to injure it. (The dragon's damage reduction is too high for the attack to do damage)
Other player: Okay, I'll cast greater magic weapon on his sword so it does more damage.

If you flat out say it is impossible without indicating why, the players may be discouraged and might accuse you of railroading. If you set up the problem as one that can be overcome, and roughly indicate how to do it, the players will take it on as yet another challenge instead of an arbitrary roadblock.
But why roll?
In the game rules, the roll represents a player's commitment to a particular goal his character takes. Once there is a roll, the action happened. If there was no roll, did the action happen, or did it not? Does the DM saying "no it's not possible" fall into camp A (forbidding the action because it would obviously fail) or camp B (allowing the action because the character could think it would succeed)? Keeping the die roll resolves the ambiguity. The character tried, the character failed, the character is certain that trying again will not change the result.
Answer: First, I am assuming from your question that impossible is a concept in the game. Some games, through the use of hero points, fate points, or critical successes, don't have impossible. In that case, of course, you always allow the roll.
But in games where impossible matters, I go by, does the character know it's impossible? If so, I tell them it's impossible, and potentially why, because if the character knows it's impossible, they most likely also know why it's impossible.
If the character has some knowledge, that knowledge should not be hidden from the player.
If the character does not know it's impossible, then yes, ask them to roll. They may glean useful information from the roll about how difficult this task is, and then choose to either investigate further to find out why it is more difficult than it seems, or try to change the circumstances so that it is easier.
In general, there is information to be gleaned from the die roll, so err on the side of letting them roll.
The problem with your stated rationale for not telling them that failure is automatic—that it might be possible later—is a problem for both options. If they roll an 18, 19, or 20 (on a d20 roll where high is successful), they may make the same assumption. The solution is not roll or don't roll, the solution is to pay attention to the choices the players make, and adjust the amount of information you're giving them.
If they're always trying impossible things as if they weren't impossible, then either you aren't giving them the information necessary to make the proper judgments or they think they're in a different game.
You'll want to find out which, and then either be less stingy with your descriptions, or find a game that matches the group's desires more closely. For example, if the players are seriously asking to do things like "lasso the moon out of the sky", they are probably expecting a game that enables the stories of early myth, possibly playing out the creation myths of the world.
The same would be true of wanting to play the A-Team but using a game of gritty, high-casualty rules. If people routinely die in hails of gunfire, an A-Team game is impossible—you need rules that support the genre you want to play.
Answer: I think it's a bad practice to tell the player it's impossible, because...
World can't tell us that something is impossible. It's only our guess.
How can we understand that some task is impossible for us and with very high chance we will fail in real life? Our experience. Well, someone's experience. Our wise friend can see that we will fail and tell us about it. And so your players should do in the game. They may not know themselves as players what their characters can easily assess. Experienced adventurers can tell that something is unachievable for them. In order to "ask their experience" players should ask GM what their characters think about this attempt.
And I think it's a good practice to allow player give it a try, because...
Consequences.
Everything that player did or didn't has it's impact on the world. But, of course, activity leads to something interesting more often, rather inactivity.
So let them try!
Maybe player will get natural one(or any other result equivalent to serious fail) and you will come up with fun result which will have impact on subsequent events. Or it may be critical success(or something really extraordinary in the results of player's roll) and with proper description for his action(maybe with some cunning idea) you will see that allowing player to succeed now will be much more fun, rather than forbidding it at all. Again, due to difficulty of the task, you may let your player succeed, but with some drawbacks.
For example, possible situation with the system which has critical success rolls:

GM: One of the cave tunnels is blocked by giant stone. What do you do?
John The Mighty Dwarf: I try to move it!
GM: Roll for it!
[John rolls critical success]
GM: Well, with inhuman, sorry, indwarf effort you succeeded to move this stone and now your party can move further into the tunnel. But now your arm's muscle is torn due physical stress. You have disadvantage on every strength roll.

Now, because of overconfidence John will fight with injured arm and this may greatly affect what will happen next.
One exception that I find logical:
Sometimes if you don't know how - you can't try.
Well, I can try to throw a knife without any skill or knowledge, but if I'm a peasant who always lived in his village, I can't even try to assess some spell or do something not obvious, that can't be achieved by intuitive actions. In some games you can decide this based on character's proficiency.

GM: You approached the door. It's locked.
Jack The Plow Master: I will try to unlock it!
GM: How?
Jack The Plow Master: I will pick the lock!
GM: How? Describe it, but don't forget: lock is not a plow. You have no slightest idea how it works and what do with it, apart that you can put inside right key and turn it and it should open.
Jack The Plow Master: To hell with lock picking! I smash the door with my shovel!

Summary:

Don't tell them your assessments. If they ask about their character's - tell them.
Let them try! Consequences for fails maybe fun! And sometimes people achieve impossible things!
But if action is not obvious or intuitive and characters don't know anything about it - they just can't try to do something useful. Still they can lead themselves to funny(or dire) consequences.
Answer: No, you don't ask for a roll
There is a good article, explaining why such a roll would be a waste of time made by AngryGM. To make a short point without the need to read the whole text:

If a player is attempting some task, which is impossible for him, clarify that you and him both understand correctly what is happening in the scene.
If you both do, check if action is possible at all. If not, just resolve the action, explaining to player why he failed.

Making a roll, in my experience, is not helping players to understand the reason for failure. In many cases the bad roll is interpreted as a reason to failure, not that the action was in fact impossible. The explanation by DM is what makes the thing clear. If, for instance, a dragon with high DR is hit by a attack that simply cannot harm it, the DM should just state "your weapon is not enough to break through his magical scales. You'll need some magical help of your own", and not bother letting player roll his damage dice.
Comment: Adding to this... Angry's put it another helpful way: rolls resolve uncertainty; only roll if there's a chance for success, a chance for failure, and a cost for failure.
Answer: If the character would know they have no chance of success, then don't make them roll.
If the character would not know then do make them roll.
Obvious example: find traps. If there's no traps to find, then the best the player can do is try a few times and then assume that it's safe. This is obviously analogous to the character's real perception in the gameworld - they can not ever be totally sure.
Other obvious example: trying to jump over a 10' wall. No need to roll, just say "it's too high".
In the general case, if something is impossible for a reason the character could not reasonably know, then you should make them roll and spend the time to work out that something unseen is going on.
Answer: Don't ask for a roll, but do allow a roll
Let's say that we are having a normal human trying to move a skyscraper by pushing it. I'll tell the player the building isn't on railroad tracks and that human strength isn't exactly enough to move a skyscraper. However, I'll also tell them that they are always free to try. Then, the player can respond in one of several ways:

The player backs down and the character does nothing.

The player agrees, but states that his character doesn't really care about the sheer impossibility if the task. Here, I wouldn't have the player roll and just describe (the lack of / unexpected) effects of the action.

The player wants to do the action anyway. Let them roll. Then tell them they weren't successful. I'll try to make a bit of a difference in the description based on the roll. For example, on a low roll the character may trip or even sprain his wrist, on a high roll the characters "summons all his strength and makes a valiant effort to move the building, but the building stays firmly in its place", on a extremely high roll (e.g. natural 20) the character might do damage to the wall of the building, an effect that's quite extraordinary in itself, even if it isn't what was intended.

This way, the player is never restricted in what he can do. The character is restricted in what he can do, but not what he can try. Only if the player and the DM agree, you won't roll and when you do roll, the roll will never be completely irrelevant.

Obviously, this strategy only makes sense when the player and the DM both know that this task is impossible. There are several other situations that may involve rolling on a task that can't be accomplished by some players.

The player may not know that they can't achieve something because of knowledge of the situation. For example, a player may be looking for traps even if there are none. I'll generally let them roll.
Another example of this I encountered recently was a player deciding to meddle with the pressure plate that had initiated a puzzle. I said something along the lines of "sure", implying that this wasn't quite my plan, but when he rolled high, I had it reset the puzzle to its initial state. This happened to mean that they now had to actually do a part of the puzzle that they accidentally were able to skip the first time around...

The task may be possible, just not in this situation. For example, you are trying to pickpocket the leader of the thieves' guild at low level. I'll let you try and roll. Once again, though, a roll shouldn't be without effect. So on a low roll, you may make clear what you were trying to do to everyone present. On a natural 20, you may even appear to succeed for a second or two, and only get caught after that.

You might be wanting to mislead the players. I have once done this when there was a psychic message that was being sent to all psychic characters but I didn't want to tell them it was psychic. So I told them to roll a die. The players ended up convinced that I did some "reversed everything" voodoo and that high roll were low rolls and vice versa (after all, they also ended up in a cave system that had natural lighting).
This shouldn't be necessary with players who are good enough at keeping player and character knowledge separated. However, it can be fun to do when it isn't done too often and it can create a great player experience if done correctly. This should clearly be rare exception and never a rule, though.
Answer: I'm going to go at this from a different angle, though I'll start by concurring with everyone here: do not make a player roll for something if you already know they cannot succeed.
This means that if you have a skill system/save system/any rolling system that has auto-success on a natural 20, and the circumstances aren't such that it is literally impossible to succeed, you can and should let them try (though I would exercise caution in doing this - most systems have auto-success at nat 20 as a house rule, and for a good reason - not everything has a chance to succeed).

Let the player act
If your player is being prompted to roll for an action that there is no chance at succeeding, you're already going about it the wrong way.  A player attempting something should tell you what it is they are trying to do.  You, as the DM, should explain the circumstances of what they're trying, and if there is any possibility in accomplishing what they do.
If the player decides they want to perform that action anyway, because their character is desperate enough to try something impossible in the hopes of having some effect, you can let them roll - in some systems (since this is system agnostic) there is a chance to have some impact on the game world despite not having a statistical advantage in a situation, and the act of trying to do something, even when impossible, can both be in-character and progress the story in a significant way.
You should talk this over with the player beforehand - let them know, before they roll, that there is no circumstance where what they try will succeed, but if they know that, and they want their character to try anyway just because it's what they'd do...then consider letting it play out.  This is extremely circumstantial, and depends on what the player can conceive of doing outside of just rolling for success, but it is worth doing, if it leads to a good roleplaying experience.
Answer: If the character cannot know that it's impossible then let them try: if they roll max then tell them "your aim was perfect and power was great, yet the target seem absolutely not affected" and character should deduce that it is impossible. But what if player rolls minimal value? "Your hit barely touched the target, it isn't strange that you can't see any effects"
So... Player may decide to try again, and waste more time, and that way affect the adventure increasing chance of guards noticing them or something like that!


Is it haram to read copyrighted books online?

Question: Is it haram to read copyrighted books online? I want to read a book but it isn't available in my language, only in Japanese (not manga).  However, there is an English fan translation on the internet. Would it be haram to read it without the permisson of the author?
Comment: NOT DOWNLOADING, READING ONLINE ^^
Comment: ,usually, in the similar items, it is said that: you should refer to the law of that. And according to many scholars: it is haram to doing against the law. / So, it in the mentioned item, it can be remarked that: it could be haram if "without the permission of..." (AFAIK). And Allah knows best. God bless you for asking such significant and nice query.
Comment: @RebeccaJ.Stones in that case I'd be deep in haram reading and was, as at our universities they provide free download of copy right books for the students and users.
Answer: AoA - wow, this question looks interesting.
It is definitely not haram to read an author's published book online, of course, but maybe the author could press charges if it is an unauthorised website! So, maybe it would be better to check if the website is not illegal before reading.
Enjoy relaxing with a nice book!
-Amber
Answer: Ha... it sounds very interesting...! Why will you need permission form the author to read his published work...!!! An author writes a book for readers to read. If he has published anything, it means that he wants that to be read.
So, if you have any book in any of the libraries such as archive or any other sources who have the rights of that book, it is likely that you are not doing anything wrong. For example many universities rent the database of huge journals for scientific research of their students or say SHAMELA or WAQEFAYA online Islamic Library. They are authorized. So it is permissible to use their database.


Can "per-" be applied to any adjective?

Question: A long while ago, I came across a few dictionary entries under per-, meaning "very." I saw peracer, perbonus, and some others. But, I'm not sure if per- can be used as a prefix for any adjective. Can it? Does it only apply to certain ones? On Wiktionary, many per- words are listed, but not as many as its countless other adjectives.
Answer: I think it's partly common sense. For example, I can't imagine them going with indefinite adjectives, e.g. *peraliqui, for which Phi database gives zero results. But would such a word even mean? How do you intensify "any"? It's nonsense.
However, any positive adjective which has a comparative or superlative form can take it no problem. It can also be placed on adverbs (same qualification) and verbs without issue. It was a very productive prefix, so even if we do not have examples of Classical usage, a Roman would still understand it, though its particular meaning would have been restricted by usage (e.g. permaneo means "remain long").
Comment: I was going to comment that certain adjectives are intensified by convention with other prefixes, e.g. *defessus*, and thus could not take per-. But then I found [*perdefessus*](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aentry%3Dperdefessus)
Comment: Would you really classify *aliquis* as an adjective? To me it's a pronoun, not an adjective of any kind, but I don't claim that this is the only possible opinion. I'm just wondering if there's anything I would classify as an adjective that could not take *per-*.
Comment: @JoonasIlmavirta *peraliqui* is an indefinite adjective. It's used to modify nouns.
Comment: @brianpck Late Christian Latin, though, and a single citation at that. I think it's still a fair observation to make. (Would a Roman in Quintilian's time think it strange or of a lower register? I think so.)
Comment: @brianpck Might also have to do with how *defessus* replaced *fessus* as 'tired' in common speech (*fessus* seems entirely absent from the comic poets, interestingly enough).
Answer: Our knowledge of Latin is limited, and if we want to use the language as flexibly as other languages, we need to extrapolate from what we know for sure.
This is one of those cases.
The prefix per- does not appear with all possible adjectives in extant literature from any era, but it is common enough to argue that it can be used productively.
I am not aware of any limitations to its use.
Therefore my answer to your question is yes.
To give an example, we have a political party called roughly "True Finns" ("perussuomalaiset").
If I were to render that party name in Latin, I might call them Perfinni.
I don't know what to do with capitalization with prefixes in cases like this, but that should be taken to a separate question.

Can "per-" be applied to any adjective?


What are our thoughts on the practice of using comments to direct users to other SE sites?

Question: I've noticed an abundance of comments to other stacks linking to possibly related questions. These links are tenuous at best, and distract from Movies.SE, mostly directing users to others stacks. Should we encourage this? Should we allow this? These comments lead to a lower user count on Movies.SE and serve no purpose other than getting people to leave Movies.SE.
Answer: Well, this site naturally has some overlap with other SE sites and the general policy is, that it is upto everyone's own discretion where he asks an on-topic question. So much to that.
Now it can therefore happen that someone asks a question that has been asked and/or answered in some way or another on a different SE site. Politely pointing out that this is the case and linking to the other question is in itself not a bad thing and helps the user find a good solution to his problem as well as furthering a neatly cross-connected SE network. We should not live out an exaggerated spirit of competition and fighting for users/posts with other sites by trying to silence every possible mention of that other site, as this is not constructive on the long run (especially since there are already quite some animosities between certain SE sites that we should not further but rather try to reduce).
However, if a question is related to a question from another site and someone points that out in a comment, it can't hurt to keep the connection symmetrical and point towards this question on the other site, too, for the sake of a neatly interconnected network and mutual advertizement.
That being said however, what is surely discouraged is blatant redirection or discouragement of the user in the form of comments (to perfectly on-topic questions) that say things like "You should rather ask that question on ..." or "This is already answered on ..., no need to ask it again". Such comments are indeed detrimental to the site and will be removed or at least reworded (and users should flag them when they see them). Neither will on-topic questions be migrated to another site for simply being a "better fit" there and such flags will always be declined if not coming from the original asker.
Comment: What I've seen is a constant amount of the versions listed in your last paragraph. While on the other site they only do it to off topic questions, there is no reciprocation.
Comment: @cde If you ever feel uncomfortable with a comment, feel free to flag it for moderator attention. The worst that could happen is that we don't agree with the flag and decline it.
Comment: Of course. But I rather I and others know ahead of time what the policy is (vis a vis Meta) in order to flag correctly :). Hence I up voted this. A bright line rule is always best.
Comment: An excellent and well-balanced summary.


Best way to know if someone opens my notebook

Question: In death note, he puts a piece of paper in the door frame and if it falls he knows someone went in his room. What's a similar tactic I can use on my diary to know if someone even opens it?
Answer: Apart from keeping the diary in a locked drawer, here are some steps you can take.

Put the diary in a drawer, close the drawer and then pull it back open just a few millimetres. You can tell if someone else has opened the drawer and then closed it all the way.

Position the diary so it is 1 cm from the edges of the drawer. Then you know if someone took it out and replaced it.

Leave a bookmark half way across the page. This could be a separate paper or card bookmark. Naturally the person reading the dairy will open it at that place, and when they close the diary, the bookmark will be in a different position.

Finally, you can implement something like the door trap you mentioned. Place a tiny object on top of the diary, that does not stand out visually, for example a circle of paper that was stamped out by a hole punch (for a ring binder). If anyone picks it up, or opens it, that will fall off. If they notice it fall, they won't know the exact place on the diary where you left it.
Comment: @JohnCanon one clue on its own may not be enough: someone might accidentally nudge the drawer closed; the peeker might notice a hair. There might a be a false positive or a false negative.
Comment: Well done, Bond. You may file that report.
Comment: @JohnCanon from *[A Fistful of Dollars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fistful_of_Dollars)* "A man's life in these parts often depends on a mere scrap of information."
Comment: I like it. I have used the paper in the door jamb trick and the exact location trick. I will now add these others.
Answer: Additional tactics include lightly dusting the jacket with talcum powder or placing a strand of hair between the pages.
Answer: Use a tiny bit of glue and stick the corner of two pages together. Maybe before those two pages write something like: "account information", and then an unglued page filled with fake secrets, and then the glued-together pages. Use super weak glue, and they will break it, to look at your secrets. Maybe glue the middle of the outer edge of the paper so they have to break it to see. Essentially, the seal-on-letters concept. Use sticky substance to close a page, and if it is open when you come back, it has been tampered with.
Or, you can eliminate the person completely
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNIF4pXsgt0)
Use colour-changing powder and coat with resin. This will only work short-term, and only if they do no submerge the book/their hands in ice water to cover/prevent their tracks.
Put dust on the book, if it is suddenly shiny one day, either someone touched it and wiped it, or your roommate/spouse/parent dusted the book.
Security cameras, maybe not affordable, but an option
If the person you are guarding against is a librarian, dog ear some pages, and then if they are un-dog-eared when you come back, they have seen it and been infuriated.
Light sensor in book (don't know how to implement)
Hang the book using string, tied at the opening end. Measure the "excess" of the tie, or cut it to be exactly some length If it has been untied and retied, you will know by the excess being different. Or, use a very obscure and hard to tie knot.
Put graphite powder between some pages. If it is smeared/spilled, someone touched it
Answer: Not quite what you requested, but drill a hole through the diary, use a padlock.
Answer: You may also find it useful to keep a banana in your pocket. The skin can be used to slip up your peruser if you suspect you are being followed...
Answer: Maybe putting a very small thing on your note book could be a sign.Especially something that others consider that as a trash, such as a hair or something.
Also in 1984, Winston Smith put a very little amount of dirt on his notebook, or you can put them between pages (if it doesn't make your notebook dirty!).


SharePoint Dev/Test environment

Question: Is it possible to have a SP environment for developers to use to deploy and test their applications to for free? Please advise if this is possible and how to got about it.
Answer: Best way is you can participate in the developer program of Office 365 . See
Join the Microsoft Office 365 Developer Program.
Additionally, If you have MSDN subscription then you will get lot of benefits. You can check those benefits here.
If you are open for paid SharePoint Online plan then you can Compare SharePoint Online options.

SharePoint Dev/Test environment


How to reduce the brightness of a desktop pc?

Question: I can see the option to reduce the brightness of the screen on my laptop but not on my desktop. Is there a way to adjust this on my pc?
Answer: Install graphics driver

Settings > Additional drivers

Option to change brightness should be in settings:

Settings > Brightness & Lock

Do you use latest version of elementary OS?
Answer: Install Brightness Controller with the following commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:apandada1/brightness-controller
sudo apt update

For Version 1 with up to 4 Monitor Support:
sudo apt-get install brightness-controller-simple

For Version 2 with Multi Monitor Support and other features:
sudo apt install brightness-controller

Note: This does not decrease the intensity of backlight, so won't save your batteries. But you can use this as a last resort to save your eyes.


64 bit alternative shell

Question: Im looking for a 64 bit, minimalistic replacement shell for Windows XP/Vista/7. Any ideas?
Answer: Emerge Desktop is available as 64bit.
LiteStep is only 32bit, as far as I see it.
GeoShell is also only 32bit.
All found via a quick google. Sorry, but you really need to google your things first, instead of making the community here do the work for you.
Comment: Emerge looks *terrible*.
Answer: Gotta love the Jackboots and the way they always tell you to use Google, eh? Yeah, I been browsing for alt shells too. Just installed Talisman on Windows 7 64 bit, and it seems to work like it's supposed to. BUt I uninstalled it because it doesn't live up to my expectations. Litestep community is currently working on getting their shell compatible with 7, but no clue about 64 bit  atm. I run Litestep on my XP 32 bit machine, and it is not only the shell I prefer, but also the one I would suggest using. There are a few other shells out there, but none that really catch my eye as far as usability, or cosmetic beauty. If you would just like to make your windows look better, I was running Windowblinds on my Vista 64 bit OS until I replaced the system with 7. Currently their is no compatible version of Windowblinds that operates with 7, however.

64 bit alternative shell


Comparing p-values from multiple permutation (Mantel) tests on variations of the same data set

Question: I am comparing the relationship between genetic and geographic distance of individuals in a wild animal population. The hypothesis is that individuals with higher genetic relatedness establish home ranges closer to one another (shorter geographic distance between them) than to individuals that are less related (ie: geographic distance and relatedness are inversely correlated).
Because these animals have homeranges that overlap and were sampled multiple times over the course of the study, I initially calculated a center point for each individual's home range and used that as the geographic location of the individual. I then ran a Mantel test (and the modification of the Mantel test called the Tau Kr test) and compared my correlation coefficient to the results of 1000 permutations of the data. I obtained a significant result (P<0.05).
However, I wanted to see how sensitive the analysis is to where you sample the individual. Therefore, I re-ran my Mantel tests but using every possible combination of sampling locations for each individual (rather than taking the center point).
I now have a distribution of p-values and test statistics for all of these tests and in 14% of cases the tests were significant (P<0.05) for the Mantel Test and in 52% of cases using the Tau Kr Test.
Is there a way to evaluate if the initial hypothesis is true with these results? Intuitively to me, I think that if there was no relationship between geographic and genetic distance, even 14% of tests should not be significant. But I am not really sure what to compare this distribution of p-values to - what would the null model look like? It seems to be that I am detecting a real pattern even though it is highly dependent on sampling location, but I cannot figure out however how to analyze this data set now to determine whether the signal is significant.
Many thanks for your help!
Answer: Maybe the sampling location were inevitable significant for genetic distances; the test could be done in areas that are not related to sampling location.


Is 1½ hours enough for a transit at Munich Airport?

Question: I'm heading to India next week and have a connection in Munich, Germany. I made the mistake of booking a flight with only an hour and a half layover (freaking out!) and I'm wondering if I'll have to go through customs in Munich or if I can pass right on through.
Comment: @RudyGunawan Frankfurt and Munich are night and day. 90 minutes is scary short in FRA and twice what you need in MUN
Comment: Heading to India from where? It matters whether your flights are domestic or not, i.e. whether you're starting from elsewhere in the [Schengen area](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area) or not.
Comment: Is your luggage going to be checked through, or will you have to collect it, queue up and check it in again?
Comment: Just to make sure (in case it makes a difference) - what is your flight, if layover is in Munich? Where are you flying from before Munich?
Comment: I transferred at Munich once (non-Schengen to Schengen country), and it was plenty of time. Only one sample though.
Comment: See Abbie and Ryan Amazing Race case when they were eliminated from Amazing Race. It happened in Frankfurt though. They actually had more than 1 hour and 30 minutes layover. http://www.tvguide.com/News/Amazing-Race-Abbie-Ryan-1056849.aspx
Comment: did you made it?
Answer: Presuming you are arriving from a non-Schengen country then you will not need to pass through immigration in Munich.  You will remain air-side, although you may need to go through security depending on which terminal you arrive in/depart from.
However even if you do need to clear immigration in Munich you'll find it very quick and easy (presuming you come from a country that does not require a Visa) - I don't recall ever having to wait more than a minute or two when passing through immigration in either Munich or Frankfurt.  Security can be another story and can take a while to get through depending on how busy they are, but 90 minutes should be plenty of time as long as your inbound flight is on time or only slightly delayed.
Comment: Do you have an EU/EEA passport?
Answer: It is interesting to me how different it is to transit in Munich and in Frankfurt. I have had 60 minute transits in Frankfurt that I made only by butting to the beginning of lines (showing people my boarding pass and begging them to let me go first) and running, and not getting to go to the bathroom or buy a drink, and still only just making the flight. But a 60 minute transit in Munich? I have done it many times (always a Schengen/non-Schengen transfer - Canada or the UK into Schengen, or Schengen headed out, so in addition to security there are passport lineups to deal with) and always seem to end up with 20 minutes to sit at the gate and drink the free coffee.
Munich is smaller than Frankfurt, I find the signage simpler to follow, and it's just less disorienting and crowded. The lines are shorter and perhaps the overall volume of passengers is less. Whatever the reason, I just don't transit through Frankfurt any more and I'm always happy to do so through Munich. A one-hour connection in Munich doesn't worry me, so I wouldn't be worried about your 90 minute one.
One disclaimer: this is if your flights are booked as a single ticket. If your incoming flight is significantly delayed you will misconnect. If your flights are booked as one ticket this is the airlines's problem and they'll take care of you. But if they are booked as separate tickets then you're just out of luck. In that case I would want a much longer connection (3 hours or more) to feel safe.
Comment: Free coffee? Now where did you get *that*?
Comment: @Jan - there is a long corridor that the gates are all in. There is another long corridor parallel to it. And there are many small corridors connecting the two, with bathrooms and suchlike. Many of these short corridors have counters with free coffee and (German) newspapers. Or at least they did last time I was there :-)
Comment: Ah, then T2, I'm a *A flyer for the most part
Comment: domestic IIRC - I was less interested in coffee on my out of Europe than on my way in
Comment: Yeah, no; Terminal 2 is Lufthansa and StarAlliance, T1 is everything else …
Answer: Necromancing, in case anybody else has this problem.
I actually did this with a flight to and from Romania.
Both times, it was very tight.
Baggage was changed automatically.
But because I didn't have a biometric ID card, I had to stand in line for manual passport control, which took long time, because there were many people and ony one or two manual control points open.
It will be very tight, but it will work.
The problem is, Munich airport is quite large.
You'll drive around the airport quite long when you arrive, and then have to go through passport control.
With 1.5 hours in between flights, you will board about 5 minutes before boarding time ends.
But if your flight arrives late, you'll need to make yourself noticed and use the express lanes.
Comment: IIRC, the terminal is a smallish one, but passenger's are (mostly) bussed to/from the airplanes, so there is the transfer time from the plane to the terminal. I would still not be concerned with a 90 minute layover. But this is IMHO.
Answer: I made a trip through Munich Airport from USA to Israel and on the way back. I had 2 hours to walk through from landing to the next gate in the same terminal. It was a bit rough for me because of mobility issues. We had to walk through a controlled part of the airport and then through a customs/border check before entering a waiting area for the flight from Munich to Israel. If you do not have mobility issues, you should be fine in 90 minutes as you will already have passed basic airport security in Frankfurt and be inside the airport security lines in Munich. The customs/passport checkpoint I passed through was only for those who were on that flight.
So I think you will be fine as Lufthansa planned everything via their booking, and if they made a mistake, they will need to rebook your connection.

Munich Airport Connecting info: https://www.munich-airport.com/connecting-flights-260553
Comment: Please do not post (almost) identical answers, and it is not a good habit to post answers with the same information to older questions which already have good answers.


What's the purpose of layers in map editors?

Question: I have a question regarding map editors, like Tiled, for example.
I am currently making my own map editor, and I wondered if someone could explain to me what is the purpose of layering in tiled for example.
What purpose does it serve in creating a map?
Answer: Layers are needed not only the most basic use of a tile map, but also allow more artistic expression and play features. Layers define the draw order of the sprites used in your world. They're simply a way to say, "Draw sprite X after sprite Y, so that sprite X will appear on top of sprite Y". They're typically generalized into layers so you don't need to define the depth for each sprite (though you could also think of defining the depth as setting the layer). This process is referred to as the Painter's Algorithm.
The most basic use is from having the player (or any non-map item) on top of the map. The map is one layer, and the player and other items are in another layer on top of the map.

(Source for image is a nice tutorial for making a simple game)
The artistic expression and play features include allowing players to walk "behind" other objects in the world or have placeable structures/items.
Layers are not only limited to visuals. You can also have layers that define non-walkable areas, like in the example above, layer 3 could be defined as "blocking" meaning the player isn't allowed to move onto anything in that layer. This effectively creates player boundaries to help with map creation. This can expand to the physics system where you may only want some sprites to collide with sprites in their same layer. This is a simple way of disabling friendly fire for example.
Layers also allow for effects like parallax scrolling. This gives a 2D game a feeling of depth.
Comment: Don't accept the answer too soon. Something better may come along. Waiting to accept an answer encourages others to answer and overall provides a better resource for future visitors.
Answer: Having different layers makes it possible to have things that the character can walk "behind" by putting the part in front of the player. This article explains this fairly well.
Comment: Correct, but maybe also mention the painter's algorithm and entity layers in your answer? I know the tutsplus article touches on it, but it's best to actually write out a full answer since you never know when a webpage you cite may disappear.


When does Kakashi first use his Mangekyou Sharingan?

Question: In Naruto, when does Kakashi first use his Mangekyou Sharingan? Because as far as I know, he and Tobi both awaken their Mangekyou Sharingan when Kakashi saw Rin and Obito get killed, but he never uses it in the series until Shippuden.
Comment: Your question probably is, "Why didn't Kakashi use Mangekyo Sharingan earlier?", because I am pretty sure you know when he first used it.
Comment: I don't understand the need to use a sock puppet to answer own question, especially when [SE explicitly encourages answering own questions](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/07/its-ok-to-ask-and-answer-your-own-questions/).
Comment: @Sai Just as I had suspected, this account was using a sock puppet account named "laxter". The answer below was given by the sock puppet. The accounts got merged, so it looks like that.
Comment: to gain (more) reputation! probably he thought no one would know, being unaware of admin privileges..
Comment: Well.. Account has been suspended anyways ..
Comment: In a fight with Itachi and kisame when Kakashi jumped in to help kurenai and asuma he had to suffer tsukoyomi of itachis sharingan. Why he couldn't do a counterattack with his mangekou sharingan.
Answer: Kakashi's first known use of the Mangekyo Sharigan was against Deidara. However, I think your question really is why did he not use it earlier. There could be a number of reasons why he did not use it or was not shown using it earlier.
Kakashi awakened the Mangekyo Sharingan when Rin was killed. He thus failed to keep his promise to Obito. Hence, this was a emotionally painful moment for him, tied to both Rin and Obito. Maybe he did not want to use it since to avoid revisiting those emotions.
As mentioned in lexter's answer, another reason is that being a non-Uchiha, he simply did not have enough stamina to use it effectively in battle. Even after timeskip, he could only use it twice in a day, and had to take rest for a week or so after he used it. Before timeskip, he was in charge of genin-level students, and he couldn't risk getting knocked out and put his students in danger.
Also, before the timeskip, he simply did not get to fight villains against whom he was forced to use it. He only fought Zabuza and Haku during the Land of Waves arc, and unnamed shinobi from Sand Village and Sound Village during the Invasion of Konoha arc. If Orochimaru were to fight him, Kakashi would probably be pushed to using it, but Orochimaru fought with the Third Hokage instead.
Losing to Uchiha Itachi easily may have compelled Kakashi to consider using it, due to the usual shounen/Naruto logic of "If I want to protect my nakama, I have to get stronger."
There could also be a couple of author issues why Kakashi couldn't be shown using it earlier. Sasuke was a protagonist at the time, and his main aim in life was to kill Itachi. Therefore, it was necessary to introduce Itachi as a superpowerful villian. Ensuring that Mangekyo Sharingan is first mentioned when Itachi is introduced would maximize the audience's perception of how strong and evil Itachi is.
The other reason is it was not in the author's plan that Kakashi had already awakened the Mangekyo Sharingan when the series started, and planned to offer an alternate explanation for how he awakened it during the timeskip period. However, as he started addressing the hanging threads while winding up the story, he decided to shoehorn it into Obito's backstory.
Answer: My friend just discovered this in the anime (first season, episode 6, at about 6:35) which I think supports the other explanations. Kakashi is about to use it when he is caught in Zabuza's water prison jutsu. You can see it in this image. This would indicate that he is ready to use it in a near death situation.
Comment: Interesting. Do you have an episode number?  I'd like to revisit that.
Comment: We revisted it to, and it is just before he is caught in the water prison, here is a link to the episode and it happens at 6:35

Link: http://kissanime.to/Anime/Naruto-Dub/Episode-008-The-Oath-Of-Pain?id=103875
Comment: Okay.  It certainly *seems* like he could have used or have chosen to use it, but the real question would be, why *didn't* he?  I won't deny that it looks like he is forming a different level of Sharingan in that shot, but I also wonder if this isn't an error with animation or some other detail that was overlooked.  It's good so I'll give you that, but it's not entirely convincing.
Comment: I don't think it is a error in the animation, it's to close to the Mangekyou. I think it might be the reason from earlier, that he didn't have enough stamina/chakra at that point to use it properly, so it would have to be a dier situation for him to use it. It could be a form of easter egg, but that seems weird.

But I definitely do not have the answer, my friend just saw it, and it so weird why it show up here.
Comment: @SimonRotendahl even though he awakened the Mangekyou when Rin was killed, the Jutsu Kamui took time to be mastered by him. So in the fight with Zabuza he uses Mangekyou for its better visual powers like seeing chakra run through body but he can't use Kamui to escape in that fight.
Comment: Really looks like an MS, but when I zoomed in it just seemed the pupils became bigger for some reason. I could faintly see tomoe still present, without the lines in between each like Obito and Kakashi's MS. I think the problem is that they made the pupil bigger, yet didn't move the tomoe accordingly, thus being very close to the pupil and from afar looking like a Mangekyou Sharingan. This is what I'm speculating.
Answer: I think the only real reason here is retcon. The Sharingan history is one of the most retconed plots in the Narutoverse and the Kakashi-Rin-Obito relationship is up there too. If what is being suggested by these answers and comments is true, then we have to ignore the fact that Kishimoto admited not yet having a design for the Mangekyou Sharingan for the scenes that show Itachi using it on Sasuke without the design we now know. Because of that, we can infere that at the time kakashi was fighting Zabuza, him having the Mangekyou too was unthinkable. Not to mention that when he truly first used it against Deidara, he spent a good hour "working" on his new Sharingan (see image below), so even at the point it still wasn't defined that he had awakened it in Rin's death.

Now, if we MUST make it work for the sake of the Narutoverse, even then we can't presume that those were his intentions when fighting Zabuza, simply because there was no point in using his Kamui in that specific situation.
About his ability with it, yeah, he probably did use it before his fight with Deidara simply because he knew what his eye would do. Since he's not an Uchiha, he had no way of knowing the details of the Mangekyou's power (other then watching Itachi, which was not helpful since their eyes didn't have the same jutsu) without testing on a tree, or a rock. He did faint afterwards, but it wasn't after a single use, he spent a lot of time trying to sever Deidara's arm and even "Kamui'd" his Jibaku Bunshin (Suicide Bombing Clone) entire explosion away.
Answer: He needed more chakra control and his stamina is sub-par. That timeskip made everyone get better so that's most likely the reason. Plus, he is a non-Uchiha and that's why he can barely handle it. Maybe he first used his Mangekyou Sharingan during his fight with Deidara.
Comment: I'm also not sure he was even aware of it at the time. He fainted immediately after activating it.
Answer: In kakashi's fight with deidara (episode 29) he references using it before so I think it's safe to assume he has at least practiced the mongekyou sharingan before this fight
Answer: He awakened when he killed rin, but he learned about the existence of the mangekyou in the first fight with Itachi, i think kakashi maybe have trained using this fight as "inspiration"


Audacity: voice deepening

Question: i want to make tutorials on youtube, but i sound like a kid and i want to sound like more of a man. so is there a way to make my voice deeper, and if possible, change in real time? sorry if i have bad grammar, english is not my first languages.
Answer: If you are unsatisfied with Audacity's ability to manipulate the voice, then the best software I can recommend where you can customize its capabilities are Csound, Max/MSP, and Kyma X.
However, if pitch and formant shift isn't working for you, may I recommend a radio talk host approach?
Get yourself a great microphone, for e.g. the ones used popularly in radio stations like EV RE20, and get sound dampening foams to assist in concentrating your voice. This should help to retain your vocal frequencies, specifically the mid and lower ranges. I hope you don't misunderstand my recommendation as a $500 - $1000 price tag of professional studio gear, but as a way to rethink your problem.
With that approach, applying some eq and compression will go a long way.
This will not only enhance your natural voice, but will make you feel confident.  The deeper issue isn't about trying to sound deeper and older, but to be comfortable with your voice and mannerisms.
Comment: wisely said. i bet you, kids get less subscribers then adults, so if i can sound like an adult i can get more subscribers. i also do have a decent microphone, but that's off topic to my question.
Comment: @Optimus I don't know the statistics, but yeah it must be tough to be taken seriously.  But keep at it, your passion will come through.  It's not about the numbers when you are starting off.  MKBHD was a little kid reviewing software and products, and after several years, it took off for him.  Just wait it out.
Comment: after 4 years of reviewing tech goodness, when his voice was deep enough to be taken seriously
Comment: @Optimus It sounds like you are still interested in looking for a manipulation software, so I have updated my answer with a few choices.
Comment: well, i guess i have no other choice but to use my own voice.  None of the software are giving me the desired effect.
Answer: Pitch shifting is the effect you want to use, and this can be done either with a pitch shifter application, or by stretching your waveform.
It will reduce the pitch, but this may not make you sound older, just different, as adult voices typically have different resonances etc. Have a play with it anyway and see what you think.
In Audacity, to change pitch directly, use the Effect > Audacity > Change Pitch selection and you can decide how much up or down you want the pitch shifted.
Selecting Effect > Audacity > Change Speed stretches (or shrinks) the waveform this lowering pitch and also increasing the length of your sample. For YouTube voiceovers, this is probably not what you want, as it will throw off your timings.
Comment: Let us [continue this discussion in chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/70632/discussion-between-rory-alsop-and-optimus).

Audacity: voice deepening


When you load a WebGL texture from a DOM image, how do you tell if it has an alpha channel?

Question: When you load a WebGL texture directly from a DOM image, how do you tell if the image has an alpha channel or not?  Is there anyway except to guess based on the filename (e.g. "contains .PNG may be RGBA otherwise RGB").  There is a width and height in the DOM image, but nothing I can see that says what format it is. i.e.:
    const img = await loadDOMImage(url);
    const format = gl.RGBA; //Does this always need to be RGBA? I'm wasting space in most cases where its only RGB
    const internalFormat = gl.RGBA;
    const type = gl.UNSIGNED_BYTE; //This is guaranteed to be correct, right?  No HDR formats supported by the DOM?
    gl.texImage2D(gl.TEXTURE_2D, 0, internalFormat, format, type, img);

My load function looks like this FWIW:
  async loadDOMImage(url) {
         return new Promise(
           (resolve, reject)=>{
             const img = new Image();
             img.crossOrigin = 'anonymous';
             img.addEventListener('load', function() {
               resolve(img);
             }, false);
             img.addEventListener('error', function(err) {
               reject(err);
             }, false);

             img.src = uri;

           }
         );
       }

Answer:
how do you tell if the image has an alpha channel or not?

You can't. You can only guess.

you could see the URL ends in .png and assume it has alpha. You might be wrong
you could draw image into a 2D canvas then call getImageData, read all the alpha pixels and see if any of them are not 255

const format = gl.RGBA;

Does this always need to be RGBA? I'm wasting space in most cases where its only RGB

It's unlikely to waste space. Most GPUs work best with RGBA values so even if you choose RGB it's unlikely to save space.

const type = gl.UNSIGNED_BYTE;

This is guaranteed to be correct, right?

texImage2D takes the image you pass in and converts it to type and format. It then passes that converted data to the GPU.

No HDR formats supported by the DOM?

That is undefined and browser specific. I know of no HDR image formats supported by any browsers. What image formats a browser supports is up to the browser. For example Firefox and Chrome support animated webp but Safari does not.

A common question some developers have is they want to know if they should turn on blending / transparency for a particular texture. Some mistakenly believe if the texture has alpha they should, otherwise they should not. This is false. Whether blending / transparency should be used is entirely separate from the format of the image and needs to be stored separately.
The same is true with other things related to images. What format to upload the image into the GPU is application and usage specific and has no relation to the format of the image file itself.


nginx config woes for multiple subdomains & domains

Question: I'm finally moving away from Apache and I've got the latest development version of nginx running on a fully updated Ubuntu 10.04 VPS. I've got a single dedicated IP for the box (188.8.131.52) but I've got two separate domains pointing to the server: www.example1.com and www.example2.net.
I would like to map the fallowing relationships between urls and document roots in the config:
<code> www.example1.com / example1.com -> /var/www/pub/example1.com/
 subdomain.example1.com -> /var/www/dev/subdomain/example1.com/
 www.example2.net / example2.net -> /var/www/pub/example2.net/
 subdomain.example2.net -> /var/www/dev/subdomain/example2.net/
</code>
Where the name of the requested subdomain is a folder under /var/www/dev/.  Ideally a request for a non-existent subdomain(no matching folder found) would result in a rewrite to the public site (eg: invalid.example1.com --> www.example1.com) however a mere "404 Not Found" wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.  It would also be nice if I didn't need to modify the config every time I mkdir a new subdomain folder - even better if I don't need to edit it for a new domain either...but now I'm getting greedy... :p  Although in my defense Apache did all of this with a single directive.
Does anyone know how I can efficiently mimic this behavior in nginx?
Thanks in advance,
Peter Hanneman
Answer: You can do the following.
You can set the root based on the $host request.
location / {
root   /usr/local/$host/www/;
}


Polar axes in Octave?

Question: if i draw a polar plot with Octave the axes are cartessian, not polar axes. But in Matlab it seems polar axes exists for polar plots. Is there anyway to draw with polar axes in polar plots in Octave?
Thanks
Comment: I can rationalize the "Cartesian" axes on a polar plot as displaying the increments of angle $\theta = 0,\pi/2,\pi, 3\pi/2$ for polar coordinate $\theta$.  Do you mean that concentric circles denoting radius $r \gt 0$ are missing? (Note that ticks along the "Cartesian" axes serve much the same purpose.)
Comment: Ah ok, sorry, sometimes I don't understenand the meanin' in english. Well, I want something like the image on this webpage where it puts Examples-> A simple polar plot http://www.mathworks.es/es/help/matlab/ref/polar.html
Comment: Yeah, but with polar axes is a good view for teaching the polar coordinates
Comment: I'm really asking what you mean by "polar axes".  A graph of polar coordinates might have additional rays or lines through the origin to illustrate constant $\theta$ loci and/or circles centered at the origin to illustrate constant $r$ (radius).  Do you have both in mind?
Answer: Older versions of Octave used gnuplot as the graphics engine, and you can still fall back on that capability.  A StackOverflow post from 2011 illustrates gnuplot's capabilities, including some concentric circles around the origin.
A 2005 mailing list thread discusses Octave commands to "set" a polar grid (the phrase I'd rather use than "polar axes").
You'll probably want to know how to get those circles with the high-level interface, so you won't have to rely on the gnuplot commands.  However as recently as last year, according to this mailing list thread, support for polar grids in the OpenGL library was still lacking.
This 2008 Help-octave mailing list thread discusses the missing polar grid but mentions at the end an Octave toolkit, octave-epstk, using encapsulated postscript (EPS), that is supposed to provide the missing polar grid.  Unfortunately EpsTk seems to have lost their homepage in Germany, but the toolkit itself is still available in Debian and Ubuntu, and likely in other such Linux distros.
Some documentation for global parameters in EpsTk indicates there are several that affect the polar grid.
Comment: Thanks, epsTk works good to me. I put below a simple code.
Answer: I put a simple code using epstk
<code>theta = 0:0.01:2*pi;
rho = sin(2*theta).*cos(2*theta);

eopen('polar.eps') %make a eps file

epolar(theta,rho,'Polar Function',0,[0 0 1],1.5)
%plot in the eps file our function with polar coordinates

eclose; %close eps file
eview % we show the eps file with gsview or a browser.
</code>
And the result

Polar axes in Octave?


jQuery scroll on Mobile Safari

Question: I'm developing and website and I need it to scroll to an anchor. It needs to be animated, so I decided to use jQuery for that. I tried this:
function goToByScroll(id){
      $('html,body').animate({scrollTop: $("#"+id).offset().top},'slow');
}

It works perfectly on the desktop. On Mobile Safari it first goes to the top of the page, then it scrolls to the anchor I want it to scroll to. What's the trick to make it work on Mobile Safari?
Answer: What about
var top = $("#"+id).offset().top; //anchor top offset from doc top
$(window).scrollTop(top);

jQuery scroll on Mobile Safari


In how many ways can he form a rectangle using all the tiles each time?

Question: A contractor has exactly $1088$ square tiles. In how many ways can he form a rectangle using all the tiles each time?
Comment: Basically there asking how many ways can he multiply two numbers together to get 1088. Because the multiplication of two numbers 'a' and 'b' forms a rectangle with length a, and side b, and area ab.
Answer: Hint: How many $m,n\in \mathbb{N}$ such that $m\times n = n\times m= 1088$ can you find? Note that $1088=2^6\cdot17$
Answer: $$1088 = 2\times2\times2\times2\times2\times2\times17$$
So
\begin{align}
1088 & = 1\times1088 \\ & = 2\times544 \\ & = 4 \times272 \\ & = 8 \times136 \\ & = 16\times68 \\ & = 17\times64 \\ & = 32\times 34.
\end{align}
There's your list of rectangles.
Answer: Basically there asking how many ways can he multiply two numbers together to get 1088. Because the multiplication of two numbers 'a' and 'b' forms a rectangle with length a, and side b, and area ab.
In general the solution to this problem given n tiles will be how many divisors does n have less then or equal to $n^{1/2}$.
Answer: is the rectangle $(a,b)$ equal to the rectangle $(b,a)$ if not then here is a way to solve it: $1088=2^6*17$. since you need to keep the tiles whole and you use all of them the height needs to be a  divisor of $1088$. Therefore the number of rectangles $(a,b)$ is the number of divisors of $1088$.(if the number where a perfect square it would be the number of divisors minus 1)
How do we count them? from the fundamental theorem of arithmetic we know every integer number greater than 1 has a single representation as a product of primes.
Therefore how many combinations can we make with six 2's and one 17?? we can chose to add $0,1,2,3... $or $6$ 2's and we can chose to use $0$ or $1$ 17's. Using the fundamental theorem of combinatorics we know the number of combinations is $7*2=14$. Now: if you don't want to count $(a,b)$ and $(b,a)$ the result is $7$ because we are counting all of them twice.


What is meant by `individuals do not evolve, populations do`?

Question: My university professor stated that "individuals do not evolve, populations do". But aren't populations made up of individuals? That's like saying when a compound changes in stability, none of the elements' properties change. If someone could clear this up, that would be great.
Comment: If you pick pebbles of different colours, and then throw away all the light ones, is it the pebbles or your collection that have changed colour?
Comment: Populations are made up of individuals, but you have to remember that the individuals in the population *now* ("after the evolution happened") are different from the individuals in the population *then* ("before the evolution happened").
Comment: Or in simple terms evolution is an emergent characteristic, A single individual can no more evolve than a single number by itself can undergo addition or a single car can be called gridlock traffic.
Answer: The statement individuals do not evolve, populations do is rooted in the (classical population genetic) definition of evolution. Here is this definition:

Evolution is a change of allele frequency through time in a population

Evolution is defined for a population, it is not defined for an individual. And it makes intuitive sense once you get more used to how evolution works. For example, the so-called fundamental principle of natural selection states that at any given time, the rate of increase in the population mean fitness is exactly equal to the variance in fitness.
Indeed, evolution is all about phenotypic and genetic variance (for fitness or other phenotypic traits) and without a population to observe, there is no variance. It is within this framework that people say individuals do not evolve, populations do but you are correct that as populations evolve its constituents (the individuals) changes. The sentence has the advantage to reinforce the concept that evolution happens at the level of the population.
Comment: As an ecologist I would say that evolution is a bit more than the genetic definition of changes in allele frequency. It is the natural selection that occurs on these differences, were less adapted individuals produce less offspring on average. And in that sense, evolution does happen to individuals: they die or fail to reproduce. But the effect of the adaption occurs in the next generations, at the population level.
Comment: The sentence `individuals do not evolve, populations do` is more of a catchy phrase that force an intuition that a fact. By definition, NS is a fitness differential in the population. While the fitness are properties of individuals, fitness variation among individuals is a property of a population. Similar notion apply to any other evolutionary forces. If you do a tiny bit of modelling in evolutionary biology, you'll realize that you will always use population-level variables (variables that vary among individuals). It is with this in mind that the quote makes sense.
Answer: Evolution itself is a term that describes populations changing over time.
As Remi.b pointed out, if you take evolution to be genetic changes in a population over time, then it doesn't make sense for an individual to evolve. Evolution can only occur as genetic changes are inherited from parents to their offspring.
A given individual in a population can be subject to natural selection, but the individual itself cannot 'evolve' in the biological sense of the word. They can only contribute to the evolution of a population by affecting the allele frequencies in that population.
As an analogy,
The evolution of a population can be thought of as a motion picture of that population.
At any given moment, the genetic structure of a population can be thought of as a screenshot, and one person (or organism) can be thought of as a pixel.
Evolution is like watching a video of a population change through time.
So you might say:
"pixels do not play, videos do".
Comment: Actually, this does answer the question. If you think it's a bad answer, you can downvote it.
Answer: Evolution is about children differing from their parents. You are not identical to your parents.

Your cells' DNA does change (a little, through new random mutations from time to time, most of it being repaired but not always correctly), but incoherently through cells, and these mutations are not transmissible if they are not happening in your gametes (sex cells).
Non-lethal changes in your gametes are transmitted. Besides, errors in chromosome duplication is a way more efficient and fast way of evolving (mixing sentences makes sense more easily than mixing letters).
Comment: Downvoters, please justify.
Comment: I don't really see how your answer specifically answers the question. You talk a little bit about the mechanical origin of mutations but it does not quite relate to the core of the question. (I was not the one down voting btw but I kinda agree with the down vote).
Comment: because all the point is about :
- many cells inheriting mutation of one single parent cell vs many cells mutating incoherently
- mutation transmitted vs not transmitted
- change by raw mutations vs change by replication error


Crispy chicken skin on the BBQ

Question: I am on a mission to get CRISPY chicken skin on the BBQ. I don't mean to LOOK crispy. I mean to actually "crunch" when bitten into, if that's at all possible. I'm trying to do all the right steps.  I dry off the chicken thighs (bone in, skin on) with paper towels, liberally sprinkle with Kosher salt and pepper, & spray with oil so it doesn't stick to the grill.  On medium high, I start with skin side down so the fat can render and turn after about 7 minutes. Repeat and leave on till done.  When done, the chicken is moist, delicious, and beautifully carmalized.......but NOT crispy!!!!  Any suggestions?
Comment: is it a propane grill?  the burning of hydrocarbons produces water, which might affect how crisp the skin gets (especially if it's cooked with a closed lid)
Comment: It is propane and for the most part the lid is closed. I would never guess that would be the reason. Would an open lid with propane do the tick?
Comment: It would help, but I don't know that it would be the only thing needed.  Hopefully someone else has more experience with this
Answer: You are getting a lot of it right by patting the chicken dry and using a dry rub, I think you just need to tweak your method a bit.
Rendering fat and making crispy skin takes time, 7 minutes just isn't long enough for all the fat to melt away and it is searing instead. When I make crispy chicken in the oven I bake it on 190°C (375°F) in a fan oven for 35 minutes - that's thighs and legs, breast may vary.
What I would suggest in the barbecue is to reduce the heat to a bit short of medium, and cook the chicken longer on indirect heat. Once the fat has rendered and the skin gets crispy you can crank the heat up and get some color on it if you aren't happy with the color already. I'd keep the crispy skin away from the high heat though as it's likely to burn, instead caramelize the underside of the chicken.
Comment: This is all about removing moisture.  I would add to this that salting your chicken, and letting sit, uncovered, in your refrigerator for up to 2 days before cooking will increase dehydration and allow for better crisping.
Answer: How long before you cook do you salt the meat? The salt will take time to draw out the moisture to give that nice crispy skin. You'll want to salt it (and use any other dry-rub seasonings) at least several hours before cooking - salting ten minutes or so before cooking can make the skin flabby.
Comment: Thanks to everyone for all the advice, I'll try all your suggestions.

Crispy chicken skin on the BBQ


Why don't photons interact with the Higgs field?

Question: Why don't photons interact with the Higgs field and hence remain massless?
Comment: This is easily one of the worst bounties I've seen - you *cannot* expect a technical result of QFT to have a "way to imagine". In particular, the ultimate answer to why the Higgs doesn't give the photon mass is because we *don't observe the photon to have mass*, so a theory which gives it mass would be pretty useless to describe reality, hence we have to build a theory that doesn't give the photon mass.
Comment: By construction. Higgs mechanism is a mechanism of breaking electroweak $SU(2)\times U(1)_Y$ to $U(1)_{EM}$, and the photon is the gauge boson of the unbroken $U(1)_{EM}$.
Comment: Related: https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/4700/2451 and https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/17939/2451
Comment: Counterexample: http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0306245
Answer: Massless photon
Photons interact with the "Higgs doublet" but they don't interact with the "ordinary" component of the Higgs field whose excitations are the Higgs bosons.
The reason is that the Higgs vacuum expectation value is only nonzero for the component of the Higgs field whose total electric charge, $Q=Y+T_3$ where $Y$ is the hypercharge and $T_3$ is the $z$-component of the $SU(2)_w$ weak isospin gauge group, is equal to zero, i.e. for $Y=\pm 1/2$ and $T_3=\mp 1/2$. That's why the coefficient of the $(h+v) A_\mu A^\mu$ term is zero.
In other words, the vacuum condensate of the Higgs field that fills the space is charged under the weak charges, including the hypercharges and the weak $SU(2)$ charge, but exactly under the right combination of these charges, the electric charge, the condensate is neutral. It would be "bad" if the vacuum carried a nonzero electric charge. It doesn't.
So the $A_\mu A^\mu$ interaction, whose coefficient is proportional to the electric charge of the Higgs field, isn't there. The photon remains massless and the electromagnetic interaction remains a long-range force, dropping as a power law at long distances (instead of the exponential decrease for short-range forces: W-bosons and Z-bosons do interact with the Higgs condensate and they get massive and their forces get short-range).
OPERA anomaly
The OP's question used to have two parts but this second part has been deleted. But I won't delete the answer because the votes and other things may have already reacted to this part as well etc.
Yes, the anomaly of the OPERA neutrino speed measurement has been resolved. First, ICARUS, using directors in the very same cave, measured the speed as well and got $v=c$ within the error margin (the same error margin as OPERA's).

http://motls.blogspot.com/2012/03/icarus-neutrino-speed-discrepancy-is-0.html

Second, a few months ago, OPERA found out that they had a loosely connected fiber optical cable to a computer card. Using some independent data OPERA recorded, it was possible to determine that the cable error (plus another source of error whose mean value is much smaller) shifts the timing by $73\pm 9$ nanoseconds in the right direction (it's the right direction because the cable problem had delayed some older neutrino-free measurements of the time but was fixed once the neutrinos were being measured), see

http://motls.blogspot.com/2012/03/opera-experiment-spokesman-resigned.html
http://agenda.infn.it/getFile.py/access?resId=2&materialId=slides&confId=4896

so when the error is corrected, the "neutrinos by $60\pm 10$ nanoseconds too fast" become "neutrinos coming $13\pm 15$ nanoseconds after light" which is consistent with $v=c$. Note that relativity with light but massive neutrinos predicts $c-v\sim 10^{-20} c$ for these neutrinos, experimentally indistinguishable from $v=c$.
The spokesman of the experiment and the physics coordinators have already resigned; the spokesman resigned first: before another no-confidence vote but after some preparation votes for the no-confidence vote. It seems that they have known the mistake since December 8th, 2011, but they were hiding it for a few months (it was leaked to Science News by someone else in February) and they wanted to do experiments for additional months, even in May 2012, even though the error has been known to eliminate the anomaly for quite some time. They apparently enjoyed the unjustifiable fame.
Comment: Oh, by the way, since you're not always online, you may want to consider adding yourself [here](http://meta.physics.stackexchange.com/questions/1159/please-consider-opting-in-to-being-always-pingable). That way we can send any interesting questions which you may be able to answer better your way even if they get buried by other questions.
Comment: Lubos: the question has been edited, you may want to consider updating your answer accordingly.
Comment: Thankyou for the elegant ans. I will split the questions accordingly
Comment: Oh, I didn't know of the skullduggery by the spokesman. Thanks for the info!
Comment: If I see nice unanswered questions about nice topics I sometimes feel very tempted to ping Lumo ;-)
Comment: @Dilaton: Yep. There's also `@annav` for particle physics,  `@ArnoldNeumaier` for QM, `@F'x,@NickKidman` for thermodynamics.  Others, like `@DavidZaslavsky` and `@dmckee` are good for more general topics. `@RonMaimon` tends to give great, lengthy answers. And there are other people.. The thermodynamics people aren't online much, and good questions whoosh by without attention from them. Happens to others as well. Thus the meta-pinglist.
Comment: @Dilaton and of course, `@ColinK` for optics--he's another semi-active member.
Answer: The massless photon:
The zero mass is not due to a special value of the Weinberg angle, the angle which determines the mass of the other three bosons $W^+$, $W^-$ and $Z$ The mass is zero because the vacuum expectation value of the Higgs field doublet is single valued rather than two valued. This means it can in principle always be expressed by.
$\langle \phi \rangle ~=~ \left(\begin{array}{c} 0 \\ v \end{array}\right)$
It's the 0 here which leaves one of the four bosons massless. Just to show a bit of the math:
The gauge transform of the Higgs field is defined with $\beta$ corresponding to an Abelian field and the three $\alpha$ corresponding to Non Abelian fields.
$\phi \longrightarrow ~~\exp \,\frac{i}{2}\left\{\beta  \left(\begin{array}{cc} 1 & 0\\ 0 & 1 \end{array}\right) +
\alpha^1\left(\begin{array}{cc} 0 & 1\\ 1 & 0 \end{array}\right) +
\alpha^2\left(\begin{array}{cc} 0 & \!-\!i\\ i & 0 \end{array}\right) +
\alpha^3\left(\begin{array}{cc} 1 & 0\\ 0 & \!-\!1 \end{array}\right)
\right\}~\phi$
The $\beta$ corresponds to the hypercharge Y (see also Luboš Motl's post)
and $\alpha^1$, $\alpha^2$ and $\alpha^3$ correspond to the three components of the iso-spin T. Now the combination $\beta=\alpha^3$ results in the matrix.
$\left(\begin{array}{cc} 1 & 0\\ 0 & 1 \end{array}\right) +
\left(\begin{array}{cc} 1 & 0\\ 0 & \!-\!1 \end{array}\right) =
\left(\begin{array}{cc} 1 & 0\\ 0 & 0 \end{array}\right)$
So it is this combination which doesn't interact with the vacuum expectation value,
$\left(\begin{array}{cc} 1 & 0\\ 0 & 0 \end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c} 0 \\ v \end{array}\right)\equiv\left(\begin{array}{c} 0 \\ 0 \end{array}\right)$
and it is this combination which represents the massless photon.
Hans.
Comment: You should use a different terminology other than "single valued" and "two valued", it's confusing, because you mean "can be rotated to have one component zero". But this is not necessary, there is a massless photon for any spinor coordinates you choose of the Higgs value.
Comment: Hans: the question has been edited, you may want to consider updating your answer accordingly.
Comment: It's incredible that people can even comprehend this.
Answer: There is an aspect to this question that nobody seems to have addressed and that is, although the higgs (the 'radial' component of the field) is neutral, and therefore doesn't interact with the photon at 'tree level' we still see the decay $h \rightarrow \gamma \gamma$. This is because, roughly, by quantum effects a higgs will fluctuate into a particle/ anti-particle pair (electrons, quarks etc) which can they produce photons. So while the higgs does not strictly interact with the photon, at low energies we can parameterize a low-energy effective interaction where the higgs does interact with the photon. This is diagrammatically expressed in the Feynman diagrams:
which I have borrowed from http://resonaances.blogspot.com/2012/07/h-day-3-how-to-pump-up-higgs-to-gamma.html.
Answer: Before saying anything about why photons don't interact with the Higgs field, i would like to emphasize the very meaning of mass

By Einstein's famous equation $E=mc^{2}$, "Mass and Energy are the same thing".

This connection between matter and energy was at the heart the solution to problem of how and from where particles (Guage bosons, except the photon) gets their mass, as proposed in 1964 by Peter Higgs and others who worked with him.
Now why and how do we know that photons are massless?
The gauge bosons a group of particles which are responsible for any of the fundamental interactions of nature, Along with other groups of particles (quarks and leptons) together form the Standard model of particle physics. Photons are one of the guage bosons which are responsible for the electromagnetic interactions.

In particular in order for the theory of electromagnetism to hold together in a mathematically self-consistent way the photon has to be exactly massless. if it did have a mass then if you try to do calculations with the theory with the massive photon included you would find that calculating the same quantity in different ways would give you different answers (inconsistent results)
Now mathematically for the other 3 guage bosons, say the WZ Boson, which is responsible for the weak nuclear interaction, should also have zero mass. But experimentally it seems that they're about a hundred times heavier than a proton

So in order to solve this mathematical inconsistency a radical new idea was introduced which states that

Space everywhere in the universe is filled with a quantum field
  which is called as the Higgs field.

The Answer
Some particles travel to this field without knowing it's there. For example the photon simply doesn't interact in any way with this field. Thus it doesn't have any mass.
Other particles interact highly with the higgs field thus slowing them down and this slowing down of the particles due to interactions cause the feeling of mass
Now why doesn't photon doesn't interact at all? well simply speaking, its just a property of photon, similar to properties of other particles like electrons or protons having a charge which is their property.
In order to describe this property we can use mathematics as other answers did.
just like the electromagnetic fields made of photons the Higgs field is made
up the smaller particles are smaller bits for the field called Higgs bosons.
PS: Since a very simple but detailed answer(An answer for layman) was needed i didn't use any mathematics or very deep physics.
Answer: First of all, photons are observed to be massless, and the $W^\pm$ and $Z$ are observed to have mass. So we have to build a model that agrees with this.
Mathematically (at a non-rigorous but intuitive level), the $SU(2)_W\times U(1)_Y$ electroweak gauge symmetry is a 4-dimensional Lie group ($=U(2)$). Given the experimental facts, we want to find a representation under which the orbit of the non-zero vev under this Lie group action is 3-dimensional, so that the 3-dimensional orbit contributes to the longitudinal components of $W^\pm, Z$ (3 of them); since the original Lie group is 4-dimensional, so there is 1-dimension that acts trivially on the vev, that is the photon. What representation satisfies this? The simplest choice is 2-component complex vectors (i.e. doublet) transforming under $U(2)$ matrices. The orbit of $U(2)$ acting on a non-zero complex doublet is $S^3$, leaving one dimension in the $U(2)$ acting trivially. (This can be attributed to the fact that by knowing two component vectors $v, u$ and $U v= u$, you cannot uniquely determine $U$.) On the other hand, a complex doublet takes value in an $\mathbb{R}^4$; this $\mathbb{R}^4$ mod out the $S^3$ orbits leave one dimension that is the higgs.
So the rough idea is, given the symmetry group and the representation:
$$dim(\mbox{symmetry group})-dim(\mbox{orbit of action})=dim(\mbox{residual symmetry})$$
$$dim(\mbox{rep space})-dim(\mbox{orbit of action})=dim(\mbox{physical degrees of freedom})$$
(The dimension of orbit of action in global symmetry is the number of massless Goldstone bosons; in gauge symmetry the longitudinal components of massive gauge fields. If the symmetry is global, the "physical degrees of freedom" is replaced by "massive particles".)

Why don’t photons interact with the Higgs field?


Are there any techniques to "cheat" at cooking a risotto?

Question: Cooking a risotto takes a fair amount of attention and work, adding stock a ladle at a time with almost constant stirring. The chemical process behind this makes sense to me. Are there any ways to short cut this process though? I'd like to be able to make a risotto with a little less attention. I'm wondering if some hybrid technique of early attention and later just adding liquid and letting it boil (or maybe the reverse) might provide a similar result with less work.
Comment: My mother loves her pot-stirrer for ease of risotto-making (something like this: http://www.amazon.com/StirChef-Saucepan-Stirrer/dp/B0000TPBYG). It won't lessen the time it takes to make risotto, but it might help free you up some.
Comment: I know I know, but it's risotto, if it's not made with love, tenderness, and care, it's just not risotto anymore
Answer: Actually I've found that constant stirring has little to no affect on the final product. You can simply stir rigorously at the last minute and achieve similar results. Don't believe me? Try it for yourself and you'll see.
Another trick is pre-cooking your rice. Just follow a standard risotto recipe but stop cooking the rice about half way through the process (about 10 minutes in or just before aldente). Strain the stock from the rice and pour it out onto a baking sheet to cool quickly. You can refrigerate it for up to a day. To finish it, just pick up where you left off and - presto - you've just cut out half the cooking time.
Cheers!
Comment: I generally agree with this. I stir more than Derek, but certainly not constantly. Maybe 20 seconds out of every 3 minutes.
Comment: Technically, you've just spread the cooking time over two days in your second case...
Comment: I assumed you were preparing it for guests or diners. Believe me, they will think you're a magician.

Other than that there is no really "easy" way to shortcut the process. The rice has to cook. Plain and simple. The only other thing I can think of is to cover the rice with stock and chuck it in the microwave for a few minutes before completing it the traditional way.
Answer: Looks like the closest you can get is to add lots of cheese and butter (for the cream) and stir less often.  This recipe follows that trick, using the lid of your pot unlike a traditional risotto.
If you have a pressure cooker, you can also coopt it to do some of the work for you, as seen in this recipe.  The trick there as suggested by many similar pressure cooker risotto recipes appears to be to start with high pressure and quickly release steam.
Answer: Mark Bittman thinks it can be done more easily, see here.  It comes with a video.
Comment: so do you think the trick is the additional fat?  The amount of broth?  If I wanted to try and translate it to another kind of risotto - say a corn risotto appropriate for this time of summer (at my latitude, at least), it seems like it ought to work, but I'm curious.
Answer: If you Google for "risotto oven baked"  you can get a lot of recipes and comments. The general consensus is that it's not quite as creamy as the constantly stirred stove top version, but that most people would never know it wasn't made on the stove top if you don't tell them.
Comment: This gets my vote as the most "set it and forget it" method, but it really doesn't come out like proper risotto in my experience. It's nice, and easy, but not proper.
Answer: Although this isn't exactly a "cheat," it can help expedite the making of the risotto. You par-boil the rice, so it is partially ready when it is time to actually cook it.
Ever wonder how they get the risotto to cook so fast on shows like "Hell's Kitchen?" Par- boiling.
Here's a link to how it's done: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/601758
Answer: There is one recipe for risotto that doesn't require that much attention: "Risotto alla pilota". Basically you boil the rice in salted water and then stir-fry it with a particular shredded Italian sausage meat (called "pesto", but it's not that pesto). You then add Grana or Parmigiano.
Answer: If cheating like this were really possible, people'd be doing it that way. That said: I've tried to shortcut risotto myself. It's possible: make the batches of liquid larger and you'll still get a tasty rice dish. It just won't be as good as it would have been otherwise.
Answer: You don't have to stir "almost constantly" and you can add the liquid in larger amounts, I guess, for a less perfect risotto, for less effort. But I still think you should add liquid evenly throughout the process.
And lots of butter stirred in at the end, once it's off the heat, is the quick and easy way to a creamy finish.
Answer: If you add the right amount of liquid after the sauteeing, you can leave it alone until it has mostly cooked down. At that point, make sure it hasn't stuck.


Fallout New Vegas and Boxing

Question: I saw this picture on fallout wiki(on the bottom of the page) and I wonder if I can do any boxing in fallout or is it as useless as it looks?
P.S. Is that picture a hack or are there any boxing possibilities with the Legion?
Comment: I miss New Reno.
Answer: So, there's two seperate questions that could be answered here.
Can you fight unarmed, using primarily punches, and wear boxing gloves? Absolutely. In fact, Unarmed is among the stronger combat specializations in the game, though Boxing Gloves are somewhat weak specifically, because they cause only subdual damage - meaning they will knock your opponent over, but not kill them. Useful sometimes, but rarely.
Can you fight in a 'boxing match'? Well, not per se, however, there are two opportunities for you to engage in a sporting fight for some caps. The Thorn in westside is home to one such opportunity, where you'll have the opportunity to fight off various monsters of the Wasteland such as Radscorpions, Giant Mantises, Deathclaws and Cazadors. Any weapon is fair game in the Thorn, though you're welcome to go in unarmed if you're looking for a challenge.
Male (and only male, the legion are nothing if not chauvinistic) Players aligned with Caesar's Legion meanwhile, have the option to fight in The Arena, located at The Fort. In the Arena, the only weapons permitted are Machete's. All your other weapons are confiscated at the beginning of a match, and you are of course free to use your bare hands instead if you so desire.
Comment: damn, you know a lot, did you write this game?
Answer: I'm specializing in unarmed combat in Fallout NV and so far it's a riot. I've beaten supermutant with machine gun on level 7 with nothing but brass knucles and without breaking a sweat. First punch - gun flies away, second punch - crippled hand...
The trick is to have high strengh, endurance and luck (at least 7-8) - it all affects unarmed combat. You cannot target body parts in VATS, but you CAN target them without VATS. For example, guns aren't much use to your opponents after you cripple their hands. Someone comes after you with a melee weapon? Cripple or trip his legs and deal with shooters first. It's quite a different style of combat from shooting and it's definitely worth a try.
However, it's not much use against wild beasts. For example, a boxing match with a radscorpion is a bad idea.
Comment: ... and then the Cazadors came flying.
Comment: that can make a game very interesting. I have to try that :)
Answer: There are no boxing matches if thats what you mean. You can pick up boxing gloves and use them as an unarmed weapon. If the enemy is hungry for some knuckle sandwhiches i recommend getting the golden gloves from Mr House's yard.
Answer: More than likely the boxing gloves were put in as a nod to those who had played Fallout 2, which did offer the opportinuty for the player to participate in boxing matches for money.
Comment: good to know, thx.

Fallout New Vegas and Boxing