How do I change lights bulbs that are 20 feet off the ground and pointing up (in a vanity fixture)?

Question: How do I change light bulbs that are 20 feet off the ground and pointing up (in a vanity fixture)? Does anyone know of a bulb changing kit that has some kind of arm attachment that will allow me to reach down inside and unscrew the bulb?
Comment: it's called a ladder
Comment: I think you found why LED bulbs are popular :)
Answer: If you don't want to get an 20' extension ladder (which can be very difficult to transport home from the store), then you can get one of the  Little Giant or Werner multi-ladders:

Or you can get the werner folding ladder:

But, a good ladder will pay off in more ways than just this - cleaning gutters, etc.
Answer: If you are unable to access them yourself, using a ladder or lift for instance, you can hire an electrician or lighting service to change them for you.  They will bring the necessary equipment to your home and perform the lightbulb maintenance.  Some have annual maintenance plans which will take care of one or more fixtures for a nominal fee.
If you'd rather spend more now to make the job easier for you in the future, you can have an electrician install a lowerable lighting fixture for you.  A hand operated, or motorized, cable will lower the light so you can perform bulb maintenance at a more convenient height for you, and then will raise the light to the operating position for use.  These are not inexpensive, but there are situations where using a ladder is unsafe, or bringing in such a large ladder would pose risk to the walls or other objects in the affected room.
Consider in investing in long life bulbs so you won't have to perform the maintenance often.  Some LED bulbs will perform well for many years of continuous use.  Another option is to install brighter incandescent bulbs than you need, then use a dimmer to bring them down to the light level you require, which will extend the life of some of these bulbs. Soft start circuits can also extend the life of incandescent bulbs, as can professional dimmers. While there are LED bulbs which promise 100,000 hour lifetimes, be skeptical of these claims - they may operate that long if they are never turned off, and in good laboratory environmental conditions, but keep in mind that these estimates are theoretical - the bulbs have only been around for a few years, none have been tested for 20+ years.
Comment: The dimmer suggestion is a good one.  We have a soft start / soft stop dimmer in our bedroom, and its 4-bulb fixture is going on 3 years now on the same set of GE Reveals.  It gets used at least 2x a day.


Is there an expression to indicate the strategy of wearing someone down with numerous small irritations?

Question: I would use rope-a-dope, but it's got connotations of pretending to lose that I don't need. I'm trying to describe the behavior of someone who sends twenty detailed emails a day about various projects, and the recipient of his emails has finally gotten tired of trying to parse them, so the recipient just agrees to whatever he proposes. I'd like an expression that evokes both outward earnestness and hidden creepiness, like Uriah Heep, Dickens's "Humble servant" with veiled ambition, who overdoes it with professions of humility until he's in power.
Water torture would work, but comes too close to a more racist expression that I'm not comfortable with.
Comment: Rope-a-dope is a strategy Mohammed Ali (boxer) used to outfox his opponent, George Foreman, in a match called the Rumble in The Jungle. He pretended to be beaten, falling on the ropes in the boxing ring so Foreman would pummel him. But the ropes absorbed the shock, and Foreman got tired. Ali won the match.
I like Torture by email. Nice.
Comment: I've never heard "rope-a-dope" - where does that come from? How about "torture by e-mail"!?
Comment: @ElbyCloud Referring to Mohammed Ali is going back a long time!
Comment: @ElbyCloud - note that "chipping away at..." (only mentioned in passing in an answer way below) is kind of the basic phrase here.
Answer: Lately a favorite of mine while describing the amount of small finishing work left on our house is
Death of/by a thousand cuts (UsingEnglish.com)

If something is suffering the death of a thousand cuts, or death by a thousand cuts, lots of small bad things are happening, none of which are fatal in themselves, but which add up to a slow and painful demise.

The phrase is a transliteration of the Chinese torture and execution practice Lingchi (Wikipedia):

a form of torture and execution used in China from roughly AD 900 until it was banned in 1905. It was also used in Vietnam. In this form of execution, a knife was used to methodically remove portions of the body over an extended period of time, eventually resulting in death.
Comment: Reading the title of this question my first thoughts were "death by a thousand papercuts"
Comment: @SuartQ - I've added a reference to the origin of the phrase to prove that it absolutely does.
Comment: If it was offic paper memos you could have that with a thousand paper cuts.
Comment: This works, thank you Vynsane. There is a sense of maliciousness that I like. @Silenus's "erosive email strategy" was also delicious, but was not posed in the form of an answer.
Comment: The only problem with this (otherwise excellent) answer is that it does not imply any intent or malicious actor.
Comment: The OP asks about a word for a great amount of *small* irritations, but in a "凌迟", *each* of the "one thousand cuts" is *extremely painful*.
Comment: @Vim, naturally, the literal translation of the phrase indicates a much more torturous and lethal process, but that is the point of a hyperbolic phrase. The OP is not being physically cut any more than they are actually dying. Both the method and outcome are exaggerated in proportion.
Answer: Kill by inches — Fine Dictionary

by gradual means, as by torture
"When he says that it is killing him by inches, and that we must go away, I know he is speaking the truth." — "Lover or Friend" by Rosa Nouchette Carey

Attrition — M-W, suggested by @isanae

the act or process of weakening and gradually defeating an enemy through constant attacks and continued pressure over a long period of time
"a war of attrition"

Boiling frog — TFD

A problematic situation that will gradually increase in severity until it reaches calamitous proportions, such that the people involved or affected by it will not notice the danger until it is too late to act.
It is a metaphor taken from an anecdotal parable about boiling a frog, in which a frog placed in boiling water will immediately try to save itself, but one placed in cool water that is gradually brought to a boil will not notice the heat until it is boiled to death.
"Drug addiction is often a boiling frog, as many people don't see their addiction as problematic until it has consumed their lives."
Comment: That frog thing is [a myth](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2006/09/the-boiled-frog-myth-stop-the-lying-now/7446/), by the way.
Comment: How can a parable be anecdotal? They're not sure if the parable really was ever told before?
Comment: @ColleenV (@NVX is just quoting). It's a parable or anecdote or myth or story. Maybe an apocryphal story. Maybe even an experiment of mythic proportions. But with TFD and wiktionary, anything goes.
Comment: @isanae It's already mentioned as "an anecdotal parable" :)
Comment: @Mitch perhaps it is a malapropism and NVX meant [apocryphal](http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Apocryphal)? The way I've heard it is 'boiling the frog and it's not so much that the frog will never notice they're getting boiled, it just takes them longer to notice so that you can get the lid on tight and scrounge up the tabasco.
Comment: The TFD citation should be *Farlex Dictionary of Idioms*, but of course that would move TFD out of the path of @Mitch's anti-TFD hobbyhorse. Not that a parable can't be anecdotal. I've encountered parables I wouldn't care to meet on any other terms.
Comment: @JEL Should I have mentioned *Farlex* instead of *TFD*?
Comment: Formally, yes, cite the source. I notice the formality isn't much observed here at ELU (and even elsewhere in this set of answers), but TFD is a compilation from *other* sources. TFD provides a citation link (and short alternative text) below every entry; in your case it's this if you want Chicago style: "*Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.* S.v. "boiling frog." Retrieved June 2 2016 from http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/boiling+frog". The short alternative doesn't mention TFD at all: "*Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.* © 2015 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved."
Answer: You could say this person whittled down the recipient:

to reduce the amount of, as if by whittling;
pare down;
take away by degrees (usually followed by down, away, etc.)
to whittle down the company's overhead; to whittle away one's inheritance.

More info on whittle:

carve (wood) into an object by repeatedly cutting small slices from
it. synonyms: pare, shave, trim, carve, shape, model
"he sat whittling a piece of wood"
carve (an object) from wood by repeatedly cutting small slices from
it. reduce something in size, amount, or extent by a gradual series of
steps.
"the short list of fifteen was whittled down to five"
synonyms: erode, wear away, eat away, reduce, diminish, undermine,
weaken, subvert, compromise, impair, impede, hinder, cripple, disable,
enfeeble, sap
"his powers were whittled away"
reduce, cut down, cut back, prune, trim, slim down, pare down, shrink,
decrease, diminish
"the ten teams have been whittled down to six"
Comment: Wearing someone down sounds more familiar to me.
Answer: I've seen T-shirts and bumper stickers describing this as like being "nibbled to death by Ducks"
From Dictionary.com:

nibbled to death by ducks
adjective phrase
Subject to constant petty annoyances : Writing in such an
  editor-dominated environment was like being nibbled to death by ducks/
  is being nickeled-and-dimed, nibbled to death by
Comment: Can't help but think about the following quote from the sci-fi TV-show "Babylon 5", where two from an alien-race talks:  Londo Mollari: But this…this, this, this is like… being nibbled to death by, uh…Pah! What are those Earth creatures called? Feathers, long bill, webbed feet…go "quack".
Vir Cotto: Cats.
Londo: Cats! I'm being nibbled to death by cats.
Comment: @JoeBlow - I don't think I've heard it outside of the B5 context. However, clearly [J. Michael Straczynski](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Michael_Straczynski) (the series writer) had heard it before, because he wrote a joke off of it. Or perhaps he invented it, and "Michael J." is his account on this stack. The name is awfully coincidental...
Comment: @T.E.D. Nope, just a coincidence.  My only claim to fame is, well, nothing.
Answer: It's not clear to me in your question, whether the sender of the emails is doing this as a deliberate (office-political?) strategy to some end, or whether he is oblivious of the effect he is creating on the receiver.
Similarly, how justifiable is the receiver's unwillingness to further "parse" the emails. Presumably he's not merely tired or lazy?
If you're describing the sender, and wish to imply it's deliberate, then maybe it's a form of microaggression or passive-aggressive behaviour?
If you're more describing the receiver, then maybe he's simply overwhelmed ?
Finally, maybe worth mentioning a one-time deliberate policy (or ploy) of labour agitators called work-to-rule wherein employees follow rules strictly and exactly - in other words, is the email sending a variant of this: rather than going slow, he's clogging a communication line; in other words, some kind of "bureaucratic attitude" or malicious compliance on the part of the sender?
Comment: I hadn't heard of work-to-rule or malicious compliance, what useful terms! To answer your first question, I think the sender is probably oblivious to the effect his emails are having, yet he is so disturbingly ambitious it's easy to see it otherwise. I now have a wealth of great answers here to help me hone this and think about it. Is it a micro-aggression or self-defeating over-enthusiasm? I love the English language and its specificity, because answering those questions does so much more than snipe at the irritation, as I was originally doing.
Comment: I remember Trade Unions having their members "work to rule" instead of going on strike - they got paid while "working to rule" because they were still at work!   And I remember mention of 'Chinese Water Torture'!
Answer: What comes to mind:

Badgering
Getting someone to the 'point of distraction'
Hen-pecking
Chipping away at someone
Comment: Welcome to Stack Exchange!  This is a good start, but this answer could be improved by adding some authoritative definitions and other references.
Answer: You could say that they are pestering you.
Pester (from ODO)

verb [with object] Trouble or annoy (someone) with frequent or
  persistent requests or interruptions:  she constantly pestered him
  with telephone calls
Comment: Pestering is what you're doing while do do this, but in itself it doesn't contain the meaning of "wearing down" the target.
Answer: If they're technically following work protocol by sending individual emails for each request, TV Tropes suggests Bothering By the Book. The target of such an attack has sometimes been referred to as being nibbled to death by ducks, but that's hard to turn into an action verb.
Comment: If they're "following work protocol", they are obviously "working to rule"!
Answer: "Snowflaking" : The idiomatic image of being covered over with small "snowflakes" of requested actions in such a fashion that it prevents concentration on import/high priority work. The particular connotation is that of the head of a bureaucracy giving small, distracting, but required, tasks to subordinates in order to prevent them from concentrating on and perhaps obstructing larger issues. The image is further reinforced if one thinks of a blizzard of memos flying around an office. A recent prevalent use was in relation to Donald Rumsfeld's efforts to transform the US DoD (in the pre 9-11 period)
Snowflaking would apply more to distractions, which might be irritating, than to  pure irritations.
Comment: This is interesting - I haven't heard it in this context before. When I looked for some corroboration, I found a [Slate article about the documentary](http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/movies/2014/04/donald_rumsfeld_documentary_talking_to_errol_morris_about_the_unknown_known.html) that mentions the "snowflakes", but no mention of snowflaking and no other usage in this sense outside the context of the film. I found quite a variety of other usages of varying vulgarity though.
Answer: There are numerous phrases. Most of them are borrowed translations. Here are the most common ones:

Nickel and Dime-ing: This does what you describe in economic form, a bunch of tiny charges eventually driving the other into spending large amounts of money.
Death of/by a thousand cuts: This one has its origins in descriptions of torture from pre-revolution China. Shoutout to @vynsane for it.
Kill by inches. @NVZ brought this one up.
Whittling down: Refers to a type of wood carving. Shoutout to @Kevin Workman
Draining by Mosquitoes: This one originated in Florida, but I've heard it throughout the US.

Note that there are other terms, some of which are obscure, most of which are dialect-specific, and many of which have fallen out of modern use; all of whic are still valid. If I didn't mention a phrase, it's because I view it as uncommon.
Answer: There are already numerous viable answers, but I didn't see this one here, so I thought I'd add it.

erode
verb, \i-'rōd\
to diminish or destroy by degrees

(Merriam Webster)
Answer: The straw that broke the camel's back

the straw that broke the camel's back
The final limit of capacity, including patience.
An Arabian anecdote told of a camel whose owner loaded the beast of burden with as much straw as possible. Not satisfied with the staggering load he had put on the camel, the owner added just one last piece of straw. Even that one wisp was too much, and the animal collapsed with a broken back, leaving the owner with no way to take his goods to the market. The story is a parable for all the times you've been repeatedly irked until you can't take it anymore and you explode.

(The Free Dictionary)
As the definition says, this simply means that the straw (sometimes feather), something inconsequential, has been added after you've been repeatedly provoked which caused something to snap.
This is also where we get the phrase final straw from — the final thing that provokes you and makes you snap is the straw
Answer: The term gaslight or gaslighting which means to manipulate someone into questioning there own memory, sanity or perception.
The term comes from the play "Gas Light" where an abusive husband slowly drives his wife insane by claiming to not hear noises, moving furniture around and claiming it was always there and he would cause the gas lights dim and then deny the lighting had changed.
Comment: I was thinking of this term when I asked the original question. It's exactly the right tone. Also, I love Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman. And who doesn't want to see a tarted up Mrs. Potts? The reason I didn't use it is that the result of this guys email deluge is apathy, not the recipient questioning her sanity or perception. But cheers for the kindred thought process.
Answer: Filibuster
A filibuster is a parliamentary procedure where debate over a proposed piece of legislation is extended, allowing one or more members to delay or entirely prevent a vote on the proposal. It is sometimes referred to as "talking out a bill" or "talking a bill to death"[1] and characterized as a form of obstruction in a legislature or other decision-making body. The English term "filibuster" is derived from the Spanish filibustero, itself deriving originally from the Dutch vrijbuiter, "privateer, pirate, robber" (also the root of English "freebooter"[2]). The Spanish form entered the English language in the 1850s, as applied to military adventurers from the United States then operating in Central America and the Spanish West Indies such as William Walker.[3][4]
(The above text lifted verbatim from Wikipedia.)
Comment: Welcome to English Language & Usage Stack Exchange.  Yes, this is in the right ballpark, but I believe that it's not a correct answer to the question.  Filibustering (as you clearly understand) is an obstructionist tactic, used to prevent an adversary from doing anything.  The question is asking for a *coercive* technique, used to persuade or pressure the victim into acquiescing to the aggressor's point of view.  But nice work on the etymology and history — assuming that your references support your assertions.  … (Cont'd)
Comment: (Cont'd) …  P.S. If you intend to provide references/links in your answer, then ***provide them***, and don't just pretend to.  (Since you're a new user, you may be limited to posting only two hyperlinks in an answer, but if you leave the others in there as plain text, somebody will probably convert them for you.)
Answer: Cold war - thefreedictionary.com

A state of rivalry and tension between two factions, groups, or individuals that stops short of open, violent confrontation.
Comment: This bears almost no relation to the question what so ever.
Comment: @GreenAsJade "There are none so blind as those who won't see" - the OP's description fits the modus operandi of a cold-war combatant very well.
Comment: So what you are saying is that the word that the OP is looking for would describe modus operandi of cold war combatants.   That in no way means that "Cold War" is a phrase that means "the strategy of wearing someone down with numerous small irritations".  In fact, Cold War is a period of history that encompassed many strategies, the major ones being first contaiment, and then arms race.  Nothing to do with wearing each other down with small irritations.
Answer: Nihil Carborundum Illigitimati in Latin expresses my submission
Don't let the bastards wear you down and get on your nerves.
Comment: It works with downvotes from grumpy people too. : )


Humidity and Rainfall

Question: Usually the higher the humidity the more rainfall we get like in the summer here in Asheville, North Carolina we get a lot of showers and thunderstorms in the summer from the high humidity but I saw that in April is when humidity is at its lowest. How is that possible because we get lots of rain showers in April here in Asheville so how can humidity be at its lowest?
Comment: When you're talking humidity, are you referring to the relative humidity (the percent full) or the absolute humidity (the actual amount of moisture, often expressed by the dew point)?
Answer: Now you see, humidity and rainfall are connected, but not in the way that you'd expect...
Let's suppose that their are rain clouds already in the air, maybe a couple hundred meters to a kilometer or so. Now imagine two scenarios:
1) Humidity of the air is low
2) Humidity of the air is high
Oh, and there is one more thing you need to understand before we move on. As raindrops fall, some of the water will evaporate into the atmosphere, increasing the humidity; but the air can only absorb the water if it has low humidity. Okay, back to our example.
1) Humidity of the air is low

Air can absorb a lot of water
As the rain drops fall, most, if not all of the water will be absorbed (evaporated) in the surrounding air

2) Humidity of the air is high

Air can absorb little to no water
As raindrops fall, the water will not be absorbed into the air

The second example is called rain. The first example is called virga. And yes, when virga happens, some of the rain drops don't even reach the ground! Crazy, right?
But now to answer your question...
I'm assuming that your clouds are relatively low to the ground, maybe no more than a kilometer. Also in April, the sun isn't that strong, so it doesn't have a chance to evaporate that much water.
Just remember, all scenarios are different, but as a general rule of thumb, the less humidity, the more rainfall.
EDIT:
This doesn't mean that places with less humidity must get rain. No. Rain cloud formation and humidity are completely unrelated. Rain clouds can form in whatever condition and in any place at any time. Humidity on the other hand affects whether or not the raindrops actually touch the ground.
It'll still rain with low humidity, but the raindrops might get absorbed into the air before they hit the ground. In some cases with low humidity, the sun isn't strong enough to evaporate all the water, so there'll only be a light shower. Sorry for the confusion.
Comment: Did you maybe put the wrong word in your final sentence before the edit?  It seems to contradict everything else you wrote?

Humidity and Rainfall


Does the yolk sac for Danio rerio form at the vegetal pole?

Question: Does the yolk sac in general form always at the vegetal pole?
If so, is this the case for Danio rerio (the zebrafish)?
Answer: Generally, yes, yolk is at the vegetal pole. There may be exceptions but I am not aware of them.
You can read about zebrafish (Danio rerio) embryology in great detail in this paper. Figure 3 from this paper (see image) shows the immediate post-fertilization zygote, in which the animal-vegetal axis is first set up by the migration of non-yolk to the animal pole.

UPDATE: very explicitly labeled yolk figures.
Comment: Thank you! I read a paper but it was not clear to me where the yolk sac was eaxctly.
Comment: See new figures from paper in update.


Where does picking speed come from? Forearm, hand, or bicep?

Question: Where specifically on the arm/hand should rapid picking speed come from?
Answer: It depends completely on the technique that you are trying to gain speed on.

If you want fast, palm muted power chords (like metal guitar), then it's in the wrist.
If you want fast open chords (like Pinball Wizard), then it's more in your wrist / forearm (I guess you might consider forearm to be bicep).
Fast single notes (like Dick Dale), is either wrist or a twisting of your forearm.
Fast picking for lead lines could be a million different things, including alternate picking, finger technique, sweep picking, etc.

The one thing that took me a long time to realize is that at the end of the day, you'll be faster if you are relaxed. It may not feel like that to begin with, but tensing up never really helps.
Comment: "tensing up never really helps". Correct. It causes fatigue, then muscle cramping. Try playing fast with a muscle cramp in your forearm.
Comment: I'm pretty sure your deltoids are also involved. I can feel the right tense up a little when I'm chugging hard.
Answer: i would say it's all in the flick of the wrist
the goal is that you don't really want to be straining your muscles much if at all. it's really about twitching the wrist quickly without flexing or constricting muscle much, to not tire your arm. you don't need strength for this. just speed.
Answer: Just like my other favorite past-time: It's all in the wrist. With that being said, Al DiMeola  has forearms like a ham, but if you watch him play it's amazing the economy of movement that's concentrated in his wrists.  Steve Morse, at his peak in the late 70's seemed to use his entire arm, which always looked like it shouldn't produce the insanely accurate, musical flurries of notes - especially during his "country" solos's.
Herb Ellis, one of jazz's fastest guitarists, always seemed to get most of his speed/strength out of his thumb and forefinger - which, seems to be the case for a majority of accurate speed players: a wrist movement that eventually becomes such a second nature muscle memory that it winds up being a fluid motion in the thumb and forefinger area.
Answer: There is a famous part of Eruption that quotes Etude No 2 by Kreutzer (reference here). For that style of picking, it is important to lock the wrist, and use the forearm in a tight, fast pattern (yet staying relaxed ;-)
Here is a link to the quote, which shows Eddie's technique
Answer: There are likely as many routes to fast picking as there are pickers...   For bluegrass-type fast runs that are mostly done in a pretty strict alternate-picking style, it seems to come from the elbow with the wrist relatively rigid.
Doc Watson refers to "picking from the elbow" when digging in on such passages.
Note that I'm talking about steel-string acoustics here, and usually set up with rather stout medium-gauge strings.
Playing an electric with "slinkies" can be quite different.
Answer: The pick type makes a great difference to me - if I'm chugging I'll use a fairly thick pick, but for speed I'll go for a 0.4 or 0.45 mm pick, and as new as possible...if it is worn you have to move it further to get the point of the pick past the string to return back across it.
Answer: A fast picking speed comes from mainly the hand both working to move the pick quickly. However the bicep does a little work, keeping the hand and arm steady to provide accurate picking.
Comment: The bicep is in the upper arm.
Comment: You'd have to be moving your whole lower arm to be working your bicep that much.  Besides generally being bad technique for picking, you want to move as little as possible if you're aiming for speed (to avoid major inertial effects).
Comment: But surely moving the hand would require tensing of the lower arm? Thanks for pointing this out also, I shall revise my answer.


Will Ubuntu have full tablet functionality on a Lenovo Tablet PC?

Question: Considering a Lenovo Tablet PC, (not sure which one yet).
Will UBUNTU work with full tablet functionality including touch screen?
Do any touch screen Tablet PC's work? (Panasonic, HP, Dell, etc...)?
Comment: This is what live cd / usb is for make one for your tablet boot it a choose try Ubuntu. If it works on the live media it will work when installed. As far as I know Ubuntu has full touch support...
Answer: The Lenovo Thinkpad X220i Tablet is Ubuntu certified (for 11.10), as is the ThinkPad X201 (for 10.04).
The Lenovo Ideapad S10-3T (keep in mind that this is a convertible netbook/tablet as opposed to a "pure" tablet) was featured in this episode of the Linux Action Show, and apparently works very well with 12.04 (numerous threads on the Ubuntu Forums indicate that this model is not at all well-supported by earlier versions). If I recall correctly, screen rotation functionality was still lacking, but the LAS guys had set up a simple workaround.
While multitouch was added to Ubuntu a couple of years ago (as per this article) and I have seen YouTube videos of the S10-3T (as well as other tablets) that show multi-touch working very nicely (such as this one), the research I have done has not turned up any information about actually getting this to work, and has yielded many examples of unsuccessful attempts. Basic single-touch functionality is all there though, and I'm sure multi-touch will come soon enough. Until then though, it is worth mentioning that you can use a program called Touchégg to create useful touch gestures.
Answer: I had success with an older HP TC1100 with the exception of screen rotation, but it would be best to make a USB boot (or use an external USB CD/DVD drive) and test the hardware from that.
Answer: As long as they are built on a Intel chipset, they will probably work quiet well.
Beware: Tablets with ARM CPU architecture, built for Windows 8 RT, will not work with Ubuntu out of the box, due to the Microsoft Secure Boot feature(?!?)...
There is still a way to make these run  Linux, using Fedora or maybe SuSE Linux
Microsoft Inks Pact with Fedora Over Windows 8 / Secure Boot
SUSE Linux Outlines Its Plans for Windows 8 Secure Boot
Answer: I can't speak for all the Lenovo tablets but I have been running 12.04 on an X60 (tablet-laptop convertible) for some time now and 11.10 before that.
Most of the functions work out-of-the-box, with a few exceptions. For example if you want to use the tablet stylus with a 2nd monitor hooked in you will need to run MapToOutput to reassign the cursor to the tablet screen only. The screen rotate button doesn't work but you can either use a rotate script as I do or use the Jupiter power app which has a display rotation option. The finger print reader works fine but I set it up on windows before I changed to ubuntu so I cant vouch for that. All the other hardware buttons and function buttons seem to work out of the box.
Again I can only verify this for an X60 so go with the others suggestions and try it out with a live USB.


Android Factory Reset

Question: After a factory reset on my Note 5 the first step after selecting language Google requires is the previous email account entry, I've entered my gmail account and password 10 times and it keeps telling me to use the original. It is the original. Except for an updated password. It is an endless loop; how do you get out of it?
Answer: If you are completely positive that that email is correct, try these things:

Resetting the password to the original (if you know it).
Make sure you're using a Google account (Or Gmail).
Contacting your service provider's help line or contact support.
Contact Samsung here.

Good Luck. I would recommend contacting Samsung BEFORE your service provider.
Comment: 1. Tried that, didn't work
Comment: 2. Only email account I use regulary is gmail. 3. Going to service provider to get a new phone after I finish typing. 4. Samsung - no thanks
Answer: You are doing something wrong here. When you enter your Google Account credentials, there you will be asked to enter email and password. Once that is filled, in the next screen you will be asked to type your recovery email. That's it. Only the recovery email, Google doesn't ask password for it.
You did something wrong.
Anyways, you can change your email password right now. Here is the official Google guide - https://support.google.com/mail/answer/41078?hl=en
Comment: I wish that were true, the message I get after entering my google account credentials and having them accepted is: "This device was reset. To continue, sign in with a Google Account that was previously synced on this device." Over and Over and Over ; like I said stuck in a loop.
Comment: Sorry prior to the aforementioned quotation for a brief instant this message flashes on the screen: "Please sign in using one of the owner's accounts." Note: 1. When purposely entering the wrong password you get: Wrong password. Try again." 2. When purposely entering the wrong Google Account name you get: "Couldn't find your Google Account" Following that thread lands you right back where I started!
Comment: Perhaps your issue is complicated and unique. Have you tried logging in with that gmail account on PC? Is that working? And if you are familiar with Recovery mode, then you can factory reset your phone that way. Sometimes there might be cache files that might be causing the issue. So hard reset via recovery mode might help. Google it and read guide on how to do it. Also you need to wipe of Cache.

Android Factory Reset


How to prepare a screen (for screen printing)

Question:
Pls how long does it take for emulsion applied on screen to dry up, so that one can start exposing an image on it?
How dim should the room be when applying the photo-emulsion on fresh screen?
How dim should your room be, when placing the art work on the screen before exposing?
Comment: Hi Emma, welcome to GD.SE! It's better if you restrict your question to one main issue. You can open 3 questions if they are different enough. The answers will and should stay here (I deleted your email address and the request for sending the infor there) because the goal of the site is to help others looking for similar answers :)
Answer: I'll try and answer best I can:

It all depends on the humidity and the air circulation in the room, but in a somewhat standard room, I would estimate it would take anything from 4 to 8 hours for the emulsion to dry up, depending on how much you put on. You don't need a really thick coat either, and I recommend using a plastic paint scraper to take off the excess emulsion before leaving it to dry. Emulsion should be evenly spread and there shouldnt be enough for it to "drip" if you leave it sideways or upside down. Better safe than sorry when it comes to letting it dry though, as you will make a mess on your equipment (light table being the worst) if you have drops or spots of undried emulsion.
You need to keep the screen away from any strong light and especially direct sunlight at all times before you're ready to wash out the un-hardened emulsion (after having burnt your image).
The room should be about as bright as if it was candle-lit. You can put semi-transparent drapes or cloth over the lighting to adjust lighting if you don't have a dimmer.
The room should be as bright as for applying the emulsion.
Of course, the best course is to have one dim-lit room in which you apply the emulsion, let the screen dry and then burn your image using your light table.

Hope this helps, and I hope you enjoy screen printing, it's hella fun once you get the hang of it!


How do I fix this fluorescent light?

Question: I have a  fluorescent light in a 30-year old fitting. The light has recently stopped working, though it is trying to light at each end.  Replacing the tube has had no effect.  However there is a little knob on the side of the fitting and when I rotate this it is breaking and reconnecting the live wire, and making the light work.  I think therefore that I may have a starter problem but I am not sure.  Can I replace the original big silver 'starter' (actually a capacitor) with a new starter, or is there likely to be something else wrong?
Answer: Besides the bulb, there are two other common failure points:  the inductive ballast (which limits current and, for long tubes, is a step up auto-transformer) and a preheat/starter switch (not a capacitor).
Both those components are replaceable, though it may be difficult to find them.  In the 1940s through the 1970s, they were available at every hardware and electrical supply store, but since standard florescent fixtures have now been completely obsolesced by compact florescent (CFL) and LEDs, compatible components are now uncommon.
If you can't find parts or they are expensive, this might be a good opportunity to replace the light fixture with a modern one.  It will be about three times more efficient, quieter, more reliable, and more easily repairable.  They should be quite reasonably priced too due to significant competition.
Answer: Although I agree with @wallyk, if you still prefer to fix the old fixture, then I suggest you search for a new ballast. Most of them now eliminate the need for a separate starter. Also, if you buy a quality ballast (that eliminates the need for a starter), you'll have years of reliable lighting ahead.
Apart from finding the replacement ballast, you may have some trouble figuring out how to wire it. If so, I suggest you post a picture showing the existing light's (before disconnecting anything) so we can help you figure it out.

How do I fix this fluorescent light?


Can Q-learning be used for continuous (state or action) spaces?

Question: Many examples work with a table-based method for Q-learning. This may be suitable for a discrete state (observation) or action space, like a robot in a grid world, but is there a way to use Q-learning for continuous spaces like the control of a pendulum?
Answer: Q-learning for continuous state spaces
Yes, this is possible, provided you use some mechanism of approximation. One approach is to discretise the state space, and that doesn't have to reduce the space to a small number of states. Provided you can sample and update enough times, then a few million states is not a major problem.
However, with large state spaces it is more common to use some form of function approximation for the action value. This is often noted $\hat{q}(s,a,\theta)$ to show that it is both an estimate (the circumflex over $\hat{q}$) and that you are learning some function parameters ($\theta$). There are broadly two popular approaches to Q-learning using function approximation:

Linear function approximation over a processed version of the state into features. A lot of variations to generate features have been proposed and tested, including Fourier series, tile coding, radial basic functions. The advantage of these methods are that they are simple, and more robust than non-linear function approximations. Which one to choose depends on what you state space represents and how the value function is likely to vary depending on location within the state space.
Neural network function approximation. This is essentially what Deep Q Networks (DQN) are. Provided you have a Markov state description, you scale it to work sensibly with neural networks, and you follow other DQN best practices (experience replay table, slow changing target network) this can work well.

Q-learning for continuous action spaces
Unless you discretise the action space, then this becomes very unwieldy.
The problem is that, given $s,a,r,s'$, Q-learning needs to evaluate the TD target:
$$Q_{target}(s,a) = r + \gamma \text{max}_{a'} \hat{q}(s',a',\theta)$$
The process for evaluating the maximum becomes less efficient and less accurate the larger the space that it needs to check.
For somewhat large action spaces, using double Q-learning can help (with two estimates of Q, one to pick the target action, the other to estimate its value, which you alternate between on different steps) - this helps avoid maximisation bias where picking an action because it has the highest value and then using that highest value in calculations leads to over-estimating value.
For very large or continuous action spaces, it is not usually practical to check all values. The alternative to Q-learning in this case is to use a policy gradient method such as Actor-Critic which can cope with very large or continuous action spaces, and does not rely on maximising over all possible actions in order to enact or evaluate a policy.
Controlling a pendulum
For a discrete action space e.g. applying one of a choice of forces on each time step, then this can be done using a DQN approach or any other function approximation. The classic example here might be an environment like Open AI's CartPole-v1 where the state space is continuous, but there are only two possible actions. This can be solved easily using DQN, it is something of a beginner's problem.
Adding continuous action space ends up with something like the Pendulum-v0 environment. This can be solved to some degree using DQN and discretising the action space (to e.g. 9 different actions). However, it is possible to make more optimal solutions using an Actor-Critic algorithm like A3C.
Comment: How do you calculate q^(s′,a′,θ) for the training? My guess is to calculate backward from the end state of the pendulum. During the first run of the DQN, do you use one value for all q^(s′,a′,θ) or randomize them per example?
Comment: @JoachimRives $\hat{q}(s',a',\theta)$ is the output of the neural network or other parametric estimator during training, and $\theta$ stands for the learning parameters. To calculate what the value *should* be trained to be - for DQN at least - that's the TD target, and the formula for that is shown in the answer. Wehn using DQN, it is important to recalculate the TD target every time you retrieve an example from replay memory.
Comment: Do you mean the DQN TD is calculated backward or based on the expected value of succeeding steps leading to the terminal state?
Comment: @JoachimRives The value is calculated as in the answer. TD learning (of which Q learning is an example) does not calculate backwards from the terminal state, instead it bootstraps from existing estimates that can be in the middle of a trajectory. Other algorithms do resolve backwards from terminal states - e.g. Monte Carlo control. There are already questions on this site that explain the difference further
Answer:
Q-Learning for continuous state space

Reinforcement learning algorithms (e.g Q-Learning) can be applied to both discrete and continuous spaces. If you understand how it works in discrete mode, then you can easily move to continuous mode. That's why in the literature all the introductory material focuses on discrete mode, as it's easier to model (table, grid, etc.)
Supposing you have a discrete number of actions, the only difference in a continuous space is that you will be modeling the state each $X$ amount of time ($X$ being a number you can choose depending on your use case). So, basically, you end up with a discrete space, but probably with an infinite number of states. You apply then the same approach you learned for discrete mode.
Let's take the example of self-driving cars, at each $X$ms (e.g $X=1$), you'll be computing the state of the car which are your input features (e.g direction, orientation, rotation, distance to the pavement, relative position on the lane, etc.) and take a decision of the action to take as in discrete mode. The approach is the same in other use cases, like playing games, walking robots, and so on.

Note (continuous action space):

If you have continuous actions, then in almost all use cases the best approach is to discretize your actions. I can't think of an example where discretizing your actions will lead to a considerable deficiency.
Comment: More formally, you are suggesting to [discretise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discretization) the continuous state space. Do you have any references to works/papers that apply a discretization of the state space? I think it might be helpful to cite them, if that's the case.
Comment: If action space is continuous you could model it by outputting a mean and variance of a proper distribution and then use the outputs to sample from the distribution parameterized by those outputs (ie. applying voltages).
Comment: For references using discretisation you can take a look at  [the Arcade Learning Environment paper](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1207.4708.pdf) which uses frame-skipping techniques (also experimented in the well-known [Playing Atari with Deep Reinforcement Learning paper](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1312.5602v1.pdf)). Current RL papers having video as input do the process at the level of each frame thanks to computation power being available.


Connecting opening book to chess engine

Question: I have file Rybka.exe and when I use it for the first moves, it always goes Nf3 or Nc3 only (even at strength 1000 and depth 1). I assume that is because it doesn't have opening book assigned (?) to it. How does one connect opening books in .ctg (or other?) formats to the chess engine? I do not want to get some GUI, but rather understand how it is done.
Comment: Could you clarify your question? Is it normal practice to connect opening books to engines? You say that you don't want to get some GUI. But is it best practice to use GUI:s in this situation?
Comment: Well, software like Fritz, if you play against it, plays various variations thus that means in some way it is done artificially, not using vanilla engine. Otherwise, it just picks the top move in the current position, which, given the same amount of time and CPU is always the same. It alternates between Nf3 and Nc3 because they both are quite equal moves. I assumed you can just make the engine use the opening book until it can be followed. Otherwise I am forced to find a way to read the book and supply the moves by myself.
Comment: This does not seem to be a trivial question to answer. Perhaps you should do a deep search on Google and try to find the answer there. Or perhaps expand your question and add more information about exactly what Rybka version you have, what operating system you are using, what GUI:s you have already tried, and what exactly you are trying to achieve.
Answer: I don't have Rybka 4 but I do have the free version (Rybka 2.3.2). Rybka 2.3.2 doesn't support engine book. To verify this, open the engine in command, then type "uci". Look at how I did it.
Look the UCI options, we have one for multi-pv and others. But there is nothing for an opening book. If the engine doesn't support an opening book, you have to rely on a GUI to do it, for example, Fritz.
On the other hand, if you do the same thing to Stockfish, you'll see a Book options where you can specify path to your book be used by the engine.
Answer: It sounds like you're using the standard Chessbase interface when you mentioned a .ctg file.
The Chessbase interface is used for many engines, so this title may work: How To Make Fritz Chess Software Play a Specific Chess Opening
Try this:
http://www.chesscentral.com/Chess_Opening_Book_a/137.htm

Connecting opening book to chess engine


Help with probability for a complicated dice pool mechanic

Question: I'm putting together a system with experimental dice mechanics.  I want to know the probabilities involved, preferably in a way such as anyDice where I can easily change all variables and get the probability results without having to have a degree in maths to figure it out.
This is the simple part.
The core mechanic would be that a player puts together a pool of dice and rolls them against a target number from 2-6.  Every die that equals or exceeds the target number is a hit.
Where it gets complex
In that pool are positive dice equal to the skill of the player and negative dice equal to skill of an NPC opponent.  Hits on negative dice cancel out positive hits of equal or lower value.  Any remaining hits are counted and used to determine results.

Example: a player has a skill of 5 and is performing an action with a
TN of 4 against an opponent with a skill of 3.  This creates a pool
of 5 positive dice which come up 1,2,4,4,6 and 3 negative dice that
come up 2,4,5.  The 1 and 2 on the positive dice are set aside as
well as the 2 on the negative dice leaving 3 positive hits (4,4,6)
and 2 negative hits (4,5). The negative 4 cancels out one of the
positive 4s and the negative 5 cancels out the other negative 4
leaving the positive 6 for a net total of 1 positive hit.
I'm looking for the probability of getting X number of net positive hits given various numbers of positive dice, negative dice, and target numbers.
As a separate mechanic that could be layered onto the core mechanic I am considering the ability to "boost" or "drain" a pool by adding a number of dice to the positive dice (or I suppose the negative too) before the roll and then subtracting the same number of either the lowest/highest results before determining hits.
For example: if the positive dice pool of 5 was boosted by 2 you would roll 7 positive dice and drop the two lowest results before determining hits.  I'm curious how much of a statistical difference this would make given different sized pools compared to changing the target number or simply adding/subtracting dice from the pool straight up.

Why do I need this?
The mechanic is actually the starting point on this one.  I'm trying to see if it can be made into something functional but without solid probability data I'm mostly just playing things by ear.
Answer: Here you have it on AnyDice to test it.
Here the code.
You can subsitute the "difficulty", "myroll" and "hisroll" to test different situations. Also, if you know a bit about AnyDice, can create different outputs to test how change a variation in skills or difficulty.
<code>function: difficulty X:n myroll A:s hisroll B:s {
 RESULT: 0
 loop V over {X..6} {
  RESULT: RESULT + (V = A) - (V = B)
 }
 result: RESULT
}

output [difficulty 3 myroll 3d6 hisroll 3d6]
</code>
I'll be happy to implement the Boost or Drain if you could be more specific about how it works.


Advanced settings for followed people on Twitter

Question: On Twitter, I'd like to watch specific "followed" people in the Home page (timeline), and watch the others (i.e. celebrities and organizations which have more tweets than my friends) in a list window I created. Is a separation like this possible?
Answer: I'm not sure what you're asking here because this is primarily what twitter lists are used for.

In the twitter web application, Click "Create a List"
Find the user you want to "List Follow"
Click The "List" dropdown.
Add this user to your newly created list (You do not have to follow the user)

Instructions for Old Twitter are here.
Comment: OK - Place them on the list and *then* unfollow them.
Comment: This is what I did; but the problem is I don't want to **copy** these persons, I want to **move** them to the list.


random Algorithm over Random input-help needed

Question: A random Algorithm $A$ receives input in $[n]$ it's know that when the probability is taken over input that was chosen randomly over uni-formal distribution over the algorithm randomness the probability $A$ succeeds is at least $2/3$. Prove that if we randomly pick $k \in [n]$ then with probability of at least $1/3$ we shall get such k such that the algorithm succeeds with probability of at least $1/2$
Any help\directions would be great
Answer: Consider the set $B$ of all inputs $b$ such that $P(\text{success}\mid b)\ge 1/2$. Then, clearly $P(\text{success}\mid \neg B)<1/2$.
Now write $$\frac23 \le P(\text{success}) = P(B) P(\text{success}\mid B) + P(\neg B) P(\text{success}\mid \neg B)$$
and consider what happens if $P(B)<1/3$


settlers of catan expansion: Can I trade with the bank during the special building phase?

Question: Can I trade four of a kind to the bank on my special building phase?
Answer: No, trading with the bank even with your ports (2:1, 3:1) is not allowed.
If that rule did not exist, it would be very unlikely to have more than 7 cards in your hand.
Taken from the rules (http://www.catan.com/files/downloads/settlers_5-6_rv_rules_100107.pdf):

• Special Building Phase – Your opponents may build as outlined below. The Special Building Phase occurs just after the end of your turn (i.e., between player turns). All the other players may participate in the Special Building Phase. Each player then takes his turn clockwise around the table, and is allowed to build anything he can create with his resources. 3 Note that no player is allowed to play Development Cards during the Special Building Phase. Also note that players are not allowed to do any trading with other players—nor are they allowed to use Maritime Trade—during this phase. They may only use the resources they have in their hands. For this reason, players are advised to trade as much, and as advantageously, as possible with the current player during his trading phase. They will then have the resources they need to build during the Special Building Phase. The Special Building Phase is an opportunity for all the other players (who are not currently taking their turn) to build roads, settlements, and cities, and/or to buy Development Cards. This phase allows each player to influence the game, even though it is not his turn!
Comment: It might be helpful to highlight (bold) the important parts of your quote that directly answer the question. I assume you copied that quote from a rules pdf or webpage. You should try to provide a link to the source if that is the case.
Answer: No, you can only trade with the bank in your own trading phase. The special building phase is just for building!
Answer: No, you may not trade 4:1 with the bank during the special building phase. As per the 5-6 player rule book:

Also note that players are not allowed to do any trading with other
  players—nor are they allowed to use Maritime Trade—during this phase

The 4:1 trade is defined under Maritime Trade in the base game rulebook:

b) Maritime Trade
You can also trade without the other players!
  During your turn, you can always trade at 4:1 by putting
  4 identical Resource Cards back in their stack and taking any
  1 Resource Card of your choice for it.
If you have a settlement or city on a harbor, you can trade
  with the bank more favorably: at either a 3:1 ratio or in special
  harbors (trading the resource type shown) at 2:1.

Note that no trading with other players and no maritime trade means that no trading of any kind can take place during the special building phase.
Comment: Nice clarification
Answer: I'm not certain there is a definitive answer to this based on the rule book quoted above.  The clause highlighted in the previous answer specifically prohibits "trading with other players," and does not specifically prohibit trading with the bank, as in a 4:1 trade.  Had the game manufacturers intended to prohibit "all trading" then they would not have been so specific to prohibit just inter-player and maritime trade.  Furthermore, it could be argued that since you can "buy" DCs from the bank then the 4:1 transaction is also a "buy" rather than a trade since it's between the player and bank and not between two players.
Perhaps this is just an unintentionally ambiguous translation from the original German (I think) rules or it's just poorly written.
Comment: It says you can't use ports, meaning the maritime trade, but I think you are right about the 4:1 trade.
Comment: This is incorrect - see my answer below. The 4:1 trade is "maritime trade", and so it is expressly forbidden by the rulebook.
Comment: @Will This should NOT be accepted as the correct answer. See the other answers; they give better explanations of why this is incorrect.
Comment: @TimothyJones, thanks for the detailed answer above.  I think that resolves it.  In my third game ever (just the other day) I was told 4:1 wasn't allowed on the special build and shown the rules for 5-6 player extension which, alone, doesn't explain that 4:1 is a maritime trade.
Comment: Indeed - the rule isn't clear from only the 5-6 player expansion rules. In general, I've found the Catan rules to be written with little ambiguity - although sometimes they feel like they over-specify in order to achieve that :)


Which program do I use to program my rcx 1.0 or 1.5

Question: I am getting an RCX and I know it is ether a 1.0 or a 1.5. Which program do I use to program my RCX?
Comment: Here's an answer Ambo100 posted:

http://bricks.stackexchange.com/questions/2572/where-can-i-get-rcx-1-0-software
Answer: You really have two major choices:

Try to acquire, install, and run the official Lego software for the RCX.
Use some third-party tool to develop programs that can be uploaded and run on the brick.

(1) is getting harder and harder to do on modern computers. Personally, I would not bother trying.
(2) means choosing some third-party tooling. The other answer that refers to BricxCC falls into this category. (You should check out the "RCX" section at that link for more information.) Many of the third-party tools for the RCX brick are pretty much no longer under active development.
But this does not mean that they don't work, or aren't useful.
Some decisions you need to make are: do you need an IDE? Are you comfortable at the command line? What platform will you be hosting the development tools on? Do you want to use the default firmware, or use a third-party that replaces the default firmware?
For example, there is a tool called NQC which is a C-like language and brick API with a facility for uploading compiled brick programs and firmwares to all RCX bricks. It can also set the clock, launch specific programs stored on the brick, and even use the brick as a datalogger. It requires an RCX 1.0, 1.5 or 2.x compatible firmware.
LeJOS is a tiny Java compiler and runtime that needs its own firmware which it loads onto the brick. I think people have figured out how to use Eclipse as an IDE for LeJOS.
Full disclosure: I maintain my own fork for NQC on GitHub, and I'm pretty sure it is the only fork under semi-active development. If you need official firmwares for the RCX brick, I've included them in this project as a convenience. Remember that you can use any compatible firmware on a 1.0 or 1.5 brick. That is, if you want a 2.x brick, just install the 2.x firmware.
Answer: I like http://bricxcc.sourceforge.net the best for the RCX! Keep in min that the RCX will loose it's firmware if your batteries are empty or - when powered via 9V - it loses it's power.
Comment: sorry but I don't like or trust this program.
Comment: Well I have often used it in my high school with students so don't know why you should not trust it. The firmware is an RCX problem, has nothing to do with brickcc.


What's the longest scheduled helicopter flight?

Question: I'm looking for the longest scheduled commercial helicopter route in the world. It could be seasonal but should be recurring and anyone should be able to purchase tickets for the route.
Comment: Related: https://travel.stackexchange.com/q/3070/18374
Answer: There is a scheduled helicopter route from Malaga (Spain) to Ceuta (Spain, Africa mainland).
There are two more (as I write) flights today:

Flight no. HTY242 departs 10 Feb. 2020 at 18:35 arriving 19:05
Flight no. HTY210 departs 10 Feb. 2020 at 21:25 arriving 21:55

The distance is 71 miles (114 kilometers).
Answer: Vas'kovo airport of Arkhangelsk has scheduled helicopter flights to Shoina at a total distance of ~420 km:

The last column is price (С for plane, В for helicopter).
I assume same route can be flown with either plane or helicopter, what does that depend on, I know not. Btw, it costs slightly less than $300 one way. I'm yet to try that, hope to do that one day.
Answer: Try https://blade.flyblade.com/
According to their website, flights from KJFK to Manhattan, Monday through Friday, 3:00 PM to 7:00 PM local times costs $195 per person with one carry-on.
Or
https://helijet.com/2015/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Helijet-Schedule-Information-FW19-20.pdf
Straight line distance is 53 Nautical Miles (98 km). Considering obstacle and airspace clearance, it might be more expeditious for them to take a slightly longer route than direct.
Or
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_helicopter_airlines
You seem to have a strong interest in helicopters. Have you thought of saving the money you would spend on random flights. Instead, putting that money into lessons. You might not get to finish your license on that amount of money. But, it would be an experience you will never forget. If you do get the license, it is something you will have for life (barring it being invalidated for violations of aviation regulations or safety protocols).
Time in a Robinson R-22 would cost you $250-300 an hour including fuel, maintenance, etc. An instructor would cost you an additional $50-100 an hour. You could solo (fly on your own without an instructor) in as little as 10 hours.
Comment: Are you quite sure you retain a pilot's license "for life"? AFAIK you need regular flying hours and assessment. The idea that you do not pilot a helicopter for 20 years and then be able to fly a next-generation machine is absurd.
Comment: Dean, while this is valuable advice, it does not answer the question at all. With this kind of questions we are looking for 'location' to 'location' and 'so many times per day/week'.
Comment: @Willeke - Does that help?
Comment: I'd say it is still not really an answer as intended but I leave it to the community for now.
Comment: In the U.S., you retain the pilot certificate for life unless it is taken away by the FAA. However, you can not exercise the privileges of Pilot in Command of a General Aviation, single-pilot certified, personal, private light aircraft unless you meet medical requirements and have had an official Flight Review in the past 24 calendar months. If one or both of those stipulations are not met, you can still fly with another qualified pilot acting as PIC. That is the very simplified answer. There are further stipulations on what type of aircraft you can fly and at what times and conditions.


Do people who work at research institutes consider themselves "academics"?

Question: My long-term goal is to work at a research institute.  While discussing my career plans with different mentors, I find that there is some confusion about whether a position at a government-funded research institute is still considered "academic." Although my question is mostly semantic in nature, I imagine there are some implications with how to market myself (i.e., what to include in a CV or how to describe myself on LinkedIn).  Since many people with posts at research institutes either come from universities or go on to become professors, I think this question is relevant for this forum.
Comment: The key difference for me are teaching duties. I'm not even expected to teach (but it is encouraged and supported). Therefore, I'm not an "academic". I'm a researcher.
Comment: If they do, it seems like the intent would be to distinguish their organization from industry.
Answer: I don't have statistics, but I'd guess that if you asked the question of individuals working in such institutes it would depend on exactly how you asked the question. I would think that the quick answer would be no, but a more reflective answer, when provided with some "definition" of academic might be yes, but would depend on that definition.
I'm also going to guess that only a small proportion of members here are from such institutes but not associated with a university.
Of course, if a person moves from an institute to a university they would then likely self-describe as an academic.
But if you just ask "what are you", you'd be more likely to hear "researcher" than "academic".
But, as you say, it is mostly semantic, given that many academics do just about the same sort of thing as institute based researchers.
The situation is complicated a bit, of course, since many such institutes are associated with universities - some very closely. It might be further complicated in situations in which industry researchers have some "training" duties, even serving as committee members for graduate students.
Comment: My suspicion is that my US national lab coworkers would not consider themselves to be 'academics', but instead scientists or researchers or engineers.
Comment: @Jon In particle physics at least there is a rough mapping of lab positions to approximate academic rank (based on roles in the ubiquitous lab/university collaborations). But these are people whose output is papers and trained juniors much like professors at R1s. I've known some who describe themselves academics and some who make a distinction.
Comment: @dmckee - interesting data point. I could see that occurring in the DOE/Office of Science labs, such as Lawrence Berkeley, which is closely integrated with UC Berkeley. Less obvious that it might occur at DOE/NNSA labs.
Comment: As usual, both this and the other answer combined would be a great overall answer.  I'm wondering now, what is an academic-- a researcher who also teaches?  But perhaps that's best saved for a different question.
Answer: As background, I work for a US Federal government agency. I am physically located at an agency center, but hold courtesy adjunct appointments at two universities where I serve on graduate committees, mentor undergraduates, collaborate with faculty, and attend seminars. Additionally, my agency has cooperative research units (or coops for short) located at universities.
We have a fair number of cross-overs where we hire faculty to join us as researchers or have our researchers leave to join university faculty. This is true both at the post-doc level and more advanced levels. Personally, when I started as a post doc with my agency, I did not know if I would become permanent staff (I was lucky and did, in my case).
Answer to your title question: I consider myself part of of a broader academic community, but more tangentially involved rather than an academic. So, no I am not an academic. However, my colleagues who are part of the coop units, generally consider themselves to be academics because they are fully embedded in universities and must hold academic professor positions as part of their jobs (and they get both *.gov and *.edu email addresses).
Answer to your underlying question about how to market yourself: I am a research scientist. Many parts of my job are similar to a research-focused academic (e.g., I plan and conduct studies, I apply for funding, I publish, etc). I would sell yourself as a researcher. That's the role you want fill. For example, at a research institute, you would be conducting research. Or, at a university, you want them to hire you to conduct research. Last and pragmatically, if you're not able to get in with a research institute or university, industry hires researchers, but industry almost never hires academics.
Comment: I appreciate that you addressed the underlying question.  It feels a bit like identity politics, but I get the sense that how people call themselves, even in research/academia/science bears a lot of weight.
Comment: @artificial_moonlet You're welcome. Also, for some un-solicited career advice, I recommend reading the [Ask the Headhunter blog](https://www.asktheheadhunter.com/). He has a lot of good advice about getting jobs. Many of his tips even apply to government jobs.
Answer: I am not sure that debating the meaning of words is very useful in itself (the exact connotations will even differ between languages!), but perhaps there is some value in mentioning this:
Research and teaching are not really separable.
Wherever there is research being done, you will find students (usually called "graduate students"). Many of these institutes award PhD degrees (or collaborate with a university so that students from the institute can get a degree).
Many believe that it is a core responsibility of researchers to pass on knowledge (not merely to generate it).  Look up any person on Wikipedia who famously contributed to knowledge, and the summary box will typically have a "Notable Students" section.  Most researchers in the institutes where I worked do teach in a classroom setting occasionally, even if this is not a job requirement.
The concept of classroom teaching is a modern thing. Historically, words like academia were not exclusively associated with this particular method of passing on knowledge.
Comment: Just as you noted that a classroom is a modern thing, so are the notions of "teaching" associated to modern classrooms.  You can teach people without being a professor-- any senior person at a company usually has to train junior members.  You are also teaching (i.e., passing on knowledge) any time you present your work, write a high-level blog, or explain what you to do a friend.  I think it's perfectly reasonable to be a researcher without formal teaching responsibilities.  At times, it can be beneficial, given how bloated and backwards so many university programs are these days.


Did any spacecraft ever use the Sun's gravity for acceleration?

Question: Space probes often use planets to accelerate onto a trajectory towards their goal(s) without having to consume too much fuel. But the fastest acceleration would be made through the Sun's gravity if probes manage to get close enough. Was it ever possible for a spacecraft or would it be possible to build a spacecraft resistant to the Sun's heat and radiation from a realistic point of view? The Sun's gravity would accelerate probes extremely fast to distant goals so it would be very good for probes to the Kuiper belt, to the hypothetical planet beyond it or to the closest stars.
Comment: Check this paper: [Project Lyra: Sending a Spacecraft to 1I/'Oumuamua (former A/2017 U1), the Interstellar Asteroid](https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.03155), whereby we go out to Jupiter, use it to swing around 180° and remove most orbital velocity. We are then on an orbit that is practically freefall towards the Sun. This gives good velocity. We then use the Sun to swing around so that old Oumuamua is in the crosshairs, fire rockets to get out of the Sun's gravity well quickly (don't want to lose all that velocity again) and pursue the asteroid like a bat out of hell. (A-Team music starts)
Comment: If you like SF, [Oumuamua](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/1I/%CA%BBOumuamua) is a candidate. Hint: Because the sun is stationary relative to the solar system a sun slingshot maneuver only makes sense for interstellar spacecraft relative to which the sun is moving.
Comment: Are you talking about the Oberth effect?
Comment: On second thoughts, I am probably violating a few conservation laws via the above explanation.
Answer: It doesn't really work that way.  We can use the Sun to change direction, but we need rocket thrust to increase speed with the msneuver.
To begin with, the closest stars (apart from the Sun) are not close.  If we were somehow to reach escape velocity from the Solar System (which this method won't do, see below), we would still be moving at only a small fraction of the speed of light unless we develop a propulsion system that generates energy internally or from what's in space itself.  And stars like Proxima Centauri would take years of on-Earth time to reach even at the full speed of light.
Let's say there is a space probe heading for a "slingshot" encounter with Jupiter, in order to send it to the outer Solar System and beyond.  We know that when the probe is flung outwards with enough acceleration to ultimately escape the Sun, Jupiter must be slowed down and drop (very slightly) closer to the Sun.  We have really drawn energy from Jupiter's orbital motion.
So where is the Sun's orbital motion for a slingshot acceleration around that body?  Technically, things in our Solar System do not orbit the Sun, they orbit the center of mass which is usually just outside the Sun.  So the Sun has some orbital motion -- but very little compared with the motion of any planet, all of which are much farther away from the barycenter and make much longer arcs and faster orbital speeds.  It is well known that if bodies with different masses (like the Sun and planets) interact and convert potential to kinetic energy, most of the kinetic energy as seen from the center of mass goes into the lighter bodies -- not, in this case, the heavy Sun.  Hence the planets rather than the Sun have the energy of motion we need for a slingshot acceleration.
Moreover, we would also have to create a highly eccentric, basically almost parabolic orbit to get close to the Sun starting from our nearly circular Earth orbit.  Even without a change in net orbital energy such a change is orbital shape requires a large delta-v.  Planets are easier to reach, and both inner and outer planets (including Earth) have been used for this purpose.
With proper launch windows and planetary alignments, it's much easier to use planets to get the speed and direction we want to reach targets within the Solar System.  Hence planets are the chosen means of energy exchange within the Solar System.
Addendum:
While a solar slingshot can't accelerate a spaceship out of the Solar System, it can be used to change direction while using rocket thrust at perihelion to boost your speed as the Sun's gravity changes your direction.  Since the Sun's gravity is used only for the directional change and not for net increase in speed (the latter comes from the rocket thrust) it does not draw kinetic energy from the Sun, so it can be executed with good effect using the Sun's superior mass.  Project Lyra (thanks David Tonhofer) has been launced as a feasibility study for a mission to the interstellat space asteroid ʻOumuamua.  As yet, however, this is only preliminary, a long way from actually launching a rocket to put this idea into effect.
Comment: No.  It's done with orbital motion.
Comment: Also, unless I completely misunderstand the process, the amount of boost you get depends on how close you can get to the object.  With a planet, you can get pretty close: your only real problem is when you start running into atmosphere.  With the Sun, it you get close, your spacecraft melts or vaporizes.
Comment: Don't gravity assist depends upon planet's rotational speed about its axis?
Comment: Yes, things get hot around the Sun.  This answer emphasizes the space teavel aapects of the problem, as opposed to the need for heat and radiation shielding.  The latter does no good against the former constraints.
Answer: The "gravitational" (slingshot) maneuvers space probes are performing are actually not so much about gravity. The gravity is method to "tie" temporarily these two bodies, but you could (purely hypothetically of course) use something else, some superstrong tether or so ... "Slingshot maneuver" is in fact much better name in this regard.
What actually happens is momentum exchange. Space probe exchanges some amount of mometum with the planet. But momentum is no absolute quantity, you need a reference frame to talk about it.
The gravitational field is conservative. If you move in a gravity field of a single body stationary in your reference frame, you will always end up with same amount of momentum (in the same reference frame) in any fixed point regardless which trajectory you took to get there. So nothing to gain.
What are we doing with space probes is that despite the fact we haven't gained any momentum relative to the planet, we are "slingshoting" around, we have exchanged some amount of monetum this planet has relative to the Sun.
And that is the point. You can not get any extra energy relative to the Sun doing gravitational maneuver around the Sun. (This applies generally of course. You can not use gravitational maneuever around a planet X to brake and stop at the same planet for example.)
Note: there are some ways to gain an energy from gravity field if you are doing (significant) propulsion burns along the way, but I am not aware there was any such performed in a reality.
Comment: @user30007 What I meant is that the same deltaV (fuel) gives the craft different amount of kinetic energy depending on what the momentary speed is. So burning your fuel closer to the sun gives you more escape energy for the same amount. But I am not sure how total math of such maneuver would be and it is not "typical" gravitational maneuver AFAIK. But I wanted to note it as it is bit contradictory to my previous statement.
Comment: Of course the craft need to burn in these cases, this is why I wrote "without too much fuel". I meant using the Sun's gravity for additional acceleration while burning.
Comment: @Martin "there are some ways to gain an energy from gravity field if you are doing (significant) propulsion burns along the way, but I am not aware there was any such performed in a reality." => routinely used even for going to geostationary orbit.
Comment: @fraxinus You mean super-synchronous transfer orbit would fit? Or something else? Normal way from GTO to GSO, burns are performed in the highest point to increase perigee, so it does not fit as far as I can see. I was actually thinking more like what David Tonhofer posted in the comment to original question: intentionally slowing down in orbit first to make subsequent escape burn to leave the same body more efficient.
Answer: I think the question is based on a misconception about how gravity assists work.
If you just let yourself get pulled to a distant object then continue out the other side, the same gravity that attracted you to it will then begin pulling you back again. You'll just oscillate around it like a bouncing ball.
Gravity assists work because the target itself (e.g. Jupiter) is also moving, in its orbital motion. It "drags" you along briefly while you're strongly within its gravitational influence. You steal a bit of its orbital momentum (like the planet's given you a bit of a kick on your way past) and off you go. The planet still tries to pull you back towards it, but you have enough additional momentum to counter that.
The sun has no such thing (at least not within the frame of reference of the solar system itself), and its relatively large gravitational pull is not useful to you. You can fall towards it quickly, yes, but again you'd only be pulled back. And there is no orbital momentum for you to steal (well, very little).
So, no, this is not a thing.
Comment: I realise this has been answered but I wanted to take a crack at a simpler alternative to existing answers (and certainly one that directly addressed the misconception). Not sure whether I succeeded or not.
Answer: In constrast to the other answers here, I would like to point out that the Oberth Effect does allow you to gain kinetic energy from a gravity well without needing to rob it of momentum ... if you fire your rocket motor at periapsis.
Atomic Rockets has an excellent discussion of what the Oberth effect can do.

So by burning 6 km/s of Δv, you get an actual Δv increase of 46.8 km/s. That's 40.8 km/s for free. Sweet!

By comparison, gravitational slingshots can get energy without any burn (or a trivial one):

Jupiter, with a mass 318 times that of Earth, can give a velocity kick of up to 30 kms/second to a passing spacecraft.

So, it does seem that properly leveraged, a near flyby past the sun could produce higher kicks than a slingshot past Jupiter.
Comment: I was considering extend my answer eventually, but you was faster. (+1) The problem with Oberth maneuver is that you first needs to get close to the Sun which cost pretty lot of deta-v (but yes, here it works with slingshot) and you need to have these 6km/s delta-v in propellant still available when you get there. I believe that space probes leaving earth gravity have usually much less (but not sure, a topic for another question maybe). Because the Oberths gain is proportional to amount of fuel you can burn down there, there is no point doing it unless you have plenty fuel left.


Writing witty/funny characters with deadpan humor

Question: I've been working on writing a game, and I was wondering what were some good pointers for writing witty and funny characters while using deadpan humor? (Something like GLaDOS from the portal series).
I would love some pointers, thanks in advance.
Comment: Check out DVDs of Steven Wright. I believe he's the quintessential"deadpan" humor.
Comment: Apparently I'm not the only one who doesn't know what "deadpan humor" is. You might get better answers if you [Edit] your question to clarify that part.
Answer: I am not 100% sure of what deadpan humor is. I think it is part sarcasm, and part serious. The sort of thing that could be missed especially if written. So, you need tags.

Try making it part of defined character voice (i.e. only one character does this.)
Try tagging their dialog occasionally as drawling.
Also try having a third character react visibly to their humor.

"The dwarf star is critical. It could blow without warning," the flight
  officer said.
Captain Koralic walked to the navigational display. "Pull
  us back, one quarter impulse. I want my ship as far away from that nuclear time bomb as possible."
"Well, no point going to warp then," the science officer drawled.
The captain's yeoman stared at the science officer. No one dared talk
  to the captain like that.
Answer: Deadpan humor comes from oddly-phrased sentences and incongruous juxtapositions, coupled with utter seriousness and sincerity. Puddleglum from "The Silver Chair" in the Narnia series comes to mind.
You don't need voice acting or facial expressions for deadpan humor, and you also don't need sarcasm. A lot of the humor comes from the deadpan character being very serious about what they say while saying something utterly ridiculous and not knowing it themselves (or appearing not to).
Actually, what's often helps the deadpan humor is imagining, or even showing, how the people around them would react to it. (@DPT has the right idea with the reaction of the captain's yeoman.) However, it's not always necessary.
Puddleglum the Marsh-Wiggle (the thing is, he's 100% sincere about everything he's saying):

"That's the spirit, Scrubb. That's the way to talk. Put a good face on
  it. But we all need to be very careful about our tempers, seeing all
  the hard times we shall have to go through together. Won't do to
  quarrel, you know. At any rate, don't begin it too soon. I know these
  expeditions usually end that way: knifing one another, I shouldn't
  wonder, before all's done. But the longer we can keep off it-"
"Well, if you feel it's so hopeless," interrupted Scrubb, "I think
  you'd better stay behind. Pole and I can go on alone, can't we, Pole?"
"Shut up and don't be an ass, Scrubb," said Jill hastily, terrified
  lest the Marsh-wiggle should take him at his word.
"Don't you lose heart, Pole," said Puddleglum. "I'm coming, sure and
  certain. I'm not going to lose an opportunity like this. It will do me
  good. They all say - I mean, the other wiggles all say-that I'm too
  flighty; don't take life seriously enough. If they've said it once,
  they've said it a thousand times. 'Puddleglum,' they've said, `you're
  altogether too full of bobance and bounce and high spirits. You've got
  to learn that life isn't all fricasseed frogs and eel pie. You want
  something to sober you down a bit. We're only saying it for your own
  good, Puddleglum.' That's what they say. Now a job like this - a
  journey up north just as winter's beginning, looking for a Prince that
  probably isn't there, by way of a ruined city that no one has ever
  seen - will be just the thing. If that doesn't steady a chap, I don't
  know what will." And he rubbed his big frog-like hands together as if
  he were talking of going to a party or a pantomime. "And now," he
  added, "let's see how those eels are getting on."

Phoebe and her Unicorn
Answer: If it is not your natural humour you might want to find a friend who does have that type of wit and ask them what they might say in certain circumstances.
The heart of this humour is the odd phrasing and perfectly serious delivery. Incongruous to the situation, but natural to the character.
I have one scene where my MC (drugged) asks another character to shoot him if he confesses to something he didn't do.
The reply is 'First, I'll render you unconscious and if you keep talking then I will shoot you' - an absurd way to say yes.
I have that same character, addressing an FBI agent, say 'the following is code word classified, so imagine squelching sounds throughout' then tells him what he needs to know but cannot be told.
The more serious the situation, the stronger the wit can be. Think of normal ways to say things, then set them on edge and add a dash of sarcasm. A cutting wit can still be gentle.
Answer: Since you're writing for a game, I suppose you have more resources then simply text, be it facial animations, voice acting or this weird thing.
Be absolutely sure to use those resources to their full potential. GLaDOS was certainly a very well written villain, but her popularity has been attributed over and over to the brilliant voice acting behind her.
Taking as another example a vastly less popular game, but one I love equally, Shovel Knight uses the shaky text thing constantly, in different ways for different emotions, and I find it hilarious. I'm having trouble identifying something that could specifically be deadpan, but here's a clip.

Depending on what resources you have on your game, you should do things in different ways. Ping me in the comments with more information, if you want, and I'll try to think up something.


HTML/CSS questions - Doctype or here?

Question: I have previously asked this question but it seems things as changed. The FAQ no  longer mentions that HTML/CSS questions belong on Doctype. When did this change? And, what does the removal of that portion of the FAQ mean for those questions asked on this site?
Answer: Personally, it annoys the hell out of me that HTML/CSS questions are closed and referred to doctype immediately. I can understand why the questions don't belong on webmasters, but can't we at least send them to stackoverflow? There's plenty of those questions there too, and that way at least the question can just be moved.
The fact that doctype is not part of SE makes people to have to login there separately, ask their question again and build up new reputation whereas on SO all this could go a lot easier by just moving the thread.
Also, in my personal opinion, Doctype is just not as usable as the SE sites.
Bottom line: I think by keeping the questions inside SE we would keep many users a lot happier than when we refer them to Doctype.
Comment: Completely agree. Jeff says below we should "prioritize our own children first" - if the questions fit on a Stack Exchange site, that's where they should be moved to.
Answer: You can ask on DocType; we're still friends.
We just have so many new family members that we have to prioritize our own children first in our own content.
I don't think there's any site in our network that matches what DocType does, so sending people there is still valid, just as valid as any other question that truly doesn't fit.
Comment: So if we want to give priority to SE sites we should leave them here? Just want to be sure as technically they fit better at Doctype then here. But it would be nice to get more questions to stay open here as we could really use the participation.
Comment: @john well, see my guidance here http://meta.wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/330/should-we-drop-wordpress-com-questions-from-the-site/331#331 the TL;DR version is, the questions still have to be interesting to experts and I am not sure basic old HTML and CSS would be..
Answer: This whole topic makes no sense to me.  How is running and operating a web site any different from what is provided by Server Fault?  It sounds like Webmasters is intented to be about network administration relating specifically to websites.  That seems awfully specific and would probably rule out 50% of what webmasters do.
Webmasters run and operate sites, but they are almost always web site designers as well.  If they don't design sites, then they're just a network administrator (not that NA's are "just" anything, but Webmasters are a specialized superset).
To say that HTML and CSS are not part of a webmasters duty is unreasonable in my mind.  In many ways, I think it's more important for webmasters to have a site like this because they're more likely to need help with HTML and CSS issues because their job descriptions are often more jack of all trades and will need more help with specific skills.
Webmastes makes sense to me as a specialization because being a webmaster does require a lot of different skills.  But to say that some of thsoe skills aren't appropriate for this site makes it questionable as to why the site then exists.
EDIT:
I'm looking at the front page of PW, and basically it boils down to this:

A bunch of closed questions, either moved to other sites, or closed as off topic
A bunch of questions that, according to this line of reasoning SHOULD be closed
A bunch of quesitons that belong on Server Fault, or SO
About the only topic i can find that would be actually on-topic is maybe SEO topics.  Even then, that's largely about HTML.

Honestly, I can't seem to figure out what is on topic here.
EDIT:
As for the suggestion to use Doctype... The site has almost no activity.  As of right now, the last asked question was over a day ago.  The last answer to a question was 22 HOURS ago.  The question before that was asked 2 DAYS ago.
Seriously?  We're supposed to get answers from the 5 people a day that seem to use the site?
Comment: See the comments to Seamus's answer below.
Comment: @John Conde - those comments have nothing to do with my statement, why do you reference me to them?  My point, which maybe i'm not making clear, is that if PW is not about HTML and CSS or PHP or other Web related technologies, then this site has no real purpose, since all other functions are more appropriate for ServerFault.
Comment: @Mystere Man - Does analytics, seo, marketing, domain names, hosting, etc, belong at serverfault? Definitely not. I think your understanding of what webmastering encompasses is far to narrow. Look at the tags associated with this site and you'll find a lot of topics that don't belong anywhere near serverfault and show just how wide a topic webmastering really covers.
Comment: @John Conde - Seriously?  You think DNS and hosting have nothing to do with network and server administration?  I think it's you that has the narrow focus.  Analytics, SEO and marketing are all the same thing or at least very related, and I mentioned SEO already.  If that's all that's appropriate for this site, then you have the wrong name.
Comment: @Mystere Man-It's not as cut and dry as you make it out to be. Not every DNS topic belongs at serverfault. How to install Bind does, whether someone should use a third party DNS provider does not. Which webhost offers RoR does not. How to clear floats belongs on SO or Doctype. Is it okay to use HTML5 yet does not. This site covers a lot of ground, some of it specific, some of it broad. Some of broad topics once they become specific (how to do html/css, programming) have specialized sites in the SE network where they belong.
Comment: If you need help understanding which questions belong here and which ones don't, see the [area51 proposal](http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/894?phase=definition) where examples are given. Also check out a lot of the [higher voted questions](http://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions?sort=votes). And of course feel free to ask here as many of us do.
Comment: @John Conde - What a confusing description of what's on topic.  That's ridiculous.
Comment: @John Conde - based on the Area 51 proposal, only SEO, Analytics, and marketing topics are appropriate.  Everything else seems off-topic.  By that metric, the sites name should be WebsiteMarketing.SE.  The term "Webmaster" carries all the other aspects under a webmasters control.  The highly voted questions seem to be SEO, Analytics, and Marketing related as well.  I'm done arguing, this site seems to have no real purpose.
Comment: @Mystere Man - The area 51 proposal naturally doesn't cover every possible aspect of webmastering. But it does give a good overview of what the site is basically about. And my examples were just some examples, not a definition of what this site's purpose. It's a shame you don't want to participate here and a bigger shame you saw this as an argument. I guess we can't help everybody. But if you do come back we'll still be here happy to answer any questions you may have.
Answer: Hi!  Just wandering in from Serverfault, because I had a question about HTML and CSS for which I was really hoping for the opinion of someone with more experience.  It got shunted over to StackOverflow, which really isn't the right place for it -- the focus there is on software development, and I suspect the question will die a slow and lingering death.
While I've been happy participating on ServerFault -- answering both the "interesting" questions and the occasional "simple" question -- my experience here has been disappointing.  This seems like the obvious place for questions related to all aspects of creating and managing web sites; there are no other members of the StackExchange family that really seem more appropriate, and DocType -- while I'm sure they're very nice people -- is slow, barely active, and seems to have problems with various sorts of OpenID credentials.  It's hardly in the same class as the SE sites.
it seems a shame to be chasing people away, rather than building up a community that can address all the things the phrase "webmaster" brings to mind.
Answer: While I agree with some of what Jeff Atwood says, I think it's a pretty shaky basis on which to build.
It's clearly vague what counts as "hard enough to be interesting to experts" and it will vary as a function of one's own expertise. It's clearly insane to just rule that HTML and CSS related questions are completely verboten but where to draw the line seems impossible, and possibly unworkable.
While I appreciate that this site wants to be about what webmasters do (whatever that is) rather than what web designers do, I think summarily closing HTML related questions is unwise. And particularly given the participation stats at end of beta, I don't think kicking out such a potential audience is in PW's best interests.
If we do want to ban basic HTML/CSS questions, can I suggest replacings this sentence from the FAQ with something that doesn't seem to leave open the possibility that those sorts of questions should be allowed:

If your question generally covers the
  operation of websites which you
  control, then you're in the right
  place to ask your question!

My website is written in HTML and CSS so that seems maximally relevant to its operation...
In response to the comments, perhaps a better version of the above FAQ sentences would go:

If your question generally covers the
  operation of websites which you
  control (as opposed to the construction of them), then you're in the right
  place to ask your question!
Comment: But your definition then all programming questions belong here as well because websites are built with PHP, Mysql, etc. But they clearly belong on StackOverflow. Basically if there is a SE site that is dedicated to the topic then that's where the question belongs. However, when it is framed in a way that affects not the technology itself but how that technology fits into the role of a webmaster managing their ecosystem then it would belong here.
Comment: @John What definition? I didn't offer a definition.
Comment: `My website is written in HTML and CSS so that seems maximally relevant to its operation...`
Comment: I'm not suggesting that as a definition of relevance for PW, but I am saying that that sentence of the FAQ should be rewritten.
Comment: May I chime in and say that it is my understanding, which could be interpreted as opinion, that HTML and CSS are not scripting languages but rather markup. I would agree that HTML and CSS related questions may have a place on ProWebmasters.
Comment: How to do HTML/CSS does not have to do with running of a website. It has to do with building a website which is what Doctype is for. If someone has questions about how or why to choose a version of HTML or CSS to use, etc, that would fall under the "how" part and would belong here.

HTML/CSS questions - Doctype or here?