Can I Rope Check After Tripping?

Question: I can't find anywhere stating when I can use my rope skill to tie someone up.
I know it's obvious that if they're incapacitated I should question this but I'm wondering if, after I trip them and they're prone, I can do a rope check on them.
Answer: I'd rule that as a no, not directly. Even though a character/monster may be prone, that doesn't mean he can't defend himself. Prone creatures may even attack in melee (with some difficulty) or cast spells if they have one empty hand.
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm#prone
Therefore I don't think one would be able to simple tie a prone character with a rope, at least easily.
You could probably offer the prone creature an opportunity attack (seems appropriate as the prone creature is probably armed while the rope user holds only a rope with his hands) as the rope-user attempts a grapple or melee touch attack the victim and then allow them a Use rope check to tie the target with a DC of your choice (presumably rather high or opposed by an escape artist check from the prone creature.)
In that way you do allow the player a chance of performing the desired task mid-combat against a merely prone target, with a certain amount of risk involved though, which seems perfectly fair to me considering the advantages of having someone restricted in that way.
Comment: Note that [Use Rope](http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/useRope.htm) has an action of one minute to bind a character, meaning you'd (technically, RAW) need to have them prone for ten rounds.
Comment: Agree with the "no". -1 because the suggested fix isn't right according to the RAW, and I don't think granting an AOO is sufficiently penalizing to the rope-using player. At a minimum, the opponent should have to be pinned using the grapple rules.
Comment: That would be when you need to secure someone. The reason I recommend a rather high DC/challenge is because of how the rope-user attempts to restrict the target swiftly, in such a manner that he can then proceed to a proper bondage. I can imagine a rope expert doing that in one round with some luck and skill ;)
Comment: I did mention use of grapple checks actually along with difficult skill checks. You say that in RAW it's 10 rounds, strictly, yet I see little point in whether the target is pinned down for 1 round, 10 rounds or 10 minutes. If he is conscious and perfectly functional it should still take about the same effort.
Answer: I would argue that you cannot tie someone up after just tripping them.  You would need to wrestle them into some sort of pin, and while Character A maintains the pin, Character B does the hog-tying.  Not sure which version you are playing, but at least in Pathfinder, there are rules to go from a trip to a pin.
Answer: According to the RAW, the character must be pinned for 10 rounds while you tie him. See the grapple rules.
As a DM, I would probably house-rule to reduce the time if a second character maintained the pin while the first one did the tying. In a non-combat situation, I could see waiving the multiple escape checks that a character would normally get.

Can I Rope Check After Tripping?


Could be an union/synergy between Math, Computer Science and Marine Biology?

Question: I'm studing for my bachelor's degree in Natural Science and I have to chose the path for my future life. I have to chose the right kind of graduate studies. Since I love computer science, maths and marine biology more in details I love the tropical ecology especially that of the coral reefs and atols in the pacific ocean, the whales (e.g. the humpback whales and their migrations), the computer simulations and mathematical models. Thus, I want to ask you if is there a branch of marine biology that allow me to study and specialize myself in tropical ecology and in math & computer science too, because in my current course we don't have any exams of computer science and only one of maths, and I'm feeling sad for this. The right path coul be the computational biology? Exist in biology, some field called "Computational Marine Biology" or "Computational Marine Tropical Ecology"? One last thing, what about Ecoinformatics?
Comment: You won't find a _field_ as such, but knowing how to do computational biology can be applied to _any_ field. You just need to find a group that works on a subject you like and then offer to do their modelling. That's the great thing about groups, they consist of different people, each of whom has different knowledge and abilities.
Comment: This is a very open-ended question, and you could come a long way by just searching Web of Science for the keywords that you have mentioned. I dont know about "Computational Marine Biology" as a defined field, but in population or community models of marine life mathematical models are certainly used and computational skills are clearly useful. To guide on particular topics is almost impossible, and not the subject of this site. GO with what you find interesting and try to find suitable research groups.
Comment: I have the intuitive feeling that it may be easier to specialize in computer sciences and then apply this to marine biology than specialize in marine biology and then learn the computational tools. It may be easier to learn the tricky technical aspects with a younger brain, and later acquire the necessary knowledge to apply your technical skills to marine biology. Of course, it would be better if you could study both at the same time, but it may be difficult to arrange this.
Answer: This advice is America-centric; graduate programs in other countries may be different, especially in regards to assigned course work, etc. But this should more-or-less be solid. Also, I'm assuming you're interested in a PhD.
I don't know if what you're looking for is a proper field, but that doesn't matter.  Ideally, grad school is where you do research on your own terms, and what lab you join is the single most important consideration. What you want is a competent program that:

gives you the flexibility to create your own subfield
has supportive and knowledgeable faculty that you can work under
has excellent computer science AND marine biology programs (or analogs)

First, find faculty who are doing research you are interested in, and look at the programs available at their schools. Since they're the most important consideration, everything else will fall into place after that.
Next, email 5 of those professors with an introduction of what you're interested in, particularly about their research.  Ask them what programs are most appropriate at their university, and how flexible you can be in taking appropriate coursework.
At some point, you'll probably want to decide if you want to be more of a marine biologist or a computer scientist. Your diploma at the end of the decade is only going to say one of those things.  That shouldn't make a huge difference as to your job outlook, but is worth thinking about.  Practically, the question is whether you want to get your hands dirty, go out on a boat, and collect your own data.  Alternatively, if you join a CS program, you are more likely to be analyzing large datasets collected by other scientists.
At most universities, you'll likely only have the option to join a biology program. But there are certainly excellent CS programs with biology oriented faculty.  Even then, the CS faculty is more likely to be doing genomics and such.
For practical recommendations, the University of Washington in Seattle would probably have something appropriate to your interests. While I was there, my lab was adjacent to an Oceanography lab that had a video wall for visualizing ocean currents and such. Not precisely marine biology, but UW has a very collaborative faculty and I'm sure the two departments work together.
UW also has a strong computational biology program that you can go into either through CS or through one of the many biology programs. You should also check out the Institute for Systems Biology at UW. I saw a presentation there specifically about DNA exchange between marine microorganisms.  I'm not saying UW is your best option, I just know that school because I did my PhD there.
A final word of advice. Once you're in a program, it's very likely your interests will change as you learn about other research going on. And also, it's quite possible you won't get into the lab you want simply because of money or logistics. With both of these in mind, be flexible about where you're willing to go. What you do during your PhD isn't really that important anyway.  If you're going to be research scientist, it's what you do during your Postdoc that will establish your career. Just take the opportunity to learn everything you can and see what's out there.
Hope this helps.  Good luck!
Answer: Alexander's advice is excellent in the general case, but since I faced a very similar problem when I applied to grad schools last year, I wanted to offer my perspective on this specific union of fields. Many people (including me) believe that this intersection is about to be a really important field - ecologists are starting to recognize the need for scientists with these skills, but there is not yet a lot of infrastructure in place to train such scientists. This presents a challenge to people like you and me right now. On the other hand, it means that if we can find a way to acquire these skills, we should be pretty well set up to help establish this field (bonus: we should be pretty well set up to get jobs).
I am personally of the opinion that if your interests are truly interdisciplinary, it's a really good idea to go somewhere that has a framework in place to support interdisciplinary work. Otherwise, you can end up in a situation where your adviser doesn't feel equipped to offer guidance on large portions of your projects, which can strain your working relationship and stymie your progress. Despite the lip service paid to the importance of interdisciplinary research, however, programs that are set up to provide interdisciplinary mentoring can be hard to find. The best course of action depends very specifically on how you want to combine these fields.
If you want to stay rooted in biology and use computer science and math as tools without doing research that furthers them as fields, you're in luck. There are a lot of labs with PIs who do this kind of research and many more who are interested in finding people who can, as terdon said, "do their modeling." I would be careful of the latter scenario while you're still in the learning phase of your career, however. As a student, your goal should be to learn how to best do the research that you want to. If you are the lone modeler/math person in a group, you may be in high demand but your rate of learning will probably be a lot slower than if you had an adviser who was actually doing what you are interested in. If these are your interests, your options are pretty varied but take a look at UC Berkley, and UC Davis. Also UW, as Alexander suggested. There are indeed good collaborations between biology and computer science there. I found it helpful to search for people who were studying macroecology, but that might be a label that is used more for terrestrial systems.
However, if you want to do research that actually furthers computer science in addition to biology, things get more complicated (I don't know if there are people who do both math research and biology research so I can't speak to that). Don't constrain your thinking by believing that you have to get a degree in one or the other; dual degree programs exist (and that may sound intimidating, but they aren't necessarily more work, just different work), although they are so few and far between that you might decide that it makes the most sense to just choose one field. If this is what you want to do, take a look at UC Santa Barbara - they do a ton of marine bio research and are home to the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis. Also, again, UW. I'd recommend my program too, but it's neither marine nor tropical.
In general, if you want to get a feel for how open a lab is to you doing interdisciplinary research, I found that it was best to just ask explicitly. If a place offered joint appointments (i.e. the ability for me to be co-advised by professors in two departments), dual degrees, or even just had research groups that involved people from multiple departments, I took that as a great sign.
In summary, don't start out with low expectations for finding a match for your interests. That said, it will ultimately be valuable to be flexible, as both finding a perfect match and getting accepted to it definitely requires a lot of luck. The considerations that I've brought up here won't make or break your grad school experience or your eventual career. They're just things to keep in mind if you have the option. I also apologize that it's probably a bit late in the application season for this to be useful to you, but I had such a horrible time grappling with these same issues that I just wanted to put what I learned out there in case it can help anyone.
EDIT: I forgot to address ecoinformatics! Ecoinformatics can fall into either the "computer science as a tool" category or the "furthering both computer science and biology" category, although it falls into the latter category much more frequently than modeling does. It still all comes down to what exactly you want to do. Look at research in computer science journals. If doing that sort of thing appeals to you as much as biology research, then you should be thinking about trying to pursue both fields. I found doing some pure computer science research helpful for figuring this out, but you probably don't have time for that.
Comment: "Despite the lip service paid to the importance of interdisciplinary research, however, programs that are set up to provide interdisciplinary mentoring can be hard to find." - This is sad, but very true. Even in programs that are set up for this, individual professors may not be comfortable sharing students. It is definitely best to talk directly to faculty that interest you (this applies to any field) and see what kind of mentoring style they're willing to offer.


Why does a strong dollar make imported goods cheaper?

Question: I'm having a hard time visualizing why a strong dollar would make an imported good cheaper?  If I buy an ounce of gold in the US for \$1,353.70 (todays rate) and I buy an ounce of gold in Europe, would it not cost me 1,092.81 Euros at todays exchange rate of \$1.24 to 1 Euro?  Why would I expect to get to get more than an ounce of gold if I spend \$1,353.70 in Europe?
Answer: Consider that you want to purchase a product from a EU country, pricing their products in Euros.
Let's say that you want to buy a product that costs 100 euro. No matter what the relationship is between USD/EUR, the product will still be 100 EUR.
Let's say the USD/EUR is 1.24 as in your example - that means for every 1.24 USD you have, you get 1 EUR. If you want to buy the product you will then need 124 USD to buy a 100 EUR product.
Now let's say that the USD strengthens compared to EUR and the new exchange rate is 1.15 instead of 1.24. Using same logic as above, you now need 115 USD to purchase that same product, giving you a discount of 9 USD just because of the new exchange rate.
Remember the product is still 100 EUR - but you can now buy more euros for your dollar than you could before.
Answer: When the dollar appreciates relative to the euro, then either gold has gotten cheaper in dollars or more expensive in euros or both.
A better example is some European product.  Then, if that products has a constant price in euros, an appreciating dollar means it's cheaper in dollars.
Answer: Here's why:

Stronger dollar implies you can purchase a larger quantity of foreign
currency per dollar.
The larger amount of foreign currency available to you implies you
can  purchase a larger quantity of a foreign good in its local
market.
This is the same as the per unit price of the product being reduced,
allowing you to buy more of it per dollar.


Is Spare Wheel is always Steel and not Alloy Wheel

Question: Looking for VW Ameo highline (released in India) or polo/vento - 4 tyres (front & rear) comes with 4 alloys - good but spare wheel tyre as Steel. The dealer quoting that all cars - Hyundai, Honda, Maruti, Toyota - all have spare tyre in steel wheel. Is it true? and Why?
Comment: A steel spare wheel is still a lot more useful than the can of expanding foam they are putting in the majority of UK vehicles. If you particularly want an alloy spare, providing there is space to fit one (often the steel spares are slim line), insist the dealer includes one, the cost is certainly within the bounds of the dealers margin
Comment: They're often "low profile" spares too - much narrower tyres. You only use a spare to get to a garage, so it doesn't matter, surely?
Comment: Yes, in general they are steel even in the US. A steel rim is cheaper than alloy so they provide a steel one. It is possible that higher-end cars like an $80,000 Mercedes will have a spare alloy instead of steel. You can usually get a matching 5th alloy wheel but you will pay extra or if you are a smooth talker then get the dealer to give you one for free.
Comment: For what it's worth, my 2001 Infiniti QX4 has a full-size alloy spare but similar-year Pathfinders (essentially the same vehicle) seem to have steel spares, so trim level and/or brand definitely seem to factor into what you get. The full-size alloy is handy for me because I use it as a fifth tire when I rotate them. This extends the lifetime of a set of tires and ensures the spare is in the same condition and has the same diameter as the others.
Answer: I wouldn't say "all" of them use steel spare tire wheels, but the vast majority of them will. The main purpose of this is to save on cost. It's a lot cheaper for steel wheels than for alloy. If you keep up maintenance on your vehicle's tires, the spare will rarely if ever need to be mounted on your vehicle. There may always be the odd flat tire, but all in all, it rarely happens. Given that, it doesn't make sense to put a more expensive rim in the trunk which will rarely see the light of day. It makes it cheaper for the manufacturer as well as cheaper for the consumer.
Comment: Just as a point of reference, older (pre '08 or so) Honda CR-V's have a spare wheel that matches the rest of the wheels, as it's mounted on the back of the car, where everyone can see it.  Kinda goes with the whole "rarely sees the light of day" thing, as it's actually visible, so they put the little bit extra into making it "pretty" as well.


Is it haram to use something that was not faithfully obtained?

Question: When I was 12 years old, my parents have told me that they're going to buy me a MacBook Pro if I didn't cry for computer related issues when they were away. However I did, and I have told my baby sitter and my sister not to tell my parents about it. And now, I no longer use my MacBook Pro and is it haram? Is the online accounts created on that laptop Haram? Should I delete those accounts (inc. my Facebook)?
Comment: Why don't you tell your parents now to forgive you so that you can happily use your laptop?
Comment: @tarek Do I have to delete my online accounts which I have created on that laptop though?
Comment: I don't think you would be hold accountable for your deeds at that age because you were not an adult and would be considered a minor in Islam-- someone to whom the Shariah ruling doesn't apply. I'd not worry about the the laptop and tell my parents what I did (just to pacify my fears or doubts). Allah knows best. Don't worry. He is the most Merciful.
Answer: Supposing you have no problem using your laptop now,

Do I have to delete my online accounts which I have created on that laptop though?

Let me make a couple of analogies.
If you made an important file with your laptop in the past, do you have to delete it now? I really don't think so.
If you learned a skill with your laptop, should you make yourself forget this skill? Definitely not.
So, I don't think there is any need to undo anything you did in the past with your laptop.
Comment: Don't worry, I have told my dad the truth, as he was the one who bought it.


After discarding a git pull, local branch thinks it's up to date

Question: I am using Source Tree and wanted to update my local branch with new changes from a remote branch before pushing the changes I had worked on. I did a git pull (from the UI, there were 2 commits that I was missing)
However, I discarded that pull request and all the files instead of committing them as I wanted to commit another change first (which I subsequently did).
After that commit, I noticed there were no more pending pull required and I was able to push to the remote branch. However my local branch was missing files that I had discarded. I tried to pull the changes again but it says that my local branch is up to date. I can see on the remote branch that I am missing the files.
I also didn't remove them before my commit. I only discarded them.
If I try to revert that commit, it says it can't as the commit was a merge commit.
How can update my local branch with the missing files?
And also, was there a better way to go about what I did to avoid this?
Thanks!
Comment: try git remote update -p
Comment: What exactly do you mean by saying: "I discarded them" ?
Comment: @e.doroskevic I discarded them i.e I didn't end up committing the changes that I had pulled.
Answer: Based on your response to my comment above.
If you have ran
git pull
It's the same as doing
git fetch  + git merge
Meaning, whatever you have pulled from your remote repository must have made it to your local repository.
As for pull request, it's a way to communicate changes you've made on the project. This allows other contributors to review your work, make suggestions or even collaborate on the feature you are developing. After everyone is happy with what you've done people can merge these changes into production; stopping pull request does not discard changes applied by git pull to your local repository.
If you want to revert to previous commit, there are various instructions you could pass to git. For example git reflog + git reset --hard head@{<number>} or git reset --hard HEAD^.
Hope this is of any information.
Comment: I had done a git pull i.e fetch + merge as you say but I didn't actually commit  the files that were changed in *that* pull commit but committed some other changes. We ended up resetting the branch to before that and I re added my changes manually and recommitted. Luckily that wasn't too hard. I have a feeling there was no other way?
Comment: @m.y you do not need to commit after merge. merge does it automatically. this is why it's called a merge commit


Why would my router send an ARP request about a device that's already listed in its ARP cache?

Question: I checked my Ubiquiti EdgeRouterX's ARP table and my laptop IP and MAC address were there.  I then checked the DHCP lease and my laptop's IP address doesn't expire until tomorrow.  I then ran Wireshark on my network and my router sent an ARP message requesting the MAC address of the IP address associated with my laptop.  Why would my router send an ARP about an IP address that is not expired and an IP address that has a MAC address already associated with it in the ARP cache table?
Comment: A lot of vendors send ARPs when STP ages out entries in the MAC address table prematurely during topology changes (Cisco, HPE, Juniper).  It is an efficiency technique to stop flooding of unknown unicasts.  The idea is that when the host responds to the ARP the switch will now re-learn the MAC address and will no longer flood for that address.  Maybe the switch is doing something similar.  Can you check the MAC table before an ARP is sent?  Does the MAC address exist?
Answer: It turns out my ARP entry expired. I was able to find the command to check how soon ARP entries expire and it turns out mine was set to 60 seconds by default.


Is there a difference between "holiday" and "vacation"?

Question: What is the difference, if any, between these two words?
Comment: I think there is a difference in usage among countries. I know  that many (native German-speaking) Swiss where I used to work would say they are going "on holiday" for several weeks. I never heard that expression from Americans.
Comment: My university says 'vacation' when we're off, when they mean 'holiday'. But that's just silly.
Comment: Maybe the university usage was meant to include periods between terms when there was "no class" but also no "holy day". The buildings were 'vacated'.
Comment: Maybe the English usage came from before anyone was able to take a vacation. The only leisure time possible was on a Holy Day.
Answer: In the UK "going on holiday" means taking time off, which is what Americans call "going on vacation".  An actual national/religious holiday is not required.
When Americans say "holiday" we mean a specific designated holiday, which we might or might not actually commemorate.  For example, most of us don't do anything special for Labor Day, but it's a holiday and a day off from work/school nonetheless.  Americans don't say "going on holiday" for that, though; we might "go away for the holiday" or "take time off for the holiday".  We might even "go on vacation during the holidays", but "on holiday" isn't how we express it.
Comment: To follow on, Americans would never say "going on holiday", even if it was a specific designated holiday.  You would "go away for the holiday".
Comment: In the UK, "on holiday" is not always used in the phrase "going on holiday". You can be "on holiday" if you have the day (or some days) off work, even if you're at home. "Going on holiday" implies travel to somewhere for leisure.
Answer: Yes, while they can mean the same thing, vacation is, also, a time when one decides to have a holiday, while holiday is the time when one does not decide, but when it is decided on some higher level (national, religious, organizational, etc).
Etymology might be enough to see all the peculiarities:

vacation
      late 14c., "freedom or release" (from some activity or occupation), from O.Fr. vacation, from L. vacationem (nom. vacatio) "leisure, a being free from duty," from vacare "be empty, free, or at leisure" (see vain). Meaning "formal suspension of activity" (in ref. to schools, courts, etc.) is recorded from mid-15c. As the U.S. equivalent of what in Britain is called a holiday, it is attested from 1878.
holiday
  1500s, earlier haliday (c.1200), from O.E. haligdæg "holy day; Sabbath," from halig "holy" (see holy) + dæg "day" (see day); in 14c. meaning both "religious festival" and "day of recreation," but pronunciation and sense diverged 16c. As a verb meaning "to pass the holidays" by 1869.

EDIT:
According to etymology and dictionaries: Chiefly British holidays is a period of cessation from work or one of recreation; vacation.
Comment: @Rhodri, the "Christmas vacation" (e.g. from school) might last a couple weeks, of which one day is the actual holiday of Christmas.
Comment: "Holidays" (plural) in US English will almost always mean Christmas / New Year's time period. I presume since the other holidays only come singly.
Comment: @smackfu We started calling it "the Holidays" (plural) when the religions became more plural, and Christmas was too narrow a term.
Comment: I'll buy that. I never heard anyone speak of *bank vacations*.
Comment: I do, however, hear people (mostly from the US) speak of their _Christmas vacation_.  But that's a quibble; this answer nicely points up the area where the two terms aren't synonymous.
Answer: Briefly, a "vacation" is one that you plan. A "holiday" is one that is planned by government, tradition etc. e.g. School holiday, public holiday.
For example, you take a "vacation" when you are free, i.e. during a holiday (or when you are out of work)
You have a holiday when there is already one.
Comment: On this side of the Atlantic, the word *vacation* is almost never used. They're both holidays.
Comment: NB the usage is regional - in the UK we almost always say "holiday" where Americans would say "vacation" - so I would say "I'm going on holiday to Spain during the Christmas holidays".
Answer: The difference between those words is in their use. Vacation is used in American English. It is not used in the English of the English and other British people. The word holiday is the normal word for British people.
Which word you use will depend on if you are speaking American English, or not.
They both mean the same thing.
These describe the word vacation, as American English: http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/holiday_1 and http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/holiday_2
Comment: What a bizarre way of using punctuation you have! This is the first time I've read something where the subject and the verb in a sentence are separated by a comma. Is this a special habit of yours, were you in a hurry when you wrote, or is there some other explanation?
Comment: I'm British and I know the differences between American and English words but punctuation isn't my speciality. Thanks for your comment.
Answer: Some commentator was correct.
To an American, holiday means a dictated time or day; days off that the government has seen fit to give (IE: XMAS, New Year, on and on). It's a government-dictated holiday away from work.
Vacation. Your wish to get away from it all perhaps; sometimes including the use of mandated holidays.
Comment: This answer has already been given more than once. To support it, you should upvote those answers rather than submit a new one; this is a Q&A site, not a discussion forum. For additional guidance, see the [Help Center](http://english.stackexchange.com/help).
Comment: That's `e.g.`, not `i.e.`. http://theoatmeal.com/comics/ie


Are there any AI that have passed the MIST test so far?

Question: MIST is a quantiative test of humanness, consisting of ~80k propositions such as:

Is Earth a planet?
Is the sun bigger than my foot?
Do people sometimes lie?
etc.

Have any AI attempted and passed this test to date?
Answer: Yes, although how useful this AI can be is another question entirely.
mpgac is a "minimally intelligent AGI" trained on the GAC-80K corpus of MIST questions. As a result, it should be able to "minimally" pass this test. However, being trained on the GAC-80K corpus obviously make it lacking for any practical purposes. From the README:

Obviously this should only be capable of producing a minimally intelligent signal when ordinary commonsense questions are asked, of the kind depicted above, using questions which would have made sense to an average human between the years 2000 and 2005. On expert knowledge or current affairs related questions it should perform no better than chance.

The point of mpgac is to compare it to other AIs that could be built to pass this test. Or as the writer wrote in the README:

When scanning the skies how can we tell whether the radio signals detected are from an intelligent source, or are merely just background or sensor noise?

Ideally, you would want to build a program that is "better" than mpgac. In much the same way as ELIZA can be seen as a baseline for the Turing Test, mpgac is the baseline for the MIST test.
The GitHub repo of mpgac (as well as the GAC-80K corpus) is available here.
Answer: I believe this is exactly the kind of test where Doug Lenat's cyc would do very well at ? But I can't answer the question : how much of that corpus could it answer correctly ? Probably quite a lot ! (and how many humans could pass that test ? probably not all of them, but many can...)
[but is cyc considered an AI? probably not... so I may be out of topic. But imo it's database should be incorporated to any AI that reaches some kind of "intelligence"...]


Why eating rice is prohibited on Ekadashi?

Question: Why eating rice is prohibited on Ekadashi? It is practiced in some parts of India (I am not sure about this practice in all parts of India).
Is there any story or scriptural basis for this belief available?
Comment: it is practiced in many places around the world where there are vaishnavas or brahmins, not just in india. all acharyas have ordained this. Lord Shiva keeps strict upavaas on this day, and says anyone who eats rice is a sinner. In mutts or ashrams, they serve only broken-rice (upma) for visitors on this day, which is symbolic of breaking the demon inside rice, but it is better to avoid even that if you have shakti.
Answer: There is a quotation from the Skanda Purana admonishing that a person who eats grains on Ekadasi becomes a murderer of his mother, father, brother and spiritual master,
and even if he is elevated to a Vaikuntha planet, he falls down.

On Ekadasi, everything is cooked for Vishnu, including regular grains
and dhal, but it is enjoined that a Vaisnava should not even take
vishnu-prasadam on Ekadasi.
It is not recommended  for one to accept any kind of grain on Ekadasi, even if it is offered to Lord Vishnu.

The foods to be avoided on Ekadashi-:  Grains (wheat, rice, etc.), Dahl, peas, bean type vegetables, Mustard , sesame
(wheat flour, mustard oil, soya bean oil etc.) For instance, care should be taken in using powdered spices, which, if mixed with flour, should not be used on Ekadasi.
Particularly, commercially prepared powdered asafoetida (hing) is always mixed with flour and is not to be used on Ekadasi.
#Why eating rice is prohibited on Ekadashi?
What food items are to be avoided on Ekadashi day is described in Skanda Purana  -Vol – 6  of 20 – Book II –Vaishnav Kanda – Chapter 12 – Uninterrupted Ekadashi vow.

21-25 : One who is devotee of Vishnu should avoid the following ten
items on the Dasami days : (meal in)  bell metal vessel , meat ,masura
pulse, canakas (chickpea) , grain called kodravas ,greens , honey
,other men's food , subsequent meal and sexual intercourse.

What food items are to be avoided on Ekadashi day and why is in detail described in **Padma Purana -  Vol. 10 - chapter 22 - Book page -3513**
Here Rishi  jaimini asked Vyasa " I desire to hear of the benefits of fasting on Ekadashi and How it is observed

76-81. Having got up in the morning on the tenth (day) a man should
brush his teeth. Then he should bathe without (smearing his body with)
oil and (remain) without food. Then having worshipped Vishnu by
offering water for washing his feet etc., he should, being highly
devoted to the meditation of Vishnu, take one meal (only). On the tenth
he should avoid (eating) flesh, salt, meat, pulses, big beans, so also
vegetables. On the tenth he should avoid eating twice, the food of
another (man),  of bell-metal. On the tenth he should avoid
nimba-leaf, egg-plant fruit, and dry citron, so also milk without ghee.
On the tenth he should avoid eating too much, very much enjoying and
eating food and tambula.

O best brahmana, just those articles which are prohibited on the tenth are also undoubtedly prohibited on the twelfth.

Here the story of Vishnu granting a place  for Papa Purusha  (Personification of Sin man)  in grains in given in details , its said that on Ekadashi day this Papa-Purusha takes shelter in all kind of grains and food items  we generally eat everyday. So its advised to avoid all type of grains including rice on Ekadashi day.

There is also a specific reference of Not eating grains   on Ekadashi day in Caitanya-caritāmṛta  Ādi 15:

mātā bale, — tāi diba, yā tumi māgibe prabhu kahe, — ekādaśīte
anna nā khāibe
His mother replied, "My dear son, I will give You whatever You ask."
Then the Lord said, "My dear mother, please do not eat grains on the
Ekādaśī day."   -  Adi/15/9
Purport:  There is a quotation from the Skanda Purāṇaadmonishing that
a person who eats grains on Ekādaśī becomes a murderer of his mother,
father, brother and spiritual master, and even if he is elevated to a
Vaikuṇṭha planet, he falls down. On Ekādaśī, everything is cooked for
Viṣṇu, including regular grains and dhal, but it is enjoined that a
Vaiṣṇava should not even take viṣṇu-prasādamon Ekādaśī. It is said
that a Vaiṣṇava does not accept anything eatable that is not offered
to Lord Viṣṇu, but on Ekādaśī a Vaiṣṇava should not touch even
mahā-prasādam offered to Viṣṇu, although such prasādam may be kept for
being eaten the next day. It is strictly forbidden for one to accept
any kind of grain on Ekādaśī, even if it is offered to Lord Viṣṇu.

śacī kahe, — nā khāiba, bhāla-i kahilā  sei haite ekādaśī karite
lāgilā
Mother Śacī said, "You have spoken very nicely. I shall not eat grains
on Ekādaśī." From that day, she began to observe fasting on Ekādaśī.
Adi/15/10

So its clear from above examples that one should avoid normal food items we prepare in everyday meals like Dal , Rice , Grains , vegetables etc. Ekadashi day. Also its clear from Padma-Purana description that the items which are to be prohibited on Dashami day also to be avoided on Ekadashi day.
So Rice is a grain item and being grain and its used in Prasada  of Lord Vishnu and because on Ekadashi day the Prasada of Lord Vishnu is not to be consumed. Is prohibited on Ekadashi day.

The reason is also stated in BrahmaVaivarta Purana  - Krishna Janma Kanda  - Chapter 26 - Performing of  Ekadashi Vrata. page no.227-228 .Its said there that the person who eats rice on Ekadashi vrata falls to hell. Because sins like Brahma Hatya and others resides in rice that day.

सत्यं  सर्वाणि पापानि ब्रह्महत्यादिकानिच | सन्तेवौदनमाश्रित्य
श्रीकृष्णव्रतवासरे ||23||
All the sire like Brahma-hatya and others resides in the cooked rice
during the Ekadashi -Vrata.
भुक्त्वैतानि च पापानि यो  भुङ्क्ते तत्र मन्धति | इहातिपातकी सोSपी
यात्यन्ते नरकं ध्रुवम् ||24||
Therefore , the one who consumes the cooked rice on that day , he
contributes to all the sins .Becoming a great sinner on earth , he
ultimately falls to the hell.
Comment: It seems like some of your answers are sourced from multiple blogs and articles but you are not giving proper credit to them. As I commented on another answer of yours, plagiarism is not allowed in SE and such answers could be [deleted](http://hinduism.stackexchange.com/help/referencing). I suggest you revisit all your answers and fix them.
Comment: "It is **strictly forbidden** for one to accept any kind of grain on Ekadasi..." - what's the source of this claim and also the last blockquote?
Comment: @ sv thanks for pointing out , My point was , Ekadashi is highly sacred ,and in families only  it is forbidden . Any way I am editing my answer, will change the word. thanks again . I am attaching image which is in Narad puran ,, whic contain the verse\shloka.
Comment: In this answer for example, you say "there is a quotation from the Skanda Puran admonishing that a person who eats grains on Ekadasi becomes a murderer of his mother" - but you don't really say what the quotation is. Now those lines seem to be copied from [here](http://iskconbirmingham.org/ekadasi-observance) or some other article.
Answer: It is said in the PurAnas that the personification of all sins or the pApa purusha resides within the grains like rice on this day. That's why eating all grains including rice is prohibited on the EkAdashi Tithis.
The Kamakoti.com website quotes the Vishnu PurAna in this context as follows:

yAni kAni cha pApAni brahmahatyAdikAni cha | annamAshritya tiShThanti
  saMprApte harivAsare | aghaM sa kevalaM bhu~Nkte yo bhu~Nkte
  harivAsare || [viShNupurANe]
Greatest of sins like brahmahatyA are present in anna or food on the
  eleventh day of every pakSha. One who eats on this day, ingests these
  sins and attains great misery

This website quotes the Padma PurAna and gives the detailed story of how the pApa purusha got grains as his residence for the EkAdashi Tithis.
The story is quite long. So, i'm not quoting it. In short, Lord Vishnu said to the pApa purusha to make the grains his residence on the EkAdashi Tithis.

[pApa purusha said] Out of fear of Sri Ekadasi I have fled and taken
  shelter of men; animals; insects; hills; trees; moving and non-moving
  living entities; rivers; oceans; forests; heavenly, earthly and
  hellish planetary systems; demigods; and the Gandharvas. I cannot find
  a place where I can be free from the fear of Sri Ekadasi. O my Master!
  I am a product of Your creation, so therefore very mercifully direct
  me to a place where I can reside fearlessly.'"
Vyasadeva then said to Jaimini, "After saying this, the embodiment of
  all sinful activities (Papa-purusha) fell down at the feet of the
  Supreme Lord Vishnu, who is the destroyer of all miseries and began to
  cry.
"After this, Lord Vishnu, observing the condition of the Papa-purusha,
  with laughter began to speak thus: 'O Papa-purusha, rise up! Don't
  lament any longer. Just listen, and I'll tell you where you can stay
  on the lunar day of Ekadasi. On the date of Sri Ekadasi, which is the
  benefactor of the three planetary systems, you can take shelter of
  foodstuffs in the form of grains. There is no reason to worry about
  this any more, because My form as Sri Ekadasi will no longer impede
  you.' After giving direction to the Papa-purusha, the Supreme Lord
  Vishnu disappeared and the Papa-purusha returned to the performance of
  his own activities.
"Therefore, those persons who are serious about the ultimate benefit
  of the soul will never eat grains on Ekadasi.
Answer:
There are many legends associated with this auspicious day. The
  well-known legend is that it was on Vaikunta Ekadasi that the amrit
  (nectar) of immortality appeared, while churning the ocean. It is a
  common belief that those who fast on Vaikunta Ekadasi, singing praises
  of Lord Vishnu, will definitely be freed from the continuous cycle of
  birth and death. According to belief, when a bead of sweat dropped
  from Lord Brahma's forehead, it turned into a demon and asked the Lord
  where it could stay. Lord Brahma told the demon to live in rice, and
  to get converted into worms in the stomachs of people who ate rice
  during Vaikunta Ekadasi. Such is the holiness of this day.
Another legend that is associated with this day is that the great
  devotee Nammalwar, entered Lord Vishnu's abode on this day and that
  the Lord Himself was waiting to greet His devotee. Hence, it is
  commonly believed that those who cross the Swargavasal (Gateway to
  heaven) will be directly greeted by the Lord Himself when they die.
The third legend associated with this day talks about a demon Mura,
  who troubled the Gods, who went to Lord Vishnu for help. The Lord
  created Yoga Maya, to kill the demon and once the task was completed,
  the God renamed Yoga Maya as Ekadashi and granted a boon saying
  whoever fasted on that auspicious day would be freed of all sins.

Source scribd

एकादशी को चावल नहीं खाना चाहिए। यह तथ्य कहां से अस्तित्व में आया, इसके
  पीछे कई भ्रांतियां हैं। ऐसे समय अक्सर एक सवाल जेहन में पैदा होता है कि
  चावल और अन्य अन्नों की खेती में क्या अंतर है?
यह सर्वविदित है कि चावल की खेती के लिए सर्वाधिक जल की आवश्यकता होती
  है। एकादशी का व्रत इंद्रियों सहित मन के निग्रह के लिए किया जाता है।
  ऐसे में यह आवश्यक है कि उस वस्तु का कम से कम या बिल्कुल उपभोग नहीं
  किया जाए जिसमें जलीय तत्व की मात्रा अधिक होती है।
जल का संबंध चंचलता से है।
इसका एक सटीक कारण यह है कि चंद्र का संबंध जल से है। वह जल को अपनी और
  आकर्षित करता है। यदि व्रत करने वाला चावल का भोजन करे तो चंद्र किरणें
  उसके शरीर के संपूर्ण जलीय अंश को तरंगित करेंगी। इसके परिणाम स्वरूप मन
  में विक्षेप और संशय का जागरण होगा।
इस कारण व्रत करने वाला अपने व्रत पर अडिग नहीं रह सकेगा। यही कारण है कि
  इंद्रियों को संयमित रखने व मानसिक दृढ़ता बनाए रखने के लिए एकादशी के
  दिन चावल नहीं खाए जाते।

Source jagran
Answer: In general, there are multiple reasons for any rule in Hinduism.
Here, w.r.t asking people to not to eat rice on Ekadashi
It is to

Make sure, people eat other grains

Why?
    a. People/consumers get benefitted from the proteins/vitamins from other grains.
    b. Helps farmer to grow alternate crops which benefits in maintaining soil fertility.

Cleanse Stomach - if you intend to keep fast by not eating rice.
Comment: Scientific speculation is off-topic for this site. One should cite Religious or Spiritual reasons. Scientific reasons or explanation is allowed only if they are mentioned in scriptures. Anyways, your answer looks like generic statement and it doesn't say anything about Ekadashi.
Comment: Oh Sorry, will refrain from posting such answers in future.


Microwave oven equipment

Question: I just purchased a new Berkley and Jensen microwave.  I would like to know what the metal rack used for?  There is no explanation in the owners Manuel.
Answer: Some microwaves have racks so you can cook two dishes at once.  In fact, you can buy generic racks for this very purpose.  However, I also read that some hybrid microwave/convection ovens include metal racks that must be removed if you're using it in microwave mode.  You could check with the manufacturer if you want to know for sure.  They may recommend removing the rack if you're only cooking one dish at a time.
Answer: Contrary to popular belief, metal is not as much no no in a microwave IF AND ONLY IF something else is in the microwave as well.
That metal rack is a grill, it will get hot enough to put grill marks on your food.
Do NOT use it unless you have food in your microwave. Leave it out UNLESS you are using it. And make sure your food hasn't dried out when you are using it.
I have never used mine, I don't cook with a microwave, I merely use it to reheat occasional small bits or to soften butter in an emergency, and the kids use it to heat up leftovers sometimes but I don't cook with a microwave.
Answer: I am not sure about your specific make and model of microwave, but I have seen metal racks used in combination microwave/ovens with broiling function to speed up the broiling process as the food will be closer to the heating elements.
This is especially useful on the combined microwave/broil function as these ovens will constantly switch between microwave and broil.

Microwave oven equipment


is frictional force right or wrong

Question: an experiment to disprove the statement--"frictional force is irrespective of the surface area in contact."
 take a x rs note. fold it in a half and put it in the pocket of a shirt. then invert the shirt. lets assume it doesn't fall. now, take it out, fold it again and repeat the experiment. after a certain no. of folds, we can see that the bank note falls off. in our experiments, we have changed nothing but the surface area. and the frictional force has changed. voila!
Answer: Friction does depend on surface area.  It also depends on the shape of the contacting surfaces.  The standard description of friction is that $F_f = \mu F_N$ where $F_f$ is the friction force, $\mu$ is the coefficient of friction (static or kinetic as needed) and $F_N$ is the normal force.  This is called 'Coulomb Friction', which is generally a very effective relation.  In general, however, the friction coefficient is actually only a 'constant' to leading order.  It can be a function of surface area, i.e. $\mu = \mu(A)$.
Answer: Congratulations on doing the experiment!
What is probably happening is that the folded note is unfolding, like a spring, and gripping the sides of the pocket. You could try it with a piece of paper that you cut in half (probably not a banknote)
Answer: The pocket is not a rigid surface. It can bend outwards due to the pressure increase, which happened by decreasing the area of contact (to keep the force constant). The pushing of the folded note outwards due to the folding greatly contributes to this, thus allowing the note to fall.
Note here that the friction force is not perfectly parallel to the surface of contact.

is frictional force right or wrong


What are the differences between Office Web Apps and Google Docs?

Question: It's unclear to me what the difference is between Microsoft's Office Web Apps and Google Docs. Are they at all similar - or is it just marketing hype from Microsoft. How would I decide which to use for sharing documents online with friends and coworkers?
Answer: One of the largest differences is that you get much better compatibility with Microsoft Office when you are using Office Web Apps instead of Google Docs.  Google Docs can butcher a good bit of your formatting when importing and there isn't a good way to get it back if you need to export.
That said, I think Google Docs has much better real time collaboration and sharing features than Office Web Apps does.
Answer: They're actually very similar.  Both allow you to create, modify, and share several document types online.  The biggest difference between the two is in the feature set.  While Google Docs is a great way to create basic documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, Office is far more powerful when it comes to styling the presentation of these documents.  So if your focus is on content, there's not much of a difference.  If your goal is on producing a production-ready document collaboratively, I'd recommend Office.
One other advantage of Office Web Apps over Google Docs is the inclusion of OneNote.  There's no equivalent feature in Google Docs.
Answer: One of the other main differences is that Google Docs is hosted by Google, and only Google, whereas Office Web Apps can be hosted on your own server, thereby giving you control.


What is the significance of cysteine in a protein sequence?

Question: What is the importance of cysteine-cysteine in amino acid sequence? What can I infer if I get a high percentage of C from a protein sequence?
Answer:
What can I infer if I get a high percentage of C from a protein
  sequence?

A highly stable structure that is likely found in the extra-cellular space.

Cysteine can form a disulphide bond with another cysteine. Cysteine can be found as a lone cysteine, but is often paired with another cysteine in the tertiary structure to form these bonds.
Disulphide bonds play important roles in protein folding and stability (60 kcal/mol compared to around 1 and 5 kcal/mol for a hydrogen bond depeneding on the environment). Notably though, cysteine disulphide bonds are usually only used in extracellular secreted proteins, as they are unstable in the cytoplasm.
As an example, take the structure 2ksk. Look at how the structure is held together by cysteines that are distant in the sequence. If you see cysteines in a sequence, expect interesting folding!
The cartoon is going from blue to red, whilst cysteines are shown with sticks and the S-S bonds are in yellow.

Side note, they are annotated as SSBOND in the PDB.
Answer: Cysteine is one of the two sulfur containing amino acids, but far more important than the other (methionine) due to its reactive sulfydryl or thiol group (-S-H). The said sulfydryl group cannot be substituted or replaced by any other amino acid. Importance of these groups lie  on the fact that they involve in the formation of disulfide bonds, the most significant cross linkage in tertiary and quatenary structure of proteins. methionine being more hydrophobic than cysteine and sterically large, acts less reactively and does not participate in disulfide formation.
Cysteine can be easily oxidized (oxidative folding) to form cystine (two cysteine bound by disulfide linkage) via interchain and intra chain bonding. The bonding is covalent and adds stability to the overall protein structure as compared to H bonding (Energy disulfide bond - 60 kcal/mol, H bond - 1-5 kcal/mol depending on the environment). Therefore, energy required to break disulfide bonds are way too high than other covalent bonds. Therefore, higher the number of disulfide bonds a protein has, higher the stability of it.


Why blocks are validated instead of transactions?

Question: In most of the conventional blockchains, blocks are validated instead of transactions. Why cant' transactions validated directly?
The structure of basic blockchains are linked lists, by having DAGs, is it possible to have a graph-chain of transactions?
Answer: Some transactions cannot be fully validated outside of blocks.
If you use OP_CLTV, a transaction can be valid only after a certain block height, and not before ; if you don't know which block it's in, there's no way to know if it is valid or not.
Answer: To be more precise, blocks are timestamped, transactions in a block are validated. Timestamping creates a timeline so that it says B pays C can happen, since A pays B has been timestamped
Its perfectly fine to have one transaction per block if your network is used by you and your few friends. But, this is not scalable to be used by the whole world, since we only get 1block every 10 minutes
Answer:
Why cant' transactions validated directly?

Transactions can and are validated directly. They are validated by nodes when they are received prior to being included in a block and miners must validate transactions before including them in a block.
The point of a blockchain is not to validate transactions but instead to provide ordering to transactions when transactions conflict each other. When two fully valid transactions conflict with each other, the blockchain is there to say which one is correct. If a block contains an invalid transaction, then the transaction is still invalid and the block is invalid.
Answer: I'm assuming you're specifically talking about bitcoin. The details differ for other systems.
To validate a transaction, there are several things you need to check. But it's vital that you check that the transaction outputs that it attempts to consume exist and haven't already been spent. The outputs exist if they were created by a transaction in a prior block. The outputs haven't already been spent if they weren't consumed by any transaction in a prior block nor in any prior transaction in the block the transaction is in.
You'll notice that both of these rules require you to know what transactions are in prior blocks to this block and what outputs are consumed by prior transactions in this block. So these rules can't be enforced properly other than in the context of a particular position in a particular block.
To avoid abusive relaying, servers do validate transactions independently to see if they seem likely to be able to get into a block. This reduces the ability of a possible attacker to trick the network into wasting a lot of bandwidth relaying transactions that are very unlikely to get into a block. But this is just a guess to save relaying resources.


How do I enable DNS caching in the NetworkManager-controlled dnsmasq?

Question: Ubuntu Desktop 12.04 uses dnsmasq to perform DNS lookups, but it is not configured to cache these results. (I have checked this by using dig to resolve names and I do not see a large improvement in the response time after the first lookup.) How do I configure the NetworkManager-controlled dnsmasq to cache the results of DNS lookups?
Answer: In Ubuntu 12.10 you can enable the cache of the NetworkManager-controlled dnsmasq instance by putting the line
cache-size=1000

(with your preferred number of names instead of 1000) in a new file in /etc/NetworkManager/dnsmasq.d/.  To activate this change you must then do
sudo stop network-manager
sudo killall dnsmasq
sudo start network-manager

or reboot.
Comment: Thank you for your info.  For Ubuntu 16.04 (and 15.10 since systemd was introduced), use "sudo service network-manager stop/start" rather than "sudo stop/start network-manager"
Comment: Although that still works, using the systemd tool it should be: `sudo systemctl stop NetworkManager`
Answer: I was able to enable DNS caching in Linux Mint 13 (based on Ubuntu 12.04) using the method described in the first answer.  I created a file /etc/NetworkManager/dnsmasq.d/cachedns containing the line cache-size=100, then restarted network-manager.  Even though dnsmasq is executed by network-manager with a hard-coded --cache-size=0 on its command line, setting the cache-size in a config file overrides that value.  You can verify that it works by doing this:
sudo killall -USR1 dnsmasq
tail /var/log/syslog

You should see a line that looks like this in the syslog, showing the cache size:
dnsmasq[17808]: cache size 100, 0/2 cache insertions re-used unexpired cache entries.

Comment: I wondered how network-manager's hard-coded --cache-size=0 was affected, but your post makes me clear.  Thank you!
Answer: in 12.04 dnsmasq is started by NetworkManager with hard-coded (i.e. not configurable) parameter --cache-size=0.
manpages for dnsmasq says setting cache-size to zero disables caching. If you want to enable caching, you will probably have to disable the dnsmasq-plugin for NetworkManager to prevent NetworkManager from starting dnsmasq and start your own instance of dnsmasq with cache-size greater then zero.
here you can read how to disable dnsmasq-plugin for NetworkManager: https://askubuntu.com/a/131422/71057
Answer: I didn't want to upgrade from 12.04, but still wanted dnsmasq managed by NetworkManager with caching enabled, but as the other answer said, --cache-size=0 is hard-coded and can't be changed with configuration.
So what I ended up doing was the following, as root:
mv /usr/sbin/dnsmasq /usr/sbin/dnsmasq.real

and then creating a new file, /usr/sbin/dnsmasq with the following content:
#!/bin/bash
args=$(echo "$@" | sed 's/--cache-size=0/--cache-size=1000/')
/usr/sbin/dnsmasq.real $args

make sure you chmod +x /usr/sbin/dnsmasq, and change the cache-size from 1000 to whatever you want, enjoy your LTS release with a DNS cache!
Answer: To re-enable the cache (with a NetworkManager version that has the /etc/NetworkManager/dnsmasq.d directory), it is actually sufficient to drop a file in that directory with content "cache-size=X" (with X being 150 for the default dnsmasq would have). The files in there override the hard-coded parameters given on the commandline.
Answer: In Ubuntu 14.04, I had to edit /etc/default/dnsmasq and set ENABLED=1
I also put cache-size=1000 there and in all the other dnsmasq config files that I found.


A set of traits common for all protestant believers

Question: What is a set of traits that are common for all protestants (excluding those who call themselves Christians, but don't pray to Christ), yet setting them apart from other Christians (the Catholic, the Eastern Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox)?
Comment: Fried Chicken at Potluck.  That unites all Protestants, but my understanding is that Catholics require a sausage of some kind to go with the Chicken.
Comment: @AffableGeek - Can you elaborate a bit?
Comment: I'm really just making a joke.  Most denominations have some kind of food they like to bring to potluck dinners - and I was, tongue-in-cheek, suggesting that these fall along denominational lines
Comment: @AffableGeek Bread, actually. Wine too. Catholics pass over the fried chicken when Lamb is available. Fish on Fridays is a pretty big thing! I guess people see what they want to see when it comes to sausage, though.
Answer: This is similar to this response I made to the question, 'Do Evangelical leaders (televangelists, megachurch pastors, etc…) not consider themselves Protestants?'. But, essentially the primary doctrine that set Protestantism apart, and was a primary cause of the reformation to begin with is Justification By Faith: that salvation comes entirely from Christ's atoning work on the cross.
Without turning this into the wikipedia article on protestantism, there are a number of other doctrines that have come to dominate the thinking of most modern protestants including, the priesthood of all believers (which is why protestants call their clerics pastors instead of priests), and the five solas, including sola scriptura ("by Scripture alone").
Comment: Interestingly there actually is Catholic doctrine stating a belief in the priesthood of all believers, but they also belief in a third tier of priesthood not recognized by Protestants, so it's a matter of definition of priesthood that sets them apart in that area.


How to bake frozen chicken without setting off fire alarms?

Question: I was able to bake frozen chicken for the longest time in my oven (~6 months). However, recently the fire alarms in my apartment started going off.  So I noticed it was a little dirty and cleaned it out with Easy Off, and cooked non-frozen chicken and all seemed to work out fine. Tonight however I tried to cook 4 frozen chicken thighs (1.75lbs) in a glassware container by themselves and put very little PAM spray in the bottom of it and placed a cookie sheet on top... the alarms went off again.  What am I doing wrong? On the package for the chicken it says to bake at 350F and I've tacked on 50% of the cooking time since it's frozen. But the alarms went off after only ~30mins.  If anyone could point me in the right direction I'd appreciate it! Thanks!
Comment: Is this the only think that you've used your oven for since you started having problems?  (is it the oven, or the food in the oven).  I've never tried cooking chicken from frozen; I'd have suspected that you'd want to cook at a lower temperature to reduce the chance of overcooking the outside before the inside was done.
Answer: If I understand you correctly, you're putting frozen chicken thighs in a glassware dish that's been sprayed with Pam and then putting that into a 350F oven.
Since the chicken will take quite a while to thaw and begin emitting juices that will cool the dish, that dish is going to rise to 350F fairly quickly.  350F is hot enough to begin smoking with many oils. Not sure about Pam's smoke point, but I would bet that if you looked in the oven when the smoke alarm is going off, you'll see smoke rising from the pan itself, not the chicken or the oven.
Solution: Thaw the chicken before cooking or apply oil to the chicken but not the pan.
Comment: @moopasta Wow, that's one seriously busted thermostat.
Comment: Thanks, I'll try this. I was thinking perhaps the oven was getting hotter than 350F as I didn't think 350 would hit the smoke point, but now I know otherwise!
Comment: @moopasta Well, that could be part of it. I checked and Pam is made from canola oil, which has a smoke point of 400F, so you might want to get an oven thermometer and check your oven. The built-in thermometers on stoves are often significantly off.
Comment: Thanks I ordered an oven thermometer and I'm going to test that out tomorrow afternoon once it comes in.  We will see what that shows...
Comment: Well that was it I set the oven to 350F and it was climbing up past 525F when i check and turned it off. Thanks again for all the help!


Smart Phone Sync Issue

Question: I am trying to sync podcasts from Banshee to my Android phone (HTC Desire). It seems that about 75% of the time when I plug the phone in ubuntu mounts the disk read only, though the mount command says it is read/write.
What is more frustrating is that often it will start, copy over a few podcasts and then the phone's SD card will suddenly become read only and syncing will stop.
What I really want is to have Banshee auto download my podcasts and then copy the new episodes onto my phone when I plug it in.
If using a different podcatcher would work better that would be fine too.
Answer: If you don't plan to listen to podcasts on your computer, just download them straight to the smartphone with BeyondPod (installable free from Market). BeyondPod can import OPML files.

Smart Phone Sync Issue


Why would you use な for そう forms of い adjectives?

Question: I am just now really diving into adjectives and how they work in Japanese. It was to my surprise that I heard 『楽{たの}しいそうなお祭{まつ}りね』 being used. Does the そう usage require な even for い adjectives?
Comment: @ヤラユギ There are two different ways to add そう to an i-adjective with very different meanings. You probably meant 楽しそう rather than 楽し**い**そう.
Comment: We don't say 楽しいそうなお祭り.  Did you REALLY hear that said by a native speaker?
Comment: I don't remember who said it, but it very well could be by a student. What would you say instead?
Answer: There are two things I would like to do as part of the answer to your question.
First, you may not have been aware that there was a mistake in your sentence.  I will address that first.
You wrote:

楽{たの}しいそう

It should be:

楽{たの}しそう

For the formation of the そうだ grammar is as follows:

Vmasu + そうだ
adj(i/na) stem + そうだ

Examples:

話しそう (verb)
  楽しそう (i adjective)
  静かそう (na adjective)

Source: A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar (See below)

Now for the question you acked.  According to A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar (Seiichi Makino and Michio Tsutsui):

そうだ is a な-type adjective;  The prenominal form is そうな.  Examples:

高そうな車
    taka souna kuruma
    (A car which looks espensive (= an expensive looking car))
雨が降りそうな空
    ame ga furi souna sora
    (lit. the sky which looks like it will bring rain)

So to directly answer your question:

Does the そう usage require な even for い adjectives?

The answer is yes.  Note that most of the time, you will find this formation at the end of a sentence requiring it to end with だ/です.  However, if you plan on using this grammar as an adjective (i.e. you mean to use it to modify a noun), you should treat is as a na-type adjective.
Note: I included a link to the amazon listing of the book I used for my source.  If you plan to purchase it, look around.  I have definitely seen it sell for less.
Comment: If you're serious about Japanese then "A Dictionary of xxx Japanese Grammar" is a great investment.


Is there a way to monitor apache with New Relic?

Question: Can I monitor static pages served with Apache from New Relic?
A module perhaps I should include?
Answer: New Relic now has plugins. One publisher has already published a plugin for Apache.
If this plugin does not monitor Apache for you in a way that is useful, you can fork this project and improve it or create your own.
Comment: does it help to monitor Apache's error and access logs ?
Answer: New Relic doesn't have an Apache monitor just yet, and the web application monitors we have see requests after Apache hands them over, so there's very little visibility there, too.
New Relic DOES support a "queueing time" measure that will let you know how long requests are sitting in your Apache and pre-web application layer. This involves modifying your Apache configuration to include a special HTTP header that includes a timestamp of when Apache started processing the request.
You can read more about that here: https://newrelic.com/docs/features/tracking-front-end-time


How to enable NTLM auth in Tor Browser on Windows?

Question: How I can enable NTLM auth in Tor Browser on Windows? I tried to change network.auth.force-generic-ntlm-v1 to true, but it not works.
I need to authenticate on IIS 8.5 server that require NTLM authentication, but when I try to make it server return 401 error even without credentials promt.
It works on Firefox so I believe that its a Tor Browser specific bug.
I will be very appreciate for help.
Comment: The point of Tor is anonymity. SSO seems like a great way to lose that. NTLMv1 in particular is broken and probably also blocked at the OS layer. Settings and info here https://markgamache.blogspot.com/2013/01/ntlm-challenge-response-is-100-broken.html
Answer: NTLM is disabled by intent, apparently due to an embargoed Mozilla bug (I.E. the details aren't public), this is done through patching. The change is hardcoded into the browser so editing preferences won't make any difference. It's applied through this patch.
The associated ticket for the patch can be found here: #12974.
(My suspicion is that this can lead to a local credential leak and so could seriously harm user anonymity)


Creating custom tabs on facebook

Question: When trying to create a custom tab/app on facebook, there is no 'create app' button present on my page. Have I missed a step in the setup or is there a reason behind this? Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Answer: Are you trying to develop your own app, or adding an app that has already been written?
If you go to an existing app that is intended to be added to a page tab, it will usually have a button/link to add the app to your page.  If you click on this a dialog should pop up and let you choose the page, from the pages where you are an admin.
If you have written your own app, or the app does not have an Add to Page link, these instructions on the Facebook Developers site show how this link can be added to your app or entered manually.  If you want to enter it manually you can copy and paste the following URL to your address bar: https://www.facebook.com/dialog/pagetab?app_id=APP_ID&next=https://www.facebook.com/connect/login_success.html  (Change APP_ID to the app id you want to add.  The app id is a number which can be found in your app settings, or in the URL for the tab if it has been added to another page.)
If you want to develop your own app but haven't yet done so, go to the Facebook Developers site and check out the Page Tab Tutorial.  Then add your new app to your page using the above instructions.

Creating custom tabs on facebook


What is that black pod on the left wing of a TBM?

Question: What is the black pod on the left wing of a TBM?
(Source)
Comment: Weather radar. Wish I could afford that kind of stuff. The guy probably has a milkshake dispenser in there, too.
Answer: That is the front of the housing which encloses the 10" GWX70 Color Weather Radar antenna.
Here are some close up shots of a TBM depicting the weather radome.

Source: Own work
Note the lightning diverter strips:

Source: Own work
Apart from the simple fact that airborne weather radar is useful, weather radar is a common option due to the equipment requirements imposed on air carriers operating such aircraft. Specifically, in 14 CFR 135.175, the FAA generally prohibits operation without airborne weather radar equipment along routes where thunderstorm activity is forecast.
Many such single engine aircraft include the option for wing-mounted weather radar, as seen on the TBM 900 in the original question. Since weather radar requires a relatively unimpeded area for signal transmission and receipt, the antenna assembly is typically located at the nose of the aircraft, such as on most multi-engine aircraft. In aircraft with nose mounted engines, a mid or outboard wing mounted position makes sense. See the following photos depicting examples of wing mounted weather radar on a Piper PA-46-500TP Malibu Meridian and a Cessna 208B Super Cargomaster, and a nose mounted weather radar on a Beechcraft King Air B200, respectively:

Source: Own work

Source: Own work

Source: Own work
According to the TBM 900 POH, installation of the optional radar system results in a 5 KIAS decrease in maximum cruise performance and a 3 KIAS decrease in long range cruise performance. This change is due to the slight increase in drag from the radar antenna housing.
Answer: It is weather radar.
Most multi-engine aircraft have radar in the nose but single engine aircraft mount it on the wing. They have been doing it since WW II, but with night fighter radar.
US Night Fighter Radar
Answer: As stated above, it's a dielectric blister fairing which houses the antenna for the GWX70 weather radar.  The single engine requirement for the engine driveshaft and propeller to be mounted on the aircraft centerline as well as interference from the propeller arc required the radar antenna be offset mounted on the wings like this.  Wind tunnel studies showed this configuration minimized parasite drag.  This is a fairly common WX radar antenna installation for single engine aircraft and similar designs are found on the starboard wingtip of the Pilates PC-12 and the antenna pod on the Piper PA-46 Malibu series.

Source: Pilatus Aircraft Ltd.

Source: Piper Aircraft Corporation


If I spend one day beyond the Van Allen belt in an unshielded craft/spacesuit how much radiation will I be exposed to?

Question: I am guessing it's about the same as having a medical X-ray each day, is this about right?
Answer: This must relate to real-time solar conditions. e.g.

a quiet day
a storm day
some mission time weighted average

Any of these could be misleading without specifying the assumptions. Note that the latter has to account for the fact that large events occur on longer time-scales than a year or two to Mars and back hence it is a probabilistic problem.
An interesting way of looking at this is that near polar aircraft flights are very much more sensitive to radiation than at lower latitudes. This link says:

Air crew are classed as radiation workers
The dose during one particular storm corresponded to 12% of the normal yearly limit (note, limit, not normal dose).

Anecdotally, I have heard there have been rather worse storms in this respect where the single flight does exceeded the yearly limit, if I find a reference I will post it.
Hence, back to the question, it could be very much worse beyond the protection of the Earth's magnetosphere.
The question is related to this one. On of the linked references gives two interesting figures, which I have reproduced below. As a caution, out of context they are not so meaningful, and even look rather cavalier.
Answer: From this answer on Travel.SE

a flight from New York to Tokyo is probably about 150 μSV. For comparison, natural background radiation is about 2,000-7,000 μSv per year, a chest x-ray is about 50 μSv.

By contrast, outside the Van Allen belt, say on a trip to Mars, you are looking at around 1.84 mSv per day.
That's about 37 times as much as a medical X-Ray each day!
Comment: I thought you might find this interesting enough to add to your answer. This source, http://oneminutemedicalschool.com/2013/06/02/space-radiation/,  seems consistent but has an additional conclusion re like-for-like exposure.


What's the fastest software(open source) to solve mixed integer programming problem

Question: I have a mixed integer programming problem. And I am current using GLPK as my solver. But I found that GLPK is good for Linear Programming problem, but for Mixed Integer programming, it requires much longer time, therefore doesn't meet our requirement. I am so seeking other software.  Is there any other good open source tools to solve mixed integer programming problem with fast speed? Thanks!
Comment: Have you seen the comparisons to [SCIP](http://scip.zib.de/)?
Comment: Have a look on [Hans Mittelmann - BENCHMARKS FOR OPTIMIZATION SOFTWARE](http://plato.asu.edu/bench.html).
Answer: If you want something open-source, you probably want to try COIN's CBC code (they also have a couple other MILP solvers, like a branch-and-price framework, or SYMPHONY).
Gurobi and CPLEX will be considerably faster, and as of the 2011 or 2012 INFORMS meeting, Gurobi was faster than CPLEX (though the performance metrics are of course problem dependent). On the MILPs solved in my thesis, Gurobi was approximately 15-100 times faster than CBC, and CPLEX was almost as fast as Gurobi, but very slightly slower (like 12-80 times faster).
Although the worst-case performance is indeed exponential, the execution time will depend heavily on problem structure. It's unlikely that you'll be able to solve an MILP with millions of variables unless you exploit special structure (maybe if it's a stochastic program that can be decomposed into many much smaller problems), but it's entirely possible to solve nontrivial MILPs with thousands of variables in under a minute. (Of course, it's also possible for these problems to take an hour or more to solve.)
As Brian Borchers notes, CPLEX and Gurobi both have free licenses available for some researchers, one of these two software packages would really be the best to use as a general-purpose MILP solver.
Answer: Mixed integer linear programming problems are much harder to solve than linear programming problems.  In terms of computational complexity, LP's can be solved in polynomial time while solving MILP is an NP-Hard problem.  The known algorithms for solving MILP's have exponential worst case complexity.
There are other software packages for mixed integer linear programming that you could look at, including SCIP (free for academic use), CPLEX (commercial but has an academic licensing option) and GUROBI (also commercial with an academic licensing option.)  One or more of these packages might be substantially faster than GLPK on your problems, but don't expect any of them to be nearly as fast at solving MILP as they are in solving similarly sized LP's.
Answer: If you want to try a bunch of different solvers, give Julia's JuMP modeling framework a try. It lets you write your model as a JuMP model, and then switch out the solvers with one line of code. For example, for MILP problems you can choose from the Bonmin, Cbc, Couenne, CPLEX, GLPK, Gurobi, and MOSEK solvers. Because of this, if you write it in JuMP, you can just try all the solvers that Geoff mentioned and see what works without having to write a bunch of code. Your own personal tests will be the best source of knowledge for what the fastest algorithms are for your problems.
Comment: No, JuMP is done via macros so it's at compile-time. In fact, what JuMP does it use macros to re-write code and use autodifferentiation to compute efficient functions for gradients, Jacobians, and Hessians, so it will be faster in cases where you would have otherwise not provided an analytical form for the gradient/Jacobian/Hessian. You can actually check via `@code_llvm` to check the resulting assembly code to see that the glue code is essentially nothing (this is also because Julia naively uses function pointers and the same bit arrays as C/Fortran).
Comment: Does the JuMP framework add much overhead?
Comment: @ChrisRackauckas What solver works better for nonlinear problems with nonlinear constraints?
Comment: That's a completely different question should it probably shouldn't be asked in a comment, but I tend to  use JuMP with NLopt or IPOPT depending on the required constraints and whether I need global or local optimization.
Answer: Following others' suggestions, I have used (the commercial)  GAMS  for many projects. It is very straight forward; all you have to do is to put the mathematic formulation of your problem. It picks up the variables, constraints, objective functions and all the input data. Then, it provides a range of solvers (optimisers) for any case. Depending on your case, you add more sophisticated solvers.
Certainly, EASY  is worth a look. Open-source framework.
The term "fast" is very vague! You need to be more specific; Fast in terms of number of iterations? number of evaluations? elapsed time? combination of these?
However, if you are not looking for a software, and you just want to solve the problem, I could suggest to use the global optimiser NSGA-II, which is an open-source optimiser of very high reputation and performance.
If you provided more information, I could guide precisely.
Comment: You need to seriously consider [openMDAO][1], which is developed/supported by NASA and it is quite flexible!
Answer: I'd recommend SCIP or HiGHS (www.highs.dev). On the industry standard benchmarks (http://plato.asu.edu/bench.html) their relative performance is similar, but on specific classes of MIPs one may be very much better. The performance of HiGHS on MIPs is improving rapidly, so will probably overtake SCIP meaningfully in 2022
Comment: Your answer could be improved with additional supporting information. Please [edit] to add further details, such as citations or documentation, so that others can confirm that your answer is correct. You can find more information on how to write good answers [in the help center](/help/how-to-answer).


Real Dirichlet characters mod $k$

Question: How to show that for a non-principal real Dirichlet character mod $k$, there are infinitely many primes $q$ such that $\chi(q)=1$ and infinitely many primes $q'$ such that $\chi(q')=-1$.
Comment: Since Bruno has given a complete answer, it seems worth expanding on Gerry Myerson's comments: if $\chi$ is non-trivial, there exists some $a$ mod $k$ such that $\chi(a) = -1$, and of course $\chi(1) = 1$.  Dirichlet's theorem gives infinitely many $q$ congruent to $1$ mod $k$, and infinitely many $q'$ congruent to $a$ mod $k$.  QED.
Comment: Are you familiar with Dirichlet's Theorem on primes in arithmetic progression?
Comment: If a number $J$ is congruent to 1 modulo $k$, what do you reckon $\chi(J)$ is going to be?
Comment: Yes, it's much easier to prove this directly with Dirichlet's Theorem! It's always fun to go back to first principles though :)
Comment: Yes, what are you suggesting?
Comment: Well, what does that theorem say about primes congruent to $1$ modulo $k$?
Comment: The theorem only says that there are infinitely many primes q, and it could either be $\chi(q)=1$ or $\chi(q)=-1$, how can you conclude that each one has infinitely many primes?
Answer: As others have pointed out, this is easy to prove with Dirichlet's theorem. However, since you used the (analytic-number-theory) tag, here's a proof from first principles:
According to a the "main lemma" of Dirichlet, for any nontrivial character $\chi$, the $L$-function $L(s, \chi)$ is nonzero and holomorphic at $s=1$.
Hence this means $$0 <\prod_{p}(1-\chi(p)p^{-1})^{-1} < \infty$$
hence
$$-\infty < \sum_{p}\log(1-\chi(p)p^{-1}) = \sum_{p}\sum_{n\geq 1}\frac{\chi(p^n)}{np^n}< \infty.$$
Now the only non-negligible thing in this sum is the sum of the terms when $n=1$, i.e.
$$\sum_{p}\frac{\chi(p)}{p}.$$
Thus,
$$\left|\sum_{p}\frac{\chi(p)}{p}\right|<\infty.$$
Now since $$\sum_{p}\frac{1}{p}$$ diverges, there must be infinitely many $p$ for which $\chi(p)=1$ and infinitely many $p$ for which $\chi(p)=-1$. (Note that there are only finitely many $p$ for which $\chi(p)=0$.) $\: \: \square$
This observation leads to the formulation of one of the great theorems of modern number theory, the Chebotarev density theorem.
Addendum: here is a plot of the partial sums $\displaystyle \sum_{p \leq p_n}\frac{\chi(p)}{p}$ for $\chi = \left(\frac{\cdot}{5}\right)$:

The behaviour is quite complex and gives an idea of the rather uniform distribution of $\chi(p)$. For comparison, here is an example of partial sums $\displaystyle \sum_{p \leq p_n}\frac{f(p)}{p}$ where $f$ takes random uniformly distributed values in $\{-1,1\}$:

And finally, here is a picture of a baby duck.
Comment: LOL for the baby duck. +1
Answer: By the way, one can prove in an utterly elementary way that there must be infinitely many primes $q$ with $\chi(q)=-1$. Given any set of primes $q_1,\dots,q_r$ with $\chi(q_i)=-1$, let $Q=kq_1\cdots q_{r-1}+q_r$. Then $\chi(Q)=\chi(q_r)=-1$, so there must be some prime $q$ dividing $Q$ with $\chi(q)=-1$. But $Q$ is not divisible by any of the primes $q_1,\dots,q_r$, so $q$ must be a new prime. This shows no finite list is complete, so there must be infinitely many.
Well, I've swept one little thing under the rug; I have to know that there is at least one prime $q_1$ with $\chi(q_1)=-1$. But that's easy; we're told $\chi$ is not the principal character, so there is some number $m$ with $\chi(m)=-1$, so some prime factor $q_1$ of $m$ has $\chi(q_1)=-1$.
No doubt there is a similar argument for $\chi(q)=1$, but I'm not seeing it.
EDIT: Here's the start of an argument for $\chi(q)=1$.
Write $\chi_n$ for the non-principal real Dirichlet character modulo $n$.
Given any finite set of primes $q_i$ with $\chi_k(q_i)=1$, multiply them all together, square the result, and add $k$; call the result $Q$. Then $Q$ is divisible by some new prime, call it $p$. We have $\chi_p(-k)=1$.
Now $\chi_p(-k)=\chi_p(-1)\chi_p(k)$. If $p\equiv1\pmod4$, then $\chi_p(-1)=1$, and, by quadratic reciprocity, $\chi_p(k)=\chi_k(p)$, so $\chi_k(p)=1$, and we are done - we have proved the finite list wasn't exhaustive.
If $p\equiv k\equiv3\pmod4$, then $\chi_p(-1)=-1$, and $\chi_p(k)=-\chi_k(p)$, so again $\chi_k(p)=1$, and we are done.
But I don't see the trick that will handle $p\equiv3\pmod4$, $k\equiv1\pmod4$.

Real Dirichlet characters mod $k$


Refactoring: Why? When? How?

Question: A good Refactoring can transform a kludgy WL code-base into a thing of pristine coherency but how to do so consistently?
Comment: Given its multiple programming paradigms and conintual influx of new constructs, the WL seems ideally placed to leverage Robert W. Floyd's following insight (yet there seems a general lack of explicit examples/codification for this process).
Comment: If the advancement of the general art of programming
requires the continuing invention and elaboration of
paradigms, advancement of the art of the individual
programmer requires that he expand his repertory of
paradigms. In my own experience of designing difficult
algorithms, I find a certain technique most helpful in
expanding my own capabilities. After solving a challenging problem, I solve it again from scratch, retracing only the insight of the earlier solution. I repeat this until the solution is as clear and direct as I can hope for ...
Comment: ... Then I look for a general rule for attacking similar problems,
that would have led me to approach the given problem
in the most efficient way the first time. Often, such a rule
is of permanent value. Robert W. Floyd.
Answer: Main activity
In functional programming languages refactoring is considered a main activity. Ideally we derive a new language that fits the problem we want to solve. (E.g. see the preface of "On Lisp" or the article "The Roots of Lisp".)
This observation obviously does not help when we inherit code, or we have to adapt or re-design old code (because of changes in the language or our understanding).
Big Ball of Mud
The article "Big Ball of Mud" gives well researched diagnoses and prescriptions of when and how to do refactoring. It is a good answer of the request:

[...] transform a kludgy WL code-base into a thing of pristine coherency but
  how to do so consistently?

Using that article, we identify how we ended up with the code we want to refactor, and then utilize the given prescriptions.
The article uses a patterns language. (Partially explained, I guess, that the authors are from the same university as one of the Gang of Four.)
For MSE discussions that include using software design patterns in Mathematica / WL see these answers of "General strategies to write big code in Mathematica?":

Leonid's preamble to a large answer,
Object-Oriented Design Patterns application,
Design and programming DSLs.

I have used the patterns in "Big Ball of Mud" to refactor large scale air-pollution FORTRAN IV code (that was fairly large) into components of an object-oriented C++ framework.
Comment: Actually, APL and Lisp were first languages, and with the former it really was the case if you understood it the next day you were writing legible code...
Comment: Hell, if I can read and understand my own code 24 hours later, it's prefactored enough for me ;=} , and +1 for great references.
Comment: @ciao Thanks! Did you start programming education with Perl?
Comment: @AntonAntonov Thanks for the handy overview and useful links. I wholeheartedly concur with the first two sentences of your answer but I also feel that learning how to put them into practice is perhaps not as readily met with the provided MSE links  as initially suggested or perhaps that it could be. Also, I would that argue that rather than "This observation obviously does not help when we inherit code, or we have to adapt or re-design old code (because of changes in the language or our understanding)" I would instead say that this observation does help and in fact ...
Comment: .. this is  what defines refactoring since "inheriting", "adapting", "redesigning" code is what needs to take place on an ongoing basis for any sufficiently large code-base. It's almost as if refactoring takes place at two levels, at a lower level in making code snippets more readable but at a higher level in designing the entire architecture. The first can perhaps be illustrated in a MSE answer but for the latter, I wonder if one has to see a poorly designed architecture transform into a cleaner one via refactoring - which for "big code" is admittedly hard to do in "small code".
Comment: @ciao I have not tried APL but I have ventured with J. So I understand the next day APL code readability test...

Refactoring: Why? When? How?


Should {list-of-figures} be merged with {table-of-content}?

Question: Should the tags table-of-contents, list-of-figures and list-of-tables be merged? After all, their implementations are pretty similar and questions and solutions applying to one of them typically apply to the others as well.
Comment: @Hendrik: without merging, 6 resp. 2 questions for the tag synonyms would remain, future questions would be automatically retagged. In contrast, merging tidies it up and moves all questions the target tag, leaving pure synomyms.
Comment: Wouldn't just a tag synonym work?
Comment: @Hendrik: I guess Caramdir meant creating synonyms and merging afterwards.
Comment: @Stefan: What I meant: Doesn't it suffice to create synonyms? (But maybe I don't know what I'm talking about; I'm not even exactly sure what a tag synonym is.)
Comment: @Stefan: Ah, now I understand. Thanks for explaining.
Comment: Actually I meant creating synonyms. Does the remapping stay in effect after merging. I don't know if everyone who asks about lists of figures will find the table-of-contents tag if there aren't synonyms.
Comment: @Caramdir: The remapping does stay.
Answer: I think that would be ok. Even somebody browsing old list-of-figures questions could benefit from the other questions and answers regarding the table of contents.
Though being able to distinguish different concepts is important, TOC, LOF and LOT aren't really different.
Comment: Sounds reasonable to me, too.
Answer: I think this might be confusing for casual users of the site.  That the implementation is similar is less visible than the difference in semantics.
I don't really see who would benefit from this synonym.  People with a special expertise in these macros looking for questions to answer?  People wanting to earn tag badges?
Comment: The main advantage is that questions and answers should be easier to find. Now solutions to similar problems are distributed over several tags (tags are my main aid when searching for duplicates if I remember that a similar question has been asked before). Further, there are some questions about List of Something (for Something not tables or figures) and in the current setting there is no suitable tag for them.
Comment: in the long run, synonyms reduce tag badges. But they can help to keep the site tidied up.
Comment: Also the {list-of-figures} and {list-of-tables} tags are still available for question askers (they are just remapped to {table-of-contents}, so that there shouldn't be any confusion there.
Comment: @Caramdir: The issue is that when one visits, say [tag:string], it is not surprising that one lands on a page with no mention of the string tag, but only a different tag, strings.  This redirect is different: it may surprise some people in certain situations.  I'd call it an expert's tag.


How to add assertion for blank value?

Question: Scenario: On clicking reset button value should disappear and the field that holds the value should reset to blank.
Approach: My approach is to get text or innerHtml from id =mapPropertyHighlighted and make sure it is empty.
Challenge: How do I make sure text from id should be blank? How to add assertion because get text() is returning blank if an element has no value and not sure how to add assertion for blank value?
Is there any other way to verify value/text returned should be none/blank?
Answer: I think in Python you can check for None or "" on Empty string
Some options:
self.assertEqual(element.text, None)
self.assertEqual(element.text, "")
self.assertEqual(len(element.text), 0)

Also check this question for other options:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9573244/how-to-check-if-the-string-is-empty
Comment: Great..It worked.Thank you so much
Answer: You can do assertation of null value for reset field.
public void testApp()
    {
        //true, check null
        assertThat(null, is(nullValue()));
        //or
        //true, check null
        assertThat(null, is(IsNull.nullValue()));

    }

Comment: My bad... I miss the Python tag.
Comment: This is not for Python.

How to add assertion for blank value?


Can ubuntu run on any other kernel

Question: Is there any kernel on which we can run Ubuntu??Like in some case Debian can run on BSD kernel (if I am  correct)
If it is possible how can I proceed
Answer: No. There is too much linux only stuff in the default Ubuntu install.
It should be possible, but a lot of work, to create a distro similar to Ubuntu but based on the BSD kernel. But it's far more complicated than just sudo apt-get install bsd.
Answer: The BSD ports in Debian are complete ports (different architectures, from a package management point of view). That means almost every package has to be built specfically for it.
A fair number of Ubuntu-specific features (such as upstart) aren't supported on BSD yet.

Can ubuntu run on any other kernel


Does bentonite kill yeast in wine?

Question: I don't want to use potassium sorbate or sulfite to kill the yeast in wine. Does bentonite help with killing the yeast in wine?
Answer: No, it doesn't. Bentonite is a clarifying agent, similar to Gelatin. It helps settle the yeast and other haze causing elements, but it does not kill the yeast. Sulfites don't actually kill yeast unless you put a lot into your wine. The legal limit is 350ppm, but your wine would probably taste pretty bad at those levels.
Comment: True, and if you disturb the sediments, yeast will get back in suspension. Fine filtration could help to get rid of the yeast as well.
Answer: The proper agent to stop fermentation in wine is potassium sorbate. This does not kill the yeast, but renders it sterile by blocking its ability to reproduce. Sulphites (typically sodium metabisulphite in the form of Campden tablets) don't kill yeast either but act as an oxygen scavenger to stabilize the wine by preventing oxidation. Ascorbic acid (a.k.a. vitamin C) does the same, using a different mechanism.
Typically the process used is something like this:

Add ascorbic acid to inactivate the yeast;
Add bentonite sludge to settle the yeast and other solids out of suspension;
Stabilize the wine with sulphites and/or ascorbic acid.

Does bentonite kill yeast in wine?


Unity importing Blender models with different orientations

Question:
All the models apart from 'Jungle Tree' are facing right which is not a problem, because they still seem to work with my game. But how can I change the 'Jungle Tree' to face right like the other models instead of left? I haven't made the Jungle Tree drastically different to the other models so I don't see why it is doing this
Answer: As far as I know you can't do that in Unity, when importing an object. You'd have to re-export your object with blender. You can either rotate the object itself, or while exporting, play with the settings on the left. There you can change which axis is "Up" and which one is "Forward".
Alternatively you can make the Jungle Tree child of an Empty and rotate that by the required amount, but assuming you want to use other objects in a similar way, it can get messy.
Answer: First before exporting if you want to keep the rotation as 0 0 0 . Then you have to apply it.

When exporting to Unity from Blender as fbx. Blender tends to rotate by 90 degrees.

If you use .blend files in Unity, they will be rotated. For other types of files there are other settings. But fbx is a choice of mine because it can save animations, materials, textures data...
You can also try to change up and forward axis.
Related: Importing an object from Blender into a scene, rotation on X axis? .
Answer: Follow these steps in blender:

Select your model that you want to export to unity
Click R then X and enter in -90. This will rotate the model on the x axis by -90 degrees.
Click Ctrl + A and select Rotation & Scale. This will apply the rotation to the model and set its value to 0.
Click R then X and enter in 90. This will rotate the model back to its original orientation.
Export the model as fbx into unity.

In Unity you will see that the model is now correctly oriented.


I receive a warning that Ubuntu Desktop cannot be installed, when upgrading to 11.10 Beta. Is it safe to upgrade?

Question:
Comment: https://launchpadlibrarian.net/78913991/Screenshot-1.png
Answer: The ubuntu-desktop package is a meta package which means it doesn't actually do anything by itself, but only requests other packages by depending on them. When you install ubuntu-desktop, then it'll need to install all packages it depends on, or the meta package cannot be installed. If you remove ubuntu-desktop, however, only the meta package is removed, not the software it brought in.
For instance, if you have Ubuntu installed and you want to install Xubuntu, then you'll have to uninstall ubuntu-desktop first. That is because the notification systems are different. If you look closely, then you'll see that there is a conflict between libnotify-osd which is used in Ubuntu and xfce4-notifyd which is used in XFCE. Neither one is essential, so you can safely ignore the warning that ubuntu-desktop needs to be removed.
I realize that you didn't ask for XFCE. But the point is that you need to know why ubuntu-desktop cannot be installed. It might be a very minor issue, in which case you can just ignore it. On the other hand, it might not. It's impossible to say without knowing.
Answer: Ubuntu 11.10 beta 1 is safe to experiment with and test but definitely not safe to upgraded a working system to. I have been playing with Oneiric Ocelot since alpha 2 doing a nightly manual update and I still get messages saying that some program or other has crashed.
My last update left me unable to use Unity 3D. I got the background image but not the Launcher, Dash or application indicators. I had to log in to Unity 2D and do an update and then I could log into 3D.
So, the answer is: No, 11.10 beta is not safe to upgrade.