Looking for an adware removal tool

Question: Hi friends I am looking for a good adware removal tool
Any suggestions ?
Comment: [Read this](https://softwarerecs.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/336/what-is-required-for-a-question-to-contain-enough-information) and [edit] your question.
Answer: As advised by Jan Doggen, you need to review your question after reading this post.
Your question is entirely subjective. Under no user case is there a 'best' anti-virus, things change, systems update in real-time, and user wants/needs differ.
Furthermore, following items have not been addressed:

Operating System;
Intended Budget;
System Specifications (some AVs are really resource intensive....McAfee) and;
Other requirements.

None the less, I am sure there are a number of people whom will review this question in the hopes of cleaning their PC. So, I'll answer it as nicely as I can.

Linux/Unix Systems
If you're running Linux, there are a few options. My suggestion here would be to not use ClamAV, and take a more enterprise approach with Sophos or Bitdefender.
Read this old post on Linux Anti-Virus debating whether you need an AV or not; depending on the use of the system depends on the needs of the user. In an ever-evolving world of threats, providing your root password to a pop-up can open you up to heaps of back-doors, for example.
Please note, I have used none of the following products. Please look into their features and reviews independently.
Current options
- ClamAV;

Sophos; (Installation guide may be depreciated: Installing Sophos on Ubuntu)
Comodo;
Chkrootkit;
FProt and;
Bitdefender

There are many other options available to you as well. In unison with an Anti-Virus system, you should also use a Firewall, and understanding the implications of running apps as root.

Windows Server/Client
If you're running Windows, then there are a plethora of tools readily available for your use; check the following table.
Regarding Security on a Windows PC , there are several key "tools" you should look for:

Real Time protection, coined "On Access Scanner";
Heuristic;
Client Firewall;
Intrusion protection and detection and
Content Control (Web Filtering);

An example of a free tool that implements Web Inspection, and IDS:

Recommendations for Anti-Virus and Firewall
Non subscription based firewalls

With all Windows Anti-Virus, I use AVComparatives to read and review my programs. You can view their latest results for the tests here.
I would also recommend you read the following article(s):

Is it worth getting paid anti-virus?
Can I safely trust my anti-virus?

Mac OSX
The same can be applied to Mac OSX as Windows and Linux. There is no need to go into detail here.

Back in "the old days", I use to use SuperAntiSpyware because it was cheap, lightweight and rather effective. I've just installed the trial, and after 1 minute of scanning, note the following:

Further investigation shows these seem to be legitimate cookies that "track me" (not spyware programs):

However, to properly "secure" a system, there need to be multiple layers of security:

Regular backups of your personal files;
Current anti-virus;
Secure Firewall;
User administration;
Web Protection and;
Data encryption.

These items, when employed, help further secure your PC.
Related questions

Backup and sync few important files to cloud
Software to password-protect individual folder(s) on Windows 7
CLI Based Backup Solution
Free/ AUD Backup Solution
Encrypt folder Windows 7 home
Mechanism of delivery
Answer: Malwarebytes is considered the best for a Mac. There is probably a PC version as well. It's certainly worth checking. It will scan your disk for malware and also run in the background if desired to check incoming problems.

Looking for an adware removal tool


Non-relativistic spinors

Question: Even in a non-relativistic theory Spinors can arise as irreducible representations of the rotation subgroup of the symmetries of the theory. Why do people then put so much emphasize on the role of Relativity and the Dirac's equation in the topic? Is it just for historical reasons?
Answer: The Dirac equation has three predictions which explain phenomena observed in the hydrogen atom energy levels.

The gyromagnetic ratio of 2
The spin orbit interation which includes the Thomas precession, please, see for example Gurtler and D. Hestenes
The Darwin term (please see again, the last reference).

Now, Bargmann already in 1962 discovered the ray representations of the Galilean group (equivalently, the true representations of a central extension of the Galilean group now known as the Bargmann group) and described its spinor representations.
The fact is that it is possible to formulate Galilean invariant wave equations which give the correct gyromagnetic ratio, spin orbit interation and the Darwin term. please see for example FUSHCHYCH, NIKITIN,SALOGUB , however, these equations contain arbitrary parameters which must be fitted to the experiment.
The subject of Galilean invariant wave equations is still under research, please see for example a recent article by : Niederl and  Nikitin .
In my opinion, one of the reasons that there are no free parameters in the relativistic case, which makes the relativistic theory especially elegant (in addition to its full consistency with experiment), is that the Lorentz group is simple in contrast with the Galilean group.
I don't know if it is possible to formualte a Galelian invariant theory fully consistent with the experiment in the nonrelativistic regime developed from first principles (as in the case of the Dirac equation) and without ad-hoc terms, but I think it is possible, because the Galilean group can be obtained as an  Inonu-Wigner contarction  of the Lorentz group. I think that at least, this way, one can reduce the number of free parameters.
Comment: It's not a huge deal, but while I would agree that the g factor is a prediction of the Dirac equation, the Dirac equation isn't necessary in order to get it right. One can use the non-relativistic Schrodinger-Pauli equation. See pg78-79 in Sakuri's ' Advanced QM.'
Answer: From a practical standpoint it depends on your field and motivation whether relativity and the Dirac equation are necessary tools. If you are working with things like the Aharonov–Bohm effect or in fields like Quantum Chemistry then full-blown Quantum Field Theory is unnecessary and quantum mechanics will suffice. Single-particle wave functions (or linear combinations of them) will be all you need to do your calculations. If you really want to be more precise then you can add relativistic corrections to your Hamiltonian, but you still don't need the Dirac equation or full blown QFT yet. However, if you are a particle physicist and want to smash things together at large energies and see what comes out you are going to need more machinery. Because of relativity ($E = m c^2$, roughly) you are going to create new, heavier particles either as external states in the final product of the collision or you will see effects of intermediate states of these heavier particles. In short you need a multi-particle theory that takes relativity into account- QFT including the Dirac equation (well, Lagrangian actually) is indispensable in this case. For more information on the limitations of non-relativistic quantum mechanics and how QFT addresses these limitations for particle physics I would see the the end of a Quantum mechanics book (chapter 20 in Shankar for example) or the beginning of a QFT textbook (chapters 1 & 2 of Peskin).

Non-relativistic spinors


Why are antibodies so expensive?

Question: The amplification on vector transgenic microorganisms and the subsequent purification does not seem that complicated. Also, what are the processes that biotechnological industries follow, in detail, on their production?
Comment: Additionally, please read my answer to [this question](http://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/3564/how-are-antibodies-designed) and let me know if you'd like more detail.
Comment: Your question is not very clear - what exactly do you mean by the first sentence? I can answer your second sentence quite easily, as I used to work for a major antibody company, but I'd like to know what you'd like me to focus on, as the subject area is very broad.
Answer: Making antibodies is mostly nothing you do with transgenic microorganisms. To make an antibody you first have to immunize an animal with the correct antigen. This includes have an animal facility where you can keep animals under clean conditions. If you are looking for polyclonal antibodies (meaning a whole bunch of different antibodies with different specificities) you will boost the animal before sacrificing them and isolating their blood to purify the antibodies.
If you are aiming for monoclonal antibodies then the animals will be boosted as well, then sacrificed and their spleens isolated. From the spleens you make single cell solutions from which antibody producing cells are isolated and plated one cell per well of 96 or 384 well plates and cultivate them to identify cells which produce antibodies. These cells are fused with immortal cells to produce immortal hybridoma cell lines which secrete a lot of antibodies into the cell media. These antibodies still need to be characterized to make sure the really bind the antigen of choice and not something else (in the spleen a lot a these reactions take place).
Just for estimations: Making one batch of a custom polyclonal antibody in rabbit with a given peptide sequence will cost you at least 5000\$ to 10.000\$ the last time we checked for it. Monoclonals are more expensive. So making an antibody is quite an investment on the first hand.
Answer: There are some pretty good articles on Wikipedia about antibody production here and here. My crude understanding is that, you will have to grow and animal and bleed or sacrifice it to extract antibodies. This process along with purification costs a bit of time + money. Additionally, antibodies for humans must be grown under more stringent conditions to avoid contaminants and reacting to human immune system.

Why are antibodies so expensive?


Keep VMWare from auto-closing my virtual machine

Question: I have a VMWare VM running off of a external hard drive.  Works great and I have no problems with the set up.  What keeps annoying me is that after about 20 minutes of inactivity the VM automatically saves its state and closes.  Is there a way to keep the VM from becoming inactive?  I couldn't find any obvious settings for this and it doesn't happen with my other VMs running off of a "regular" hard drive, so I'm thinking it could have something to do with the drive itself and not VMWare?
Answer: It certainly has nothing to do with the drive itself.
This is most likely caused by the power management settings inside the virtual machine: If your VM is set to suspend or hibernate after a certain idle period, it will trigger a VMware suspend.
Additionally, in your VM settings you have probably enabled the "Close after powering off or suspending" setting in the power options causing the virtual machine itself to close after such an event.
Comment: You must look at both your host and your guest OS's settings, I just had to change my Windows guest's sleep timer to never despite my host Windows's sleep being disabled.
Answer: In VMWare Workstation go to:
Edit menu > Preferences > in Preferences window > Workspace tab and make sure that the "Keep VMs running after Workstation closes" option is checked.
Answer: I experienced the same issue with my Android VM suspending after 10 seconds of inactivity.
To resolve:

Start the VM
Go Settings->Display->Sleep
Change to "Never time out"


What is the most balanced/competitive character set in Citadels?

Question: In Citadels, most versions that are currently available for sale also include the Dark City expansion.  Since those extra characters are available, what arrangement of characters do you find the most balanced and competitive?
Please clarify your response by indicating why you've chosen to add or remove these particular characters to balance gameplay.
Comment: Nice question - I've only ever played with the "basic" configuration myself, so I'd be excited to hear if anyone has any favourite alternatives!
Answer: I've found the default characters are the most balanced set of characters.  While I haven't played with all of the extra characters, some of them significantly change how the game plays.  Bruno Faidutti, the creator of Citadels, says he prefers the default characters on the game's Rules FAQ on his website.  Quote:

Q: What is your favorite character mix?
A:
The 8 basic characters, plus the Queen or the Artist when playing with 6 or 7 players.
Q: What's the best character mix?
A:
Many players prefer the Witch over the Assassin, but I disagree. The Assassin is simpler and naughtier. I prefer the original set, sometimes with adding the Queen, and sometimes with replacing the Merchant with the Alchemist.

For the extra characters I have played with, I have a few impressions I can share with you.
Tax Collector:  I found without the threat of the thief, people started hoarding money.  This reduces some of the tension in the game.  Since players can't get robbed, they can save to build up to build the most expensive district.  Players were also careful to not have money to pay the tax collector after building.
Emperor: Since you can no longer take the crown for yourself, most people gave the crown to the player to their right.  This gave them a better choice of cards in the next character draft, while benefiting the player to the right.  The Emperor does make it fairer though how the crown is distributed, but it's also the only character ability the benefits someone else in the game.
Alchemist: The ability to get all your gold back you spend is great, but the Alchemist replaces the Merchant.  Since the Merchant can tax green properties and the Alchemist can't, this makes green districts the most worthless ones in the deck.  They can't be taxed and provide no special benefit.  Green also happens to be the most common color in the district deck
Finally while i haven't played with it, the Diplomat seems to be one of the most powerful characters in the game.  It will definitely change the dynamic of the game and make it harder to hold onto powerful purple districts.  That doesn't mean that any of these characters are bad, and the opportunity to try them out was a bad inclusion in the game.  I just think the default set of characters is the most balanced.
Comment: I thought the tax collector made it so if the other player would have no gold at the end of their turn when they built the district, they would be unable to do so. Can you get out of paying the tax collector if you have no money?
Comment: Nice.  I always start with the normal characters, and then switch new characters into the game one by one to keep the game fresh.  Usually, the assassin is the first to go, but I will keep these comments in mind.
Comment: I think the official rule interpretation allows you to build without paying taxes if you are out of money after building, but that seems to make the Tax Collector worthless.  Enacting some sort of house rule for the Tax Collector has always seemed like a good idea to me.  I actually asked a question about enacting a Tax Collector house rule on this site, but the question was closed.
Answer: I prefer the standard set with the Diplomat.
The Diplomat improves the game in two ways:

There's less luck. If I happen to get a great purple building, I can't expect to run away with the game because the Diplomat may take it from me. Also, 1-cost buildings are no longer complete garbage.
The Warlord's ability is worthless in a large game. Paying to harm an opponent just hands the game to everyone else.

You can also use the Navigator, but you should then switch the Magician for the Wizard --- drawing 4 district cards makes you so tasty a Magician target that you de facto don't have the option.
Other than those changes, I find it best to stick with the base set.
Incidentally, in my group the Witch is completely broken. Player 1 almost always chooses the Witch and is very likely to get the role she wants and avoid the Thief.
Comment: The warlord can destroy 1-cost districts for free, which isn't worthless at all! (If you pick on the leader, removing a colour grouping +1 cost is 4 points. And if you delay them getting 8, that's another 4 points.)
Answer: We play a lot of Citadels (3 games always, counting the points from previous games - makes 2nd and 3rd game from the start more competitive) and we have played with almost every combination so here is what I think:

Assassin or Witch

both can go
Assassin is simpler but sometimes makes my friends too frustrated - being killed twice in a few rounds makes them give up on the round
Witch is nicer since player receive their action gold (or cards) but seems like whoever is 1st will pick her by default which is boring a bit IMO

Thief or Tax Collector

Thief, thief, thief and only THIEF! Playing with the Tax Collector is just too simple, people build whatever they want by simply hoarding gold. Another aspect is that everyone do their best not to pay the tax so tax collector receives 1 gold max with 6 players

Magician or Wizard

both good but pick depending on what you pick for number 7
Navigator can't go with Magician (what's the point of taking 4 new cards when someone will steal them the next round probably), Wizard can go with Navigator or Architect and it's less fatal but still feared a lot

King or Emperor

I'm a bit biased here
personally I don't like the Emperor since somehow whenever we play with him one person keeps the crown for a very long time which is terrible
the problem with the Emperor is that when he is killed the crown doesn't move
combining Witch with the Emperor is better since bewitched Emperor moves the crown
King is safe, easy to understand and goes better with Queen (speaking from experience)
OT: killing the King is really stupid unless someone has 2-3 yellow districts

Bishop or Abbot

we tried playing with Tax-Emperor-Abbot thinking there's gonna be a lot of gold exchanging between players and that Emperor and Abbot will help TaxC get more gold - we were wrong; don't play TaxC
Abbot is interesting but it really lacks that protect that Bishop offers
Bishop is simple and yes, sometimes boring, but it makes the game more complex by not letting Warlord destroy a certain city that round and that's why Abbot is completely useless

Merchant or Alchemist

both can go but Merchant usually wins
Merchant's purpose is to get more gold - you get 1 extra plus 1 for every green district and let's face it, the deck is full of those
with Alchemist you don't receive more gold, you just get back what you had so building more expensive stuff is only gonna work with other coloured cards, and there aren't many when 6 is grey
with Alchemist, green district become useless and that's a turn off for the most of my friends
Never play with TaxC and Alchemist - its a disaster
Alchemist and Navigator also don't work, Thief can steal mass gold you got from playing Navigator then Alchemist but then that Thief has mass gold and with Alchemist our bank is sometimes completely depleted
just play Merchant regularly, and play Alchemist sometimes to spice it up

Architect of Navigator

I strongly suggest Architect because without it there is no chance of someone rushing at the end by having 5 districts than building 3 with the Architect and therefore ending the game (which we really like and are constantly killing the architect near the end)
Navigator isn't that bad thought, if you don't miss those 3 districts at once from Architect
you can still build 2 districts in one round with Wizard hey (that's one more reason why Wizard always goes with Navigator)

Warlord or Diplomat

Warlord is the only card which reduces the number of districts someone has in their city (Armory as well yes, but that's one 1 district in the whole deck) and therefore is viable for a dynamic game.
with Diplomat you have a cool swapping tool but the number of districts remains always the same
you can theoretically play Navigator and Diplomat (so that Architect can't build 3 districts) as opposed to Architect and Warlord but in my opinion Architect and Warlord are far more better
one gold districts are more useful in Diplomat game but if you can build a tavern for example when you are the Merchant you get that 1 gold you spent back and you shouldn't despair if it gets destroyed; if you collect the income twice it's your benefit

Queen or Artist

use Queen when there are 5-6 players, use Artist when there are more
using Queen when there are 7 or more players pretty much reduces the Queen's probability of success so use Artist
Artist can be used always actually and it's pretty much needed if you built low-cost purple districts that give some serious advantages (MUSEUM) and you want to make it harder for Warlord to destroy it
I bolded the Queen instead of the Artist simply because she is more fun

I've bolded the combination we stick to mostly
Comment: I think you have some typo on your Number 4. The Emperor always gives the crown to another player other than himself. Which I think it's more balance than the King.
Answer: Everyone has equal access to the selected roles, so it's not so much the balance of the game that changes: only the metagame is affected.
Before we start the game, we put all the roles pairwise on the table. Then we randomly select a starting player who picks one role. Its counterpart is removed. We proceed clockwise until all roles have been picked.
This adds an extra dimension to the game, because you can tell something about a person by the roles they choose to include.
Afterwards if we're up for another game, we swap out all the character cards for their counterparts.
Answer: We now play with the Witch instead of the Assassin. The Assassin is too powerful. Get hit twice in a game and there's no chance for a comeback. With the Witch, the beweitched character still gets a little something and the Witch character guarantees you a role that round.
We also play with an enhanced Queen to make her as valuable as the other roles. If Queen is sitting next to King, she gets 3 gold. We add on: if she is sitting 1 away from King, she gets 2 gold.
Answer: I like to choose randomly to have a different setup each time. I agree with other commenters that the base set is easier, so I tend to just choose two of the expansion characters randomly before the game. I then put them in with the base set and remove their equivalents (e.g. if the Witch is randomly chosen, remove the Assassin). Each time I play the setup is a little different so it keeps the game quite interesting.
In my play experience, I've found that I'm not a fan of the Witch or the Emperor. The Witch is more powerful than the Assassin, who I think is powerful enough as it is. On the other hand I find the Emperor to be a little weak. The King is a good out if the start player keeps taking Assassin, or Thief if there is no Assassin, but at least then the King puts themselves in the driving seat, whereas the Emperor seems unnecessarily weaker.
Answer: In the 3-player games I play:

Assassin - Witch is too strong. If you go first and take Witch there's nothing another player can do to stop you getting the second character you want. If you have for example 3 green districts in play, that can literally be lights out. Witch is more balanced in games with other numbers of players.
Thief - because he's a better ganker than the Tax Collector, who often ends up missing. Without the Thief in play there's also no reason not to hoard gold as well.
Wizard - the Magician is too hit-or-miss and is rather underpowered in my experience, especially since everyone's hand size quickly goes down as the game progresses. Wizard guarantees a successful hit.
Emperor - as an extra ganking character. We also find that having the crown counter isn't much of an advantage (until near the end of the game), making the King rather underpowered as well.
Abbot - as an extra ganking character.
Merchant - the Alchemist doesn't give extra gold for green districts, which makes green districts useless. Plus, Thief makes picking the Alchemist a high stakes choice none of my playgroup liked.
Architect - the Navigator is busted when you have two characters per round.
Warlord - with the special house rule that the Warlord can attack both enemy players at once for the same amount of gold spent (without this rule, you're spending gold to set back one player while the other player takes advantage to win). Diplomat doesn't actually reduce the number of districts a player has built, which helps end the game quicker but gives it less complexity as well.
Obviously we can't use the Queen, and Artist is so weak we typically never play with him, so usually we don't use a 9th character.

Some district cards are banned:

Park: way overpowered, especially when you have two characters to use your gold with.
Smithy: also way overpowered. When you consider that on each turn a character may either draw 2 gold or draw one card, being able to draw three cards is insane.
School of Magic: this might be balanced in a larger game but with two actions per player per round, this is often generating two gold /
round = busted.
Armory: too cheap for its effect.
Answer: Including Dark City extension, I personnaly love following deck:

Witch
Thief (mandatory role if Navigator enters in game)
Magician (stacking all cards with Navigator can be dangerous)
King (the Emperor could be interesting also depending on number of players)
Bishop (mandatory to protect against Diplomat, Abbot is not useful)
Alchimist (losing green district taxes but powerful in combination with Navigator)
Navigator (high rewards but high risk: being stolen
or betwitched)
Diplomat (swapping is more interesting than
destroying)

This set creates high tension game with a lot of money to steal. I think this is balanced and interesting for games with at least 4 players.
Answer: For me, it depends if I play a two players game or more.
In a two players game - Assassin is way too strong, so I prefer to use the witch (that way - if the other player gets hit, he still can make his action).
The warlord is stronger in a two player game, which is good, and it also makes the Bishop better. In a 3+ players game, I prefer the Diplomat because the warlord losses strength.
Comment: The first half of your answer addresses the question, though could use some clarification and support. The second half is a follow up question which should not be asked in the answer, Please take it out of your answer and post it as your own question, and reference this question in it if you wish.


What causes muscle spasms?

Question: What causes muscle spasms with muscles that are not in the heart  ? Could it be some sort of stimulus overload that causes a massive contraction?
Answer: According to wikipedia and MedlinePlus muscle cramps can be caused by muscle overuse or injury or dehydration and lack of minerals (eg. potassium or calcium). In this wikipedia page you can read about the mechanism of muscle contraction. I'd emphasize and quote the most important parts here:

ATP binds to myosin, allowing it to release actin and be in the weak binding state (a lack of ATP makes this step impossible, resulting in the rigor state characteristic of rigor mortis). The myosin then hydrolyzes the ATP and uses the energy to move into the "cocked back" conformation. In general, evidence (predicted and in vivo) indicates that each skeletal muscle myosin head moves 10–12 nm each power stroke, however there is also evidence (in vitro) of variations (smaller and larger) that appear specific to the myosin isoform.
  Steps 9 and 10 repeat as long as ATP is available and calcium is freely bound within the thin filaments.

As you can see ATP is essential in the release of myosin from actin. In case of muscle overuse and dehydration ATP is depleted from the muscle cells and may cause the muscle to cramp.
Also according to this site it is said that repetitive firing of motor units with high frequency is associated with muscle cramps, although tehe origin of this is yet not clear. It can be either from the central nervous system or the peripherial.
Comment: Can the repetitive firing of any group of muscle tissues be 'dampened' by the local addition of certain biochemicals like endorphins ( if that's an appropriate molecule for 'dampening' ). Or maybe having certain receptors related to 'firing cells' blocked somehow.
Comment: To be honest, I do not know by heart, but I think you should post this as new question, to attract other people, and hopefully get an answer.
Comment: There was a story recently in the CTV news from Toronto ,Canada ; about a woman in great pain who had an electronic device implanted on her spine. This device sent signals to her brain area 'responsible' for the pain signals. Now she feels no pain. They said it was an underused technology. Maybe a similar device could send signals to the brain areas to do with the heart. Maybe if a chaotic spasm in the heart muscle was imminent signals 'could' be sent to the heart system through this 'device' to 'overwhelm' any chaotic signals and 'normalize' the heart rhythm.

What causes muscle spasms?


Russia and the Security Council resolution on a Syria ceasefire

Question: Why did Russia block the recent U.N. Security Council resolution on a ceasefire in Aleppo?
Answer: There were two projects denied in Security Council. Let's discuss both of them.
First, the French project was essentially about (a) ceasefire in Aleppo, plus (b) stopping air bombing especially. It's easy to understand that although (a) is hard to implement (because there are too many armed groups in Aleppo), but (b) is easy.
So if the French project had been accepted then the battle in Aleppo would have become more or less positional fights without any significant advance. And that is a great loss for an attacking side, because they need far more troops to keep the siege than it takes for defenders to break it.
And what is more important, any failure to implement this resolution could be blamed on Russia, as it would be practically only Russia's due to follow it (you have no way to punish An-Nusra for breaking truce).
Next, the Russian project was (a) reviving the Russia-USA September plan about separation between FSA and An-Nusra in Aleppo, and (b) De Mistura's proposal about UN supported humanitarian corridors. That one was denied by USA, UK, France and a few others members.
The item (a) was effectively abandoned by the USA earlier: was it due to their unwillingness or inability, it doesn't matter anymore. It only matters that the USA would certainly fail to implement this item. And (b) is both hard to implement and requires international cooperation, so any future difficulties could be blamed on all sides.
So if the Russian project had been accepted then most of the future problems could have been laid on the USA.
To summarize: (a) no ceasefire in Aleppo is practically possible, and both sides know it pretty well; (b) USA's aim is to make Russia responsible for that, while Russia wants exactly the opposite.
Actually it's a typical sample of the Security Council's work.
Answer: Among those have veto power, there are two sides on the Syria issue: Russia+ China and US+UK+France. Each side want to limit the other by any means possible; Including UN resolutions. So Russia veto other sides resolution and want to implement its own plan. But in the media they can not say "we play a game on people life", so each side says we do this because of ... (you know this part; i.e. fighting terrorism, helping civilians, ...)
The point is that using veto power isn't without cost, because the other side can use media to convinced the public opinion against using veto. (So although russia has said that they would veto the resolution, the rival presented it).
So why Russia pay the cost here?
The resolution limits Russia and Assad. The main weapon-priority of Assad against  opposition (Daesh, Al-Nusra, Free Syrian Army,...) is Air Force. Also Iran (Russia's regional ally on the issue) claims that US and its allies want to prevent Assad's victory at Aleppo and save terrorists. Russia accepts this viewpoint. Aleppo is a key in the Syria battle.
Comment: "The point is that using veto power isn't without cost, because the other side can use media.." - no, only one side can use the global media, and we know which.
Comment: I almost agree that only one side can use media effectively but note that the other side also has limited audiences in the world. they also can effectively use media for their own people.


What is the difference between do, tiel, tial, tiom, and sekve?

Question: Can someone tell me the difference between these words?They all can translate as " so" in English. I've also seen do, tiel, and tial translated as "therefore". Please also provide sentence examples Thanks.
Comment: **So** the problem is that there are **so** many meanings of the word *so* in English, **so** the translations from Esperanto end up appearing **so** similar, when in fact they are different meanings.
Answer: <code>Reason    kial = why            tial = therefore, so, for that reason
Manner    kiel = how            tiel = so, in that way
Quantity  kiom = how much/many  tiom = that much

Following                       sekve = so, as a consequence
</code>
Answer: The so called table words (correlatives) have a very specific meaning. The table words starting with ti- correspond to the question words starting with ki-.
While the english word so is very unspecific, the table words represent the basic categories for anything you can think about:

quality
reason
time
place
manner
association
object
amount
individual

The english word so can only be understood in context.

Tial means exactly for that reason and nothing else.
Tiel means exactly in that manner and nothing else.
Tiom means exactly that amount and nothing else.

I don't see, how tiom could translate to so rather than to so much (but I am not a native English speaker).
The translation of sekve is best considered consequently.


door knob for thick interiour door

Question: I'm considering making a well insulated interior door and need to understand the door thickness implications for the getting a door knob.  The door could be upto 3" thick - less if getting a door knob becomes a problem.  I'd like to use a cheap off the shelf knob - possibly adding extensions.
Comment: Did you do any research before asking a question here?  I did a web search for "door knob for thicker doors" and came up with many options, including extension kits and knobs for thicker than normal doors.  Hinges and functionality of a door that thick is another problem to be addressed.
Comment: I did, hence my suggestion of extension, but didn't really understand the options. Is this all I need to adapt one?  https://www.handlesets.com/thick-door-kits/c8599
Comment: visit a hardware store that sells door handle sets .... see what they offer
Comment: @jsotola - thank you for the tip, but why waste an hr or 2 and gasoline when then is a community of creative people with great ideas.
Answer: A standard lockset could be inset into the face of the door, so that 95% has full insulation.  You will also need to consider hinge screw locations in the edge of the door.
Comment: You're suggesting recessed door handles?
Comment: I.e. putting some of your insulation proud of the door handle surface, except where it interferes with the handle. It's not even an inconvenience if you are using lever handles.
Comment: Was definitely over thinking the problem.  I've now have a hollow core door and have attached rigid insulation except near the door handle.  At some point, I might cover the insulation w/lauan - but this was simple and cheap enough.

door knob for thick interiour door


Categories or tags based navigation ?

Question: I am not sure if tags based navigation would be easier for users. In our web we categorize software (like download.com) and categories maybe are hard to understand.
Comment: This decision depends a lot on such information. Can you specify your application and target groups a bit more?
Comment: See also http://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/6949/does-the-average-user-understand-the-difference-between-tagging-and-categories
Answer: I personally prefer tagging to using categories.
The advantages of categories:

clearly defined
could be hierarchical
static (in most cases)

The advantages of using tags:

unstructured
could be very easy user-defined

The advantages of using tagging is that the amount of tags something can have is unlimited, and ultimately users can tag items themselves. This is allows for a nice level of user-interaction, and your data will improve by each user adding a tag.
Navigation based on tags is then actually searching on any combination of tags, and will allow to get a very precise wanted collection of results. E.g. very good examples of succesfull tagging are (imo):

stackexchange
gmail
flickr
Comment: It's important as well to point out that the strengths of each approach are also an inherent weakness.  For example: categories are well-structured, clearly defined, etc.  However, this organization requires concerted effort of a user/community to establish a category structure that makes sense.  On the flip side, tags do offer great flexibility.  However, this flexibility tends to lead to a much messier, inconsistent classification.
Comment: Ultimately, I think Wordpress' definitions of the two helps distinguish how they are different.  Categories: http://codex.wordpress.org/Glossary#Category  Tags: http://codex.wordpress.org/Glossary#Tag
Comment: Thanks for these additions. I agree the strengths are also its weaknesses. It depends on what you prefer. Rigid or more loose. I have the feeling you were trying to make a point, but it is not quite clear to me which one.
Comment: Not advocating one over the other - just that to make an informed decision, one needs to consider the advantages *and* disadvantages of each approach.  Your (quite helpful) answer only addresses the advantages.
Answer: I think it depends on your audience, if they are young and tech-savvie then tags could work well, but less experienced users can find them difficult and much less browseable. There was a similar question on stack oferflow and one of the answers from a google interaction designer was useful to me.
Answer: The relationship between items and categories typically is one-to-many (in a typical taxonomy items cannot belong to more than one category), while tags are many-to-many (multiple tags for each item). Categories are most often predefined, tags can more easily be user-defined. You can even use both at the same time, although that implies added complexity.
Which is better for your application depends on the domain, characteristics of your users, and the terms they are familiar with.
Some questions I'd ask:

Is it possible to define a single taxonomy that is clear to your users? Then categories could work well, and there may be no need for tags. You can test your existing scheme with reverse card sorting ('tree testing'), or try to find a better scheme and better terms with an open card sort.
What kind of search terms are your users using? Are they successful in what they are trying to accomplish? What kind of language do they use in the offline world? Especially if they are naive casual users of your application, it can be desirable to stay as close as possible to the terms they normally use.
What is the cost of a misclassification? How undesirable are wrong tags? This may influence your decisions on allowing users to do tagging versus keeping the classification in your own hands.

A pragmatic approach would be to test both. Take a subset of items, define both categories and tags, present these to some real people (in the hallway?) and watch how they react.
Comment: How is it that "items cannot belong to one category"?  There are often IA designs where an item only belongs in one category.  Second, your definition of tags as many-to-many is flawed, particularly when "multiple tags for each item" is not an example of many-to-many. When you finally say that tags are often user defined, you are getting to the point.  Category=taxonomy, while tag=folksonomy.  The fact that tagging is user-generated means it cannot be wrong.  You may not want to allow it because it's not very accurate (and that's often the problem with tagging - little meaning).
Comment: Sorry, I should have proofread it better before posting, "items cannot belong to one category" is wrong and absolutely not what I intended. I've edited it know. Thanks for pointing it out.

Categories or tags based navigation ?


Protect APIs against CSRF?

Question: I have a PHP API that is being used by my website using Ajax requests!
An example of the operations I may perform using that API is (log user in, change password, retrieve sensitive data)
So simply, how can I prevent CSRF when using this API? It looks like it's a bit complicated for me to understand how!
I use HTTPS connection to perform these operation.. but I do not think that's enough to secure the operations!
Answer: You will want to use a Synchronizer Token. I don't think I can put it any better than OWASP does:

In order to facilitate a "transparent but visible" CSRF solution, developers are encouraged to adopt the Synchronizer Token Pattern (http://www.corej2eepatterns.com/Design/PresoDesign.htm). The synchronizer token pattern requires the generating of random "challenge" tokens that are associated with the user's current session. These challenge tokens are then inserted within the HTML forms and links associated with sensitive server-side operations. When the user wishes to invoke these sensitive operations, the HTTP request should include this challenge token. It is then the responsibility of the server application to verify the existence and correctness of this token. By including a challenge token with each request, the developer has a strong control to verify that the user actually intended to submit the desired requests. Inclusion of a required security token in HTTP requests associated with sensitive business functions helps mitigate CSRF attacks as successful exploitation assumes the attacker knows the randomly generated token for the target victim's session. This is analogous to the attacker being able to guess the target victim's session identifier. The following synopsis describes a general approach to incorporate challenge tokens within the request.
When a Web application formulates a request (by generating a link or form that causes a request when submitted or clicked by the user), the application should include a hidden input parameter with a common name such as "CSRFToken". The value of this token must be randomly generated such that it cannot be guessed by an attacker. Consider leveraging the java.security.SecureRandom class for Java applications to generate a sufficiently long random token. Alternative generation algorithms include the use of 256-bit BASE64 encoded hashes. Developers that choose this generation algorithm must make sure that there is randomness and uniqueness utilized in the data that is hashed to generate the random token.

  <form action="/transfer.do" method="post">
  <input type="hidden" name="CSRFToken" value="OWY4NmQwODE4ODRjN2Q2NTlhMmZlYWEwYzU1YWQwMTVhM2JmNGYxYjJiMGI4MjJjZDE1ZDZMGYwMGEwOA==">
  …
  </form>

In general, developers need only generate this token once for the current session. After initial generation of this token, the value is stored in the session and is utilized for each subsequent request until the session expires. When a request is issued by the end-user, the server-side component must verify the existence and validity of the token in the request as compared to the token found in the session. If the token was not found within the request or the value provided does not match the value within the session, then the request should be aborted, token should be reset and the event logged as a potential CSRF attack in progress.
To further enhance the security of this proposed design, consider randomizing the CSRF token parameter name and or value for each request. Implementing this approach results in the generation of per-request tokens as opposed to per-session tokens. Note, however, that this may result in usability concerns. For example, the "Back" button browser capability is often hindered as the previous page may contain a token that is no longer valid. Interaction with this previous page will result in a CSRF false positive security event at the server. Regardless of the approach taken, developers are encouraged to protect the CSRF token the same way they protect authenticated session identifiers, such as the use of SSLv3/TLS.

Protect APIs against CSRF?


When do you center your subject in environmental portraits?

Question: When I shoot environmental portraits, I usually place my subject off center. However, I've seen instances where the photographer has intentionally centered their subject. Here is an example: http://lightbox.time.com/2012/02/07/the-life-of-lucian-freud/#1
Personally, I would have framed it so the person is not in the middle in order to create some tension and dynamic balance. What is your opinion as to why the photographer would have centered the subject in the attached example?
What are some instances when using the center of the frame is a better compositional choice?
Comment: possible duplicate of [When is it OK to place the subject in the middle of a picture?](http://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/16694/when-is-it-ok-to-place-the-subject-in-the-middle-of-a-picture)
Answer: Whenever it makes sense to. The "rules" of composition are not rules at all, and many of them are derived (sometimes tortuously) from examining pictures that people have found pleasing for one reason or another. That there are so many "rules" to choose from is an indication that there are many, many different ways to create a picture that is either pleasing to the eye or tells the story you want to tell. It's nice to learn the various rules, but don't take any of them too seriously. (And leave the art critic vocabulary to the art critics -- they can see things that no ordinary, reasonable person can, or at least come up with a scientific-sounding explanation of why a good picture is a good picture, even if it means making up a new compositional rule.)
Comment: Its like the pirate code - "the code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules".
Comment: Fuly agree. In this case the background is pretty boring and plain, hardly an environment at all so creating a more formalised portrait with the subject in the middle works. That brush in the hand would (IMHO) just look odd with an off-centre placement.
Answer: When you stand in front of a mirror to shave... do you stand centered in mirror or do you compose yourself by the rule of thirds??  The point of centering, at least what I am interpreting, in this image is to create the effect that he is looking in the mirror shaving.  As though we, the viewers, are viewing from inside his medicine cabinet mirror.  And so you decide where to place your subject based on the story you're telling... if there is no extra effect such as mirror view -- then go ahead and use rule of thirds but don't be so bound to rule of thirds (or other rules) that it blocks the creative potential that another composition could serve.  Start from the rule, if you like, then ask is there another story I could tell with different placement! No matter what always consider other placement because otherwise you are not even open to the possibilities.  Be open to the possibilities!
Answer: The subject is horizontally centered in that image but the focal point, the face and eyes, are still sitting on the one-third line down from the top so it still falls within the rule of thirds.
Comment: I hate to say it, but this is the **perfect** example of what Stan is talking about in his answer. ;) Personally I'd say the point of focus is about 60/40, or Golden Ratio...but its all rather moot...its highly unlikely the "rules" were applied at the time the photo was taken.
Answer: I agree that this photo may have been more appealing, especially on a subconscious level, if it was off-center. Personally, I would have cropped out some of the extraneous things on the one side in particular. However, the final decision made by the photographer was most likely made simply because it "felt" right. We've probably all done it.
Answer: I personally agree that the photo probably would have been slightly more appealing had the photographer shifted the subject from the center. It would have balanced the photo and added a little bit of tension. Generally these are the reasons a composition like this is not framed with the subject in the center.
You can, of course, center the subject in many situations. If your subject is filling the frame, centering the subject often allows either side of them to fall on these 'balancing lines' (thirds, golden ratio). This is aesthetically pleasing.
If your subject is perhaps lying down perpendicular to the camera (on a bench or a couch, for example), having the feet on one side and the head on the other side will feel balanced.
As well, a symmetry in the surroundings of a subject may also allow for an aesthetically pleasing centering of a subject as given by the rough example.
The composition is balanced because of the overall symmetry.

In general, it should come down to what feels right as you're framing your shot. I often find myself "falling" into these guidelines I've talked about in this answer (and other general guides in composing) because they intrinsically feel good. I found these to be pleasing before knowing what they were called or why they are used.
Comment: I agree in general, but I'm not sure shifting the subject from the centre would be more balanced - I would say the opposite. More tension, yes. More dynamic and interesting.  But not more balanced unless there is something in the other two thirds to balance the subject.  Against a bland background, an off-centre subject isn't balanced in my mind.
Comment: For me, I tend to view the desirable composition of a photo like the example given to be on a see saw. If the subject is on either side, it's at rest. If the subject is in the center, it could go either direction and has the potential to feel like you're not stable. Maybe tension isn't the right word, maybe 'dynamic'. That's probably the best analogy I can think of for my own point of view.
Comment: It has a lot of tension now.  Is he heading into the light through the door?  Or receding into the dark shadows?  Both have the same visual weight so it's up to you to think about where he is going, metaphorically...
Answer: It's about creating an effect, right? Centering the subject and having him face the camera creates a sort of dramatic confrontation with the viewer.
In my mind, if you want the subject to confront the viewer, a centered, full-on view might be appropriate. As noted above - this does't preclude also using the rule of thirds or another composition technique as well.


What exactly is a golden stout?

Question: I just saw a golden stout, I thought that stouts had to be dark and use roasted malts. What does a golden stout taste like? The same as a stout minus the color?
Answer: Sort of.
These stouts my also be known as "Blonde" or "White" in additional "Golden". Supposedly the idea first came about in 2007, when it was joked that Stone should brew a Golden Stout, it being a sort of oxymoron. However, it appears that now it exists. Stone Brewmaster Mitch Steele decided to create it, a light colored beer which had the flavors of a stout,

"To achieve the qualities of a stout, we relied on our prior experience brewing with coffee to pull flavors from the beans without affecting the hue of the beer," explains Steele. "As the beer warms and opens up, the chocolate adds another level of complexity and helps build the traditional flavors typically associated with dark beers. It's been really fun to see a prank with questionable viability become a reality."

While this isn't the only example, it's one of the more notorious ones that serves well to explain the idea as well as how the flavoring is achieved.
Comment: I have been served at least one "White Stout" that tasted like cream soda and had nothing to do with a stout, which just seems like marketing.
Comment: @John and Kortuk, yes - i feel like it's a fallacy to put 'stout' on these labels. :(
Answer: In addition to @john-m's answer about the modern white stouts which are paleish with coffee/chocolate flavors, there historically were pale stouts which predated our modern concept of stout as a dark beer with chocolate/coffee flavors.
Check Zytophile for some historical context.  He goes on for a bit but the main takeaway is that from the early 1700s to at least the 1850's there are ads, brewing records, mentions in manuals, etc of "Pale Stout".  Basically because:

For 150 years or so after the word stout first began being applied to beer it was used simply as an adjective to mean "strong".

Also a little bit worth reading at Shut up about Barclay Perkins, though in this case the comments section is a bit more interesting than the body of the post, specifically this comment by Ron Pattinson:

What makes it a Stout? The brewery called it one.
What we think of today as Stout was originally called Brown Stout. A strong beer brewed from brown malt. Pale Stout is the same thing, just brewed from pale malt. It's a very 18th-century way of defining beers.
Answer: Like John M said, it's sort of an oxymoron. It is to stouts what a black IPA is to IPAs. It has similar flavor and mouthfeel to a stout, but it's the wrong color. Just like a pale ale can't really be black, a Black IPA still has the same hoppiness and lighter body of an IPA.
And like Sloloem mentioned, "stout" was originally a reference to the flavor, meaning a strong beer, but today is generally understood to mean a beer brewed with dark malts.
If you are talking about the Stone Stochasticity Master of Disguise, I recommend you get it and try it for yourself. It's excellent. I've had a lot of coffee stouts, and a lot of chocolate stouts, and in my opinion that one is executed better than any of the ones I've had.

What exactly is a golden stout?


Can I put a shower pan where tile USED to be?

Question: I pulled up the tile in my bathroom. Water was underneath and had rotted the wood nearby. Now I have a concrete pan underneath where the tile used to be that slopes toward the drain. Can I put a shower pan over this concrete pan? If so, do I need to extend the shower drain?
Comment: I'm adding this as a comment because I know if it' a valid answer.  Couldn't you cover the concrete pan with a few coats of Red Guard and then tile over that?  Then use epoxy grout, which is waterproof rather than break up the concrete.
Answer: At this point you really should do it right.  Since this is the basement floor, you will be placing the shower pan on the concrete.  You'll want to adjust the drain so that it can connect correctly to the shower drain.  If this concrete is already sloped (and it sounds as though it may be) you may be able to remove the sloped part if it was poured on top of the slab. Otherwise you could use some leveling compound to create a flat surface for the shower pan.
I'm assuming now that the rotted wood was in the walls.  You should use a product designed to back shower tile such as a cement backer-board rated for this use.  Your building materials supplier should be able to get you the right product.  Follow the manufacturer's recommendation for proper installation and surface preparation needed before applying the tile.
Be sure to remove and replace all the rotted wood while you have this all exposed.  It won't get better on its own.
Comment: Thanks for the reply! This is the basement so when I break up the concrete will I stop when I hit dirt?
Comment: No!  It was certainly not clear that this is the basement floor.  I've edited my answer based on this new information.
Comment: Ok thanks. I didn't realize that was pertinent information. You're exactly right, the existing concrete pan slopes gently towards the center. I don't have a good picture right now because I just ripped up the tile and am in the process of clearing it out.  I have a follow up question: If the drain is level with the existing concrete pan and I want to put a shower pan over it, will I just get a shower drain extension kit? I may end up hiring this part out, but I want to have a useful dialogue with the plumber. Thanks again.
Comment: @RachelAyoroa  Most shower pans have a drain fitting that is designed to fit into the floor drain pipe.  Usually you need to cut the pan drain to the correct length so that it fits into the floor properly.  But yes, usually the floor drain pipe is flush (or nearly flush) with the floor surface.
Comment: Hey I hope I'm not beating a dead horse here. I went ahead and cleaned up the rest of the tile today and added a picture. So if I understand your previous comments correctly, I would use some self leveller to get this area flat and then drop in a custom pan and it could fit into the existing drain? I've attached a picture. The outer area of the drain is 4" and the actual opening of the pipe is 2"


What's the difference between adjusting highlights and shadows in the basic panel and in the tone curve in the Develop Module of Lightroom?

Question: I wanted to reduce some highlights in a photo and found that there were two possible ways of doing so: one from the basic panel and another from the tone curve. when I reduce the highlights in one pane the value on the other is unchanged. Are both of them the same thing? Which would be better?
Answer: The Tone Curve is an extension to the basic Sliders and thus provides a greater level of tone and contrast control by allowing the user to modify the various different levels of light within a photograph.
One of the most apparent such features is the little circle on the "top Left Corner" of the Curve Box.
By clicking on this little circle, the circle will show 2 arrows, one above and one below the circle. This means that the user can now actively Drag the Cursor over the image with the left click pressed and change the tonal values of the image whilst hovering over the image.
The changes in the image are visible in the Tone Curve box which changes with each adjustment of the selected light level, however, the changes made are global, and affect all the pixels within the image and not just the area where you are hovering.
Where the tone curve becomes very powerful and differentiates from the sliders, is using the "individual points editor", located at the bottom right corner of the Tone Curve box.
Here you can can adjust and lock different points of the graph without affecting other adjustments.
An example will be to drag it up from the centre to increase exposure. lock it in place and then reduce the curve in the middle of this point and the end of the curve to the right and bring down the highlights and then lock the point. Alternatively, you can do the same on the other side of the curve to increase or decrease shadows.
You can do this for RGB or Red, Green and Blue individually, and none of these changes affect any basic slider adjustments that you may have already made.
A good practice is to adjust using the basic, Highlight, Shadows, Whites and Blacks sliders first, and then fine tune with the Tone Curve.
Comment: I never realized the little circle on the top left corner, to be honest. It really does help a lot to make tonal adjustments.
Comment: I hadn't used the points editors below the curve either. I didn't quite get what changing their positions really do.


How can I get or play sounds from a tablet DAW?

Question: I invested in a tablet and downloaded a couple of apps just to get a feel for all this, and I know I'm going to sound like an idiot, but after downloading Touch DAW and other similar apps, how do I go about getting sounds onto there? Do I need to buy some physical tools or can I get sample packs offline? This is really confusing but I'm going to keep researching and asking questions until I figure it out.
Comment: You should list the other apps you're using. As far as TouchDAW [do you mean this](http://www.humatic.de/htools/touchdaw/)? Because as far as I can tell that won't help you. It's an app to *control* a DAW—for instance one running on your laptop/desktop—but not a DAW itself. As far as the rest of your question it depends greatly on the rest of your setup. Some apps have sounds built in or are synths themselves. Others can import sounds or use other apps. Also try to give your questions a more specific title. For instance "How to get or play sounds from tablet DAW?" might be more helpful.
Comment: That actualy makes sense but can i use an actual daw from my tablet or am i going to need a laptop or computer ?
Comment: Sure, there are all kinds of music apps for tablets. Somebody else will have to help with you with the specifics. I'm an iOS user so I wouldn't be much help with Android apps. But there are plenty of apps for both platforms and some people use *only* tablets/phones. If it *was* me answering the question I'd want more details like what other apps you have and what you want to achieve? Like do you want to record voice or acoustic/external instruments? Because that *would* require some hardware, but getting started with sample-based music wouldn't.
Comment: Can you play an instrument? If so, recording that is a good place to start. If not, finding an app that includes sounds that you don't have to record yourself is a better choice.
Answer: I'm going to wrap some of what @user37496 and @ToddWilcox mentioned in comments into an answer, just to ensure we keep it.
Firstly Touch DAW is a controller for a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) so it doesn't do anything to do with audio itself. It needs a DAW.
Once you have a DAW you need some audio, whether that be wav or midi with samples or any other audio file type your DAW can cope with.

You can get midi samples for all instruments easily online. Free ones are available, but often the collections you pay for are better (higher resolution, more accurate sound etc)
If you have an electric instrument you can play into your DAW and let it record your music
A microphone allows you to sing or record acoustic instruments into it

You may also, depending on the hardware and applications you are running, and what you want to do, require an external mixer or audio interface.
Comment: also, search this stack for "VST ASIO DAW" you'll find a lot of Q&A with tips and pitfalls
Answer: Walkband and Soundcamp are two that have virtual instruments you can play using the touchscreen.I use Chordbot to play around with chord progressions. You set up the parameters of the progression and it plays it in a loop. If you want a full recording type of software- like a DAW- you can get a much more sophisticated one for a PC than a tablet. All the DAWs I have seen for tablets are pretty simplistic. However, if you are just exploring PC based music, simple may be better.


How to configure the project schedule for parallel tasks?

Question: I have a resource with 50% availability for a project. I have set the Units in MS Project for 50% for him. He has a number of tasks assigned to him that can be done in parallel. How do I configure this on his schedule?
Answer: I work on lots of projects where I have a number of tasks that can be done in roughly any order, but need to be completed by a milestone.  I have yet to find an ideal way to show them in a plan.  Often the most efficient order changes depending on external factors.  Rarely is it efficient to work in parallel on multiple tasks.  I do switch tasks when the current task can't be worked on while waiting for actions by someone else.
There are two approaches to record these in the plan:

Just assign them in sequence, and allow him to work on them in order.  Consider setting the due date to a milestone date. This will likely reduce multi-tasking an may improve performance.  If some of the tasks contain long wait times, consider listing them at the beginning.
Add them with a percentage effort so that they run in parallel.

I don't consider either optimal, but prefer the first.  You do have to live with tasks completed out of order.  This may cause tasks to reorder.
Answer: Consider whether you really have to schedule each task on the plan with a definite start and end time, with tasks running in parallel and the resource assigned in a way that reflects reality. I have found that is rarely the case but if it is then you need to spend time assigning the resource to the task with appropriate percentage levels of allocation, and prioritisation of tasks together with constraints. However it is a lot of work and quickly becomes out of date when reality diverges from the plan, requiring endless maintenance of the schedule. That's a lot of detailed work and it is normally difficult to work out what you, the PM, is getting out of that.
It is more likely that you have a bunch of tasks, that can be done in any order that works on a practical level, and you don't care when they are done as long as they all complete on a planned date?

If that is the case then consider this procedure:

Optional: Place all the tasks within a summary task for convenience
Optional: Ensure the tasks are prioritised higher than normal (so that if the resource is allocated to some other task these are still done first)
Let MS-Project place them in time where it likes (since it doesn't matter to you or the resource) without using any constraints to force them into some kind of arbitrary order. Importantly the overall end date will still be the same since it is a function of the individual task durations.
When the resource starts a task then mark the start date on the MS-Project task to match and begin tracking Actual Work from that date, for each task worked (whether they were "planned" to be worked on at that time or not). As work is done on any task, it doesn't matter which, track the time spent in each task's Actual Work. Then finally regularly Update the Project to set all (selected) uncompleted tasks after today's date. This means that any unworked time for any task is moved to the right of today's date (which is reality) and leaves any completed portions of tasks on the left (which is also reality)- This allows MS-P to re-plan and re-schedule all the remaining work and therefore tells you if you cannot achieve the end date.

This technique will ensure that the plan tracks reality and additionally allows MS-Project to work out whether you can still hit the overall end date for all of the tasks together.


light at maximum normal?

Question: I just got a 6th generation Kindle paperwhite and I have to have the light up to the maximum to get a decent light to read it during the daytime indoors.  Is this normal?  Why would it not have a stronger light that I could dim if I wanted to?  My older version of Kindle paperwhite (that I lost) had the light more in the middle to upper middle to get the strength of this one at max.
Answer: Ask for a replacement.  Generally, a brightness setting of 9 is quite enough for day/night reading.  Actually, 9 is still too bright in the dark.
This happens with most of the Kindles since they are mass-produced in China and don't follow the lumens standard, nor was it written anywhere in the description, so that we can verify it.  I have seen the Kindle white is white but the Kindle black appears slightly yellowish to me.

light at maximum normal?


Karma pertaining to thoughts

Question: I just finished reading the Bhagavad Gita, my first Hindu read.  The concept of karma has captured my interest.  Can one's thoughts contribute to their karma?  For instance, if one thinks bad thoughts will bad things happen to them in this life or the next?
Comment: Yes it is thoughts that manifest in the world as actions. The world of thought is the cause of the world of action. That is why sages try to go inward and understand their inner awareness. That which is free from thought is one's Awareness and this is called Brahman or God by Advaitins. All the best
Comment: There is a rule of 3 Vs for any action performed: *Vichaar-Vaani-Vartan*. Many scholars inside/outside Hinduism suggests that, *Thoughts are matter*. Mahatma Gandhi has taught, *Thinking bad is a form of violence.*
Comment: What if we only think good about others but not really do it ? Will that thinking too contribute to karma ?
Answer: Thought is everything. Swami Vivekananda tells the following story (Complete Works, V8, Discourses on Jnana Yoga VI, available here - http://cwsv.belurmath.org/volume_8/vol_8_frame.htm):

Thought is all important, for "what we think we become". There was once a Sannyâsin, a holy man, who sat under a tree and taught the people. He drank milk, and ate only fruit, and made endless "Prânâyâmas", and felt himself to be very holy. In the same village lived an evil woman. Every day the Sannyasin went and warned her that her wickedness would lead her to hell. The poor woman, unable to change her method of life which was her only means of livelihood, was still much moved by the terrible future depicted by the Sannyasin. She wept and prayed to the Lord, begging Him to forgive her because she could not help herself. By and by both the holy man and the evil woman died. The angels came and bore her to heaven, while the demons claimed the soul of the Sannyasin. "Why is this!" he exclaimed, "have I not lived a most holy life, and preached holiness to everybody? Why should I be taken to hell while this wicked woman is taken to heaven?" "Because," answered the demons, "while she was forced to commit unholy acts, her mind was always fixed on the Lord and she sought deliverance, which has now come to her. But you, on the contrary, while you performed only holy acts, had your mind always fixed on the wickedness of others. You saw only sin, and thought only of sin, so now you have to go to that place where only sin is." The moral of the story is obvious: The outer life avails little. The heart must be pure and the pure heart sees only good, never evil. We should never try to be guardians of mankind, or to stand on a pedestal as saints reforming sinners. Let us rather purify ourselves, and the result must be that in so doing we shall help others.
Comment: swamiji plz help me out with this : http://hinduism.stackexchange.com/questions/8394/donation-at-good-place-with-certain-mentioned-intention-accumulates-good-karma
Comment: Yad Bhavam, Tad Bhavati
Answer: Karmas are at three levels of body, speech and mind. So, yes, one's thoughts contribute to one's Karmas.
In Chapter 12, verse 5-8, Manu Smriti describes various kinds of sins (adharma/pApam) that a person commits. It classifies the sins into those committed through body, through speech and through mind.
It further says that the adharma committed through mind are- lusting after other's wealth, wishing harm for others and adherence to falsehood.
So, karma is not just limited to the final actions but also to the words spoken and the thoughts that one indulges in.

Karma pertaining to thoughts


What does "Fullmetal" mean?

Question: The title is obviously the State Alchemist name of Edward Elric, but what does the word "Fullmetal" mean? I watched both series with dub in my mother language, and in that, Ed was referred as "Steel Alchemist". (translated to English)
Answer: "Steel Alchemist" is in fact the literal translation of Edward Elric's title. The term "Fullmetal" is most likely a reference to Stanley Kubrick classic war-is-hell film Full Metal Jacket.
The "jacket" of a full metal jacketed bullet is usually made of steel. Sometimes you hear these bullets called steel jacketed in English, and in many other languages, a translation of this second name is much more common. In many countries outside the US, FMJ was retitled to reflect the most common local name for the bullets, in order to preserve that reference. I don't know if Japan did this: IMDB doesn't list the Japanese title for some reason.
But if Japan did retitle the movie, then the title "Steel Alchemist" may have been intended all along to reflect the title of the "Steel Jacketed" movie. Many translations of FMA actually do use a title that reflects the way FMJ was titled in the translation's own language, and so it's possible that "Fullmetal Alchemist" is just another application of that practice.
Comment: A quick Wikipedia check shows that Japan didn't retitle the movie (and that even when referencing actual bullets, "full metal jacket" is loan word/phrase).

What does "Fullmetal" mean?


what is the best way to detect spatial and temporal pattern of precipitation in mountainous region?

Question: The study area rang from 500 to 8000 m above ground and distributed into 4 elevation classes, above 5000,4-5000, 3-4000, below 3000 m above ground. This region has different climate zone/precipitation zone in term of amount and pattern.
What is the best way to detect the spatial and temporal pattern of precipitation in such region with monthly satellite data?
Comment: If you already have the data. To find patterns I would suggest to use Self-Organizing Maps (SOM). It is a powerful technique to find patterns within datasets. It works great both for spatial and temporal patterns.
Answer: This is a non-trivial problem.  Short answer:  I don't think it can be done with monthly satellite data to a useful precision.
Here's where I started:
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Search/index.php?hq=site%3Aearthobservatory.nasa.gov%2FFeatures%2F&q=measuring+rainfall
They now have a tropical rainfall project.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/TRMM/
It uses space borne precip radar.  In the article above I didn't find specs on the resolution.  Looking elsewhere, it's temporal resolution is 1 month, and horizontal is .25 degree (about 18 miles) If your study zone has latitude under 35 degrees, it may be of use, but overall it seems too coarse.  I would expect a montane environment would require a resolution on the order of a kilometre.
Even a simple rain gauge is problematic.  Go look at the siting requirements.  I suspect that parking one on a cliff at 6700m is going to give you non-conformant data.
I think synthetic aperture radar is being used to determine snowpack depth.
In the bad old days they hired people to go measure snow packs.
Using corner reflectors on the surface where they would be buried in snow may give you better results.  You measure the attenuation from the snow on top of them.  Take substantial time and effort to calibrate. Big win:  You are measuring the mass of ice in the column, not the depth.
Rainfall is much more difficult.  Water doesn't pile up and wait to be measured.
Or maybe you could stack it:  Consider a corner reflector at the bottom of a cone.  Choose a frequency that is somewhat absorbed by liquid water.  The cone is deliberately angled so that reflections off of it miss the transmitter.  So the corner reflector's signal is attenuated by the pile of water on it.  The cone magnifieds the water depth.
Weather radar can determine precipitation intensity, but using it in the mountains would mean getting returns of the mountain too.  Hard to sort.
Possibly put the radar on top of a mountain, and give it zero angle of elevation. In essence you would be measuring the amount of water passing through a disk. I don't think these instruments come in crackerjack boxes.
However, you said satellite.
If you have known chokepoints in stream channels, you can monitor them using very high resolution imagery -- in effect you are using a natural weir.  However you need resolution in inches. I'm skeptical about the folks at Langley lending you their satellites.
Might be possible to monitor the rise and fall of lake and ponds.  This requires a precision that I don't think is possible right now.
Might be possible using a pair of corner reflectors.  One is fixed to the ground, the other floats in a plastic open top barrel.  Bounce microwave pulse and measure the difference in time.  This requires accurate timing.  A nanosecond is about 9 inches at speed of light.  You want to reliable measure 1/10 of this.  Centimeter band microwave should be able to do this.  You still have to place the instruments, and I suspect you will need to visit them to clean out dead leaves, bird nests, and replace instruments that have been damaged by moose and woodpeckers.  You will also need to do calibration measures to compare what the instrument in the open measures compared to ones under the tree canopy.
Your upper levels are well above tree line, which means that as often as not, precipitation travels horizontally.


Literary techniques involving sound

Question: What literary sound device/technique is expressed through the phrase "sudden departures", involving the articulation of the words? (alliteration, assonance, sibilance etc.)
Comment: This isn't homework is it? It might be helpful if you could explain the context of the question.
Answer: The only "sound device" I can hear in that phrase is its meter, which is a catalectic dactylic dimeter.  A dactyl is a set of three syllables, the first of which is stressed; in a dimeter pattern, the dactyl occurs twice: DA-da-da DA-da-da.  "SUD-den de-PART-ure" fits that meter, except for missing the final, unstressed syllable; leaving off an unstressed syllable at the start or end of the metric pattern is "catalexis".
Comment: Thank you! This was exactly the type of example I was looking for.
Answer: Well, there is no alliteration or assonance, and just a modicum of sibilance. Alliteration involves the beginnings of adjacent or closely connect words, assonance is repetition of vowel sounds that create an echo effect; and as sibilance refers to a hissing effect (usually achieved with multiple unvoiced s sounds — as in the word susurrus), and there is only one such sound in your example, I'm not sure what you're going for here? Perhaps if you described the quality you see in sudden departures that is noteworthy to you, we might be able to see what you're really asking.
Comment: Thanks for writing. Sorry if I was unclear, but I was referring to any sound device utilized in that phrase; and when making reference to alliteration, sibilance and assonance, I was outlining examples of what I meant by "sound devices".
Answer: I didn't think alliteration was completely restricted to the start of words. I think the repeating of the "plosive" "D" sounds Su*DD*en *D*eparture is a form of alliteration too, even though the "D" sounds aren't at the beginning of the word Sudden.
This gives the phrase an almost explosive impact - which perhaps reflects the "Sudden-ness"?
Answer: Are you looking for "onomatopoeia", meaning a word that imitates the sound it represents?

Literary techniques involving sound


Insulating existing basement wall

Question: I'm getting ready to finish my basement and one of the rooms is already roughed in. However, the stud walls are 1/2 (give or take) away from the concrete. My plan was to insulate with fiberglass but after  reading found you should put XPS foam board as a vapor barrier/insulator. Do I HAVE to rip all of the framing out or is there a way to salvage what's been done?
Answer: Much depends on the dryness of your basement.  For most basements, worthy of being made into finished living space, 3 mil. plastic sheeting between the framing and basement wall should be sufficient for this already framed room.  The seems can be stapled to the inside of stud bays.
I'm not a fan of fiberglass batt insulation in basements, due to potential mold and mice issues, and, therefore, prefer XPS; which you could use for the yet to be framed rooms.
Some might suggest foam board between the framing and drywall but I don't care for drywall to be hung on the required, longer drywall screw.  I guess it depends on the thickness of the foam board one uses.  A heated basement shouldn't require much additional insulation as long as the rim joists are well insulated.

Insulating existing basement wall


How can I test a user story? Examples please?

Question: I'm a new QA tester in a company in an Agile environment. During the sprint commit I was told that one of my tasks was going to be testing user stories. How exactly do you test something like that? If anyone can give me any insight into this it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Comment: presumably QA, with a typo. Ironically.
Comment: What is a "QS tester"?
Comment: Look up the acronym: BDD (Behavior Driven Development).  It is based on stories.
Answer: As ByteBuster indicated, user stories are a very high level description of a goal an actor or customer wants to achieve with the product, but doesn't detail exactly how that goal is going to be achieved.
Developers often break user stories down into discrete development focused tasks that are necessary to achieve that goal. Developers should also be writing unit tests against those tasks.
A tester's goal in testing user stories is to put yourself in the shoes of the actor or person and think of the different ways (tests) that persona might achieve the objective of the user story. Also, think of things that might go wrong along the way, or other actions or flows that might block the objective of the user story from being achieved.
Remember, developers often look at software in task or functional chunks. While testers also frequently test discrete functional attributes of software, one of the primary roles of the tester is to look at software more holistically and approach testing from the eyes of the customer.
Comment: Thanks I admit I'm fairly new to the world of software testing and agile testing, so this just means that I will look at the story that has been written and determine if that story is testable and brainstorm potential scenarios that can stem from that story?
Comment: @sam2013 that pretty much sums it up, yes.
Answer: As the other answers have said, you will probably not test the user stories directly. The method I've used in the past works like this:

Each user story will have one or more acceptance tests. These
tests typically cover a high level test scenario (such as "Given that
I am logged in as a customer, then clicking the link 'My Orders'
takes me to a page showing all orders for that customer." - the exact
phrasing may vary)
Each acceptance test can usually be broken down into one or more test cases. The example above could be considered to have three steel
thread test cases(assuming that the customer login is pre-existing
functionality):

After logging in, the link 'My Orders' exists.
Clicking the link 'My Orders' goes to the specified order list page
The orders on the order list page match exactly the customer's orders in the data source.

Acceptance tests should probably come from the product owner, but they may be left for you to define (in which case, it helps to work with the product owner if you can)
When testing a user story, I personally prefer to leave the acceptance tests until after I've performed all the tests associated with the tasks that are created from the user story - the tasks tend to be more granular and lower-level than the acceptance tests, such as (using the example above): "create a stored procedure to retrieve customer orders from a customer ID"
Acceptance tests are by default part of the steel thread (also known as the "happy path" - the absolute core functionality without which the story can't be complete). Tests that verify the correct function of features required by the acceptance test are also steel thread. Tests for handling error conditions may not be steel thread, and tests for edge conditions probably aren't. As a general rule, save the tests that aren't steel thread until all the steel thread tests pass.

My preference is that the user story is not tested until all tests have passed or the functionality behind non-passing tests has been put on the backlog for another sprint or deemed out of scope - that is, every test has been accounted for and every task has been tested.
Of course, circumstances can make a mess of this, but it's a decent starting point. Good luck.
Comment: I know it's been a while, but isn't this answer missing a step? You can't have acceptance tests if there are no acceptance criteria since the acceptence tests are there to verify that the acceptance criteria are met. These criteria should generally be defined by the product owner but in practice they are usually defined by the tester in coöperation with said product owner. When the acceptance criteria are defined, you can then make a choice whether or not to automate them. Perhaps I'm simply used to a different approach?
Comment: In my workplace, the acceptance tests typically are the acceptance criteria: "A logged in customer can click "My Orders" and  see a list of all their orders in the system" is functionally the same as the given/when/then statement in my example and where I work is regarded as the same thing.
Answer: User Stories are the highest-level requirement artifacts in the software development lifecycle.
Here are some examples of User Stories:

As an application user attempting to save the document, I want to see a warning if the desired document name already exists; The warning should allow me to choose whether to overwrite an existing one;
As an Web site administrator opening the Web site, I want to see a dashboard containing top outstanding administrative tasks;
As a user submitting a document to a remote system, I want to be informed on network errors and let save the document locally;

As you see, the User Stories are pretty broad by their nature. Often, highest level means lowest details, minimal structure, and therefore they may be interpreted differently by different people. This is why
Usually, QA do not test the User Stories directly.
Instead, most issue tracking tools allow to manage mapping User Stories to individual development tasks.
Check this slideshow for a deeper theoretical insight.
This StackOverflow question and its answers have some good points on the topic, as well as on the ways how one can use JIRA for such mapping.
As soon as Tasks are being implemented, they are tested by QA, you may be quite familiar with the normal process.
As soon as all tasks bound to a certain User Story appear completed, the QA may mark the User Story completed as well.

I should make an important note. I've seen some teams that do have direct testing of User Stories. They assign specific Success Criteria to each individual User Story, just like in @Pangea's answer. The choice is yours; probably you should consider the size of the project and the dev team, and maybe some more criteria to decide if you really need direct testing of User Stories.
Answer: I'd recommend watching the video "James Bach on testing in an agile software development team" - he talks about testing during sprints, covers user stories, things testers should be looking for / asking questions about. He has a lot of ideas and since you are new to the Testing game it might be worth watching. Plus the video is only about 30 minutes long. Enjoy!
Answer: There is usually a Definition of Done/Acceptance Criteria associated with each of the user stories. You can start from there.


Change Keyboard Layout from Windows 7 Recovery Disk

Question: My friend changed (I think) the keyboard layout from his Windows 7 notebook and can't log in anymore. In log screen when he types his user name he gets the wrong characters.
From Recovery Disk, I tried change the keyboard layout with regedit..
+HKEY_USERS
++.DEFAULT
+++Keyboad Layout
++++Preload
Changing "(Default)" and "1" keys to 00000416 (the code for Portuguese ABNT Keyboard Layout).
But it did not work, and when I reboot the machine the "(Default)" and "1" keys are
back to the old value.
What else can I do in this situation?
Answer: On the log in screen, check upper left corner. There should be little icon with abbrevation of the chosen language. Click it and change language.