Are we center of universe?

Question: So I just learned that CMB redshift is 1100 regardless where we look (up down left right). According to Hubble's Law that makes it around 46 billion light years away, making it the farthest matter away from us. If CMB redshift is the same regardless which direction we look, then how could that be unless we're in the center of the universe?
Comment: Everyone knows, that Unimatrix 01 is the center of the universe. Except you, it seems.
Comment: Since the most up to date part of the universe you can see is literally at the tip of your nose, not only are we the center of the universe, but you personally are at its exact center. Within a Planck's Unit of Length, of course.
Answer: At the time when the universe was ~380,000 years old it was completely filled with a plasma and light. Light could only travel very short distances (I forget the specifics, but think a couple meters at the most) before being absorbed. So the entire universe was a fog, if you were there and there was an object 10 meters in front of you, you couldn't see it because all the light it emitted or reflected would be reabsorbed before it reaches your eyes. There are two things to keep in mind: 1) This fog disappeared across the entire universe simultaneously (plus or minus some time, but effectively simultaneously); at the same point in time after the Big Bang, 380,000 years after the Big Bang, the fog dissipated due to recombination. And 2) Light takes time to travel.
So let's say you are sitting in the fog-filled universe a few seconds before recombination happens. Light travels about 1 foot per nanosecond. So if the fog disappeared and there was a street lamp 10 feet in front of you, you wouldn't receive the first light from that lamp for 10 nano seconds. All of the light the lamp was emitting before recombination was just reabsorbed, but after recombination the first photons to leave the lamp no longer have anything to run into, so they continue on until hitting your eyes. A street lamp 20 feet away wouldn't be visible for 20 nanoseconds after recombination. The light of the plasma itself is effectively a street lamp at every location in space, so due to the 2 facts above, you would see successively farther street lamps in a shell centered on you.
After recombination happened and the entire universe became transparent. The fog is gone, but the farther you look the farther back in time you look, so you can only see back as far as when the fog existed, and the farthest you can see is the fog itself. After 13.8 billion years you can see all the way out to a shell of radius 13.8 billion light years around you (ignore expansion of the universe for now), and what you see is the light of the plasma (the fog) that was filling the universe 13.8 billion years ago, the CMB.
This scenario is the same if the universe is infinite in extent. We are not the center of the universe, we are simply the center of the observable universe, as is anyone else. Aliens looking towards Earth but are at the current location of edge of the CMB in some direction will not see Earth, they will see the last light of the CMB itself at our location when it was emitted 13.8 billion years ago; we are the edge of their observable universe.
Comment: Thanks for the details. So if I understand you correctly, what we're seeing is not the entire universe, but the maximum distance due to plasma in the early universe. Now it makes me wonder if we are the center of all obserable galaxies, but that's another question, I guess.
Comment: Yes that is correct. Really there should be a 3rd point in my post: 3) The fog is extremely uniform everywhere. The plasma essentially made up the material that would later coalesce into galaxies. Yes, we are the center of all observable galaxies because the universe happens to be extremely uniform on large scales, so on large scales galaxies form at regular spatial intervals.
Comment: Interesting. Something confuses me. The farthest oobseved galaxy is 13.4 billion years ago with a redshift of 11, but yet CMB, not much older,  has a redshift of 1100. How could we see such an old galaxy far in the past without it being almost as far away as the CMB?
Comment: @Paul Well that's because I made a mistake, heh. Recombination happened about 400k years after the big bang, and the big bang was ~13.8 billion years ago, so recombination happened 13.799600 billion years ago, not 13.4 like I wrote (oops). The galaxy you mention was found near the end of the Dark Ages. I'm sure it pushes the specifics back a little bit, but it's still well after recombination and the Universe cooled enough and dark matter pulled in enough matter (in certain regions) to allow stars to form. Good picture [here](http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_ig/060915/CMB_Timeline300.jpg).
Answer: We're at the centre of the observable universe - but this is because everything (when observed over very long distances) is expanding away from everything else, so we are at the centre of what we observe.
The spherical shape of the observable universe is really an optical illusion, in conjunction with the large-scale expansion of the universe.  We simply can't see anything that is apparently receding at (close to) light speed, so everything beyond a certain range is but off from our view.
The actual universe - well that's probably much bigger than the observable universe. What shape it is, and what conditions are like in other regions, we can only guess at right now.
(I have to lie down now, my head is beginning to spin.)
Comment: The CMB being visible in every direction at the same distance is independent of the uniform expansion of the universe. Even in a completely static universe we would see the CMB in a shell around us at the same distance. The (uniform) expansion of the universe just affects the distance the shell is at, and the wavelength of the photons we receive. See my answer for more info.
Answer: In a way you could argue that we are the centre of the universe. From our stand point that is. As a matter of fact every other standpoint has the right to argue that they are the centre of the universe because the redshift is always the same regardless where in the universe you are.
So imagine observing the redshift of a different galaxy. Imagine there is a galaxy behind the first one at exactly twice the distance from earth. Now from earth this galaxy would appear to be more redshifted (I know the galaxy in the foreground obstructs the view but just in theory).
<code>          (      far galaxy   (redder)
           )

           (     close galaxy (red)
            )

            O      Earth (observer)
</code>
If you lived in the closer galaxy, you would observe earth redshifted by the same amount as an observer on earth would see you redshifted. This seems logical. The interesting thing however is that the far away galaxy will not be redshifted the same amount as viewed from earth.
In fact, the redshift of earth and the second galaxy will be exactly identical when viewed from the galaxy between them.
<code>          (      far galaxy   (red)
           )

           (     close galaxy (observer)
            )

            O      Earth (red)
</code>
This is because all points in the universe are moving away from each other and not just all points moving away from one point.
You may have heard this analogy before but if you draw spots on a balloon and blow it up, they behave exactly like galaxies moving away from each other. No matter which point you observe all points seem to be moving away from it.
So while this may not be entirely accurate in cosmological terms you can imagine the galaxies to be the spots on the balloon and the balloon to be the fabric of space.
Comment: The CMB being visible in every direction at the same distance is independent of the uniform expansion of the universe. Even in a completely static universe we would see the CMB in a shell around us at the same distance. The (uniform) expansion of the universe just affects the distance the shell is at, and the wavelength of the photons we receive. See my answer for more info.
Comment: true you may be correct in that this analogy is somewhat flawed

Are we center of universe?


SQL Server 2008 R2 METADATA cleanup issue

Question: We use SQL Server 2008 R2 as our database and we use that to SYNC data in different locations. We can set the interval to expire the subscription. But this subscription is expiring before that expiring date. Can anyone give a solution for this?
Answer: The problem MAY be due to a failure to set the distribution database maximum transaction period.
If a subscription is not synchronized within a specified period of time, there is a possibility the subscription may get deleted or it may be automatically marked deactivated and require reinitialization. Whether it expires and is deleted or gets marked deactivated and requires initialization depends upon whether it exceeds the subscription expiration property of the publication or the maximum transaction retention property of the distribution database as well as whether or not it is an anonymous subscription.
Its a combination of the historical information and the transaction retention period that determines this.  In addition, bugs have been logged with Microsoft in the past (Sql Server 2005) with similar issues with Merge Replication subscriptions.  These MAY have been fixed in SQL Server 2008.


Does honey cure or alleviate the symptoms of a common cold?

Question: A friend of mine insists that downing honey by the heaping tablespoon at the first sign of a cold will alleviate the symptoms, shorten the duration of the cold, or prevent it entirely - any and all of the above. I have found a few sites online (that are rinky-dinky to the point where they aren't worth linking to) that tout honey similarly as the magical cold cure. Is it really better than pharmaceutical remedies? If not, is it better than not using a remedy at all?
Comment: Listen to [Penn Jillette](http://revision3.com/pennpoint/zinclozenges) - about 3m40s in - complain about how the phrase "at the first sign of a cold" makes the medical claim unfalsifiable. If you don't get a bad cold you ascribe the benefits to the treatment. If you do get a bad cold, you must have taken the treatment too late or for too short a time.
Comment: Honey has antibacterial properties (http://www.fasebj.org/content/24/7/2576.short). From there to conclude that it helps against common cold which is provoked by viruses...
Comment: There is also the "propolis" variant. Somehow it has anti-septic properties (how would that help with cold, though, is never explained).
Comment: From the [Mayo Clinic](http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/sore-throat/DS00526/DSECTION=lifestyle-and-home-remedies) regarding sore throats: "Regardless of the cause of your sore throat, at-home care strategies usually provide temporary relief. Try these strategies:
...
Comforting foods and beverage. Warm liquids — broth, caffeine-free tea or warm water with honey — and cold treats such as ice pops can soothe a sore throat."
Comment: Anecdotally, honey at the very least improves the symptoms. Too busy @work to look up research but it works for me and was officially recommended by every doctor I had in my life to relieve sore throat and cough.
Comment: I love Honey and I don't get very many colds at all
Comment: The version I heard was ingesting honey produced from local flora reduces allergic reactions to said flora.
Answer: Cough is certainly a symptom of a cold, and honey has been found to help with that: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/honey/AN01799 and http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/pharyngitis-000129.htm both cite a 2007 (peer reviewed and published) study.

In fact, in the study, honey appeared to be as effective as the cough suppressant dextromethorphan in typical over-the-counter doses.
Comment: Is there any evidence for other symptoms, or general immune response?
Comment: Not that I can find Abby.  I actually read an article for research showing it did *not* help against general allergies, but I've had trouble finding it again.  There's a lot out there about possible antibacterial benefits of a specific honey for wound care, but that did not seem on topic for the question so I didn't include it.
Comment: @RussellSteen [Bee pollen](http://www.webmd.com/balance/bee-pollen-benefits-and-side-effects) is generally the one that I hear about with regards to allergies with the caveat that it needs to be from local bees as opposed to just general bee pollen. The same applies to honey, but it usually doesn't get recommended as often compared to bee pollen.
Comment: The first link is dead. The second does not link to any study. It just says "A 2007 study found that..." but doesn't link to any study, which prevents any analysis of quality and accuracy of the study.
Comment: Such is the nature of the internet.  Those links are four years old.
Answer: Summary
I found no evidence for honey helping colds. Cochrane found limited evidence for honey helping in acute coughs in children, and no evidence for honey helping chronic coughs in children.
Cochrane Meta-Analyses
The Cochrane Collaboration do meta-analyses of health studies - they gather all of the published scientific evidence on a topic, and use careful statistical techniques to try to work out which way the evidence points.
While they don't have a general purpose study on honey's affect on the common cold, there were two studies of honey's affect on children with coughs - one for acute and one for chronic.

Oduwole O, Meremikwu MM, Oyo-Ita A, Udoh EE. Honey for acute cough in children. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2010, Issue 1. Art. No.: CD007094. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD007094.pub2
Mulholland S, Chang AB. Honey and lozenges for children with non-specific cough. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2009, Issue 2. Art. No.: CD007523. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD007523.pub2

Acute Coughs
In the first analysis, they could only find one small study with any good evidence:

A review of one small randomised controlled trial showed that honey was significantly better than no treatment for the relief of cough, reducing bothersome cough, improving child's sleep; but no better than 'no treatment' in reducing the severity of cough and parent's sleep.

Note the comparison here is to "no treatment" rather than placebo or regular cough medicine.

The effects of honey on symptom relief and sleep quality did not differ from those of dextromethorphan, which is a common ingredient in cough medications. Parents of five children assigned to honey and two assigned to dextromethorphan reported their children suffered from insomnia, hyperactivity and nervousness. However, as with other medications, its benefit should be considered alongside the adverse effects.

They emphasized:

This review has a limitation in that the results were obtained from a single study involving a relatively small number of children.

Chronic Cough
In the second analysis, they looked for the affect on chronic non-specific coughs, which were defined as:

a dry, non-productive cough with no known cause lasting longer than four consecutive weeks

Four weeks is a long time - this is beyond your typical common cold.
What they found was that there was no good evidence either way for chronic coughs.

No randomised controlled trials were found to be applicable to this review, primarily due to the participants in the studies not fulfilling the inclusion criteria.
Comment: @Russell: The example you gave (Paul,  2007) was one of only two that made it through the inclusion criteria for the first (acute cough) study. So, no, they didn't skip or exclude that one. Now that the links are fixed, have a look at their method and see if you still think it is deliberately biased.
Comment: Cochrane has skipped and excluded better research papers from their "review" than the ones they cite, such as http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=571638.  There have been several studies of hundreds of kids at a time and instead they cite a single study with a woefully insufficient sample size.  I have to conclude that they found what they wanted to find, by design.

That being said, the links above are dead so I can't do a more thorough assessment.
Comment: @Russell: First things first: I have updated the broken links.
Comment: Aren't the Cochrane reviews supposed to exlude methodologically flawed studies?
Answer: The idea behind eating honey is kind of like gradually vaccinating the body against allergens, a process called immunotherapy. Honey contains a variety of the same pollen spores that give allergy sufferers so much trouble when flowers and grasses are in bloom. Introducing these spores into the body in small amounts by eating honey should make the body accustomed to their presence and decrease the chance an immune system response like the release of histamine will occur [source: AAFP]. Since the concentration of pollen spores found in honey is low -- compared to, say, sniffing a flower directly -- then the production of antibodies shouldn't trigger symptoms similar to an allergic reaction. Ideally, the honey-eater won't have any reaction at all.
http://health.howstuffworks.com/diseases-conditions/allergies/allergy-treatments/local-honey-for-allergies2.htm
Comment: This is a step-up from your previous answer (which you might like to delete) as it has two references. However, they are not great references at all. The first isn't enough detail - I don't know where to read this in "AAFP". The second doesn't support your claim with empirical evidence. In fact, its opening line says it all: "There have been no peer-reviewed scientific studies that have conclusively proven whether honey actually reduces allergies. Almost all evidence regarding the immunizing effects of eating honey is anecdotal." I suggest you delete this answer too.
Comment: thanks for your help, i'm new at this as you can see haha. How do I delete my posts? I only see options to edit it
Answer: Yes it will definitely help with common cold and it can also reduce your allergy issues. The fact is that it contains many anti - inflammatory material material. So when you use honey regularly it gives hint to your body immune system of what your body is allergic to. Like it gives the hint to pollen your body is allergic to. This helps your body fight with cold and allergy. If you are thinking that you have got cold and you start eating honey and within 3-4 days it will help, then you are wrong. Honey needs time to get your immune strong. If you start consuming honey on a daily basis before the allergy season strike then I think it will help you better.You can get more details on benefits of honey here.
And one more thing I want to clarify. Only Raw honey will do the benefits not the one you buy from the grocery. So do use the Raw honey not the processed one.
Comment: Please [provide some references](http://meta.skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/5) to support your claims. Your reference (a) doesn't say it helps colds and (b) has no empirical evidence to support it. There is no reason provided to believe this isn't nonsense.


How to end Ubuntu-one related processes automatically?

Question: I am running Ubuntu-one on my Maverick machine. Since I do not want it to sync my data all the time I have removed it from the startup programs. So, whenever I want my files to be uploaded to the cloud I manually start Ubuntu-one and keep it running until it's done. Sadly, the related processes such as beam.smp or syncdaemon continue to run and consume lots of memory. Ending all these processes manually is a way to go, but it isn't really convenient. Is there any way to simply end Ubuntu-one after syncing with just one click?
Answer: Uhm, I could advise using an .sh file with 'sudo killall -9 ubuntuone-syncdaemon' in it. And, put it on your desktop.
Answer: u1sdtool --quit works for me.
If it's not available by default, it will be in the ubuntuone-client package.
You would need to manually create a launcher for this to have one-click functionality.
You can right-click on your desktop if you're running Gnome/Unity to create a launcher, or add the file with nano, gedit or the editor of your choice:
e.g., ~/Desktop/u1shutdown.desktop :
[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Terminal=true
Icon[en_US]=gnome-panel-launcher
Name[en_US]=U1 Shutdown
Exec=/usr/bin/u1sdtool --quit
Comment[en_US]=
Name=u1sdtool --quit
Comment=Shutdown ubuntuone-syncdaemon
Icon=/usr/share/app-install/icons/ubuntuone.png
GenericName[en_US]=Shutdown ubuntuone-syncdaemon


capping off range hood wires

Question: I am installing an over the range microwave.  I am adding a new dedicated circuit to plug it into.  My problem is this. The old range hood was direct wired. There is a three wire romex cable coming thru the wall. This is connected to all the other ceiling lights in the house. There is no junction box.  How do I deal with it?  Can in install a box where the wires come through, and just leave the live wires, capped inside?  It would be behind the new oven. There is no way to access the wire other than to open the wall completely which is not an option since there are already cabinets installed.
Answer: How do you know that the wire is on the same circuit as the lights??
I can clearly see the wall so you can open it.
If you are not opening the wall how are you installing a dedicated circuit for the new microwave and where are you putting the outlet for that?
"Can in install a box where the wires come through"
YES. You can install a "old work" box there, (made expressly for retrofit). Cut a hole around the wire carefully just big enough for the box, use the box as a template and trace around it with a pencil.  Run the wires in to the back of the box and cap them with wire nuts,insert the old work box and tighten the screws that pull the tabs which old the box to the drywall, put a solid cover on the box.
Comment: This a very old post.  The work was done.  I ran the wires and installed a box. Likewise installed another box and capped the wires inside it.  Hired an electrician to connect the dedicated circuit.  You asked about how I knew this was on on the light circuit?  Because the old range hood worked off the light circuit, that's why!

capping off range hood wires


How to show custom previews for all fonts in 10.9 Font Book?

Question: For years, I've enjoyed the feature in OS X Font Book where you can type in custom text and scroll through all the fonts to preview it.  Now on Mavericks, when I try to do this, it only works for single-font families.  All font families containing multiple fonts (e.g. bold, italic, etc.) will only show the default sample text.  How can I change this behavior to be like older OS X versions, where you can see the custom text for all fonts?  I'm hoping there's a plist somewhere that can be edited.
Answer: This works (at least in Yosemite Public Beta 2):
Open Font Book, select "Custom" from the View menu, double-click in the preview area and type what you want. Then, close Font Book. Then, re-open Font Book. Now, whatever you had previously typed should be the preview text for every font.
Annoying, yes, but it's a lot better than nothing!
Comment: "Open Font Book, select "Custom" from the View menu, double-click in the preview area and type what you want." This worked for me just now. Thanks @glandix
Comment: I'm not sure with which macOS version this became relevant, but with macOS 13 you can go to the middle option of the three viewing options on the menu bar, and double-click the "brown fox" preview text, to put your own text.
Answer: I think that you are talking about the font-families. Since Mavericks, font-families are grouped and. You can get a custom preview by clicking on the triangle next to the font name ane selecting the font you want.
Comment: You're right.  The ones that work are the fonts that have only one font in the family.  This is really dumb behavior, and I can't think of any benefit to this change.
Answer: I had the same problem and wrote a script for an overview in a html-file. For me this solved the problem. So maybe this is a solution for you, too.
I think it is not difficult, but you have to know how to open Terminal application.
If you're familiar with scripts and Terminal and so on, save the code below with a name of your choice at a place of your choice. Otherwise I'll recommend the following:
Open the TextEdit application. Open a new file (File -> New), click on Format and choose Make Plain Text. Then insert the code below and save the file as fonts.sh on your Desktop.
Then open Terminal application and type
cd ~/Desktop

Then type the following, which will list all files on your Desktop - and also the just created fonts.sh
ls -l

In the line with the new "fonts.sh"-file you'll probably see something like
-rw-r--r--@

The first four signs mean, that you can read (r) and write (w) on this file. But at the moment you don't have the right to execute it. Therefore type
chmod u+x fonts.sh

If you now repeat the "ls -l" command, you should see that the rights of fonts.sh changed to
-rwxr--r--@

The new x shows, that you can execute the file. Now you can generate the promised html-file :-)
Just type
./fonts.sh

The next time you want to use the script, you only have to start Terminal, and type
cd ~/Desktop
./fonts.sh

I hope, this helped.
And here is the code to save in a file:

#!/bin/sh

echo "\n************************************"
echo "Welcome to an overview of your fonts"
echo ""
echo "Advice: This script generates two files: fonts.html and fonts-in-system.txt, second one will be deleted again. But if you already have files with such names on your Desktop they will be overwritten! So be careful!"
echo ""

echo "Enter what you want to have displayed"
read INPUT

echo "Do you want to have the fonts in normal (n), italic (i) or oblique (o) style?"
read STYLE

if [ "$STYLE" = "n" ] ; then
    STYLE="normal"
elif [ "$STYLE" = "i" ] ; then
    STYLE="italic"
elif [ "$STYLE" = "o" ] ; then
    STYLE="oblique"
else
    echo "Normal style is used!"
    STYLE="normal"
fi

echo "Do you want to have the fonts in normal (n), lighter (l) or bold (b) weight?"
read WEIGHT

if [ "$WEIGHT" = "n" ] ; then
    WEIGHT="normal"
elif [ "$WEIGHT" = "l" ] ; then
    WEIGHT="lighter"
elif [ "$WEIGHT" = "b" ] ; then
    WEIGHT="bold"
else
    echo "Normal weight is used!"
    WEIGHT="normal"
fi

echo "Fonts are generated - you'll find them on your Desktop in 'fonts.html'.";

# Temporary file fonts-in-system.txt is generated
# It will include font family names like "Kaiti SC,楷體\-簡,楷体\-简"
cat > "fonts-in-system.txt" << EOF
$( fc-list : family )
EOF

# Sort font list
sort "fonts-in-system.txt" -o "fonts-in-system.txt"

# Generate html-file
cat > fonts.html << EOF
<!DOCTYPE html>

EOF

LAST_FONT=""

while read LINE ; do
    if [[ ! $( echo "$LINE" | grep "^\." ) ]] ; then #only take fonts which don't start with a "."
        FONT=$( echo $LINE | sed "s/,\(.*\)//" ) #cut off everything in a line starting with a comma => line "Kaiti SC,楷體\-簡,楷体\-简" would become "Kaiti SC"
        if [ "$LAST_FONT" != "$FONT" ] ; then    #print each font only once
            echo "
" >> fonts.html
            echo "              $FONT	" >> fonts.html
            echo "              $INPUT	" >> fonts.html
            echo "
" >> fonts.html
        fi
        LAST_FONT=$FONT
    fi
done < "fonts-in-system.txt"

cat >> fonts.html << EOF

EOF

rm "fonts-in-system.txt"

Answer: If you are like me opening each font-family and requesting a custom preview is out of the question. You want to scroll quickly through all of your fonts waiting for the perfect choice to leap out at you. What was once a minute or 2 of tapping the down arrow is now an hour of tedious clicking.
I have not gotten Font Book to do what it used to do. But I purchased an App from the App store called FontPreview (4.99) and it does what Font Book used to. Perhaps not as well, but it will do for me until Font Book fixes this "bug" which renders it useless for me.
I am not endorsing the app. I have used it for 5 minutes. Just trying to help those as frustrated as I am.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fontpreview/id537580561?mt=12
Answer: Apple changed the way Maverick views fonts by grouping the fonts in families. You can only have a custom view in one family at a time, there doesn't seem to be a way to view multiple families. I'm just hoping when we can update to 10.9.3 that is is fixed.
Answer: I have the same problem and desire to have Font Book behave the way it used to.  I work in advertising and write headlines and subheads and want to easily scroll through a custom sentence while seeing the fonts change until one "leaps out at me" as the right one to choose!  If you find a way to do this on Mavericks, I would greatly appreciate it.
In the meantime, I have found a small workaround and that is if you click on the small grey triangle before each font name to bring up the options like Bold, Italic, etc. you can click on bold for example and your custom words will still be there.  I lose it when I click on the font family name.  So I opened up all the fonts by clicking on the triangle then I put in my custom sentence and be careful to click from Bold to Bold instead of from font name to font name.  This seems to work in a pinch, but it's very frustrating.
Would love the Yosemite version of Font Book to work better than Mavericks.
Answer: Use Text Edit: Paste your text, select it, then Format > Fonts > Show Fonts. Click only on the Font name (arrowing doesn't work). The selected text will change as you click different fonts.


Any way to deal with bitter taste from turbo yeast?

Question: I had some turbo yeast left over, and figured I'd try make a couple litres of ginger beer (sugar, grated ginger, a little lime juice) and elderflower wine (sugar, elderflowers, lemon juice and zest) with it. Both have ended up with the same extremely unpleasant bitter flavour. They're currently undrinkable. Is there anything I can do to get rid of it? Currently I'm aging the elderflower wine and hoping for the best; I started the ginger beer later and that's still fermenting.
Comment: I made a shed load of turbo wash.cleared with volcanic ash (cat litter).Then filtered.went well with some elder flower juice.☺
Answer: Turbo yeast is very aggressive and consumes almost all sugars.
Bitter is most likley from an unbalance in sweet / bitter.
Add a non fermentable sugar like lactos to sweeten and counter the bitter to taste.
Comment: Since the two quite different mashes both gave a very similar taste, I suspect it's not just the lack of sweetness, but some by-product. If it were just dryness, I'd expect the ginger beer to just taste of ginger and alcohol, but there's something else.
Comment: @Max yeast can't form bittering acids naturally. Although scientists did just recently genieticly modify a yeast with mint and basil to produce bittering acids. If you post your recipes we can help you identify the source. Its pretty safe to say it's not from the yeast.
Comment: I suspect it might have been the yeast nutrient as @barking.pete suggests: in the one case it disappeared after a bit more fermentation, and in the other I pitched *a lot* of yeast, not realising that the turbo yeast was not just yeast.
Answer: IMHO using turbo yeast for fermenting beer or other fizzy/alcoholic drinks is "less than optimal". It is not a yeast meant for directly fermenting drinks - it is a yeast mix meant for producing high alcohol content in a short time. The mix contains yeast and a lot of nutrient which can impart a biter flavour if not used up during fermentation. The idea of this yeast mix is to produce 24L of 20% alcohol mash for distillation (or to drink only if one has run out of methylated spirit :)
It may be advantageous to go buy some "normal" brewing yeast or, if all else fails, use bakers yeast. It is quite adequate for making ginger ale.


PHP + Nginx + X-Accel-Redirect Caching issue

Question: I am using nginx 1.0.12 and have a setup like this:
        location /protected/ {
            expires 30d;
            log_not_found off;
            internal;
            alias /var/www/files/uploads/;
    }

and am requesting user files like this:
header('X-Accel-Redirect: http://example.com/adetwiler/files/example.png');
header('Content-type: image/png');

Everything works great up until the point where the user can rotate their image. Once they rotate their image, I can't figure out how to get the "new" version of the file, it's still showing the older version of the image, unless "refresh" is clicked on the browser.
I have tried to set Cache-control: no-cache, Expires: Expires: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 05:00:00 GMT, no luck with those.
I tried adding the modified date like so:
header('X-Accel-Redirect: http://example.com/adetwiler/files/example.png?123456789');

That caused the image to load everytime when I tried that.
I tried adding this to the nginx config:
add_header Pragma public;
add_header Cache-Control "public, must-revalidate";

At this point I am at a loss, I have tried everything that I could think of.
So my question is, is there a way with my current setup or something similar to my setup to use the newer version of the image once the image is updated?
Thanks!
Answer: It looks like setting X-Accel-Buffering: no as a header tells nginx not to cache the response at all.
https://www.nginx.com/resources/wiki/start/topics/examples/x-accel/


When should an opinion based question be flagged?

Question: Some questions post an image and ask: How can I make this effect. Is this considered an opinion based question? There will always be many answers, many right answers, and really there is no right and wrong as an answer for this kind of questions, which makes them opinion based. Yet, they are quite informative, you get to see how different people approach different ways to make a model, rig, create shaders..etc. My question is, should these be reported? And if not, doesn't that create a bias, and make the whole thing depend on luck? I've seen this happening (not to me, this question is not personal) and it's not fair, some questions were reported and removed immediately, others were lucky enough to get the interested person before the flag person, and got many answers and votes, which kept them open. Considering that the target of BSE is the good of all, shouldn't we be more tolerable?
Comment: Related: http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/questions/476/should-we-expand-our-scope-to-allow-simple-howtos/
Answer: ok, take two :)
(if you want to read about "How do I do X" type of questions see my first answer.)
Lets start with the close reason:

primarily opinion-based
  Many good questions generate some degree of opinion based on expert experience, but answers to this question will tend to be almost entirely based on opinions, rather than facts, references, or specific expertise.

As stated on the main meta it partially exists just so there are standard close reason across the SE network.
As you alluded to, that does not fit blender and our hugely diverse workflows very well.
A question that is asking, for example how to model something, absolutely don't close it as primarily opinion based just because there are several different ways to do it. (1, 2, 3, 4)
I would use that reason any time the question is more of a open ended discussion then a real answerable question. Or it is something along the lines of "What is the best ____?". However just because best is in the title does not mean it should be closed.
Here are all examples of questions that have been closed as primarily opinion based, and rightly so.
Switch from Mac to PC?
What are the benefits of the different cylinder caps?
Do I need to even use blueprints?
Is Blender right for me? - A photographer creating 3d renderings (this one here is of particular interest, it is, in your words a "well presented question" yet how can we answer whether or not it is the right choice for him?)
In short, CV as primarily opinion based when there can be no definitive answer, anyone who answers will just be sharing his idea or "opinion."
Answer: First I do not consider "How do I do X" type of questions primarily opinion based. If we are going to say that for example this is primarily opinion based, then nearly every question that is not asking what a specific button does would be closed as such. (You could make the argument that it is too broad, but more on that later.)
I too have seen some ambiguity in how these "How do I do X" questions are handled.
We have many that are well received, and get good, helpful answers - great!
I assume you want to talk about the others that get closed.
I think the difference comes in what are they asking.

Does the OP know what they are looking for? (example 10k link)
How "big" of a topic is this? (Is the question asking how to make a cycles shader, or how to make a movie?) Question have to be targeted, a huge open ended questions off topic, and will be closed as "too broad."
Is this topical for our site? (Is the question asking how to import a fbx made in blender into ogre?) Hint: answer for this example is no, CV it.

So if you think it is or could be a good question maybe after an edit, then UV it. If already closed cast a reopen vote, (you need 3000 rep for that privilege).
Yes, there are some cases where I really have no idea why a question got closed, we should welcome them to BSE, not insta-close their question.
However there are many cases where we are very, very nice to new users, with questions that are so unclear, or show no effort yet expect not only to show exactly "how to do X," but a blend file too (who needs to read the answer when you can get somebody to just do it for you.); that I can not possibly say at this point that we should be more tolerant.
Yes, lets try to get rid of this ambiguity and treat all the "How do I do X" questions, that really are of the same quality the same.

Here are some examples:
https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/40069/2217 That is a bad question on many levels. Link only, no effort, and unclear. It rightly should of been closed.
How to achieve this effect (screen tearing glitch) in Blender, and what is this effect called? This question, may appear similar to the example above, is substantially different. While the OP does no know what to call what he is trying to make, he make a good effort to describe it, not just simply a link or a picture. Also it is targeted, we know this is limited to post production.
Comment: ok, (I'm actually editing my answer now) I some how missed that you were asking about the CV reason, I thought you were asking about "How do I do X" type of questions. (I do have this problem of missing the title sometimes.)
Comment: I agree with everything you said, you still haven't answered my question though, what is considered opinion based? Why is this category an option, my point was that, this reason is too vague, it could be largely misinterpreted. Check this question for example: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/52521/timothy-reynolds-low-poly-mountain-terrain
Comment: I agree again, but you still haven't answered my question, let me put it this way: A user just joined BSE, he read carefully the rules, one of them is "Don't ask opinion based questions" flag them, what he would understand of this? I'm not questioning people's behavior, I'm questioning this category, since it's not understood, the difference between the examples you added, is the difference between a well explained question, and a lazy link based youtube question, the link to the question I have in my previous comment, is obviously opinion based, I won't vote to close it, others might.
Comment: I understood from your first comment, and am writing another answer. Just I had started that first answer, may as well finish it. (still not sure how I missed your whole point, Oh well :) )
Comment: Thank you for taking the effort @David my point is that, I don't think that opinion base "well presented questions" should be removed, on the other hand all "bad presented questions" should be requested to be edited, or removed.
Comment: it's either that, or I don't understand what "opinion based" means, so I asked the question :)
Answer: I was about to ask another question when I saw this one. My question was "when is it justified to give an answer that suggest another approach for the problem ?"
This kind of answer is subjective surely.
As an example, I have seen several questions about boolean modifier which may later leads to "hey... now..." "I cannot use subsurf or edge loop" or "I have a bad rendering due to ngons"...
So... is this needs to be another question or is it part of the opinion based subject ?
Comment: Why you think it wouldn't be justified to provide another approach to solve the same problem? anyways I guess you should start a new question in the meta, since you just posted a question as an answer ;)
Comment: @Georges you are right, but two points : concerning the subjective answer which can be "I dont answer directly but I give another way to do it" : how to know if the question is not simplified and hide a more complex problem ?... for the aspect to ask another question... yes... I will do it even if I think this is nearly the same subject. ; )
Comment: This is why I usually ask the OP to provide more details before I post an answer, unless the problem is obvious, this is why you see many answers that are not related to the question, usually the question is edited after the answer is provided to give more details. Anyways, almost every process in Blender has many ways to do it, some ways are better than others, some are just different, with no preference, so why wouldn't it be justified to have many answers to the same question, when they are providing different approaches?
Comment: even answers that seem to be the wrong answer, can be the right answer to people reading the question later
Comment: @Georges, I have posted this http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/questions/1119/how-subjective-may-be-an-answer


What can I do to be sure I'm getting a fair deal when buying a used bike?

Question: I've been looking at used bikes but I'm worried that I will get taken advantage of because I don't know a lot about bikes. Are there key questions or things I should look for when shopping for a used bike?
Comment: When I buy used bikes, I make sure I'm getting an unfair deal (unfair to the seller)
Answer: With any bike the most important thing is "fit" -- is the bike too tall, too short, too much "reach", too little?
For a bike to have a good basic fit you should be able to stand over it flat-footed and have "comfortable" clearance at the crotch.  For bikes with lower than normal top bars (eg, many mountain bikes), you should pick a bike that would be comfortable even with the top bar at the "normal" height.  And for "real" off-roading you want more actual crotch clearance than for more normal riding.  But too much crotch clearance is a signal that the bike may be too small for you.
The bike should also be tall enough that you can raise the seat high enough to have your legs nearly completely extended at the bottom of your pedal stroke.
When riding, the "reach" should be comfortable for your style of riding.  For casual riding you want a shorter reach and more upright posture than for racing or aggressive off-roading.  However, for really tall, long-torso people a "casual" reach can be too short for even casual riding, forcing the rider to curl his torso too much, and short people, on the other hand, may have to use a bike that's a hair smaller than ideal to get the most comfortable reach.
When you ride it is it stable (but is it also responsive -- there's a trade-off).  And obviously you want a bike that suits your needs -- multispeed or not?  "Road" vs "mountain"?  Upright or "aero"?  Can carry a load with a rack, or is stripped-down for lightness and speed?
Checking the bike over:
Everything should be parallel (except, perhaps, the chain on a derailleur bike).
Stand straddling the front wheel looking toward the back of the bike.  With the front wheel centered you should be able to look down and see the tire "disappear" under the frame tubes, with it not peeking out more on one side vs the other (which would indicate a warped frame).  Similarly, the front and rear wheels should be exactly in line, not one more to one side than the other.
Look at the derailer.  When the arm of the derailer is moved it should stay parallel to the wheel.  Look at the chainrings.  When the crank is turned, the chainrings shouldn't wobble.
Standing over the top bar, grip the rear brakes and move the bike forward and back.  There will be some "spring" in rim brakes, but there should be no "rattle" sensation.  Do the same with the front, only also feel for any looseness in the headset bearings.  There should be no detectable looseness in the headset.
Off the bike (and preferably with the bike upside down or suspended in a stand) shake the wheels, feeling for any looseness in the wheel bearings.  Likewise shake the crank.
And, obviously, check for serious rust, things that are seriously dinged, scratched, etc.  A few scratches on a well-used steel frame is not a reason to reject the bike, though (unless you're looking for a "perfect" specimen).
Answer: One important thing is to give the bike a test ride, and feel it.  You can tell a lot that way.
Check the frame over well, look for dents, scratches in the paint (and rust, if the frame is steel) make sure the wheels are sound.  The components, everything.  Just give it a good look all over.  Anything broken should be fairly obvious.
Also ask a lot of questions
Answer: Only one thing to add to the other answers.  Be aware of a frame with a brand new coat of paint.  From experience I have found that this is done to cover defects in the frame.  In my case the down tube had a slight crack in it that the new paint covered over and after a quick test ride it the crack was still not visible.  A couple of months later we found that the crack had opened up and the tube had to be replaced.
Answer: Lift the bike so one wheel is off the ground and spin the wheel. Look at the rim where it meets the brakes, and see how much it wobbles. Ideally, the wheel should be perfectly round, but this is pretty rare on used bikes. Deviation of 2 mm or less is pretty good; 5 mm means it should get fixed; 15 mm means it's beyond fixing, and the wheels are garbage. (This assumes the bike has rim brakes; with disk brakes, the tolerances are a little more generous.)
Check for loose spokes. Grab a spoke between two fingers and gently shake it - if it's installed properly, it shouldn't move at all, if it feels like it's not firmly attached, then you have a problem.
Check the tires. Worn-down tread is not necessarily a problem (unlike car tires), but watch out for cracked, brittle-looking rubber.
Answer: One thing I did not see already mentioned, you can ask the seller to let you have a local bike shop look it over.


How to convert soil moisture units from meteorological model?

Question: I am using the outputs of the ALADIN meteorological model, in particular I need volumetric soil moisture. However, the output from ALADIN is in "funny" units - $\mathrm{kg/m}^2$ per top 1 cm. Is it acceptable to assume water density $\rho_w = 1000~\mathrm{kg/m}^3$ and calculate as follows:
$\frac{\mathrm{kg}}{\mathrm{m}^2.\mathrm{cm}}*\frac{100}{1000} = \frac{\mathrm{m}^3}{\mathrm{m}^3}$? So basically just take the values and divide them by 10? I don't need to be extra scientific, but I don't want to miss anything crucial.
Comment: If you are worried about solutes or temperature changing the water density, you may have to look into the underlying methods in the ALADIN model - it may assume pure water. I suspect the density correction wouldn't be significant relative to the model uncertainty. The other issue is how you are going to use the water content. It may not be appropriate to use the value for the top 1 cm - that gives you a boundary content but probably does not represent the mass present in a greater soil thickness.
Comment: @haresfur Thank you for your insight. As I commented on the answer below, I will be using the data as input for the MEGAN model (biogenic emissions). The documentation isn't too thorough, so I have to make assumptions - for example the variable description from the sample input data "volumetric soil moisture in top cm" suggests that the value for the top 1 cm should be just what I want.
Answer: Your method looks OK, however, water density varies with temperature.
Not knowing exactly what your aim is or how accurate/fussy you want to be, you may want to consider using the density of water for its temperature rather than accepted average of $1000 kg/m^3$.
Comment: Well, I need it as an input into another model ([MEGAN](http://www.lar.wsu.edu/megan/guides.html) - not sure if anyone is familiar with it but that's not so important). The trouble is I have so far no idea how sensitive the model is to these parameters. I just wasn't sure if the properties of water contained in soil would be the same as those of any "other" water.


Why don't the Borg use some sort of projectile or beam weapon on their drones?

Question: Why don't the Borg use some sort of projectile/beam weapon on their drones?
When in a ranged battle the Borg drones can't do much more than walk to their enemy, it seems like a stun beam would be more effective.
Comment: In the game _Star Trek Voyager: Elite Forces_ the Borg adapted to a new threat and employed partical projectile weaponry on drones. Don't think this would be labelled as canon though.
Comment: This is speculation. Chances are the Borg will eventually adapt and employ some kind of ranged delivery system for nanites. In the short time between their introduction in TNG to Voyager/First Contact the Borg adapted and employed the nanite injection tubules. Low power particle beam weapon/delivery systems, grenades that release a cloud of nanites, or a city sized nanite bomb all seem within the realm of possibility. But really, @theRayDog has the answer in their second paragraph. If a few hundred drones die in the assimilation of a planet then it would be worth it in their opinion.
Answer: Every time we see the Borg in combat in the show, their greatest strength is of course their adaptability. Even phasers set to modular frequencies are only effective for a few shots. Borg drones simply don't need ranged weaponry, since they are protected by nearly impenetrable shields which immediately adapt to any weapon that makes it through.
Given the number of Borg drones that exist even on just one Borg cube, losing one drone in order to make every single other drone immune to that weapon seems a trivial loss.
Finally, the Borg don't have much use for ground fighting. We only ever see the Federation going toe to toe with Drones when either A) The drones are coming onto a federation ship for a SPECIFIC MISSION or B) The Federation beams over to a Borg cube. In either of these situations, even without weapons, the Borg are such a physical threat + near invulnerable shields that they simply have no need for a ranged weapon.
EDIT: Upon conferring with a fellow Trekkie, it's also important to remember that the Borg's entire focus is assimilation of other civilizations rather than the destruction of them. A phaser rifle has no use for the Borg, because it does not further those goals. Hard to assimilate something that's been disintegrated.
Comment: Well you don't have to set the phaser to disintegrate you could just set it to stun? its like saying the borg cube should not use phasers, they should just ram their enemies..
Comment: Your second paragraph is, in my estimation, the most reasonable answer. If a couple of hundred or thousand drones die in the assimilation of a planet then the net gain would be in the millions~billions. This would be an acceptable trade off in their mind.
Comment: @Petoj At a certain point you do need some sort of weapons, it makes more sense that they would have them on their ships vs. foot soldiers. It's still true that when the Borg encounter the Enterprise they lock it in a very powerful tractor beam, rather than destroying them. The phasers seem like a last resort for when the species they are trying to assimilate force them to fight back.
Comment: 1) I think you could label this "Return of investment": why spend material and energy on outfitting many drones with weapons and maintaining them if they will almost never need them? 2) Apparently, Borg are vulnerable to projectile weapons (see "First Contact"). Does the whole galaxy use only particle/energy weapons? So I guess for assimilating civilisations which use projectile weapons, it would be meaningful to outfit drones with ranged weapons.
Answer: If you mean 'The Borg' as in the Collective itself, as far as I know, you're correct.  But there was one instance where a group of liberated Borg (led by Hugh from TNG 5x23 "I, Borg") had disruptor modules (citing TNG 6x26, TNG 7x01: "Descent" (Parts I and II)).


How to remove the 'index.php' from URL's?

Question: I was wondering if it is possible to remove the 'index.php' that is shown in every URL.
Answer: You can do that by enabling the SEF URLs and especially the parameter "Use URL rewriting" in the Joomla global configuration.
Please note that this will generate an internal server error if you didn't create the .htaccess file before enabling the option.
There is a doc page explaining what steps are needed to get those nice URLs. Have a look here: http://docs.joomla.org/Enabling_Search_Engine_Friendly_(SEF)_URLs
Basically you have to rename the htaccess.txt file found in your Joomla root directory. Depending on your hoster, additional steps are needed.
Comment: That's exactly the reason why Joomla doesn't generate the code itself. It depends a lot on the host and we don't want to completely break your site by enabling a feature :)
Comment: OK, I will give that a try. It's a bit weird that Joomla doesn't generate that code itself as now I think about it. I think I tried that option and it did in fact crash.
Answer: You could add this code to the top of Joomla's index.php:
if(strcmp($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], '/index.php') == 0 && $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'] == ''){
    header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
    header('Location: /');
    exit;
}

Be careful though, if you take this approach, you'll need to redo this when you upgrade.
Comment: I'd suggest you could do this as an optional hack if the redirect and ReWrite did not work in htaccess. So a valid fall back
Comment: agreed. that's actually how we got to this solution. We couldn't get the htaccess fix to work properly site wide
Answer:
Changed htaccess.txt to .htaccess
Site > Global Configuration : Use URL rewriting (Choose Yes)
SEO Settings Search Engine Friendly URLs(Choose Yes)
Answer: Here is a general method if your site crashes using .htaccess:

You should comment one or both of these lines:

Options +FollowSymLinks
and/or,
RewriteBase /
This should work fine!
Note: you do commenting by giving a hashtag for a line "#"
Answer: If you're using the nginx web-server, then you can use the following snippet for the nginx.conf configuration file where your Joomla! site is served from (basically, just add the if-condition after any existing lines where the index index.php directive appears).
#https://stackoverflow.com/a/38165768/remove-index-php-from-joomla-urls-with-nginx
index index.php index.html index.htm;
if ($request_uri ~ "^/(.*)(?<=/)index\.php/?((?<=/).*)?$") {    return  301 /$1$2;  }

More details are at https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28997028/remove-index-php-from-joomla-urls-with-nginx/38165768#38165768.


01 Chevy impala

Question: My car won't do anything when I turn the key no lights or nothin, battery is new, alternator good new starter , but if I hook cables up to the side post battery it will turn over and when it starts it runs good no lights come on accept the security light on dash stay on but I have no remote for that also sometimes the turn signal lights work and sometimes after a jump it don't and sometimes when I turn the car off the motor will shut off but dash lights still b on intell I turn tv off what could the problem be? And the thermal is touching the battery
Comment: Also follow those heavy cables and re-new the connections at the far end.
Answer: Just because you have the cable screwed onto the side post does not mean it's getting a good connection. I have seen it many times where the connection will not be made. You need to ensure you haven't stripped out the threads in the side post holes, nor off terminal bolt itself. This will give you a loose connection which is not enough to make contact. You can check your connections between the cables and battery by grabbing the cables and seeing if they wiggle. It is either this or the battery is bad (or not filled with electrolytes). You can check the battery itself to see if there is a charge by using a multi-meter or taking it to Autozone or any other parts place for a load test. If using a multi-meter, the battery should be around 12.5-13.5 vdc. Sounds weird for a 12v battery to have 12.5+ volts, but that's the way it works.

01 Chevy impala


how are tags ordered and why only the first one is included in the question title?

Question: I'm supposing that tags specified are reordered by occurrences (the most used fo first). The first tag goes directly in title of the question, not the others, even if they could be better related and descriptive. Why this choice?
Answer: They're sorted by popularity of each tag. The tag with the most previous questions becomes the main tag for the question and that's appended to the title.
I believe this is as much for search engine optimisation as anything else. It helps people on Google quickly see what the question they're going to click through to is about.

By extension, tags that already feature in the title text won't be prepended onto the title. The next tag available will be chosen instead.
Comment: I don't believe the most popular tag is generally also the most related one with the question.
Comment: @jasmines That may well be the case here but that's how it is. Given that all the Stack Exchange sites were born from Stack Overflow, I imagine this was originally intended to show the programming language (which probably works quite well for them) but it's not always incorrect here.
Comment: Stack Overload? ;-)
Comment: Excellent point about search engine optimization.
Answer: None of the tags are included automatically in the question's title.
The title of a question is the text displayed immediately above question's body and voting arrows. It is also displayed in lists of questions and search results.
Often the most popular tag is added to the title of the question page, which appears on the browser window or tab for the question:
tag - question title - site name
The name of the site (Ask Ubuntu here) isn't part of the title of the question either.
Probably just one tag is included in the HTML title of the question page because:

Including more than one tag would take up too much space and distract from the question's actual title.
Incomplete information is better than no information.

The current behavior is inelegant, but I'm not sure it's worse than any other way of doing it. Maybe this could be a per-user setting, though (not so that you'd change it for your own questions, but so that you'd change how it's displayed to you for all questions).


How can I approach my boss with bad news?

Question: The project I'm working on isn't going well; unfortunately, I just don't have the resources to complete it as assigned. However, nobody likes to be the bearer of bad news. What can I do to make the conversation go over more smoothly?
Comment: Hi sir would you like a christmas cookie? Ohh by the way that critical project you had me working on... How does that cookie taste good?  Great...
Comment: If you think being the bearer of bad news is tough, wait til you fail to get a project on time without warning anyone and giving them an opportunity to help fix it.
Comment: I think there's also an interesting corollary question: How should I handle bad news from subordinates/team-mates?
Comment: Is this a team project or a project that your manager has assigned entirely to you, or...some other configuration of people and resources?  In other words, could you say a bit more?
Comment: @jcmeloni The main issue is that I'm the only person on what I've discovered is definitely a multi-person project :/
Comment: At first its tough, then you get used to it :)
Comment: For the longer term, having a good relationship with your boss wil help.
Comment: This is why in the movie The Godfather, he was a very good boss. "Mr Corleone is a man who insists on hearing bad news at once." - Tom Hagen
Answer: What I've found is that it helps to have a plan of attack. In this case, I need more resources. It's much more palatable to hear "This isn't working, I'll need X, Y, and Z to get it to work. Can that be arranged?" than "This isn't working, sorry, it's not getting done."
It also helps to remember that he needs to hear this in order to do his job; it's not a matter of ruining his day so much as alerting him to something that his job is partially to fix. In that sense, it's no different than an alert saying the server is down: while it sucks that the server is down, it's better to know about it so it can be fixed than to hear it from a customer later.
Comment: Having a solution to get it back on track or get it heading toward completion is great... I would probably have a few others ready to go with numbers if you are going to miss the deadline by very much.  Management likes to make sure that the issue has been thoroughly considered.
Answer: I would suggest a lot depends on the situation, and what you are looking for from your boss.
The key things for me in presenting bad news is to be prepared, and calm. You need to:

tell them the scope and scale of the issue; what is affected, and the impact
have understood the root cause of the issue, and be able to explain this
accept responsibility for any failures on your part
accept responsibility for any failures on the part of anyone you delegated work to
bring the manager into the loop as early as possible, rather than ambushing them

If there are financial implications, it's also important to know if these are within your "delegated authority" to sign off, within your manager's, or go higher than that.
It is very important to keep the situation high level, focused on the big picture, and calm. It is also very important to not get drawn into a "blamestorming" vortex – there's time to update procedures and performance manage staff after the "event" has passed.
The next key issue is what is it you need to get from your manager:

forgiveness? (This is more important than you might think, in many cases)
approval on an action plan you have already developed?
feedback on an action plan you have put in place?
action on their part, with internal or external stakeholders?
advice on what to do?
full engagement and mangagement of the situation?

Be very clear on what you need the manager to do for you, however you can expect them to be frustrated if this is a repeat incident, and the root cause is the same. They may also want a higher level of engagement than you are suggesting.
Rightly or wrongly, people tend to get judged on how they manage a crisis of some sort – even in situations where good planning could have avoided a crisis in the first place.
Finally, while I wouldn't suggest ever trying to put a "positive spin" on a situation when reporting an issue, in many cases "bad news" of some sort can create an opportunity that can be turned to the organisation's advantage.  We all forget every time the hotel hasn't messed up our booking, but we all remember the room upgrades.
Comment: I agree with the first steps you list-- these are the things the manager will expect. Unfortunately, many times the scope, root-cause, and responsibility are either completely unknown or unclear. One of the things that often makes a crisis an actual "crisis" is lack of information. Trying to root-cause a hot problem before coming to others for help could easily make a bad situation worse, at the same time rushing for help at the first sign of trouble is also bad. There are some nuances here, I think.
Comment: @Angelo - I agree its a balance, and a lot depends on the management style of the boss and organisation.  I aim at the "situational leadership" model when I can, and so my expectation of my senior team members is a lot higher than my expectation of the juniors.  I also believe that we learn from mistakes, and it takes exceptional people to be able to learn from the mistakes of others.  The things that frustrate me are "learned helplessness" where staff never take any ownership of an issue, and *always* escalate, and "repeat offenders" where the same issue happens over and over again.
Comment: I think the main thing to this answer is "bringing the manager in as early as possible".  This is exactly the type of problem managers are supposed to be solving, everything else is just window dressing.
Answer: Assuming the difficulties are recent
First of all, be honest and realistic about things and put it into perspective. If you don't think the project is going well now imagine how difficult it will be to tell him several weeks or months later you are unable to finish the project as needed.
Second, don't just show up without thoughts on the issue. Try to be able to answer:

What is actually the problem? Lack of knowledge? Lack of time? Lack of resources? Insufficient direction? etc.
What is the scope of the problem? Is it just your project? Will it affect large scale efforts elsewhere?
What can specifically be done to solve it? Can having more people work on it help fix it? Do you need additional software? Do you need to be excused from other less important priorities? Are you waiting on approvals? Etc.

You do not want to show up and go "sorry boss not going to finish on time, fyi!" and not be able to have a coherent conversation about it.
You want be:

Aware there is a problem
Working to fix the problem
Seeking input on how to fix the problem

Last, make sure to realize no manager expects every project to be perfect. But what they do expect is to know when issues come up which affect project completion so they can reassign resources or help or adjust expectations as soon as possible. This is their job in some sense.
If this issues have existed for a long while...
Now if you and your team have been giving updates consistently for months saying things are going according to plan while being aware you are facing issues and now are suddenly in a "oh @#%#@ we aren't going to finish this WHAT DO WE DO" situation, this advice changes fairly significantly. At this point you need to approach the situation more delicately, because your manager will have a legitimate complaint. Make sure to approach a conversation along these lines from the perspective of, "Hello boss, can we talk about Project XXXX? We have been facing some issues which are going to affect our delivery - our team had thought we could overcome the difficulties but are not going to be able to. We should have talked with you sooner but had not expected them to be so significant."
You have made mistakes at this point (not informing the manager earlier) but still need to look forward.

This is also a really good reason to have weekly 1-on-1s with reports as this conversation should naturally occur during those times (especially for longer term projects). No one likes saying "we are not able to deliver." But people love saying "this project is too hard because we don't have XXXX" and so a manager can get that same information considerably easier via 1-on-1s.
Comment: Great answer, you most certainly need to take a different approach if you have previously been glossing over issues because you thought you could get them sorted out unassisted. In that case, I would also suggest putting in some extra effort prior to meeting the boss to make sure that you're on top of all the info about the project (task tracker up to date, current list of what's outstanding, etc.) so you don't have to answer any of his questions with "I don't know" or "I'll have to check".
Answer: First things first, the very worst action you can take is to not tell the boss. I refer to this as Project management by wishful thinking. Hoping a problem will disappear will not make it disappear. So when this stuff happens, the sooner you tell your boss the better. One of the first rules of surviving in the workplace is never blindside your boss (for those in places where they don't play football, this means don't let him get hit by someone who isn't you with an issue that he doesn't know about). We all want to delay telling bad news, trust me if you do, the news gets worse.
So now what to say. If you have a reasonable boss, generally you tell him what the problem is, how you have attempted to fix it and what the action plan is and what actions you need him to authorize that you can't take on your own. And especially you tell him how long the delay will be. He may need to take some actions that you can't authorize, but you shouldn't expect him to come up with the solution. Be prepared to explore several alternatives and answer questions in depth. Be sure to point out the possibility of reducing scope as an alternative to completely missing a deadline.
He may need to pass the information up the chain to his boss or to the clients (external or internal) and will not be any happier than you are about it. So make sure he has what he needs to report the issue up.
If the problem is from some mistake you or your team made (and not something like a person quitting, so there was no one to work on it). Then admit the error. I have seen far more people get in serious trouble in the workplace for trying to hide something than for admitting up front that they made a mistake. Particularly when the admission comes with a  plan of action to fix the mistake.
If you have a boss who is a screamer, just accept that he is going to scream and realize that he will scream less than if you told him even later. This goes for other unreasonable types. Remember admitting fault will defuse some of the unreasonable types. So will letting them know as soon as you can that there is a problem. When they can trust that you aren't going to hide the bad news and that you will have a plan to fix it, they tend to ease up a bit in my experience. A control freak is always going to want to tweak your plan, so leave him an obvious place to do so. That makes him less likely to tweak the very thing you need most.
Comment: +1 for "boss who is a screamer" and the advice on "managing up" when faced with a tough situation.  "Admit the error" is also a key point in my opinion - a pre-emptive apology and acceptance of accoutability (even if you were not strictly responsible) can work well to take the heat out of a situation in some cultures.
Answer:
How can I approach my boss with bad news?

Here's how you can approach your boss with bad news:

Do it rarely.
Do it early.
Do it with a well-considered strategy to remedy the issue.

Here's a deeper explanation:

When managers are looking to hire direct reports, they're looking for people who can solve problems and perform the work that they are hired to do. Most managers will not expect their direct reports to be perfect, but they will expect them to be mostly self-sufficient. Therefore, reports of bad news should be rare.
The act of reporting bad news is often a request for help. That's why it's important to report bad news early. Reporting bad news early gives your boss an opportunity to carefully consider the problem and either directly intervene or offer guidance.
Most bosses hate seeing their direct reports act the part of "a man overboard, crying out for a life preserver." So strive to never be "that guy". When you must report bad news to your boss, prepare a well-considered strategy for solving the problem beneath your "bad news". Even if it's only a partial solution to the problem, a well-considered strategy will demonstrate effort on your part to remedy the issue.

EDIT: In response to other answers, I'd like to add that honesty is a 'must' and excuses should be avoided. In a healthy organization, there will be time for a post-mortem meeting later.
Answer: To build on the other answers, I would suggest being honest upfront and avoiding passive aggression of trying to give good news before the bad.  I've been on both ends of the passive aggressive way of saying, "Here's some good news, now here's some bad news" and in the end, usually it feels like a cover up or manipulation.

Be honest about what you need and where you're at as far as the project.
Take responsibility where you can.  It's unlikely that it's all one person's fault, so accepting and being honest where an error was made will help.
The earlier to communicate problems, the better.  I've learned in many situations that trying to fix problems - without communicating their existence first - creates bigger problems later.  So if it feels to heavy now, it'll only be worse in time.
Keep expectations in mind: bad news means that we're failing someone's expectations and we consider that, we can usually begin to tell where we need to exceed them.
Answer: The simplest thing that you can do is:

Prepare a list of what has been achieved over a period say last 3-6 months. This will help to explain your boss that you were really working hard to achieve the objective and you have managed to do accomplish something.
Then make another list of pending task with effort needed to complete them. Then map this against the deadline you have been given to complete the whole work. Now tell your boss that in order to complete the work on time you would need additional resources. If for whatever reason additional resources cannot be provided ask him move the deadline accordingly.
Keep a record of this communication (you may need it later on).
Comment: Hi Parez, welcome to the Workplace SE. How would you approach your boss with bad news? Can you [edit] your post to answer the question? Your post is a better last-ditch alternative, whereas the asker is simply asking how to communicate better. Hope this helps.
Comment: Good edits Parvez! Again, welcome to our community! :)
Answer: Short answer: Depends on the boss.
Longer answer:
The boss got to be the boss by solving problems. He was thus granted more power to solve problems. That is his job, really; to use you to solve the problems other people bring him, and to use other things he can control to solve the problems you bring him.
So, the key with most bosses is to state the bad news in terms of a problem to be fixed. The problem is "we don't have enough resources to get this project done by the deadline". By "resources" I will assume you mean warm bodies coding, but it could also be expertise, or client input, or materials money (usually minor for IT jobs, but servers, networking equipment etc can be some pretty big-ticket items).
When presented with a problem, the boss now considers options:

Add warm bodies to the project to increase man-hours.
Approve overtime for the warm bodies that exist to increase man-hours (or, much more likely, just tell all the salary slaves to get back to work and not go home till it's done).
Go find more money for materials expenses.
Get the schedule extended to there are enough man-hours to do the job.
Get the scope reduced so what's left is doable with the available man-hours.

You don't have the authority to do any of this; that's why you're bringing it to your boss.
The only caveat in the whole thing is, you must bring problems to your boss while things can still be done to resolve them. If you see, three months out, that you're going to miss a deliverable, there's time to fix things by moving some people or dates around. If it's due tomorrow and there's 3 days' work left even if you all worked flat-out from now till the deadline, there's nothing to do but ask why you couldn't tell him sooner.
Answer: Unfortunately bad news is always bad news.
In a professional environment however it is always sort after to have an honest person, where appropriate, and to always show initiative. Such as in this case the critical but bad news is that the task can not be achieved. Also say you have worked hard to get the project this far and then tell the boss you should be able to reach this revised date with the current resources. Also lead on with an alternative deadline with revised resources.
Keep in mind you maybe surprised to hear the boss has shortened the deadline, as they normaly do, giving you a much needed extension.
Also a word of advice, people are, or more accurately, should not be shot for giving bad news as the only way to resolve something is to find out the issue first.
Answer: There are lots of good answers here, but I want to emphasize one thing in particular:

Do it as early as possible

Put yourself into your boss's shoes. If there is a problem, when the boss has time to address it, they have a lot more options. Consider the following two scenarios:
Let's say you have a month remaining to finish a project, which involves providing a deliverable to a customer. You are confident that for whatever reason, it's going to take two months, with a best case scenario of six weeks, and a worst case scenario of three months.
First, let's consider the scenario where you put it off until the deadline. Let's assume everything goes according to plan, to make this scenario as good as it can possibly be. Here is the current situation.

You've known about a problem for a month and told no one
You are going to miss your deadline by two weeks
The customer is going to be surprised and upset

And that's the best case! Imagine it's the worst case, where you actually have two more months of work to do.
Now, consider the scenario where you told him right away, that you expect it to take a month.
Your boss can:

Attempt to give you more resources, maybe loan you people from another team or help you himself in a more hands-on way
Warn the customer that there are some delays, so that the customer can juggle their own schedule and possibly handle the late delivery gracefully
Think of creative solutions that you haven't thought of, with time to execute them
Help you to mitigate the problem and ensure you will hit that best case time

Now consider what happens when it turns out that you're WRONG about the project requiring additional time:

If you didn't tell him, then all you did is make a deadline
If you did tell him, then the WORST thing is that your boss thinks that you worry a little too much. Which isn't really a problem at all.

There is no downside to communicating timeframes early and often with your boss.
This article is about programming - you haven't stated whether you are a programmer or not, but I think it's relevant for everyone: Three point estimation
Answer: I think a consensus has taken shape, and I am going to add to it. Your boss has access to resources and has options to act that you don't have and more than that, you boss has better access to the whole picture than you do, so escalating the issue to the boss as early as possible is the best and most effective course of action. Your boss can:
(1) suggest and authorize alternative approaches to the issue
(2) assign some of the strongest staff to back you up
(3) decide that this project is not worth continuing, and just kill it
(4) lower the priority and extend the deadline on the project and tell you to work on something else that's worth more to him
(5) take the project from you and assign it to somebody else, at no prejudice to you
(6) adjust the deadline and the task requirements and tell you to continue on the project
(7) tell you to continue the project and tell you that it's your choice between the project being completed on time and your head on a silver platter :)
(8) decide that your project is mission critical and throw all resources available into the project, even if the word "available" includes the taking of resources from other projects.
If you have a solid handle as to why this project is in trouble, your communication with the boss can increase the boss's regard for you as an effective, capable subordinate and professional who can be trusted to deliver bad news in a timely way, unless the boss is a total idiot and ignoramus - and I have had a couple of bosses who are idiots and ignoramuses and in one case, incredibly conceited, too :) Again, telling the boss as early as possible is critical because the earlier you tell, the more and better options are available to the boss and the more likely the boss is going to be grateful for your early intervention - yes, telling the boss he bad news early and competently is actually an intervention on your part, and a positive intervention at that :)
I presume that you are enough of a professional not to tell your boss anything without figuring out at least partially why you are in trouble because if someone did that to me, I'd be very, awfully annoyed.  If you were a manager or a boss, how would YOU feel about a subordinate who tells you that a project is failing but the subordinate is unable to tell you which parts of the projects are in trouble, what is the trouble and why? The least you should do is lay out the facts clearly and succinctly so that the manager can make the decision without reproducing your entire body of work in the project. And again, if I had to reproduce your body of work on the project to figure out what you did and didn't do because you couldn't tell me, you are out.


How to see the phone numbers a message was sent to?

Question: I sent a message to several people, and one of them indicates that they never got the message. Is there a way that I can email a copy of the message showing all the phone numbers the message was sent to?
Answer: No.
The iMessage function will send delivered and read receipts for messages delivered by Apple's Push Notification Service, but not through the carrier's SMS network.
You would have to send each message individually if you wanted to know if each message is received, but that also depends on the recipient opting in to share read receipts. If their devices are not configured to send back that confirmation, you need a mechanism that is outside the band of Messages to know a message was received. (like calling them, asking, sending a link that tracks cookies and they identify themselves in this interaction, etc...)


Remove permissions on list item change in sharepoint

Question: Is there any chance I can remove survey permissions on List item change?
Can i somehow set workflow on list item change to remove survey permissions?
Answer: What are you actually trying to accomplish (i.e. the reason behind changing the permissions)?  detailing the actual "requirement" will net you a better answer. But I will give you some possible routes that may solve different problems.
OOTB with SP Designer the answer is no.
If you all you want to do is limit the number of times a survey can be submitted than that can be set in the survey itself.
You could use Visual Studio can create a new action that does that or code a workflow directly in VS to accomplish this, because it requires the use of the API.
Additionally you could use InfoPath web forms (if you have enterprise edition CALs) and create your own survey.  You can use a combination of tracking columns and forms to show / hide the information you want. If you don't have InfoPath Webforms available, you can still achieve similar results with custom list pages and JavaScript, but it is a bit more work.
I'm assuming as well that all your users are authenticated and not anonymous. You have to make some farm level changes to allow Anon. users access to submit InfoPath forms.


My acoustic guitar strings won't play when I touch them?

Question: So I just started playing the guitar a few days back and I noticed the sound is off. When I pluck a string indivually it makes a nice clean sound, but even if there's the slightest pressure on one string the sound will completely go and it will sound weird and tinny. Please help me! I really want to learn the guitar but I don't know what's wrong with it! And it's definitely in tune and the strings are fine too I think.
Comment: You're not supposed to simply _touch_ them, you must _press them down_ so they make contact with the fret!
Comment: If you can afford a teacher, or even find a free first lesson, it seems like that would help. Also a web search for how to play the guitar, and maybe looking for some introductory Youtube videos might help a lot. It's not exactly obvious how it's supposed to work.
Comment: Do you mean string 2 has no sound when you mute string 1?
Comment: Are you talking about plucking a string without touching it with your left hand (or fretting hand), compared to when you're pushing it down?
Comment: Take heart, this is exactly my experience when I first tried to learn 30+ years ago. Lets just say I still play guitar. I recommend a teacher as well, at least to get you started. There are lots of things like this at first.
Answer: Uh, that's normal.  Guitar strings are not (apart from very special situations) to be played with "the slightest pressure on one string": if you are touching the string at all, you are supposed to press it all the way down until its playing part does no longer end at your finger but rather at the fret (that's one of the small metal bars in the fingerboard) in direction from your finger to the sound hole.  For a fretted string instrument, the vibrating part of any string ends at either the nut (which is where the string ends when your left hand does nothing) or a fret.  Never at a finger or other part of your anatomy.
That's the rule.  There are exceptions, but for now you don't need to bother with them.
Answer: It could be that the action on the guitar is set incorrectly or possibly the neck is warped.  Also, the truss rod may need an adjustment.  If you are fretting (pushing down all the way on a string) and it is not ringing out properly, it could mean that the string is hitting one or more frets closer to the bridge of the guitar.  You may want to take it in to a local guitarsmith and make sure it is set up properly
Answer: First of all you have to press each finger firmly right before the frets but don't press harder than needed. On an acoustic guitar you have to press harder than on an electric guitar and if the action of the strings is high (distance to the fretboard) you also have to press harder.
Clip your nails because it's almost impossible to play the guitar (i.e. on the fretboard) when your nails are too long.
Very important: you'll have to grow calluses on your finger tips! You will get this by playing a lot but beware not to overdo it when you're just starting because you don't want any blisters. You will get calluses within a week or so and after that it will get thicker and harder. If you do not have calluses yet, it's very hard to get a nice tone from your guitar so please be patient. You can speed up calluses growth by never washing your hands right after or before playing and by wetting your finger tips a few times a day with rubbing alcohol (this makes them dry which is exactly what you need). There are more tricks but keeping them dry is the most important. Don't wash your hands too often!
At last there's the finer technique of placing the fingers the right way. Only use your finger tips and place each finger precisely so it won't accidentally mute the other strings. Search Youtube for guitar lessons for beginners (only watch video's that get high ratings).
Answer: your problem is just that your not pressing hard enough. It hurts, I know, but just keep at it and within a few weeks your fingers will adapt to the strings.
The guitar is a great instrument that will accompany you for the rest of your life.Great start! Don't give up!
Good luck!


What's the hold function on a multimeter for?

Question: All it does on my multimeter is freeze whatever value it was reading at the time. When would I need to use this?
Answer: I rarely use the feature but for more precise measurements it can be useful. For example if measuring a sensor I might want to make a note that the meter reads 2.984 V and it's more convenient than trying to remember the value while I write it down on a piece of paper or enter the value into a spreadsheet etc.
Sometimes too I might be in a position where it's hard to read the meter output at the same time and I can rest my little finger on the hold while positioning the probes.
Some higher end meters also have an auto-hold type feature where once the reading becomes stable they will take the measurement and hold the display. That's a feature that I find much more useful because you don't have to keep your eye on the meter at all and they will beep when the measurement is done.
Answer: You are up a step leader with little light due to the power being turned off…
Meters are not just used at nice work benches.
Answer: Some hold buttons don't do the hold until the meter sees a signal. So you press hold, turn to your circuit, and put the probes on whatever you want to look at; the meter triggers the hold, and you get the reading without having to look at the meter or have a third hand to press the hold button while you're holding the probes.
Answer: Many uses, for example when you can't read the screen because it changes in value too fast to read, mostly measuring the average is better then.
Also you can use it to measure the value after a certain time after you switched something on/off.
Comment: Have you use this function in your multimeter?  What is the model?
Comment: I don't use it often, and the model I had used was an old Fluke handheld type at work for a few years.
Also I missed the obvious like PeterJ stated, use it to save the value so you don't have to remember all the digits.
The fast changing value is mostly only a problem if it fluctuates between two values with an overflow inbetween like 0.999 and 1.000, if it's fast you won't be able to read either of the values sometimes.


Flying from NYC via Philadelphia to Halifax, I clear Immigration and Customs in Canada?

Question: Because I am trying to process an immigration work permit for Canada, (I am an American citizen), I need to fly directly into Halifax from the States.  I am trying to make sure that I don't clear Canadian immigration and customs in the Philadelphia airport.  (For instance, when I fly from Toronto to the USA, I clear American immigration and customs there.)  Any ideas?
Answer: No, American airports don't offer preclearance the way Canadian ones do. (The reason is the relative number of airports in each country: the preclearance in a small handful of Canadian cities enables flights into hundreds of American cities. To do it the other way around would be crazy.)
You will clear customs and immigration when you land in Halifax.
Comment: If you believe Wikipedia, the U.S.-Canada treaty that established pre-clearance facilities is "fully reciprocal", meaning that Canada has the right to establish such facilities on U.S. soil if they so choose.  They just haven't done so, probably for the reasons you cite.
Answer: Unlike US Canada doesn't have immigration preclearance so the immigration control you will be passing in Canada.


Would tags for specific books be appropriate?

Question: I'm wondering if tags for example Durret's Probability book would be allowed.
I think that when one is reading a book, it would be interesting what doubts other user had when reading the same book. It can improve our learning experience.
Comment: Somewhat related: [Is using subtags to identify book source appropriate for this site?](https://math.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/13817/is-using-subtags-to-identify-book-source-appropriate-for-this-site)
Comment: Rather not. I think that came up already, but I fail to find it.
Comment: These past discussions are also related: [Is the tag \[hoffman-kunze\] necessary?](https://math.meta.stackexchange.com/q/27658) and [Adding (hartshorne) Tag?](https://math.meta.stackexchange.com/q/10056)
Comment: BTW it is still possible to mention in the text of the question where the problem comes from. So you can simply use [the built-in search](https://math.stackexchange.com/search?q=Durrett+Probability) or [Google](https://www.google.com/search?q=Durrett+Probability+site%3Amath.stackexchange.com) for this purpose.
Comment: @MartinSleziak I don't think the built-in search works that well...
Comment: @Anoldmaninthesea. Well, all that creation of the tag does is that you have possibility to *search* using the given tag. In any case, if you wish to discuss this further we can [continue in chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/19138/2018/8/13) - so that we do not digress too much from the topic of the question (which was about creating the tag).
Comment: Math.SE could be seen to be endorsing the tagged books. Although this is not the intention, I believe it would be a by product of such tags. I do not think Math.SE should be seen to be endorsing books.
Answer: As already mentioned in the comments, there are a few similar past discussions1 - you can see that having a tag for specific book is in general not a good idea.
One of the problems is that we would end up having too many very specific tags. (There are only five slots available for tags.) And it is better to use tag to describe what the question is about, tag for source of the question would be a meta tag.
On the other hand, I fully understand that you would consider useful to see whether there were some other questions from the book you're currently studying. There were also a few discussions related to this and some feature requests suggesting how this goal could be achieved more easily.2
Probably the best thing to do with the tools we already have in our disposal is to encourage askers to include the source of the question. This is already recommended in the FAQ: How to ask a good question.
If askers include the information about the book, then you can use search to find questions you might be interested in. You can use Google - this has the advantage that it searches in comments, too. (Searching in comments is a bit more difficult.) Or you can use the built-in search. This only search posts, but you have the advantage that you can easily sort search results by votes or activity, filter them using tags or additional keywords, etc.

1See: Is using subtags to identify book source appropriate for this site?, Is the tag [hoffman-kunze] necessary?, Adding (hartshorne) Tag?, etc.
2See: Categorizing homework questions with textbook information in a way that makes the site act like a solutions manual, Centralized solutions to textbook problems considered harmful?, etc.


Mapquest in Qgis, why the blur?

Question: I'm trying to do a simple map in Qgis using mapquest has background.
I have read that and followed the scale values but even while using those, I get some bad blur on my map.
I can't figure out to do take it away.
I just wanted a simple base map for my map but it seems it's not so easy to find, i thought mapquest could be the one but ... doesn't work well :/
Answer: The current version of openlayers plugin has solved the blur effect in a better way than the blogpost did.
Changing CRS to EPSG:3857 might also improve the picture.

Mapquest in Qgis, why the blur?


Google Analytics event tracking code being stripped out of links in Author box - WordPress site

Question: I am using Yoast's Google Analytics plugin on my WordPress site. I have enabled Event Tracking for outbound links and have successfully manually added event tracking for some other internal links. It all works fine EXCEPT for in the 'Author Box'. Under each post I created an author box which pulls "the_author_description" from the user profile. This seems to strip out the GA event tracking code. I have an outbound link in there which should automatically be tracked by the plugin but the code is not there. If I try and manually add the code to any of the links in the user profile, they also get stripped out.
Any ideas on how to fix this?
Answer: I do not think its because the tracking code is stripped out but that it never made it to your 'Author Box.'
I'll try to look into the plugin later, but my guess is that the plugin will filter the page's content from hooks and filters.


How can I mine PeerCoin?

Question: I was wondering how I could mine peercoin - I already have experience mining Bitcoins and Litecoins, yet I can't seem to find any software where I can mine them - I would like to be able to mine them on my mac with a GPU, so any applications, or terminal commands would be a great help... I already have my Peercoin wallet and everything set up. I have tried CGMiner except in the recent update they completely dumped support for GPU mining.
Answer: You can use this simple guide from peercointalk to help you mine on a mac.
Answer: Here you're.Peercoin Starter from A -Z. Best guide you can find in the World
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLb4XAiA2P4&list=PLBt4zAxcWonnA8-InWGUEw-UZofHdUIeT
Answer: Yes, CGMiner dropped GPU mining support from version 3.8 upwards - you need to get 3.7.0 which still has it and still works like a charm (at least on Windows and Linux). Be careful to check at a profitability calculator if it's worth it - given too many people with ASICs have diverted them for other SHA256-powered coins, you might not cover your costs.
Or you could simply buy some Peercoins in an exchange and leave your client on and connected all the time: the way PPC works, you'll get a small interest on your coins over time (circa 1% annually). Or you can simply buy them, and after 90+ days (or even 1 year) start up your client and leave it connected for some hours - you'd still earn some riskless interest, but less than if you'd left the client on the whole time, as discussed in-depth  in the answers to this question.

How can I mine PeerCoin?